 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast. I'm your host Scott Bernstein quick hitter. We're going to take you back out to New York and The federal court system where we had a verdict Anthony Rominello aka rom Skipper of the Corona Queens crew in the Genovese crime family was convicted this week by a jury after about three days of deliberations an extortion and racketeering charges tied to The collecting of a $90,000 debt. We talked about it in a previous quick hitter some Albanian and Albanian Steakhouse owner in 2017 Bruno Selamage Whose brother was in the movie hidden gems with with Adam Sandler and as a guy that's been around wise guys his whole life The Rominello slash tough Tony Federici crew hung out a lot of these restaurants Tough Tony is dead right now and Rominello took over his his crew or when tough Tony got up to conciliary allegedly in the in the 2010s and Bruno's nephew and Nephews brother-in-law ran up 90 90 K in sports gambling losses to a bookmaking operation out of Queens and over about a three-month period between March of 2017 and May of 2017 Rominello Federici and their crew Went through a whole process to try to collect this debt a number of visits and altercations culminating with this May of 17 punch that Rominello threw and connected I'm you know in front of a lot of people at his Steakhouse in Lincoln Square Couple days later the debts paid Now Rominello's attorney Jerry McMahon, you know, he's ace is one of the best criminal defense attorneys you'll find and you know, he argued that It was you know, it was a personal issue between Bruno and Rom and the punch had to do with an insult and nothing to do with collecting debt that's clearly not the case and I just want to say that I've been pretty vocal with my condemnation or my Critique of you know taking guys in their 80s for you gambling or Taking monies from shakedowns and wasting kind of resources on those guys to put them away and let them die in prison for Kind of nickel and dime stuff But I kind of feel differently with this Rominello, although, you know, he's 87 years old. He's gonna die in prison Barring a miracle. He's gonna be sentenced to probably 40 years He was you know, he had about 24 hours of freedom between the verdict and when he got locked up the next day his bodyguard Joe Celso was also convicted and Locked up interestingly enough He was reprimanded by the judge when he was locked up this week Because when he was waiting for the jury to come back with their verdict, there was a I guess the Genovese Christmas party was taking place this past weekend and Celso was seen by FBI agents there I'm told Cavorting was some some pretty big shot callers But now he's being you know Locked up until the sentencing in March But again, I want to just finish up with with with with rom You know, there's one thing you know with the with the colombo bus from a couple years ago with those guys in their 80s Ben you know, Benji the claw castelazo and andy mush Russo uh, you know, they weren't Physically going to collect debts Rominello Didn't just go confront Bruno Selma Selma's About the debt and just his presence alone would be intimidation. But uh he physically assaulted him and It was caught on tape. He didn't do it very, you know with much intelligence so You know You made your bed and you kind of got asleep in it and is it a shame For his family that he's probably going to die in prison. Yeah, but for a guy that's Been pretty clean in terms of his record over the years. He had a some type of criminal case racketeering of some sort in the last 10 15 years go away because of witness recanted testimony, but You know, it's the end of the line for rom. We'll see what happens with that corona queen's crew But, uh, you know, rominello is going to be doing about a 40 piece. He was convicted this week Joe selso has probably got about five ten years coming Down the pike for him. It's it's it's also just want to point out again It's interesting that, you know, the prosecutors and the judge mentioned this genovies christmas party that was going on this weekend You know, these these feds they keep tabs on all those parties And some people can't believe that, you know, crime families have christmas parties just like, you know, a mortgage company or A law firm, but but they do so Anthony rom rominello convicted 87 years old. He'll be off the street We'll try to get you some information on who's going to be replacing them as the skipper with with that, uh, genovies crew out of corona queens scott burns, you know g pod out