Genovese Soldier Charged With Running Gambling Op Must Forfeit $125G

Steven Pastore, a Staten Island-based wiseguy who allegedly helped run the Genovese crime family's racketeering and gambling rackets, was sentenced to two years in prison and must pay the government $125,000.



This past February, Pastore pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to racketeering conspiracy after he was indicted with 18 others for a grab bag of racketeering offenses.

He was sentenced this past week in Manhattan federal court.

Pastore, who the FBI alleges is a made member holding the rank of soldier, conspired from 2008 through the spring of 2016 to commit crimes to benefit the Genovese crime family, a judge ruled.




Pastore was charged in 2016 with racketeering conspiracy and participating in an illegal gambling business, authorities said. Wiretaps showed Pastore had been in the gambling business for years, the Fed's alleged, noting that Pastore also was paid more than $125,000 out of the gambling operation.

Vivian Shevitz, Pastore's lawyer, in filings, noted that Pastore had worked as a plumber for 35 years until he was completely disabled in 2009.

Pastore had faced up to 20 years behind bars.

A total of 18 were charged in the case, including alleged Genovese soldiers Robert DeBello (aka “Old Man,” “Bobby” and “Grandpa”), 74, of Whitestone, and Steven Pastore, 56, of Staten Island, and associates Ryan Ellis (“Joseph Princi,” “Baldy,” “Lazy Eye” and “Zeus”) , 34, of Bayside, and Salvatore Delligatti (“Jay” and “Fat Sal”) , 40, of Oakland Gardens.

Salvatore Delligatti

As per the indictment, Delligatti and Robert Sowulski allegedly hired three members of the Bloods street gang to kill a rival mobster who lived in Queens -- specifically, Joseph Bonelli.

Law enforcement sources said that Delligatti and others believed Bonelli was snitching about mob bookmaking ventures in Queens following his release from prison in 2012.

This past April, Delligatti, 40, was found guilty in Manhattan federal court on all counts of racketeering conspiracy, murder-for-hire conspiracy, participation in an illegal gambling operation, and a firearms offense following a three-week jury trial. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Delligatti committed all his crimes in order to increase his standing in the Genovese family, according to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman, who detailed the murder conspiracy.

“Delligatti recruited a group of hitmen to murder an individual,” he said. “But Delligatti’s hitmen were caught red-handed by the Nassau County Police Department and the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office before they could carry out their hit. Delligatti now stands convicted of this foiled murder plot and other crimes he committed with the Genovese family.”

As part of Delligatti’s participation in the Genovese family, around May 2014 through June 2014 he conspired with Robert DeBello, a “made” soldier, and Ryan Ellis, a Genovese family associate, to murder Whitestone “tough guy” Joseph Bonelli, according to the prosecutors.

Delligatti asked for and received permission from DeBello to murder Bonelli, according to the indictment. Instead of carrying out the murder himself, as he had been authorized to do, Delligatti instead hired a crew of hitmen from the Bronx to ambush and kill Bonelli at his house, prosecutors said.

Delligatti provided the hitmen with a loaded .38 revolver, a getaway car, and offered to pay them thousands of dollars for the murder, prosecutors said. Delligatti’s plot was thwarted as a result of wiretap surveillance by the Nassau police and the Nassau DA’s office, prosecutors said.

The hired hitmen were apprehended in the getaway car a few blocks from Bonelli’s house on June 8, 2014, according to the indictment. Prosecutors said police recovered the loaded revolver, a spray bottle containing bleach and other materials in the car.

Prosecutors added that from April 2014 through May 2014, Delligatti and others in the Genovese family, including DeBello and Ellis, took part in a conspiracy to use threats of violence and economic harm to extort the owners and promoters of a night club located on the rooftop of a hotel in Queens.

From about 2013 through 2015, Delligatti, DeBello and Ellis were involved in a large-scale bookmaking and sports betting operation that took bets from gamblers in Manhattan and Queens, while making use of an offshore wire room, according to prosecutors.

As noted previously, Vinny Basciano, as boss of the Bonanno family, wanted the Genovese associate rubbed out.

"Vinny gave the order to whack Joseph Bonelli," as a source told us. The Bonanno mobster who got the order never carried it out, however.

Vinny Gorgeous


Court documents claim Basciano wanted Bonelli gone because Bonelli tried over-zealously to collect a debt from a mobster’s son in 2004. Bonelli "went berserk."

Wiretaps of the alleged hit order are contained in paperwork filed in February 2007 as part of a then-ongoing federal case against several Bonnano crime members.

Basciano was heard detailing the story of how Bonelli violently attacked someone at the Villa Sonoma, a restaurant then run by Paul “Fat Paulie” Spina.

During the gambling operation, Delligatti and Ellis brought envelopes filled with cash to DeBello. Delligatti’s co-defendants, DeBello and Ellis, previously pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy offenses for their roles in the murder conspiracy, the extortion conspiracy, and the illegal gambling operation, prosecutors said.

The case shows "that the mob continues to wreak havoc in our communities, including through a recent murder conspiracy, attempted murder, and extortion,” Preet Bharara said in 2016.

In 2005, Pastore was charged with racketeering in New Jersey federal court; he pleaded guilty to participating in an illegal gambling business run by the Genovese family.








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