NJ Mobsters Rigged Bids, Beat Employees In Extortion Shakedowns: Feds

NEW JERSEY — A mafia captain threatened to burn down a Jersey Shore restaurant and kill its owner, according to court documents filed against 10 people accused of scheming to dominate New York's garbage collection and demolition industries.

Among the accused Gambino crime family associates are two New Jersey residents: Diego Tantillo, 48, of Freehold, and Vito Rappa, 46, of East Brunswick, said the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York. Officials accused Tantillo and Rappa of participating in, or coordinating, a number of rigged bids, extortions, threats, and even an arson incident outside a family’s home.

The American defendants — all associated with the notorious Gambino family and operating under names like Joe Brooklyn and Vinny Slick — were arrested after years of “violent extortions, assaults, arson, witness retaliation and other crimes,” prosecutors said.

Six more people were arrested in Italy related to the same scheme, and face charges for mafia association, prosecutors said.

A 16-count indictment unsealed Wednesday could mean up to 180 years behind bars for the 10 people charged in the States. Most of the other U.S. defendants hail from New York City.

Prosecutors recounted violent assaults executed to secure the group's stronghold on the industries — including a hammer attack to settle a financial dispute with another demolition company, which was photographed and sent to others in the industry as a warning.

The group cheated union and employment laws to secure benefits and paychecks without performing any work, prosecutors contend.

And it's just the tip of the iceberg of crimes starting in 2017 throughout New York and New Jersey, officials said.

NJ defendants accused in beatdowns, fire

Officials accused Tantillo of acting as a Gambino soldier, and said he was formally inducted into the crime family on Oct. 17, 2019 along with co-defendant James LaForte of New York.

They also claimed that Rappa is both a U.S.-based Sicilian Mafia member and Gambino associate, and court documents show they texted each other that day with Tantillo thanking Rappa for helping him get "this contract."

Officials said Tantillo and Rappa were involved in incidents including rigging bids for demolition jobs, extorting and threatening people, setting a family’s front steps on fire, and providing union-paid health care benefits to people who didn’t show up to work.

Court documents outline two separate, violent extortion schemes of a carting and hauling company owner, and of demolition company that Tantillo formerly worked for.

The first scheme involved the intimidation and extortion of a business owner identified as “John Doe 1.” Tantillo began demanding monthly extortion payments from this person in late 2017, officials said.

“The collection of those extortionate payments included repeated threats of physical and economic harm from Tantillo, Rappa,” and another defendant, officials said.

In one instance, as John Doe 1 was making a $1,000 payment to Tantillo, Tantillo showed him a metal baseball bat and told the man it "was for him."

On another occasion, officials said Rappa sent the victim a picture of his own business late at night, "conveying that Rappa, or someone acting for him, had been there."

This intimidation also included sending people to set fire to the steps of John Doe 1’s home while his wife and children were inside, officials said.

Tantillo and co-defendant Robert Brooke operated another company called Specialized Concrete Cutting Corp, and officials said they also demanded $40,000 from the owners of another demolition company after Tantillo left.

“When the owners…did not pay the $40,000, Brooke violently assaulted one of the owners on a street corner in midtown Manhattan” in Dec. 2019, officials said.

Tantillo continued to demand more money, and sent someone to assault one of the employees with a hammer in 2020, court documents show. This employee was a business associate of John Doe 1 at the other company, officials said.

Tantillo and Rappa both face charges under the Hobbs Act, which prohibits robbery or extortion that affects interstate or foreign commerce.

Charges against Tantillo include racketeering, embezzlement, wire fraud conspiracy, theft from employee benefits programs, and three counts of extortion and conspiracy.

Rappa faces charges of racketeering, extortion and conspiracy, and theft from employee benefits programs.

Restaurant owners threatened, beaten

In September 2023, officials said Gambino family captain Joseph Lanni (“Joe Brooklyn”) and associate Vincent Minsquero (“Vinny Slick”) threatened to burn down Roxy’s Bar and Grille in Toms River, and kill the owner after an earlier altercation. According to court documents, Lanni and Minsquero got into an argument with another patron, and “became belligerent” upon being asked to leave the restaurant.

“Minsquero damaged a painting and punched a wall, and Lanni told the Owner, in substance, that he would ‘burn this place down with you in it,” attorneys stated in a case background. Lanni also told the owner he was “a Gambino” around this time, and the pair only left after Toms River Police were called, documents state.

Lanni is then accused of calling Roxy’s 39 times during the course of the next few hours, telling the owner to “Beg. Beg. Beg for my forgiveness” in a phone call witnessed by a Toms River officer, court docs show.

He and Minsquero are seen on surveillance footage at a nearby fuel station, with Lanni purchasing a red gas container and going to put gas into it, less than 20 minutes after leaving the restaurant. Surveillance images show Lanni at the gas pump, and inside with Minsquero trying to dissuade him from buying gasoline.

And when the owner and his spouse went to leave at midnight, two unknown men attacked them, court documents show. One got into the owner’s car and threatened him with a knife, and the other knocked the spouse to the ground before both men beat her up, officials charged.

Read more details here — Accused Mob Captain Threatened To Burn Down Toms River Eatery: Feds

Patch’s Emiy Rahhal contributed to this report.