NYC Trial Has Scrap Connection

The scrap business is tough enough without having to go up against competitors willing to use brute force to get an advantage.

If federal prosecutors in New York City prove their case, however, that is what many scrap recyclers and auto dismantlers faced during the mid and late 1990s in New York City.

The case against Carmine “The Bull” Agnello, son-in-law of jailed organized crime figure John Gotti, was being tried in July, with prosecutors allegedly having lengthy taped telephone conversations and several insider witnesses as ammunition.

According to the New York Post, the taped conversations reveal how Agnello built a $100 million scrap processing and auto dismantling operation in the Ozone Park section of Queens using force and intimidation. Among the tactics allegedly used by Agnello and his associates:

·        Fire-bombing two rival firms, including taped instructions to a hired arsonist on how to carry out the bombings using “thin glass bottles” and road flares.

·        Threats made to a Bronx trucking company to put the owners “in the hospital” and “out of business.” The company allegedly shuttered its operations just two hours later.

Agnello may have been tied to 20 or more businesses, many of them scrap and auto dismantling related, in or near the borough of Queens in New York. Jamaica Auto Salvage Inc. operated on Liberty Ave. in Queens.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Queens District Attorney’s office investigated Agnello and his businesses for four years before levying charges of extortion, arson and racketeering last year.

Agnello’s attorney is quoted by the New York Post as saying the tapes will in fact exonerate his client. “He’s only under indictment because he’s John Gotti’s son-in-law,” attorney Ben Brafman told the Post.