Mobster sings on tape, prosecutors say

Recorded conversations allegedly identify Gambino crime family

• Mob boss dies in jail

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NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) -- A mobster wanted so badly to keep his recorded conversations with an FBI informant secret, he broke the mob's honor code and admitted his Mafia membership rather than have prosecutors play the tapes in court.

For the first time since Victor Riccitelli and more than a dozen others were indicted in a landmark Mafia case in 2004, prosecutors recently offered the first clues as to why he was so insistent the tapes remain sealed: In them, he revealed the Gambino crime family hierarchy, placing ranks with names and explaining the upper echelon of one of the United States' most notorious crime syndicates.

In conversations with a Stamford, Connecticut, strip club owner working with the FBI, Riccitelli also described his Mafia induction ceremony, the secret ritual in which members swear a lifelong allegiance to the crime family.

"He said that a picture of a saint was placed in his hands and burned, and that he dumped the ashes in a dish," prosecutors wrote in a memo to U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton.

Riccitelli was scheduled to be sentenced for racketeering Tuesday, but his case was delayed until January 20. He faces six to eight years in prison. Prosecutors want that sentence added to the end of his 13-year sentence for cocaine distribution -- all but ensuring that Riccitelli, 72 and a cancer patient, will die in prison.

Defense attorney John Einhorn did not return a message seeking a response to the prosecution memo.

The Gambino crime family, once led by John Gotti, runs Connecticut gambling businesses that include sports betting, poker machines and the numbers racket, prosecutors said.

"The defendant is an incorrigible and possibly violent criminal whose life is marked by one constant: a never ending search for fresh opportunity to enrich himself illegally," prosecutors wrote.

In late 2003 -- when law enforcement officials were openly calling John Gotti's brother, Peter, the family boss -- Riccitelli was captured on tape explaining that Arnold "Zeke" Squittieri was in charge, with Anthony Megale serving as the No. 2 man and Joseph "Jo" Corozzo as consigliere, or top adviser.

Megale, a Stamford man who pleaded guilty last year to racketeering in Connecticut and also faces charges in New York, handled much of the family's day-to-day operations, Riccitelli said.

"He's in New York every day. He's under the (expletive) fire," Riccitelli said. "It's the consigliere, the underboss and the boss, OK? The boss is a sweetheart, but he can't run around 'cause he's on parole. He'll go do what he gotta do now, don't get me wrong, but he can't go in the street where wise guys are because then he's gonna be seen."

Squittieri, of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, wasn't publicly identified as the Gambino boss until last year, when prosecutors indicted him and Megale in New York and accused them of running the family. New York prosecutors have identified Corozzo as consigliere but he has not been charged as such.

It is unclear whether prosecutors will try to play the Riccitelli tapes at sentencing later this month. They were close to doing so in October when, on the eve of trial, Riccitelli tried again to have the tapes thrown out.

Prosecutors put John Sereno, the FBI agent who led the investigation, on the stand and let him explain how he wired his informant before every meeting. As prosecutors were about to hit the play button, Einhorn leapt up and objected.

A judge ruled that the tapes would be admitted, and Riccitelli leaned back in his chair and said, "That's it. No point."

He pleaded guilty that day.