Charles Carneglia was a soldier in the Gambino organized crime family of New York. On March 17, 2009, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted him of racketeering conspiracy after a six-week trial. The jury found four murders proved as predicate acts of that offense: Michael Cotillo in 1977, Salvatore Puma in 1983, Louis DiBono in 1990, and, as felony murder, Jose Delgado Rivera, also in 1990. A fifth death, that of Brooklyn Criminal Court officer Albert Gelb in 1976, went to the jury as well, but the jury did not reach a unanimous verdict on it. On September 17, 2009, Senior U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein sentenced Carneglia to life imprisonment after finding that the government had proved his responsibility for the Gelb murder as well.
Prosecutors described him as a member of John Gotti's inner circle of hitmen and said he had been affiliated with the Gambino family for more than three decades. The charges reached back to the mid-1970s and were brought in a single indictment in February 2008, part of a sweep that named 62 federal defendants.
Carneglia was a former resident of Howard Beach, in Queens, and he was 61 when he was arrested in February 2008. He came into John Gotti's circle in Queens and Brooklyn in the 1970s, in the years when Gotti was rising through the Gambino family, and he remained a soldier of that family for more than three decades.
The earliest death attributed to Carneglia was that of Albert Gelb, an officer of the Brooklyn Criminal Court. In February 1975 Carneglia was arrested after an incident at a diner in Howard Beach, and a case against him was pending in the Brooklyn Criminal Court. Gelb died in March 1976 in Woodhaven, four days before he was due to testify against Carneglia.
The murder was one of five racketeering predicate acts in the 2008 indictment. At trial the jury could not agree on it. The judge nevertheless found at sentencing that the government had proved Carneglia was responsible, and he took that finding into account. Court officers and relatives of other victims crowded the courtroom for the opening of the trial, and a member of Gelb's family was allowed to speak at the sentencing hearing.
Michael Cotillo was an associate of the Gambino family. He died in Queens in 1977. The jury found the murder proved as a predicate act.
Salvatore Puma, also an associate of the family, died in Howard Beach in July 1983. Prosecutors said the cause was a dispute with Carneglia over money for a member of Carneglia's crew who was in custody. The jury found this murder proved as a predicate act.
Louis DiBono was a Gambino soldier. He died in October 1990 in Manhattan. According to the prosecution, John Gotti ordered his death after DiBono refused a summons to meet him. Gotti and others had already been convicted in earlier proceedings of orchestrating that killing, and Carneglia's jury was asked to decide his own part in it. It found the murder proved as a predicate act.
Jose Delgado Rivera died in December 1990 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens. The racketeering count against Carneglia charged this death as felony murder, and the jury found it proved.
On February 7, 2008, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced an indictment naming 62 defendants, among them Carneglia, the brothers Nicholas and Joseph Corozzo, and members of the Gotti family. U.S. Attorney Benton J. Campbell announced the charges. The indictment accused Carneglia of five murder-related racketeering acts: Gelb, Cotillo, Puma, DiBono and, as felony murder, Delgado Rivera. It also named him in connection with extortion, securities fraud, robbery and a conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
Opening statements were heard in Brooklyn federal court in late January 2009 before Judge Weinstein. Assistant U.S. Attorney Seifan told the jury that prosecutors attributed five murders to Carneglia, some of them decades old. Defense attorney Kelley Sharkey answered that the government's case rested on flimsy, outdated evidence and on witnesses who were, in her words, "thieves, murderers and liars." Prosecutors relied on former members of organized crime who had agreed to cooperate with the government.
Judge Weinstein also limited what the jury would hear: he rejected a prosecution request to introduce evidence of certain other conduct, ruling that it would be prejudicial.
After the six-week trial, the jury returned its verdict on March 17, 2009. Carneglia, then 62, was convicted of racketeering conspiracy. The charge carried predicate acts of murder, murder conspiracy, felony murder, robbery, kidnaping, marijuana distribution conspiracy, securities fraud conspiracy and extortion, and the four murder predicate acts named above were found proved. U.S. Attorney Campbell announced the verdict. By then 60 of the 62 defendants in the indictment had pleaded guilty and 58 had been sentenced.
Judge Weinstein had set sentencing for June 22, 2009. It took place on September 17, 2009, when Carneglia was 63. The judge imposed life imprisonment, the statutory maximum. The judge found, on the evidence, that Carneglia was responsible for the 1976 Gelb murder, even though the jury had not reached a verdict on that count.
Carneglia appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. A panel of Circuit Judges Gerard E. Lynch and Denny Chin and District Judge Edward R. Korman decided the appeal on December 17, 2010, in a summary order in United States v. Carneglia, No. 09-4522-cr. The appeal concerned his convictions of racketeering conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. 1962(d) and extortion conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. 1951, and the court ruled: "the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED." The life sentence stood.
Carneglia was tried under the federal racketeering statute, 18 U.S.C. 1962(d), which makes it an offense to conspire to conduct the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering. The indictment named murders, robbery, extortion and other offenses as predicate acts, and the murders of Cotillo, Puma, DiBono and Delgado Rivera were found proved as acts within one conviction, for which the maximum penalty was life imprisonment.
The 2008 indictment reached conduct from the 1970s onward, including killings decades old. Of the 62 defendants, 60 had pleaded guilty by March 2009, so Carneglia's was one of very few trials in the case.
The Gelb murder was never the subject of a jury verdict. The jury could not agree, and the finding that Carneglia was responsible was made by the judge at sentencing on the evidence before him. Carneglia's defense at trial was that the prosecution witnesses, former mobsters who had agreed to cooperate, were unreliable and that the evidence was old.
February 1975: Carneglia is arrested after an incident at a diner in Howard Beach; a case follows in Brooklyn Criminal Court.
March 1976: Albert Gelb dies in Woodhaven, four days before he is due to testify.
1977: Michael Cotillo dies in Queens.
July 1983: Salvatore Puma dies in Howard Beach.
October 1990: Louis DiBono dies in Manhattan.
December 1990: Jose Delgado Rivera dies at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
February 7, 2008: Indictment of 62 Gambino defendants, Carneglia among them.
Late January 2009: Trial opens before Judge Weinstein in Brooklyn.
March 17, 2009: Jury convicts Carneglia of racketeering conspiracy with four murder predicate acts.
September 17, 2009: Sentenced to life imprisonment.
December 17, 2010: Second Circuit affirms the judgment.