New Jersey Gambino Member Merola pleads Guilty

Andrew Merola a high ranking member in the Gambino Crime Family of New York has pleaded guilty to racketeering charges. Merola was the head of a crime crew who were involved in a vast array of criminal activities. Merola’s crew were located in New Jersey and conducted Gambino Family business there.

Merola was a part of the organized crime bust from May 2008 where 23 gangsters were arrested and charged with crime ranging from illegal gambling , racketeering, credit card fraud, and bar code fraud from stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot. Ronald Wigler referred to the Merola crew activities as ” a smorgasbord of criminal activities”.

Merola while pleading guilty gave up information on criminal activities including a scam with Ralph Cicalese who was a union steward and an investigator with the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. They teamed up to extort money from a union involved in demolition on the Newark parking garage that was owned by Prudential. Merola said he , Cicalese, and a third person recieved extortion payments of $36,000 from the Par Wrecking Corp. of NY so they could use nonunion labor at the work site. Merola and his crew even went as far as shaking down the lunch trucks that served Prudential center arena and various construction sites in the area for $250 per week.

The Merola crew also recieved various no show jobs from the construction companies they shook down. A ran a lucrative bar code scam where they would copy bar code numbers from inexpensive items and then replace bar codes on high price items with the low end codes then purchase the products and often return them to the store for gift cards or store credits. Merola is facing a sentence of between 10 and 12 years and massive fines at conviction.

Out of the 23 people arrested in the May 2008 sting twenty of them have already pleaded guilty. One of the few who remain is the reputed Lucchese Crime Family underboss Martin Taccetta. Taccetta also runs a Lucchese Family crew that is located in New Jersey. Taccetta is accused of trying to extort money from a labor union doing a construction job at a BMW dealership in Morristown.