9 Arrested In Crackdown On Leading Mob Family

NEW YORK - Reputed leaders of the nation's strongest Mafia family have been arrested on charges that include gambling and the murder of a mentally ill family member who spilled family secrets, authorities said today.

Eighteen people were arrested and one remained at large in the crackdown on the Genovese crime family.

The charges "dealt a crippling blow" to the crime family, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White said at a news conference.

The arrests resulted from a 2-year-old investigation of the Genovese mob, which solidified itself as the nation's most powerful family after Gambino family boss John Gotti was imprisoned in 1992.

While investigators have dealt crippling blows to the city's four other major crime families, including the Gambinos, the Genoveses remained intact partly by sticking to construction and labor racketeering schemes and avoiding drug dealing, authorities say.

Gotti is serving a life sentence for planning the murder of his boss, Paul Castellano, gunned down in 1985 outside a Manhattan steakhouse.

From about 1970 to 1991, authorities said, Genovese soldiers took orders from Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, notorious for wandering around Greenwich Village in a bathrobe and slippers while mumbling to himself.

Prosecutors say that was just a "crazy act" to avoid trial on charges contained in an earlier murder and racketeering indictment.

The earlier case against Gigante is still pending. Last month, U.S. District Judge Eugene Nickerson ordered a re-evaluation by psychiatrists who had already testified that Gigante was mentally incompetent to face trial.

The charges announced today include the slaying of Anthony "Hickey" DiLorenzo, a reputed Genovese member who was killed because he became mentally ill and began talking about family business in public, a mob turncoat testified recently.

Among those charged was Liborio "Barney" Bellomo, who reputedly took over as acting Genovese boss when Gigante was indicted in 1991.