Gagliano denies report alleging mob link

Alfonso Gagliano declared yesterday he is not a member of the Mafia.
Already the focal point of a public inquiry into a federal government sponsorship scandal, Gagliano now faces allegations from an FBI informant that he was a "soldier" of a powerful mob family.
"Definitely it’s not true. Nothing is true," Gagliano told the Toronto Star in a telephone interview after the allegations were raised in the New York Daily News and the House of Commons.
The former public works minister, recalled by Prime Minister Paul Martin as ambassador to Denmark last year because of the sponsorship scandal, had just finished reading a report from the Daily News citing FBI documents as saying Gagliano was identified by a Mafia hit man as a "made" member of the Bonanno crime family.
"It’s outrageous," said Gagliano.
The newspaper reported that mob informer and confessed killer Frank Lino told the FBI that in the 1990s he encountered Gagliano in Montreal at a catering hall, and during that meeting, a Bonanno gangster, Joseph Lopresti, introduced Gagliano to Lino as a made man in the family.
The FBI declined to comment on the report or say whether it viewed the informant’s allegations as credible.
"We can’t comment on hypothetical legal action, but we do stand by today’s story," New York Daily News spokesperson Eileen Murphy said in a telephone interview.
After reading that report – which presented no specific date or quotations from the FBI documents – Gagliano said he has had enough of the innuendo.
"Now, I think, this, how do you say, sort of breaks the camel’s back," he said.
Gagliano added that the widespread readership of the New York Daily News and the article’s availability in Canada on the Internet have taken attacks on his reputation to a level he can’t ignore.
He said the report could also hurt the reputation of his wife and children and said he intends to respond.
"It’s going to be headline news, definitely. I’m aware of that," he said. "I won’t say anything until we deal with it legally. This is terrible. I have to take action, any action I can take. It’s my reputation and my family’s."
Gagliano’s lawyer, Pierre Fournier, told the Canadian Press: "My client denies everything."
Responding to a question from Conservative Leader Stephen Harper in the Commons yesterday, Martin said he had not seen the article in question.
"Having said that," he added, "these are allegations that are highly serious and I think that one should not repeat allegations or accept them prematurely. One should wait for the facts."
It’s not the first time Gagliano has had to answer questions on alleged Mafia connections.
In 2001, opposition MPs demanded to know why Gagliano’s Montreal riding office contacted the immigration department on behalf of Maria Sicurella di Amodeo. The woman’s husband, Gaetano Amodeo, was arrested that year in Montreal in connection with Mafia-related murders in Italy and Germany.
Gagliano said his staff had carried out a routine service for a constituent and did not know Amodeo’s background.
A decade ago, Gagliano found his rise to cabinet delayed after the RCMP told prime minister Jean Chrétien Gagliano’s accounting firm was working for companies owned by Agostino Cuntrera, who spent time in prison for conspiracy in the murder of another mobster. Gagliano’s firm later stopped working for Cuntrera’s firms.
Cuntrera came from the same Sicilian town as Gagliano and worked to help Gagliano get elected in his riding.
In 1996, the Star reported police questioned Gagliano about his name appearing in the notebooks of suspicious characters, including a Mafia member fatally shot on Dec. 14, 1991, in Sicily.
Antonio Enzio Salvo, 34, had lived in Gagliano’s Montreal-area riding before immigration officials forced him to return to Italy. Salvo was killed by a shotgun blast as he sat in his Mercedes Benz.
Gagliano was cleared by the RCMP and eventually appointed to the Chrétien cabinet, becoming a minister of state in September, 1994, and labour minister in January, 1996.
In the Commons yesterday, deputy Conservative leader Peter MacKay asked the government if the RCMP had ever raised doubts about Gagliano when the police did a security clearance for him in advance of his appointment to cabinet, the Star’s Les Whittington reports.
Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan said the government does not comment on RCMP activities.
Neither Harper nor MacKay, who summarized the Daily News article when posing their questions, emerged from the Commons chamber afterward to be interviewed by the media about Gagliano. Within the chamber, MPs’ parliamentary privileges protect them from being sued for slander, but this protection does not apply once they are outside the Commons.
Treasury Board Minister Reg Alcock told reporters Canadians should not jump to conclusions about the information in the Daily News.
"A lot of the material is drawn from the National Enquirer," he said, referring to the supermarket tabloid.
A few weeks ago, many Canadians of Italian heritage were angered by a comment from MacKay that Gagliano was part of "la famiglia," a term often used for the mob.
It wasn’t the first such shot in the House of Commons. A Bloc Québécois MP was forced to apologize a few years ago after he whistled the theme from The Godfather while Gagliano was present.
Since becoming mired in the sponsorship scandal, an investigation into how millions of taxpayers’ dollars were funnelled to Liberal-friendly ad agencies while Gagliano was minister of public works, Gagliano has grown increasingly frustrated by questions about his integrity.
He has been quietly telling confidants he is a scapegoat and that political enemies are making racist cheap shots.
Asked yesterday about the difficulties times he’s been through, Gagliano told the Canadian Press: "Maybe that’s my destiny. I don’t know what is it but I can tell you one thing and I can look you straight in the eyes and say that I’m an honest person and I always acted with integrity and honesty."
Gagliano has also had some powerful defenders.
Chrétien, who made Gagliano his Quebec lieutenant and later appointed him ambassador to Denmark, has chastised Gagliano’s critics.
"The undertone of all that is the fact that this gentleman is an immigrant who came from Italy," Chrétien once told the House of Commons. "It is a smear on the people coming from that country."
Antonio Nicaso, author of several books on the Mafia, said people should be cautious when hearing the allegations of underworld turncoat Lino.
"It’s an allegation. I think we should be very, very careful. The credibility of Mr. Lino should be tested in court," Nicaso said.
Lino was the first made member of the Bonanno family to testify against former family boss, Joseph (Big Joey) Massino, and led authorities to the graves of two underworld murder victims, Nicaso said.
Massino’s lawyer, David Breitbart, said in an interview he was alarmed anyone’s reputation could be affected by a man like Lino, who confessed to six murders, drug dealing, illegal drug use, extortion and loan-sharking.
Nicaso said he doubts there are more than 10 made members of the Bonanno crime family in all of Canada.
To become a made member, a candidate must go through a ritual of initiation that includes swearing allegiance while burning an image of a saint, and saying he should be burned as well if he betrays the oath, Nicaso said.
"It’s a person that can be trusted, that always has to answer when the boss calls," Nicaso said.
Torstar News Service