A Bonanno crime family soldier dubbed “The Maniac” forced one of his loan victims to strip naked to see if he was wearing a wire while barking, “Take off your damn pants right now!” Prosecutors said this on Tuesday.
John Ragano, 62, allegedly made associate Vincent Martino undress while threatening to “beat the hell out of him” if he carried a wire for the FBI during a meeting on July 5, 2023, just five days before Ragano was to be sent to prison in a federal racketeering case in Brooklyn.
“Okay, take your damn shit off right now, my man. Take off your damn pants right now, let me see, I want to see it,” a livid Ragano reportedly instructed Martino in his office when the subordinate denied having a cable.
Martino, who apparently had a thread on his clothing, followed Ragano’s instructions – and somehow still managed to secretly record the entire meeting, even though he stood naked while two other men stood behind standing at him with a crowbar and another with a tire lever. prosecutors have said.
“John Ragano forced a man who owed money to undress in a Queens garage and threatened to scare him,” federal prosecutor Andrew Reich said at the start of Ragano’s trial in federal court in Brooklyn.
Another Mafia associate, Broadway Show Tunes singer and criminal Andrew Koslosky, 66, testified that he collected loan payments from Martino for Ragano – whom he painted as an irascible “big guy.”
“He made it clear that people didn’t want to cross him,” Koslosky said.
During Kolosky’s testimony, jurors were shown a photo of him recording payments in an envelope labeled “Italian” — while another photo showed stacks of cash worth $6,200 paid by Martino in April 2021.
“When he put his fist on the desk, the whole room shook,” Koslosky said of Ragano, who is charged with extortion, harassing a witness and witness tampering.
Martino — who was in the marijuana business with Ragano — had taken a $150,000 loan from Ragano in February 2021 and he agreed to pay $2,050 in interest per week until the loan was paid off in full in cash, prosecutors said.
But Martino stopped making payments at some point and began cooperating with the FBI in March 2023, when he agreed to record all conversations he had with Ragano and his debt collectors, Reich said.
Martino then made a series of $1,000 payments after cooperating with the FBI, but in June 2023 he was told by one of Ragano’s men that the mafioso wanted to discuss “a problem” with the loan personally, prosecutors alleged.
Martino then met with Ragano on July 5 and told Ragano that he wanted to stop paying back the loan.
According to court papers, both men accused each other of working for the FBI before Ragano made him take off his clothes.
The alleged shakedown came just five days before Ragano was due to report to prison for nearly five years after pleading guilty to racketeering charges in November 2022.
Martino testified late Tuesday that he resorted to taking “street loans” — jargon for taking money from the mafia — during the pandemic in 2020 after falling on hard times when his construction business failed to get off the ground in 2018.
He racked up $125,000 in debt to members of the Columbo crime family before turning to the Bonannos for another $150,000 because he fell behind on debt payments, Martino testified.
According to prosecutors, Martino ultimately owed the mob $275,000.
Both Ragano and Martino were named in a major racketeering case that took down the Colombos — including boss Andrew “Mush” Russo — in connection with the 2021 infiltration of a union in Queens.
Martino pleaded guilty in December 2022 to conspiracy to distribute marijuana in the same case.
Ragano, also known by the nickname “Bazoo,” had previously served a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted of kidnapping in state court in 1999.
Martino will continue testifying Wednesday as he describes how he betrayed Ragano.
Ragano’s attorney, Ken Womble, admitted to jurors that Ragano was a member of the mob while downplaying the intimidation tactics alleged by prosecutors in his opening statements.
“This is a case about money among gangsters. That is the whole story of this case,” Womble said, adding that “asking for repayment of a loan is not a crime at all.
