Closing arguments were heard at the tale end of December in this case involving reputed members of the Rudaj Organized crime outfit, a group of Albanian mobsters who had consolidated their power in New York, shoving to the side such noted underworld luminaries as the Gambino crime family. Convictions were just handed down in the trial, which began in September 2005. Sentencing for all the defendants is not scheduled until April, until which time they will remain in custody:

2 Hopewell Junction men tied to mob crimes - Defendants convicted of racketeering

By Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Sunday, January 8, 2006

NEW YORK — Six reputed members of an Albanian organized crime family, including two Hopewell Junction men, face possible life sentences after being convicted of racketeering by a federal jury in Manhattan.

The outfit, dubbed "The Corporation" by its members, muscled the Mafia out of Astoria while establishing a gambling empire in Queens, the Bronx and Westchester, prosecutors said.

The group was led by Alex "Allie Boy" Rudaj, 38, of Sunset Street in Yorktown, federal prosecutors said. Rudaj was convicted last week of multiple racketeering counts but acquitted of trying to kill a rival mobster during a spectacular car chase in the Bronx more than a decade ago.

Rudaj and Nardino "Lenny" Colotti, 43, of the Bronx formed "The Corporation" in the early 1990s after serving an underworld internship under Gambino crime family soldier Phil "Skinny Phil" Loscalzo in the Bronx, prosecutors said.

They set out on their own after Loscalzo's death, determined to build a group that would rival the Five Families of New York's traditional Italian organized crime world, prosecutors said.

Along the way, they brought in Nikola "Nicky Nails" Dedaj, 42, of Danby Place in Yonkers, who was "the main dispenser of violence" in the organization, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Rodgers said during closing arguments of the three-month trial.

The three men formed the leadership of the group and hired others to work for them, prosecutors said. Three of their most trusted hired hands were convicted as well. Angelo DiPietro, 49, of Hopewell Junction, the former owner of Sue's Rendezvous, a strip joint in Mount Vernon, was convicted of racketeering along with Prenka "Big Frank" Ivezaj, 40, of Queens, and Ljusa "Louie" Nuculovic, 47, of Hopewell Junction.

Ties to mob denied

Lawyers for the men admitted their clients were involved in illegal gambling but denied they were part of a ruthless criminal organization.

"This grandiose and violent impression that the government tried to portray with them taking over territory from the mob families is just ridiculous," said Rudaj's lawyer, James Kousouros, after the verdict.

Jurors, however, were presented with a different view of Rudaj and the other defendants during the trial in U.S. District Court. They heard secretly taped conversations in which Rudaj could be heard boasting about a beating he and the other men administered to a worker at a Gambino gambling joint in Astoria as they violently shut it down after just one night of operation. Rudaj complained the man's blood had stained his new off-white pants.

In addition to the Queens gambling dens, "The Corporation" ran gambling operations in Mount Vernon and Port Chester. Rudaj's group had a gambling joint on Adee Street in Port Chester and forced bar owners in Mount Vernon to install their illegal gambling machines.

Each defendant faces a possible life sentence. All six defendants will remain held without bail until they are sentenced by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote on April 7.

The original article appears here.

-- MDT