Gambling-ring charges dropped against 'wrong guy'

[clevfan]

Tue, Oct. 14, 2008


Gambling-ring charges dropped against 'wrong guy'
By KITTY CAPARELLA
Philadelphia Daily News


Say what you will about Chuckie Peruto's peculiar legal tactics, this one worked.

After filing a $1 million civil lawsuit charging that New Jersey "got the wrong guy" in Operation Highroller, a $60 million illegal-gambling ring at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City, attorney A. Charles "Chuckie" Peruto Jr. received an e-mail response yesterday.

All charges against his client, reputed mob associate Stephen "Stevie Gongs" Casasanto, will be dropped this week, according to Deputy Attorney General Kerry DiJoseph's e-mail.

"They dismissed the entire case" against Casasanto, Peruto said. "Unbelievable!"

Casasanto's reaction? "Relief, then anger, because he had to spend all this money to defend himself," Peruto said.

The attorney general's office apparently acted after the Daily News called Friday for a response to Peruto's Sept. 23 lawsuit. A spokesman for the attorney general said Friday only that the lawsuit was received Oct. 1. A story about the civil suit ran yesterday.

On April 10, Casasanto was one of 24 defendants indicted in an illegal-gambling ring that extended into Atlantic County, Philadelphia and Maryland.

Casasanto allegedly operated out of Philadelphia, according to law-enforcement sources.

The defendants, including a "made" member of the mob and four mob associates, were charged with racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering, promoting gambling and/or related offenses. All pleaded not guilty on June 16.

Yesterday, Peruto received the news in an e-mail, sent Friday.

DiJoseph notified authorities at 2:23 p.m. Friday that the case would be dismissed against "Cassassanto," whose name is Casasanto. The e-mail read:

"Last night, [the New Jersey State Police] completed an additional investigation which has satisfied me that the State will no longer be able to sustain its burden of proving the charges against Steven Cassassanto beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Therefore, I will move to dismiss all charges against Cassassanto. In light of the pending dismissal, the State has no objection to Mr. Peruto and his client being excused from Court on October 16."

Thirty-two minutes later, DiJoseph received a response from Atlantic County Superior Court official Armando Gonzalez, who acknowledged that charges would be dropped: "Provided you have the Dismissal Order submitted to us on or before 10-16-08. Thanks."

According to the civil lawsuit, Peruto had sent "letter after letter" to a New Jersey judge, prosecutor and detective telling them "they got the wrong guy" - Casasanto.

Peruto said that he even suggested that investigators use a voice-recognition program to compare tape recordings in the probe with Casasanto's taped interview when he applied for a casino dealer's license three years ago.

After no response to his letters, Peruto filed the civil lawsuit.

The lawsuit accused the state Attorney General's Office, Detective David Feldstein, of the New Jersey State Police, and DiJoseph of defamation, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress and other counts, on behalf of Casasanto.

"I'm not dropping the lawsuit," Peruto said.