....Says He Could Wind Up Homeless!


Crime really didn’t pay for a reputed Colombo family underboss — who once again is claiming poverty as he asks for leniency when he’s sentenced for a union shakedown scheme.

Benjamin “The Claw” Castellazzo, 86, is so short on cash that he might become homeless if he loses his federally subsidized senior housing while he’s in the can, his lawyer wrote to a federal judge this month. His net worth is just $5,092, according to his lawyer.

Castellazzo is slated to be sentenced for money laundering conspiracy on Jan. 22.

“While Mr. Castellazzo was not evicted during his approximately six-month period of pretrial detention earlier in this case, a sentence that exposes him to far more time in custody would risk his eviction,” his lawyer, Ilana Haramati, wrote in a Jan. 3 sentencing letter to Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Hector Gonzalez.

“In his late 80s, he would be homeless. Without access to subsidized senior housing, he is unlikely to be able to afford another apartment.”

Castellazzo also cast himself as a brokefella with a laundry list of medical conditions at a 2013 extortion sentencing in Brooklyn Federal Court.

His lawyer at the time said Castellazzo and his wife were living in a modest mobile home in New Jersey, getting by on Social Security payments and food stamps.

In a 2021 feature story about Castellazzo’s life, NJ.com reported that he and his wife reported a combined monthly income of $1,115 when she filed for bankruptcy in 2011, and they paid $450 a month to live in the mobile home.

Hard times or not, he still got hard time — Judge Kiyo Matsumoto still sentenced him to more than five years behind bars, pointing out his decades-spanning criminal career, and noting that he brought up his medical condition in a 2002 sentencing.

Castellazzo and his wife moved into a HUD-subsidized rental apartment complex, Stafford by the Bay, in Manahawkin, N.J., in 2018. He’s lived alone there since her death, Haramati wrote.

Castellazzo could face between 24 to 30 months behind bars after pleading guilty in his most recent case, which stems from a takedown of the entire leadership of the Colombo crime family.

The crime family’s labor union shakedown started in 2001, and by 2019, the Colombos were trying to turn the Queens union, which represented construction workers in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, into a mob-run operation.

All of the 14 defendants busted in the case have taken a plea, except for the Colombo boss, Andrew “Mush” Russo, who died in April 2022 at age 87.

Haramati also argued that Castellazzo’s failing health should factor into his sentence, pointing to how a recent detainee at Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center was not sent to a medical facility for several weeks despite a highly contagious MRSA infection.

“Mr. Castellazzo’s long term care cannot be entrusted to the (Bureau of Prisons) — the BOP’s recent track record caring for sick and elderly inmates is nothing short of appalling,” she wrote.

I remember this when it first came out, it means nothing. Maybe he is or maybe he isn't impoverished, but him claiming that to the courts for obvious reasons mean nothing, next!

Embarrassing in every sense of the word whether true or not.

Maybe broke with legit income but how about all the illegal $$$ he has stashed that he has to keep secret? Hes full of shit.

I find it funny how these guys are damned if you do damned if you don't. On one hand you have people who will say that he's a loudmouth blowhard if he flaunts any financial success, with the whole "I thought these guys were low-key" bullshit, on the other hand people say to do otherwise is embarrassing. Sounds hypocritical and contradictory to me.

Combined monthly income of $1,115, yeah right. Such bullshit.

You switch side day to day, one day you support a guy like him, now he's a liar according to you. My thought is that if he moved into that type of housing, which is depressing to live in, he's broke. Plus he is 86 years old, and his wife died recently. The money laundered must have been a petty amount, regardless of any claims made by the government. 86 years old, great, him and Romenlelo will be put away keeping us safe.

Those figures don't add up, I couldn't make that little if I tried yet we're supposed to believe a mob underboss together with his wife only pulls in $1115 a month? Get the fuck out of here lol

I have no way of knowing his financial status, but I know bullshit when I see it, and that's bullshit.

This article is a grotesque exaggeration, that's all I'm saying.

I completely agree with you MS. In fact, to call it "embarrassing" is a gross understatement, to say the least!

Whether true or false, (and I would tend to believe that there's more truth to it, than not,) NO self-respecting wiseguy would EVER make such a self-deprecating statement, let alone in a public forum so as to embarrass himself as well as his entire borgata by showing that he's such a bust-out and loser.

If this keeps up the Colombos will be showing "The Claw" ...the door! Lol.

He'll have to change his nickname to "The Hobo"

Shit Tommy Shots told his guys to intentionally dress like hobos for their court appearances. I agree, I think he went too far to publicly humiliate himself, federal prison isn't that bad for wiseguys.

It’s mostly bullshit
He may not keep what he earns
But as UB he is getting a piece of everything that is being kicked upstairs

Maybe he gambles it all away.
I personally doubt that and think it’s a PLOY.

He is an old timer and no matter how much cash he has will be driving around in a heap of junk.
This guy prob still has his communion money.

In a way he is smart the feds can’t take what the think you don’t have.

What is the sense of stealing and taking risks if the govt is going to steal it back from you.

Just a strategy

After this, Benjamin Castellazzo's new nickname is gonna have to be, "Benny the Brokester" LOL

You have to be kidding me? Dress like hobos? Wtf?

He probably didn't put it in those words, but basically yes he didn't want them looking like "mobsters" in the eyes of the jury at all. Didn't work though.

He's far from the first...The old timers would rather have an inferior attorney then pay for a good one !!

Thats true DL...to a degree. Because many of the old-time zips were very tight with a buck. They came from poverty, so even though many achieved some wealth they never wanted to spend any of it because they never knew if hard times would befall them again.
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But Castellazzo is different. Very different. Its one thing to be tight with a buck, but still carry yourself in a dignified manner and dress properly (if not expensively,) live in a small modest home or even a nice apartment (if not a mansion,) drive a medium-priced car (if not a Jaguar or Benz,) etc.....But still hold your head high and carry yourself in a refined and dignified manner....that befitting a mafioso, a half-a-boss no less!

But this guy lives in a low-end trailer park in a filthy broken-down hobo's trailer that looks like its about to collapse and not fit for occupancy, which by the way is underwritten by the State Welfare Department, while he also collects a welfare check each month, has a welfare "food debit card" so he can go to a supermarket and pick up a block of cheese, milk, bread, and the barest of essentials allowed on that state-run "card" to exist week-to-week, etc.

Are we kidding each other here, or what??....THATS a mafioso? Pleeeeez!

NO "self-respecting" wiseguy, NONE, would ever stoop to collect welfare. Especially ones who actually have money. Because it shows that they're not successful as a mob guy. Its a major embarrassment among their peers....And for the few bust-outs who did, who really DO need that monthly stipend, believe me when I tell ya, they're definitely not advertising it around, even to a judge, especially knowing its gonna hit the newspapers and everyone will read about it.

He's gotta be the laughingstock of any knock-around guy, in any crew, throughout all NY and NJ who knows about his lifestyle. In fact, IMO, he is MORE than embarrassing!

This guy's a total disgrace to the "professional."

If I recall, Stefano Magaddino told his men that he was broke, then later $500,000 was found under his bed. These guys lie about stuff like that all the time so who knows.

But the difference is that Magaddino lived in spender....not like a stumble bum.

I don't know much about the Claw, but I do know that a lot of these guys' lifestyles revolve around drinking, eating out and gambling.

It is certainly possible that his income over the years and even currently is much higher than the $1,100 a month he's pleaded to court; but its just as plausible that he's nevertheless broke after gambling away whatever else he has earned.

It is a sad end for anyone; and it's anything but low-key given that he's getting press over how sad his circumstances are. There's living low-key as in living in a modest 2-bedroom apartment or a small bungalow then there's this: living (or at least claiming to live) in such abject poverty that the absurdity of it compared to any other Five Families administration member in history it becomes its' own story.

I'm not saying he's wealthy but that story and those figures are bullshit.

Why would you put someone like this as underboss? Who would possibly take orders from a guy living in a trailer and on foodstamps? How would he even find the time to be underboss worrying about his next meal or his HUD voucher? Something doesn't add up.

Well said.

The feds can easily declare victory on the mob and dissuade our youth from going the gangster path. Just show how an underboss lives in a trailer. you will have thousands of Italian youths running to trade schools and getting their Omertà tattoo's removed.
" hey Vinnie, did you go collect that money for me yet?. No.
why not? I was at Whole Foods filling out a job occupation. I don't know too many broads that would want to raise a family in a traile.. Maybe that kid Jamal who hangs out by the basket ball court may want to do it".

Yeah let's act like the feds are the good guys here. And more than just Italians get involved. And why would the feds want to completely have victory, look at all the law enforcement jobs and funding losses. Can't do that.

I didn't know it was that bad...

My father gew up poor, and threw quarters like manhole covers...I think he paid me under minimum wage when I was a kid...

Liked to have a roll in his pocket, because he never had one before...

These guys today don't know what poverty is...My father told me a story that he had a pigeon coop and one day he came home and none were there and none flew back...He said his grandmother strangled them and made soup with them !!

Definitely DL, this guys's a next-level brokster.
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And I also agree with your other point also. 99% of people nowadays really have no clue what real "poverty" is. Like "Depression Era" poverty that the old-timers grew up within....And that's in THIS country, America! lol. Back in their homelands, (in my family's case, Southern Italy/Sicily,) the daily plight they faced in their countries of origin made even the so-called 1920s Depression Era seem good. lol

I still don't think it's as embarrassing as the Gambino CAPO acting a fool in a restaurant, then caught on camera buying a can of gasoline HIMSELF after threatening to burn the place down. This is the type of shit you read about in that small column of the daily newspaper reporting the petty arrests that occurred the day before.