John Baudanza

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John Baudanza (b. 1969) is a New York mobster and a powerful soldier in the Lucchese crime family. John's father Carmine Baudanza, is a longtime Colombo crime family associate. His uncle, Joseph Baudanza, is a powerful Colombo captain who once headed the family's ruling panel.

John is supposedly a history buff, an avid New York Yankees, and a fan of actor John Wayne. He also plays video games, gambles, and is dedicated reader.

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[edit] Violent History

As a teenager, John and Craig Marino extorted money from small business in Canarsie, Brooklyn and Mill Basin, Brooklyn. In 1990, the two men got into a dispute with a man in a local diner. John and Marino beat him and John then shot him in the back. According to former Bonanno crime family captain and turncoat Frank Lino, John once stabbed a man during a barroom brawl.

During the Colombo family war from 1991-1993, John served as bodyguard and chauffeur to Colombo family members and was even enlisted as a member of a hit team. Shortly after the war, John married Danielle Cutaia, the daughter of Lucchese crime family captain Domenico Cutaia. In 1995, John was inducted into the Lucchese crime family and placed in his father-in-law's crew. To date John's main man and friend since childhood is Louis Fontana who is also an associate in the Luchesse Family .

[edit] Stock Scam

On March 23, 2006, John, Carmine, and Joseph were indicted for operating a "Pump and dump" stock scam. The stock firms were located in the Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island boroughs of New York. In this scam, both licensed and unlicensed brokers, receiving large commissions, sold stocks to potential investors by making wild claims about their future growth. The mob enforced strict discipline among these employees. Prosecutors alleged that one enforcer beat a broker with a bat and then stabbed him in the head. Another time, a phone solicitor was pummeled with a golf club. In 2000, Colombo associate Robert Podlog kidnapped a stock promoter and chained him to a parrot until he paid an alleged debt.

As the scam progressed, the mobsters who owned large positions in these stocks waited for the stock prices to be driven up. The inflated stocks were then sold at a considerable (illegal) profit to the mobsters. Everyone else was left with worthless stock and lost their investments, more than $20 million. To hide the proceeds from this stock scam, the mob laundered their profits by wiring funds and making cash transfers through domestic and foreign banks. They used nominee accounts and phony corporations to hide the true ownership of the illegal proceeds.

On April 17, 2007, John, Carmine, and Joseph all pleaded guilty to racketeering charges related to the stock scam. In December 2007, Baudanza was sentenced to seven years in prison. He is currently serving his sentence in Federal Correctional Institution, Ray Brook in upstate New York. His projected release date is 07-20-2014.

[edit] New Charge

In March 2008, John Baudanza was reportedly named as one of the eight defendants in an indictment charging several Luchese Crime Family mobsters with racketeering crimes including drug dealing, loan sharking, bank fraud, gambling and extortion. John Baudanza was named along side the main target of the probe father in law Domenico "Danny" Cutaia and brother in law Salvatore Cutaia.


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