Poughkeepsie Journal from Poughkeepsie, New York • Page A8

NEW YORK In a recent conversation with an undercover FBI agent wearing a wire, a reputed mobster rom Connecticut named Eugene roclaimed himself the new boss of the Street in Little Italy. ew Yorkers could be forgiven for responding: Rooster who? even know he said Joseph Scelsa, who has run the Italian American Museum out of a storefront on Mulberry Street for the past eight years. The obscurity of the vagueness of the allegations against him contained in a new federal mob indictment and an absence of fear in Little Italy reflect how a tourist destination with its shrinking cluster of Italian restaurants and gift shops has changed since the days when it was the turf of marquee Mafia bosses ike John Gotti and Vincent Gigante. Though the indictment suggests organized crime still has at least a toehold in the neighborhood, visitors to Mulberry Street would have a far better chance of dropping $400 on designer shoes than spotting a preening gangster. The colorful names remain the same.

Some of the scams and the shakedowns remain. But the vice grip businesses and others is not the same as it used to said Randy Mastro, an attorney who once served a a mob-busting point man under former Mayor Rud olph Giuliani. I the 1990s, authorities used electronic surveillance at Little Italy headquarters, the Ravenite ocial Club on Mulberry Street, to help bring down the mercurial boss of the Gambino crime family. They also removed the stranglehold Genovese crime amily had on the annual Feast of San Gennaro street estival, where it once ran gambling games, imposed a mob on vendors and raided donations at a neigh- orhood church. Both bosses died in federal prison.

et, forces far more powerful than the FBI may ave had a bigger impact. The Ravenite is now a boutique for hoes in a gentrified part of Little Italy that was long ago rebranded as Nolita (North of Little Italy). A rt galleries, brunch spots and upscale clothing stores are steadily encroaching on what remains of the ld neighborhood. ut the mob investigations have continued, resulting in an embezzlement conviction in 2000 of a former an Gennaro organizer, testimony at a 2004 trial that a nother feast leader was a made man, and a 2013 guilty plea by a Genovese capo in a case accusing him of try- i ng to extort the festival. In the current case, court papers quote recounting how the capo told him, want you at the of the Mulberry Street Crew while he was in prison.

The new indictment accuses the 74-year-old fio, of East Haven, Connecticut, of loansharking, but it go into specifics. He has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges that also accuse him of being in charge of another crew in Springfield, Massachusetts. is lawyer, Thomas Nooter, declined to comment. News coverage of the recent cases has rankled Little Italy boosters. The nonprofit that runs San Gennaro each September complained in a 2012 letter to The New York Times that the coverage was overblown and old, derogatory about Italian- Americans while ignoring the charity work.

he new charges disgust said Scelsa, whose museum celebrates Italian-American culture, videnced by a copy of a platinum record for Billy Joe featuring the song from a Italian perched in the front window. believes the case represents an invisible vestige of a bygone era when the so-called Black Hand extortion racket terrorized the neighborhood. I have opened up on Mulberry Street if I thought it was still he said. Still, organized crime networks need to be een as struggling business trying to survive said James Walden, a former federal rosecutor now in private practice, citing the credit ard and health care fraud charges in the indictment. astro cautioned that even with the modern seren- i ty of Mulberry Street, law enforcement must stay vigilant.

Trying to eliminate La Cosa he said, like trying to kill a AP Little Italy neighborhood, on Mulberry Street just north of Canal St. In a conversation with an undercover FBI agent, reputed mobster Eugene proclaimed himself the new boss of the Street Mobsters in Little Italy? Gentrifying NYC enclave TOM HAYS ASSOCIATED PRESS 8AFRIDAY, OBITUARIES OBITUARIES WAPPING- ER-Raymond JohnBudryk, ofWappingers Fallssince1975 andformerlyof VassarBrothersMedicalCen- ter. ofStanleyand JeannetteBon- iewski.Ray- mondproudly servedour countryinthe USNavydur- ingtheVietnam WarandthenintheReserves foratotalof22yearsuntilhis retirementasCommander. Hetaught9thgradeGlobal StudiesfortheMillbrookCen- tralSchoolDistrictinboth themiddleandhighschools. Raymondwasamember oftheHopewellReformed Churchandaformermember oftheWappingersCentral SchoolBoardofEducation.

ActiveintheBoyScoutsof beroftheKiwanisClubin WappingersFallsandthe MillbrookTeachersUnion. Raymondwasanavidgar- denerwhotraveledallover theworldwithhiswifeof45 years. Reimeschwhosurvivesat home.Heisalsosurvivedby freyandToshikoBudrykof JenniferBudrykofWalden, andThomasandKatieBu- PatriciaLyonsofTomsRiver, nephews. Callinghourswillbeheld onSaturdayfrom11am-1pm attheHopewellReformed HopewellJunctionfollowed byaMemorialServiceat1pm. Privateintermentwillbein GeraldB.H.SolomonSarato- gaNationalCemetery.

Memorialdonationsmay bemadetoNephCureKidney ofMemoriesatwww.mchoul funeralhome.com. RaymondBudryk SARASOTA, FLORIDA, FORMERLY OF MILLBROOK, NEW YORK Howe, Martha Jean Storm, 85, of Sarasota, Florida, formerly of Millbrook, New York, passed peacefully on Friday, August 5th at The Springs at Lake Point Woods in Sarasota. Born December 9, 1930, Jean was the daughter of the late Harold C. Storm of Highland Beach, Florida, and the late Mildred (Drymon) Brown of Sarasota, and beloved sister of Richard Storm, also of Sarasota. Jean spent her childhood in Mahopac, New York.

She is survived by her ve children, William D. Howe and his wife, Elise, of Clayton, North Carolina; James H. Howe and his wife, Lori, of Sherborn, Massachusetts; Elizabeth Storm Howe of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts; Sarah Howe Ainsley and her husband, Spencer, of Poughkeepsie, New York; and Reid Hobson Howe of Poughkeepsie, New York. Dear grandmother to Jamie Wolf, Lauren Shea, Christiana Howe, Alexander Howe, Storm Ainsley and Savanna Ainsley, and great-grandmother to Lydia Wolf. Jean led a vibrant and active life.

She was a remarkable interior designer and watercolor artist. For many years, she owned and operated a design shop in Katonah, New York. Family and friends are kindly invited to her funeral service and burial on Saturday, August 20, at 2:30 pm, at the Hopewell Reformed Church, 143 Beekman Road, Hopewell Junction, New York. Martha Jean Storm Howe POUGHKEEPSIE David R. Cline, 51, a lifelong resident of Poughkeepsie, passed away on 2016.

He was born on August 21, 1964 in Poughkeepsie to Eugene and Joyce Cline. David enjoyed workin as a carpenter and workin around the house. He was also an avid sherman. David is survived by his mother, Joyce Cline; sisters, Laura and her spouse Chris Hager, and Virginia Cline and her companion Steven Dobbie; step sister, Sharon Anderson; nieces and nephews, Corey, Shane, Autumn and Rachael Hager, and Amanda and Lisa Cronk; his companion Loretta and her children. David was predeceased by his father Eugene Cline.

A memorial service will be held on 12 pm, Saturday, August 13, 2016 at St. Reform Church in Red Hook. Arrangements have been entrusted to Parmele, Auchmoody Schoonmaker Funeral Home. David R. Cline WAPPINGERS FALLS John C.

Lopez, 80, a resident of Wappingers Falls since 1978 and formerly of Forest Hills, died on August 10, 2016. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on April 10, 1936, he was the son of Juan and Maria Abad Lopez. John had been employed as an engineer with IBM in Argentina, and then for MAI and LMC in the United States. He was the owner and operator of Twi- nax in Poughkeepsie until his retirement in 1998. An avid soccer enthusiast, John was a soccer player in Argentina, and still enjoyed watching it.

He loved bein down by the ocean, listenin to music, and spending time with his family. John is survived by his loving wife of 55 years, Dory Liparotti Lopez, whom he married in Argentina on March 16, 1961. He is also survived by his children and their spouses, Alexander and Dawn Lopez of Hyde Park, Dennis and Elaine Lopez of Cornwall- on-Hudson, and Adriana and John Cozzolino of Latham; and his grandchildren, Jason, Melissa, Daniel, Julianne, Stephen and Kevin. Services will be private. Arrangements are under the direction of the McHoul Funeral Home of Fishkill, Inc.

Please visit Book of Memories at www.mchoulfu neralhome.com. John Lopez powered by the To Send Flowers a Sympathy Card or a Gift to the family online, please visit poughkeepsiejournal.com/obits and follow the prompts. ALBANY- The Metropolitan Transportation Aut hority failed to collect nearly half the fines and fees wed by subway fare dodgers, graffiti scribblers, lit- erers and other violators, New York auditors reported Thursday. The audit said the New York City Transit Division collect more than $13 million out of $30.4 million owed for more than 324,000 summonses over almost two-and-a-half years, ending June 6, 2015. The Transit Adjudication Bureau generally stops trying 18 months after a summons is issued, except cases forwarded to the state tax department for offsets against income tax refunds, the report said.

With trains bursting at the seams and delays on the ise Transit needs every dollar it can get to improve the subway service for state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said. are meant to deter bad behavior, but when Transit fails to enforce its own fines, it risks sending the message that its rules are made to be The Transit Adjudication ability to collect fines and late-payment fees depends on reaching violators by phone and mail. Auditors said information on summonses is often ins ufficient or inaccurate. hecking 150 unpaid fines, they found 60 had the rong addresses. he transit division said that it makes numerous efforts to collect unpaid fines and that a computer application should improve collections, moving its information system from an outside vendor to an in-house operation.

The MTA also said the math was fuzzy, factoring in the 15 percent of cases that actually had been dismissed. report is akin to trying to judge a speed performance while having a tire MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said Thursday. The audit recognized that collections are stymied by inaccuracy and lack of detail from violations issued by city police, and its new computer system will allow feedback directly to police to improve detail and accuracy of summonses, he said. NY slams MTA enforcement Auditors: Transit fails to collect nearly half of fees, fines owed by violators MICHAEL VIRTANEN ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE JOURNAL NEWS New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli..