Investigative Experience Built for High-Stakes Matters

Inside a Suffolk Wiretap

A 2006 narcotics lead became a court-authorized wiretap and financial investigation. As lead investigator, Christopher Rizzi worked with a team that expanded surveillance to nearly a dozen phones, while recorded calls were tested against witnesses, financial records, physical surveillance, searches, and seizures. According to the investigators’ firsthand account, the team also disrupted two planned robberies, including a proposed home invasion targeting a drug dealer. Released records later described allegations involving cocaine activity, mortgage fraud, and public corruption; much of that conduct was never publicly charged. Robert Macedonio ultimately pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession and lost his law license. Years later, the felony conviction was vacated with support from the district attorney’s office and replaced with a misdemeanor, clearing the principal obstacle to restoration of the defense attorney’s law license. How did an investigation this broad end there?

Read the Full Story →

Gambino & Bonanno: The Evidence Behind the Enterprise

Back-room gambling, extortionate loans, cocaine transactions, intercepted threats, and traditional mob hierarchy were only pieces of the picture. Rizzi served as lead investigator and surveillance coordinator, translating investigative priorities into field coverage and then tying observed meetings, vehicles, and movements back to calls, undercover activity, and records. The case included 12 cocaine sales to an undercover officer totaling more than half a kilogram. Searches later produced gambling and loansharking records, electronic gaming machines, narcotics, cash, two AR-15 rifles, a revolver, a sawed-off shotgun, and letters addressed to John Ambrosio from Bonanno boss Michael Mancuso and former Gambino boss John Gotti. Seven defendants later pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and were sentenced—but the real story is how investigators turned debts, coded language, threats, and fleeting meetings into evidence without confusing an enterprise theory with proof against an individual.

Read the Full Story →

The Man Who Called Himself “Junior Gotti”

A contemporaneous account described Robert Spatafora as a garage owner who called himself “Junior Gotti”—his own nickname and a revealing glimpse of how he saw himself. The federal court identified him as an associate of the Colombo and Lucchese families. The investigation into Peter Ghattas’s killing outside the earlier Rob’s Pro Tow location had gone cold for years. The business later moved, and the Suffolk County wiretap covered the newer location. When that wire created an opportunity to seek new evidence, Rizzi and the investigative team revisited the old homicide theory. Rizzi served as lead investigator and wiretap coordinator. Detectives used an existing warrant to orchestrate an arrest that would appear routine. In the processing room, Rizzi and his partner, Detective Gang, briefly noted within Jane Doe’s hearing that Ghattas had been murdered at Rob’s Pro Tow and the case remained open; they asked her nothing about the homicide and disclosed no surveillance. After her release, the monitored calls repeatedly returned to Spatafora’s fear that she would give investigators information. From that point forward, the calls show he no longer trusted her. He accused her of working with the FBI, building a case, giving them everything they wanted, and acting as a “rat,” while repeatedly invoking what happened to cooperators. Those accusations escalated into explicit death threats. Covert surveillance protected Jane Doe until the threats subsided. The larger record reached cocaine distribution, an illegal sports book, witness tampering, a guilty plea, and a 41-month sentence. The homicide remained unresolved; the court made no homicide finding.

Sixteen Phones, Forty-Four Pounds, One Network

A five-month wiretap covering 16 phones helped investigators develop a California-to-Long Island cocaine pipeline. Rizzi served as lead investigator and wiretap coordinator. The difficult work came before the takedown: identifying speakers, distinguishing suppliers from couriers and local distributors, matching calls to vehicles and physical events, and keeping the evidence separated by person instead of treating every contact as the same role. Public accounts described extensive surveillance and coordinated raids involving approximately 150 agents and officers. Newsday reported seizures of 44 pounds of cocaine, about $440,000 in cash, 39 firearms, a money-counting machine, and other evidence. The numbers made headlines. The harder story is how hundreds of calls, movements, searches, and individual roles were made coherent enough for one coordinated operation.

Read the Full Story →

The Long Island Birth-Tourism Investigation

This investigation did not begin with narcotics or organized crime. It developed into an alleged international fraud and money-laundering scheme involving seven so-called birth houses in Suffolk County. Rizzi served as wiretap coordinator, helping the team identify speakers, organize intercepted calls, and connect those communications to the records and events developed across the broader investigation. Prosecutors alleged that participants were coached to misrepresent the purpose of their travel and obtain Medicaid benefits. Six defendants were charged in December 2020. The indictment alleged that more than 100 children obtained birthright citizenship, Medicaid paid more than $2.1 million in fraudulently obtained benefits, and participating women paid approximately $750,000 in fees. Those were allegations at charging, not findings of guilt. The case shows a different investigative range: turning communications, international movement, financial records, online promotion, and multiple agency files into a person-specific account that federal counsel could review.

Read the Full Story →