Benny and the Feds

2017/07/30

Disclaimer

  1. This is a work in progress
  2. I’m not a trained investigator or anything. I’m just a nerd with a computer.
  3. This is likely incomplete.
  4. Even knowing what I wrote down, I’d eat at Benny’s.
  5. I cite everything as a link that I can.

Before we Begin

For those of you who don’t know, there is a famous pizzeria in Hoboken, New Jersey named “Benny Tudinos”, a.k.a. Benny’s. Many of the resident don’t know that in the 1980’s the owner of this restaurant was in a precursor of the FBI’s Pizza Connection Trials. This trial was about using pizzarias as fronts for laundering cash and distributing drugs.

One day, I was reading this news story, and a somewhat crazy comment claiming that Benny (the owner of Benny’s) was involved with the mob. How could this be? Benny that nicer older guy from the pizzaria? Since the accusations in this comment were pretty serious, I had to confirm the accusations. This is the result of my hunting.

As a companion to this read, I suggest you open Benny and the Jets in another tab while reading this.

March 1985 – The Trial

On 13 March 1985, “Bari Drishti” (I’ll call him Benny, since everyone knows him as that) was arrested with charges of 20 years along with two other men for trafficking heroin thru Benny’s. Along with the charges, one of his co-defendants was convicted of plotting to assassinate the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, a.k.a. Rudy Giuliani and the trial judge, Vincent L. Broderick.

I can’t find much more information on the actual trial since I don’t have access to PACER. Archive.org does host other federal cases hosted by Judge Broderick. I have a future work section at the bottom of this page for more places one could look for more information.

The Prison Years – 1985–1995

In 1985 Benny entered prison as inmate 07145-054. He hopped around prison locations, Lawisburg PA, El Reno, OK, Tuscon AZ, Lompoc, CA, … Most the documents I obtained from the FBI make it seem Benny spent most his time in Lompoc.

Benny was released in October 1996. And just a coincidental side-note, the judge that locked him up died of cancer in March 1995.

The Release – 1995–2007

I don’t know much of Benny’s life after his release. Seemingly he got his life back on track, and continued to run the pizzeria until.

The Missing Safe – 2007

A safe went missing with a lot of cash 🤔💭. The safe weighed 298lbs, and was carried away by four men.

I am not sure how a safe is stolen from a basement in Hoboken without any witnesses, but it happened. I only have conspiracy theories on this event.

The End – 2015

10 October 1937 – 3 September 2015

The FOIA

One day after Benny’s death (4 September 2015), I filed a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI for their case files. It wasn’t until 31 March 2016 that I started to receive responses! The responses continued until 19 December 2016. I have also archived the results of the FOIA on archive.org.

Some fun facts on the FOIA:

The following sections will highlight some interesting events, along with the name of the file on MuckRock.

1336476-0_-_89B-NY-785_Section_1.PDF

1336476-0_-_89B-NK-63569_Section_1.PDF

1336476-0_-_89-HQ-5884_Section_1.PDF

1336476-0_-_89-HQ-5884_Unrecorded_Serial.PDF

1336476-0_-_89BNY-785_Albanian_Letters_Section_2.PDF

Mainly translated letters Benny sent/received while incarcerated. These were in other documents, but they’re more clear here.

12-14-16_MR21148_RES.PDF

Transcriptions of translated telephone conversations. Mostly chit chat.

Future Work