Angelo F. Ponte (April 20, 1925 – December 12, 2018) was an American mobster. He was reportedly active in the

Genovese family The Genovese crime family (), also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American Ma ...

's carting rackets for many decades. He was careful to cultivate political connections, and managed to have himself named a

Knight of Malta The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, and commonly known as the Order of Malta or the Knights of Malta, is a Catholic lay religious ...

by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. Ponte was a target of the

operation wasteland Operation Wasteland was an undercover investigation into organized crime control of the waste disposal industry in New York City. The investigation resulted in the indictment and conviction of over one hundred participants in price-fixing and bid ...

investigation. On January 28, 1997, he pleaded guilty to participating in a

Mafia "Mafia", as an informal or general term, is often used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the Sicilian Mafia, original Mafia in Sicily, to the Italian-American Mafia, or to other Organized crime in Italy, organiz ...

run operation to control and manipulate the cartage business in New York City. At the same hearing, his son Vincent pleaded guilty to paying a $10,000 bribe. He was the founder of F. Illi Ponte Ristorante on the West Side highway and has extensive real estate holdings throughout the

Lower West Side (Manhattan) Tribeca ( ), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...

. Ponte died in February 2017 at the age of 92. He had four siblings: Vincent, John, Margaret, and Dina.Frank Angelo Ponte Obituary
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Notes and references

He is also a major character in the book Takedown: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire by Rick Cowan. Ponte is one of four brothers Frank, Anthony, and Joseph. It is rumored to be that they are also part of the Genovese crime family. 1925 births 2017 deaths American gangsters of Italian descent American Roman Catholics Genovese crime family Knights of Malta American restaurateurs {{US-crime-bio-stub