According to court papers Anthony “Tony Lodi” Cardinalle the owner of the Satin Dolls strip club that was the setting for the Bada Bing strip club on hit TV series The Sorpano’s is a real life mob rat. Feds claim that Cardinalle is an associate of the Genovese crime family. He was arrested along with more then 30 others as part of a mafia scheme to control the trash collection industry in New Jersey and New York last January. Cardinalle plead guilty to conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise that lasted from March of 2009 to April of 2012 and conspiring to commit extortion during that time period from July 2010 to May 2011. Facing up to 20 years in prison for his charges Cardinalle decided to play ball with the feds and turn rat.
Cardinalle agreed to a plea agreement in an effort to lessen any possible prison term he may receive. But many of the defendants in the mobbed up trash hauling scam have already pleaded guilty including Genovese family associate Carmine “Papa Smurf” Franco. Perhaps the feds believe that Cardinalle could be useful in supplying information on other New York mafia members including other in the Genovese family. For Cardinalle to qualify for leniency recommendation to the court from the feds he has to agree to answer any questions from investigators and take the stand at trial and testify. It is quite a coincidence that Cardinalle not only owns the strip club used in The Soprano’s and often visited by Tony Sprano but his illegal activities in the waste hauling business mirrors that of Tone.
