The Great Thing About Full Moderation

,,,is that I can delete all the vitriol left by trolls who visit this blog.

I support free and open debate but comments meant to incite me and/or others simply get deleted. That is my policy. From now on. Forever and ever.

Here's the rules:

  • Comments that threaten other commentators will be deleted.
  • Comments that demean in any way anyone gracious enough to allow me to interview them will be deleted.
  • Comments attempting to bait me will also be deleted.

But don't mistake me, trolls -- you are quite welcomed here. Write as many comments as you like.

That's correct, I encourage all trolls to continue visiting and writing comments that won't see the light of day...

Know why?

You help to ramp up my page views, and I'm all for that.

So keep up the good work! I enjoy deleting you so much, it's fun!





Comments

  1. You made a claim about someone then say you will back it up with an article and almost a year later nothing! So if I say what you said was bullshit....I'm a troll?
    C'mon Ed your not scared of the word bullshit are you? Well I guess we will see.

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    1. I wasn't referring to you, exactly. Other comments were made with yours and I lumped them together and deleted them; I made no such claim I made a claim by Phil's son who wrote a book Born to the Mob. I did some research and caught him in a big untruth and decided not to write the story

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    2. But I'm flattered in a way and do appreciate your attention to detail. Would you like to write a guest blog post about the three capos?

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    3. I'm not a writer Ed I'm a reader and I only said that stuff about Philly Lucky was crap because I know it to be so. I'm glad you caught that kid in his lies and didn't run a bad story cause I would have been all over it. I love the blog and I've given it at least 2000+ hits. You keep up the good work and whenI see something I don't think is right I'll let you know as usual!

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    4. Thanks, I'd appreciate it... I also learned about how much more important Sonny Red was, which is what I'd thought all along, so I quietly phased that one out....As for Phil Lucky, he had a record as far back as the age of 13-14, was running with mob "farm teams" as a youth, which doesn't jibe with how the nephew portrays him in the book as the reluctant gangster who never committed crimes and was never violent. He was exactly that when he was 13 years old!!! Thanks again, appreciate having you here....

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  2. I appreciate all the hard work you put into this site and thank you for that. It's unfortunate that some use it to trash people and make threats. I post anonymous because I choose not to belong to social media...that doesn't give me the right to post irresponsibly...and I don't. Your articles are very interesting and informative as I'm a Mob buff. People need to use better judgment when commenting and remember that this is a forum to share ideas and satisfy our curiosities about Mob activity. Best wishes to you Ed and keep up the good work.

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    1. Thank you -- I truly appreciate your comments; I appreciate all comments ( well, most!) and all who read my blog. Its been an interesting experience, I am starting to meet some real players and hope to expand on the historical record of the mafia, break new ground in terms of how we understand the mob. Anyway this is a rather long-winded way of saying thanks...

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  3. Hey Ed, enjoy your column. Good work. A quick question. The commission made Gotti step down after his appeals ran out, why didnt they do the same to Carmine Persico who still runs the Colombos? And why do you think Gotti was sent to a max security prison and Carmine seems to be tending to his garden in a lax low security prison (same prison as Madoff) ?

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  4. Well, Mike, (why do I have a feeling you already know the answer...?) I can offer you my take on this... The wide belief is that the Feds were making an example out of Gotti (I also believe there is more to this, that he was sent there purposely because he refused to make a statement, an allocution maybe -- Capeci has written something about this and I will have to look for it). Anyway, he was sent to USP Marion, which at the time (this was 1992) was designed to provide the same service as Alcatraz. The Dapper Don who tried to thumb the Feds' eye out with his crass disregard for the rule of law, who refused to duck, was put in the worst prison in which a human being can be housed. He was allowed out of his cell, which was probably the size of your bathroom, for one hour a day. I believe the new and improved version of Marion is where Gaspipe and Scarpa Jr. now reside......As for Carmine Persico, I don't believe he earned the animosity of the Feds that Gotti did; I think he even earned a witty retort from the judge in the Commission Case for his defense of himself. As for why he's still boss: This has to do with the nature of the Colombo family, which is unique among the five families of New York. Many Colombos are related by blood, which would bind them more closely than other families. If this is indeed the case, then Carmine retaining his title would be the family's own decision and I don't believe the Commission can force a family's hand on such an issue. If there is even a Commission in existence. Massino has testified that there hasn't been a Commission for many years... And even if the Commission did make such an order about Carmine stepping down, the Colombos would probably go to war before trading in old Carmine. Remember, he was able to press a button all those years ago and start a street war when Orena got uppity and tried to take the Big Seat. No, I believe Carmine will remain boss for life, until he decides to step down or dies....Among the Gambinos, I believe Gotti held no such support. No Mafia members, to my knowledge, attended his burial ceremony, a sign of disrespect.... What's your take?

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  5. Good discussion here between Mikey Suits and Ed.

    About the fact of no Mafia members attending John Gotti Sr. funeral. Some friends I have in the NY area, have told me something about this, precisley about this when telling me the whole story of the ´Boss Napoletan´. The order given was: ´Nobody goes´.

    Disrespect? In my opinion, and where I comming from, is the ultimate disrespect. Even the boss of a small clan, in the most rural area of Naples, if respected at all, will for sure, have the presence of its guys while going down...... But again I can be wrong.

    Ci verim doppo, prenders cura´ra schien e sémpe b´bere entrámb e lati.


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    1. Al Capone died in 1947 -- many years had gone by since his glory days running Chicago and he'd been living in Florida for quite some time after getting out of prison... Nevertheless, when Capone died, the boss of the outfit, Joe Batters/the Big Tuna (whatever you wanna call Antonino Joseph Accardo) told everyone: Be at Capone's funeral. And from what I understand, they were.... shows the difference....

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    2. John Gotti's funeral was like a fucking parade. Flower cars as far as the eye could see. I was there so there is no disputing this, made guys didn't go or were told not to for one simple reason.....the media was all over the place. Fucking helicopters and cameras everywhere so it wasn't necessarily the type of disrespect you guys are talking about and more of staying off the 6 o'clock news kinda thing. All the guys sent flowers and the family understood why they couldn't be there in person.

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  6. kas man was a fbi informant and was telling the feds the gotti family was planning on killing a fedral prison warden. so they had to keep a eye on him to the max. persico was just plotting to kill mobsters in Brooklyn keeping the judicial circle working cops,lawyers,judges,jails.

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    1. Of course now I do remember something about Kasman, but i thought that had more to do with later on when he was sick... I'm gonna do some digging....

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    2. Hah! Remember this one! "How could I have missed such a huge mob story? But there it was on the radio over last weekend: During the height of John Gotti's popularity and notoriety, the swashbuckling Dapper Don was also a Dashing Don, commuting by public transportation from Howard Beach to Manhattan each week. "John's thrill of a day was to take the Long Island Railroad, go through Penn Station and come to work, and he used to do that three days or four days a week, with Jackie Nose (D'Amico) in tow," said the familiar, very authoritative-sounding voice."
      From Capeci -- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-capeci/dapper-don-as-dashing-don_b_838801.html

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    3. Then there's this one about K-man: http://nypost.com/2012/07/01/teflon-dons-former-adviser-reveals-the-secrets-of-the-gottis/

      Kasman didn't personally have anything to do with John Senior's sentencing -- as Jerry reported on on Apr 17, 2008: Sources say that based on Kasman’s information, Bureau of Prisons officials placed Peter Gotti (left) in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he was awaiting trial for racketeering. At the same time, the

      BOP also moved Gene Gotti – who is still doing time for heroin trafficking – and onetime acting boss John (Junior) Gotti, (right) then serving 77 months for racketeering, into segregated housing at their facilities.

      The three Gotti gangsters remained in solitary confinement from mid-August to mid-November, when, in the words of one law enforcement source, “we felt relatively certain that they decided to call it off.”

      Lawyers for Peter Gotti and Junior Gotti say the notion that their clients plotted to kill Bill Hedrick, who was the warden at the prison hospital from 1999 to 2004, is utter nonsense.

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  7. read dom cefulo attended gotti sr wake or funeral there was like 1000 people there how the hell could you make out a made guy then all his followers. massino didn't let his guys go cause he found out gotti probably wanted him dead and didn't recognize him as official bos because he didn't get a vote or someshit and then all the wiretaps of gotti just making fun of him and his family of junkies. what he call him the whale that's messed up.

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  8. I am copying word-for-word what Capeci wrote about Gotti's funeral. Massino said a lot of things once he turned: Sonny Black wasn't whacked over letting Donnie Brasco in, there was no commission. He doesn't seem believable to me, frankly. I am aware that he said Gotti wanted to kill him, but for the life of me, I can't figure out a motive. Anyone who comments again on this issue, please read this first, word for word:
    In the end, John Gotti, rest his soul, got no respect from the mob.
    None of the leaders of New York's four other crime families – or even capos for that matter – paid their last respects to the onetime Dapper Don and head of the Gambinos at his wake at the Papavero Funeral Home in Maspeth, Queens.

    In fact, only two old soldiers in the Colombo and Genovese families – and a New Jersey wiseguy – were spotted at the two-day wake by teams of local and federal investigators who kept visual and audio tabs on the comings and goings.

    And many Gambino members and associates also failed to show up, often sending regrets that bail restrictions, parole or conditions of supervised release prevented a personal appearance.
    continued---

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  9. continued ---

    "We may have missed a guy or two, but there was a deliberate, conscious, decision not to attend," said one law enforcement source.

    In other words, the late Gotti was dissed.

    "There is no question, that the (mob's) message was one of disdain and disapproval," said another.

    Despite the pomp and circumstance of Gotti's sendoff, a 75-car motorcade that included 19 flower cars and four news helicopters, Gotti could not have been happy about the lack of respect he got from his peers.

    "He put a lot of stock in these kinds of things so he must have been turning


    Gotti Prayer Card Provided by The Smoking Gunover in his grave," said one underworld source, an attendee of many wiseguy wakes who skipped Gotti's.

    The most obvious snub was by Bonanno boss Joseph Massino, an old friend and Howard Beach neighbor who spent many hours with Gotti at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, his Ozone Park headquarters where the funeral procession made a solemn stop en route to St. John's Cemetery.

    In 1988, during the height of his power, Gotti supported Massino's eventual ascension to the top of the Bonanno family – he was in prison at the time – and pushed the Genovese and Luchese families to restore the Bonannos to good standing with the Mafia Commission.

    Today, Massino, the only New York boss not in federal prison for one thing or another, is very secretive and cautious and often travels abroad to avoid surveillance. With no recent indictments or convictions, he has no restrictions over his movements, or persons with whom he can associate.

    But Massino, who has become the Commission's most influential member since his release from prison in 1992, avoided the wake and ordered his family members to follow suit, according to law enforcement sources.

    "There were no ifs, ands or buts about it," said one source, adding that


    numerous informants told of similar directives from the leaders of the Colombo, Luchese and Genovese families as well.

    In one case, a capo told a social club filled with wiseguys and associates, "Nobody goes," quickly interrupting a query about possible exceptions with: "I said, NOBODY GOES."

    Frank D'AmatoUnderworld sources also told Gang Land that the troops, for the most part, were happy about being ordered not to attend.

    "I hope they don't tell me I've got to represent the skipper," one wiseguy was heard to say.

    For the record, Colombo soldier Joseph (Joe Black) Gorgone, Genovese mobster Frank Monti, and DeCavalcante soldier Frank D'Amato (left) were the only non-Gambino family "made men" who paid their respects, according to law enforcement sources.

    Law enforcement sources speculate – along with Gang Land's underworld sources, who are not high enough up the food chain to know for sure – that

    Gotti's assassination of Mafia boss Paul Castellano is the main reason behind the organized boycott.

    "He seized power through a renegade act – killing a boss – and it's a repudiation of the tactics he used to take over the family," said one official.

    The Bomb Car "It probably goes back to Castellano," agreed another, who noted that the Genovese and Luchese families first tried to kill Gotti in 1986, when they blew up his first underboss Frank DeCicco, then executed two Gotti soldiers in 1990 and 1991.

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  10. This kind of civilized, intelligent discussion is exactly what this this site need. Thank you Ed et al.

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    1. I agree -- and the story prompting it is about moderating comments!!! Ironic!

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  11. Thanks Ed......great story on Big Jack.....I read his book and was shocked to learn the FBI was completely in the dark about an entire crew!!!! Another good book was Donnie Brasco, unfinished business.....shows how crucial the commission case was in sending the mafia into a tail spin which, apparently, it is recovering from. One of the most interesting groups to me is the Genovese's....these guys seem to clearly be the most intelegent and crafty of all the families....do not see many headlines and fewer rats. I have heard that they often change leadership and use "front men" to fool law enforcement. Keep up the good work Ed.......Mike

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  12. The Genovese family was famous for that, going all the way back to Vito himself. Thanks so much, Mike. I try and glad people notice!!!! Best to you, my friend...

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