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By Ed Scarpo

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Popular Stories

Hoodwinked: Restaurateur on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Was a Mobster

By Ed Scarpo

Peter (Peter Pasta) Pellegrino, formerly of the Babylon, New York restaurant Peter’s Italian Restaurant, really is -- or was -- a gangster. Gordon gives a pep talk. Peter is ready for action..... The once-promising Bonanno crime family member who appeared in Kitchen Nightmares now calls himself a brokester . And the Bonanno crime family, with which he was once affiliated has disowned him. So has the rest of New York's Cosa Nostra, according to FBI documents and Peter Pasta himself. But before all that he appeared on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares in which he acted very much like the mobster he allegedly was trying to become around the time of filming. (See Peter's Italian Restaurant menu here .) Back then Peter Pasta was an up-and-coming Bonanno associate who "earned" $15 grand a week from bookmaking. At the time, he also owned two boats that he'd park in a pricey nearby Babylon harbor called Great South Bay. Gang Land News's Jerry Capec

Why Was Mob Boss Tommy Eboli Really Killed?

By Ed Scarpo

From left, Al Pacino, Genovese capo Patsy Eboli and Al Lettieri. I found the following while researching where in Sicily Al Lettieri 's family arrived from. Lettieri, the great character actor of the 1970s, was noticed for his infamous turn in the Godfather ; my next personal favorite Lettieri character after Virgil (The Turk) Sollozzo has to be the villian in the Steve McQueen flick The Getaway (based on the excellent novel of the same name by Jim Thompson, the blackhearted writer of criminal fictional masterpieces .) I couldn't find a reference regarding from where the actor's family hailed, but I did find interesting information about a former Genovese acting boss murdered gangland style in 1972. (His brother disappeared a few years later.) I got the chills after finding a story that seems to substantiate a claim I'd heard from one of my sources. The source is from Manhattan's Greenwich Village and lived about one block away from the Tr

Mob Wife Ex-Husband Hector Pagan In Brooklyn Halfway House With April 2021 Release Date

By Ed Scarpo

Back in 2014, despite the heartfelt pleas of a murdered man's daughter, Brooklyn Federal Judge John Gleeson sentenced Hector (Junior) Pagan to 11 years in prison —and offered a thoughtful comment. James Donovan was killed during a botched robbery in 2010. He said, “We can only hope” that by time Pagan is released “we have prepared him for re-entry into society to mitigate the risk” of what would happen if Pagan returned to a life of crime. How far Judge Gleeson's hope gets us is something we will discover very soon. The former Bonanno associate/Mob Wives bit player is getting out of the can in a few months..... He is currently residing at the Brooklyn RRM (a halfway house where he and other Federal offenders receive "community-based services that will assist with their reentry needs.") Pagan's official reentry date is April 18, 2021. Renee Graziano's ex-husband got a reduced sentence in 2014 because he flipped and testified against two cohorts who were involve

Bath Avenue Crew Rose High, Fell Hard

By Ed Scarpo

This story from 2014 is one of the most popular on this site—and we didn't even know it until very recently (for reasons stemming from the fallibility of generalized analytics data.) Members of the Bath Avenue Crew were as young as 8 years old when they began to align themselves with the biggest, baddest gang in America: Cosa Nostra, specifically the Five Families. Bath Avenue Crew founding members. They saw the wiseguys on the street pulling up to the curbs in their big shiny Cadillacs, loafing around social clubs wearing pricey suits and sporting hundred-dollar haircuts and manicured fingernails. But the guys presented more than just a cold, distant image to watch; Mafia members interacted with the kids, joked around with them and showed them there were other ways to make it through life. The wiseguys doled out twenty-dollar bills like they were nothing. The wiseguys patted them on the back, told them they were "good kids," and maybe asked them to watch the cars

Deborah Merlino Certainly Doesn't Exemplify the Stereotypical Mob Wife

By Ed Scarpo

The biggest bombshell in Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino's federal racketeering trial in Manhattan arguably had nothing to do with any of the crimes listed in the indictment . We love gossip, especially gossip about extramarital affairs. Skinny Joey with wife Deborah Consider that the main charge facing Merlino is his alleged involvement "in a scheme targeting providers of health insurance by causing, and causing others to cause, corrupt doctors to issue unnecessary and excessive prescriptions for expensive compound cream that were then billed to the Victim Insurers." Who really cares about poor victimized insurance companies? USA Today recently profiled some of the most-reviled companies in the United States, and wouldn't you know: "Few industries are as widely detested as the insurance industry." (FYI, "American consumers appear to especially dislike health insurance giant Cigna.") Genovese turncoat John (JR) Rubeo

Notorious Bonanno Wiseguy Bruno Indelicato Released From Prison

By Ed Scarpo

Longtime Bonanno wiseguy Anthony (Bruno) Indelicato, 75, who shot his way into the annals of American organized crime, was released from prison on May 20, 2022, as per the BOP inmate locator website. Bruno Indelicato, left, Frank Lino. The son of the brutally murdered Alphonse (Sonny Red) Indelicato, a capo who led a doomed faction of the Bonanno family, Bruno was in his heyday a feared stone killer with a legendary appetite for cocaine. Indelicato was one of three masked gunmen who walked into Joe & Mary’s restaurant in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn one hot July day in 1979 and blasted Carmine Galante at close range while the volcanic, would-be usurper enjoyed a customary, post-prandial cigar. Indelicato’s efforts to protect the family’s boss paid dividends: Indelicato was among a slew of Bonanno soldiers elevated to capo by a grateful Philip (Rusty) Rastelli in the wake of the Galante hits. But Cosa Nostra being Cosa Nostra, it wasn't long—a couple of years—before Bruno&#

John Pappa Failed at Shooting His Way into the Mafia

By Ed Scarpo

John Pappa, a wannabe wiseguy with the tough Colombo family, was convicted of racketeering, drug dealing, and four murders, one of which was the 12th and final killing of the Colombo family war . John Pappa looking to be in the pink of health. The other three make this a horror story. They each met their end for getting between the vicious Pappa and what he believed was his rightful street credit -- which he'd been counting on to get him his button. He got slammed with prison instead. The judge sentenced the would-be wiseguy to life in prison -- and due to Pappa's young age, he has the dubious distinction of potentially serving one of the longest sentences in U.S. criminal history. Pappa, at the ripe old age of 22, was nabbed at a wedding rehearsal on Staten Island in 1997. (He had murdered the brother of the man getting married, along with two others.) Pappa believed the trio had been seeking to steal "street cred" for killing one of the Colombo crime

Who The Hell Are You To Take Over A Borgata?

By Ed Scarpo

In September 1964, illegal bugs planted in the meeting places of high-level Mafiosi across the nation by covert teams of FBI agents started to pick up bits of related news regarding the fate of a sitting member of the Mafia Commission. Bonanno consented to an interview with 60 Minutes. It was a mistake. The FBI black bag operation commenced as part of J. Edgar Hoover's post-Apalachin strategic intelligence gathering efforts, and in September 1964, it captured in real-time word of a Commission ruling as it hurtled like a brushfire from New York City to the nation's 24 crime families. Frank DeSimone, the Los Angeles Cosa Nostra boss, was heard in San Francisco telling a boss there that Joseph Bonanno was out. Thomas (Tommy Ryan) Eboli, acting boss of the Genovese Family, and underboss Gerry Catena together had traveled to the Providence, Rhode Island, headquarters of Raymond Patriarca, boss of the New England Family, to explain that Bonanno was out. Catena also was he

Wanna Know Each Mob Wife's Net Worth? Read On

By Ed Scarpo

CelebrityNetWorth.com, founded in October 2009 in Los Angeles, claims it has grown into "one of the most popular and influential celebrity finance outlets on the Internet." "Whether you're looking for the latest net worth and salary of your favorite celebrity or you want to stay up to date on all the most expensive products and gizmos in the world, Celebritynetworth has you covered," the site declares. Drita D'Avanzo is up there but Big Ang is the wealthiest of all... All its figures and articles are thoroughly researched, scrutinized and fact checked by writers and financial analysts, the site notes, adding that the figures are acquired from publicly available information, including salaries, real estate holdings, divorces, record sales, royalties and endorsements. The estimated net worths come from a formula that takes out taxes, manager’s fees, agents’ fees, and lifestyle. So, of course, we immediately checked out what the low-down was,

Former Hells Angels President "Mom" Boucher Plead Guilty to Conspiring to Kill Mobster Who Turned on Mob Boss Vito Rizzuto

By Ed Scarpo

"I fcking love Mom Boucher." --Outlaw MC source, to Cosa Nostra News There are many reasons why Maurice “Mom” Boucher, the former Hells Angels leader in Montreal, Canada, serving life sentences for murder, would've wanted to kill longtime member of the Montreal underworld Raynald Desjardins. Maurice “Mom” Boucher. For the nonce, we can only speculate about the “why” of it, as Boucher’s motives were not included in the RCMP’s summary of facts presented during last month’s proceeding. What is known is that Boucher and Desjardins communicated frequently with each other in 1993. Around two years later, Boucher, a charismatic, extremely violent leader of the HA's Quebec Nomads chapter, made millions via a drug-trafficking (primarily cocaine) alliance forged with Vito Rizzuto, Montreal’s legendary Cosa Nostra boss. Vito Rizzuto, Montreal Cosa Nostra boss. Boucher essentially murdered, retired, or scared away every “independent” drug dealer in the

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Popular Stories

Hoodwinked: Restaurateur on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Was a Mobster

By Ed Scarpo

Peter (Peter Pasta) Pellegrino, formerly of the Babylon, New York restaurant Peter’s Italian Restaurant, really is -- or was -- a gangster. Gordon gives a pep talk. Peter is ready for action..... The once-promising Bonanno crime family member who appeared in Kitchen Nightmares now calls himself a brokester . And the Bonanno crime family, with which he was once affiliated has disowned him. So has the rest of New York's Cosa Nostra, according to FBI documents and Peter Pasta himself. But before all that he appeared on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares in which he acted very much like the mobster he allegedly was trying to become around the time of filming. (See Peter's Italian Restaurant menu here .) Back then Peter Pasta was an up-and-coming Bonanno associate who "earned" $15 grand a week from bookmaking. At the time, he also owned two boats that he'd park in a pricey nearby Babylon harbor called Great South Bay. Gang Land News's Jerry Capec

Mob Wife Ex-Husband Hector Pagan In Brooklyn Halfway House With April 2021 Release Date

By Ed Scarpo

Back in 2014, despite the heartfelt pleas of a murdered man's daughter, Brooklyn Federal Judge John Gleeson sentenced Hector (Junior) Pagan to 11 years in prison —and offered a thoughtful comment. James Donovan was killed during a botched robbery in 2010. He said, “We can only hope” that by time Pagan is released “we have prepared him for re-entry into society to mitigate the risk” of what would happen if Pagan returned to a life of crime. How far Judge Gleeson's hope gets us is something we will discover very soon. The former Bonanno associate/Mob Wives bit player is getting out of the can in a few months..... He is currently residing at the Brooklyn RRM (a halfway house where he and other Federal offenders receive "community-based services that will assist with their reentry needs.") Pagan's official reentry date is April 18, 2021. Renee Graziano's ex-husband got a reduced sentence in 2014 because he flipped and testified against two cohorts who were involve

Notorious Bonanno Wiseguy Bruno Indelicato Released From Prison

By Ed Scarpo

Longtime Bonanno wiseguy Anthony (Bruno) Indelicato, 75, who shot his way into the annals of American organized crime, was released from prison on May 20, 2022, as per the BOP inmate locator website. Bruno Indelicato, left, Frank Lino. The son of the brutally murdered Alphonse (Sonny Red) Indelicato, a capo who led a doomed faction of the Bonanno family, Bruno was in his heyday a feared stone killer with a legendary appetite for cocaine. Indelicato was one of three masked gunmen who walked into Joe & Mary’s restaurant in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn one hot July day in 1979 and blasted Carmine Galante at close range while the volcanic, would-be usurper enjoyed a customary, post-prandial cigar. Indelicato’s efforts to protect the family’s boss paid dividends: Indelicato was among a slew of Bonanno soldiers elevated to capo by a grateful Philip (Rusty) Rastelli in the wake of the Galante hits. But Cosa Nostra being Cosa Nostra, it wasn't long—a couple of years—before Bruno&#

Bath Avenue Crew Rose High, Fell Hard

By Ed Scarpo

This story from 2014 is one of the most popular on this site—and we didn't even know it until very recently (for reasons stemming from the fallibility of generalized analytics data.) Members of the Bath Avenue Crew were as young as 8 years old when they began to align themselves with the biggest, baddest gang in America: Cosa Nostra, specifically the Five Families. Bath Avenue Crew founding members. They saw the wiseguys on the street pulling up to the curbs in their big shiny Cadillacs, loafing around social clubs wearing pricey suits and sporting hundred-dollar haircuts and manicured fingernails. But the guys presented more than just a cold, distant image to watch; Mafia members interacted with the kids, joked around with them and showed them there were other ways to make it through life. The wiseguys doled out twenty-dollar bills like they were nothing. The wiseguys patted them on the back, told them they were "good kids," and maybe asked them to watch the cars

Who Fat Andy Loved; John Gotti's Other Side: Anthony Ruggiano Junior, Part FOUR

By Ed Scarpo

In the 1960s and 1970s, Anthony (Fat Andy) Ruggiano had one of the biggest crews in the Gambino family, and he wanted to keep it that way. Fat Andy, Fritzy Giovanelli, sitting Lenny DiMaria, far right in gray Sonny Franzese He had had around 70-75 guys in his crew, and out of all of them, Andy wanted to straighten out only one, Nicky Corozzo. Fat Andy "didn’t want to make anybody his equal at one point," said Anthony Junior. "He had a big crew with him and he liked it that way. He wound up being right." Andy and Anthony (Tony Lee) Guerrieri even got into an argument over Fat Andy's reluctance to make any of his guys. Tony Lee had wanted to put Anthony (Tony Pep) Trentacosta up to be straightened out with Nicky. Fat Andy prevailed, however, and they both decided that only Nicky would get made. Once Andy proposed Nicky, Nicky went out of his way to express his gratitude to Ruggiano. "After my father proposed Nicky, Nicky went to my father&#

Deborah Merlino Certainly Doesn't Exemplify the Stereotypical Mob Wife

By Ed Scarpo

The biggest bombshell in Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino's federal racketeering trial in Manhattan arguably had nothing to do with any of the crimes listed in the indictment . We love gossip, especially gossip about extramarital affairs. Skinny Joey with wife Deborah Consider that the main charge facing Merlino is his alleged involvement "in a scheme targeting providers of health insurance by causing, and causing others to cause, corrupt doctors to issue unnecessary and excessive prescriptions for expensive compound cream that were then billed to the Victim Insurers." Who really cares about poor victimized insurance companies? USA Today recently profiled some of the most-reviled companies in the United States, and wouldn't you know: "Few industries are as widely detested as the insurance industry." (FYI, "American consumers appear to especially dislike health insurance giant Cigna.") Genovese turncoat John (JR) Rubeo

The 1981 Three-Capo Murders: Part One

By Ed Scarpo

Members of the Bonanno family who believed that the meeting set for the night of May 5, 1981*, was just another attempt at peace either were killed—or realized the confirmation of their worst fears. Phil Lucky, left, Sonny Red, Big Trinny. Source: Wikia . A trio of captains helming a dissident faction of the Bonanno family were invited to that meeting in an attempt to make the peace. It wasn't the first meeting that sought to head off possible bloodshed, but the family's loyalist faction made sure it was the last. Alphonse (Sonny Red) Indelicato , Philip Giaccone, and Dominick (Big Trin) Trinchera were not men to be trifled with. The three had together grown increasingly disillusioned with Philip (Rusty) Rastelli's prison house leadership and had begun to make their feelings known. Phil Giaccone, who had been Joe Massino's skipper for six months in 1978, had been targeted first, but the hit was called off, possibly because the decision had been reached that the better

Where In The World Is Onetime Bonanno Capo Dom Cicale These Days?

By Ed Scarpo

Well, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, and Guatemala—to name three places that Dominick Cicale, former Bonanno crime family capo, has visited on business during post-Cosa Nostra life over the past nine years. Dom Cicale at St. Joseph School for Girls. "The country's first lady asked for the water machine to be placed in that school because she went there as a young girl," Dom said. (Yes, this is kind of an unusual story for this blog to publish, we admit....) After being released from prison, Dominick met with a rabbi "who works to better humanity," he said. A source told us that Dom "offered to work to help society at large, and he has made great strides working with Yehuda Kaploun. Currently president of RussKap Water, Dominick has worked in various global locations to provide healthy water around the globe." Kaploun told us that Dominick has been "a model of redemption since his release." Diamond mine in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone that Do

Gene Borrello, Former Mob Associate-Turned-Fledging Podcaster, Sent Back To The Can For Six Months

By Ed Scarpo

Turncoat Bonanno associate/former podcaster Gene Borrello has been sent back to jail again for violating the conditions of his supervised release. Gene Borrello in hot water once again. Borrello, 38, was given a six-month sentence by a judge in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday for participating in podcasts about organized crime and for associating with other criminals while doing so. “You want to know [why] I went out there?” Borrello said of his podcasting antics as per a Daily News repor t. “I’ll be honest with you. Every other cooperator is on there and I’m not allowed to. Sammy Gravano is on there talking about killing people.” “I don’t like being made a fool of,” the judge said. “It bothers you, of course — that’s the essence of trust.” Borrello helped Brooklyn federal prosecutors put away more than 21 mobsters and then spent about five years in prison for committing crimes that otherwise could've earned him a life sentence. A judge sentenced him to time served and probatio

RIP Tough Tony: Sources Say Elusive Genovese Family Powerhouse Was Official Consiglieri

By Ed Scarpo

Longtime Genovese family powerhouse Anthony (Tough Tony) Federici, who ran a landmark Queens-based Italian restaurant, died this morning of natural causes, sources tell Cosa Nostra News . Still from YouTube interview with Tough Tony Federici. While the elusive Federici long claimed he was retired from the position of capo in the nation's most powerful Mafia clan, the Genovese crime family, sources say Tough Tony, aka Tony Park Side, was part of the Genovese crime family's formal hierarchy, holding the position of official consiglieri, at the time of his death. Prior, he'd been acting underboss of the crime family. Federici, who remarkably appeared in several YouTube video interviews about six years ago (three of which are posted below), was the longtime owner of Park Side Restaurant, a popular Italian restaurant located in the heart of Corona, Queens that his parents opened in 1960 under a different name. And, despite the incessant denials, Federici was a power in the Genov