Cosa Nostra News

John (Pudgy) Matassa Jr., a reputed longtime Chicago Outfit member and former union boss, will ask a federal judge today to delay his upcoming sentencing for embezzlement because of serious medical problems -- and prosecutors apparently have no problem with that.




Matassa Jr., 67, pleaded guilty in February to a scam to fraudulently qualify for early retirement benefits.

Matassa was to be sentenced on May 22, but a visit to his cardiologist and then a heart surgeon are on track to interrupt the plan. The man suffers from "coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes, sleep apnea, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease," according to a filing.

Prosecutors don't oppose the delay in Matassa's sentencing. In the government's sentencing memorandum filed yesterday, prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly to sentence Matassa to between 27 and 33 months imprisonment -- and also acknowledged "that it would be appropriate for the Court to consider …

UPDATED
The FBI apparently is probing Oyster Bay, Long Island, for Genovese crime family activity.



A Federal subpoena seeking records related to alleged members of the Genovese crime family was sent to Oyster Bay Town Hall on Monday, Newsday is reporting.

The request was “very broad” and asked for “any records” of the people named. (Newsday didn’t print any of the requested names. No information regarding what specifically is being investigated is available.)
“Names that they’ve asked us about seem to tie into the Genovese crime family,” Deputy Town Supervisor Gregory Carman Jr. told Newsday. He added: “There are no members of the Genovese crime family that I know of that work for the town.” 
Two plainclothes FBI agents reportedly took a trip to Town Hall shortly before noon yesterday, staying for all of 10 minutes. Upon departing Town Hall, one of them flashed his FBI identification in response to a reporter’s inquiry. The reporter, presumably, was a Newsday reporter. The agent also …

 FINAL
One of the most notorious gangster/snitches of the 20th century, James (Whitey) Bulger, who was found beaten to death inside a West Virginia prison last October, no longer wanted to live -- and that is what led to his doomed transfer from a Florida "safe haven."



And that's basically all there is to it, says Charles Lockett, the Florida penitentiary’s former warden, who retired in December. That's according to a recent interview with NBC News.

We can add tidbits from that interview to the vast repository of knowledge about Whitey Bulger's murder that's been accumulating since the October 30 event. We also can add Bulger's death certificate, which was recently made public -- and which disagrees with what the medical examiner reported. What else did we recently learn? At least one of the three key suspects remains in solitary confinement.

But six months into the murder, and much remains unknown. Federal officials still haven't charged anyone, even…

A career criminal with ties to New York-based organized crime was arrested yesterday (Friday, May 3) at his New Jersey home for a violent 2017 home invasion that involved a baseball bat and a foxy reality television star.



The Holmdel and Bayonne Police Departments, with the U.S. Marshals Service, yesterday morning arrested James (Jimmy Balls) Mainello, 51, without incident (PDF of criminal complaint), naming him as one of two suspects being sought for committing the violent home invasion robbery of David Cantin and fiance Claudine “Dina” Manzo, an actress on The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

The robbery happened on a May night in 2017. Two home invaders -- one was described as "an Italian guy with a North Jersey accent" -- broke into and hid inside the then-engaged couple's North Jersey townhouse (with a baseball bat) and waited. Manzo, then 46, and Cantin, then 37, walked in and the thugs brutally set on them, beating, restraining, and robbing the pair, and reportedly …

EXPANDED to include details of what was, as recently as 2014, a vast, sprawling criminal empire operated under the auspices of the Genovese crime family, the Ivy League of the American Mafia....

Yesterday, before Superior Court Judge Donald G. Collester Jr. in Morris County, four Genovese associates and a soldier who operated in New Jersey — and were nabbed with six others in 2014—pleaded guilty to loansharking, unlicensed check cashing, gambling, and money laundering.



Reputed soldier Vito Alberti and capo Charles (Chuckie) Tuzzo — who reported to the Genovese hierarchy in New York — oversaw and controlled the crew. Charges against Tuzzo -- a well-established ranking member of the Genovese crime family -- are pending. Tuzzo was promoted when Vincent (Chin) Gigante assumed power in the 1980s after the  retirement of Philip "Benny Squint" Lombardo.

The indictment originally alleged that the crew made around $10 million in a four-year period via the Newark-based check cashing s…

A Staten Island-based Wells Fargo stockbroker allegedly fleeced a widow out of millions--and when found out, told her: “Now you can get a job like everybody else."



Wells Fargo "allowed Leonard Kinsman into its adviser network in 2014 — despite the fact that Kinsman...had multiple past complaints from ex-clients and two stints at since-banned brokerages," the New York Post reported.

"Kinsman stands accused of squandering a $2.25 million insurance settlement awarded to Robin Fratto of Freehold, NJ, after her husband died unexpectedly in 2011.”

Kinsman has what some would call a colorful past. He once worked at a small Wall Street brokerage house that was the centerpiece of what the Fed's called "the most ambitious scheme by organized crime to infiltrate Wall Street in decades."





Kinsman, who reportedly still works at Wells Fargo, worked at Meyers Pollock Robbins, which was part of a 1997 Federal racketeering indictment that charged 19 -- including high-…

"Found religion? Maybe. But it doesn't erase the past, if he did."
--Canadian Mafia expert James Dubro on Pat Musitano's alleged religious transformation


The boss of a Calabrian crime family in Hamilton, a Canadian port city about 41 miles west of Niagara Falls, was shot multiple times on Thursday morning and remains in critical condition.


Pasquale (Pat) Musitano is still clinging to life at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto where he was brought Thursday morning. He was reportedly shot at least four times, including once in the head, at around 7 a.m. Thursday.

A witness described the shooting as "very unsettling and terrifying. And quite brazen in broad daylight."

The Hamilton Spectator broke the identity of the victim; law enforcement remains tight-lipped about the incident, neither naming or confirming the name of the victim

Mafia violence in Hamilton and surrounding areas has been ongoing in recent years. A series of shootings, arson fires, mur…