Cosa Nostra News

By Nick Christophers We have all heard stories about Al Capone—maybe too many. I once was sent to investigate a home in Amityville, Long Island, where he supposedly briefly lived when they were loading booze from Canada, but didn't find any convincing evidence that the house, located in an area called “Rum Row," was his.   Did Capone run a floating speakeasy aboard the Keuka?  Recently, I came across an interesting find by underwater photographer and author Chris Roxburgh, who claims to have found the floating speakeasy Capone had in the late '20s. The wreck was the vessel the Keuka, which sank in 1932 in Traverse City, Michigan. That boat was built in 1889 and was christened the A. Stewart before the name was changed to the Keuka. The ship is 200 feet long and over two stories tall. In 1929 the boat had its grand opening as a "dance hall,” but it was really used to serve alcohol during Prohibition. Capone allegedly supplied the booze for the floating speakeasy. From

Is there anyone Trump won't take a picture with?, we are beginning to wonder... with no offense to former Gambino associate John Alite, who also was snapped alongside the former president. (Only because Alite's pic was snapped last summer, we believe he beat Skinny Joey to the Trump train). John Alite, center, alongside DJT, who is keeping busy since his failed coup against the United States. Alite confirmed the authenticity of the photograph, which was recently published  in the UK's Independent , which reports that  Alite these days describes himself  as a political independent who supported Trump’s push for criminal justice reform. Alite, who is a veteran podcaster—who we have written about here for years—also told the  news site  about some of the life changes he has experienced since departing the clink some 10 years back. “ I'm a guy that's does TV, does movies , those talk shows, does talks for kids, works with the FBI, does events and talks with the FBI aga

The Philadelphia Inquirer obtained a photo of former President Donald Trump posing alongside former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino earlier this month at the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach wherein the two, plus an unidentified third man, flash smiles and the thumbs-up. All three wear golf attire. Trump, center, with Skinny Joey, right, and unidentified third, left.  Picture source: The Philadelphia Inquirer . As per The Inquirer , the pic “is likely to renew concerns among Trump loyalists eager to help him retake the White House next year that he still lacks the sort of protective political infrastructure that would prevent a candidate for president from taking a picture with a convicted mobster whose last stint in federal prison ended in mid-2020.” A spokesperson for Trump would not say if the former president knew the notorious wiseguy, who in the 1990s waged war against Gambinos-backed John Stanfa for control of the Philadelphia mob. “Pres

Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas by Glenn Kenny, which we finally got around to perusing, includes many fascinating tidbits about the acclaimed 1990 Martin Scorsese film as well as the real-life Luchese wiseguys and associates on whom the film was based. We also learned the answer to something we have long wondered about: Why did Scorsese change the names of the characters?  “You got money for that fcking commercial of yours. You don't got my money? You don't got my fckin' money?”  According to Made Men, Robert De Niro’s approach to the role of Jimmy Burke —renamed Conway—the Irish-American gangster with ties to the Luchese crime family through his association with Luchese capo Paul Vario , renamed Cicero for the film—included the kind of painstaking, multifaceted preparatory work for which the New Yorker has long been known.  De Niro’s copy of the Goodfellas script—which is part of the De Niro archives at the Ransom Center at the University of Texas —includes handwritten

"He's asking Frankie, what do we do? Do we just let Sammy run wild and take everything? There's other people here, other captains here...  Nobody could eat. Sammy, in John's mind, is out of control and he's having people killed, and John feels like a clown, like he has been led around by the master of ceremonies..." —Mikie Scars on the Ravenite Transcripts  We finally had a chance to mosey on over to Patreon to check out the No Excuses podcast featuring Michael (Mikie Scars) DiLeonardo and RJ Rogers, who have been focusing on the transcripts of the FBI recordings of Gambino boss John Gotti holding forth in an apartment above the Ravenite social club. The Ravenite social club was a valuable piece of New York history that should've been preserved. (You don't have to join Patreon, and fork over $9.99 a month, to watch part one of the Gotti Tapes , which was posted on YouTube recently. To access the podcast for free, skip on down to the end of this....) In