Cosa Nostra News

James (Jimmy) LaForte—a strong arm for the Gambino crime family—plead guilty to racketeering conspiracy, Hobbs Act extortion/extortion conspiracy, witness retaliation, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He made the plea in Brooklyn Federal court last Wednesday before US Magistrate Judge Joseph A. Marutollo. James LaForte. The US Attorney for the Eastern District accused LaForte, who holds the rank of soldier, and nine other Gambino wiseguys and associates of using violent extortion, fraud, theft and embezzlement to infiltrate New York's carting and demolition industries. “These ten Gambino members and associates orchestrated a campaign of violent assaults and property destruction to collect debts and intimidate those employed by competing companies,” said FBI Assistant Director James C. Barnacle, Jr . “Their collective actions terrorized New York residents and businesses to generate an illegal revenue stream.” LaForte, 49, who is currently serving time on another case i...

Joseph Testa—one of the "Gemini Twins," who was released from prison on April 30, 2024, and retired to Nevada—died on January 26. He was 71. The Gemini Twins Anthony Senter, left, and Joey Testa. Testa had been dealing with medical problems for years. His longtime partner (the other Gemini Twin), Anthony Senter, 70, was released on June 21, 2024. (See video below for a peek at the Gemini Twins and other DeMeo crew members enjoying a barbecue at their boss's Long Island home.) Both Testa and Senter had served about 35 years in prison, a fraction of the well-earned, life-plus-20-year sentences they were slammed with in 1989 after they were convicted of participating in nearly a dozen murders. The once-fearsome Gemini Twins—they got the nickname from the Gemini Lounge, a bar once located on Flatlands Avenue in Canarsie, Brooklyn—were first associated with the Gambino family, where they were part of the Roy DeMeo crew , made famous by the book Murder Machine: A True Story ...

A person claiming to be a victim of Jeffrey Epstein accused Johnny Martorano—a Patriarca family- and Winter Hill Gang-affiliated hitman who admitted to killing 20 people and who testified at the trial of James (Whitey) Bulger, among others—of rape. Johnny (Sickle Cell) Martorano. This is according to a report that highlighted the allegation, which was emailed to two federal judges and was discussed last August by Federal prosecutors in New York, the Justice Department’s Friday release of around 3.5 million Jeffrey Epstein files has revealed “John Martorano was the man who raped me and took a picture of me naked and said ‘let's take a picture for Clarence Thomas,’” the individual wrote. Yes, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is caught up in this. The same victim accused Thomas of sexually assaulting her,  when she was a child: "This is also in my CIA file because a few people have asked me if I remembered, but I couldn't remember much of my childhood because I was d...

By  Giovanni Mastrobuoni ,  University of Essex ;  Nadia Campaniello ,  University of Essex , and  Rowena Gray ,  University of California, Merced When it comes to education, you may not think of a mobster or gang member as top of the class, but it turns out that even criminals benefit from more time spent at school. Did college help don Michael Corleone become a better criminal? Facebook/TheGodfather Our 2017 study , which used a unique sample from the Italian American mafia, shows that mobsters who began their working lives in the 1930s made significant financial gains from extra years of schooling. We found that a mobster who completed just one extra year of education could increase earnings by around 8% on average . Of course, mobsters by their very definition are high level, well connected members of complex criminal organisations – that mimic the structure of a large corporation . And in the 1940s, th...

By  Gianmarco Daniele , Bocconi University The arrest of Matteo Messina Denaro, one of Sicily’s most infamous mafia bosses, has reminded many Italians of the extreme violence he was associated with when operating as a leading figure of Cosa Nostra.  "Diabolik." Denaro appears to belong to another time – when the mafia brutally killed at will. And it is indeed true that the period of extreme violence with which he is associated has been confined to the past. But that does not in any way mean Italy’s organised crime groups have disappeared in the 30 years Denaro has been in hiding – they’ve just had a rethink about how they operate. The Italian mafia has drastically reduced the number of homicides it carries out. Violence is now used in a much more strategic and less visible way. Rather than bloody and conspicuous murders, the modern mafia intimidates with crimes that are less likely to be reported to the police – such as arson and physical assault or sending threats. Mur...