Cosa Nostra News

Note: I haven't been blogging much in the past week. Got some very bad news about an old friend. He married his high school sweetheart and has a daughter in college -- and one night about a week and a half ago he suddenly took a stroke and collapsed. Basically, he's now permanently disabled and unable to work ever again. He was seemingly in perfect physical health too -- right up until he collapsed.... 



The False Claims Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, during the Civil War.

Greedy contractors bent on filling their pockets by defrauding the government in wartime was the stimulus. Since criminals generally don't like to get caught, the thinking went, there should be encouragement for those who have knowledge of fraudulent activity to come forward. The False Claims Act -- which allows for the filing of Whistleblower or Qui Tam lawsuits -- provides a way for private citizens to share in the recovery of damages essentially.

One hundred years later, …

A Howard Beach-based newspaper publisher has been sentenced to five months in prison for attempting to threaten a sex crime victim's father on behalf of a Bonanno crime family aassociate.


Patricia Adams, who operates the weekly Forum Newsgroup, threatened to use her position as publisher to have a hatchet piece written and published in a Queens newspaper about a woman who had accused a mobbed-up deli owner of a sex crime.

Adams was sentenced on Oct. 11. She also must pay a fine of $200, though the full restitution amount has not yet been determined.

Adams had pleaded guilty on June 25 to misprision of a felony, acknowledging her efforts to conceal the felonious crime of interfering in the sex assault case against Robert Pisani, an associate in acting capo Ronald Giallanzo's Bonanno crime family crew. Pisani was among a group of 10 reputed Bonanno crime family members arrested for participating in various crimes over the past two decades ranging from racketeering to loan shark…

UPDATE TWO
The shooter was arrested, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with federal investigators.



Bushawn Shelton, 34, an alleged high-ranking member of the Bloods allegedly paid another man to try to kill Sylvester and Salvatore Zottola.

He also furnished the contract killer with wheelmen and pistols to carry the murder out.



Shelton was a middleman however, according to reports. The motive and true force behind the murder remains a mystery.

Sworn testimony indicates the case was investigated by the F.B.I.’s Balkan and Middle Eastern organized crime squad, bolstering theories that the Zottolas may have somehow crossed an Albanian organized crime group.

For years, the Zottolas fostered close ties to the Luchese and Bonanno crime families, providing and maintaining electronic gambling machines for mob-controlled hubs in New Jersey. 
Shelton, participated in a plot to kill Sylvester and Salvatore Zottola, a father and son who were reputed to be associates of the Bonanno crime family…

John Gotti "blasted his way into the mob -- he came the tough guy way in," as former Gambino capo Michael (Mikie Scars) DiLeonardo once told us.



John Gotti orchestrated the December 1985 murder of Paul Castellano. When and why did he make the determination to embark on that path? The primary reason of course was the  threat posed by Gambino boss Paul Castellano after Angelo Ruggiero, Gene Gotti, and John Carneglia, among others, were indicted for drug trafficking.

But the timeline runs even farther back.

In fact, the development that set John Gotti on his path to power also led to Gene Gotti and John Carneglia going to prison for 29 years. It was a mysterious plane crash off the Georgia coast. That triggered a series of events that culminated with Gotti's reign as boss of the Gambino crime family.






May 6, 1982, was a clear and sunny day, with little turbulence. At about 10 am that morning, a Learjet departed New Jersey’s Teterboro airport for Florida’s Orlando Internation…

UPDATED SATURDAY MORNING 
A reputed associate of the Bonanno crime family — whose son was shot multiple times in an attempted hit this past July — was shot and killed today (October 4) at around 4:45 p.m. at a McDonald’s drive thru in the Bronx.



Sylvester Zottola, 71, a Bonanno crime family associate, was shot in the head, chest, and shoulder while waiting in his SUV for a cup of coffee at the drive-through window.

In what one law enforcement official described as a "Mafia-style assassination," Zottola was shot once in the head and four times in the torso.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

A “massive” police investigation has commenced. The McDonald’s parking lot has crime scene tape across it, and dozens of law enforcement investigators and other personnel were seen there.

The still-at-large suspect reportedly walked up on the victim while he was ordering food. The suspect fired multiple shots into the driver while positioned at the passenger window, then fled the scene. …

The most amazing thing about FBI Special Agent Michael R. McGowan (retired) is not that he is the first -- and so far only -- undercover FBI agent to infiltrate three crime families.


Nor that he has infiltrated Russian crime groups, Mexican drug cartels, and outlaw motorcycle clubs, nor gone undercover to nab criminals of a multitude of stripes, from contract murderers to corrupt politicians.

It's not even that he won recognition from the highest levels of the FBI and the Department of Justice for completing some of the most daring and deadly assignments in recent memory.
What bedazzles us most of all about Mike McGowan is that he did all those things while sporting the same gigantic walrus mustache he sports even now (see it, up above?).
"That was a little flipoff to the bad guys," he told us recently in a telephone interview.



Both the mustache and its owner have been prominently mentioned in recordings of discussions among some of  Mike's old pals, all of whom occu…

Former New England mob boss Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme, 85, has appealed his conviction and life sentence for the 1993 murder of Steven DiSarro, a South Boston nightclub owner.



Salemme's attorney filed the appeal Wednesday

He and co-defendant Paul Weadick, 63, were both convicted in Boston federal court in June. Weadick also is appealing.
DiSarro, a 43-year-old father of five, was killed to prevent him from cooperating with federal authorities. His remains were unearthed behind a Providence mill building in 2016.
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston will hear the appeal.
Salemme was in the Federal Witness Protection Program when DiSarro’s remains were discovered, leading to Salemme's arrest.
At the sentencing hearing, DiSarro’s son, Michael, told Salemme about irony. “(Y)ou killed our father for thinking he was going to rat and become a snitch. When actually, Mr. Salemme, you ended up being the snitch...

“You are a coward and a murderer... "

Judge…