Cosa Nostra News

The following, which is admittedly sketchy in terms of detail (it is based on a quick encounter between wiseguys and goodguys in a parking lot at night), was cut from our series on Carmine Galante, which we're still finishing up. (After we publish the last remaining installment, we plan to republish the entire story as one single piece.) The Eternal Dance A t 9:30 in the evening of Tuesday, June 5, 1979, some five weeks before the murder of Carmine Galante, two undercover police officers in an unmarked Plymouth Valiant drove into the parking lot of the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream on Long Island. Green Acres Mall parking lot circa 1980 The purpose of the visit was to surveil one of Green Acres' restaurants, which was suspected of being a source of significant drug-dealing activity. The place also was known to belong to Bonanno wiseguy Gerlando (George from Canada) Sciascia, a made member of the Bonanno crime family and also a top member of the Sicilian faction. Sciascia, w

Thanks to an ongoing "megadrought" in that part of the USA, the skeleton found a week ago in a metal storage container along the receding shoreline of Lake Mead— the reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States about 40 miles east of Las Vegas—is the remains of a victim of what appears to have been a mob hit, according to Las Vegas police. The remains belong to the victim of a gunshot wound several decades back. Source: Daily Mail The man (though some reports claim the sex has not been identified yet) died from a gunshot wound sometime in the mid-1970s or early 80s. The timeframe for the murder apparently is based on the sneakers found on the skeleton, which were sold and manufactured by Kmart in the mid to late '70s. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police released a statement confirming previous comments that the death of the man in the barrel is being investigated as a homicide "We're going to expand our time frame of the mu

At about 12:45 p.m. on the stifling hot and humid afternoon of Thursday, July 12, 1979, Carmine Galante, 69, was driven by his nephew James to the Joe and Mary Italian-American Restaurant in Brooklyn’s Bushwick section. That part of Brooklyn was a fading Bonanno stronghold . Galante often visited the restaurant, which was owned by his cousin, Giuseppe Turano, 48. Turano had tickets for a Saturday flight to Italy to meet his family on vacation. Galante went to the restaurant that day to have a “bon voyage” luncheon with him. The two men liked to eat in the open air , so a table had been set up on the restaurant’s back patio amid grape vines and tomato plants, which lent a modest pastoral setting to that small patch of Brooklyn. The nondescript restaurant, which consisted of two interior dining rooms , had seen better days. Dingy yellow curtains hung from the windows, lemon-colored oilcloths were draped over the tables. A Frank Sinatra album cover was propped on the front counter. Ins

Four members and two associates of the Genovese crime family, including a Boca Raton, Florida-based capo, were recently named in one of the vaguest indictments we've ever laid eyes upon. Reputed Genovese capo Ralph Balsamo was among the indicted.  The Superseding Indictment charges reputed capos Nicholas Calisi (who is in Boca Raton) and Ralph Balsamo, soldiers Michael Messina and John Campanella, and associates Michael Poli and Thomas Poli with racketeering conspiracy involving illegal gambling and extortion. The crimes were allegedly committed between 2011 and 2022. Everyone faces up to 20 years in prison. Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Letitia James, New York State Attorney General, and Eric Gonzalez, Brooklyn District Attorney, announced the unsealing of the Superseding Indictment containing the charges. See the indictment here (PDF). MESSINA was arrested and presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang on April 12, 2022

David (Chicky) Cecchetelli, 54—reputedly a retired bookmaker associated with the Genovese family’s Springfield crew—was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Patti B. Saris to time served (approximately 62 days in prison) and one year of supervised release to be served in home confinement with electronic monitoring. David (Chicky) Cecchetelli The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts  announced  the sentencing yesterday. In December 2021, Cecchetelli pleaded guilty to one count of being a felon in possession of ammunition. During a search of Cecchetelli’s residence on Dec. 5, 2019, law enforcement found a gun and ammunition in Cecchetelli’s bedroom. The ammunition was concealed under his mattress. Cecchetelli is a known associate of the Genovese LCN in Springfield and was previously convicted of bookmaking with the underboss of the Springfield LCN in 2005. Due to his prior conviction, Cecchetelli is prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition. United States

UPDATED : The U.S. Marshals Service apprehended Dominic Taddeo, 64, after he failed to return from a previously authorized medical appointment on March 28; the Florida Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force nabbed him around 11:00 a.m. on April 4 in Hialeah. Dominic Taddeo  As per a media release , Taddeo was transferred in February from a medium-security prison in Sumter County, Florida, to the halfway house and was scheduled to be there until his release in February 2023. From 1990 to 1992 Taddeo was convicted of federal racketeering charges and pleaded guilty to multiple other cases involving weapons offenses, drugs, and enterprise corruption among other offenses which included the killing of three men on behalf of the La Cosa Nostra, a Rochester-area crime family. Taddeo’s arrest is the result of a combined effort by the USMS Middle District of Florida, the Southern District of Florida, and the Florida Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force, checking multiple locations of interest