ID: 'So Successful … It’s Criminal'

By Ed Scarpo
Investigation Discovery launches eight new true-crime series and renews 23 for the 2011-12 season, including "Nothing Personal," about murders caused by hitmen. Detail available here, on TV by the Numbers.

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Feds Busted “Entire” Colombo Family Administration, Including Heir Apparent Skinny Teddy

By Ed Scarpo
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UPDATED With the arrests on Tuesday (September 14) of 10 members and associates of the Colombo family for various offenses related to an alleged 20-year effort to loot a Queens-based labor union, the Feds completely beheaded the Colombo crime family, imprisoning the family's official boss, underboss, consiglieri, and a bevy of top capos, one of which is Carmine Persico's nephew/handpicked successor. Andy (Mush) Russo  The 19-count indictment unsealed in Brooklyn Federal court charges a total of 14 defendants, including the 10 members and associates of the Colombo family, and one member of the Bonanno family with various offenses, including labor racketeering, extortion, and money laundering conspiracy. ( A few guys had a good thing going for many years — until 2019, when the bosses moved in and fcked it all up -- eventually bringing in the Feds somehow …) The charges relate to multiple schemes in a long-running effort by the family to infiltrate and control a Queens-based labo
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The Real Sopranos: New Book Details Probe Into DeCavalcante Capo Charlie (The Hat) Stango, Others

By Ed Scarpo
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FINAL Just in time for the upcoming debut of the Many Saints of Newark, the theatrical prequel to the Sopranos television series, comes a new book about New Jersey’s only homegrown Mafia family, the DeCavalcantes, which many (including some DeCavalcante wiseguys) believe inspired David Chase’s acclaimed HBO series. Charlie the Hat Stango and son "Whitey." Giovanni’s Ring: My Life Inside the Real Sopranos w as written by Giovanni Rocco (the name is a pseudonym) and Douglas Schofield, a criminal trial lawyer and author. The G-man worked undercover as Giovanni Gatto, a pinky ring-wearing outlaw biker-turned-wannabe wiseguy who cozied up to an assortment of unsavory underworld characters during his three-year infiltration of the New Jersey crime family. During the probe, he made extensive surveillance recordings, including catching on tape a capo ordering the murder of a rival.  By the end of it, 10 mobsters and associates were pinched for multiple crimes in 2015. The key target
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Hoodwinked: Restaurateur on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Was a Mobster

By Ed Scarpo
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Peter (Peter Pasta) Pellegrino, formerly of the Babylon, New York restaurant Peter’s Italian Restaurant, really is -- or was -- a gangster. Gordon gives a pep talk. Peter is ready for action..... The once-promising Bonanno crime family member who appeared in Kitchen Nightmares now calls himself a brokester . And the Bonanno crime family, with which he was once affiliated has disowned him. So has the rest of New York's Cosa Nostra, according to FBI documents and Peter Pasta himself. But before all that he appeared on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares in which he acted very much like the mobster he allegedly was trying to become around the time of filming. (See Peter's Italian Restaurant menu here .) Back then Peter Pasta was an up-and-coming Bonanno associate who "earned" $15 grand a week from bookmaking. At the time, he also owned two boats that he'd park in a pricey nearby Babylon harbor called Great South Bay. Gang Land News's Je
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Update On Arraignments Of Busted Colombo Wiseguys

By Ed Scarpo
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The grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday charged 14 defendants — including “the entire leadership structure of the Colombo crime family” — with multiple crimes around a scheme that involved the Colombo family's monthly siphoning of around $10,000 from a labor union’s health plan. Bonanno wiseguy John Ragano during previous roundup Charged in the case ( see story here detailing specifics of Tuesday's indictment ) were Colombo street boss Andrew (Mush) Russo, underboss Benjamin (Benji) Castellazzo, consigliere Ralph DiMatteo; captains Theodore Persico, Jr., Richard Ferrara, and Vincent Ricciardo; soldier Michael Uvino and associates Thomas Costa and Domenick Ricciardo. Bonanno family soldier John Ragano also is charged in the case. As for the arraignments Tuesday afternoon ( via Law & Crime ): Costa and Uvino appeared in Federal court with their attorneys and pleaded not guilty. Russo appeared via videoconference from a hospital while under Federal guard. (What was wrong wi
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