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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Was Bronx Shooting Retaliation for Sally Daz's Dad, a Luchese Associate?

By Ed Scarpo
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UPDATED
The Salvatore (Sally Daz) Zottola shooting may actually be the second attempted gangland hit caught on tape; the first, in March 1993, was the attempted murder of Joey Chang, then-34, early one morning in the coffee shop he owned, the Warfield Breakfast & Luncheon Express, in Philadelphia.
The FBI had mounted a surveillance camera on the telephone pole across from the diner. Chang was shot during the Merlino-Stanfa war. Joey Chang was seriously wounded but he too survived, though partially paralyzed and with nerve damage that caused him to retire from Cosa Nostra.

NYPD officials have labeled the July 11 attempted murder of Salvatore (Sally Daz) Zottola as a botched gangland hit. He was shot around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday morning in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx.
In a surveillance clip, below, a red Nissan can be seen driving past Zottola's vehicle and pulling to a hault. Zottola was on the driver's side of the car, not facing the video, and was either besidethe ca…
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Howard Beach Bonanno Mobster, Newspaper Publisher Sought to Threaten Sex Assault Victim

By Ed Scarpo
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Robert Pisani, an associate in acting capo Ronald Giallanzo's Bonanno crime family crew, was among a group of 10 reputed Bonanno crime family members accused of participating in various crimes over the past two decades ranging from racketeering to loan sharking and attempted murder.




Pisani's rap sheet stretched back to 1992 and included assault, insurance fraud, criminal possession of a weapon and harassment charges.

Leading the March indictment was Howard Beach’s Giallanzo, 46, who allegedly oversaw a criminal enterprise that netted $26 million in earnings since 1998, federal prosecutors said.

Following his March arrest, Pisani and his wife posted a $500,000 bond for his federal racketeering case and he was released. Then in May, just as he was departing the downtown Brooklyn federal courthouse after a hearing related to the racketeering case, Pisani was re-arrested by a plainclothes sex crimes detective.





According to the criminal complaint, Pisani allegedly groped a female…
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How the Mafia Helped the Allies Win WWII

By Ed Scarpo
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REVISED
Working on my story about Larry Mazza, whom I recently interviewed about his dramatic, violent years with Colombo capo/FBI snitch Gregory Scarpa. However, considering that this July marks the 75th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Sicily, aka Operation Husky, I thought this appropriate.

American troops advancing to Messina, 1943.

The summer 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily was an unmitigated success, what historians term as one of World War II's major turning points.



After defeating Italy and Germany in the North African Campaign (November 8, 1942-May 13, 1943) of World War II (1939-45), the United States and Great Britain, the two leading Allied powers, decided to liberate Italy, to accomplish the vital goals of removing Benito Mussolini's fascist regime, securing the central Mediterranean, and destroying the Axis bulkhead and driving the remaining Italian and German forces to either surrender or retreat.

The Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943. After 38 days of figh…
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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.

The once-promising Bonanno member who appeared after the Kitchen Nightmares episode aired, 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 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 Jerry Capeci broke the news, reporting:

Today, like the battered and bruised…
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Bonanno Mobster Shot Multiple Times in the Bronx in Attempted Gangland Hit

By Ed Scarpo
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UPDATED, EXPANDED
Someone tried to whack a longtime Bronx-based Bonanno crime family associate early this morning.


Salvatore (Sally Daz) Zottola walked out of his Bronx home and into a hail of bullets at 6:40 a.m. this morning.

The shooter had pulled up in a dark-colored Nissan sedan and opened fire as Sally Daz walked to his car, shooting him multiple times – including once to the head and three times in his torso.




The gunman then leaped back into a waiting vehicle and sped away.

So far there have been no arrests.

Zottola remains heavily sedated at Jacobi Medical Center, but conveyed to law enforcement that he has no plans to help with the investigation.

It’s believed that Zottola knew his attacker however.

After Sally Daz yesterday, the most recent gangland hit was the 2013 Michael Meldish murder, also in the Bronx. That execution, allegedly sanctioned by the Luchese crime family, may have been in response to Meldish's attempted effort to whack a Bonanno mobster. There's pro…
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South Brooklyn Bust: Five Mobsters Nailed for Racketeering, Loansharking, Illegal Gambling

By Ed Scarpo
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A 32-count indictment was unsealed on July 11 in Brooklyn federal court charging five mobsters from two crime families.


Two members and two associates of the Colombo crime family were charged with racketeering, including predicate acts of extortion, extortionate collection, money laundering and illegal gambling.

 The indictment also charges one member of the Gambino crime family with extortionate collection and a related conspiracy. 
 The indictment relates to the defendants’ alleged criminal activities in Brooklyn, Staten Island and elsewhere between December 2010 and June 2018.

The defendants—Jerry Ciauri, also known as “Fat Jerry,” a member of the Colombo family, Vito Difalco, also known as “Victor” and “The Mask,” a member of the Colombo family, Salvatore Disano, also known as “Sal Heaven,” an associate of the Colombo family, Anthony Licata, also known as “Anthony Suits,” a member of the Gambino family, and Joseph Maratea, an associate of the Colombo family—were arrested today an…
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East Coast LCN Enterprise Capo in Genovese Crime Family Sentenced

By Ed Scarpo
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On Thursday ( July 19), in Manhattan Federal Court, alleged Genovese capo Eugene (Rooster) Onofrio, 76, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for loan sharking.



The loansharking was an attempt--- a not very bright one, at that ---to relive his glory days, his lawyer sought to argue Thursday.

Onofrio was arrested in 2016, one of the 46 alleged members of the Genovese, Gambino, Luchese, Bonanno, and Philadelphia crime families indicted for operating a so-called "East Coast LCN Enterprise," as the Fed's named it.

Onofrio also pleaded guilty to hustling untaxed cigarettes.



Onofrio was caught in a 2014 secretly recorded conversation discussing how to collect an interest payment of $600 on a $30,000 loan.

“What do I got to do with him?” Onofrio, of East Haven, Conn., asked. "Do you have to take his eyes out?

But hey, those threats were all talk, Onofrio’s attorney, Thomas Nooter, argued at the sentencing, noting that his client was merely seeking to boost his street cred. …
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