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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Bonanno “Enforcer Of Choice” Discusses Asaro Car Torching, Shootings

By Ed Scarpo
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COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE  UPDATED
Gene Borrello, a former Bonanno associate and the key witness in three recent Mafia roundups, was a major player in the arson case that helped the Feds finally nail 84-year-old Bonanno capo Vincent (Vinny) Asaro — two years after his lawyers bested them in court by winning a stunning and humiliating victory for the longtime wiseguy.


Also implicated in the arson case was John J. Gotti, a grandson of the late Gambino boss, who pleaded guilty to helping torch the car that earned Asaro’s deep animosity. (Gotti was a very capable wheelman, we've learned.).

Gotti and Asaro—in fact, all 20-plus defendants charged in that trio of 2017 indictments — copped out. Since there was no jury trial, the Feds have not publicly detailed the full extent of Borrello’s cooperation.

However, Borrello has been lifting the curtain slightly for Cosa Nostra News….
“I was doing everything” for Asaro and Ronald (Ronnie G) Giallanzo, Borrello told Cosa Nostra News.

“I did al…
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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 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 Jerry Capeci broke the news about Peter Pasta's mob status, reporting:

Today, like the…
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Sheeran's Daughter: 'My Father Killed Jimmy Hoffa'

By Ed Scarpo
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When Frank Sheeran got the order to assassinate his mentor, Jimmy Hoffa, he knew he had no choice, he allegedly once said. It was kill on command or die for disobedience.


The disappearance of Teamsters union leader Hoffa 36 years ago remains one of America's most enduring mysteries. To this day, no one knows where his body ended up or what was done to it.

And if not for Sheeran's Catholic guilt at the end of his life and a tenacious former prosecutor turned crime writer, the story of how Hoffa died would never have been known either. So posits I Heard You Paint Houses, a true-crime memoir about Sheeran, aka The Irishman.
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro are set to bring Sheeran's extraordinary life to the big screen.

The Irishman initially was also to cover Sheeran's alleged role in the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy.

For Sheeran's daughter Dolores Miller, 55, the interest in her father is bittersweet. "I suspected my father was behind Jimm…
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You Ain't Gonna Get Me, Sucka: Former Genovese Turncoat Pens An Open Letter To His Old Pals

By Ed Scarpo
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REVISED
What do wiseguys chat about in their "off" hours, when they're unwinding over a scotch and rocks, say, at a tony Upper East Side steakhouse? They talk about killing rats, of course.



Apparently, some Genovese wiseguys recently did just that: They met and discussed the new name/whereabouts of Genovese family turncoat Michael (Cookie) D’Urso, 49, spurring him on to actually write an open letter to his former colleagues to warn them not to take revenge.

In the letter, D'Urso seems to describe how he obtained the news about a potential hit, though this may be misdirection: "You’d be surprised to find out how many confidential informants there are in your circle, who would love to tell the feds they heard about a murder plot to kill me." 

 The letter appeared in The New York Post with an introduction written by Jerry Capeci of GangLand News.
D’Urso flipped against the Genovese crime family and wore a wire hidden within a $3,000 Rolex wristwatch for three ye…
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When Boss, Pete Gotti Never Showed Much Compassion, Some Say (Part 6)

By Ed Scarpo
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Pete Gotti is at death’s door, lawyers for the man who is or was official boss of the Gambino family continue to say.


“We are truly afraid he is dying now, he feels he is,” James Craven wrote in court papers. “As his lawyer, I am afraid this will all become moot soon if nothing is done.”

Pete  also "is increasingly difficult to understand on the phone. His voice is weak, labored, and very faint.”

Gotti is locked up at Butner Federal Medical Center in North Carolina. His lawyers initially filed for compassionate release in June (the filing is reproduced in its entirety at the bottom of this story), and when they did, they posed several arguments for his release: He suffers from more than a dozen medical ailments, including cardiovascular disease and a likely cancerous growth in at least one lung; he's rehabilitated and sorry; and his continued incarceration is financially irresponsible.



The release also explains that “Peter Gotti has a loving home to go to, too, with his daug…
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Lee D'Avanzo Busted In "One of New Jersey’s Largest" THC/Marijuana Edible Seizures

By Ed Scarpo
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Not long after he and his mob wife were busted at their home on Staten Island on drug and gun charges, Lee D'Avanzo, 52, was busted in New Jersey on charges of conspiracy to possess marijuana and possession.





This apparently was the case for which the NYPD raided the couples' home on Staten Island earlier this month.

A yearlong investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Narcotics and Criminal Enterprise Unit targeting a large-scale marijuana and THC distribution network operating throughout Monmouth, Ocean, and Bergen counties as well as parts of New York resulted in charges being filed against 24 men and women.

One California man remains at-large and is considered a fugitive from justice, announced Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni.

The investigation, dubbed Operation On The Ropes uncovered a scheme to secretly convert legitimate candies, including the popular Nerds Rope and Sour Patch candy brands, to an illegal THC-infused product. THC, or t…
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Former Enforcer Rails Against The Bonannos

By Ed Scarpo
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COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE Back in the early 1990s, one of longtime Bonanno wiseguy Vinny Asaro's daughters was assaulted.


Donna Cavalcante cracked her over the head with a rock glass in Butterfingers on Crossbay Boulevard after they got into an argument. Donna, at the time, was dating a member of Charles Carneglia's crew. Charlie is the heavy hitter with the Gambino family now serving life.

Vinny Asaro sent his son Jerry to kill Donna, and he almost did, shooting her four times after catching her across the street from Butterfingers at the Shell Bank.

Donna had fled into the ladies room and was shot through the door in the leg and in the ass.

She went to the hospital -- but refused to identify who put the bullets in her.

Then two weeks later, while she was at a payphone -- Vinny Asaro suddenly tapped her on the shoulder. She turned to look at him and he told here, "See how easy it's gonna be?"

Carneglia then stepped in and squashed the feud.... Donna was a femal…
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