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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Ex-Genovese Bookmaker Chicky Cecchetelli Maintains "Boundless" Optimism In Face Of Pending Federal Sentencing

By Ed Scarpo
After years of eking a living on the streets around Springfield, Mass. via the illicit book-making business, David (Chicky) Cecchetelli has embarked upon a LEGITIMATE career (in film), but faces a significant obstacle: On an upcoming date, he will stand before a judge to be sentenced for a charge he caught following a December 2019 arrest.  Chicky, right, and Damian, Mt Carmel Italian Social Club. (Source: Twitter ) That pinch was as unlikely as they come. It was part of  Operation Throne Down, an FBI-DEA operation that targeted the Latin Kings  street gang organization. It had nothing to do with ex-mob guys—Chick was simply wrong-place-wrong-time tertiary damage. Cecchetelli was caught up in the massive sting by virtue of the fact that his nephew (slash roommate) Michael Cecchetelli was an East Coast leader of the street gang and consequently, was the Feds' key focus. Law enforcement hit the apartment the two shared expressly to carry out an arrest warrant for Michael, aka King Me
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Genovese Family Associate Johnny Pizza Porcello Charged With Illegal Gambling, Loan Sharking

By Ed Scarpo
Reputed Genovese crime family associate John (Johnny Pizza) Porcello, who the pizza trade press once described as a "tough-sounding, but actually-nice-guy," was indicted this week in Brooklyn Federal court for running an illegal sports betting ring and overseeing a loan sharking racket. Photo of Mafia Takedown Day bust in January 2011. Porcello and codefendant Ronald Seebeck, 56, both of Westchester County, allegedly together profited from a loansharking operation that ran from September 2016 through August 2021, as per Federal prosecutors. The duo also ran a sports gambling ring from 2020 through 2021 that produced more than $2,000 in daily profits. (We're basing this on a  New York Post report  by Ben Feuerherd.) Porcello of Yonkers and Seebeck of Tuckahoe both pleaded not guilty at their arraignments in Brooklyn Federal court and were released on bond, a US Attorney’s Office spokesperson said. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison on the loan sharking charge
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Hoodwinked: Restaurateur on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Was a Mobster

By Ed Scarpo
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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Who Fat Andy Loved; John Gotti's Other Side: Anthony Ruggiano Junior, Part FOUR

By Ed Scarpo
In the 1960s and 1970s, Anthony (Fat Andy) Ruggiano had one of the biggest crews in the Gambino family, and he wanted to keep it that way. Fat Andy, Fritzy Giovanelli, sitting Lenny DiMaria, far right in gray Sonny Franzese He had had around 70-75 guys in his crew, and out of all of them, Andy wanted to straighten out only one, Nicky Corozzo. Fat Andy "didn’t want to make anybody his equal at one point," said Anthony Junior. "He had a big crew with him and he liked it that way. He wound up being right." Andy and Anthony (Tony Lee) Guerrieri even got into an argument over Fat Andy's reluctance to make any of his guys. Tony Lee had wanted to put Anthony (Tony Pep) Trentacosta up to be straightened out with Nicky. Fat Andy prevailed, however, and they both decided that only Nicky would get made. Once Andy proposed Nicky, Nicky went out of his way to express his gratitude to Ruggiano. "After my father proposed Nicky, Nicky went to my father&#
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