Lesson in Mob Jargon at Basciano Murder Trial

By Ed Scarpo
Newspapers are doing anything to find a new angle on the already-tired story about Joe Massino, former Bonanno chief, ratting his former friend Vinny Gorgeous all the way to the lethal needle. I already did a post about "brokesters," and I am pretty sure everyone knows what "clipped" means, but here it is, courtesy of the New York Times: Lesson in Mob Jargon at a Mafia Murder Trial.

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The Charley Wagons Days: Anthony Ruggiano Interview, Part One

By Ed Scarpo
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Anthony Ruggiano Jr. "was on the verge of becoming a soldier" in the Gambino family, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian McCormick.

Who’s the toughest guy you know? Well, we know a few tough guys...

Relax. This isn’t going where you think...

Anthony Ruggiano was a Gambino family associate for many years. Too many, he'd tell you. He was supposed to get his button—then he was supposed to get it again, and then again. Was it Life that kept getting in the way? Fate? We wonder how best to describe it. Of course we could just say, the law certainly kept getting in the way. It kept arresting him. The State, the Feds, Kings and Queens County, they all nabbed him for things like policy and bookmaking (and murder). Just one of the daily hazards faced by guys who get out of bed in the morning, put their shoes on, and go out to rob people….

Anthony had been told, more than once, to get his suit ready because on Saturday night, yada yada yada…. But then at the last minute, Anthony would…
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Getting Made By Anastasia In 1953: Anthony Ruggiano Jr. Interview, Part Two

By Ed Scarpo
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UPDATED
"There are two more members that are talking,"from Joe Valachi's autobiography, as quoted by journalist Jack Anderson in an article published in 1963.



Before Anthony Ruggiano (Senior, aka Fat Andy) could get made in 1953, his name had to go around to the other New York families to solicit any possible objections.

There were objections--two, actually--one of which required then-boss Albert Anastasia to win a sitdown with the Genovese family (or the then-Luciano family).

As noted, Fat Andy and partner Tony Lee met Carmine (Charley Wagons) Fatico after they robbed his card game, but Fatico decided to hire them rather than kill them.
For this, the previous story, and the rest in this series, we are using information provided to us by Anthony Ruggiano Jr.

In the next installment Anthony will address your comments...

Profaci family member John Sonny Franzese put in a claim over Fat Andy, who, Franzese argued, belonged to him. Around then Franzese (still an active mobster in …
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New Genovese Street Boss Comes From Mafia's Most Powerful Crew

By Ed Scarpo
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FINAL 2
When last identified by the Fed's, Liborio (Barney) Bellomo's street boss, Michael Ragusa, was notched as a soldier in the Genovese family's East Harlem/Bronx crew.



Some of the Genovese family's most storied and powerful wiseguys also are/were from the East Harlem/Bronx crew, and many of them were nabbed around the same time in 2001-2002 in a complex, multifaceted case involving rackets and frauds and schemings revolving around the International Longshoremen’s Association, which controlled the docks on the East Coast. The case itself was only a part of law enforcement's ongoing (for decades) efforts to wrest control of the New York-area ports the hell away from the gangsters.

Genovese Turncoats
The case saw the emergence of landmark testimony from hardcore wiseguy George Barone, who flipped. Barone was an "aging, ailing, battle-weary Hell's Kitchen gangster" who "was a powerful waterfront racketeer in the days when the mob ruled supreme on…
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EXCLUSIVE: Genovese Family Annoints Low-Profile Veteran As Street Boss

By Ed Scarpo
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COSA NOSTRA NEWSEXCLUSIVE  The Genovese family has tapped a longtime, largely unknown veteran to "service" (or assist in various capacities) the official boss of the organization, which has been described as the most powerful Mafia family in the United States.



Michael (Mickey) Ragusa, 54--a longtime confidant of boss Liborio (Barney) Bellomo, who has built an extremely low profile over the years (we found no photos of him)  -- is the Genovese family's new street boss, Cosa Nostra News has learned.

Genovese street bosses have been known to relay the boss's orders to family capos and soldiers, as well as personally divert away from the boss any incoming fire (figuratively and literally) from the likes of law enforcement, potential enemies, and the unforgiving, relentless New York City media.

Hailing from Pleasantville, Ragusa was promoted recently (though the formal appointment may have been largely ceremonial). Ragusa was already a soldier when he was nabbed along wit…
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Bonanno Boss Mikey Nose Mancuso Makes "Scary" Appearance At Luchese Murder Trial

By Ed Scarpo
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What kind of gangster poses his elderly grandma with his dope? What kind of idiot is behind the camera?-- Gang Land News






NOTE: 1.) We believe we have found a source who was close to Michael Meldish for a time and who knows all about the Meldish brothers and the Purple Gang... 2.) Anthony Ruggiano Jr. was off yesterday, and we may occasionally interrupt that ongoing series to cover other stories...

A "shocking" photograph taken by turncoat witness Anthony Zoccolillo inspired the media to return to the Michael Meldish murder trial. (And we weren’t far behind.)

Zoccolillo flipped and gave the FBI more than 4,000 photos he had snapped. He testified that there was “20 or so pounds” of marijuana in those bags. The woman in the picture is Bruno's grandmother who, according to Gang Land, wrote a letter to the sentencing judge to advocate for a lighter sentence for Bruno.

The photo was taken sometime before reputed Lucchese wiseguy Vincent Bruno was sent upriver on a 2012 case (od…
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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 a case of 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.
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