Travolta Describes How He'll Approach Gotti Role

By Ed Scarpo

John Travolta said his upcoming performance as the infamous Gambino boss will offer audiences "a movie they can’t refuse," at a press conference today in New York.

The star joined director Nick Cassavetes and Gotti’s son John “Junior” Gotti to reveal details about the film “Gotti: Three Generations.” The film, due for release in 2012, will co-star Joe Pesci as Gotti’s deputy Angelo Ruggiero, and possibly also Lindsay Lohan, who attended the press conference alongside a row of Gotti family members.

“I’m in talks to have Lindsay in the movie. Nothing has been finalized, but we are in talks,” said producer Marc Fiore.

Read story: Travolta relishes ‘untold’ mob story.

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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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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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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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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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We Don't Break Our Capos. We Kill Them

By Ed Scarpo
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Mob associate Michael (Cookie) Durso flipped against the Genovese crime family and wore a wire hidden within a $3,000 Rolex wristwatch for three years -- all the while recording thousands of hours of "privileged" conversations among high-ranking members of the Genovese crime family.

In the end he rode off into the sunset of the Witness Protection Program with wife Vanessa. Financially, the couple was not hurting, either; they were able to bring millions of dollars with them, as Gangland News reported on February 21, 2002.




Durso had been meeting with prosecutors to discuss flipping -- due to his longstanding beef over the murder of his cousin, a Genovese crime family loanshark. Durso was to meet with Mark Feldman, the head of the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Organized Crime unit, and Paul Weinstein, a chief prosecutor, for a third time on June 17, 1998.

He couldn't make that meeting, though, as he was arrested for participating in a 1996 gangland hit. But the very next da…
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