One-time War Hero Turned Mob Enforcer Faces Life in Prison

By Ed Scarpo
Sam Volpendesto was once a war hero, but now, age 87, he faces the possibility of spending his final years behind bars, reports the BostonHerald.com.

At Volpendesto's upcoming sentencing for the 2003 bombing of a Chicago-area video poker company, prosecutors painted him as an Outfit enforcer with a reputation for wielding baseball bats and an interest in watching another mobster stuff body parts through a meat grinder.

"His defense attorneys, however, hope to turn back the clock to World War II, when Volpendesto won a Bronze Star for helping to save fellow sailors trapped inside a crippled destroyer," reports BostonHerald.com.

Read complete article: War hero turned mob thug faces ’life sentence’ - BostonHerald.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Stories

Meeting Gotti Gunslinger Joe Watts At Raos And Other Excerpts From Last Of The Gladiators

By Ed Scarpo
Image
In 1989, Gambino boss John Gotti put out feelers to trial lawyer James LaRossa, who Gotti wanted to hire to represent him as co-counsel for an anticipated prosecution for the 1985 Paul Castellano murder.

We mentioned this in a recent post about James LaRossa — the accomplished trial lawyer who died in 2014 at the age of 82 — who is now the topic of a biography written by his son, James. Last of the Gladiators, A Son’s Memoir is available now.

As we were noting, as per federal investigators, Gotti’s invitation included the proviso that if LaRossa were to decline, the noted attorney would find himself pushing up daisies a lot sooner than he would’ve thought possible.

When asked about the alleged threat, LaRossa wasted no time in declaring it a joke, and nothing more.
Prosecutors gave him a healthy out, in any event. They told LaRossa that he might be called as a witness because of his association with Castellano, who LaRossa represented at the time of his murder in front of Sparks.
The…
Read more

State Supreme Court Refuses To Block New Trial For Gambino Wiseguy For 2001 Murder Of Miami Subs Founder

By Ed Scarpo
Image
Because the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hear a state appeal, alleged Gambino wiseguy Anthony (Big Tony) Moscatiello will get a new trial for the 2001 murder of the Miami Subs restaurant chain founder.



The Attorney General’s Office last year took the case to the Supreme Court after the 4th District Court of Appeal overturned Moscatiello's murder conviction for allegedly participating in a plot to kill Gus Boulis in Broward County.

The Supreme Court failed to detail its reasons for declining to hear the case, which is common, as per reports.

As reported in September 2018, Florida's 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that Moscatiello and co-defendant Anthony (Little Tony) Ferrari should get new trials — they were both serving life sentences.





Moscatiello and Ferrari initially faced the death penalty for the 2001 whacking of Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis, the founder of Miami Subs.

A third co-defendant, James “Pudgy” Fiorillo, also faced execution, but flipped, pleaded…
Read more

Italian Mob War Underway; Scampia's Reviled Towers; Singing Mafia Sympathizers

By Ed Scarpo
Image
Two grisly hits in as many days have prompted Naples law enforcement to announce that a mob war may be in progress.


Specifically, Italian police say that the Camorra has broken out into an internal shooting war, likely for control of the drug trade in the residential area near the notorious Scampia towers, known locally as "Le Vele," or “the sails,” those unusually shaped concrete buildings on the outskirts of Naples that Gomorrah fans will be familiar with. (More about the towers below.) 





Police and anti-mafia investigators (DDA) discovered the body of Domenico Gargiulo, a well-known member of the Camorra, in the trunk of a stolen Ford that was abandoned in the town of Scampia. He was wrapped in a sheet with a towel around his head to soak up the blood from the bullet hole in the back of his neck.
One day prior, another local mobster, Giuseppe Sorrentino, was gunned down in his car by a shooter driving alongside him on a moped, also  near Scampia.
Police said Sorrentino wa…
Read more

Alleged Philadelphia Wiseguy Phil Narducci Is Sentenced And Could Be Free Next Spring

By Ed Scarpo
Image
“He’s a killer, you ... idiot. He’s killed eight ... people.”

Reputed Philadelphia wiseguy Philip Narducci, 57, was sentenced to one year in prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to extortion.



Narducci has already served four months of the sentence after asking to be taken into custody during a court hearing in May. He could be free next spring, with early release for good behavior.

Defense attorney Brian McMonagle said his client is eager to return to his restaurant Chick's — named after his father, purported mob captain Frank "Chickie" Narducci Sr.

A 15-count indictment unsealed in January  charged Narducci and an associate, James Gallo, with various crimes involving extortionate loans, conspiracy, and collections of loans by extortionate means.

Narducci, the son of a mobster gunned down in 1981 while on trial, was convicted on racketeering charges in the late 1980s and spent more than 20 years in prison.

He was released in 2012 and five years later opened Chick’s re…
Read more

Epix TV Series Godfather Of Harlem, With Chin Gigante Character, Debuts This Month

By Ed Scarpo
Image
Vincent D’Onofrio plays onetime Genovese boss Vincent (The Chin) Gigante in the Epix cable series Godfather of Harlem, which debuts this month and has been billed as a prequel to Ridley Scott's 2007 film American Gangster, which highlighted the story of 1970s Harlem drug dealer Frank Lucas.



Godfather of Harlem, which takes major liberties with Mafia history, premieres on September 29 and tells the "true" story of drug lord Bumpy Johnson (played by Forest Whitaker), who in the early 1960s returned from prison to find his old neighborhood fiefdom under the thumb of the Italian Mafia, specifically, the Genovese family, whom Bumpy takes on to regain control.

He allies with radical preacher Malcolm X, “catching his political rise in the cross-hairs of social upheaval and a mob war that threatens to tear the city apart.”



The show's larger theme is the juxtaposition of the underworld against the civil rights movement during one of the most tumultuous times in American histo…
Read more

Hoodwinked: Restaurateur on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Was a Mobster

By Ed Scarpo
Image
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…
Read more

Bonanno Associate Faces 40 Years For Selling $40,000 Worth Of Cocaine

By Ed Scarpo
Image
EXPANDED
Bonanno family associate Salvatore Russo, 46, copped a plea Thursday for using a Manhattan gelato shop to sell narcotics—and faces up to 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine.




He plead guilty to distributing more than 500 grams—about $40,000 worth—of coke.

Under terms of his deal with Brooklyn federal prosecutors, he will serve a mandatory minimum sentence of five years, which he can appeal if he gets slapped with more time.

“He’s accepted his responsibility and hopes for the best,” defense lawyer Joseph Conway said outside court.

The beefy wiseguy is reportedly a naturalized US citizen who speaks with a Sicilian accent

He remains free on $500,000 bond pending his unscheduled sentencing.



He was busted last year in a coordinated, cross-border crackdown on mobsters operating in both the US and Canada.

He was indicted with reputed acting Bonanno captain Damiano Zummo, who was caught participating in a 2015 Mafia induction ceremony in Canada that was secretly recorded.

Also …
Read more

Archive

Show more