New England mob associate sentenced in strip club shakedown

By Ed Scarpo
Boston.com reports: "A New England mob associate was sentenced on Monday to 2 1/2 years in prison for his role in the shakedown of Providence-area strip clubs where he worked as a bookkeeper."

Thomas Iafrate, 70, of Johnston, is the first defendant to be punished in the case, which authorities say involves several mafia figures and generated at least $2 million in ill-gotten gains.

Iafrate pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and admitted to being a mob associate in July. He must report to federal prison on Jan. 3, federal prosecutors said.

Iafrate's punishment was imposed the same day a federal judge denied bail for a second time for alleged ex-New England mob boss Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, 84."

Read complete article: NE mob associate sentenced in RI - Boston.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular This Week

Who Killed Phil Coffee Cups? Or Why Organized Crime Is So Damned Difficult

By Ed Scarpo
Image
A body is found floating in a body bag on the Hackensack river, five bullets in the cabeza. It’s Luchese acting capo Phil Coffee Cups from Bayside Queens. From the probe that follows, the FBI believes the hit was orchestrated by someone in another family in north Jersey. Gang Land News gets the scoop and writes up an exclusive, and the FBI view slips into the newspapers, some of which highlight it in stories. But two years later, a detective with the NYPD says the hit came from within the same family because the boss had a grudge over something (the detective knows not what the grudge was over). Around the same time, an ex-acting capo in California publishes a memoir that says it was the Gambino family, based on what he heard when, while still an active wiseguy, he visited New York City around the time of the hit. For the next five years, the different theories have been floating around in the press. Some reports focus on the FBI theory, some on the NYPD theory, some on what the guy in
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. 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
Read more

The Real Reason We Publish Transcripts (Historically Speaking)

By Ed Scarpo
Image
We published this last night, then had second thoughts and yanked it. Do our readers care about The Truth enough to read a lengthy excerpt on something that is not Cosa Nostra related? After we thought about it a little more, we figured, what the hell, so we republish it.  For years we belonged to the "never explain" school of blogging. Show them, don't tell them, we thought. Only recently did we realize the shortcomings of that philosophy. Nature abhors a vacuum. Sometimes unanswered questions can create an air of mystery where it doesn't necessarily exist. Something we have always wondered about: What is he thinking. We also can't forget the other side of the coin: explaining yourself has the potential of making you look like a moron lacking in self awareness who insults the intelligence of his readers and that is the last thing we want to do. We walk a very fine line with this story. We published the Ravenite transcripts and then Sammy the Bull Gravano's co
Read more

Mass Media: WSJ Repackages Colombo Bust

By Ed Scarpo
Image
Mismanagement, dingbat recruits, and poorly conceived succession plans are among the challenges facing the American mob in late 2021. Reputed Colombo boss Andrew (Mush) Russo.   That's according to a recent WSJ report  (the site requires a subscription, however, which is why we give a shoutout [and owe a beer to] this guy ).  The following is our take on the gist of that story.... The report uses last month’s widely reported Colombo busts to offer a largely superficial glimpse into the New York mob. Informing the article is input from sources including former FBI agents, an anonymous former Colombo wiseguy, former government researchers (lots of formers, which is part of the problem with this story) as well as—this being the WSJ—a crisis management consultant (who also was a former FBI agent) and a professor emeritus. The WSJ references the (supremely disappointing) Many Saints of Newark, though the connection to the Sopranos prequal was enough of a stretch that we comfortably igno
Read more