Cosa Nostra News

From  All About The Real Housewives : (Don't know how we missed this; from April 25, 2013) Earlier today Mob Wives star Karen Gravano claimed Carla Facciolo threatened VH1 saying, “I think Love wasn’t invited because Carla pretty much spoke to VH1 about not showing up if Love was invited. Carla’s threatening to sue and VH1 wanted to avoid any lawsuits.” Carla is now responding to those claims denying she threatened VH1 and revealing VH1 said no one is allowed to get physical this season! Carla tells AllAboutTRH EXCLUSIVELY, “First of all my lawyer spoke with VH1 and would never threaten them! Thats her first lie! Second it was in our contracts that there were to be no physical contact or u would be fired! That was all decided by VH1 after Karen & Ramona jumped Drita! So Love got herself fired from the show.” Carla continues, “If Love was going to attend the reunion no I didnt want to be part of it but it wasn’t my decision it was VH1. I wish I had that kind of power to

Edgar Allan Poe wrote that the death of a beautiful woman is one of the greatest tragedies in all the dramatic arts. ( With thanks to my competitor , for making me aware of this story: Thanks, man. ) From the NY Daily News : The 26-year-old girlfriend of a prominent criminal defense attorney was discovered dead Saturday in his Philadelphia home. The victim — identified as Julia Law — was found naked and face down in the bathtub inside of lawyer A. Charles Peruto Jr.’s Center City condo, reported CBS affiliate KYW-TV . Sources said Peruto, 58, was in Avalon on the Jersey Shore when Law's body was found around 10 a.m. Peruto and the beautiful brunette were dating, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer . "Julia was a beautiful, caring free spirit hippy, who I was blessed to have known. Words can't express how sad I am to finally have met someone who I believed truly loved me," Peruto later said in a text message to the newspaper. He also posted to

There is reason to think Vito Rizzuto is under fire on more than one front -- not counting whatever is left of his war up  in Montreal (and Sicily ). There's gotta be a connection between the story below and this story ... The big question is: will Vito Rizzuto get picked up right smack-dab in the middle of all this? Someone who is a key player in the U.S. part of the drug ring who is probably facing a lot of years -- hell, decades -- had the boss's phone number on a slip of paper somewhere on his person... And if that isn't enough -- and it is, it is enough -- to make Vito lose sleep, there is always the overseas trouble brewing in the form of the  reaction in Sicily  to Rizzuto's supposed inclination to induct non-Italian men into his family... On some level this whole thing reminds me of the smack Salvatore Lucania had to deal with for working with members of the Jewish faith. Either Rizzuto is a true innovator ushering the Mafia into the 21st century.

From  MafiaLife Blog : Of course, if you are a fan of the mob entertainment media, then you know Frank DiMatteo. You may have known him as Uncle Frankie, you may know him as Frankie D. You may have seen him on the Mob Wives show a few times, or being interviewed by Johnny P on his late night TV show. Maybe your a reader of his nationally distributed mob fashion magazine Mob Candy. Few of you around may still know him from distributing and working in the porn business with the famous Screw magazine. But, were not gonna talk about those experiences here. Today, I want to speak to you about Frank ‘Uncle Frankie’ DiMatteo the author. 2 years ago he wrote, and published the first of many books in a gangsters series, titled ‘Brooklyn Gangsters’. The book concept pretty much gives us in depth look at the area mobsters, with a twist. The twist is all about how Frankie relates to them all. Some he went out to dinner with. Some, he had inside scoop that has not been  published yet. And, so

Yes, I count myself among these fans.  From  NorthJersey.com : Every weekend, On Location Tours takes a busload of pilgrims to Holsten's in  Bloomfield  so they can check out a table in the back. It bears a little sign saying, "This booth is reserved for the Soprano family." Gandolfini, Edie Falco and Robert Iler in the infamous booth in Holsten's in Bloomfield. "They usually go to the booth, sit down, take pictures … get some food, some souvenirs, maybe ice cream, some candy," says Ron Stark, one of Holsten's owners, who notes that fans of the late HBO show continue to stop by on their own, too. It's been nearly five years since Tony, Carmela and A.J. Soprano came together in that booth – as Meadow struggled to parallel park outside – for what turned out to be the most controversial last supper in television history. It was there that Tony put a coin in the jukebox and played Journey's "Don't Stop Believin' " – a

From The Gazette : A New York-based mobster associated with both the Bonannos and Vito Rizzuto has pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to taking part in a drug trafficking conspiracy that has deep ties to Montreal. According to a statement issued by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Alessandro Taloni, described by authorities as an alleged "associate of the Rizzuto organized crime family," entered the plea in a courthouse in Brooklyn, N.Y. He admitted to trafficking in more than 80 kilograms of cocaine and laundering millions of dollars in narcotics proceeds. Although charged in New York, Taloni seems to have run Beverly Hills, Calif., for the massive Mafia-run drug ring, as is being widely reported (see  Huffington Post  story). In fact, police seized approximately $1 million and 49 kilograms of cocaine during searches of Taloni's car, residence in Beverly Hills, Calif., and a stash house in the same city, according to The Gazette. Back in mid-Ja

From  FirstShowing.net : About a year and a half ago, a developing biopic about Gambino crime family head John Gotti Sr.was developing with John Travolta playing the mob mastermind nicknamed the "Dapper Don." Nick Cassavetes was once directing, but ended up being replaced with Barry Levinson, and names like Al Pacino, Ben Foster, Chazz Palminteri and even Lindsay Lohan (who later fell away) were circling roles. But the film hit a wall when financing fell through in October of 2011, and the film was dead in the water. Now THR reports the project is back with Travolta still attached and Joe Johnston in the director's chair. The film has been called Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father and Gotti: Three Generations, but now has been simplified to just Gotti, with producer Marc Fiore still involved along with Radar Pictures' Ted Field and Relativity Media handling U.S. distribution. Last we heard, the film followed three generations of the Gotti family with an emphasis

Fernandez The National Post has revealed some stunning information: The boss of the Montreal Mob, Vito Rizzuto, inducted into his family men who were not of Italian descent. Initially, both parents of a potential  member had to come from Italy; but when the ranks of viable candidates thinned too much, this edict was tweaked. Now, only one's father has to hail from the boot. Vito, it would appear, has gone a little too far. Old-time Cosa Nostra boss Albert Anastasia was slain in part for selling buttons; but he sold them to Italians. For this, bullets shattered his brains while he was relaxing in a barber chair, warm cloth covering his face. Vito, it seems, was rewarded for his breaking of basic mob procedure by creating what would become a rebellious faction -- the one that would spark the ongoing mob war on his turf, which as was widely reported has now expanded into Italy. The National Post noted that Rizzuto had broken "the fundamental, centuries-old rules of the Mafi

From the G uardian.co.uk : Palermo found the bodies of two Canadian-Sicilian  mobsters. Two senior members of the Canadian mafia have been murdered in Sicily and their bodies incinerated, victims of what police suspect is a vicious turf war in Canada which has spilled over into the Cosa Nostra's Italian heartland. After an anonymous tip-off, the bodies of Juan Ramon Paz Fernandez and Fernando Pimentel were discovered near a rubbish dump in the countryside outside Palermo on Thursday. Police described the double killing as an "old-fashioned" gangland hit. Spanish-born Fernandez, 57, a notoriously tough enforcer for Montreal's Rizzuto clan, was expelled from Canada last year for the third time after serving a 10-year sentence for conspiracy to murder a fellow mobster. He resurfaced in Palermo, where he was suspected of teaming up with the Cosa Nostra to build drug-trafficking links between Sicily and Canada. Pimentel arrived in Palermo a few weeks ago to j

A COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE R aymond W. Ferritto (1929 − May 10, 2004), an Italian American mobster from Erie, Pennsylvania, is best known for the 1977 murder of Irish mob boss  Danny Greene . In the 1970s, Danny Greene began competing with the Cleveland crime family for control of union rackets, resulting in a violent mob war. During this period, there were almost 40 car bombings in Cleveland and eight failed attempts to kill Greene. Finally, Cleveland family bosses Jack "Jack White" Licavoli and Angelo "Big Ange" Lonardo contracted Ferritto to assassinate Greene. Upon hearing of Ferritto’s arrest for the hit, Licavoli put out a hit contract on Ferritto. When Ferritto learned that the Cleveland family wanted him dead, he became a government witness and testified against his co-defendants in the 1978 trial. Ferritto served less than four years in prison for both murders. Ray Ferritto left the Witness Protection Program after one year and continued to stay

A beautiful young woman, found dead in her car in a public parking lot. Cosa Nostra News was born out of a previous blog; I started writing a lot of mob stories when the idea hit me to devote a blog exclusively to the Mafia. There are a lot of benefits to having a niche-focused blog instead of one that is all over the place. I basically left the earlier blog alone, Requiem for an Editor, and began focusing exclusively on this one. But every once in a while I check on it. It still has legs. Even without any fresh content since Jan. 8, 2011 (I did make an occasional post since then, but I only mean three or four, at the most.) There is one story I wrote on that blog that has still been generating an awful lot of page views, so much so that Google sent me a message about "an increase in the volume" of readership activity. I checked it out; the blog is still producing hits, one story in particular, which is up to 100 comments as of right now. I find it interesting how