Brief Bio of Lefty Ruggiero

By Ed Scarpo



A brief history of Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero soldier in the Bonanno Crime Family and his relationship with Donnie Brasco (FBI Agent Joe Pistone), and Capo Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano.

This video was released on March 28 by Bloodletters and Madman, which produces biographies of organized crime and Mafia figures. Based on Jay Robert Nash's book Bloodletters and Badmen - A Narrative Encyclopedia of the American Criminal, the segments cover "the Italian mobs, both the Mafia and the Camorra, Irish and Jewish Gangsters, and prohibition gangs." Researched, written and Narrated by G. Marshall Johnson.




Here is another one I like, on Anniello "Neill" Dellacroce:



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular This Week

Former Luchese Wiseguy John Pennisi Tells Us What Really Happened

By Ed Scarpo
Image
COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE The Feds know lots of wiseguys out there on the street—some of them very well. But there also are wiseguys the Feds don't know at all. Guys who are not on the "radar" at the present moment. John Pennisi was one of those guys....
Recent pic of John Pennisi.

The Feds weren't building a single case against John Pennisi when he first went to them to talk in 2017, and it took a while for them to fully comprehend what had happened, that a guy who knew a hell of a lot about current goings-on inside the Luchese family had just fallen into their lap.

Pennisi -- who flipped and testified in detail about certain events related to the Luchese family (plus the other families that comprise the New York Mafia) (and if you are wondering, yes, wiseguys are still out there hustling) -- was following in the footsteps of another former member of the Luchese family: Onetime acting boss Alphonse (Little Al) D'Arco, who flipped and testified in the early 1990s a…
Read more

Bath Avenue Crew Rose High, Fell Hard

By Ed Scarpo
Image
Members of the Bath Avenue Crew were as young as 8 years old and probably weren't even aware of what they were doing -- aligning themselves with the biggest, baddest gang in America: Cosa Nostra, specifically the Five Families.
Anthony Spero, former Bonanno consiglieri, was the man for whom they would one day carry out orders that cost some their lives, others, their freedom and all, their souls. At least that's what they said in testimony; it was powerful testimony, however, and it helped put Spero away in an unbelievably circumstantial trial.

At the same time they saw the wiseguys on the street, pulling up to the curbs in their big shiny Cadillacs, loafing around social clubs wearing pricey suits and sporting hundred-dollar haircuts and manicured fingernails.


But the guys presented more than just a cold, distant image to watch; Mafia members interacted with the kids, joked around with them and showed them there were other ways to make it through life. The wiseguys doled out …
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

Pagan’s, Alongside Cosa Nostra, Are Booming, State Crime Commission Says

By Ed Scarpo
Image
The current relationship between the American Mafia and the Pagan's is not the only thing about the 1%ers that has evolved since the 1980s, when the outlaw motorcycle club balked at paying the street tax imposed by then Philadelphia boss Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo.

As of September 2020, the Pagan's, one of the "big four" largest outlaw motorcycle clubs in the US, are undergoing a violent "resurgence," according to a recently published report by the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation (SCI). 
The MC, which uses drones and encrypted communications to avoid detection, has seen an unprecedented surge in membership, nearly doubling in size over the past few years. The Pagan's also are significantly more violent, with experts noting that there have been more violent incidents committed by the Pagan's during a recent 18-month period than during the prior 10 years combined. (Because many incidents go unreported, the tally of brutality is likely m…
Read more