Cosa Nostra News for Week of May 24

By Ed Scarpo
With Bloodletters & Badmen....

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  1. AnonymousMay 27, 2014, 8:06:00 AM

    Great! I love the recap. Please keep them coming.

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If Uncle Joe Retires What Happens in Philadelphia?

By Ed Scarpo
Joseph (Uncle Joe) Ligambi, who recently got out of prison following two mistrials for what primarily amounted to gambling-related charges, says that he is done, finito, with Cosa Nostra. He wants to drop the harness and relax, to summer in Longport and winter in Florida. In 1980, violence on the streets of Philadelphia rose sharply following boss Angelo Bruno's murder. Does Ligambi mean it? If he’s being sincere, then who will step in and take over?  Too many wiseguys, if history is our guide. The volatility for which the Philadelphia crime family was once well-known can return as swiftly as the time it takes to pull a trigger. Two generations historically at odds with each other have been working together (the old Scarfo gang and the Merlino young turks). The ability to rivet these two enclaves together is among the skills "Uncle Joe" is credited for having. But with or without him, shifts in power are inevitable as the family's composition changes (...
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Bonanno Boss's Prison Letters Kick Off Second Dominick Cicale Forum

By Ed Scarpo
"Mikey Nose" (Commenced 11am, Saturday, Jan. 10)... We can thank Michael "Mikey Nose" Mancuso for our starting point.... I don't think any other blog or news organization on the planet has ever gotten such direct insight from the man widely considered to be the official boss of the Bonanno family . The Nose is from the Bronx, where Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, either former acting boss or current official boss, hailed from.
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Leveraging Trump’s Lingering Fury At The Mueller Investigation, Lawyer Seeks Pardons For Two Colombo Mobsters Serving Life Sentences

By Ed Scarpo
David Schoen, one of the attorneys who helped President Donald Trump win an acquittal following his  second impeachment trial—for inciting an insurrection at the Capitol on January 6—is representing, pro bono, former Colombo mobsters Michael Sessa and Victor (Little Vic) Orena, who have been sitting in prison cells for more than three decades thanks to crimes committed during the third Colombo war, which left 12 dead and dozens wounded in the early 1990s. Vic Orena, former Colombo acting boss. Schoen wrote a letter seeking pardons or commuted sentences for Orena and Sessa, which he sent to Trump on Christmas Eve. So far, the President hasn’t responded. Orena, 91, the former Colombo acting boss who had visions of making his position official and who is today wheelchair-bound and suffering from dementia, among other ailments, was convicted in 1992 of nine counts, including the murder of Thomas Ocera and conspiracy to murder members of the “Persico faction ” of the Colombo family. He...
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Kitchen Nightmares Gangster Back In Business (Mob Business, That Is)

By Ed Scarpo
“Nobody is gonna go against them. They’d go head to head with anybody.” Source on Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso and his Administration in the Bonanno crime family. Bonanno mobster Peter (Peter Pasta) Pellegrino, a name you are familiar with if you have been watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and reading Cosa Nostra News , is back in business—the gambling and shylocking business, though, not the restaurant business. Peter Pasta Pellegrino. (From Facebook.) In fact, Peter Pasta was among the Bonannos who benefitted from Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso 's reorganization of the crime family last Christmas, we've learned. Pellegrino was bumped from acting capo to official capo. He’s now overseeing a Bonanno crew in Florida and one allied with Albanians in Ridgewood, Queens. Also part of the Nose's Christmastime shakeup, Anthony (Bruno) Indelicato , the longtime Bonanno wiseguy who was a direct participant—he was one of the shooters—in the 1979 Carmine Galante murders, w...
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Mob Wife Ex-Husband Hector Pagan In Brooklyn Halfway House With April 2021 Release Date

By Ed Scarpo
Back in 2014, despite the heartfelt pleas of a murdered man's daughter, Brooklyn Federal Judge John Gleeson sentenced Hector (Junior) Pagan to 11 years in prison —and offered a thoughtful comment. James Donovan was killed during a botched robbery in 2010. He said, “We can only hope” that by time Pagan is released “we have prepared him for re-entry into society to mitigate the risk” of what would happen if Pagan returned to a life of crime. How far Judge Gleeson's hope gets us is something we will discover very soon. The former Bonanno associate/Mob Wives bit player is getting out of the can in a few months..... He is currently residing at the Brooklyn RRM (a halfway house where he and other Federal offenders receive "community-based services that will assist with their reentry needs.") Pagan's official reentry date is April 18, 2021. Renee Graziano's ex-husband got a reduced sentence in 2014 because he flipped and testified against two cohorts who were involve...
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How Mobsters’ Own Words Brought Down Philly’s Mafia − A Veteran Crime Reporter Has The Story Behind The End Of The ‘Mob War’

By Ed Scarpo
By George Anastasia , Adjunct Professor of Law and Justice Studies, Rowan University The bloody mob war that is the focus of the 2025 Netflix series “ Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia ,” is full of the murder and mayhem, treachery and deceit that have been the hallmarks of the nation’s  Cosa Nostra  family conflicts. Former mob boss John Stanfa, pictured here in 1980, waged a bloody war for control of the Philadelphia mafia in the late 1990s. Bettmann via Getty Images What was different in Philadelphia was that the FBI had it all wired for sound. Electronic surveillance has been a major tool in the government’s highly successful war against the Mafia nationwide, but nowhere has its impact been felt more dramatically than in Philadelphia . As a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, I covered this mob war in real time from 1994 through 2000. Now I teach a course at Rowan University on the history of organized crime, using the...
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