Cosa Nostra News

Most defendants charged in the East Coast LCN Enterprise indictment were offered extra-sweet plea deals last Tuesday thanks to revelations about a whacky turncoat and alleged criminality of one of the FBI's mob squads. Skinny Joey: "You want me to pay how much? I'd rather go to jail...." Indicted last August were 46 alleged members and associates of four of New York's Five Families, and the alleged boss of the Philadelphia crime family in Florida. (John Gotti's grandson was busted on the same day ; who'd have believed of the two busts, Gotti's would ultimately be the more consequential.) Around 10 of the defendants apparently voiced intent to reject the offer. Additionally, the two "bosses" with the biggest reasons to cop deals are supposedly still mulling the prospect of going to trial.

I was flattered to hear from Neil G. Clark, a fan of this site, who contacted me about his book on a former boss of the Irish Mob. It sounds fascinating, and I personally can't wait to read it.... "At a time when the Port of New York was ruled by lawless criminals, one hoodlum towered above the rest and secretly controlled the piers for over thirty years," notes Neil G. Clark, author of Dock Boss :  Eddie McGrath and the West Side Waterfront . Dock Boss: Eddie McGrath and the West Side Waterfront is the fascinating true account of one gangster's ascension from altar boy to the leader of New York City's violent Irish Mob.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has made its ruling, and the 100-year sentence will stand. Carmine Persico, 83, alleged boss of the Colombo crime family, will continue serving the long and unusually punishing prison sentence doled out to him in the historic Mafia Commission case . The Second Circuit Court of Appeals screwed Carmine Persico, 83. The court ignored all the evidence based on former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino's 302s, which supported the allegation that Carmine Galante was not slain as per the orders of the Mafia Commission (the murder was the Commission Case's centerpiece). The court also ignored all the evidence that showed the large, previously unknown extent of former Colombo captain/high-ranking snitch Gregory Scarpa's influence over the case. We have spoken to a few attorneys off the record, and can report here that it is a fact that the government hates the Mafia so much that they don't bother hiding their disdain for mobster...

A funeral home with known links to the Rizzuto family was hit by an arson attack yesterday. Picture of Loreto Funeral Complex when Nicolo Rizzuto was waked. No one was injured, and the damage to the Loreto Funeral Complex on Grandes Prairies Blvd., in St-Léonard, Montreal, appears to be minimal. A gasoline can was discovered behind the building. Such an open attack would've been unthinkable only a few short years ago.

Gambino crime family capo Mikie Scars and former associate Salvatore Romano, part two... See part one here ; part three here ... When Gambino mobster John Gammarano went to prison, Salvatore Romano, an associate on record with him, had concerns. Romano realized he needed to speak to Michael (Mikie Scars) DiLeonardo. Michael DiLeonardo and Sal Romano today. Ironically, the person who ultimately brought Romano and DiLeonardo together was Genovese mobster Louie Black. "Louie was with Genovese guys," DiLeonardo told us. "He started hanging around Johnny G. They were good friends." Nevertheless, Louie Black was around Michael first, for around 16 years. (Yes, a Genovese associate hung around with a Gambino member. The mob is not as formally organized as some believe. They don't wear ID badges with their name, rank and serial number, for instance.) There's lots of "lateral" relationships, and activities that can result. Johnn...

Even an outlawed, unnamed secret society must observe certain formalities. It must perpetuate itself, and its members must know one another in order to create an infrastructure to assist them as they embark on their life of crime. "Jack Falcone" aka Joaquin Garcia (Big Jack to his friends.) Mobsters don't operate in a vacuum, and the Mafia, in addition to being a criminal brotherhood, also provides a milieu where members can share one another's company. If you can't break bread with another man who understands the world you live in, you will probably go insane. Mob guys tend to want to operate and prosper.

The biggest crook in the so-called East Coast LCN Enterprise case just may have been turncoat John (J.R.) Rubeo Jr. In the end, he stole the Feds' case. Now they've had to drop the most serious charges in the indictment and are on bent knee  begging defendants to cop to plea deals. JR Rubeo Rubeo wore a wire against many defendants in the case, including the two alleged highest-ranking ones, Pasquale (Patsy) Parrello and Joseph Merlino. Rubeo was a Genovese crime family associate who became a cooperating witness because he had major legal problems of his own and wanted to avoid a lengthy prison sentence.

COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE Salvatore Romano was an associate of the Gambino crime family who set up shop on Wall Street and became  one of the wealthiest mobsters  in organized crime's history. Music legend Paul Anka, who wrote  My Way  for Frank Sinatra; he rewrote the song as  Sal's Way  using the same melody but new lyrics. Anka sang Sal's Way at a premiere party for one of Romano's business ventures .  He was the consummate "mob earner" in his day; and this is the first of a series of stories I am writing involving him and Michael DiLeonardo. Picture The Wolf of Wall Street, only with the Mafia. In fact, Romano and Jordan Belfort did cross paths early in their careers, or rather their respective paths to infamy. There's more to Romano's story, however, than the show highlighted. The story includes a large list of notorious mobsters from the Gambino crime family -- as well as an infamous DeCavalcante capo known as the...

Following is an episode of a1950s radio news program called "The Nation's Nightmare," which spotlights the Mafia's then-growing infiltration of the New York and New Jersey waterfronts. Narrated by veteran correspondent Bill Downs, one of the so-called (Edward R.) Morrow's Boys , he sounds the alarm about "the greatest concentration of Mafia power in the world." And he does it using that  tinny, clipped 1950s tone called Transatlantic speech , a specific speaking style taught to broadcasters in the mass media's early days in an attempt to offset America's thousands of rich regional dialects. Albert Anastasia, "Socks" Lanza, and just about every mobster of notoriety in the 1950s is mentioned in the broadcast, which also describes everything from the dockworker "shakeup" in the mornings to how various mobsters came to dominate certain sections of the ports, as well as related unions. This particular episod...

The main snitch in the Vinny Asaro-John Gotti federal racketeering case is a Bonanno crime family associate, 32, whose criminal career began when he was 19 years old. Today Gang Land News reported  that the turncoat, Gene Borrello, "is the key witness in three major mob roundups pulled by the feds last month..." Gene Borrello is the key turncoat. "These include the automobile arson case against mob capo Vincent Asaro and John J. Gotti, grandson of the late Dapper Don. Another is The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight racketeering indictment against Asaro's wiseguy nephew, Ronald (Ronnie G)  Giallanzo.  

At least one person is hopping mad at former Philadelphia mob boss Ralph Natale – reputedly the first Cosa Nostra boss to flip and testify against his own crime family, and the first since Joseph Bonanno to write a memoir,   Last Don Standing: The Secret Life of Mob Boss Ralph Natale .  Natale with Ruthann Seccio in 1997. "Sprinkled throughout the book" are anecdotes about Natale’s violent tendencies --"like Locatelli cheese atop a plate of spaghetti,” Philly Mag reviewer David Gambacorta noted.