Cosa Nostra News

UPDATED Flipping on the street is supposed to be the end of a gangster's story, but for Whitey Bulger, it was only the start.... Bulger denied who he was until the end He ratted out rivals -- he murdered, he extorted, and he double-crossed, time and again. He (and partner Stephen Flemmi) killed women -- at least two. When a tipoff told him it was time to face the music, he ran and hid and stole 16 more years, as a pretend human being. He'd certainly had lots of success pretending to be a gangster. And in the end, even after he was caught, Bulger strenuously denied ever being a federal informant. Those who followed his exploits back in South Boston were not surprised at how this story ended. “Anyone in criminal activity with him feels grossly betrayed that he was informing on them while he was supposedly their comrade and friend,” Michael Kendall, a former federal prosecutor from Boston who also once represented the family of one of Mr. Bulger’s murder vic

Fotios “Freddy” Geas may have "played an integral role" in the killing of James (Whitey Bulger) one of America’s most notorious gangsters, the Boston Globe is reporting. Freddy Geas suspect in Bulger slay. Geas, who is serving a life sentence in USP Hazelton, reportedly did not dispute his role in Bulger’s slaying, the Globe reports. Anthony (Bingy) Arillotta flipped on Freddy  Geas, his brother, and a former Genovese boss  for the 2003 hit on Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno, who had been the boss of the Genovese crime family's Springfield crew . “Freddy hated rats,” private investigator Ted McDonough told the Globe. “Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It’s probably that simple.” Geas, Genovese boss Arthur “Artie” Nigro, and Fotios's brother Ty Geas were tried and convicted for the murder. Bulger -- who is wheelchair bound -- was in general population Tuesday morning when he was reportedly approached by thr

UPDATE 2, Oct 31, 11:23 am Former Genovese Springfield crew associate Fotios “Freddy” Geas is currently in solitary with one other inmate after surveillance video caught the two, and probably others, killing James (Whitey Bulger), the South Boston mobster and FBI informer, hours after he was moved to US Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia. James (Whitey) Bulger Bulger, 89, was found unresponsive at 8:20 this morning, according to a BOP statement. Life-saving measures were initiated but he was pronounced dead. Bulger -- who was wheelchair bound -- was in general population Tuesday morning when he was approached by two or more inmates, one of them Geas, who wheeled him into a corner that could not be seen by surveillance cameras. The inmates beat Bulger -- one used a lock in a sock as a weapon -- until he was unconscious. He was beaten unrecognizable and it's unclear if there was an attempt to gouge his eyes out or if his eyes had popped out due to the v

UPDATED Nicholas (Nicky Cigars) Santora spent decades of his life in the Mob and had the criminal record to show for it, having been arrested roughly two-dozen times, with a rap sheet dating back to 1966. A prosecutor once noted how Santora had an "extensive, serious, substantial criminal record.” He was a mobster to his core, a second-generation wiseguy. (His father, Modesto, was allegedly a Colombo soldier.) Made in the 1970s, he gained unwanted recognition in the early 1980s when he was caught up in the Donnie Brasco fiasco. For a time he was a force to be reckoned with, rising to underboss under Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano. Still, Santora had mixed luck. Joseph Massino wasn't a fan. After the Last Don flipped, he recorded himself calling Santora a brokester while in a rigged conversation with Basciano. He "ain't got any money," Massino griped. Santora would "borrow from people" but he "forgets to pay." That argumen

In May 2004, the Bonanno family’s first-ever “made” canary, former capo Frank Lino, became the first witness to describe the murders of the three Bonanno capos. The Hole -- the mob graveyard in Queens. Alphonse (Sonny Red) Indelicato, Philllip (Phil Lucky) Giaccone, and Dominic (Big Trin) Trinchera had been slain together on May 5, 1981, in Brooklyn. Lino, then-66, testified that the capos had challenged Bonanno boss Joseph Massino for control of the Bonanno family and were brought to a meeting in the basement of a Dyker Heights club run by “Sammy Bull” Gravano. Massino and other allied mobsters awaited them with bad intentions. The three capos had been unarmed, thinking they were going to a meeting to iron out difficulties, though they all knew they were taking a huge risk. They were summarily murdered, blasted with shotguns, finished with pistols to the head. While the bullet-riddled body of Sonny Red had been found in a vacant lot in Ozone Park, Queens, in May o

UPDATED A 77-year-old loan shark with ties to the Luchese crime family was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in his Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, home on Friday. Vincent Zito lived here with son and grandson. ( NYDN ) Vincent Zito had been shot in the back of the head execution style, and was found inside his three-story Sheepshead Bay home at about 3:15 p.m. on Friday. Earlier this month, Sylvester Zottola, 71, a Bonanno crime family associate, was shot to death while waiting in his SUV for a cup of coffee at a McDonald's drive-through window in the Bronx. Zito's grandson Joseph, who lives at the address with Zito and Zito’s son, found the body after he came home from school. Zito was found face up on the floor next to the firearm that was used to kill him. Zito is survived by his older brother Anthony, 82 - who was locked up for extortion in 1971. Initially, it was believed Zito may have taken his own life, but the entry wound was in the back

Bonanno capo Nicholas Santora has died, we've heard... Nicky Santora He's been in decline -- bedridden and barely conscious -- and a lawsuit was filed on his behalf that alleges mistreatment by the NYC Department of Corrections while Santora was jailed at Rikers Island. Anthony DeStefano reported in Newsday  that "the 74 year-old Santora is lying in a Nassau County hospital bed, suffering from head injuries and barely conscious, allegedly because of negligent and malicious treatment by the New York City Department of Correction, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this week in Manhattan state court. "Since 2013, Santora has remained held without bail in a city jail after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicted him and other reputed mobsters and associates for enterprise corruption. After a lengthy May trial, a Manhattan jury failed to reach a verdict and a judge declared a mistrial. Prosecutors want to retry the case. "Over the year’

"All the police cars had to do was patrol the roads. They had to come out sooner or later. You see a guy in a silk suit and a white fedora, you say, ‘He doesn't belong in the woods!’"  --  Trooper Vincent R. Vasisko, New York State Police, 1957 The luxury cars were a tipoff...  “A meeting of George Rafts." At the hilltop estate at noon on a humid, cloudy November day, dozens of men wearing lush camel hair coats over silk suits and white-on-white shirts stood in gleaming shoes around a barbecue where huge cuts of meat roasted on a roaring flame, and they renewed old acquaintances.  The seemingly convivial atmosphere prevented them from noticing the car with the two police officers and two U.S. Treasury agents as it rolled up the dirt road and then toward the open compound.... Apalachin is  finally coming to the big screen.... David Arquette is playing the role of State Police Bureau sergeant Edgar Croswell in the indie flick  Apalachin , about the

Part two of Ralph (Whitey) Tropiano story in Gangsters of New Haven series...  Greg Scarpa told the FBI who was behind a years-long killing spree. In 1946, the bullet-riddled bodies of small-time hoodlums started turning up on the streets of Bath Beach and Borough Hall, Brooklyn. Over the course of 16 months, 10 (or 12, no one really knows for certain) victims would be wheeled into the morgue on the slab. New York City investigators were convinced that the same killers were responsible. And they were correct though no one would know that until May 1964, when Gregory Scarpa told the FBI what happened. (Note that this was a year after Joseph Valachi started singing for the world.) In 1950, Gregory Scarpa was inducted into the family of Joseph Profaci (boss of one of the original Five  Families, which today is  known as the Colombos ), and mainly was a soldier who cracked heads for Calogero (Charlie the Sidge) LoCicero, Profaci 's consigliere. LoCicero play

The following is the first in a series about the mob in New Haven, Connecticut… It started off originally as a story about William Grasso — but while researching him, we found ourselves spending more time on Grasso's mentor, and decided an even more worthwhile series would detail his exploits first... Ralph “Whitey” Tropiano. Connecticut had a peculiar relationship with organized crime. Located at about the midpoint between New York and Boston, it never had its own formally designated crime family. However, due to its proximity to New York and Boston, it always attracted attention and several crime families had interests in the state over the decades. The notoriously bad-tempered, yet supremely disciplined  William (The Wild Man) Grasso, who rose to become underboss of the Patriarca crime family under Raymond Junior, once reminisced with an associate about old times and noted how he’d gotten his big break. It arrived in the form of a 10-year prison sentence. “Best t

UPDATED FRIDAY MORNING Alleged Philadelphia mob boss Joseph Merlino was hit with two years in prison for illegal gambling yesterday. A beaming Merlino voiced Donald Trump-like platitudes. Of the three men identified as alleged bosses in this case, Merlino was the winner, getting the lightest prison sentence. Alleged Genovese capos Eugene (Rooster) Onofrio and Pasquale (Patsy) Parrello were the other two alleged leaders of the East Coast LCN Enterprise. A case once presented as a nefarious, multifaceted criminal enterprise that spanned the East Coast of America involving dozens of mobsters from several crime families speedily had steadily devolved into an embarrassment for the Fed's. Two years was the stiffest possible penalty for Merlino, who plead guilty to a single count instead of facing a retrial on a litany of other charges.  And while U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan said he did not believe that Merlino was still the boss of the Philadelphia crime famil