Cosa Nostra News

UPDATE ADDED The Bonanno racketeering trial kicked off this week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York before Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein (who is asking some great questions). Joseph “Joe C” Cammarano Jr. allegedly has good hair.....  On trial are accused acting Bonanno boss/official underboss Joseph (Joe C) Cammarano Jr., 59, and alleged consiglieri John (Porky) Zancocchio, 61. To win an acquittal, the two must get past the testimony of not only two mob turncoats who defense attorneys are reportedly planning to discredit for being "too cozy" with the NYPD and FBI, but legitimate business owners and others. The two top bananas of the Bonanno crime family face charges related to extortion and racketeering conspiracy. Former Bonanno capo Peter (Pug) Lovaglio and associate Steven Sabella are slated to testify against the two alleged gangsters. Also slated to testify are owners and employees of a demolition company, a constructio

In April 1998, five Luchese associates decided to rob their way to Florida. They drove from Brooklyn, committing robberies along the way. Robert A. Pasquince is serving a life sentence for murder. Anthony Lanza, Robert Pasquince, and the brothers Anthony and Charles DiGirolamo were in the car. The fifth man has never been identified, as per our research. (We include links to all source material.) They made it all the way to the Sunshine State before killing anyone. That happened in Pinellas County, Florida, outside Tampa Bay, on April 23 of that year. As per a local news report , Pasquince (Robert is his first name, the paper either got that wrong or Pasquince pulled a ruse and it initially worked) and an accomplice walked into a Subway sandwich shop around lunchtime and placed an order. Ann Marie Sherman, 24, and one other person were working at the time. Sherman was supposed to have been off, but a coworker had called in sick so she'd volunteered to work the shift

Three days prior to the Department of Justice's October 8, 2015, announcement that 6,000 federal inmates would be released “to reduce overcrowding and provide relief to drug offenders who received harsh sentences over the past three decades,” a man who pleaded guilty to running an alleged $75 million-a-year drug dealing operation for the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra was released from federal prison. Former dealer George Martorano, son of Long John. George Martorano — the son of late Philly mobster Raymond “Long John” Martorano —served 31 years in a series of “supermax” prisons and prior to his October 5, 2015, release from Florida’s Coleman Prison was described as the longest incarcerated non-violent offender in the federal prison system. “I was told the only way I’d get out was in a body bag,” Martorano said recently. “I proved them wrong.” George Martorano has used his years of freedom to set himself up in a business that’s not altogether dissimilar to the one he was

"It's omerta." --The father of a woman murdered by the Young Guns, aka The Ozone Park Boys Ronald Trucchio, a capo in the Gambino crime family, could spot talent, an innate ability that helped him put together a crew in Ozone Park, Queens, that pulled in tens of millions of dollars a year and that, in time, also operated in Florida committing just about every crime in the book. So alleged law enforcement. Ronnie One-Arm with Peter Gotti When Trucchio, known as Ronnie One-Arm because of a childhood accident that deformed his left arm, went on trial in Miami in 2006, he represented himself, giving the opening statement, which is reproduced in its entirety below. Saying he meant no disrespect, Trucchio asked to go it alone in his racketeering and extortion trial, at least for a few days. New York lawyer Joseph Corozzo Jr. was supposed to represent him, but was stuck in a trial up north. So, minutes before jury selection began, an alleged Gambino crime family capo

By Nick Christophers Whether you’re a tourist or a native New Yorker there is always something new to learn about the gritty streets of certain boroughs. Especially Manhattan and Brooklyn which were the breeding grounds of the mafia. Robin London, the CEO of NYCGangster Mob Tour s offers you the opportunity to walk in the shoes of infamous names like Al Capone, John Gotta i, Meyer Lansky, Arnold Rothstein and many others. Her tour is unique as it targets mostly the Jewish gangsters that came up alongside the Italians. It is no wonder that Robin would take up the reigns as a professional tour guide in the city she loves so much. Her knowledge of the concrete jungle is more than impressive. She’s a walking encyclopedia of the culture that is New York. Founding a mob tour only seemed fitting. “My fascination with the mob started as I realized as I got older that some of the neighbors in the old neighborhoods of Brooklyn I grew up with were "connected"

So what happened to Jake Russo , then? Stefano Magaddino never met a dollar he didn't covet. Did he become part of the Veterans Memorial Bridge, as one of many rumors making the rounds after his 1964 disappearance alleged? Not according to new claims that Russo was done in because he dared to threaten a boss who made unreasonable demands of him. Stefano Magaddino, the ruthless, Buffalo-based mob boss whose influence extended from parts of New York (including Rochester) and Pennsylvania to Toronto for more than 30 years, was legendary for his stinginess and cruelty. Threatening Magaddino to his face about how you planned to undermine him was tantamount to signing your own death warrant. Magaddino was "the Undertaker" because of his Niagara Falls funeral home, but also because of his knack for ordering murders. A Sicilian immigrant, Magaddino, cousin to Joseph Bonanno, smuggled liquor across Lake Ontario from Canada during Prohibition. In

This was supposed to be a straightforward story about Jake Russo, but of course I can never not plunge headfirst down whatever rabbit hole catches my eye.... Can't ignore what intrigues me.... Rochester acting boss Jake Russo disappeared in September 1964, and nearly 55 years later, his body has never been found. Jake Russo may have disappeared because of Stefano Magaddino's greed. Recently surfaced videotaped interviews with a former Russo cohort may finally reveal what really happened all those years ago. In interviews conducted and videotaped several years prior to his 2014 death, Rene Piccarreto Sr., the former consigliere of the Rochester crime family, said that Russo was strangled in the basement of a downtown Rochester restaurant that later became a popular area pizzeria called the Pizza Stop. But back in 1964, the restaurant was owned by Frank Valenti, the man who succeeded Russo atop the Mafia family there. Actually, Russo had only been put in charge w