Cosa Nostra News

Does the old saying "All's fair in love and war" still apply when the romance in question involves a wiseguy? Birthday boy: Joey Amato, Colombo capo. Picture courtesy of Sitdown News blog... While we can’t definitively answer that question, we can tell you about one particular wiseguy who turned the game of love into a war that he sought to win using decidedly unfair means—and in the process got himself, his crew, and others indicted. It  all began (ended, technically, but for our purposes, we'll stick with began) in October 2019 when three indictments were unsealed in Federal court in Brooklyn  charging 20 defendants  (of which 11 were members and associates of the Colombo family) with racketeering, extortion, loansharking, stalking, attempted sports bribery, and related offenses.  Among those charged were Joseph Amato, an alleged captain; Daniel Capaldo and Thomas Scorcia, alleged soldiers; and Joseph Amato, Jr. and Anthony Silvestro, alleged associates. This case

You know what today is, right? One of the only Thursdays you won't find a new Gang Land News column because J.C. takes Thanksgiving off....  Montagna beside the Assomption River after shooting.   Well,  Gang Land more than earned a Thursday off when it reported last week  that Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso⸺the former Luchese crime family underboss serving the life sentence slapped on him in 1998 for 14 of the more than 30 murders he admitted to⸺had his attorneys file a longshot motion seeking a compassionate release from prison. Casso, 78, whom we recently profiled , is seeking to use the First Step Act of 2018, which allows certain elderly and sick inmates serving life sentences to win release for "extraordinary and compelling reasons." Casso's lawyers asked Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block to reduce Casso's prison term to "time served" and allow him to spend what life he has left "under home confinement." So far, Block ignored a request to

The New York Daily News recently interviewed former Gambino underboss Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, who talks about social media and New York mob history.... And broth(?) Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano Gravano, who is 75 and has spent 22 years of his life in prison, told the Daily News that he has returned to ... social media.... (We honestly didn't know he had left.) Gravano is now posting on Instagram and Facebook , but he also finds time to quaff broth brought to him by a neighbor in the sleepy Arizona town where the Bull now resides.  “I got a neighbor, and she comes over and she knocks. I open the door, and she’s giving me broth. I said, ‘What’s this?’ She says, ‘I know you’re living alone, and I don’t know if you’re eating right.’ So she gives me the broth.” Back in 1976, Carlo Gambino give him the gun, the knife—and more importantly, a button in the Gambino crime family—and Gravano was off to the races... He embraced mob life with a deep and abiding passion for d

A superseding indictment unsealed today (November 23) charges 15 alleged members and associates of the South Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey-based  La Cosa Nostra (LCN) family with multiple crimes (but no murders). Clockwise from l: Johnny Chang, Stevie Mazzone, Phil Narducci.  The charges—announced by William M. McSwain, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania—include mob mainstays such as illegal gambling, loansharking, extortion, and drug trafficking. The superseding indictment identifies  Stevie Mazzone  as the Philadelphia crime family's underboss and Dom Grande as a capo, and notes that in October 2015, while holding these positions, Mazzone and Grande, among others, participated in a Mafia induction ceremony in a South Philadelphia residence during which "several" associates became made members of the Philadelphia crime family. The defendants charged in the seven-count superseding indictment are: Steven Mazzone, aka “Stevie,” age 56;  Domenic

Intense media speculation followed Carmine Galante as he walked out of prison in 1974 and stayed on him for the five years he had left on this earth. He was targeted by television cameras as well as newspapers and magazines (stories were even written about all the stories that had been written about him). He also had to deal with law enforcement seeking to violate him and send him back to prison, which happened more than once after his 1974 release, including months before he was brutally gunned down with two other men on the back patio of a Bushwick, Brooklyn restaurant  on Knickerbocker Avenue. Suspected of more than 80 homicides, Galante, pictured above, was a lifelong mobster who became a key power in the Bonanno crime family. A confident of boss Joe Bonanno himself, Galante was involved in every racket and enterprise imaginable, including international heroin trafficking. Galante was a shark who made a massive mark on the underworld, and not only in New York and the United States

By Nick Christophers  I had the pleasure of visiting the Mob Museum not long ago and was floored by what it had to offer. As a mob historian the Museum offered me a journey that I will not soon forget.... The Las Vegas Mob Museum displays the bullet-riddled wall from the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, among other things. Each floor offered a different layer of mob history that was exciting with surprising artifacts that only they could offer. From the bullet riddled wall of the St. Valentines Day Massacre to letters from Pablo Escobar it was wild to see. Of course, all the items go through a rigorous authentication process.  Geoff Schumacher the Museum’s vice president of exhibits and programs , plays a huge role in offering a memorable tour for the many visitors to the Museum.  Geoff first came to the Museum in 2014 only two years after it opened its doors. When he arrived, he worked on building the Museum’s internet presence (via social media platforms) and artifact acquisition

In 1995, when their paths crossed inside Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), and after trading insults, Greg Scarpa Junior nearly beat Luchese boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso to death. The NYPD linked Greg Scarpa Junior to 24 gangland hits. Former Assistant US Attorney John Kroger highlights the violent encounter in his memoir  Convictions: A Prosecutor's Battles Against Mafia Killers, Drug Kingpins, and Enron Thieves . Aside from passing reference to the incident on Gang Land News, it seems the Feds successfully downplayed what happened, with  Jerry Capeci reporting that in September 1998 that, "Scarpa (Jr.) has been kept away from other mobsters ever since he punched out Lucchese boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso three years ago. Amuso had made some disparaging remarks about his father's FBI informer status." (We’re referring to references found via Google Search regarding the assault. Someone in a comment says the assault was widely covered, presumably in 1995 wh

In late 1993 through September 1994, the Feds conducted an experiment that involved putting 21 members of the Colombo crime family close together in one section of the dormitory-like Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn to enable the accused to "more easily get legal homework done" for upcoming trials, which had to do with crimes allegedly committed during the Colombo war.   The experiment failed miserably.  William (Wild Bill) Cutolo and members of his Colombo crime family crew. The wiseguys took over a wing of MDC in Brooklyn , terrorizing inmates and guards alike, and stealing and hoarding so much food that prisoners elsewhere in the MDC went hungry. The Colombos even turned the TV room into their own private club, replete with Italians Only sign. ( Gang Land News and some of the New York dailies reported on the Colombo clubhouse inside the MDC.) The charismatic William (Wild Bill or Billy Fingers) Cutolo--then a capo in the Colombo crime family -- and six mem