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Showing posts from 2021

When John Gotti Maneuvered Against The Genovese Family To Absorb Nicky Scarfo's Garden State Rackets

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The year 1987 was slightly more than a week old when FBI agents nabbed Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo as he emerged from a plane at the Atlantic City airport.  None of Chin's plots touched Gambino boss John Gotti. The violent, mercurial Philadelphia boss—he was John Gotti's more murderous precursor—and his girlfriend were returning from Fort Lauderdale, where they had spent the New Year’s holiday. Scarfo, sporting a deep winter tan and perfectly coiffed hair and dressed to the nines in an impeccable suit, looked like a million bucks, almost like an old-school Hollywood star showing up at the Oscars. He smiled and nodded as the agents handcuffed him and walked him to the vehicle that would drive him to his well-deserved fate. The Feds had indicted Scarfo and three others earlier that day on charges of conspiracy to commit extortion in the shakedown of Penn’s Landing, an area along the Delaware River that had been targeted for redevelopment. Penn's Landing was named after th

When The Colombos Had A Snitch For Street Boss

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An acting boss commands a crime family's captains, while a street boss generally is a capo in direct contact with the boss who passes on the boss's orders to the other captains, as our usually reliable sources tell us. What me worry? Ralph Francis DeLeo, former street boss. A boss would designate an acting or street boss when he is in prison or otherwise unable to command the family on the street. Why a boss would choose one man over another to be acting or street boss would depend on multiple considerations, including the political and the personal. One big consideration for the Colombo family circa 2008 was finding someone who wouldn't try to take over the entire organization, which is why they chose a Boston-based bank robber and convicted murderer. Alphonse (Little Allie Boy) Persico—the son of Carmine Persico, the onetime reputed head of the Colombo crime family who died in 2019 while serving a 100-plus-years prison sentence—was seeking to avoid his father's histo

Activist Touts Allegations Of Mob Ties In Decrying Removal Of Chicago's Joe DiMaggio Statue

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Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), aka Joltin’ Joe, the Yankee Clipper, played centerfield for the Yankees, achieved an historic 56-game hitting streak in 1941, and won legendary status. (Decades later, in 1978, he started appearing in Mr. Coffee commercials and helped transform the automatic drip coffeemaker into an iconic household appliance.) Removal of Joe DiMaggio statue from Chicago's Piazza DiMaggio. DiMaggio was born in California, raised in San Francisco, became legendary playing ball in New York, died in Florida, and was memorialized in Chicago courtesy of Piazza DiMaggio , a much-cherished plot of land on Taylor and Bishop Streets in Chicago's Little Italy section that boasted a statue of DiMaggio's likeness.  The Hall's first inductee in 1978, DiMaggio attended the 1991 unveiling ceremony for his statue, which had been sculpted by Ferdinand Rebecchini. Standing more than 11 feet tall, for 20 years, the Joe DiMaggio statue stood ac

Here's Why Retired Genovese Family Bookmakers Should Never Share An Apartment With Their Latin King Nephew

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But if they do, they shouldn’t store their guns and ammunition in the bedroom, especially if they are a convicted felon.... David (Chicky) Cecchetelli, 54—reputedly a retired bookmaker associated with the Genovese family’s Springfield crew who was arrested in 2019 with his nephew, a big-shot in the Latin Kings—yesterday  pleaded guilty to one count of being a felon in possession  of ammunition before U.S. District Court Judge Patti B. Saris. Chicky, who was nabbed in a Latin King round-up, isn't a Latin King (source: Twitter ). The judge slated Cecchetelli’s sentencing for March 17, 2022, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts. He faces up to 10 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a potential $250,000 fine. (See Twitter video of Chicky below.) The trouble came early one morning in December 2019, when over 500 Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers raided the Latin Kings in the Northeast United States,  arres

Conclusion Of Testimony Of Salvatore (Sammy The Bull) Gravano: When The Bull Was The Shooter

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The final installment touches on how James (Jimmy Brown) Failla (pronounced FYE-yal-lah) provided the first inkling that John Gotti and the rest of the Gambino family administration were seriously screwed after the Gambino capo told them how, when he went before a grand jury, he was asked if he had ever visited an apartment above the Ravenite. From left: Joe Butch, John Gotti, Jimmy Brown (in June 1984). Jimmy Brown, who died in 1999, was a senior statesman in the Gambino crime family , a powerful capo who for more than 30 years helmed the Association of Trade Waste Removers of Greater New York, the largest private garbage-haulers' trade group in New York City. Law enforcement first noticed the Brooklyn born Failla when he became driver and bodyguard for Carlo Gambino after Gambino took over the crime family following his orchestration of the 1957 murder of his predecessor, Albert Anastasia. Gambino put Failla in charge of the Gambino family's garbage-industry interests, and F

Judge Denies Compassionate Release Request For Reputed Former Genovese Consiglieri Bobby Manna

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UPDATED US District Judge Peter G. Sheridan denied the recent compassionate release filing for reputed former Genovese consiglieri Louis (Bobby) Manna, calling his criminal efforts "extremely serious and heinous." Louis (Bobby) Manna; picture source . Manna, 91, who once upon a time held court at Casella's Restaurant , the base of operations from which he supposedly helped run the Genovese crime family's Garden State operations, has been imprisoned since 1987. He was convicted and sentenced to 80 years in prison.  His crimes included plotting to murder John Gotti and John's older bother Gene and ordering the 1977 murder of Frank Bok Chung Chin, an electronics expert who agreed to testify for the government, and the 1987 execution of Irwin (The Fat Man) Schiff, a 350-pound mobbed-up businessman/con artist who was hit while dining at Upper East Side restaurant Bravo Sergio. Manna's attorney Jeremy Iandolo noted in court filings that Manna has Parkinson's dis

The Mob's Underground Railroad: How Allie Boy Persico Survived On The Lam For Seven Years

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In 1987, reputed Colombo boss Carmine Persico knew that, short of his lawyers one day cooking up a miracle, he would in all likelihood be spending the rest of his life in prison. He had been convicted in  two separate trials: the Mafia Commission trial and a separate racketeering trial involving the Colombo family's operations. (Persico died in 2019 at age 85 after serving 32 years of that 136-year prison sentence following his two convictions.) Allie Boy Persico was on the run for seven years. The cases were separate, but overlapped, the common denominator being FBI surveillance recordings of Colombo soldier Ralph Scopo’s conversations, which alerted the Feds to the initial evidence that would help them build the Commission Case. Scopo was the bagman in a large-scale ongoing racket involving shaking down concrete contractors at major construction projects. As the president of the Cement and Concrete Workers District Council of the Laborers' International Union of North America