Cosa Nostra News

The Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano who was arrested in Arizona in February 2000 lacked all the savvy and sophistication one would expect of a longtime Mafia member who rose to become underboss of one of the Five Families.  "I was stupid. You can say, ‘Sammy, you were a [expletive] retard.’” Some of Gravano’s actions, as revealed via Phoenix PD surveillance, were inexplicable—incomprehensible. Stupid might be a better word. It's actually the word Sammy himself used after he was arrested in his only jailhouse interview: “I was stupid. You can say, ‘Sammy, you were a [expletive] retard.”  After copping to participation in 19 murders and helping put away John Gotti and 38 other members of organized crime, Sammy the Bull finished the five-year prison sentence he got via his plea agreement. The Federal Witness Protection Program relocated Gravano, under the alias Jimmy Moran , to Arizona in 1995. He left the program in 1997, the same year that his memoir Underboss: Sammy the Bul

Truth and Lies: The Last Gangster retells the story of the rise and fall of former Gambino underboss Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano from 30 years later and includes focus on his podcast platform as well as the drug trafficking crimes he committed in Arizona post-Gambino crime family. If Gravano hadn't been arrested for dealing Ecstasy in Arizona, he probably would've been killed by Huck Carbonaro and Fat Sal Mangiavillano, the Gambino soldier and associate who were ordered to Arizona to kill the former underboss , as we've recently covered. Truth and Lies: The Last Gangster, a two-hour program, features footage from Gravano's 1997 Diane Sawyer interview and new interviews with Gravano as well as former Gambino acting boss John (Junior) Gotti, former Colombo associate Larry Mazza , onetime Colombo capo Michael Franzese, Gambino associate Anthony Ruggiano Jr ., and we also heard onetime Gambino associate John Alite. The show also features investigators; journalists;

The son of a notorious Queens-based Gambino capo pleaded guilty earlier this month to participating in a years-long overtime fraud scheme that cost the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) a small fortune. Frank Pizzonia after court hearing Frank Pizzonia—son of Dominick (Skinny Dom) Pizzonia—is one of five LIRR workers who Federal prosecutors charged with conspiring to file for inflated overtime pay for work they didn't do. Pizzonia initially pleaded not guilty and was to face trial later this year, but changed his plea. Prosecutors reportedly are seeking a 12- to 18-month sentence for Pizzonia, more time than his co-defendants face, the Daily News reported . Pizzonia, 54, was approved for 3,780 hours of overtime in 2018 on top of his regular 40-hour workweek. He earned $305,000 that year, making him the MTA's 29th highest-paid employee, according to the Daily News . Pizzonia is scheduled to be sentenced on May 4. John Nugent, another LIRR worker convicted in the same s

Is the structure of the New York Mafia somehow based on the Roman legions? (We recently received an email posing that question.) It all started about 100 years ago with a Sicilian mobster named Salvatore Maranzano, who was the capo of all the clans in Sicily’s Castellammare del Golfo region, the birthplace of many powerful Sicilian American gangsters. Salvatore Maranzano on September 10, 1931. The Fascist government of Benito Mussolini kicked Maranzano out of Italy in the 1920s. He came to America, settling in Brooklyn. Maranzano built a legitimate real estate brokerage business, which he used as cover for his criminal operations, which included a growing bootlegging business. Eventually, Maranzano was atop an immense criminal organization sprawled across the Northeast United States. He took to mentoring a young man named Joseph Bonanno. Maranzano enjoyed talking about himself and was known to spend an inordinate amount of time telling everyone around him that he had studied for the pr

After years of eking a living on the streets around Springfield, Mass. via the illicit book-making business, David (Chicky) Cecchetelli has embarked upon a LEGITIMATE career (in film), but faces a significant obstacle: On an upcoming date, he will stand before a judge to be sentenced for a charge he caught following a December 2019 arrest.  Chicky, right, and Damian, Mt Carmel Italian Social Club. (Source: Twitter ) That pinch was as unlikely as they come. It was part of  Operation Throne Down, an FBI-DEA operation that targeted the Latin Kings  street gang organization. It had nothing to do with ex-mob guys—Chick was simply wrong-place-wrong-time tertiary damage. Cecchetelli was caught up in the massive sting by virtue of the fact that his nephew (slash roommate) Michael Cecchetelli was an East Coast leader of the street gang and consequently, was the Feds' key focus. Law enforcement hit the apartment the two shared expressly to carry out an arrest warrant for Michael, aka King Me

Reputed Genovese crime family associate John (Johnny Pizza) Porcello, who the pizza trade press once described as a "tough-sounding, but actually-nice-guy," was indicted this week in Brooklyn Federal court for running an illegal sports betting ring and overseeing a loan sharking racket. Photo of Mafia Takedown Day bust in January 2011. Porcello and codefendant Ronald Seebeck, 56, both of Westchester County, allegedly together profited from a loansharking operation that ran from September 2016 through August 2021, as per Federal prosecutors. The duo also ran a sports gambling ring from 2020 through 2021 that produced more than $2,000 in daily profits. (We're basing this on a  New York Post report  by Ben Feuerherd.) Porcello of Yonkers and Seebeck of Tuckahoe both pleaded not guilty at their arraignments in Brooklyn Federal court and were released on bond, a US Attorney’s Office spokesperson said. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison on the loan sharking charge