Cosa Nostra News

With thanks to the "mobologist," who shared his insight about the following, among many other things too numerous to list here right now.... Jay Goldberg, a welterweight boxer-turned-lawyer who defended a roster of high-profile figures, including a bevy of powerful wiseguys—and who delivered the first decisive courtroom defeat to mob-busting US Attorney Rudy Giuliani—died on December 5 at his home in Bridgehampton, New York. He was 89. Defense lawyer Jay Goldberg. Goldberg, who (in)famously quipped, “ I’m fairly certain that I never represented an innocent mobster, ” defended high-profile as well as lesser-known wiseguys. A highlight of his career as a mob lawyer had to be when he delivered such a masterful cross-examination of Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, he won unqualified praise from the influential National Law Journal, which described his courtroom questioning of the former Gambino underboss as “Goldberg’s methodical destruction of Mr. Gravano" that showed he...

After a seven-month hiatus, the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor was back in business on December 7, when it formally banned multiple individuals from obtaining "gainful" employment on the docks  over alleged ties to Mafia figures. Churchgoer Stephen (Beach) DePiro, reputed Genovese soldier. As per published reports, the rejects had ties to the Lucchese, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and DeCavalcante crime families. The potential recruits included an applicant who is affiliated with Stephen (Beach) DePiro, a Genovese soldier who in 2015 was sentenced to three years and five months in prison after pleading guilty to an extortion scheme that collected kickbacks from dock workers. The Commission also blocked an applicant who did not disclose his association with a “member of the Sicilian faction of the Gambino family.” Another applicant was rejected over his not disclosing multiple family ties to the mob: his father is associated with the Luchese family and a grandfather ...

Reputed Philadelphia Cosa Nostra underboss Steven Mazzone, 59, was sentenced to five years in prison and three years of supervised release by US District Judge R. Barclay Surrick for his role in several conspiracies to commit racketeering, making extortionate extensions of credit, and conducting an illegal gambling business. Reputed Philadelphia crime family underboss Stevie Mazzone. As per the Justice Department, in June 2022, Mazzone pled guilty to five counts in a Superseding Indictment, thereby admitting his guilt as a leader of the Philadelphia mafia who directed a vast network of criminal activity that spanned Philadelphia and parts of New Jersey. His conduct involved conspiracies to commit crimes involving extortion, illegal gambling, drug dealing, and loansharking. As the underboss, the defendant set rules for LCN members and associates and collected profits from illegal activity that was siphoned upward through the LCN command structure to ensure the enterprise continued to ex...

Michael DiLeonardo, aka Mikie Scars, rose to capo in the Gambino family during the reign of John Gotti. He was close to the Gottis, and if John Gotti had not crashed and burned in the early 1990s courtesy of the FBI, Mikie Scars' rise likely would have continued, and daily life for him might be very different today.  Paulie Zac, DiLeonardo's mob mentor. But as fate had it, John Gotti was arrested, tried, convicted, and in 1992 was sent to a Federal prison for life. He was around 10 years into his sentence when he died on June 10, 2002 , at the Federal prison hospital at Springfield, Mo. He was 61. (The cause was cancer.) As  we detailed in 2015 , the Feds filmed Mikie Scars ("I was born on record") attending the Dapper Don's wake. Days later, Michael and others were arrested based on Craig DePalma's sealed Grand Jury testimony. While sitting in jail, DiLeonardo learned that Joseph (Jo Jo) Corozzo, consiglieri, speaking for Peter Gotti and Nicholas (Little Ni...

It is December 2022, the holiday season, and some Bonanno wiseguys are pitching a fit over the mandatory monthly dues demanded by the boss for the family war chest. According to our generally reliable sources, Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso, 67, has been taking $200 a month from each and every Bonanno.  Nose and his preternaturally bright smile. (Is he contemplating those Christmas envelopes?) Savvy gangland watchers will recall that boss Joe Massino also collected monthly dues from members for inclusion in a legal defense fund. Wiseguy Frank Lino brought this out while on the stand, testifying that he and others each kicked in $100 a month to a family kitty that was to be used to pay legal expenses.  Before Massino was arrested for the last time, “everyone paid $100 a month for a war chest—if someone got in trouble, it was there,” one source told us. The Bonanno family’s legal defense fund efforts “stopped for a while, but when Nose came home, he put it back into effect.” Mancu...

Vincent (Kojak) Giattino, 69, one of the few members of Bonanno soldier Thomas (Tommy Karate) Pitera 's crew who didn't flip after arrest over 30 years ago, is once again seeking compassionate release.    Giattino was on America's Most Wanted prior to his 1991 arrest in Florida. Two previous compassionate release efforts were nixed, including one this past July that Judge Margo K. Brodie shot down, noting, Giattino “committed two heinous murders using guns equipped with silencers and trafficked narcotics as a devout member of BCF (Bonanno Crime Family).” With this latest effort, attorney Anthony Cecutti is hoping he can win release for Giattino by highlighting two recent decisions to release two other convicted murderers who were serving life sentences. Those decisions involved Colombo capo Anthony Russo, who ordered murders during the Colombo war, and Paul Moore, a drug trafficker who fatally shot a rival. Both were given reduced sentences on the same day last month by Jud...

" He no like drugs. He say: no, no no [to heroin] on Knickerbocker Avenue. They say, ‘Okay.’ Then they kill him .” —Luigi Ronsisvalle on Pietro Licata, longtime Bonanno power in Brooklyn. Got it in 1976. (Licata, that is.) Just in time to add to your Christmas shopping list : Former Brooklyn prosecutor Michael F. Vecchione’s third true crime book tells the story of Luigi Ronsisvalle, the “diabolically funny” mob hit man who arrived in New York from Sicily in 1966 to make his mark in the American underworld. He eventually landed in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn on Knickerbocker Avenue as it was evolving into ground zero for the Bonanno's international heroin trafficking business. Ronsisvalle, left, and Ivan Fisher, Sal Catalano's Pizza Connection attorney, when Luigi was recanting. Or attempting to. Homicide Is My Business: Luigi the Zip―A Hitman’s Quest for Honor  is available now. Jerry Schmetterer is co-writer. Ronsisvalle achieved limited success in gangland (none ac...