Cosa Nostra News

Turncoat Bonanno associate/former podcaster Gene Borrello has been sent back to jail again for violating the conditions of his supervised release. Gene Borrello in hot water once again. Borrello, 38, was given a six-month sentence by a judge in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday for participating in podcasts about organized crime and for associating with other criminals while doing so. “You want to know [why] I went out there?” Borrello said of his podcasting antics as per a Daily News repor t. “I’ll be honest with you. Every other cooperator is on there and I’m not allowed to. Sammy Gravano is on there talking about killing people.” “I don’t like being made a fool of,” the judge said. “It bothers you, of course — that’s the essence of trust.” Borrello helped Brooklyn federal prosecutors put away more than 21 mobsters and then spent about five years in prison for committing crimes that otherwise could've earned him a life sentence. A judge sentenced him to time served and probatio

Four members and two associates of the Genovese crime family have now pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced on Thursday, February 9. Genovese associate Thomas Poli. Genovese Family associate THOMAS POLI pled guilty before United States District Judge John G. Koeltl on September 29, 2022, and is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Koeltl on April 13, 2023. Genovese Family Captain NICHOLAS CALISI, Solider JOHN CAMPANELLA, and associate MICHAEL POLI pled guilty before Judge Koeltl on February 8, 2023, and are scheduled to be sentenced by him on June 27, 2023. Genovese Family Captain RALPH BALSAMO and Soldier MICHAEL MESSINA pled guilty before Judge Koeltl on February 9 and are scheduled to be sentenced by him on June 28, 2023. Each faces up to 20 years in prison,  according to a media release  from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. (Curiously, the media release

Trailer added below An unassuming Instagram post will lead curious mob watchers to some potential intrigue, assuming they value recent Bonanno crime family history. Dom Cicale's podcast will debut next week. The Instagram post  touts an upcoming podcast by former Bonanno capo Dom Cicale. Cicale briefly mentioned the podcast, Mafia RoundTable, in a recent story we did on some of his legit post-Cosa Nostra doings. Cicale is planning to launch the podcast series with an historical bang: The debut episode, to be posted online next week on Valentine’s Day, will touch on secret codes, schtupping a Luchese soldier’s wife, issues of trust—and plotting against Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso (who is the official top Banana on the street today). It is quite the devious, twisted little plot, as Dom tells it—replete, in all its sociopathic splendor, with a manufactured fall guy.  In addition to the podcast, Dom has something else potentially in the works with another podcaster, category killer (

The following guest post is courtesy of The Mob Wife , an online merchant that offers high-quality clothing, home décor, and accessories at affordable prices. For more information, click here . The website offers a vast array of products, and we do mean vast: coffee cups, beach blankets, necklaces, phone cases, t-shirts, slippers, fleece jackets, canvas paintings, clocks, sculptures, shower curtains, rugs, and on and on. The mob figures prominently in the design of many of the items, either as an image of a well-known gangster (or non-Mafia villain) or mob-like quote that maybe wasn't exactly in The Godfather, but hey, it coulda been....The "Carlo Gambino" bomber jack proclaims: " Judges, lawyers, and politicians have a license to steal. We don't need one. "  (Our all-time favorite is the " Carlo Gambino is Calling and I Must Go " waterproof pillow.) The Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia; the ’Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia; and the Camorra, the Cam

How did former Gambino associate John Alite make it inside Donald J. Trump’s gilded Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, long enough to be photographed alongside the former president?  Just two guys from Queens chatting. He didn’t need a gun. Rather, one of his close friends—Brazilian businessman Pedro (Peter) Alberto Leite, president of Hichens, Harrison & Co., who is a years-long member of Mar-a-Lago—brought him in as a guest. “He’s a good friend of mine,” the Palm Beach-based investment banker said of Alite. Leite grew up in New York and knew Alite “for a long time.” About five years ago, the two renewed their friendship and have grown closer. “People love John,” he said. “John is the poster boy for turning yourself around. He does charity work, gives speeches, and his knowledge is vast.” “John,” he noted, “has paid for his crimes. Now he is going out of his way to give back.” Alite visited Mar-a-Lago —which since September 2019 has been the primary residence of the former pr

By Nick Christophers We have all heard stories about Al Capone—maybe too many. I once was sent to investigate a home in Amityville, Long Island, where he supposedly briefly lived when they were loading booze from Canada, but didn't find any convincing evidence that the house, located in an area called “Rum Row," was his.   Did Capone run a floating speakeasy aboard the Keuka?  Recently, I came across an interesting find by underwater photographer and author Chris Roxburgh, who claims to have found the floating speakeasy Capone had in the late '20s. The wreck was the vessel the Keuka, which sank in 1932 in Traverse City, Michigan. That boat was built in 1889 and was christened the A. Stewart before the name was changed to the Keuka. The ship is 200 feet long and over two stories tall. In 1929 the boat had its grand opening as a "dance hall,” but it was really used to serve alcohol during Prohibition. Capone allegedly supplied the booze for the floating speakeasy. From

Is there anyone Trump won't take a picture with?, we are beginning to wonder... with no offense to former Gambino associate John Alite, who also was snapped alongside the former president. (Only because Alite's pic was snapped last summer, we believe he beat Skinny Joey to the Trump train). John Alite, center, alongside DJT, who is keeping busy since his failed coup against the United States. Alite confirmed the authenticity of the photograph, which was recently published  in the UK's Independent , which reports that  Alite these days describes himself  as a political independent who supported Trump’s push for criminal justice reform. Alite, who is a veteran podcaster—who we have written about here for years—also told the  news site  about some of the life changes he has experienced since departing the clink some 10 years back. “ I'm a guy that's does TV, does movies , those talk shows, does talks for kids, works with the FBI, does events and talks with the FBI aga

The Philadelphia Inquirer obtained a photo of former President Donald Trump posing alongside former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino earlier this month at the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach wherein the two, plus an unidentified third man, flash smiles and the thumbs-up. All three wear golf attire. Trump, center, with Skinny Joey, right, and unidentified third, left.  Picture source: The Philadelphia Inquirer . As per The Inquirer , the pic “is likely to renew concerns among Trump loyalists eager to help him retake the White House next year that he still lacks the sort of protective political infrastructure that would prevent a candidate for president from taking a picture with a convicted mobster whose last stint in federal prison ended in mid-2020.” A spokesperson for Trump would not say if the former president knew the notorious wiseguy, who in the 1990s waged war against Gambinos-backed John Stanfa for control of the Philadelphia mob. “Pres

Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas by Glenn Kenny, which we finally got around to perusing, includes many fascinating tidbits about the acclaimed 1990 Martin Scorsese film as well as the real-life Luchese wiseguys and associates on whom the film was based. We also learned the answer to something we have long wondered about: Why did Scorsese change the names of the characters?  “You got money for that fcking commercial of yours. You don't got my money? You don't got my fckin' money?”  According to Made Men, Robert De Niro’s approach to the role of Jimmy Burke —renamed Conway—the Irish-American gangster with ties to the Luchese crime family through his association with Luchese capo Paul Vario , renamed Cicero for the film—included the kind of painstaking, multifaceted preparatory work for which the New Yorker has long been known.  De Niro’s copy of the Goodfellas script—which is part of the De Niro archives at the Ransom Center at the University of Texas —includes handwritten

"He's asking Frankie, what do we do? Do we just let Sammy run wild and take everything? There's other people here, other captains here...  Nobody could eat. Sammy, in John's mind, is out of control and he's having people killed, and John feels like a clown, like he has been led around by the master of ceremonies..." —Mikie Scars on the Ravenite Transcripts  We finally had a chance to mosey on over to Patreon to check out the No Excuses podcast featuring Michael (Mikie Scars) DiLeonardo and RJ Rogers, who have been focusing on the transcripts of the FBI recordings of Gambino boss John Gotti holding forth in an apartment above the Ravenite social club. The Ravenite social club was a valuable piece of New York history that should've been preserved. (You don't have to join Patreon, and fork over $9.99 a month, to watch part one of the Gotti Tapes , which was posted on YouTube recently. To access the podcast for free, skip on down to the end of this....) In