Colombo Boss Skinny Teddy Persico Is Back In Prison. And What Else Is New?

All five New York Mafia bosses are out of prison—or at least, were out of prison—until, in an absolutely shocking twist—we're being facetious—a judge in Brooklyn Federal Court earlier this week sentenced Colombo boss Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico to nine months in prison for violating the terms of his supervised release (for the third time, according to the Feds) by meeting with other Colombo wiseguys last December.

Skinny Teddy Persico.

Skinny Teddy, 62, had been surveilled by the FBI attending the crime family's Christmas party at Ponte Vecchio in Brooklyn's Bay Ridge section. In prior months, Persico had also visited a Colombo wiseguy outside a Manhattan hospital and greeted a Gambino gangster at a Staten Island body shop, though the Feds apparently gave him a pass for those “illegal” encounters.

As for the Christmas party meeting, Persico's attorney argued that his client had only been in the restaurant briefly and didn't even try to hide it (apparently, if you do it out in the open, then you're not breaking the law).

“There’s a quick exchange of pleasantries, a seven-minute meeting, and then it’s over,” Joseph Corozzo Jr., Persico’s lawyer, told the judge, who wasn’t buying any of it.

Persico was only released from a West Virginia Federal clink last May after serving the bulk of the five-year sentence he received for his role in extorting a labor union.

Persico was handpicked to lead the family, though there's dispute over exactly when that happened—possibly in May 2020 after he finished the eight-year prison sentence handed to him for his role in the 1993 plot to murder Joseph Scopo, a powerful capo who was opposing the Persicos during the Colombo war. (Scopo had been an ally of then-Gambino boss John Gotti, who had helped fuel the war as part of a scheme to enhance his position on the Mafia Commission.)

William (Wild Bill) Cutolo

Successfully taking Scopo out—the  Persico faction hit team included a young wannabe named John Pappa, who was actually a homicidal psychopath who’s still in prison today for killing Scopo, among other people—checkmated the Orena faction and ended the war. 

Why was Teddy chosen? To use the simplest term, it was nepotism: Skinny Teddy's father, who died in 2017, was a brother to Carmine (Junior) Persico, the legendary boss of the Colombo family, who died in 2019 at age 85 after spending the last 34 years of his life behind bars serving a 100-year sentence.

Teddy Persico became the presumed heir apparent when  his cousin Alphonse (Little Allie Boy) Persico, Junior's son, got a life sentence following his 2008 conviction for the 1999 murder of underboss William (Wild Bill) Cutolo. Wild Bill had been a key player in the Orena faction during the third Colombo war, and Little Allie was unable to forgive and forget.

A year after his release in 2020, Teddy Persico was arrested yet again, along with 10 other Colombo members and associates for extorting a Queens labor union. They were charged with money laundering, drug trafficking, and other offenses.

In July 2025, he began a three-year term of supervised release—and began meeting with other wiseguys, which landed him in his current predicament.

Teddy has spent about half his life in prison, which probably saved said life. He was inside in the early 1990s when the third Colombo war kicked into gear. By not being on the street, Teddy avoided death or a life sentence for murder, the fates of numerous Colombo wiseguys who weren’t lucky enough to be behind bars. 

His first serious criminal case hit him in 1987, when New York State indicted him for being part of a large-scale cocaine trafficking operation. Persico was screwed royally: one of his drug customers was actually an undercover officer, and Persico sold him cocaine on four separate occasions. In one transaction alone Persico had sold the undercover 13 ounces of cocaine.

When Persico was released from prison in 2004, after serving time for the narcotics trafficking charges, he returned to the Colombo family's bosom and instantly engaged in criminal conduct, according to court-authorized wiretaps.

On May 25, 2004, he was recorded discussing a weapon brought to him in advance of a potentially violent meeting with another Colombo family soldier. Persico said, “they come there the [expletive] thing is dirty. How do you keep a pistol with [expletive] dirty bullets in it in the first place? You got an automatic pistol, you clean the bullets, you put them in the [expletive] clip, and the clip is ready, whenever you’re ready.”

In another conversation intercepted on November 23, 2004, Persico spoke about collecting a debt and instructed his co-defendant to bring an individual to him so he could give him a “[expletive] beating.” Persico further threatened that he would “take it out on his kids, that’s all, until he [expletive] does the right thing.”

Persico was arrested again in 2005 on Federal racketeering charges, including extortion. 

While he's going back to prison now, it's only for nine months, which he can do standing on his head.

He will be released by the end of the year, it seems. But how long before he's pinched again?

Crime families with bosses serving extensive time in prison have a mixed record, at best. While an imprisoned boss can absorb some of the heat from law enforcement,  protecting the acting boss on the street, this only seems to work if the boss in question has the confidence to be more of a figurehead who has the ability or talent to put the right people in the right positions on the street. He may issue an occasional edict from his prison cell, but he largely steps away from running the borgata's day by day affairs. 

Vic Amuso seemed to fall into this category. He wore the Luchese crown long into his current endless prison incarceration, and the Luchese family enjoyed relative prosperity, even after Brooklyn-based Luchese mobster Michael (Big Mike) DeSantis succeeded Bronx-based (former) powerhouse Matthew (Matty) Madonna as acting boss, a move that could've led to some bloodshed, but didn't. The succession happened precisely as Amuso had directed. 

Amuso and Gaspipe chat with capo Frank Lastorino Sr.

The Lucheses apparently learned from past mistakes—and avoided repeating the murderous mayhem that happened back in the 1980s-1990s when over a dozen members were killed (by boss Amuso and his underboss/partner/eventual betrayer Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, who decimated the once immensely wealthy crime family on every level).

On the other hand, you have Teddy's uncle, Carmine Persico, who remained boss after he began serving his endless prison sentence. He eventually provoked a long and bloody war when he made moves to elevate his son, Allie Boy, to succeed him as boss of the crime family. Carmine's efforts fueled underboss Vic Orena's decision to move against the Persicos for control.

The Colombo family, the only New York crime family that fought three intrafamily civil wars, still comprises the two factions—loyalists to Persico and those who sided with Orena. The crime family could—theoretically, at least—split apart again at that decades dormant fault line.

The Colombo family would seem to have more in common with the Bonanno family than the Luchese family, specifically the Bonannos of the 1970s when Philip (Rusty) Rastelli was boss. (And we hope, for the Colombo family's sake, that this isn't the case.) Like Teddy Persico, Rastelli spent half his life in prison. During his 18-year reign as Bonanno boss (from 1973 to 1991) he was free for only about three years. He mostly ran the Bonanno family from behind bars.

Bonanno boss Philip (Rusty) Rastelli.

Bonanno members elected Rastelli to the top spot on February 23, 1974, at a meeting at the Americana Hotel in Manhattan. Their decision proved to be highly cataclysmic for everyone involved. Rastelli's reign was ruinous, fueling waves pf murderous purges (Carmine Galante, the uprising of the three capos, etc.) and the losses of lucrative rackets. Additionally, the family's substantial interests in the junk business compelled members of the Commission to deny Rastelli a seat at the table with them, which further eroded  the power of the once legendary Bonanno family.

As for the bosses who are free (currently, anyway), based on various published reports and our best estimates:

Genovese boss
Liborio (Barney) Bellomo

Gambino boss
Domenico (Italian Dom) Cefalu

Bonanno boss
Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso

Lucchese boss
Michael (Big Mike) DeSantis