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By Ed Scarpo

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Popular Stories

If Uncle Joe Retires What Happens in Philadelphia?

By Ed Scarpo

Joe Ligambi, who recently got out of prison following two mistrials for what primarily amounted to gambling-related charges, says that he is done, finito, with Cosa Nostra. Ligambi wants to relax, to summer in Longport and winter in Florida. In 1980, violence on the streets of Philadelphia rose sharply following Angelo Bruno's murder. Anyone in Ligambi's position would say the same thing, but the question is, does he really meant it? And if he does, who will step in and take over? Too many wiseguys, if history is taken into consideration.

Bonanno Boss's Prison Letters Kick Off Second Dominick Cicale Forum

By Ed Scarpo

"Mikey Nose" (Commenced 11am, Saturday, Jan. 10)... We can thank Michael "Mikey Nose" Mancuso for our starting point.... I don't think any other blog or news organization on the planet has ever gotten such direct insight from the man widely considered to be the official boss of the Bonanno family . The Nose is from the Bronx, where Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, either former acting boss or current official boss, hailed from.

Hoodwinked: Restaurateur on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Was a Mobster

By Ed Scarpo

Peter (Peter Pasta) Pellegrino, formerly of the Babylon, New York restaurant Peter’s Italian Restaurant, really is -- or was -- a gangster. Gordon gives a pep talk. Peter is ready for action..... The once-promising Bonanno crime family member who appeared in Kitchen Nightmares now calls himself a brokester . And the Bonanno crime family, with which he was once affiliated has disowned him. So has the rest of New York's Cosa Nostra, according to FBI documents and Peter Pasta himself. But before all that he appeared on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares in which he acted very much like the mobster he allegedly was trying to become around the time of filming. (See Peter's Italian Restaurant menu here .) Back then Peter Pasta was an up-and-coming Bonanno associate who "earned" $15 grand a week from bookmaking. At the time, he also owned two boats that he'd park in a pricey nearby Babylon harbor called Great South Bay. Gang Land News's Jerry Capec...

Mob Wife Ex-Husband Hector Pagan In Brooklyn Halfway House With April 2021 Release Date

By Ed Scarpo

Back in 2014, despite the heartfelt pleas of a murdered man's daughter, Brooklyn Federal Judge John Gleeson sentenced Hector (Junior) Pagan to 11 years in prison —and offered a thoughtful comment. James Donovan was killed during a botched robbery in 2010. He said, “We can only hope” that by time Pagan is released “we have prepared him for re-entry into society to mitigate the risk” of what would happen if Pagan returned to a life of crime. How far Judge Gleeson's hope gets us is something we will discover very soon. The former Bonanno associate/Mob Wives bit player is getting out of the can in a few months..... He is currently residing at the Brooklyn RRM (a halfway house where he and other Federal offenders receive "community-based services that will assist with their reentry needs.") Pagan's official reentry date is April 18, 2021. Renee Graziano's ex-husband got a reduced sentence in 2014 because he flipped and testified against two cohorts who were involve...

Decades of Mob Violence Behind Waterfront Case

By Ed Scarpo

The week before Christmas 2014, three North New Jersey-based Genovese crime family mobsters pleaded guilty to waterfront racketeering in a case going on for years -- since January 2011's Mafia Takedown Day . The guy who owned the “Godfather’s Garden.” But the Genovese family's control of the New Jersey waterfront goes back decades and includes many storied mobsters of the past who killed and were killed for control of the lucrative waterfront rackets of the Garden State. The Genovese family even ran its own hit squad, which focused on murdering FBI informants, among others. The bloodless indictment by comparison likely will end with three men serving three-year prison sentences. The key count in the indictment is conspiracy to extort members of the International Longshoremen’s Association for Christmastime tribute payments, according to New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman and Eastern District of New York U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch . Genovese s...

Onetime "Shooter and Gentleman" Gene Gotti Embittered by Prison

By Ed Scarpo

"In this life, there’s a lotta hypocrisy that you just learn to live with—like there’s a rule against dealing drugs, and Gene Gotti [another Gotti brother], is doin’ a long bit for that; you’re not supposed to go with other goodfellas’ wives—happens all the time; you’re not allowed to kill a big boss without the other families’ permission—John Gotti and Sammy whacked Nasabeak [Beak-nose Paul Castellano] and almost started a war." --Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo "Ah, Christ on the fucking cross. Right now I'd give my fucking life just to have fucking Buffalo win one."--John Gotti courtesy of Wikimedia Commons A Brooklyn-based Bonanno crime family associate who served time with Gene Gotti took issue with the headline to this story today and contacted us accordingly. He strongly disagrees with our use of the word "Gentleman." "You're losing your touch. Don't get it twisted: I would never bow down to Gene Gott...

Philadelphia Cosa Nostra Family Has New Boss

By Ed Scarpo

Skinny Joey Merlino EXCLUSIVE: Phil Narducci has been named boss of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra Family, according to several sources who requested anonymity. What is not known is whether he is the official boss or acting boss for Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino , who is serving a short stint down in Florida. Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and Joseph "Chickie" Ciancaglini, Sr. are sharing the position of consiglieri. The underboss position is officially unfilled, though it is believed that South Philadelphia-based capos Stevie Mazzone and John "Johnny Chang" Ciancaglini may fill the void by serving as street bosses for the often-troubled Philly crime family .

Deborah Merlino Certainly Doesn't Exemplify the Stereotypical Mob Wife

By Ed Scarpo

The biggest bombshell in Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino's federal racketeering trial in Manhattan arguably had nothing to do with any of the crimes listed in the indictment . We love gossip, especially gossip about extramarital affairs. Skinny Joey with wife Deborah Consider that the main charge facing Merlino is his alleged involvement "in a scheme targeting providers of health insurance by causing, and causing others to cause, corrupt doctors to issue unnecessary and excessive prescriptions for expensive compound cream that were then billed to the Victim Insurers." Who really cares about poor victimized insurance companies? USA Today recently profiled some of the most-reviled companies in the United States, and wouldn't you know: "Few industries are as widely detested as the insurance industry." (FYI, "American consumers appear to especially dislike health insurance giant Cigna.") Genovese turncoat John (JR) Rubeo...

Powerful Genovese Mobster in the Feds' Crosshairs

By Ed Scarpo

COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE Alleged Genovese crime family acting capo Victor Colletti was indicted in 2005 for running a massive Queens-based gambling operation . He was poised to serve his first stretch behind prison bars at the age of 74. He won on appeal, however, and never served a day. Victor Colletti The state had gone after Colletti, filing a 24-count enterprise corruption indictment in the Supreme Court in Queens County . They missed. Now the Feds are sizing him up for a prison cell.

Bath Avenue Crew Rose High, Fell Hard

By Ed Scarpo

This story from 2014 is one of the most popular on this site—and we didn't even know it until very recently (for reasons stemming from the fallibility of generalized analytics data.) Members of the Bath Avenue Crew were as young as 8 years old when they began to align themselves with the biggest, baddest gang in America: Cosa Nostra, specifically the Five Families. Bath Avenue Crew founding members. They saw the wiseguys on the street pulling up to the curbs in their big shiny Cadillacs, loafing around social clubs wearing pricey suits and sporting hundred-dollar haircuts and manicured fingernails. But the guys presented more than just a cold, distant image to watch; Mafia members interacted with the kids, joked around with them and showed them there were other ways to make it through life. The wiseguys doled out twenty-dollar bills like they were nothing. The wiseguys patted them on the back, told them they were "good kids," and maybe asked them to watch the cars...

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Rat List
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Popular Stories

If Uncle Joe Retires What Happens in Philadelphia?

By Ed Scarpo

Joe Ligambi, who recently got out of prison following two mistrials for what primarily amounted to gambling-related charges, says that he is done, finito, with Cosa Nostra. Ligambi wants to relax, to summer in Longport and winter in Florida. In 1980, violence on the streets of Philadelphia rose sharply following Angelo Bruno's murder. Anyone in Ligambi's position would say the same thing, but the question is, does he really meant it? And if he does, who will step in and take over? Too many wiseguys, if history is taken into consideration.

Hoodwinked: Restaurateur on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Was a Mobster

By Ed Scarpo

Peter (Peter Pasta) Pellegrino, formerly of the Babylon, New York restaurant Peter’s Italian Restaurant, really is -- or was -- a gangster. Gordon gives a pep talk. Peter is ready for action..... The once-promising Bonanno crime family member who appeared in Kitchen Nightmares now calls himself a brokester . And the Bonanno crime family, with which he was once affiliated has disowned him. So has the rest of New York's Cosa Nostra, according to FBI documents and Peter Pasta himself. But before all that he appeared on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares in which he acted very much like the mobster he allegedly was trying to become around the time of filming. (See Peter's Italian Restaurant menu here .) Back then Peter Pasta was an up-and-coming Bonanno associate who "earned" $15 grand a week from bookmaking. At the time, he also owned two boats that he'd park in a pricey nearby Babylon harbor called Great South Bay. Gang Land News's Jerry Capec...

Mob Wife Ex-Husband Hector Pagan In Brooklyn Halfway House With April 2021 Release Date

By Ed Scarpo

Back in 2014, despite the heartfelt pleas of a murdered man's daughter, Brooklyn Federal Judge John Gleeson sentenced Hector (Junior) Pagan to 11 years in prison —and offered a thoughtful comment. James Donovan was killed during a botched robbery in 2010. He said, “We can only hope” that by time Pagan is released “we have prepared him for re-entry into society to mitigate the risk” of what would happen if Pagan returned to a life of crime. How far Judge Gleeson's hope gets us is something we will discover very soon. The former Bonanno associate/Mob Wives bit player is getting out of the can in a few months..... He is currently residing at the Brooklyn RRM (a halfway house where he and other Federal offenders receive "community-based services that will assist with their reentry needs.") Pagan's official reentry date is April 18, 2021. Renee Graziano's ex-husband got a reduced sentence in 2014 because he flipped and testified against two cohorts who were involve...

Bath Avenue Crew Rose High, Fell Hard

By Ed Scarpo

This story from 2014 is one of the most popular on this site—and we didn't even know it until very recently (for reasons stemming from the fallibility of generalized analytics data.) Members of the Bath Avenue Crew were as young as 8 years old when they began to align themselves with the biggest, baddest gang in America: Cosa Nostra, specifically the Five Families. Bath Avenue Crew founding members. They saw the wiseguys on the street pulling up to the curbs in their big shiny Cadillacs, loafing around social clubs wearing pricey suits and sporting hundred-dollar haircuts and manicured fingernails. But the guys presented more than just a cold, distant image to watch; Mafia members interacted with the kids, joked around with them and showed them there were other ways to make it through life. The wiseguys doled out twenty-dollar bills like they were nothing. The wiseguys patted them on the back, told them they were "good kids," and maybe asked them to watch the cars...

Deborah Merlino Certainly Doesn't Exemplify the Stereotypical Mob Wife

By Ed Scarpo

The biggest bombshell in Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino's federal racketeering trial in Manhattan arguably had nothing to do with any of the crimes listed in the indictment . We love gossip, especially gossip about extramarital affairs. Skinny Joey with wife Deborah Consider that the main charge facing Merlino is his alleged involvement "in a scheme targeting providers of health insurance by causing, and causing others to cause, corrupt doctors to issue unnecessary and excessive prescriptions for expensive compound cream that were then billed to the Victim Insurers." Who really cares about poor victimized insurance companies? USA Today recently profiled some of the most-reviled companies in the United States, and wouldn't you know: "Few industries are as widely detested as the insurance industry." (FYI, "American consumers appear to especially dislike health insurance giant Cigna.") Genovese turncoat John (JR) Rubeo...

Bonanno Boss's Prison Letters Kick Off Second Dominick Cicale Forum

By Ed Scarpo

"Mikey Nose" (Commenced 11am, Saturday, Jan. 10)... We can thank Michael "Mikey Nose" Mancuso for our starting point.... I don't think any other blog or news organization on the planet has ever gotten such direct insight from the man widely considered to be the official boss of the Bonanno family . The Nose is from the Bronx, where Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, either former acting boss or current official boss, hailed from.

Wiseguy Jerry Chilli Was a One-Man Crimewave

By Ed Scarpo

Jerry Chilli* died last Saturday from throat cancer; a private funeral mass will be held in Florida, which is where the Bonanno capo spent the greater part of his adult life. (Especially after New Jersey law enforcement officials, in no uncertain terms, told him to depart New Jersey.) Jerry Chilli, at the top of the game. Chilli was a stone-cold gangster who shunned the limelight, who never "talked" and never took a step back, even when he knew there could be a steep price to pay. He was a tough guy with his fists who made his bones with a gun. The younger of two brothers (his brother moved up faster and earned more), Jerry Chilli served lots of prison time, which some chalk up to his involvement with the notorious Costabile "Gus" Farace, the mob associate who executed an undercover federal agent on Staten Island in 1989. (A 1991 made-for-television film about Farace is available on DVD featuring several actors who today are high profile, including Sa...

Notorious Bonanno Wiseguy Bruno Indelicato Released From Prison

By Ed Scarpo

Longtime Bonanno wiseguy Anthony (Bruno) Indelicato, 75, who shot his way into the annals of American organized crime, was released from prison on May 20, 2022, as per the BOP inmate locator website. Bruno Indelicato, left, Frank Lino. The son of the brutally murdered Alphonse (Sonny Red) Indelicato, a capo who led a doomed faction of the Bonanno family, Bruno was in his heyday a feared stone killer with a legendary appetite for cocaine. Indelicato was one of three masked gunmen who walked into Joe & Mary’s restaurant in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn one hot July day in 1979 and blasted Carmine Galante at close range while the volcanic, would-be usurper enjoyed a customary, post-prandial cigar. Indelicato’s efforts to protect the family’s boss paid dividends: Indelicato was among a slew of Bonanno soldiers elevated to capo by a grateful Philip (Rusty) Rastelli in the wake of the Galante hits. But Cosa Nostra being Cosa Nostra, it wasn't long—a couple of years—before Bruno...

Why Was Mob Boss Tommy Eboli Really Killed?

By Ed Scarpo

From left, Al Pacino, Genovese capo Patsy Eboli and Al Lettieri. I found the following while researching where in Sicily Al Lettieri 's family arrived from. Lettieri, the great character actor of the 1970s, was noticed for his infamous turn in the Godfather ; my next personal favorite Lettieri character after Virgil (The Turk) Sollozzo has to be the villian in the Steve McQueen flick The Getaway (based on the excellent novel of the same name by Jim Thompson, the blackhearted writer of criminal fictional masterpieces .) I couldn't find a reference regarding from where the actor's family hailed, but I did find interesting information about a former Genovese acting boss murdered gangland style in 1972. (His brother disappeared a few years later.) I got the chills after finding a story that seems to substantiate a claim I'd heard from one of my sources. The source is from Manhattan's Greenwich Village and lived about one block away from the Tr...

Alite: "Once Junior Went In, I Couldn't Flip Fast Enough"

By Ed Scarpo

EXCLUSIVE We assume it's in the book, what John "Junior" Gotti revealed today. You may have read the story, EXCLUSIVE: John (Junior) Gotti brags he lied to feds - NY Daily News : "When the mob scion sat down with federal prosecutors in 2005 to discuss crimes of fellow mobsters, he planned to give them bad information and useless leads, Gotti and his lawyer revealed in an interview with the Daily News. 'No one suffered but me,' he said of the decision." John A. "Junior" Gotti Joe "The German" Watts and Danny Marino might disagree. And some other guys who brawled in a Queens bar one evening in the 1980s may also disagree.