Cosa Nostra News

NEW PHOTO Mob Wives star Renee Graziano was arrested and charged with driving under the influence last night following a car crash around 10:19 pm at the intersection of Arden Avenue and Arthur Kill Road on Staten Island, according to an exclusive report today at the Daily Mail.com . . She has been charged with operating a motor vehicle while impaired, Shawn Cohen of the Daily Mail reported .  Graziano, 52, had been driving a 2020 Nissan Murano with New Jersey plates when she struck an unoccupied 2020 Jeep Wrangler. She told police she’d taken Adderall earlier in the day. She was reportedly taken to a nearby hospital for a medical review and was then transported to a local police precinct, where she was then charged with the misdemeanor. As per Daily Mail sources : Graziano was getting out of the driver’s seat when the police arrived at the scene. "She was allegedly incoherent, had watery eyes and slurred speech." DailyMail.com also reported that Graziano was seen leaving thr...

How unpopular was the VH1 reality show Mob Wives among New York Mafiosi? Anthony Graziano and Joseph Massino on "vacation." It reportedly almost cost one Gambino associate an eyeball, not to mention life on this earth... In July 2015 at the medium-security federal prison in Fairton, New Jersey, Gambino associate Albert (Albee) Crisci was nearly beaten to death, as Gang Land News revealed a month later. He was hospitalized after the brutal assault administered by a group of inmates in a prison yard blind spot during morning recreation. Crisci, who had once been a DeCavalcante crime family associate, was then associated with Gambino soldier Joseph (Joe Boy) Sclafani (since around 2010). Crisci had played a minor role in Sclafani’s drug ring. (Sclafani had his own links to the show: he was going to marry Ramona Rizzo when he was arrested for drug dealing and sent to prison. Ramona nixed the wedding. Sclafani was serving his sentence at a different prison...

Anthony (TG) Graziano -- a longtime member of the Bonanno crime family who served as consigliere and was a capo -- died at age 78 of unreported causes, though he suffered from health ailments including diabetes and bladder cancer. Anthony Graziano and daughter Renee.  Graziano's daughter Renee Graziano, the former Mob Wives star, posted word of his death on her Instagram yesterday (May 25). Part of former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino's inner circle, Graziano was among the trusted aids whom the surveillance-paranoid Massino would travel with on "vacations" to places like Italy and Mexico. Massino held Graziano in strong favor, and (as per sources) gave him advance word regarding the 1981 triple murders of the three "renegade" Bonanno capos, Anthony (Sonny Red) Indelicato, Dominick ( Big Trin) Trinchera, and Phil Giaccone in a Brooklyn nightclub. Under Massino, TG had been given total control of Staten Island for the Bonannos. Graziano ser...

REVISED  This Life Of Ours: Fairy Tales Of Mob Bartenders  is the first book in a female-centric series. Click book cover for more information. It tells the other side of the traditional mob love story about what it's like for a nice girl from New York to fall for a notorious mobster. D iane Morton-Gattullo  is the author of This Life Of Ours: Fairy Tales Of Mob Bartenders . Available now, the nearly 500-page book details the mobbed-up nightlife scene of New York City circa 1980s-1990s. An excerpt from Life of Ours: " This is an invitation only club and if you’re lucky you might be invited to the VIP section. This life is not for the faint of heart. Remember, you’ll never know if you have a real friend once you enter our world. My name is Dannie and I will be your guide on the Crazy Train Express! We break for no one but stop at fuck me, feed me and paying my bills way, the fun house, mob dens, nightclubs and jail. Please don’t sit near th...

If you ever watched a single episode of the series The Sopranos, you would know that it centered on the life and times of a fictional Italian American family out of New Jersey who had close ties to the mob. While it is easy to be drawn into the sordid tales detailing how underground operations can control the drug trade, politicians and even the waste management industry, one might easily overlook how substance abuse was also an underlying theme. Various characters in the show checked themselves into substance abuse programs and fought to keep their plights with drug use a secret from their friends and family. Although completely based on fictional characters, The Sopranos did manage to address many of the preconceived notions that people have about what substance abusers truly look like and how some are able to hide their addictions from those closest to them.

Some of the bank burglary crew members mentioned here were apparently members of the same crew as Gerard Bellafiore  as well as the trio recently busted ... Lee D’avanzo had a past, but it was, like, no big deal. Besides, he was a changed man, a business owner, as he told his wife, Drita, who believed him, "but boy was she in for a shock!" as Hollywood Life wrote back in June 2011. Credit: Starcasm Drita then told HollywoodLife.com exclusively "that she didn’t know that Lee was a bank robber when she started dating and then later married him!" Lots of reality show blogs seem to have an addiction to exclamation points.

Drita D'Avanzo.... " Mob Wives " star Drita D’Avanzo ’s assault charges were dropped last week, the Daily News reported , "after her victim declared omerta and refused to cooperate with prosecutors, officials said." She declared omerta.... right... As noted , D'Avanzo, 40, was busted for fighting at Mary Bratti's Amboy Road home in Staten Island's Tottenville section at about 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 10 in what had all the markings of a classic celebrity-gotcha setup.

Luigi Grasso, Big Ang's cousin. It was about about six months ago when newspapers were reporting that Luigi Grasso, c ousin of ‘Mob Wives’ star Big Ang, had saved a suicidal inmate's lif e in a courthouse holding cell before Grasso’s appearance on a weapons rap.  Grasso's actions were lauded  by no less than a Manhattan judge.  The distressed suicidal inmate, who was never identified by officials, had fashioned a noose from a T-shirt and was hanging from the top bar in the pens of Manhattan Criminal Court at 111 Centre St. on Oct. 7 when the brawny mobster literally leaped into the air to save him, according to witnesses.

Brittany Fogarty In the past year, I've talked to a few mob wives -- by that I mean woman married to made guys. The general consensus about VH1's Mob Wives is that the women are a disgrace and an embarrassment to all Italian-Americans. Some are even "frauds," "rats" and "whores." One source said something that resonated:

"One thing about us wiseguys, the hustle never ends...." In "College," Tony brutally murders a rat, Fabian Petrulio.  Tony Soprano whispers those words to Fabian Petrulio (aka Frederick Peters, a former member of the fictional New Jersey mob family, who flipped.) The two -- Tony and Fred -- had been effectively hunting each other for the past day. Fabian blew his chance to kill Tony the night before at the motel where the New Jersey mob boss was staying with his tiny young daughter. Too many witnesses. The next morning however he was still trying. Petrulio (or Peters) tries to hire a junkie to kill both Tony and his daughter. "Gray Lincoln town car. New model." But not even a junkie and his girlfriend will cross that line. They are not going to commit murder. Fred Peters then begins to work the phone (our rat hasn't changed much since Witness Protection. He deals drugs and participated in an arson...) It is precisely this ambiguity which Da...

Big Ang is making drinks at that big bar in the sky.... It was the kind of thing Big Ang wouldn't have condoned.... Mob Wives cast members Brittany Fogarty and Karen Gravano were asked not to attend Angela "Big Ang" Raiola's funeral yesterday. A source with friends who attended the memorial service and funeral have said that a third  Mob Wife, Drita D'Avanzo, who showed up with two bodyguards, was asked to leave one of the memorial services. However she can plainly be seen crying (accompanied by two big burly bodyguards wearing ear pieces) at the funeral.

Big Ang prior to plastic surgery, pre-Mob Wives.... Angela "Big Ang" Raiola, star of the VH1 reality series "Mob Wives,"  died early Thursday morning as she was fighting lung and brain cancer. She was 55. Widely known for her raspy voice, larger-than-life personality (plus humongous bustline), and of course her apparent propensity for plastic surgery, she was one of the very few Mob Wives stars to be universally loved by fans. This blog often referred to her as the show's conscience, as well as its raspy voice of reason.

In the above video, a woman is clearly taunting Lee and Drita D'Avanzo, with Drita apparently screaming in the background. (Note: we don't see what happened prior to the beginning of the filming.) Then, reportedly a few moments after the above was filmed, the fight took place, with a next-door neighbor filming it. (See fight video on jump page, at end of story.) I, for one, have problems with this scenario. These videos were clearly filmed separately, and in one version, not posted here, they were fused together in the sequence I described, with the above video comprising part one. The problem is the second part doesn't seem like it was filmed immediately following the first. Or to put it another way, what proof is there that the one sequence immediately followed or preceded the other? We have two incidents captured on different cameras -- and I have seen nothing definitive that says which one came first. It's possible and quite likely the two sequences were fi...

An anonymous source who knows a lot about VH1's Mob Wives cast members recently contacted us. What annoys her (she's a true "Mob Wife") is the idea that some of the women on Mob Wives may actually serve as role models for young women. "First off, understand:  They are not  Mob Wives . None of them ." The "old" cast is new... almost. "They are all liars and everyone on Staten Island has no respect for them. And how they chased her father because of the show!

VH!'s reality show is in the block EXPANDED Mob Wive s will have a new owner -- and it's ITV, the same broadcaster that aired the recent Mafia with Trevor McDonald two-part series, one of the most watched non-scripted shows in Britain. It featured John Alite , the topic of George Anastasia's Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia , among other former mobsters. What a sale means for Mob Wives and its viewers is open to debate, as The Weinstein Company will continue to manage its television division though it is "in the process of selling [it] to ITV, the British broadcaster that has been on a buying spree of late," as  The Hollywood Reporter  revealed today. The deal's value could be worth $950 million. It involves an up-front payment of around $400 million with "an escalating package of compensation and bonuses that would nearly triple the initial purchase price," sources told THR.

This year Mob Wives really lived up to its tagline: Trust No One.... This year most of the drama on Mob Wives occurred off screen and after the season ended following a two-part reunion that got heated enough to make Vivica Fox weep. (It almost makes you forget she did a pretty good job kicking ass herself in Kill Bill. See pic--->.) Since episode one, the major dynamic of the entire season was proclaimed loud and clear: this year it's all about the bitch called pay back that ultimately took the form of an implied major confrontation between Natalie Guercio and Natalie DiDonato. But the big fistfight or shootout or whatever we all expected never happened. (Nor did we relish the thought of it. We don't like the idea of two women fighting.... we want women to act, well, womanly, not like dudes...And, yes, we did interview one of the cast members and we will get to her following some prefatory remarks.)

Who did we speak to? We spoke with one of the cast members of Mob Wives today and will post the interview tomorrow today, Wednesday . Amazon.com Widgets We'll include some input from a couple of anonymous sources, but the major thrust of the article will be attributed to the lady with whom we spoke today.....

I get lots of email. Mostly from mob enthusiasts asking me to cover this or that. I have yet to receive a communique from, say, a beautiful women in town seeking someone to show her New York's many unique splendors. Sometimes I get emails from mobsters.

It's difficult keeping up with Mob Wives' season five "rats" subplot. Everyone on the show is a rat and/or is accusing someone else of being a rat. This is all nonsense, of course -- as was most of Mob Wives .   Many friends needed to unburden themselves by telling me: Ed, the show ain't real...   I know it wasn't real. So what? This is a blog.... people don't understand that writing about fake reality shows is a pretense that allows one to slip social commentary inside the story.   The problem is that if you do this too shrewdly, it may fly over readers' heads. (The obverse is true too, however: if you do it clumsily, the same thing might happen anyway.)    Anyway I am reposting this on 12/29/2016 as I update coding on the 1,600-something blog pages. (I am loving every minute of this -- I just may blow my brains out depending on how many more hours of this I have to go. I intend to copy and paste code until I awake facedown on...

Tonight is VH1's  Mob Wives series finale. We finally got a chance to watch last week's episode and came to a realization hypothesis: Renee's baptism plays out, then we cut to a restaurant scene where Natalie DiDonato is providing Drita with proof that supposedly will finish off Natalie Guercio . Kind of like The Godfather's infamous baptism scene in which Michael Corleone is taking part in the ceremony in a Catholic Church, no? The scene is inter-cut with scenes of the enemies of the Corleone family getting whacked one by one, and is probably one of the most famous scenes in film history (if not history, period.)