Cosa Nostra News

COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE The Feds know lots of wiseguys out there on the street—some of them very well. But there also are wiseguys the Feds don't know at all. Guys who are not on the "radar" at the present moment. John Pennisi was one of those guys.... Recent pic of John Pennisi. The Feds weren't building a single case against John Pennisi when he first went to them to talk in 2017, and it took a while for them to fully comprehend what had happened, that a guy who knew a hell of a lot about current goings-on inside the Luchese family had just fallen into their lap. Pennisi -- who flipped and testified in detail about certain events related to the Luchese family (plus the other families that comprise the New York Mafia) (and if you are wondering, yes, wiseguys are still out there hustling) -- was following in the footsteps of another former member of the Luchese family: Onetime acting boss Alphonse (Little Al) D'Arco , who flipped and testified in the early 1...

VIDEO ADDED Frank Gioia was a Luchese soldier born and raised into the Mafia.He flipped in the 1990s, helped convict around 70 wiseguys, and departed prison in 1999 for the Federal Witness Protection Program. Frank (Gioia Jr.) Capri We now know many previously confidential details. For instance Frank Gioia morphed into Frank Capri, an Arizona businessman, real-estate developer, and restaurateur who ran Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill, a restaurant chain that touted flash-fried pickle chips and whiskey hot wings. The Arizona Republic investigated the former mobster and recently published its findings in a story headlined Mafia in our midst . Back in the 1990s, when he testified in trials, numerous times serving to support allegations made on the stand by superstar witness Al D'Arco, Gioia was described by prosecutors as a devastating turncoat viewed as a sort of successor to Sammy the Bull Gravano. Now the feds must be eating crow again. Turns out Gioia...

Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D'Arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia includes an anecdote about the "testify down" strategy used in mob trials. In two recent cases in Brooklyn, the government used cooperating witnesses who were"big fish"—meaning they had admitted to more serious crimes than the charges faced by the people they were testifying against. D'Arco in only surveillance photograph. This is, generally speaking, the opposite of how cooperating witnesses are supposed work. Usually, legal experts said, the goal is to get those witnesses to admit to wrongdoing, cooperate with the government and to walk the investigation up the ladder, obtaining evidence against leaders or those potentially engaged in more serious crimes. In exchange, on the recommendation of prosecutors, cooperators typically end up serving reduced or no prison time. "If you can only punish big or small fish you obviously want to go after the big fish, th...

What is interesting about the Waterfront Commission case, to us anyway, is that it involves Mario Gallo , one of the three shooters convicted of murdering Costabile "Gus" Farace , who the New York mob sentenced to death for  killing undercover DEA agent Everett Hatcher . The killing of Hatcher in 1989 brought down such intense heat on the five families, it was decided that Farace needed to be killed and his body found. Mario Gallo was part of the hit team that killed "Gus" Farace. Gus was not alone on the night of his death; Joseph Sclafani was driving him. Sclafani himself was shot out of his shoes during the hit but survived. He was arrested once out of the hospital. It is because of Sclafani that  John Gotti   had ordered the deaths of the entire Farace hit team; Sclafani was the son of a trusted Gotti capo and was himself connected to the Gambino family, as well as former  Mob Wife   Ramona Rizzo  (she'd been engaged to Sclafani, un...

The book about Little Al is due out later this year. Written by Capeci and Robbins, it should be a worthwhile read. The NY Daily News  quotes Alphonse "Little Al" D'Arco , former Luchese acting boss turned informant, saying that Joe Massino, another informant -- and one-time boss of the Bonanno family -- should be let out of prison. ASAP. “I hate to play judge, but I think he should get time served,” said Alphonse (Little Al) D’Arco, who is described in the article as the second-highest-ranking defecting gangster after Massino. “The government took his cooperation, he did what they asked,” D’Arco, 80, said in a statement provided to the Daily News. “They owe him. You can’t let him rot in prison for the rest of his life.”

Louis "Louie Bagels" Daidone (born February 23, 1946) is a New York mobster and former acting boss of the Luchese crime family. Louie Daidone His reign was relatively short. In the end, while in his early 50s, he was sentenced to three life terms and two 20-year terms, all running concurrently (well, thank god for that!) I always remembered him for doing a favor for a friend that involved beating the crap out of a landlord for not stopping someone for playing their music too loud. In court documents, the prosecutors said that as a favor to ''a person close to Daidone,'' emissaries from the crime family went to a Brooklyn landlord, warned him that music was being played too loudly in his building, and told him he would be hurt if the noise continued. When the music continued in the early part of 2002, according to the prosecutors, an associate of the crime family returned to the landlord, and ''assaulted him, striking him repeatedly in...