Cosa Nostra News

UPDATED " To be honest with you, we just barely let the Gambino family in ...." Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, referring to the stunningly profitable gasoline tax scam in testimony before the Senate Subcommittee In May 1996, for the first and only time, Luchese underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso testified—before the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which was examining the emergence of Russian immigrant crime groups and their ties to New York's Five Families, among other crime groups. Underboss to underboss: Sammy the Bull and Gaspipe Casso walk-talk. He spoke during the brief period that was the length of his cooperation . Gaspipe, who flipped in March 1994, was booted from the program in July 1998, when Judge Frederic Block of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn found that he had breached his cooperation deal with prosecutors. Block authorized the Government to rescind the plea agreement on the grounds that Casso had bribed prison guards to smuggle co...

The story of the two decorated NYPD detectives who moonlighted as hitters for the Luchese crime family may soon play out on television screens near you.  Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso Emmy Award-winning Boardwalk Empire creator/Sopranos executive producer Terence Winter has “committed” to writing and developing the series that will tell the story of the Mafia Cops , aka Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, a recent New York Post report blared. Caracappa and Eppolito were former NYPD detectives who worked for the Mafia in New York City, primarily for the underboss of the Luchese crime family, in the 1980s and early 1990s . The two retired detectives were finally indicted in 2005 and then convicted in 2006 of eight counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, plus labor racketeering, extortion, narcotics, gambling, and obstruction of justice. In 2009, Caracappa was sentenced to life plus 80 years and Eppolito to life plus 100 years. (Caracappa died on April 8, 2017 at age 75 of can...

The Luchese crime family apparently learned from its past mistakes -- and avoided repeating the stretch of murderous mayhem that happened back in the 1980s-1990s when over a dozen members were killed. From left: Amuso, Vic Orena, Michael Taccetta, Nicky Scarfo Consequently, Brooklyn-based Luchese mobster Michael (Big Mike) DeSantis bloodlessly succeeded Bronx-based (former) powerhouse Matthew (Matty) Madonna as acting boss, precisely as imprisoned-for-life boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso had directed. Amuso -- who alongside his top lieutenant, Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, was responsible for that 1980s-90s bloodbath -- had sent a message (via coded letter) from his prison cell to underboss Steven (Stevie Wonder) Crea in 2017, as reported by Jerry Capeci on Gang Land News and the New York Post, noting that the news was based on testimony delivered during the racketeering trial of Eugene Boopsie Castelle. (Amuso in turn was responding to a letter that had been ...

REVISED to include reference to Miami Memo about Joseph(Skinny Joey) Merlino, reputed boss of Philadelphia Mafia.... This is not the kind of item I'd usually cover but August is the slowest of news months and this is just too whacky to let go.... Elena Accetturo is 29. And dangerous!  A Broward County woman married to a man with a historic Mafia name was arrested on a Friday late last month. She's married to the son of the onetime top Luchese crime family leader in New Jersey. Elena Accetturo, 29, faces charges of DUI with property damage, possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, battery on an officer and driving with a suspended license. She was released from the Palm Beach County Jail after posting a $12,000 bond. She "caused a crash in suburban West Palm Beach that left her husband with a shattered leg," reported the Palm Beach Post. She was not finished, however. She then punched a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy in ...