Cosa Nostra News

After finishing The Stone Killer (1973), Charles Bronson and Michael Winner wanted to make another film together. They discussed further projects. "What do we do next?" asked Bronson. "The best script I've got is 'Death Wish'. It's about a man whose wife and daughter are mugged and he goes out and shoots muggers," said Winner. "I'd like to do that," Bronson said. "The film?" asked Winner. "No . . . shoot muggers," Bronson replied, A Most Violent Year:  "A crime drama set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city's history, and centered on the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built." The above statistic is true. The film is fiction, but the backdrop against which it wa...

Vernace had been close to the Gambino families current Sicilian leadership. LongIsland.com : Yesterday at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, Bartolomeo Vernace, a member of the administration of the Gambino organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra (the Gambino family), was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, plus 10 years. On April 17, 2013, following a five-week jury trial before the Hon. Sandra L. Townes, Vernace was found guilty of a racketeering conspiracy spanning 1978 through 2011. The jury found that Vernace participated in all nine racketeering acts alleged as part of the conspiracy, including the 1981 double homicide of Richard Godkin and John D’Agnese, heroin trafficking, robbery, loansharking, and illegal gambling.

Richard Godkin, pictured, and partner John D'Agnese were murdered in 1981 over spilled drink. REVISED : Comment moderation, except for older posts, was removed as it was slowing down discussion. Comments now will appear immediately. Also, please consider starting an account with a nickname or some kind of name when commenting instead of leaving anonymous comments... Anyone wanting to do so in need of assistance, please email us. Comments will still be reviewed, of course. ;-) Thanks to MafiaNewsBlog.com for furnishing this info. A slew of high-level mobsters and one mob wife will be in Brooklyn Federal Court this week for various reasons, including sentencing, plea bargains and conferences. Bartolomeo "Bobby" Vernace is slated to be sentenced tomorrow morning by the Honorable Sandra Townes. The prognosis is life in prison for the Gambino capo who refused to cop to a lesser charge that included a 12-year sentence.

Nature abhors a vacuum. So does organized crime. Scholars will tell you, correctly, that the U.S. Mafia was always independent of its Sicilian/Southern Italian counterpart, although the U.S. version did borrow some of the old country's trappings, such as the concept of "omerta," which basically means, don't talk, ever. But like rats fleeing a sinking ship (where do these rats go, by the way? I mean, a sinking ship is out at sea, isn't it?), made guys, including management, and associates have "flipped" and continue to "flip" on anyone and everyone. It is safe to say the U.S. mob has been decimated.

From an article on the Queens Chronicle website by Michael Cusenza, Editor: FBI agents, assisted by the Police Department and state law enforcement agencies, last week executed the largest coordinated organized crime takedown in FBI history, cuffing more than 100 of 127 indicted individuals in the city, New Jersey and Rhode Island. But an academic expert in criminology and criminal organizations noted that while the dramatic pre-dawn raids undoubtedly have struck an economic blow to La Cosa Nostra, the Mafia in New York has always regrouped and regenerated. “They will adjust,” said Howard Abadinsky, professor of criminal justice at St. John’s University in Jamaica. “Whether [the arrests] will have a lasting effect on the structure of the groups — that, I doubt.” Abadinsky also called the simultaneous arrests of so many reputed members of the mob “extraordinary,” because they’re not all tied to the same crime, and said he sensed “a little bit of a suspicion that maybe ther...