Cosa Nostra News

By Nick Christophers We have all heard stories about Al Capone—maybe too many. I once was sent to investigate a home in Amityville, Long Island, where he supposedly briefly lived when they were loading booze from Canada, but didn't find any convincing evidence that the house, located in an area called “Rum Row," was his.   Did Capone run a floating speakeasy aboard the Keuka?  Recently, I came across an interesting find by underwater photographer and author Chris Roxburgh, who claims to have found the floating speakeasy Capone had in the late '20s. The wreck was the vessel the Keuka, which sank in 1932 in Traverse City, Michigan. That boat was built in 1889 and was christened the A. Stewart before the name was changed to the Keuka. The ship is 200 feet long and over two stories tall. In 1929 the boat had its grand opening as a "dance hall,” but it was really used to serve alcohol during Prohibition. Capone allegedly supplied the booze for the floating speakeasy. From ...

Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), aka Joltin’ Joe, the Yankee Clipper, played centerfield for the Yankees, achieved an historic 56-game hitting streak in 1941, and won legendary status. (Decades later, in 1978, he started appearing in Mr. Coffee commercials and helped transform the automatic drip coffeemaker into an iconic household appliance.) Removal of Joe DiMaggio statue from Chicago's Piazza DiMaggio. DiMaggio was born in California, raised in San Francisco, became legendary playing ball in New York, died in Florida, and was memorialized in Chicago courtesy of Piazza DiMaggio , a much-cherished plot of land on Taylor and Bishop Streets in Chicago's Little Italy section that boasted a statue of DiMaggio's likeness.  The Hall's first inductee in 1978, DiMaggio attended the 1991 unveiling ceremony for his statue, which had been sculpted by Ferdinand Rebecchini. Standing more than 11 feet tall, for 20 years, the Joe DiMaggio statue stood ac...

EXPANDED In 1961, Tony Accardo, the then boss of the Chicago Outfit, likely came close to ordering a hit on longtime Milwaukee boss Frank Balistrieri after Balistrieri sanctioned the murder of a nightclub operator and raised so much heat from law enforcement that "the hoodlum element couldn’t get away with anything and aren’t making any money." Tony Accardo, the "Big Tuna" of the Chicago Outfit. This is according to newly released information from FBI records that are now part of the Chicago Sun-Times’ The FBI Files database, as the newspaper recently reported . Of course Sam (Mooney) Giancana was the front boss of the Outfit in 1961, as Accardo, for decades, used front bosses to shield himself from law enforcement. Balistrieri defused the situation with Chicago -- and continued breathing until natural causes finally ended his life in 1993 at age 74. Accardo died the year before at age 86. Giancana, who rose to  the top in the 1950s, was murdered in 1...

Charles (Chuckie) Russell, who boasted of pulling off thousands of burglaries in a four-year period,   died before he could be sentenced for gun possession in connection with a 2016 robbery plot, the Chicago Sun-Times reported , attributing this to court filings. Chuckie Russell  Russell, 70, a reputed member of the Chicago Outfit's Grand Avenue Crew (Joey the Clown Lombardo’s old bailiwick), was suffering from prostate cancer. On Dec. 21, 2016, he was arrested after purchasing eight guns from an undercover federal agent in Chicago. He pleaded guilty last year to possession of a revolver that agents found during a search of his home in Schaumburg. He reportedly faced at least 15 years in prison. However, because of his illness, Russell was released from jail and allowed to live at home via electronic monitoring, and was never healthy  enough to be sentenced. Russell had arranged to stay in a condo owned by girlfriend Patricia Spilotro, a relative of ...

John A. Matassa Jr.—a reputed Chicago mob figure and longtime union boss who earlier this year copped to a federal felony charge of embezzlement in an alleged scheme to fraudulently qualify for early retirement benefits— is going to federal prison. Matassa, aka Pudgy, faced sentencing on July 22, more than two years after a 10-count federal indictment slapped him in the nads. His defense had been that the U.S. Department of Labor had targeted him, a viewpoint that didn't hold much water in the view of the judge. In court recently, the two butted heads when Matassa stood before the judge and said,“ The only reason I’m standing here today is because my name is John Matassa .” The judge retorted with: “ You pled guilty to a felony to avoid going to trial. That’s why you’re here right now. Not because your name is John Matassa .”) The case stemmed from Matassa’s job as the secretary-treasurer of the Independent Union of Amalgamated Workers Local 711. While his plea a...

Do members of the Chicago Outfit pay associates to help them collect money? Apparently, in the following case involving a long-time Outfit soldier, he did.... Robert Panozza Sr., alleged Outfit soldier. Reputed Outfit soldier Robert Panozzo Sr. pleaded guilty last Wednesday in the federal courthouse in Rockford to threatening and beating a businessman over an alleged $100,000 debt, and then hiring someone to torch the businessman's car and house when he wouldn’t pay. A reputed longtime soldier under Albert (Little Guy) Vena, the reputed Grand Avenue boss, as well as a member of the Grand Avenue Crew, Panozzo allegedly carried out a four-year campaign of violence and threats to collect the debt after telling the man in 2005, “This is serious. I want my money.” He entered a guilty plea to one count of extortion conspiracy. The plea agreement, which was 17-pages long, calls for up to 14 years in prison, and whatever his ultimate sentence, it will be ...

John (Pudgy) Matassa Jr., a reputed longtime Chicago Outfit member and former union boss, will ask a federal judge today to delay his upcoming sentencing for embezzlement because of serious medical problems -- and prosecutors apparently have no problem with that. John Pudgy Matassa Jr. Matassa Jr., 67, pleaded guilty in February to a scam to fraudulently qualify for early retirement benefits. Matassa was to be sentenced on May 22, but a visit to his cardiologist and then a heart surgeon are on track to interrupt the plan. The man suffers from "coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes, sleep apnea, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease," according to a filing. Prosecutors don't oppose the delay in Matassa's sentencing. In the government's sentencing memorandum filed yesterday, prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly to sentence Matassa to between 27 and 33 months imprisonment -- and also acknowledged "that it would be app...

How do you get inherent lawbreakers to follow laws.... John Gotti and Joe Butch outside the Ravenite social club . (Source NYPost) That was the question that  confronted Charles (Lucky) Luciano and others at the dawn of the American Mafia, the 1931 reorganization of organized crime, when the men running America's Mafia decided to once and for all optimize their "thing" for efficient plunder. Each member of the "board of directors" had one vote, and the majority determined the decrees that were issued forth. By putting in place such a construct, Luciano effectively did away with the entity that previously served as the mob's top governing body. The  capo di tutti i capi  or  capo dei capi,  the "boss of all bosses" or "boss of [the] bosses," was no longer, though if Luciano had wanted to hold that position, he likely would've met with little dissent. ( One almost can't help recalling a sliver of basic Am...

As powerful as the mob  was historically (and it was pretty damn powerful), today it is only a fraction of what it once was. Operation Dirty Thirds, May 2018. ( Photo by Keith Durflinger for SCNG) The Italian-American Mafia 's ability to organize, infiltrate and control labor unions, run entire industries as monopolies, not to mention protect itself from law enforcement and politicians (think of major mob fixers like Chicago's Curly Humphreys and New York's Frank Costello ), will likely never be outmatched. The mob was such a force in major cities across the country -- New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, etc. -- it made corruption a fact of daily life to the extent that those in fields such as law enforcement and journalism had to keep a steady eye on it to simply do their jobs. Today, the scrutiny the mob faces is so piddling, a resurgence is  almost guaranteed. In any event, in terms of sheer size, meaning numbers of "bodies...