Cosa Nostra News

On Tuesday Federal prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss a perjury case against a Rhode Island mob associate/bookie. Gaythorne (Poochie) Angell Jr., 84, was indicted in 2016 for lying to a grand jury about shakedown money paid to the mob by the Foxy Lady strip club. He is the Angell family’s patriarch — whose friends range from Smith Hill politicians to Federal Hill wiseguys. Poochie has long denied he was anything but a consultant. But a 2009 court document signed by a Foxy Lady lawyer showed that Angell had a previously undisclosed financial interest in the club, raising questions about the city’s oversight of its liquor-licensing laws. He since successfully completed a pretrial diversion program, as prosecutors noted in a filing in U.S. District Court, Providence. If a judge agrees to the dismissal, Angell, of East Greenwich, will not face the perjury charge in federal court. Jim Martin, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said that prosecutors and Angell agreed...

UPDATED New England Mafia capo Edward Lato, 71, was transferred Wednesday from Fort Dix federal prison in New Jersey to a halfway house. Eddie Lato According to the BOP inmate locator he's in a facility in Philadelphia. According to Target 12, which broke the story, Lato was sent to Pawtucket in Providence. Lato was eligible for release to home confinement or a halfway house on Jan. 25, according to the Target 12 story, which based that on information acquired from the Federal Bureau of Prisons via a Freedom of Information Act request. Lato's attorney, Mark Smith, remarked that he had "no knowledge" of Lato's situation. We've emailed Tim White, the reporter whose byline is on the Target 12 story, for clarification, and we'll update this story accordingly. Tim White replied: "Philadelphia is where the BOP's Residential Reentry Center is. As I reported in my story, he is at a halfway house in Pawtucket (halfway ho...

Federal prosecutors yesterday charged three alleged members of the New England Mafia and three associates with extorting money from Rhode Island’s adult entertainment industry since the 1980s, a "business" that generated about $2 million, reports  The Boston Globe . "In a seven-count indictment unsealed in Providence today, federal authorities also indicate that the leadership of the Mafia in New England has shifted back to Boston after being under the control of Providence-based mobsters for the past several years," the article says. Buried within the 22-page document, alleged Mafia capo Edward (Eddie) Lato notes to someone that every time he meets with a wiseguy in Boston, he knows the man is being watched by the law. “Every time I leave, there’s someone looking at me… there’s a guy on the corner every ----  time,’’ the 64-year-old Lato said, according to the indictment. “They’re following him… I mean… not that they’re not suppose (sic) to follow him, he’s...