Cosa Nostra News

I prefer  Defectors , while the unwashed mass media, which tends to view everything in black and white, uses  Rats . Stefano Magaddino posed the threat prompting Witsec. Defector, based on its historical definition, is more accurate, I believe: A defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause, or doctrine to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty. ... This list of names of guys who flipped is a work in progress, ongoing for a couple of years now. The original focus was on New York's Five Families, but I've expanded it to include others. Two things to consider while we're on this topic: Firstly, the Witness Protection Program began with Pascal "Paddy" Calabrese and was a direct response to Buffalo mob boss Stefano Magaddino. While serving a five-year stre...

See part one of this story, Path to WITSEC Built on Omerta's Dead, here . In December 1964, Pascal "Paddy" Calabrese robbed Buffalo's City Hall during daylight. While serving a five-year stretch for his daring but unsuccessful feat, he started nursing a deep hatred for his boss, Stefano Magaddino, who had cut him loose the moment he was cuffed by law enforcement. Buffalo wiseguy Paddy Calabrese helped create the Witness Protection Program. Magaddino had done the same to the drug-dealing Agueci brothers, forgetting about them as soon as they were arrested. Magaddino had been well aware of the brothers' narcotics business and was glad to pocket their generous tributes in return for extending them police protection.  But Magaddino couldn't have cared less when the cops busted the two. While out on bail,  Albert Agueci  threatened the 75-year-old Cosa Nostra boss, saying if Magaddino didn't use his connections to help him and his brother, he'd talk to the ...

Meet the Tweetfellas. Former mobsters living large, and in public. So notes a recent Daily News  article  that sought to take to task these "media characters" who have the gall to balk "after completing their government service as informants." Instead of "vanishing into America’s heartland with new identities... they are sticking close — some would say dangerously close — to their stomping grounds and stoking high-profile on social media, personal websites and reality TV shows." WITSEC was perfected by the time Fat Pete Chiodo was ready for it. "Former NYPD Police Commissioner [from 1996 to 2000] Howard Safir, who created the witness protection program when he was a top official of the U.S. Marshals Service, said they’re foolhardy if they think they’re getting a pass on the death sentence for violating the mob’s code of silence." “Organized crime is very patient, even if it means it’s going to be years down the road for there to be re...