Cosa Nostra News

Recent news about a purported contract killing reminded us of notorious Colombo capo Greg Scarpa, who was a longtime top-echelon FBI informant as well as a key power in the fight for control of the Colombo family in the early 1990s. Anthony Scarpati, left, and Greg Scarpa. The Colombo family mob war, which left 12 dead on the streets of New York City and many wounded, commenced November 18, 1991, when the first shots were fired. That day Scarpa was pulling out of his driveway while daughter Linda, with her infant son, was behind him in another car also pulling out---when a van and panel truck abruptly blocked them in and several heavily armed men wearing ski masks leaped out and opened fire with automatic weapons. All shots missed their mark (though they did leave a row of holes in Linda's fender). Deeply angered that the gunmen—supporters of acting boss Victor Orena Sr. who were trying to depose imprisoned official boss Carmine Persico—had risked hitting Linda and her son, Scarpa ...

" We whacked Tommy Ocera. We gave him a luparo bianco ." Colombo acting boss Vic Orena in discussion with Luchese acting boss Al D'Arco at a December 1989 dinner meeting of Colombo and Luchese family leaders, as per D'Arco testimony. Greg Scarpa surveillance image. Attorneys for Victor (Little Vic) Orena say they have uncovered never-before-revealed evidence that will blow the lid off the case -- or rather, the door off Orena's prison cell at FMC Devens. As we recently noted , they claim they can't reveal details of this evidence because it could lead to people getting killed. How else are we to interpret the words of Orena attorney David  Schoen about the evidence being  “unbelievably shocking” and possibly dangerous if revealed publicly ? Once again and possibly for the final time, Vic Orena, 86–the former Colombo acting boss who had visions of cementing his position permanently atop the crime family and is today wheelchair-bound and suffering from dementia...

Breaking news story courtesy of The Colombo Crime Family Blog * (see note at end)... Longtime Bensonhurst mobster Ilario "Fat Larry" Sessa was released from prison after spending just over a year behind bars. Sessa, who tips the scales at over 400 pounds, was charged back in July of 2018 with violating the conditions of his parole. Larry Sessa In court, he promised that he was trying to go "legit" after he was previously sprung from prison in 2017, having served six years behind bars for racketeering and loansharking. Sessa, whose full biography leading up to his 2011 arrest is exclusively available on thecolombomafia.com , told the court in 2018 that he had been working as a legit used-car salesman since his exit from prison on strict supervised release conditions. On paper, the portly mobster was working for 4 Guys Motors in Brooklyn, where he crossed paths with his old Colombo family pals. His lawyer says his contact with his old busine...

Gregory Scarpa Senior, the longtime Colombo capo/FBI informant who stopped counting his murders at 50 (think about that), was done in not by a bullet, but by a little white pill. Larry Mazza He took too many aspirins.*  That caused stomach problems, which resulted in surgeries, then the blood transfusion from which he contracted the AIDS virus that wore him down to nothing and ended his life. So think about this: If Greg Scarpa had only taken Tylenol, then lots more people probably would've been robbed and murdered in New York City. "He was vicious and he corrupted people," Larry Mazza , Scarpa's protege, recently recalled. "He was cunning and wily -- he had all the street smarts." For Larry, life is less deadly today and much  better. He's written a memoir of mob life in New York,  The Life,  and was in the two-part A&E John Gotti documentary,  Godfather and Son . He scored a high-profile role in what will be the hottest Mafia m...

He's the lawman who locks up corrupt lawmen, and he's investigated everyone from wiseguys to CIA and FBI agents. John Durham. Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford on Monday, March 5, 2018, gave a rare, candid speech about his role as a special prosecutor in the Whitey Bulger case. Durham is among this country's most respected prosecutors and he's known for maintaining an extremely low profile. He's prosecuted mobsters, corrupt federal agents, and even a former Connecticut governor. He was empowered by United States attorneys general to investigate some of this nation's dirtiest laundry, including  CIA operations that allegedly involved torture and coverups . He was nominated by President Donald Trump, and was endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike, to be Connecticut's top federal prosecutor. "Perhaps realizing that his new role calls for higher visibility, (he) delivered a lec...

In 2015, one of the best documentaries about the American Mafia in years ran on television. It aired in the U.K. and was never seen on television in this country, though it's available online. (It is truly baffling that the best modern American Mafia documentaries are no longer being made in America.) ToniMarie Ricci, formerly married to Mikie Scars, descends from mob royalty. Now the same group out of Britain is airing a follow-up to the 2015 show. The new program, two hourlong episodes, is called Mafia Women with Trevor McDonald, which is slated to debut on February 16 of this year. This time, Trevor McDonald interviews the wives, girlfriends, sisters and daughters of members of the Mafia. Among the women appearing on the show are ToniMarie Ricci , ex-wife of Michael DiLeonardo, aka Mikie Scars, former Gambino capo , and Linda Scarpa, Gregory Scarpa Senior's daughter .

The car in which three civil rights volunteers were murdered in 1964. The Justice Department recently closed a decades-long, multi-pronged investigation into the 1964 murders of three civil rights volunteers in Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan. On June 21 that state's Attorney General, James Hood, held a press conference during which he said, "I am convinced that during the last 52 years, investigators have done everything possible under the law to find those responsible and hold them accountable .... we have determined that there is no likelihood of any additional convictions. Absent any new information presented to the F.B.I. or my office, this case will be closed." The Justice Department's report to the Mississippi AG on the final investigation into the June 21, 1964 murders of Michael Schwerner, 24, and Andrew Goodman, 20, both white New Yorkers, and James Chaney, 21, a black Mississippian, is 48 pages long and includes not one reference to C...

Earlier this year, Linda Scarpa, daughter of Colombo mobster Greg Scarpa, appeared on Crime Watch Daily , a true-crime show about which we have written in the past , partly to promote her recent memoir. Cosa Nostra News contributor Nick Christophers described Linda Scarpa's book, The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter , as one of the "few books (that) have truly captured mob life" accurately. (See the story here .) Gregory Scarpa, known as "The Grim Reaper," was one of the most violent mobsters ever to strut through New York City's boroughs -- and the fact that he was a longtime high-echelon FBI informant only made him more dangerous. As noted in January of this year , a federal judge years ago had voiced his belief that Scarpa's former FBI agent handler Lindley DeVecchio was indeed guilty of passing on key intelligence to Scarpa, who then put it to use to murder mob rivals.

A mob turncoat who flipped on a multitude of Colombo gangsters, including Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioeli, and whose cooperation was described as "historic" was sentenced last Friday to no jail time. Thomas McLaughlin, the turncoat, was himself involved in three gangland hits, two of which were tied to the 1990s Colombo civil war. He also was a member of the Bay Parkway Boys, a farm team for the mob. In McLaughlin's case, it gave him entry into the Colombo crime family, one of the youngest and most violent of New York's Five Families. Tommy McLaughlin has a secret "I just want to apologize for my past and look forward to the future," McLaughlin, 46, told Judge Brian Cogan last week in Brooklyn Federal Court. One year after he'd finished serving a long prison term for a drug conviction, McLaughlin voluntarily began informing in 2009, and secretly recorded thousands of hours of conversations with mobsters.

A federal judge voiced his belief that the former FBI agent who was Greg Scarpa Senior's handler had indeed passed on intel that resulted in murders. Judge Korman Judge Edward Korman’s words were recently uncovered in a 2012 transcript of a court case related to Gregory Scarpa Jr. The judge was referring to murders that were part of the early 1990s Colombo crime family wa r. “It was my view and remains my view that Lin DeVecchio provided information to Scarpa that got people killed,” Korman said, according to the transcript.  “I found it pretty outrageous and the bottom line was, of course, nothing happened to Lin DeVecchio. He was permitted to retire and in his retirement was actually doing background checks for the (FBI),” the judge said. Scarpa Jr. was  seeking a reduction of his racketeering sentence  as a reward for helping the feds find explosives hidden in the home of Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols, as  noted back in August, whe...