Cosa Nostra News

This isn’t breaking news, we know, but we haven’t exactly been covering any of this stuff for some time—though we are planning to return. As for John Alite, though it looks bad for him based on some of the facts, we’re reserving our verdict until the end, which is how this process is supposed to work in the USA: " Innocent until proven guilty" is the foundational legal doctrine known as the presumption of innocence. It mandates that the government bears the burden of proving an accused person's guilt. To convict, the prosecution must present evidence establishing every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Former Gambino associate/ Englishtown councilman John Alite , whom we’ve known and been writing about for over 10 years (do a search, you will see ), lent more than $200,000 to two individuals at exorbitant—and illegal—interest rates, then threatened them with violence when they missed payments. So said a New Jersey state prosecutor. John Alite. (Source: Asb...

Englishtown, New Jersey, entered the pages of history in the 18th century when General George Washington briefly made it his headquarters following the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. The town got another dramatic, albeit much more recent, kick last month when the mayor appointed former Gambino associate John Alite to serve on the town council. By now, many of you have already heard about—or read  the big New York Post story  on—John Alite’s latest gig serving as a councilman for Englishtown, a small town of around 2,300 residents in New Jersey's Monmouth County. (Fun fact:  Vito Genovese purchased property  there in 1935 and had the grounds redesigned to resemble Naples, Italy. The gardens of the estate—which include a fake volcano—can still be perused today.) Alite’s move into politics doesn’t really surprise us—pretty much nothing does these days. This nation last November elected a twice-impeached convicted felon to the office of President of the United States. In fa...

How did former Gambino associate John Alite make it inside Donald J. Trump’s gilded Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, long enough to be photographed alongside the former president?  Just two guys from Queens chatting. He didn’t need a gun. Rather, one of his close friends—Brazilian businessman Pedro (Peter) Alberto Leite, president of Hichens, Harrison & Co., who is a years-long member of Mar-a-Lago—brought him in as a guest. “He’s a good friend of mine,” the Palm Beach-based investment banker said of Alite. Leite grew up in New York and knew Alite “for a long time.” About five years ago, the two renewed their friendship and have grown closer. “People love John,” he said. “John is the poster boy for turning yourself around. He does charity work, gives speeches, and his knowledge is vast.” “John,” he noted, “has paid for his crimes. Now he is going out of his way to give back.” Alite visited Mar-a-Lago —which since September 2019 has been the primary residence of the forme...

Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, the underboss who helped John Gotti run the Gambino family, before he helped the FBI take it apart, was sitting in a brown leather chair in his dimly lit social club-type podcast studio preparing to launch into his latest—only this podcast, something very different was about to come out of his mouth. Worked up (about something): Michael Franzese, Patrick Bet-David,  Sammy Gravano. Instead of another riff about this or that gangland hit, Sammy the Bull was pitching a mental-health services platform that connects people with psychotherapists. "Is there something bothering you and giving you anxiety, preventing you from achieving your goal?" the Bull intones in unhurried gruff Brooklynese. (The same voice Gravano used to describe how, one night at Sparks, “shots rang out in the night air" with "people running, screaming, falling, scrambling all over to get away.") "When I got out of prison," the Bull's pitch contin...

" Johnny Alite went to jail. In jail he met people from Philadelphia and Atlantic City. He (wound) up hanging out with the New Jersey mob, then came to Florida. He stole all these businesses from every person. You think he would give me a penny? He didn't give me a quarter; not a penny, not one red cent. Not one red cent did I get. And I swear that on my other arm, that I should lose the use of it. Not one red cent ..."--from the 2006 opening statement of Gambino capo Ronnie One-Arm Trucchio on trial in Miami for racketeering and extortion.... In 2015, Gotti's Rules, written by George Anastasia, hit bookstores to tell the inside story of Gambino enforcer John Alite, who was once a close associate of John (Junior) Gotti, who he later testified against. Now, Mafia International lets John Alite tell his story in his own words. (It is not a comprehensive autobiography however.) Since Gotti's Rules , John Alite has been a steady presence on the blogosphere. Using soc...

If certain words are music to a street guy's ears ("Yes, I got your money"—"Do you know why you're here?"), then others are most definitely not. "I gotta throw you under the bus ." You don't even have to be in the mob to hear that one and not like it. Former Luchese wiseguy John Pennisi on one of many podcasts you can see him in. Anthony (Little Anthony) Caponigro, a Bonanno associate at the time, told John Pennisi, a former Luchese wiseguy, that he had to throw him under the bus after Caponigro talked out of school and backed himself into a corner. Or that is how John tells it in one of his SitdownNews podcasts.  That's right, star wiseguy witness John Pennisi, who testified at three major trials and about whom we've written a multi-part series , has launched a podcast that leverages his SitdownNews blog, where he offers a steady stream of peeks behind the curtain at goings-on in the Luchese family—as well as other crime families. Penn...

Former Bonanno associate Gene Borrello⸺who flipped against the Bonanno family and helped put away dozens of violent criminals, and who gave us some interviews before launching a podcast about the mob with former Gambino associate John Alite⸺was arrested for threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend’s husband and hurt her father after she refused to grant him the rights to use a photo of her in a book. Gene Borrello. That must be some photo!   Borrello, 36, helped Brooklyn federal prosecutors put away more than 21 mobsters, pleaded guilty in 2016, and was sentenced to three years of supervised release and time served. All in all, he spent about five years in prison for committing a range of crimes that otherwise would've earned him a life sentence. The recent problems apparently arose for Gene, according to published reports, back on January 24 when his ex-girlfriend refused to give him permission to publish a picture of her in a book, to paraphrase Assistant US Attorney Lindsay Ge...