Cosa Nostra News

We've been writing about the pending release of Gene Gotti, brother of the late Gambino boss , from FCI Pollock in Louisiana on September 15, and last night we spoke with former Gambino capo Michael (Mikie Scars) DiLeonardo about him. John Carneglia and Gene -- you can't speak about one without  the other. Gene, 71, went away for heroin trafficking in 1989 with John Carneglia, 73. Carneglia was released earlier this year, on June 11 . The big questions is, what will the two loyal Gambino mobsters do when they are finally home after spending their peak years, and then some, behind bars? Some say Gene is done with the mob and that  we won't hear from him again. He will disappear into mainstream life. While Gene undoubtedly will keep a low profile -- he will be on parole, probably for the rest of his life; so will John Carneglia -- some believe Gene also will want to reclaim everything that is his. However, he would need to use an emissary to speak for hi...

Lots of news stories in the summer of 2001 fell down the  memory hole  after the brutal 9/11 attacks. A certain Gambino crime family associate who in his heyday was as powerful as an inducted member was likely quite pleased that one developing story from that summer was essentially shut down. This ex-mob wife, formerly married to Joe Watts should've had a television show. Largely know for being one of John Gotti's lieutenants, Joseph "Joe the German" Watts began his rise in the mob during Carlo Gambino's reign. Watts made a name for himself with the Gambinos under Paul "Big Paul" Castellano. But he earned his fortune under the Dapper Don and was afforded the respect more typical of a capo. Because Watts showed fealty to Gotti and his group of conspirators, collectively known as The Fist, which orchestrated the assassination of Castellano on the swanky upper East Side amid rush hour in December 1985 (Watts was a backup shooter), ...

EXCLUSIVE We assume it's in the book, what John "Junior" Gotti revealed today. You may have read the story,  EXCLUSIVE: John (Junior) Gotti brags he lied to feds - NY Daily News : "When the mob scion sat down with federal prosecutors in 2005 to discuss crimes of fellow mobsters, he planned to give them bad information and useless leads, Gotti and his lawyer revealed in an interview with the Daily News. 'No one suffered but me,' he said of the decision." John A. "Junior" Gotti Joe "The German" Watts and Danny Marino might disagree. And some other guys who brawled in a Queens bar one evening in the 1980s may also disagree.

Which Gotti really wanted Sinatra dead? We're not reading the book, but based on our devotion to our beat, we offer here one anecdote to emerge from John Gotti Junior's self-published ebook.  The story involves John Gotti threatening Frank Sinatra's life using Joseph "Joe the German" Watts, one of three guys Junior once discussed  privately. The issue we ponder is which Gotti really posed the greater threat and to whom: Senior in the form of Joe Watts or Junior in the form of his threats against mob scribe Jerry Capeci. The old-school newspaperman apparently read Junior's book, which includes the Sinatra incident,  and then gave Junior a pass. When he read about Sinatra, Jerry Capeci must've recalled the moment when the Feds advised him to be "a little more cautious than usual." The younger Gotti had hired a corrupt ex-NYPD detective to follow the journalist around to "dig up some dirt."

A turncoat who informed on Joe Watts, one of the late John Gotti's most ruthless associates, was recently sentenced to time served for engineering a botched FedEx truck hijacking. John Gotti's social club in Queens, long gone. But Brian Greenwald, who's been in jail for 27 months -- the last seven in solitary confinement -- instead "begged the judge to stay in the slammer rather than risk retribution from a feared gangland gunslinger who was the alleged backup shooter at the 1985 murder of Gambino don Paul Castellano," the article said. "I testified against a certain individual who is life-threatening for me," a pasty-faced, gaunt Greenwald pleaded in court, referring to Joe "The German" Watts, the reputed assassin who allegedly notched 11 mob hits for Gotti's crew. " 'I've had to watch my back for organized-crime retaliation. I've learned recently they are trying to find out where I am. I've been in...