Cosa Nostra News

“ In the back, Sally! "                                               --(?) G etting sentenced to 20 years in prison on narcotics charges in 1962 was just about the worst possible thing that could happen to the ambitious Carmine Galante—short of, say, getting blasted in the face with shotguns while dining with amici stretti on the back patio of his favorite restaurant. 1980 Giuseppe Bono wedding: Phil Giaccone, Dom Trinchera, JB Indelicato, and Bruno Indelicato were major participants in Galante murders. Lilo spent most of the 1960s and almost half of the 1970s in various prisons. By the time he departed on parole, he was already “yesterday’s man,” as Adrian Humphreys and Lee Lamothe dubbed him in The Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia and the Rise of Vito Rizzuto , adding: “Internationally, the underworld had realigned in his (Galante...

Former Bonanno street boss Anthony (Tony Green) Urso, 84, now resides at the Residential Reentry Management field office in Brooklyn, according to the BOP inmate locater. His release date is June 27, 2021. Anthony (Tony Green) Urso We looked Urso up after a longtime source told us that Tony Green had recently been spotted in Franklin Square, Long Island. Tony Green went away to serve a 20-year stretch for murder and racketeering while he was street boss, a promotion he got after the family's official boss, Joseph Massino, was indicted in 2003. Massino went on to flip, wear a wire, and testify against acting boss Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano. Newsday journalist  Anthony DeStefano has written two excellent books about both Massino and Basciano,  Vinny Gorgeous: The Ugly Rise And Fall Of A New York Mobster  and King of the Godfathers . Urso was tape-recorded calling for murdering the children of turncoats, arguing that it was the only way to stanch the seemingly endless...

Anthony (TG) Graziano -- a longtime member of the Bonanno crime family who served as consigliere and was a capo -- died at age 78 of unreported causes, though he suffered from health ailments including diabetes and bladder cancer. Anthony Graziano and daughter Renee.  Graziano's daughter Renee Graziano, the former Mob Wives star, posted word of his death on her Instagram yesterday (May 25). Part of former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino's inner circle, Graziano was among the trusted aids whom the surveillance-paranoid Massino would travel with on "vacations" to places like Italy and Mexico. Massino held Graziano in strong favor, and (as per sources) gave him advance word regarding the 1981 triple murders of the three "renegade" Bonanno capos, Anthony (Sonny Red) Indelicato, Dominick ( Big Trin) Trinchera, and Phil Giaccone in a Brooklyn nightclub. Under Massino, TG had been given total control of Staten Island for the Bonannos. Graziano ser...

A Brooklyn judge rejected Bonanno crime family associate Ronald "Monkey Man" Filocomo’s compassionate release request, as was recently reported. Filocomo, in above pic, was a participant in the 1981 execution of former Bonanno crime family capo Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano . Monkey Man pleaded guilty to racketeering and is serving a 20-year sentence. His effort would've shaved time off the remaining four years in prison he faces. However, Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis, ever wise to the way of the wiseguy, reviewed Filocomo's medical problems,determined that they were not terminal, and denied the motion. As noted in numerous reports on this story, Filocomo can never become a full-fledged member of any Mafia family for the simple reason that he is a former corrections officer. The Mafia doesn't induct men with law enforcement backgrounds, including ex-corrections officers. In fact, it is surprising that they'd even take one ...

Jerry Chilli*   died last Saturday from throat cancer; a private funeral mass will be held in Florida, which is where the Bonanno capo spent the greater part of his adult life. (Especially after New Jersey law enforcement officials, in no uncertain terms, told him to depart New Jersey.) Jerry Chilli, at the top of the game. Chilli was a stone-cold gangster who shunned the limelight, who never "talked" and never took a step back, even when he knew there could be a steep price to pay. He was a tough guy with his fists who made his bones with a gun. The younger of two brothers (his brother moved up faster and earned more), Jerry Chilli served lots of prison time, which some chalk up to his involvement with the notorious Costabile "Gus" Farace, the mob associate who executed an undercover federal agent on Staten Island in 1989. (A 1991 made-for-television film about Farace is available on DVD featuring several actors who today are high profile, including Sa...

The Bonanno crime family apparently has so many informants that if "four guys get together there is a good chance one or two has flipped and is giving intel to law enforcement." Still, "the Bonannos have come back a few times after they were written off as finished." Nicky Mouth's crew members when arrested couple years back In the story (which disagrees with mine about who is the official boss) he notes that the family's new street boss, Joseph Cammarano, is trying to consolidate power under the watchful eyes of FBI agents (who do work on Sundays; apparently, the Bonannos thought otherwise, according to Breakshot Blog .) Some highlights: Plagued by internal fights, they were kicked off the Mafia Commission in New York. Then Joey Massino consolidated power and set the family on the right track. They were proud of the fact that no made family member had flipped. They closed their social clubs and made all kinds of rules to avoid detect...

Now available for purchase on Amazon! Cosa Nostra News: The Cicale Files, Volume 1: Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire . Both print and ebook versions are available, priced at $6.99 and $4.99. This is a short-format ebook (equal to around 62 pages, the length of the print edition.) It reached no. 2 on Amazon Kindle's best-seller list.... It also generated specious negative feedback --  It's a pamphlet! Too many names and dates! Hollywood garbage! --  by idiots who obviously never read the book.

Gerard “Gerry” Chilli A longtime source told us he found himself recalling a list of suspicious things about the guy we refer to as "the mole" after he read the story. He called it "the worst-kept secret" in the New York Mafia. In particular, he recalled a Bonanno Christmas party at Long Island's Harbor Club in the early 1990s. (It was once owned by "Junior" Gotti but the Bonanno family had taken over, according to the source). The crime family treated the holiday affair with the secrecy of an induction ceremony.

Bobby Lino, left, Russell Mauro, on right. Our source was inducted into Cosa Nostra's Bonanno Family in 1975, when the books were opened for the first time in a long time. He started out under Nicholas Marangello, aka "Little Nicky Glasses," underboss at the time, and became acting capo for Mickey Zaffarano. "In that regime was all the guys that no one wanted," he said. "Anthony Bruno Indelicato, Anthony Rabito, Tony Mirra, Sonny Black Napolitano, James Episcopia, Louis "Louie HaHa" Attanasio and Vinny Asaro. "That crew broke up when Lilo got hit. They took down all Lilo's guys."

De Niro as Burke, left, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill. No Vinny Asaro character was in Goodfellas, though he certainly was mentioned in the book. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.... Prosecutors blasted reputed Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro , 79, with new charges based on a superseding indictment, as reported last week . The charges have not been revealed yet because evidence recorded on tape needs to be digitized, prosecutors said. Described as looking gaunt, Asaro seemed to be suffering from involuntary shivering at the proceeding last week in which his lawyer attempted to push back the date of Asaro's racketeering trial slated for July in Brooklyn Federal Court..

By Ida Libby Dengrove Boots, left, and his lawyer Klein. REVISED SLIGHTLY: We'd hate to hazard a guess as to how many Mafiosi are named in Selwyn Raab's excellent Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires . But we do know one who is not mentioned. Raab not only failed to name this Bonanno family gangster; the former New York Times investigative reporter also inadvertently credited onetime Bonanno consiglieri Anthony Spero for something that resulted from the innovation of this unnamed mobster.

Now available for purchase on Amazon Kindle!  Cosa Nostra News: The Cicale Files, Volume 1: Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire . "As a capo in the Bonanno crime family, Dominick Cicale was privy to the inner workings of organized crime. Cicale was a rising star in the Bonanno family until Joseph Massino, the family's boss, was arrested on a murder rap and turned on his own people. Massino's betrayal took down Cicale and his mentor Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, and many others. Faced with the disloyalty of Massino (the only Mafia Godfather to break the code of "omerta,") Cicale began cooperating with federal authorities. Here, Cicale not only reveals an insider’s view of the Mafia’s secret society, but provides readers with shocking details of the reign and fall of Joseph Massino." As noted it is priced at $4.99 (it is not a full-length book, as it is around 20,000 words), and we packed it with as much value as possible. Researchi...

Today I had hoped to have the button up, the one you click to purchase the ebook I wrote with former Bonanno capo Dominick Cicale :  The Cicale Files, Vol. 1: Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire . As indicated this is only the first of a series we have planned. But it looks like getting that button up is going to take a couple of more days. We're looking to launch by Monday, hopefully earlier. I hope you all buy a copy, especially since Dom padded his goddamn expenses... You won't believe how many copies we have to sell before yours truly sees a single nickel!   Just kidding...  But I am not kidding about hoping you all buy a copy. It's going to cost less than $5, and we packed the book with as much value as possible. Researching extensively to set the background and context for Dominick's information, I tried to focus on little-known facts that were part of some of the major events described in the book.

Frank Coppa was sentenced today. He earned quite a distinction in the Mafia: Coppa was the first member of the Bonanno family ever, since its formation in the 1930s, to break his oath; the other four families had all had defectors prior (the Bonannos alone for a period of time bragged that they had not produced a single defector -- until Coppa). Fat and Fatter: Massino, left, Coppa But as if to compensate for that, the former Bonanno capo's decision to flip set off a chain reaction that culminated in mass defections that took down the so-called Last Don, Joseph Massino . Coppa was  sentenced to time served . At age 73, he spent only two years in prison, then was out on bail about 10 years ago.