Cosa Nostra News

In 1988, years before his wife became (something of) a household name and his father's first cousin became the mayor of New York City, Lee D'Avanzo was part of a crew of wannabe wiseguys who raked in the cash via drug dealing, loansharking, money laundering, home invasions, and up to 30 attempted or successful bank burglaries. Members of one of Staten Island's many gangs in the 1980s. By December 2001, when 11 members of the New Springville Boys were indicted for terrorizing Staten Island and committing crimes up and down the East Coast, the indictment identified D'Avanzo as the head of the ragtag crew. Some other names identified in the indictment: Neat (Ned the Head) Bilali, Robert Catanese, Francis Costanzo, William (Big Billy) Fauci, and Edward Shamah. Between 1988 and 2000, crew members schemed to burglarize over 30 night-deposit boxes at banks in seven states: One string of heists in Washington state in 1998 netted the gang $240,000, court papers say. T...

Some of the bank burglary crew members mentioned here were apparently members of the same crew as Gerard Bellafiore  as well as the trio recently busted ... Lee D’avanzo had a past, but it was, like, no big deal. Besides, he was a changed man, a business owner, as he told his wife, Drita, who believed him, "but boy was she in for a shock!" as Hollywood Life wrote back in June 2011. Credit: Starcasm Drita then told HollywoodLife.com exclusively "that she didn’t know that Lee was a bank robber when she started dating and then later married him!" Lots of reality show blogs seem to have an addiction to exclamation points.

Drita D'Avanzo.... " Mob Wives " star Drita D’Avanzo ’s assault charges were dropped last week, the Daily News reported , "after her victim declared omerta and refused to cooperate with prosecutors, officials said." She declared omerta.... right... As noted , D'Avanzo, 40, was busted for fighting at Mary Bratti's Amboy Road home in Staten Island's Tottenville section at about 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 10 in what had all the markings of a classic celebrity-gotcha setup.

Christ, they didn't have the money to take a season six cast photo? I decided to pull the plug on my previously announced "Mob Wives" endeavor. I'm not to going to inflict my readers with anymore of my Mob Wives hysterics.... I know they don't appreciate it. As you'll see, there's far too much Cosa Nostra news piling up that needs covering. Scars called me with an excellent idea.... I need to jump on that quickly.

In the above video, a woman is clearly taunting Lee and Drita D'Avanzo, with Drita apparently screaming in the background. (Note: we don't see what happened prior to the beginning of the filming.) Then, reportedly a few moments after the above was filmed, the fight took place, with a next-door neighbor filming it. (See fight video on jump page, at end of story.) I, for one, have problems with this scenario. These videos were clearly filmed separately, and in one version, not posted here, they were fused together in the sequence I described, with the above video comprising part one. The problem is the second part doesn't seem like it was filmed immediately following the first. Or to put it another way, what proof is there that the one sequence immediately followed or preceded the other? We have two incidents captured on different cameras -- and I have seen nothing definitive that says which one came first. It's possible and quite likely the two sequences were fi...

COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE When wiseguys are in prison, does rank matter? Carmine Agnello held his own against three. Opinions vary. On the inside all made guys are equal, some say, while others have said rank is less of an issue. Still, supposedly there are  official Cosa Nostra bosses serving life sentences:  Vic Amuso, Peter Gotti and Carmine Persico. So rank must matter, but it seems to depend on the place, the time and possibly the dynamic of those inside the unit. I recently heard about something that happened involving Lee D'Avanzo when he was a resident of  MDC  Brooklyn. The source was there at the time, but on a different floor. What happened made Carmine Agnello so furious with Lee, supposedly a sit down or two took place over the matter. (Agnello was made; Lee wasn't (or isn't.)) Agnello and D'Avanzo were housed in Brooklyn's MDC along with Francis "BF" Guerra -- the only three Italians on the main population floor at th...

As many who watch " Mob Wives " are aware,  Lee D'Avanzo  opened a sports memorabilia store on Staten Island. Inside Mr. Lee's Sportscards store.  It apparently opened its doors this past March, with New York Mets Legend Dwight "Doc" Gooden guest starring at the grand opening. (We'd assumed Lee was a Yankees fan for some reason.) "It's a family-friendly place," says the man in the video below, who we believe is Lee. Available for purchase are a wide range of items, including sports cards, rare sport figurines and autographed jerseys. Be sure to check out the intriguing YouTube video at the end of the post in which a man we assume is Mr. Lee himself -- sound like dry cleaner! -- tells us in great detail about the store... well, not exactly. All my readers -- hit the link and check out Lee's site; I am hoping he'll see a "dramatic surge" in traffic -- and maybe I'll get an interview... Though I doubt it....

Yes (48%) No   (51%) I probably wouldn't stop covering "Mob Wives" in any event; the show is too popular. I don't "do" show recaps (some of the best I've ever read can be found here  and here , to name a couple). But when the show, in some way, shines a bright light on the inner workings of La Cosa Nostra, I try to capture it. As for the too popular comment, of my top 10 posts for the past month, half were related to "Mob Wives": Entry Leaked Court Records Expose D'Avanzo Mob Ties Bull Victim's Son Prompts 'Mob Wives' Reboot: Kare... Wanna Know Each Mob Wife's Net Worth? Read This...... Renee's Mob Candy Line: 'Everything a Mob Princess... Lee D'Avanzo, Not Tall Guy, Behind "Mob Wives" Reb...

Karen Gravano may have been on to something when she said someone wanted her off the show. But according to a source who spoke with Cosa Nostra News on condition of anonymity, that someone is Lee D'Avanzo , not Eddie Garofalo. Lee and Drita D'Avanzo. We wrote in a previous post  that Alicia DiMichele 's husband, Edward "Tall Guy" Garofalo, is "figuring to be a major star" in the upcoming season. This was based on a Jerry Capeci story in which Karen Gravano was the source (there were two other sources, but only Karen went on record). Karen had a theory about why Jennifer had revamped most of the cast of "Mob Wives" -- supposedly to make DiMichele and Garofalo's former marriage a centerpiece of the show. The Tall Guy has been in jail for three years and will soon head off to prison to serve his seven years  sentence . Alicia learns her fate in January, as we noted . According to Karen, it was the Tall Guy who secured his wife a ...

The Garofalos. As we reported in a previous post : Karen Gravano is claiming Edward "Tall Guy" Garofalo was a key player in putting together the cast of the latest season of "Mob Wives," which now includes his wife . Gravano also said -- you'll have to re-read the post for a full recap if you're interested as I don't feel like rewriting the damn thing-- "Apparently Jen also gets Tall Guy himself, as well. As Capeci wrote: Garofalo will be heard on the show via select tape recordings. An honest to God gangster will speak on Mob Wives! ..." We have been hearing a gangster's voice on the phone. Only it's not the Tall Guy's...

Last year, the  Miami New Times  obtained from a confidential source hundreds of pages of sealed court documents that reveal information provided to the FBI by former infamous South Beach nightclub king Chris Paciello -- and it seems Paciello dished up a lot more details on goodfellas and their crimes than was originally thought. Lee D'Avanzo "Between December 2000 and May 2001, the FBI met with the fallen club king eight times and conducted 15 hours of interviews. During those meetings, Paciello detailed not only his own criminal history but those of dozens of his Mob colleagues," a New Times article notes. Additionally, many secrets in the documents center on Lee D'Avanzo, one of Paciello's early criminal cohorts. In fact, Paciello is a large part of the reason why Lee went away to prison. [We are not sure if this is the sentence Lee is still serving or if it was an earlier conviction.] It adds: "Most significant, Paciello fingered two mad...

  Mob Wives Chicago was cancelled for a variety of reasons, foremost among them the cast members' lack of credible ties to the mob -- or the Outfit, the name by which the organized crime entity is better known in the Windy City. Carla and soon-to-be-former husband. It could be argued that really only one Chicago mob wife, Nora, had legit ties -- primarily through her deceased former-hit man father. The bottom line: None of the other women were mob wives in that they were not married or otherwise related to bona fide members of the Outfit (which says a lot about the Outfit, and how seriously even its women honor old-world codes). With the case of "Mob Wives" New York, that was seemingly less of an issue among some of the women, many of whom have very real ties to the "honored society" via husbands and/or fathers -- and it seems to have had very real repercussions on a heavyweight mobster who at one time was consiglieri for the Bonanno family, J...