Cosa Nostra News

'' Gene Gotti's dead." -- Bobby Manna (as per FBI transcripts) '' We're gonna be paying for this, you know, for the rest of our lives." -- J ames (Jimmy Nap) Napoli  Louis (Bobby) Manna— the Genovese family's former number three man who in the 1980s was poised to shoot it out with the Gotti regime of the Gambino family to protect Genovese family interests in the Garden State—was released from prison last month and is now under the care of court-approved custodians, as per reports. Manna and his crew were rounded up in June 1988. Manna was recorded plotting to kill both John Gotti and his older brother Gene, among others. Manna, 95, served more than 36 years of an 80-year Federal racketeering sentence. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Kirsch granted the petition for “compassionate release” –which detailed Manna’s deteriorating health – on April 16. Manna reportedly is bed-ridden and suffers from chronic kidney disease, lung cancer, bacterial infecti...

The year 1987 was slightly more than a week old when FBI agents nabbed Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo as he emerged from a plane at the Atlantic City airport.  None of Chin's plots touched Gambino boss John Gotti. The violent, mercurial Philadelphia boss—he was John Gotti's more murderous precursor—and his girlfriend were returning from Fort Lauderdale, where they had spent the New Year’s holiday. Scarfo, sporting a deep winter tan and perfectly coiffed hair and dressed to the nines in an impeccable suit, looked like a million bucks, almost like an old-school Hollywood star showing up at the Oscars. He smiled and nodded as the agents handcuffed him and walked him to the vehicle that would drive him to his well-deserved fate. The Feds had indicted Scarfo and three others earlier that day on charges of conspiracy to commit extortion in the shakedown of Penn’s Landing, an area along the Delaware River that had been targeted for redevelopment. Penn's Landing was named after th...

UPDATED US District Judge Peter G. Sheridan denied the recent compassionate release filing for reputed former Genovese consiglieri Louis (Bobby) Manna, calling his criminal efforts "extremely serious and heinous." Louis (Bobby) Manna; picture source . Manna, 91, who once upon a time held court at Casella's Restaurant , the base of operations from which he supposedly helped run the Genovese crime family's Garden State operations, has been imprisoned since 1987. He was convicted and sentenced to 80 years in prison.  His crimes included plotting to murder John Gotti and John's older bother Gene and ordering the 1977 murder of Frank Bok Chung Chin, an electronics expert who agreed to testify for the government, and the 1987 execution of Irwin (The Fat Man) Schiff, a 350-pound mobbed-up businessman/con artist who was hit while dining at Upper East Side restaurant Bravo Sergio. Manna's attorney Jeremy Iandolo noted in court filings that Manna has Parkinson's dis...

Researching the history of the Genovese crime family in North Jersey, w e  came across a longtime Hoboken-based associate who snitched for more than 15 years, then agreed to wear a wire for a couple more. His tips sparked Federal, State, and local investigations and he identified some 50 wiseguys and associates for investigators. He was  called Petey Cap. And another name joins our List of Mafia Defectors . Peter (Petey Cap) Caporino  Over 40 years, longtime Genovese associate Peter (Petey Cap) Caporino and his gambling operation were slowly and inexorably threaded into the fiber of the North Jersey underworld. He hooked up with the Genovese crime family as an associate and reported to some very powerful Garden State wiseguys. And while the man (or woman) at the top sometimes changed, Petey Cap’s numbers and gambling operation, which  he ran out of his social club in Hoboken, was a constant. For almost half his time as an associate, Caporino lead a double life as a g...

Louis (Bobby) Manna, the 91-year-old reputed onetime Genovese family consiglieri, is slowly dying in a Minnesota medical prison, according to an emergency compassionate release motion filed by his attorney. FBI mugshot of Louis (Bobby) Manna. Manna, who will be 92 in weeks, suffers from various health ailments—including colitis, a hernia, high blood pressure, vertigo and ulcers, his lawyers allege -- which prevent him from walking on his own for more than a couple of steps. He has been in prison for more than 30 years following his conviction for Mafia crimes, including murders and  ordering a hit on Gambino boss John Gotti . This is not his first request. Manna, who was allegedly under Vincent (Chin) Gigante, tried to get a compassionate release last year but was denied.  Jeremy Iandolo, Manna's attorney, argued for the aging wiseguy in a hearing Thursday before Peter G. Sheridan, the Senior District Judge of the US District Court for the District of New Jersey. He no...

Two Garden State mobsters, including the former head of the Genovese crime family's New Jersey contingent, are seeking to get out of prison on arguments that their decades-old convictions—for ordering a hit on a businessman in an Upper East Side Italian restaurant as well as for plotting to murder top members of the Gambino family—should be overturned owing to prosecutorial misconduct. Bobby Manna, center, and crew were nabbed in 1988. Former Genovese consiglieri Louis (Bobby) Manna, who served in the regime of Vincent (Chin) Gigante, and co-defendant Richard (Bocci) DeSciscio, an alleged associate whom Manna entrusted with carrying out murders, posed their arguments (via their attorneys) in motions recently filed in Federal court. Manna, 91, and DeSciscio and co-defendants Martin (Motts) Casella, who owned Casella's Restaurant, a Genovese hangout, and  Frank (Dipsy) Daniello, a retired Hoboken police lieutenant, were charged for involvement in  plotting to murder John Gotti...