Cosa Nostra News

Intriguing bits of New York Mafia history came to light recently via a New York Daily News report by Larry McShane that details how in 1976, members of the Mafia Commission banded together to thwart Carlo Gambino's efforts to keep the books closed. FBI memo from New York Daily News Gambino didn't want any new members to be made because of his concerns about informants in his midst. He reportedly had even considered absorbing the four other New York families into one big Gambino family. Gambino mulled such things in the aftermath of his arrest in 1970, which resulted from information provided to the Feds by Boston-based informant John J. (Red) Kelley, who that very year was putting New England mob boss Raymond LS Patriarca and others in mob murders and other crimes via his courtroom testimony. The Mafia closed the books in 1957 -- after the disastrous Apalachin meeting that sent wiseguys scurrying through the woods in their silk suits and gleaming shoes -- but by the ...

James LaRossa -- who was among the most accomplished trial lawyers of his generation, who died in 2014 at age 82 -- is now the topic of a biography written by his son . Last of the Gladiators, a biography about James LaRossa. Last of the Gladiators, A Son’s Memoir will be available on September 10. The son of a mailman, James Michael LaRossa was born in Brooklyn in 1931. He graduated from Fordham University, including its law school, and served in the Marines during the Korean War. He chose the legal profession because if “you really worked, you could grow without the obvious family connections, " he once said. LaRossa considered himself one of "the last of the gladiators” — his characterization of defense lawyers — and spent decades engaging in spirited courtroom battles on behalf of mob bosses, politicians, labor leaders, and judges. He defended hundreds of white-collar criminals but his best-known cases involved Mafia bosses. He represented Paul Castellano...

Court room proceedings in Hamilton, Ontario, involve wiretap recordings that make some startling revelations, including that the Mafia Commission is calling the shots again ... Vincent Fish Cafaro watches as Fat Tony holds court.  Domenico Violi, 52, was caught in an investigation that went high and deep and featured a wire-wearing turncoat getting inducted into a New York Mafia family. As Adrian Humphreys reports for The National Post, "(t)he wiretaps, although untested in court, suggest a re-evaluation of some of what is publicly known about the current state of legendary Mafia families in the U.S., often referred to as La Cosa Nostra. "Violi, for instance, allegedly claimed on wiretap recordings that he had been made the Underboss of the Buffalo Mafia, the second-highest position in American Mafia families. If the claim is true, he would be the only person in Canada to ever be named to one of the top leadership positions in any U.S.-based Mafia clan. ...

Of the many Mafia rules publicized over the years, one of the more interesting ones is the well-known ban on the use of explosives. Y ou can strangle, stab, shoot, drown, poison, ice-pick him ...  just don't blow him up... Sam the Plumber's wiretaps are the origins of countless mob revelations. This is one thing about which the American and Sicilian Mafias disagree entirely. Throughout their history, Sicilian gangsters have shown a preference for bombs, using them precisely for the "dramatic mileage" they afford. In fact, bombs are so common over there, they reportedly are sometimes used to cover up the real cause of death. Why the American Mafia would take such a collective step against explosives isn't difficult to imagine. By moving to ban bombs, unlike their Sicilian cohorts, American Cosa Nostra members and affiliates reduced the risk of  collateral damage. And with post-9/11 hindsight, it was a brilliant tactical move that gave the organizati...

Family members of former Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore (Toto) Riina, who died in a prison hospital on November 17, 2017, and who was allegedly responsible for ordering more than hundreds of murders, received something nobody probably ever saw coming. An apology. Toto Riina died in a prison hospital earlier this month. Trouble began when the social media giant removed messages of condolences posted upon Riina's death.  The posts, on Riina's son-in-law's Facebook feed, "were removed in error, after users complained that they violated Facebook's standards." After a review, Facebook "restored the posts and apologized," an anonymous Facebook spokesperson said recently. The spokesperson didn't elaborate, but Facebook's terms of use prohibit content expressing support for groups involved in violent or criminal behavior, terrorist activity or organized crime. "Supporting or praising leaders of those same organizations, o...

The following, based on information gathered by New Jersey's State Commission of Investigation, is part of an ongoing series about Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo, former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss notorious for his violence. Scarfo died last Friday.   Phil Testa, left, Angelo Bruno After the Philadelphia crime family's longtime boss, Angelo Bruno, was killed on March 21, 1980, in a grisly gangland hit, the Commission wanted answers. A boss had been killed "illegally." Whoever was behind it was going to die. Examples needed to be made to send a loud and clear message about what happened when members defied the Commission. But before anything, the Commission needed to learn the identities of the assassins.

Colombo crime family boss Carmine (The Snake) Persico's grandson recently underwent eye surgery, though he still seems to have vision problems. As recently reported , Persico's grandson (and namesake) mistook a total stranger for someone he thought he knew. Carmine (Junior) Persico The 25-year-old grandson of Mafia royalty apparently has a beef with whoever he thought he saw. Persico, backed by three guys, punched the stranger in his face outside the Brooklyn bar the Kettle Black, in Bay Ridge. "You look familiar," Persico allegedly snapped at the puzzled victim.

"Zu Cola" Gentile, left, with hand over face during a most ignoble moment in his bio, the 1937 drug arrest.   (Thanks to Christian Cipollini for picture.) AMENDED, EXPANDED If ever there were a Zelig in the American Mafia, his name was Nicola "Zu Cola" Gentile. Gentile is a significant source of information about the American Cosa Nostra's early years. The unique role he played expanded his knowledge. He was a sort of mobile troubleshooter who'd swoop in wherever and whenever needed. Mobsters all over the country frequently required his services. He published his memoirs, Vita di Capomafia , in Italy in 1963. That year, Joseph "Joe Cago" Valachi appeared before Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan's Permanent Subcommittee, aka the McClellan hearings . Many view the book as important as most other major sources of the Mafia's early years. It's up there with The Valachi Papers and Joseph Bonanno's Man of H...

Click image of book cover to purchase. James "Jimmy the Hat" Lanza , one of the most successful mob bosses you've never heard of, is brought to vivid life in Lanza's Mob: The Mafia and San Francisco, written by Christina Ann-Marie DiEdoardo, Esq., a criminal defense lawyer from the Bay Area originally from Queens, New York. Lanza's Mob, the first detailed biography  of Jimmy the Hat is a solid, well-researched addition to the Mafia library. The book, however, details much more than Lanza and his crime family. It provides an insightful history of San Francisco itself, as well its colorful, evolving underworld, initially populated by the Barbary Pirates . The book includes an overview of the formation of the Mafia in Sicily and in America, as well as how and when it first planted roots in the Bay City. Written in a wry, witty highly absorbing voice, the book is rock-solid in terms of its scholarship, which traces the Lanza family's r...