Cosa Nostra News

With thanks to the "mobologist," who shared his insight about the following, among many other things too numerous to list here right now.... Jay Goldberg, a welterweight boxer-turned-lawyer who defended a roster of high-profile figures, including a bevy of powerful wiseguys—and who delivered the first decisive courtroom defeat to mob-busting US Attorney Rudy Giuliani—died on December 5 at his home in Bridgehampton, New York. He was 89. Defense lawyer Jay Goldberg. Goldberg, who (in)famously quipped, “ I’m fairly certain that I never represented an innocent mobster, ” defended high-profile as well as lesser-known wiseguys. A highlight of his career as a mob lawyer had to be when he delivered such a masterful cross-examination of Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, he won unqualified praise from the influential National Law Journal, which described his courtroom questioning of the former Gambino underboss as “Goldberg’s methodical destruction of Mr. Gravano" that showed he...

Sherman tanks refueling at Normandy, 1944. Yes, mobsters are criminals, but some of them are heroes, too, or at least damn good Americans. Before you shake your head in befuddlement, understand we refer here to gangsters who fought in American wars and were decorated for their valiant efforts. John "Johnny Green" Faraci, a Bonanno crime family member, was described as "a large-scale loanshark with numerous loanshark victims," who, by one law enforcement estimate, had half a million dollars in loans out on the street. He died in January 2011 at age 88. Ten years before his death, the aging Bonanno soldier and three underlings faced federal loansharking charges after a would-be victim went to the FBI and agreed to wear a wire. "I got a nice baseball bat in my trunk; bust your legs up," one of Faraci's crew members said to the cooperator, according to the arrest complaint. In another taped conversation, the same guy bragged about ...

A recent San Gennaro Feast, which will be 87 years old next year. A fashionable group of newcomers wanted to have it reduced by 50 percent... Genovese capo Conrad Ianniello, 70, who five years ago was found to be extorting vendors at the San Gennaro Feast, plead guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges, federal prosecutors said. He admitted to disrupting a Long Island company's labor union's efforts. He conspired with other alleged street guys in 2008 to "pave the way for an alleged Genovese associate, who was an official at another union, to unionize the company instead, prosecutors charge," according to SILive.com . He was caught on wiretap on April 17, 2008, thanking co-defendant and Genovese associate Ryan Ellis for delivering a message to the union not to organize the Long Island company. "You got his (expletive) attention. He called me," court papers quoted him as saying. "He says they got nasty. ... I said, 'I got your (expletive...

We were shocked how many views this story racked up since we first ran it a year ago. Considering the more recent news about the cease-and-desist letters, we thought we'd post this again.... Episode one of season four of “Mob Wives” began with a party in Philadelphia. Renee hired a new model to work with her new clothing line. What line is that, some of you may ask. Well, Mob Candy (by Renee Graziano) is the name of the brand she has been talking up and promoting on the Internet for the past year or so. It includes a a lot of products: Mob Candy Jewelry , Mob Candy Apparel , Mob Candy Shoes , and accessories and t-shirts. Frank DiMatteo, owner, Mob Candy. Folks who look leftward on this very web page will see Renee posing for the cover of Mob Candy magazine ; no, it is not part of her line. Mob Candy magazine was in fact launched in 2007 by others with no ties to her then or now. Prior to the publication, the brand had originally been used for a line of M...

Matty the Horse died at 92. UPDATED: Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello (June 18, 1920 – Aug. 15, 2012), who recently died at the age of 92, had pretty much seen and done it all. He was a New York mobster with the Genovese crime family who was more known for earning than killing, and was also a decorated WWII vet. He's probably one of the few Mafiosi to have assisted the FBI -- not in mob matters but in the Feds' manhunt for the perpetrator of the most infamous child abduction in New York City history, that of 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979. The killer was finally arrested this year -- as if Matty had to hang around to see that that piece of unfinished busines was taken care of. His well-known, not very flattering sobriquet, “Matty the Horse,” is believed to have resulted from a childhood brawl on a baseball field in which Ianniello, who was at bat, charged the pitcher, a much larger child, knocking him flat on his ass. Someone remarked: “This...

Julius Bernstein  was a relic of a different era: Raised in the Depression, a genuine World War II hero — and the last of New York’s great Jewish gangsters. Julius Bernstein, dubbed the last Jewish Mobster.  While the Brooklyn native connived for decades in anonymity, his once-secret FBI file — obtained by the Daily News — exposes for the first time a life devoted to earning crooked cash with the Genovese family. Pages of confidential documents provided via the Freedom of Information Law detail Bernstein’s extraordinary mob life and times: Shaking down the Sbarro restaurant chain for cash payoffs across four decades. Seizing control of a bus drivers’ union to amass an illegal fortune. Working side-by-side with legendary Gambino family capo Matthew Ianniello . When he finally flipped and became a federal informant shortly before his October 2007 death, no one was more surprised than the gangster known as Spike. “Wiseguys trust me,” he said on his ...