Cosa Nostra News

The Bonanno crime family's reputed official boss, Michael (The Nose) Mancuso, 67, was recently charged with parole violations after he was spotted meeting with several defendants in the ongoing case against Colombo boss Andrew (Mush) Russo and others.  Mikey Nose Mancuso after recent arraignment. Credit: Noah Goldberg/Daily News . The case mostly targets top-level wiseguys and associates in the Colombo family with shaking down a labor union. The only wiseguy in another crime family named in last fall’s indictment is Bonanno soldier John (Bazoo) Ragano. Ragano was charged with loansharking, fraud, and drug trafficking offenses as well as issuing fraudulent workplace safety training certifications. As per the indictment, Ragano, who is also known as “Maniac,” audaciously claimed to operate two workplace safety schools in New York that supposedly provided Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) training courses and certifications, along with various New York City certific...

Bonanno capo Joseph (Joe Valet) Sabella was slammed with double the amount of prison time his lawyer had sought: He was sentenced to seven years plus about three months in prison last Friday by U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein. Joe Sabella was promoted to capo during the time of the alleged crimes. In February, Joe Valet pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, among other crimes. Then, the wiseguys he was supposed to go to trial with — Joe Cammarano and Porky Zancocchio — won acquittals. But then those two, and two others, were shelved by Bonanno boss Mickey Nose Mancuso who took offense at how the trial defense strategy depicted the consiglieri position, as Gang Land News reported. What's it all mean for Joe Valet? The fck if I know.... But Gang Land noted last week that Sabella is "entitled to lots of second thoughts about the decision he made..." Sabella was involved in a large-scale illegal dumping racket, he assaulted both a vale...

While reputed Bonanno street boss/official underboss Joseph (Joe C) Cammarano and alleged consiglieri John (Porky) Zancocchio face the full weight of the federal government’s case against them on racketeering charges in Manhattan’s Southern District, the Bronx-based crew of the Bonanno crime family anxiously await the full-time return of the boss. Michael (Nose) Mancuso returns full-time this month. Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso, who is due out one week from next Tuesday, allegedly has been visiting various parts of the Bronx since he was moved to a halfway house last summer. In December 2008, when Mancuso was acting boss, he was sentenced to 15 years for ordering the 2004 murder of Randolph Pizzolo. He and Anthony (Ace) Aiello, who was sentenced to 30 years, also were called “two worthless lives” by Connie Pizzolo, the victim’s daughter, inside a Brooklyn federal courtroom just prior to sentencing. Mancuso had faced life in prison under the original indictment, but followi...

Cosa Nostra News Exclusive EXPANDED Bonanno boss Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso (or should we write, Mr. Mancuso, sir?) apparently has been commuting between the Bronx halfway house he was relocated to in August and the Pelham Bay neighborhood, Cosa Nostra News has learned. Mikey Nose is reminding people who's who. He's "all dressed up" and "playing the part," and "reminding people who is in charge," a source tells us. Mikey Nose also apparently has been telling people "he is all over the Internet and is actually mentioning your site!" So there you have it, folks, Michael Nose apparently has been reading all about himself here on  Cosa Nostra News . He's also become partners in a realty firm. "I'd love to see him hold open houses," the source added. Our source, who we hope keeps in touch , is knowledgeable about certain doings up in the Bronx and we're not going to name him, as per his request. ...

When Bronx-based Luchese associate Michael Meldish was shot to death in front of his home on November 15, 2013, at the age of 62, he was suspected of running a protection racket in the Edenwald area of the north Bronx. Meldish's boots were still outside the door to his apartment days after he was killed. As per early reports, initial law enforcement suspicion was centered on that racket as a possible cause of the shooting. Meldish, however, was known to have had a steady supply of enemies going back decades. He'd been arrested five times in the 1970s on various charges including assault and weapons possession, and he had other convictions throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He was suspected of committing as many as 10 murders as well. Meldish lived on 2nd Avenue near 111th Street in East Harlem. According to neighbors, he lived alone, was occasionally visited by a son and grandson, and was considered affable by many who knew him in the neighborhood. One neighbor claimed...

UPDATED Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso should've been made years earlier than he was. It was a prison sentence for murder that delayed his induction into the Bonanno crime family. Vinny Gorgeous tells Anthony Donato what's what as Dom Cicale seems to spot surveillance activity. In 1984, Mikey Nose left his mortally wounded wife Evelina on a bench outside Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx. (Early reports noted that there had been two bullets in her head.) Mancuso had pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served 10 years in state prison. His induction into the Mafia was delayed because he had to serve that sentence, informants told the FBI. Mancuso was named acting boss in November 2004, making him the third acting Bonanno boss since Joseph Massino was arrested in 2002. Mancuso was also the fifth consecutive boss or acting boss of the Bonanno crime family to be convicted of a violent crime (the previous four were Anthony Spero, Massino, Anthony Urso, and Vincent Basciano). ...

This Christmas should be merrier than usual for reputed Bonanno crime family boss Michael (The Nose) Mancuso , who moved into a halfway house in Brooklyn earlier this year. Back in the Purple Gang's day....Angelo Prisco, left, Michael Meldish, right. Mancuso had it in for Michael Meldish, but then so did lots of people. Mancuso is now less than three months away from his March 12 release date from Brooklyn's RRM , or Residential Reentry Management field office. Mancuso was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the December 1, 2004, murder of Bonanno associate Randolph Pizzolo, whose bullet-riddled body was found face down in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. Mancuso was lucky: he had faced life in prison under the original indictment, but following his plea deal, Judge Nicholas Garaufis had to max out the sentence at 15 years. (Originally, the Pizzolo murder almost marked Mancuso's end as he and former Bonanno acting boss Vincent Basciano were both declared to be...

EXPANDED SIGNIFICANTLY The shooting of Enzo (The Baker) Stagno of Whitestone, Queens, was always one of the more bizarre twists in the ongoing story of the gangland-style killing of Luchese associate Michael Meldish. Now, we finally seem to have enough information to piece this big puzzle together. We also know more about why Bonanno boss Michael (Nose) Mancuso was initially named as a suspect in the Meldish murder. Gangland hit victim Michael Meldish. The Stagno attempted hit occurred on May 29, 2013, at around 6 p.m., as he was seated in his 2009 GMC Yukon, parked at East 111th Street and First Avenue. Stagno was chatting on his cellphone when he suddenly heard BANG! The window beside him shattered and a bullet punched into his chest, grazing him. Stagno felt a “pinch” and dived into the backseat -- when the next shot was fired.

Old timer faces harsh violation. REVISED, CORRECTED: A Bonanno wiseguy pushing 82 who claimed he was retired from Cosa Nostra life was still sentenced to two years in prison for hanging out with his old pals. Joseph "Joe Desi" DeSimone, (not Anthony, as was mistakenly written) is a capo in the Queens faction who formerly worked under Phillip Giaccone. DeSimone was allegedly involved in the 1981 slayings of capos Giaccone, Dominick Trinchera and Alphonse Indelicato. Joseph was known to have been active in loansharking and extortion. DeSimone recently finished 12 years in prison for a mob hit, and his defense attorney had hoped for a wristslap four-month sentence. Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis wasn't having it.

Cammarano Junior's "modest" house on Long Island's Glen Cove section. Joseph Cammarano Jr. is "the top banana on the street for the beleaguered Bonanno crime family — or what’s left of it," as the Daily News reported . (A source pointed out the odd timing of the new Bonanno boss story, arriving about a month or so following this blog's own story about New York having only three operational Mafia families, the Bonannos not being one of them. "... It seems that the families able to ... show power on the street ... are helmed by powerful and accessible bosses -- meaning they are out of prison," as we noted.) Cammarano, meanwhile, is around to hold the top slot because of his ability to diplomatically get out of an order from Vinny Basciano to whack a Genovese associate, Cosa Nostra News learned. Cammarano did this by reminding Vinny B of another more-pressing hit the Bonanno boss had wanted done at the time. At an arraignment h...