Cosa Nostra News

Three days prior to the Department of Justice's October 8, 2015, announcement that 6,000 federal inmates would be released “to reduce overcrowding and provide relief to drug offenders who received harsh sentences over the past three decades,” a man who pleaded guilty to running an alleged $75 million-a-year drug dealing operation for the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra was released from federal prison. Former dealer George Martorano, son of Long John. George Martorano — the son of late Philly mobster Raymond “Long John” Martorano —served 31 years in a series of “supermax” prisons and prior to his October 5, 2015, release from Florida’s Coleman Prison was described as the longest incarcerated non-violent offender in the federal prison system. “I was told the only way I’d get out was in a body bag,” Martorano said recently. “I proved them wrong.” George Martorano has used his years of freedom to set himself up in a business that’s not altogether dissimilar to the one he was ...

"Uncle Joe" in cross-hairs? Cosa Nostra News Exclusive The FBI has tripled the size of its squad in Philadelphia and has brought in a well-seasoned supervisory agent from New York to oversee what appears to be the formation of a new Organized Crime Strike Force , reliable sources have told Cosa Nostra News . One of the operation's key goals is reportedly to nail Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his top associates for  three unsolved gangland hits  in the city. Those murders were committed while Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino , reputed official boss, and former consiglieri/Ligambi nephew George Borgesi were in prison. The Fed's also are aggressively investigating a mobster considered Ligambi's chief shooter from back when "Uncle Joe" was tasked with holding together a badly battered and fractured Cosa Nostra family. That was the backdrop against which the three murders, now intensely being s...

Anthony Nicodemo's retrial slated for next year. Anthony Nicodemo's retrial  for his alleged participation as the wheelman in the 2012 slaying of Gino DiPietro in South Philadelphia has been pushed to next year. At a status conference hearing late last week, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart scheduled a new pretrial conference for Dec. 1, but no specific date was determined for the retrial resulting from the first trial's termination on May 20. Assistant District Attorney Brian Zarallo said there is an ongoing investigation into possible jury tampering . No one has yet been charged, however. DiPietro, 50, was gunned down shortly before 3 p.m. Dec. 12, 2012, as he stood by his pickup truck in the 2800 block of South Iseminger Street.

Anthony Nicodemo's Philadelphia murder trial ended in a mistrial last month. John Alite offered testimony on the hit on Johnny "Gongs" Casasanto. In addition to the murder for which he currently faces charges, Nicodemo has been identified as a suspect in the 2003 murder of John "Johnny Gongs" Casasanto. Law enforcement sources have said that the young mob soldier could work out a deal using his supposed information regarding the Casasanto murder and other acts of violence, including two additional murders said to be linked to  Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi  and his top associates. The other murder victims are Ronnie Turchi, who was hit in 1999, and Raymond “Long John” Martorano, who reached the end of the road in 2002. In this article we take a look at the three hits that law enforcement would love to pin on Uncle Joe, one of the more successful modern bosses. He is credited with cooling down the Philly underworld following deca...