Cosa Nostra News

REVISED, EXPANDED Carmine Galante straightened out Joe Massino, Anthony Spero, Joe Chilli, and three others  on June 14, 1977, in a bar in Queens.  Massino testified that during the ceremony, Galante asked each of them who the boss of the Bonanno family was, and each replied, "you."  Massino, however, replied "Rastelli." Joe Massino came from a working-class Maspeth background, the second of three sons of a second-generation Italian-American couple. He survived and thrived in a longtime career in the American Mafia, rising to the epitome when he became boss of the Bonanno crime family. In the early 1990s, when most of the other New York bosses were incarcerated, Massino stood alone as the most powerful Mafioso on the street. Goombata: Gene Gotti, left, and Joe Massino walk-talk. Massino rose to the top on the backs of a multitude of dead men.  As protégé to Bonanno powerhouse Philip Rastelli, who spent most of his reign in prison, Massino first made his mark in ...

Richard Cantarella, aka Shellackhead, recently contacted me on Facebook. Or at least I think it was him. In this online world of ours, one can never be too certain. He asked if I could help put him in contact with Sal Vitale.   I'm going to work my sources, but if Good Lookin Sal  were to contact me , it'd be somewhat easier and I guarantee confidentiality. Richard Cantarella. Pre-Shellackhead Moving right along, I am sharing here part of a chapter from the short-format ebook I wrote with former  Bonanno capo Dominick Cicale, Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire. The chapter, of course, has to do with Cantarella.

A Brooklyn judge rejected Bonanno crime family associate Ronald "Monkey Man" Filocomo’s compassionate release request, as was recently reported. Filocomo, in above pic, was a participant in the 1981 execution of former Bonanno crime family capo Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano . Monkey Man pleaded guilty to racketeering and is serving a 20-year sentence. His effort would've shaved time off the remaining four years in prison he faces. However, Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis, ever wise to the way of the wiseguy, reviewed Filocomo's medical problems,determined that they were not terminal, and denied the motion. As noted in numerous reports on this story, Filocomo can never become a full-fledged member of any Mafia family for the simple reason that he is a former corrections officer. The Mafia doesn't induct men with law enforcement backgrounds, including ex-corrections officers. In fact, it is surprising that they'd even take one ...

Jerry Chilli*   died last Saturday from throat cancer; a private funeral mass will be held in Florida, which is where the Bonanno capo spent the greater part of his adult life. (Especially after New Jersey law enforcement officials, in no uncertain terms, told him to depart New Jersey.) Jerry Chilli, at the top of the game. Chilli was a stone-cold gangster who shunned the limelight, who never "talked" and never took a step back, even when he knew there could be a steep price to pay. He was a tough guy with his fists who made his bones with a gun. The younger of two brothers (his brother moved up faster and earned more), Jerry Chilli served lots of prison time, which some chalk up to his involvement with the notorious Costabile "Gus" Farace, the mob associate who executed an undercover federal agent on Staten Island in 1989. (A 1991 made-for-television film about Farace is available on DVD featuring several actors who today are high profile, including Sa...

By Ida Libby Dengrove Boots, left, and his lawyer Klein. REVISED SLIGHTLY: We'd hate to hazard a guess as to how many Mafiosi are named in Selwyn Raab's excellent Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires . But we do know one who is not mentioned. Raab not only failed to name this Bonanno family gangster; the former New York Times investigative reporter also inadvertently credited onetime Bonanno consiglieri Anthony Spero for something that resulted from the innovation of this unnamed mobster.