Cosa Nostra News

The following items are independent news briefs dished up in no particular order. But first this brief note: Quite a few stories are in the "hopper" and will come out in due time. This week we expect to publish a dynamite excerpt direct from Michael Blutrich , former owner of Scores who copartnered with the Gambino crime family before flipping.   Michael Blutrich, who once owned Scores. Former Colombo capo -- or boss? If given a long enough timeline, we honestly believe Michael Franzese, former Colombo capo, could do pretty much anything he wanted to do. And that includes not only running for President of the United States but winning, too.

John Gotti 2.0 John "Junior" Gotti did have something in common with his father after all.  It took us a while to find it -- but it's there, and to our surprise, nobody has commented on it before. The list of what he didn't have in common is quite long. Junior didn't position himself to be a modern-day capo de tutti capi . He didn't take out a boss and take over a crime family. He didn't kill guys for refusing to come when he called (and no other reason). In fact, he didn't come close to meeting his father's body count, and as we noted previously , he implemented a ban on killing that lasted for a pretty good time (though he didn't reach that decision to ban murder alone, as we also previously noted ). John Junior wasn't as popular within his family (or has hated without); he didn't dress like a million bucks and didn't have his father's innate charm and natural ease among anyone, whether a female newscaster at the ...

Mikie Scars memoir is a book that needs to be written. In the olden days, when mob guys referred to a contract, you could bet your bottom dollar on what the topic of discussion was. These days, however, such a conversation more than likely means the topic is a book or movie deal... Two major mob-related book deals have been announced so far this year. As noted earlier this month, former Philadelphia mob boss Ralph Natale has inked a deal to write his memoir. So far titled Lost Lives and Forgotten Vows, Thomas Dunne Books is slated to publish the book, which is slated to hit bookstores in the fall of 2016. Natale is writing the book with two others, Dan Pearson (of "I Married a Mobster") and New York Daily News reporter Larry McShane.

COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE In 1998, John A. "Junior" Gotti III was slapped with a wide-ranging RICO indictment (the "Christmas Tree RICO," so named because it includes people allegedly involved in different crimes packaged together for procedural purposes under the top name on the indictment. In this case, it was Junior.) "He abused everybody in his past. He didn't give anybody a break in any realm." This was the "Scores Case," which occurred prior to the sweeping indictment linking him to three mob-related hits and a host of other felonies, initiated in Florida, that led to Junior's four RICO trials. It also occurred prior to Junior's proffer session with the Feds , documented in an FBI 302. That meeting occurred at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in lower Manhattan on January 18, 2005. The Scores indictment included a grab bag of crimes. Junior was charged with being the acting boss of the Gambino crime family. V...