Cosa Nostra News

On Thursday ( July 19), in Manhattan Federal Court, alleged Genovese capo Eugene (Rooster) Onofrio, 76, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for loan sharking. The wiseguy, 76, was only trying to relive the glory days, his lawyer had argued.  The loansharking was an attempt--- a not very bright one, at that ---to relive his glory days, his lawyer sought to argue Thursday. Onofrio was arrested in 2016, one of the 46 alleged members of the Genovese, Gambino, Luchese, Bonanno, and Philadelphia crime families indicted for operating a so-called "East Coast LCN Enterprise," as the Fed's named it. Onofrio also pleaded guilty to hustling untaxed cigarettes. Onofrio was caught in a 2014 secretly recorded conversation discussing how to collect an interest payment of $600 on a $30,000 loan. “What do I got to do with him?” Onofrio, of East Haven, Conn., asked. "Do you have to take his eyes out? But hey, those threats were all talk, Onofrio’s attorney,...

July 2018 marked the 75th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Sicily, aka Operation Husky... American troops advancing to Messina, 1943. The summer 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily was an unmitigated success, what historians term as one of World War II's major turning points. After defeating Italy and Germany in the North African Campaign (November 8, 1942-May 13, 1943) of World War II (1939-45), the United States and Great Britain, the two leading Allied powers, decided to liberate Italy, to accomplish the vital goals of removing Benito Mussolini's fascist regime, securing the central Mediterranean, and destroying the Axis bulkhead and driving the remaining Italian and German forces to either surrender or retreat. The Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943. After 38 days of fighting, the U.S. and Great Britain drove German and Italian troops off of Sicily and prepared to continue to assault them on the Italian mainland. Setting the stage for Operation Husky...

Robert Pisani, an associate in acting capo Ronald Giallanzo's Bonanno crime family crew , was among a group of 10 reputed Bonanno crime family members accused of participating in various crimes over the past two decades ranging from racketeering to loan sharking and attempted murder. NEW NICKNAME? Pisani the Pervert  Pisani's rap sheet stretched back to 1992 and included assault, insurance fraud, criminal possession of a weapon and harassment charges. Leading the March indictment was Howard Beach’s Giallanzo, 46, who allegedly oversaw a criminal enterprise that netted $26 million in earnings since 1998, federal prosecutors said. Following his March arrest, Pisani and his wife posted a $500,000 bond for his federal racketeering case and he was released. Then in May, just as he was departing the downtown Brooklyn federal courthouse after a hearing related to the racketeering case, Pisani was re-arrested by a plainclothes sex crimes detective. Acco...

UPDATED The Salvatore (Sally Daz) Zottola shooting may actually be the second attempted gangland hit caught on tape; the first, in March 1993, was the attempted murder of Joey Chang , then-34, early one morning in the coffee shop he owned, the Warfield Breakfast & Luncheon Express, in Philadelphia. Shooter leaped out of car, ran up to Sally Daz and fired at point blank range. The FBI had mounted a surveillance camera on the telephone pole across from the diner. Chang was shot during the Merlino-Stanfa war. Joey Chang was seriously wounded but he too survived, though partially paralyzed and with nerve damage that caused him to retire from Cosa Nostra. NYPD officials have labeled the July 11 attempted murder of Salvatore (Sally Daz) Zottola as a botched gangland hit. He was shot around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday morning in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. In a surveillance clip, below, a red Nissan can be seen driving past Zottola's vehicle and pulling to a h...