Cosa Nostra News

For one brief moment in 1996, it seemed he was back.....The coiffure, the swagger, the scowl, the air of menace, threats, and schemes. The wit, the philosophizing....But John Gotti had been sitting in a 7-by-8-foot cell in the maximum security wing of the Federal Penitentiary in Marion, Ill., serving a life sentence for murder and racketeering since 1992. (He died serving that sentence in 2002.) Armand Assante last weekend in Atlantic City. Photo by Barry Brown. Armand Assante didn't so much play John Gotti in the two-hour HBO movie Gotti (which was based on  Gotti: Rise and Fall by Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustain, plus FBI tapes and court transcripts) as serve as a vessel for the mobster's reincarnation. Assante achieved something remarkable  in the movie (and his portrayal certainly bested John Travolta's more recent attempt, in our book anyways).  ''I did a tremendous amount of homework.'' Assante said of his preparation for the role in an interview with th...

" Johnny Alite went to jail. In jail he met people from Philadelphia and Atlantic City. He (wound) up hanging out with the New Jersey mob, then came to Florida. He stole all these businesses from every person. You think he would give me a penny? He didn't give me a quarter; not a penny, not one red cent. Not one red cent did I get. And I swear that on my other arm, that I should lose the use of it. Not one red cent ..."--from the 2006 opening statement of Gambino capo Ronnie One-Arm Trucchio on trial in Miami for racketeering and extortion.... In 2015, Gotti's Rules, written by George Anastasia, hit bookstores to tell the inside story of Gambino enforcer John Alite, who was once a close associate of John (Junior) Gotti, who he later testified against. Now, Mafia International lets John Alite tell his story in his own words. (It is not a comprehensive autobiography however.) Since Gotti's Rules , John Alite has been a steady presence on the blogosphere. Using soc...

The Cutolo family (specifically, the family of Billy Cutolo, Wild Bill's son) will appear tonight on MTV's Families of the Mafia (see trailer below), which details the stories of "five notorious Mafia-tied families as they continue to navigate away from the underlying life of organized crime that still haunts them to this day." Billy Cutolo, Senior left, Junior Five because New York has Five Families? Though the members of the five families on this reality TV show — rather than continuing to profit off a criminal lifestyle invented by Sicilian bandits possibly in the 19th century —a re seeking to depart organized crime — presumably to join the world most of us inhabit, the one filled with legitimate, tax-paying suckers.   Cutolo—like former Gambino underboss Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano —is a legitimate former inhabitant of the world of organized crime in New York City  ( and from when it counted, in the heady, deadlier days of the 1980s and 1990s ).... Aside...

The Sicilian Mafia a.k.a. La Cosa Nostra originated in the 19th century, in Sicily, Italy. But that’s not the extent of the Mafia’s influence. Perhaps their greatest impact was felt in the USA, with mob families running the East Coast, the Midwest, and the West Coast. Their reign was brutal particularly during the 1920s and 1930s in the USA, but it didn’t end there. Italian mobsters ruled the roost with an iron fist. The Mafia hierarchy is quite something, and includes at the lowest level the associates. Above them are the soldiers who work for the Caporegime. Their boss is known as the Underboss who in turn works for the Big Boss who is advised by the Consigliere. Source: Pixabay No Attribution Required The Sicilian Mafia a.k.a. La Cosa Nostra originated in the 19th century, in Sicily, Italy. But that’s not the extent of the Mafia’s influence. Perhaps their greatest impact was felt in the USA, with mob families running the East Coast, the Midwest, and the West Coast. Their reign was...