Cosa Nostra News

UPDATED US District Judge Peter G. Sheridan denied the recent compassionate release filing for reputed former Genovese consiglieri Louis (Bobby) Manna, calling his criminal efforts "extremely serious and heinous." Louis (Bobby) Manna; picture source . Manna, 91, who once upon a time held court at Casella's Restaurant , the base of operations from which he supposedly helped run the Genovese crime family's Garden State operations, has been imprisoned since 1987. He was convicted and sentenced to 80 years in prison.  His crimes included plotting to murder John Gotti and John's older bother Gene and ordering the 1977 murder of Frank Bok Chung Chin, an electronics expert who agreed to testify for the government, and the 1987 execution of Irwin (The Fat Man) Schiff, a 350-pound mobbed-up businessman/con artist who was hit while dining at Upper East Side restaurant Bravo Sergio. Manna's attorney Jeremy Iandolo noted in court filings that Manna has Parkinson's dis...

In 1987, reputed Colombo boss Carmine Persico knew that, short of his lawyers one day cooking up a miracle, he would in all likelihood be spending the rest of his life in prison. He had been convicted in  two separate trials: the Mafia Commission trial and a separate racketeering trial involving the Colombo family's operations. (Persico died in 2019 at age 85 after serving 32 years of that 136-year prison sentence following his two convictions.) Allie Boy Persico was on the run for seven years. The cases were separate, but overlapped, the common denominator being FBI surveillance recordings of Colombo soldier Ralph Scopo’s conversations, which alerted the Feds to the initial evidence that would help them build the Commission Case. Scopo was the bagman in a large-scale ongoing racket involving shaking down concrete contractors at major construction projects. As the president of the Cement and Concrete Workers District Council of the Laborers' International Union of North Americ...

Researching the history of the Genovese crime family in North Jersey, w e  came across a longtime Hoboken-based associate who snitched for more than 15 years, then agreed to wear a wire for a couple more. His tips sparked Federal, State, and local investigations and he identified some 50 wiseguys and associates for investigators. He was  called Petey Cap. And another name joins our List of Mafia Defectors . Peter (Petey Cap) Caporino  Over 40 years, longtime Genovese associate Peter (Petey Cap) Caporino and his gambling operation were slowly and inexorably threaded into the fiber of the North Jersey underworld. He hooked up with the Genovese crime family as an associate and reported to some very powerful Garden State wiseguys. And while the man (or woman) at the top sometimes changed, Petey Cap’s numbers and gambling operation, which  he ran out of his social club in Hoboken, was a constant. For almost half his time as an associate, Caporino lead a double life as a g...

Louis (Bobby) Manna, the 91-year-old reputed onetime Genovese family consiglieri, is slowly dying in a Minnesota medical prison, according to an emergency compassionate release motion filed by his attorney. FBI mugshot of Louis (Bobby) Manna. Manna, who will be 92 in weeks, suffers from various health ailments—including colitis, a hernia, high blood pressure, vertigo and ulcers, his lawyers allege -- which prevent him from walking on his own for more than a couple of steps. He has been in prison for more than 30 years following his conviction for Mafia crimes, including murders and  ordering a hit on Gambino boss John Gotti . This is not his first request. Manna, who was allegedly under Vincent (Chin) Gigante, tried to get a compassionate release last year but was denied.  Jeremy Iandolo, Manna's attorney, argued for the aging wiseguy in a hearing Thursday before Peter G. Sheridan, the Senior District Judge of the US District Court for the District of New Jersey. He no...