Cosa Nostra News

With thanks to the "mobologist," who shared his insight about the following, among many other things too numerous to list here right now.... Jay Goldberg, a welterweight boxer-turned-lawyer who defended a roster of high-profile figures, including a bevy of powerful wiseguys—and who delivered the first decisive courtroom defeat to mob-busting US Attorney Rudy Giuliani—died on December 5 at his home in Bridgehampton, New York. He was 89. Defense lawyer Jay Goldberg. Goldberg, who (in)famously quipped, “ I’m fairly certain that I never represented an innocent mobster, ” defended high-profile as well as lesser-known wiseguys. A highlight of his career as a mob lawyer had to be when he delivered such a masterful cross-examination of Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, he won unqualified praise from the influential National Law Journal, which described his courtroom questioning of the former Gambino underboss as “Goldberg’s methodical destruction of Mr. Gravano" that showed he...

After a seven-month hiatus, the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor was back in business on December 7, when it formally banned multiple individuals from obtaining "gainful" employment on the docks  over alleged ties to Mafia figures. Churchgoer Stephen (Beach) DePiro, reputed Genovese soldier. As per published reports, the rejects had ties to the Lucchese, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and DeCavalcante crime families. The potential recruits included an applicant who is affiliated with Stephen (Beach) DePiro, a Genovese soldier who in 2015 was sentenced to three years and five months in prison after pleading guilty to an extortion scheme that collected kickbacks from dock workers. The Commission also blocked an applicant who did not disclose his association with a “member of the Sicilian faction of the Gambino family.” Another applicant was rejected over his not disclosing multiple family ties to the mob: his father is associated with the Luchese family and a grandfather ...

Reputed Philadelphia Cosa Nostra underboss Steven Mazzone, 59, was sentenced to five years in prison and three years of supervised release by US District Judge R. Barclay Surrick for his role in several conspiracies to commit racketeering, making extortionate extensions of credit, and conducting an illegal gambling business. Reputed Philadelphia crime family underboss Stevie Mazzone. As per the Justice Department, in June 2022, Mazzone pled guilty to five counts in a Superseding Indictment, thereby admitting his guilt as a leader of the Philadelphia mafia who directed a vast network of criminal activity that spanned Philadelphia and parts of New Jersey. His conduct involved conspiracies to commit crimes involving extortion, illegal gambling, drug dealing, and loansharking. As the underboss, the defendant set rules for LCN members and associates and collected profits from illegal activity that was siphoned upward through the LCN command structure to ensure the enterprise continued to ex...

Michael DiLeonardo, aka Mikie Scars, rose to capo in the Gambino family during the reign of John Gotti. He was close to the Gottis, and if John Gotti had not crashed and burned in the early 1990s courtesy of the FBI, Mikie Scars' rise likely would have continued, and daily life for him might be very different today.  Paulie Zac, DiLeonardo's mob mentor. But as fate had it, John Gotti was arrested, tried, convicted, and in 1992 was sent to a Federal prison for life. He was around 10 years into his sentence when he died on June 10, 2002 , at the Federal prison hospital at Springfield, Mo. He was 61. (The cause was cancer.) As  we detailed in 2015 , the Feds filmed Mikie Scars ("I was born on record") attending the Dapper Don's wake. Days later, Michael and others were arrested based on Craig DePalma's sealed Grand Jury testimony. While sitting in jail, DiLeonardo learned that Joseph (Jo Jo) Corozzo, consiglieri, speaking for Peter Gotti and Nicholas (Little Ni...