Ed Scarpo's Blog, page 16

Could This Be the End of Cosa Nostra News ?

This isn't a split-second decision. It's one that's been simmering on the backburner for some time.

I just don't have the millions of unique monthly visitors needed these days to make decent revenue as a single blog operator.
Writing this blog is a full-time job. In addition to the research, interviews and writing, I get phone calls, texts and emails, 90 percent of which are blog-related.







Then there's the ceaseless tide of tertiary bullshit -- sloppy and narrowminded knee-jerk reactions and stupidity.
I don't ask for help from you to fight against hypocrisy and stupidity; but I am asking you for something....
If you'd like to continue to see new stories on here on a near-daily basis, here's your chance.

I, once again, humbly submit for your approval the following link:  PayPal.Me/cosanostranews/
The link will take you to a page where you can donate as much or as little as you'd like. Frankly, if every one of you paid me $2 -- that's right, $2 lousy dollars -- I'd never need to ask for another dime.
It'd finance the designing of two ebook covers for books I'm finishing, and it'd help me recoup the losses I've incurred by deleting the pop-ups that were so inconvenient for everyone.
I guess we all have some decisions to make. 
Right now, though,  I'd say the ball is more in your court.
No comments. I don't need words. I need dollars....

Godfather Board Game: "Thugs on a Map"

Seem to be a couple of Godfather games going around....
Eric Lang, game designer and "self-styled  'disciple of fun,'" recently posted an image of his Bloodborne card game box, about which he commenced tweeting last November.

He'd dubbed it "Project Dream," which he said is the code name for the Bloodborne game, which is "based on the Chalice dungeon runs, where players compete to kill monsters and take their blood. But don't die," Lang tweeted
Lang also revealed what another codename he's been tweeting means:  Project Suitcase is a board game based on "The Godfather."


Lang departed a cushy Facebook game developer position to follow his longheld (and seemingly outdated) dream of being a creative force in what today us called the "paper game industry." The fancy term seems to denote board and card games, such as Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit
"My goal was to work exclusively on board, card and miniature games I would be passionate about," Lang told TechTimes. "Since then, I have been busy doing nothing but that."

The Godfather board game is described as "thugs on a map." It is "streamlined," "confrontational" and filled with both murder and intrigue.

Winning the game depends on one's ability at henchmen placement. Five to 16 players are required and game sessiond can last up to 90 minutes.

Godfather: The Board GameSee Facebook pageCategory: Party Games
Ages: 13+
Players: 5 - 16
Play Time: 60 - 90 minutes
Designers: Nathan McNair, Nate Murray
Publisher: IDW Games

MSRP: $24.99 Sales Price: $16.49

Contents:
-20 Role cards
-6 Reference cards
-12 Cash tokens
-1 Gun token
-1 Badge token
-1 Bulletproof Vest token
-1 Horse's Head token
-1 Moderator screen
-1 Rulebook

Description:
Hunt for those who would take sides against the family. Godfather: An Offer You Can't Refuse is a mafia-style, deductive party game based off the iconic film trilogy by Francis Ford Coppola, and starring Marlin Brando as Don Corleone. In the card game, players will play as either members of the Corleone crime family, or undercover cops trying to end their reign. Played out over several rounds, the tension of the game comes in trying to figure out who's on which side, and never knowing when you might receive an offer you can't refuse!


But who's gonna wanna play Fredo?!?!


PS: There seems to be conflicting information about this game. Other sites are referring to IDW's boardgame  The Godfather: A New Don.

 Bleeding Cool reported:

Designed by Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim (Orphan Black, Belfort), The Godfather: A New Don is a game for 3-6 players that sees each player taking control of one of the major mafia families, each trying to assert their power in the streets of 1950’s New York in hopes of taking the reigns as the new kingpin of the criminal world. The game is playable in approximately 45 minutes.

Mafia Targeted Mario Cuomo, Thrice Elected NY's Governor

"I saw, heard and felt a rip-roaring keynote address at the Democratic convention this week. Gov. Mario Cuomo … put those Republicans right in their place.… I emerged convinced that President Reagan could receive no more than 1.5 percent of the vote in November. "

-- Thomas Hazlett, The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 1984

Mario Cuomo was one of the greatest orators in modern political history. He was formally a democrat, but his goals and accomplishments made him too complex a politician to be s...

Mafia Plotted Death of Man Who Should've Been President

"I saw, heard and felt a rip-roaring keynote address at the Democratic convention this week. Gov. Mario Cuomo … put those Republicans right in their place.… I emerged convinced that President Reagan could receive no more than 1.5 percent of the vote in November. "

-- Thomas Hazlett, The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 1984

REVISED; NOT FINAL
Mario Cuomo, among many other things, is one of the greatest orators in modern political history.

And the Sicilian Mafia wanted him dead to send a message to Americans calling for the destruction of the witness protection program.

His July 16, 1984 Keynote Address to the Democratic National Convention tops many lists as one of the 20th Century's most inspirational speeches. I'd delete the qualifier and say it's one of the most inspirational and powerful in American history. Listening to it again, it sounds even more relevant today than ever before.

The Huffington Post offered an excerpt of the Mario Cuomo chapter (PDF) of Words That Shook The World by Richard Greene.

In the accompanying story, Greene noted that the chapter includes "background information and a line-by-line analysis of his Tale of Two Cities Keynote Address." Greene also reveals how he once asked Cuomo something about which I've long wondered (and lamented):

I left Governor Cuomo’s office that day thinking what I had always thought about him — that he would have been a great president. I felt so strongly about this that, at the end of the interview, I mustered the courage to ask him, as many did, why he chose not to run. I left shaking my head because, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t make sense out of the answer. 

But, for whatever reason, we are now left with his years as a leader of New York, an inspiration to many and this amazing speech..

 Cuomo died at age 82 on Jan. 1, 2015.

Former President Bill Clinton may have answered the question for us. He paid tribute to Cuomo in an op-ed piece published by Time magazine in which he  noted how he owed “a great debt” to the late New York governor. The great Hugh Carey was instrumental to Cuomo's career.

“As all the political world knows, I owe a great debt to Mario Cuomo–for declining to run for President in 1992, then electrifying our convention with his nomination speech for me,” Clinton wrote in Time. “I later wanted to nominate him for the Supreme Court, but he declined. I think he loved his life in New York and was content to be our foremost citizen advocate for government’s essential role in building a strong American community, living and growing together.”

Read Clinton’s op-ed at Time.




Cuomo died just six hours after his son Andrew was formally sworn in to a second term as governor of the Empire State. When Mario Cuomo was hospitalized in late 2014 with a heart condition, a spokesman said he was “in good spirits,” and CNN’s Chris Cuomo — the former governor’s other son — tweeted that his father was “doing well enough.” (In addition to Andrew and Chris, Mario Cuomo had three daughters — Maria, Margaret and Madeline.)
First elected to the post in 1982, Cuomo served three terms as governor of the Empire State, making him the longest-serving Democratic governor in state history.

Cuomo was born in 1932 in Queens, New York, the youngest of three children. Both his parents were of Italian descent: His father, Andrea, was born in Brooklyn, but his family returned to Nocera Superiore, Italy, shortly after his birth. Cuomo’s mother, Immaculata, grew up in nearby Tramonti, Italy. The couple married in 1925 and moved to the United States soon after. (Andrea made the trip over before his wife joined him.) The Cuomos ran a small grocery store in Jamaica, Queens. 

In 1974, Cuomo took his political ambitions to the next level, running for the Democratic nomination for New York lieutenant governor at thecoaxing of party bosses who thought the Italian-American would help shore up the “white ethnic” vote. He fell short of that goal, losing to Polish-American state Sen. Mary Anne Krupsak. However, Cuomo’s longtime acquaintance and fellow St. John’s alumnus Gov. Hugh Carey had taken notice of his ambition. The next year, Carey appointed Cuomo as New York’s secretary of state, thus beginning the lawyer’s long career in Albany. 

At Carey’s encouragement, Cuomo left his post in Albany and ran for mayor of New York City in 1977. The contentious Democratic primary pitted Cuomo against then-Rep. Ed Koch, who went on to win the race. In one of the campaign’s ugliest moments, posters appeared around the city urging New Yorkers to “Vote for Cuomo, not the homo” — alluding to rumors about Koch’s sexuality.

“We had to pay for something we never did,” Cuomo said after the former mayor’s death in 2013. “Why? Because Ed did insist on blaming us for years. He knew — because he was very intelligent — that I wasn’t dumb enough to do something that stupid even if I was mad enough, which I wasn’t. I always thought of that as an Ed Koch thing.”

Cuomo ran again for lieutenant governor again in 1978 and won. Although he reportedly found the role frustrating and lacking responsibility, it positioned him well to run for governor in 1982 (a race he said would be his last if he lost). In what The New York Times described as a “stunning upset,” Cuomo defeated Koch for the Democratic nomination and went on to beat Republican businessman Lewis Lehrman in the general election.

Cuomo took a turn on the national political stage during the 1984 presidential campaign, during which he campaigned for Democratic nominee Walter Mondale. Cuomo was floated as a potential vice presidential pick, but Mondale ultimately settled on Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to appear on a major party ticket. Cuomo nevertheless got his chance in the spotlight at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, where he delivered a widely praised keynote address that sharply criticized President Ronald Reagan’s championship of trickle-down economics and social Darwinism and deflating his portrait of America as a “shining city on a hill.”

“There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don’t see, in the places that you don’t visit in your shining city,” he said. “Mr. President, you ought to know that this nation is more a ‘Tale of Two Cities’ than it is just a ‘Shining City on a Hill.’”

Cuomo’s keynote address instantly made him a Democratic sensation, stirring speculation that he would run for president himself in 1988. But Cuomo eventually declined to jump in the race, instead running for re-election as governor in 1986 — a race he won by a landslide. He successfully ran for a third term in 1990, again sitting out of the presidential race in 1992 after flirting with the idea for some time. Cuomo’s vacillations on whether to run for president earned him thenickname “Hamlet on the Hudson.”

As governor, Cuomo at times tacked to the right fiscally, proposing tax cuts and cutting spending in efforts to balance the state budget. He alsofought against many of Reagan’s proposed budget cuts, and pushed for funding for housing, schools and environmental protection.

Cuomo rejected political labels, which he saw as useless, and described himself as a “progressive pragmatist.”

‘’The very success of Mario Cuomo is that he is neither ‘liberal’ nor ‘conservative,’’’ Cuomo adviser Meyer S. Frucher told The New York Times in 1988. ‘’He does not fit any of the labels. That does not make him disingenuous. That makes him a good governor, the leader of a government that spends on social programs but does not get carried away, that has not just a heart, but a head.’’

In 1993, Cuomo was offered a chance at an open Supreme Court seat by President Bill Clinton, but removed himself from consideration. He later said he had no regrets about his decision.

‘’To be a justice of the Supreme Court, to sit there and listen, to study, to conclude and write and not have to worry about the polls, nothing would have been more perfect,’’ he said. ‘’But on the other side, I think I have probably been in a better position to speak out on the issues.’’

One of Cuomo’s most liberal positions — his opposition to the death penalty — became a central issue in his 1994 re-election campaign. For the first time since 1982, Cuomo found himself facing a formidable opponent in the race for the governorship. Republican state Sen. George Pataki, initially considered an underdog with little statewide name recognition, steadily closed in on Cuomo as the campaign wore on. Pataki focused his campaign on two key issues: tax cuts and restoring the death penalty. The latter may have been critical to Pataki’s ultimate, albeit narrow, victory over Cuomo: as The New York Times reported after the election, 60 percent of voters said they supported restoring capital punishment. Those voters went 2-to-1 in favor of Pataki.

After his defeat, Cuomo returned to private practice.

Cuomo ultimately refused to give in to populist sentiment. He easily could've changed his position and supported the death penalty. But he refused to.

That is character.

(Pataki proved to be an empty suit, an Alphonse D'Amato stooge. Note that despite empty head's fiery kill-em-all rhetoric, New York state hasn't executed an inmate since 1963.)


Enter the SiciliansBy plotting his murder the Sicilians proved how little they knew about politics

Cosa Nostra had plans to assassinate Mario Cuomo during the New York governor's 1992 trip to Italy.

So said imprisoned hitman Maurizio Avola, who noted "the attack was only called off when the scale of Cuomo's security detail became apparent" as reported by The Guardian.

Cosa Nostra in the 1990s was engaged in a terror campaign against the state, assassinating anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in separate bomb attacks in 1992.

The Sicilians wanted to send a message regarding their hatred of America's witness protection program, which allowed Mafia turncoats to start anew under assumed identities, Avola said.

"Cuomo was a symbol of America which during those years hosted collaborators who wanted out of Cosa Nostra and then got their bosses arrested. His death would have sent a strong signal to New York. It would have made them understand what happens to those who stand in the Mafia's way," he said.

Food for thought for all those who use words like "rats" -- a topic rife with hypocrisy. The most extreme cases involve the families of gangsters who are sent away for life by men who essentially committed the same crimes, or worse, as the convicted family member(s). Yet today with widescale intentional dry-snitching and informing, there's much more complexity involved. Who's a rat, is the question of the day, with seemingly everyone offering their own definition that best suites their own personal situation.
We've been watching this playing out in the media for the past year, with this writer being attacked repeatedly on social media (in textbook obsessive compulsive ways; these are mentally ill sociopaths). This blog's been attacked in other ways. Type in this blogger's name "edscarpo" than add dotcom.
Apparently, John A. Gotti doesn't like the fact that this blog writes stories about John Alite. But the truth is, Junior Gotti isn't worth an interview because he can't tell the truth. And judging by the story he gave Gangsters Inc., in which he was less-that-truthful about the John Travolta Gotti biopic, he seems to show his own proclivity for doing exactly what he's been accusing Alite of doing for more than 10 years now.
Sicilian Mafia
The Sicilian Mafia was making a mistake, on many levels by targeting Cuomo. 

"Ironically, Cuomo was a Mafia denier, and his administration did little to target the crime families," as Friend of Ours noted.

The blog further noted:

"Indeed, he once infamously said that the Mafia's existence is "a lot of baloney" and it's just "a word invented by people" as reported by The Associated Press.
When Gambino boss Paul Castellano was whacked in 1985 in front of Sparks Steak House in Manhattan the governor even "urged reporters to refrain from invoking the word Mafia in reference to the hit" as reported by Sam Roberts forThe New York Times. Cuomo then criticized the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York for refusing to bury Castellano in sacred ground as reported by Crime TV.

Cuomo once had presidential ambitions but abandoned them due to speculation about mob connections -- particularly involving father-in-law Charles Raffa who suffered a near-fatal beatdown in 1984 outside a vacant supermarket he owned in Brooklyn -- as reported by Nick Pileggi in a November 1987 cover story "Mario Cuomo and Those Mob Rumors" for New Yorkmagazine.

One of Cuomo's earliest political supporters and bosom buddies was Genovese associate William Fugazy. Fugazy founded the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations of which Cuomo was a member, and in 1986 the Governor appointed Fugazy to head the New York State Statue of Liberty Centennial Commission.

Even Clinton, so generous with his praise for Cuomo, once made remarks implying Cuomo acted like a mobster.

In January 1992, the Democratic presidential candidate publicly apologized to New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo for private remarks he made that were publicly released by Gennifer Flowers, who claimed to have had a 12-year affair with Clinton.

She held a news conference and played tapes that she said were of phone conversations between her and Clinton, as the Los Angeles Times reported.

"Flowers held the news conference along with the Star, a supermarket tabloid, which paid her for her story and published it."

Clinton has strongly denied that he had an affair with Flowers but has acknowledged talking with her by telephone after she called him to express concern about being romantically linked to him. On Tuesday, Clinton's aides confirmed that he made the remarks about Cuomo.

Clinton himself, in response to questions from the press, said Monday night in Houston that he had not listened to the tapes, but "with everybody now publishing" reports that he made the remarks, he wanted Cuomo "to know if anything was said, I didn't mean any offense by it."

During one portion of the tape, apparently made before Cuomo announced he would not be a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Flowers and Clinton discuss Cuomo and his high name recognition.

Flowers says she doesn't care for Cuomo's "demeanor."

Clinton responds: "Boy, he is so aggressive."

Flowers says she wouldn't be surprised if Cuomo "didn't have some Mafioso major connections."

"Well, he acts like one," Clinton says.

Flowers' press conference....

In his apology, Clinton said: "If the remarks on the tape left anyone with the impression that I was disrespectful to either Gov. Cuomo or Italian-Americans, then I deeply regret it.

"At the time the conversation was held, there had been some political give and take between myself and the governor and I meant simply to imply that Gov. Cuomo is a tough, worthy competitor."

At first Cuomo dismissed Clinton's explanation. "What do you mean if?" Cuomo said, referring to the Arkansas governor's statement. "If you are not capable of understanding what was said, then don't try apologizing."


....Which eventually got her in Penthouse......

"This is part of an ugly syndrome that strikes Italian-Americans, Jewish people, blacks, women, all the ethnic groups," Cuomo said when questioned in Albany, N. Y.

Cuomo later urged putting the controversy aside and "getting back to the issues."

Clinton, when pressed by reporters about his apology to Cuomo, became more visibly angry than he has since Flowers' allegations surfaced. "What I wonder is, with all the American people we got that are unemployed, with all the people who can't get any health care, with all the problems we have in this country . . . the first three questions from the press would be about something that doesn't have a thing to do with the future of this country."

Referring to the press, Clinton added: 

"The American people are sick and tired with your obsessive preoccupation with a failed setup and I have nothing else to say about it."

Did Sicilian Mob Infiltrate Witness Protection Program?

Luigi Ronsisvalle, left, and Fisher at motel where an agreement was signed.
The extremely bizarre story of a Sicilian shooter/turncoat who tried to set free "Toto" Catalano, onetime Bonanno street boss.....

In 1987 law enforcement officials around the world were shocked when a former Mafia killer emerged from the safety of the Federal witness protection program to recant his testimony.

What he told the jury had helped put away one of New York's most ruthless mobsters, a Bonanno member and onetime "street boss" of the Zips -- a burly man with enigmatic links to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra who was a key player in a major global drug trafficking venture.
His name was Salvatore "Toto" Catalano, and he'd been sentenced to 45 years in prison for his role in the ''Pizza Connection" case.
This witness, Luigi Ronsisvalle, said he had quit the Federal Witness Protection Program and had voluntarily sought out Catalano's lawyer so he could provide a sworn statement that declared as false his Pizza Connection trial testimony against Catalano.
Today the name Ronsisvalle probably has little meaning to anyone.

But back in 1987, it would've been nearly like someone of Sammy the Bull's ilk suddenly insisting his testimony against Gambino boss John Gotti was false. (This, in fact, is something the Feds had initially feared when Gravano first came forward.)

Only two years prior to reaching out to Catalano's lawyer, Ronsisvalle, a prized witness, had spoken before a Presidential Commission in February 1985, before the Pizza Connection Case.

Described as "dark-haired, olive-skinned" Ronsisvalle was then age 44.

He was surrounded by U.S. marshals as he spoke rapidly, his words drenched in a thick Italian accent.

As one report had noted:

A former Sicilian heroin trafficker told a presidential commission Wednesday that he killed 13 people, but he assured the panel that he considered 11 of the killings honorable.

Luigi Ronsisvalle is serving a 15-year prison term for one of the slayings, the only one for which he has been convicted. He made the admissions in testimony before the President`s Commission on Organized Crime. The panel is holding hearings about U.S. heroin trafficking and the criminals involved. Ronsisvalle, 44, protected by 10 U.S. marshals wearing bulletproof vests, spent 2 1/2 hours describing his life of crime after coming to America from Sicily in 1966.

Wearing dark glasses and speaking in a heavy Sicilian accent, Ronsisvalle said that besides the slayings, he took part in arson, robberies and heroin trafficking to Chicago and Los Angeles. He said he also carried narcotics between organized-crime families in New York City during a 15-year period.

He openly derided the American version of the Sicilian organization, too:

"They`re only a gang here."   

"In Sicily if you are Mafia, you whistle and there are 20 guys behind you with shotguns."

Ronsisvalle said the Sicilian people often turned to the Mafia "for more immediate and sometimes severe justice" because Italian courts meted out justice so slowly....

As for his role in the Pizza Connection Case, a huge heroin trafficking conspiracy nicknamed for the pizzerias and other fronts used to smuggle $1.6 billion worth of heroin into the U.S. between 1979 and 1984, he noted that:

In the mid-1970s, he was enlisted by New York mob bosses to carry 40-pound suitcases of heroin from New York to Chicago.

"A man named Carlo would meet me at the train station and carry the suitcase and place it in the trunk of his car," Ronsisvalle recalled. "Then we`d go our separate ways until I`d see him the next trip."

Ronsisvalle said he made 40 trips by train to Chicago in a 14-month period, receiving $5,000 per trip.

Earlier in the hearing, Michael Tobin, chief of heroin investigations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, testified that traditional organized crime, as the Mafia is referred to, was the major controller of Turkish heroin in the U.S. during the late 1960s and in the 1970s.

Tobin said the 26 known organized-crime families in the U.S. are involved in drug trafficking to some extent.

Two years later and Ronsisvalle reportedly met with Catalano's lawyer twice in a cramped motel room near Cincinnati. The lawyer, Ivan S. Fisher, "met with Ronsisvalle in the presence of this reporter." ("This reporter" referred to Ralph Blumenthal)..

Fisher paid Ronsisvalle $2,620 for expenses, and both swore the money was not in exchange for the  recantation.As Blumenthal noted, during the first meeting, Ronsisvalle said:

"Mr. Fisher, I want you, please, from the bottom of my heart, I want you to accept my apology for what I done to Toto Catalano. I swear to God, I feel so bad, I feel like crying."

Fisher voiced his intent to seek a new trial for Catalano based on Ronsisvalle's recantation.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the United States Attorney in Manhattan -- and the man who'd supervised the Pizza Connection case's prosecution, said Catalano's conviction wouldn't be touched.
''There was an overwhelming amount of testimony against him,'' Giuliani said of Catalano.
Why exactly did Ronsisvalle offer the recantation?

As Blumenthal noted:

"Several factors that might explain the recantation were still open to question. It could not be determined with certainty, for example, whether any representative of Mr. Catalano had talked or negotiated with Mr. Ronsisvalle, or even threatened him, although both Mr. Ronsisvalle and Mr. Fisher denied this. During the interviews Mr. Ronsisvalle repeatedly asked for money but the possibility could not be ruled out that money had been passed to him or promised to him before the interviews."

"Still, Mr. Ronsisvalle's reversal raises uncertainties about some of the evidence used to convict Mr. Catalano, and perhaps about other aspects of the 17-month trial, the longest and one of the costliest Federal criminal trials on record. It also suggests that Mr. Ronsisvalle committed perjury before the President's Commission on Organized Crime. ...." 

"At the same time, Mr. Ronsisvalle's statements raised questions about his treatment under the Federal witness program...."

Ronsisvalle, as if to underline his sincerity, also refused to testify at two pending trials of major Mafia figures. 
As for Fisher, considered to be among "the nation's most sought-after and highly paid criminal lawyers," he said he would present the new testimony to the United States Attorney in Manhattan. Fisher  also prepared an application in which he asked the judge, Pierre N. Laval, for a hearing to grant Catalano a new trial.

At the same time that was going on, Giuliani and chief prosecutor Louis Freeh hit the media, telling the New York Times in a joint telephone interview, that Ronsisvalle was a mere  ''background witness'' and that his testimony was far from crucial. 
''Had Ronsisvalle not testified it would have made absolutely no difference,'' said Freeh. ''There were numerous other witnesses who convicted him.''
The new account by the 47-year-old, Sicilian-born Ronsisvalle almost automatically subjects him to a prison term for perjury, as Fisher noted.

Whether Ronsisvalle was lying during his testimony or later, when he recanted, "remains far from clear."

During his meetings with Fisher, he spoke of various motives for recanting.

"Although he has confessed to committing 13 contract murders without remorse, he says he is so haunted by a guilty conscience for lying that he cannot sleep."

But he has also repeatedly asked for money; Fisher replied that Catalano was willing to pay.
Ronsisvalle also hinted that he'd feared Cosa Nostra-style retaliation.

When asked if he thought Catalano was out to kill him, Ronsisvalle quipped: ''Not any more.''

He also expressed disgust with his living conditions while inside the witness program, saying he had been shuttled between six cities in a year and was unable to find a full-time position.
Also he wasn't in this alone, as he noted when he emerged to "right the wrong" he believed he'd committed.

''I got three daughters. God is my witness. If I lie to you now, may my daughters drop dead with the worst things God can give to human beings. I'm swearing to you on my three daughters.''

He signed an affidavit that confirmed what he'd said, that he had lied in the pizza connection trial when he linked Catalano to a heroin delivery in Brooklyn street and also attributed to Catalano a conversation about heroin trafficking.

''Some of the testimony I gave at the trial of that case is not accurate and was not accurate at the time I gave it,'' the affidavit noted.
As for Fisher's side of the story, he said that, prior to the meetings at the motel, he had gotten, quite out of the blue, a phone call from someone claiming to be Ronsisvalle's representative.

The person told Fisher that the former witness wanted to meet with him.

Fisher then invited New York Times reporter Blumenthal to accompany him (and private investigator Charles W. Kelly). He wanted the journalist there, he said, to dispel any suspicion that anything untoward was going on between him and the Sicilian shooter in witness protection.

Conversations between Fisher and Ronsisvalle were tape-recorded by the journalist. Both parties were told of this ahead of time.

Still, Blumenthal himself knew there may have been more to these meetings than met his eye.

He noted: "...There was no way of knowing what, if anything, might have been discussed on other occasions outside the reporter's presence."

This anecdote is included in Blumenthal's excellent book, Last Day of the Sicilians.

Ronsisvalle's testimony comprised one of four pillars of evidence against Catalano, who had been named street boss of the Bonanno crime family's Sicilian faction.

The other three key pieces of evidence tying him to the case were his fingerprint on a slip of paper reportedly that served as a receipt for a suitcase containing $1.54 million cash. Witnesses also identified him as having attended two meetings of the drug traffickers in Sicily.
Convicted along with 17 other defendants, Catalano was sentenced to 45 years in prison, fined $1.15 million and ordered to pay $1 million restitution to a fund for the rehabilitation of drug addicts.

He was serving his sentence in the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas when Ronsisvalle recanted.
When Ronsisvalle was originally testifying in January 1986, Fisher had been unable to shake Ronsisvalle, who stuck to his story incriminating Catalano in the face of a quite rigorous cross-examination. 
But later, in the motel room, the former witness sang a different tune.

Ronsisvalle said he had implicated Catalano to win an early release from prison for himself.

He noted that prosecutors had never encouraged him to testify falsely, nor where they even aware, as far as he knew, that he'd been lying to them. Furthermore, he admitted he'd gotten the idea to fabricate testimony based on an investigator's comments.
''Somehow I put him in the middle, I don't know how,'' Mr. Ronsisvalle said of Catalano. ''I'm trying to give it to you straight, but he's not there. I don't know what happened. Somehow the guy pops out on the corner.'' The testimony, he said, came ''out of the blue - he never was there.''
He said ''they showed me the pictures'' - surveillance photos - ''and while they were talking, I put two and two together.'' He concluded that Catalano was a key figure of interest -- and he realized that by fabricating "compelling testimony against him would win him a ticket out of prison as a witness."
His other testimony, including his identifying Catalano as a Mafia boss who oversaw gambling dens on Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn's Bushwick section, was truthful, he said.


Living with the LieRonsisvalle found himself drinking every night so he could fall asleep. "I can't take what I did in this court - a liar.''
He said the only difference between the motels he'd lived in since the trial and Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center cells was that ''the floors look a little bit better" in the MCC.

"What I've got is one thing. I can go out, buy a cup of coffee, get drinks. I'm still in goddamn prison.''


His refusal to testify in two New York Mafia trials. One of them involved Anthony Aiello, a longtime fugitive cafe operator -- accused of drug trafficking. The other involved Joseph N. Gallo, reputed Gambino crime family consigliere. 
He had no problem, however, testifying in a third case, he pointed out.
That was the case of Vincenzo Napoli, who, as Ronsisvalle noted, had once tried to kill him in a hotel room.
Ronsisvalle also made additional critical remarks about life in witness protection. But he continually made it quite clear (as Blumenthal noted) that he wanted money. "You still don't talk about money," he told Fisher at one point.
''I'm being straight with you, completely straight with you,'' Fisher responded. ''The money question depends entirely on how much this is worth.''

Notes to a BiographyRonsisvalle testified that he was born in Catania, an ancient port city on Sicily's east coast that sits right beside Mt. Etna, an active volcano. The city boasts a wide central square, called the Piazza del Duomo, that is known for featuring the whimsical Fontana dell'Elefante statue, as well as the Catania Cathedral. In the southwest corner is the fish market known as La Pescheria, which is surrounded by seafood restaurants.
The Mafia shooter, at age 26, arrived in New York in 1966. He carried an introduction to meet a Bonanno crime family member on Knickerbocker Avenue.
Although he was not then ''made'' he was an associate, he testified, and had been taught how to smuggle heroin aboard planes and trains and, yes, automobiles.

From 1975 to 1976, he said, he drove 80-pound loads of heroin on 15 occasions from members of the the Bonanno family to members of the Gambino family in Brooklyn. In other words, he was driving about $120 million worth of heroin (wholesale) earning himself $5,000 per trip.

Fifteen additional trips, he said, involved him riding on Amtrak to smuggle 40-pound loads of heroin to customers in Chicago.
Ronsisvalle also confessed to 13 murders -- six of which he committed as a hired gun. The last murder, he said, was in 1976, when he shot a man who worked as a cook in a Brooklyn restaurant. The victim had been  accused of raping a 14-year-old girl.

Her father had gone to the Mafia with $100,000 for justice.

I have found inconsistent reports on parts of Ronsisvalle's story. For example, the Sun-Sentinal noted of the rapist: "Euginio Frangellio, 32, was shot five times as he left the New Corners restaurant in Brooklyn.

The report quotes Ronsisvalle as saying, "I was paid $8,000. The man had raped his 13-year-old sister. She was my niece. It wasn't a matter of money. It was justice."

In all, Ronsisvalle said he killed 13 people in the United States. Eleven, he said, were contract killings Ronsisvalle turned himself in and pleaded guilty to that killing -- which occurred in 1979. He later claimed he'd done this as a way of getting back at Michele Sindona, an Italian banker known "The Shark," among other things. He also was a member of Propaganda Due, a lodge of Italian Freemasonry. He had clear connections to the Sicilian Mafia and in 1986 was fatally poisoned in prison while serving life for the murder of a lawyer. (See New York Times obituary, here.)

Ronsisvalle testified that Sindona had offered him $100,000 to assassinate an assistant United States attorney, John Kenney, which was never carried out.
Ronsisvalle also provided information on Mafia figures he knew from Knickerbocker Avenue, including Catalano.
He voluntarily took a polygraph test on some of his information.

"Responses to two questions were judged truthful by the New York police examiner. Two other responses relating to knowledge he claimed to have about the 1979 killing of the Gambino family boss, Carmine Galante, were evaluated as deceptive."

For the murder of the restaurant cook, Ronsisvalle was sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison. In February 1985 Ronsisvalle then contacted a New York City police detective, Kenneth McCabe, and offered to give authorities further information on the Mafia.

Motel MeetingsThe meeting, in the presence of Blumenthal and the investigator, took place on Saturday, Sept. 19, in the motel's restaurant.
''What are you going to do for me?'' was one of the first things Ronsisvalle asked the lawyer. The tape recorded wasn't even running yet. Fisher asked how the testimony against Catalano had come about.
Ronsisvalle said none of the prosecutors or investigators had planted it. But he said, ''It sound like they washing my brain. They not telling me this is what you got to say, but the way they were talking, it sounds like that's what they would like.'' 
"You still not talking about them goddamn things," Ronsisvalle later said, rubbing tow finger, the signal for cash. He rubbed two fingers together in an evident reference to money.

Ronsisvalle, while discussing Catalano, suddenly eyed the tape recorder and stopped talking.

''Fisher insisted he continue talking while the recorder ran.
Ronsisvalle said it was well-know among Knickerbocker Avenue habitues that Catalano ''make a step up'' after the murder of Peter Licata, the Bonanno capo in charge of Brooklyn`s Knickerbocker Avenue when Ronsisvalle first arrived in the U.S.

Ronsasville had discussed Licata during the hearings prior to the Pizza Connection Case.

"The first thing I had to do is show the Bonannos I had guts. So I robbed a drugstore of $45. The guy in the getaway car got scared and left me. The drugstore clerk shot at me six times. I don`t know how he missed me, but I got away," he said.
Ronsisvalle then sold phony Canadian passports to Sicilian immigrants. He also started blowing up rival pizza parlors. He noted that Licata had taken him under his wing.

"But he (Licata) no liked drugs," Ronsisvalle said. "So they murdered him."

Licata's Nov. 4, 1976 murder was the signal that "Toto Catalano" and the Zips of both the Bonanno and Gambino crime families were about to rise into power, unleashing a flood of drugs into the U.S. by way of Canada.
Under Catalano, Ronsisvalle began making the trips to sell drugs to the Gambinos, which was part of what he later recanted.
At the Presidential Commission he'd noted "Each time (he made a trip carrying a load of drugs) I carried a shotgun and a .38 (handgun). It was a lot of responsibility."

The shotgun was a Lupara, a short double-barreled weapon.

"In Sicily, we take the shotgun pellets out and replace them with the head of nails. When you shoot someone with that, not even his own mother will recognize him. It rips the flesh right off."





Ronsisvalle said that he was being truthful about Catalano as a boss -- noting that he'd lied about all the heroin-related information.

He then spoke of his need to swallow a lot of scotch at night in order to find sleep's solace.

''I don't know but you still don't talk about money. I'm going crazy like I told you.''
''I'm being straight with you, completely straight with you,'' the lawyer replied. ''The money question depends entirely on how much this is worth. I don't mind advising the client to pay you at all.''

"That was why, he said, he had invited a reporter - ''no one could ever think you and I had ever had any desire to do anything under the table.''
''So I'm not embarrassed talking about money,'' Fisher continued. ''It's not my money.''

Fisher said that when he got back to Catalano, he expected to be asked, 'How did it go?' ''
Fisher said he might respond, "Needless to say, the man needs money and he wants money, O.K."

Then the lawyer asked Ronsisvalle, ''What is the first question they're going to ask me?''
''How much he want?'' Ronsisvalle said.
''So, how much do you want?''
"I don't want to answer that question, because I know you don't know what I'm talking about and I don't know what you're talking about either."
Eventually, the two finally are talking about when money will be handed over. Ronsisvalle was seeking an immediate payment, there in the motel room.

"Do I have to? Can I wait till Monday? I can wire it to you on Monday."
Ronsisvalle said he was unable to even pay his motel bill, normally covered by the Witness Protection Program, which also gave him $30 a day for food and spending money.

Several days before he had quit the program following an argument.

He had flown to San Francisco to meet with prosecutors. On the way back, he had missed his connection in Chicago. A Marshal, he said, told him there were no accommodations for him in the city and that he should sleep for protection in the Federal courthouse. He said he refused, slept in the airport, and quit the program.

Once before, he said, he was kicked out of the program for two weeks for violating the rules by giving his telephone number to one of his daughters. He said he was allowed to re-apply and was re-accepted. But now, he said, he was out, period.

Fisher said he would pay the $420 bill -- but ended up hanging over the cash, plus an additional $200 "for expenses."
"That's fantastic!" Ronsisvalle said. But -- and the haggling began for a few thousand more. Ronsisvalle claimed he needed the money to visit his daughters before he was sent to jail for perjury following his recantation.

Three days later, on Sept. 22, Fisher and Blumenthal returned to the Ohio motel to see Ronsisvalle again.

Fisher brought an affidavit he had prepared stating that Catalano, contrary to earlier sworn testimony, had played no part in the heroin transaction and pipeline conversation.
''I want to be clear here,'' Mr. Fisher said. ''Before you and I said one word about any money you told me you were going to change your testimony about Catalano.''
''Now,'' he continued, ''I have $2,000 in cash. I know you'd like more. I'd like to give you none. Do you know why I'd like to give you none? So no one could say you're doing this for the money.''
"This is not buying me. Like I told you I have to see my daughters"
He handed Ronsisvalle the cash in folded bills. "Here's two thousand bucks."
Ronsisvalle signed the statement.
''Why the hell are you doing this?'' Fisher said, noting that no one but Ronsisvalle and Catalano would ever know the truth -- and that the signed affidavit was most likely a passport straight to prison.
"How I got to speak?'' Ronsisvalle said. ''In Chinese? In Japanese? What kinda language? You understand a man who can't swallow some things? You forget one point in 1979 I give up myself because I can't take no more of that goddamn life?"
Later on, Ronsisvalle appeared in the media again -- he'd said he had only called Fisher in the first place because he'd been approached by Sicilian gunmen who told him they knew exactly where his wife and daughters were -- and that if he didn't call Catalano's lawyer and make the recantation, they'd kill his family.

No one seemed to believe Ronsisvalle, who received a five-year suspended sentence before disappearing, once more and for the final time, into the witness protection program.

Many questions linger on regarding the Pizza Connection Case. The biggest one probably is -- what happened to all the money..... About a billion dollars had disappeared before it could be confiscated. Also law enforcement never knew if they'd found all the operation's links.

In fact law enforcement had decided not to pursue the case into Canada (it was far too complicated already). This allowed one Vito Rizzuto to slip away silently and continue to build his power base as boss of the Montreal Mafia.

In April 2009, The Express ran a story that noted:

All of them held key roles in New York’s five criminal “families” before being jailed for racketeering, extortion, conspiracy to murder and loan sharking. At least a dozen more underlings will also be freed this year.

Agents fear the mass release will trigger an unprecedented gangster bloodbath as the bosses reclaim their old positions. One senior FBI officer said: “Six of the Mafia’s most notorious capos and underbosses are hitting the streets at around the same time, as well as many henchmen.

“First, we expect a brutal power struggle as they push aside the Wise Guys who stepped-up in their place. Then we anticipate a series of turf wars between the families. When the dust settles, with hierarchies re-established, it’s going to be back to business…big time.”

The Gambino, Bonanno, Colombo, Genovese and Luchese mobs have fallen into disarray over the past two years. Rules of entry have been relaxed, with wannabe ‘soldiers’ allowed in if they can prove even distant Italian ancestry and murder no longer a prerequisite.

“Discipline has collapsed dramatically in all five families over the past two years,” said the senior agent. “They have lacked leadership and there are Mafia affiliates on the street now who would rather remain ‘independents’ than become ‘made men’ because there’s little kudos to being in the Mob these days, plus they get to have more control over their finances, rather than having to pass a hefty ‘taste’ of every illegal job they do up the chain to multiple capos, underbosses and godfathers.”

All that is about to change as the ‘dirty half-dozen’ bosses return to shake-up what mobsters and agents alike started to jokingly refer to as the’Cosy Nostra’.

The big six are Domenico ‘Italian Dom’ Cefalu, George ‘Big Georgie’ DeCicco, Joseph ‘Joe C’ Caridi, Benedetto Aloi, Matthew ‘Matty the Horse’ Ianniello, and Anthony ‘Fat Anthony’ Rabito.

Genovese capo Lawrence ‘Little Larry’ Dentico, 85, will be freed on May 12 after serving four years for running an illicit gambling ring.

Also due for release on parole on November 28, the same day as his boss Joseph Caridi, is Luchese capo John ‘Johnny Sideburns’ Cerella, 68, and the two are expected to be immediately reinstalled in their old positions of power.

Federal agents anticipate a further shake-up in the Bonanno hierarchy when veteran hoodlum Salvatore ‘Toto’ Catalano, 67, is released on November 14 after serving 29 years for drug smuggling and distribution. 

He was a key player in the infamous ‘Pizza Connection’ case in the Eighties, when the Mob was importing heroin from Sicily and using New York pizzerias as distribution hubs.

 But instead, "Toto" Catalano -- like the Pizza Connection Case's missing billion dollars, like Ronsisvalle himself -- is gone -- as in, disappeared.

One law enforcement official -- "Flatbush native Charles Rooney, who was, at the time (of the Pizza Connection Case), a young FBI case agent assigned to monitor Mafia-related activities in the Bonanno crime family’s Knickerbocker Avenue stronghold" -- was quoted in one story saying of Catalano:

Where he is now is anyone’s guess. “I don’t know even if he’s in the United States anymore,” says Rooney. Always viewed as a stateside asset by his taskmasters back in Sicily, Rooney suspects Catalano may have booked a one-way ticket back to Italy — courtesy of his Sicilian patrons — where he could be monitored or, if need be, silenced. 

And just like that, Catalano returned to the relative obscurity from which he came, leaving an indelible mark on Bushwick and all of New York City.

Big Ang's Cousin Saved Inmate's Life, Gets 20 Yrs

Luigi Grasso, Big Ang's cousin.
It was about about six months ago when newspapers were reporting that Luigi Grasso, cousin of ‘Mob Wives’ star Big Ang, had saved a suicidal inmate's life in a courthouse holding cell before Grasso’s appearance on a weapons rap. 
Grasso's actions were lauded by no less than a Manhattan judge. 
The distressed suicidal inmate, who was never identified by officials, had fashioned a noose from a T-shirt and was hanging from the top bar in the pens of Manhattan Criminal Court at 111 Centre St. on Oct. 7 when the brawny mobster literally leaped into the air to save him, according to witnesses.

“I was sitting down, reading my legal work in the bullpen,” Grasso, who is two inches under 6 feet and weighs in at around 280 pounds, told the Daily News from Rikers Island.

“I’d seen this guy dangling from the ceiling and he was there for a while. I grabbed him and I untied him.” 
Grasso said he was with “two other guys,” waiting to be delivered to the courtroom for a hearing on his 2012 gun charge. That's when he noticed someone "dangling." 
For his quick-thinking efforts, Grasso, 47 , was praised by Justice Bruce Allen, who said: 

“Before appearances are made, we have to acknowledge Mr. Grasso. Apparently he was instrumental in helping downstairs with another inmate who was in some difficulty. Thank you, Mr. Grasso.” 

A mere seconds later, Allen denied Grasso's defense team’s bid to suppress statements and evidence, which would've likely led to a new trial.


Surveillance photo of Grasso.
Alex Grosshtern, who is Grasso's lawyer, said his client rushing to the aid of an ailing fellow inmate was a display of “his true character.”

The story reached its conclusion last week, when Grasso was sentenced to 20 years to life in the Manhattan weapons case.

Luigi Grasso, aka Ronnie Petrino, was sentenced for transporting a cache of weapons and other potential robbery tools in 2012.

In any event, the new sentence will at least run concurrently with the 38-year federal prison term he’s already serving in another case, the one in which Hector Pagan testified.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ellen Biben, who presided over Grasso's trial last year, said that "extended incarceration and the lifetime supervision are warranted to protect the public interest."

Yet letting Hector Pagan out, the shooter who actually killed James Donovan -- then testified against his cohorts in crime, that is in the interest of protecting the public?
As noted in March 2014:

Luigi Grasso and Richard Riccardi were found guilty for the killing of James Donovan.

Grasso, 46, of Staten Island, and Riccardi, 41, of Manalapan, N.J., each face a minimum of 10 years and maximum of life in prison.

They were both convicted on conspiracy, robbery, firearms use and murder charges.

"The defendants plotted this brazen robbery and took the life of James Donovan because of their unrelenting greed," said Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. "After lying in wait for Donovan, the defendants coldly robbed him, shot him and left him to die in the street."

While authorities said Grasso and Riccardi helped plan and carry out the July 2010 fatal robbery, the actual shooter was Hector Pagan, the cooperating witness in the case who testified against Grasso and Riccardi at the two-week trial in an effort to reduce his own potential prison sentence.


Renee Graziano's ex-husband.
"I just can't understand how the government has no problem letting the shooter go so you can put away two guys who only wanted to rob him," said Susan Kellman, Mr. Riccardi's lawyer.

That makes two of us, Ms. Kellman.....

According to the WSJ, Donovan was being investigated by the Business Integrity Commission, a city agency overseeing private garbage haulers and other businesses, when he was murdered.

On the day of the murder, BIC investigators were monitoring by camera a business in Gravesend, Brooklyn, where they knew Donovan made weekly transactions. According to court records, a glitch caused the camera to stop recording as the fatal robbery started. 
However, investigators said they found surveillance footage from nearby stores and discarded cigarette butts that put the three men at the scene at the time of the murder.

Dying for a Good Mob Read? Here's One, But....

Click image to purchase....
Gangland News recently recommended a book, a rarity for the website renowned for being the repository for the nation's no. 1 mob scribe, Jerry Capeci.

"There are no spectacular revelations in it. There's no hint of the excitement that Man of Honor created when legendary Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno wrote his autobiography in 1984. And some of the author's facts are clearly wrong. ...," Capeci writes.

But Bugs, Bull, & Rats: An Insider's account of how the Mob Self-destructed (the full title) "is an intriguing new book about 'the last 40 years of the Mafia' by a New York wiseguy who's bummed out by 'the life' he found when he hit the streets after a long prison stretch that was caused by a 'wire-wearing rat.'"

The writer is using a pseudonym. Is Mr. Capeci, by acknowledging it, letting us know that the book is for real? That it was written by an actual wiseguy -- meaning an inducted member?

But if it was, is not the wiseguy trying to have it both ways?  He wants to condemn "rats" while saying he himself is not one. Yet, he's telling us this by writing a book that claims to reveal secrets of the Mafia.....

If you don't see the obvious inconsistencies, I won't wake you... I will say this: 

I didn't write it!

However, Capeci's write-up certainly piques one's interest -- I never would have heard about it without seeing it mentioned on Gangland News.

But this whole situation also raises many questions...

Here's the full ad copy from Amazon:

"Call me the last of my kind. I'm a made man. Swore the blood oath, omertà, and never looked back when I became a member of one of the Five Families in the Mafia. I came around when bosses, captains, and soldiers were real men, not like the rats we have today who earn their money then betray their friends when the feds make the going tough. I've been in "the life" most of my life.  

My name is Frank Palmeri. Palmeri is not my real name because even though I make my living now by legitimate means, I'm still a member of the Mafia. I always will be. As I said, I swore the oath. The Mafia is more than a crime organization; it's the life you live. I served time because of a wire-wearing rat. Now I'm writing this book and sharing information about a secret organization that is no longer secret because the rats have spilled everything. So you understand, this book is not written by an informant who wants to look good now that he has cooperated with the government... ...I never cooperated."

After completing a long prison sentence, wiseguy, Frank Palmeri, shares his thoughts about the decline of the New York Mafia.  

Palmeri discusses the basic tenets of the Mafia organization, including the code of silence that so many made men discarded when they decided to cooperate with the federal government.  

In turn, the US government systematically deconstructed the Mafia using the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO). Palmeri describes the history of the Mafia, including the creation of the original Five Families of New York (Genovese, Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese, and Profaci, which later became the Colombo Family) by Charlie "Lucky" Luciano in 1931.  

The author reveals a series of poor leadership decisions, as well as unnecessary and "unapproved" murders within the organization that eventually led to prominent members from all of the Five Families to turn on each other in order to bargain for more lenient sentences or protection from the feds.  

The basic structure and chain of command in the crime organization is described.
Palmeri also calls out the failures and missteps of Mafia bosses and underbosses, including John Gotti, John Gotti Jr., and Sammy the Bull Gravano, which later made it easy for the government... ...to arrest and convict many prominent made men.  

The main point of Bugs, Bull, & Rats speaks directly to the title of the book. Palmeri blames the breakdown of the organization from 3,000 made men in the '70s to fewer than 500 members in the current day to the betrayal of weak-minded members... many of whom Palmeri believes should never have been inducted into the organization.

Anthony Colombo Writes Book About His Father

One of several YouTube videos posted by Anthony Colombo, son of deceased mob boss Joe Colombo.

Colombo: The Unsolved Murder by Don Capria and Anthony Colombo is available now, priced at $4.99 for the Kindle version and $16.95 for the paperback.

The book essentially "reopens" the investigation into Joe Colombo's death, offering what the authors describe as "compelling evidence that contradicts the popular belief behind Colombo’s death."

Co-authored by Joe Colombo’s eldest son, Anthony, the book tells the story of how young Joe Colombo rose from Brooklyn's streets to become one of New York Magazine’s “Top Ten Most Powerful Men” in 1971, alongside Nelson Rockefeller and Mayor John Lindsay.

He was the charismatic Italian civil rights leader who organized over a hundred thousand people to rally in Columbus circle in 1970. Now, Colombo: the Unsolved Murder unveils Colombo’s life and death with never before told stories from family, friends, associates, and law enforcement.  

After over forty years of silence, Anthony Colombo tells his firsthand accounts of life beside his father and the events that lead up to his fatal shooting in Columbus Circle.  

Find out why Joe Colombo was known as the most paradoxical man in organized crime and why the FBI worked day and night to destroy his name, family, and ultimately his life.

Click image to purchase.
Anthony Colombo was born and raised in Brooklyn.

He worked alongside his father, Joseph Colombo, with the Italian American Civil Rights League and their efforts combating the "Mafia" stereotype were featured on CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC, numerous other TV and radio stations, and even on the cover of TIME magazine.

For 40 years Anthony remained silent and never offered the story of his life beside his father until now. Through his own eyes and experiences he offers this never before told story about who his father truly was and who was likely responsible for his father's death.

The book features 30 "exclusive" photos.

Also visit the website for additional information, including news on upcoming signing events, as well as videos, including those of  Anthony Colombo, above and below.



Anthony discusses his grandfather, known as "Tony Durante" and "Two-Gun Tony," who was strangledto death on Brooklyn. "(His murder) changed the whole course of my father's life as my father's shooting changed mine."


Kudos for the book:

"An enlightening book on someone many knew little about from an extremely devoted son and a wise author."
MARK SEAL, Author of the Man in the Rockefeller Suit and contributing editor, Vanity Fair.

"In the lore of spectacular Mob hits, the assassination of Joseph Colombo Sr. before an audience of thousands stands out. Here, Don Capria, and Anthony Colombo bring us as close to what really happened, as told by those closest to Joe Colombo, as one can hope to get."
RICHARD STRATTON, Author of Altered States of America: Icons and Iconoclasts; Hitmakers and Hitmen Smuggler's Blues: A True Story of the Hippie Mafia. 

Joe Colombo's Son "Beat the Living Sh-t Out of Sammy the Bull" And Authored Book

Colombo: The Unsolved Murder by Don Capria and Anthony Colombo is available now, priced at $4.99 for the Kindle version and $16.95 for the paperback.

The book essentially "reopen" the investigation into Joe Colombo's death, offering what the authors describe as "compelling evidence that contradicts the popular belief behind Colombo’s death."

Co-authored by Joe Colombo’s eldest son, Anthony, the book tells the story of how young Joe Colombo rose from Brooklyn's streets to become one of New York Magazine’s “Top Ten Most Powerful Men” in 1971, alongside Nelson Rockefeller and Mayor John Lindsay.

He was the charismatic Italian civil rights leader who organized over a hundred thousand people to rally in Columbus circle in 1970. Now, Colombo: the Unsolved Murder unveils Colombo’s life and death with never before told stories from family, friends, associates, and law enforcement.  

After over forty years of silence, Anthony Colombo tells his firsthand accounts of life beside his father and the events that lead up to his fatal shooting in Columbus Circle.  

Find out why Joe Colombo was known as the most paradoxical man in organized crime and why the FBI worked day and night to destroy his name, family, and ultimately his life.

Click image to purchase.
Anthony Colombo was born and raised in Brooklyn.

He worked alongside his father, Joseph Colombo, with the Italian American Civil Rights League and their efforts combating the "Mafia" stereotype were featured on CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC, numerous other TV and radio stations, and even on the cover of TIME magazine.

For 40 years Anthony remained silent and never offered the story of his life beside his father until now. Through his own eyes and experiences he offers this never before told story about who his father truly was and who was likely responsible for his father's death.

The book features 30 "exclusive" photos.

Also visit the website for additional information, including news on upcoming signing events, as well as videos,. such as Anthony Colombo, above.


Kudos for the book:

"An enlightening book on someone many knew little about from an extremely devoted son and a wise author."
MARK SEAL, Author of the Man in the Rockefeller Suit and contributing editor, Vanity Fair.

"In the lore of spectacular Mob hits, the assassination of Joseph Colombo Sr. before an audience of thousands stands out. Here, Don Capria, and Anthony Colombo bring us as close to what really happened, as told by those closest to Joe Colombo, as one can hope to get."
RICHARD STRATTON, Author of Altered States of America: Icons and Iconoclasts; Hitmakers and Hitmen Smuggler's Blues: A True Story of the Hippie Mafia. 

NYPD Dismantles OC Control Bureau... But...

NYPD reorganized under a "unified investigations model."
First it was the FBI -- and now it seems it's the NYPD that is reducing its focus on organized crime

As recently reported, the NYPD unit responsible for investigating the Mafia, the Organized Crime Control Bureau, has been officially gone since March 1. 
It disappeared as part of the department’s reorganization, officials told the New York Post.
In its place, the NYPD has implemented "a unified investigations model,” the NYPD's Chief of Department, James O’Neill, said in remarks during a briefing at NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza in lower Manhattan.
“In each Patrol Borough there’s going to be an investigations chief and reporting to that investigations chief is going to be the precinct detective squads, Narco, Gang and Vice,” he said.
This means that Detective Chiefs, aka Super Chiefs, report to Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce. Previously, they reported to the patrol borough's commander.
“So all the investigative entities are going to move to the chief of detectives office,” O’Neill said. ‘Basically, we’re eliminating the Organized Crime Control Bureau.”
Boyce is runnings the department’s investigative resources (except for the Internal Affairs Bureau and Intelligence, which deals with counter-terrorism).
“Narcotics is not the issue it was back 20 years ago,” Boyce said. “Now we have gangs that are driven by credit card fraud.”
Under the new system, investigators can go directly to the investigative chief and report problems with narcotics, gangs, crews and get solutions, O’Neill said.
“This will give us the laser-like focus on the issue at hand,” O’Neill said. “Sometimes that’s where the frustration was. Gang would be doing great work here, Narco would be doing great work here. But we need to better coordinate our resources to be better focused and to continue to push crime down.”
The NYPD has reported the lowest crime data in January last month and has been experiencing a decrease in shootings. The number of homicides increased in 2015 over 2014, however. 

FBI special unit C-38 played a role in many mob investigations.
The FBI's reductionIt was publicly proclaimed by no less than Attorney General Eric Holder that the FBI had dramatically reduced the amount of resources allocated to battling the New York Mafia.
This was revealed concurrently with the infamous event known as "Mafia Takedown Day," when some 120 mobsters were arrested in their bathrobes at dawn--high noon for busting down the doors of nice, well-kept suburban homes.
The FBI historically has had one squad assigned to each New York crime family, back during those decades when they systematically dismantled organized crime in the city, the so-called golden years of the mob.only two New York City-based squad.
To say it another way, the FBI mob effort has been cut in half since 2008.
Not really though.
FBI unit C-38, the DEA and the Business Integrity Commission have all been involved in mob-busting in recent years -- and have made major cases against the Five Families.

FBI Unit C-38As for FBI Unit C-38, according to the Washington Post's Fed Page, which includes Politics, Courts & Law, Polling, Power Post and White House coverage, the FBI special unit has struck a blow against two of the Five Families, the Colombos and Bonannos. Whether it is still in business is difficult to say as there are not a lot of open references to the unit on the web.
 The story was published on Nov. 12, 2013. It reported:

Relying on mobsters-turned-informants, secret recordings and painstaking, old-fashioned police work, a special team of FBI agents struck major blows against two New York organized-crime families that have been responsible for murders, extortion, labor racketeering, fraud, loansharking and other serious crimes. 

Since 2008, the FBI team known as C-38 has spearheaded the dismantling of the once mighty Colombo and Bonanno La Cosa Nostra families, with the arrests of 120 members and associates that have included the top echelons of both crime organizations. In the past several years, guilty pleas or jury convictions have been obtained for 115 of those individuals. 

“The Colombo family has pretty much been decimated. They are in complete shambles and disarray,” said Belle Chen, an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI’s New York Field Office. “The Bonanno family has been severely disrupted.” 

Led by Supervisory Special Agent Seamus McElearney, the FBI team of nine agents and one analyst ended a key operational phase of a massive undercover investigation in January 2011 with the arrests of 60 members and associates of the Colombo and Bonanno families. 

These arrests were part of a multistate sweep that netted some 127 suspected members of all five of New York’s Mafia families, and included Colombo family street boss Andrew (Andy Mush) Russo; underboss Benjamin (The Claw) Castellazzo; Richard (Richie Nerves) Fusco, the consigliere; and five captains. In addition, the investigations by the C-38 team have led to racketeering convictions of many other members of the Colombo hierarchy, including former street boss Tommy (Shots) Gioeli in 2012 and former underboss John (Sonny) Franzese in 2010.

The Bonanno family also has been badly hurt, with the 2011 conviction of acting boss Vincent (Vinnie Gorgeous) Basciano for a gangland murder. Former Bonanno boss Joseph (Big Joey) Massino had secretly recorded conversations with Basciano while both were in jail, and testified against him, providing details about numerous crimes and the current structure and inner dealings of the family. 

It was unprecedented for a mob boss to testify against a family member and to secretly record conversations that were used as evidence in court.Other recent Bonanno convictions have involved other bosses, powerful captains, soldiers and associates. 

In addition to the convictions, the investigations of the two families helped solve 15 homicides, including a murder of a police officer, and aided in the recovery of two bodies of individuals who were reported missing in the 1990s, the foiling of numerous violent plots, the forfeiture of $10 million and the development of evidence that led to a local concrete workers union being put under trusteeship to eliminate control by the Colombo crime family. 

Chen said McElearney was a linchpin for massive investigations, making key day-to-day tactical and operational decisions, and engaged with his team members in convincing hardened criminals to break their oaths of silence and become cooperating witnesses.“His experience and knowledge of the families and their culture was a key to the success of this squad,” said Chen.McElearney said members of his team often worked around the clock, monitoring electronic surveillance, protecting mob informants as they secretly recorded conversations of their associates, preparing search warrants, handling arrests and assisting prosecutors, to put behind bars those who have preyed on the public with senseless violence. 

“By eliminating this organized crime element, we are getting rid of a menace to society—individuals who have created untold mayhem,” said McElearney. 

George Khouzami, an FBI coordinating supervisory special agent in New York, said the group took some high-risk, high-reward strategies to get mob members to cooperate and turn on their compatriots. At various stages, he said, dominos fell and members of each of the families no longer knew who to trust. 

“This was totally a team effort,” said Khouzami. 

Business Integrity CommissionThe Business Integrity Commission, a city agency overseeing private garbage haulers and other businesses, sounds like the harmless name of a trade group.
As the Wall Street Journal noted: 

As New York City's oversight agency for private garbage-haulers, the Business Integrity Commission handles complaints that tend toward the mundane: stolen containers, illegal dumping, bid-rigging.

Yet, as it is responsible for approving things like trade-waste licenses, it also has a means to investigate organized crime members.

In this video, we see a meeting involving "recommended denial application decisions."



The BIC has its own law enforcement arm, as noted in a story about Hector Pagan, former husband of Mob Wives Renee Graziano. 
As reported, in March 2010, James Donovan was under investigation by the Business Integrity Commission when he was murdered. 
As the WSJ reported, on the day of the murder, BIC investigators were monitoring by camera a business in Gravesend, Brooklyn, where they knew Donovan made weekly transactions. According to court records, a glitch caused the camera to stop recording as the fatal robbery started. [We noticed that the story has since been changed to omit that fact. Wonder why....] However, investigators said they found surveillance footage from nearby stores and discarded cigarette butts that put the three men at the scene at the time of the murder. 
Authorities believed he was collecting insurance checks from auto-body shops for a fee and giving the shops the cash value of the checks. The shops would pocket the money without declaring it, allowing them to avoid paying taxes. The investigation found that Donovan was cashing more than $1 million worth of these checks a year through connections at check-cashing stores and clearing more than $100,000 annually from the alleged scheme. 


James Donovan.
Over the following months, investigators said, Donovan's alleged scheme was linked to dozens of companies in "Operation Tax Grab." But before any charges were filed, Donovan was killed and robbed of a combination of checks and cash. The focus of the case changed once again, and so did Mr. Donovan's role—from suspect to victim. 
Weeks later detectives followed a trail from a bank surveillance camera to find a man spotted depositing the stolen checks—and who was subsequently arrested on an unrelated narcotics charge—placed calls from Rikers Island that were ultimately traced to a parolee, Nunzio "Nicky" DeCarlo. 
Federal prosecutors identified DeCarlo as a member of the Colombo crime family when he was arrested in 1987 on racketeering charges. He was later convicted and served 18 years in prison. Those calls plus other clues, including DNA from discarded cigarette butts that Detective McMahon had collected from the scene and phone taps—another almost unheard-of tactic for the Business Integrity Commission—led investigators over the following months to three other men: Hector "Junior" Pagan, Richard Riccardi and Luigi Grasso. 
DeCarlo died in October 2010 at his Staten Island home from an overdose of drugs, including heroin, according to the New York City Medical Examiner's office. On July 11, a federal grand jury in Brooklyn indicted Riccardi and Grasso on charges of robbery conspiracy, causing death through the use of a firearm and using or carrying a firearm. They pleaded not guilty and were ordered held without bail.

DEAThe DEA has pressed its share of mob-related indictments. With drug-trafficking a chief way mobsters can become wealthy earning untold sums in short time spans, it was known to have picked up a lot of slack by participating as well as taking the lead in drug-linked Mafia cases.
In fact sticking with the same case mentioned above, the DEA also was a factor in BIC's case. The DEA, specifically, flipped Pagan, which allowed him to snitch on his cohorts in crime for a murder he himself had committed -- the murder of Donovan.
As reported by the NYPOST.com: "The father of “Mob Wives” star Renee Graziano was indicted on extortion conspiracy charges, with Brooklyn federal prosecutors saying that former Bonanno crime family consigliere Anthony “T.G” Graziano had conspired to collect a $100,000 debt with the aid of several other mobsters.
Graziano, 71, at the time -- and a Bonanno captain -- recently had been released from prison -- only to be quickly ensnared in a DEA probe.
Renee Graziano’s ex-husband, Pagan - a Bonanno associate-turned DEA informant - reportedly wore a wire and secretly recorded conversations for the feds with his ex-father-in-law while discussing the collection of the loanshark debt.
The DEA was one of the chief agencies involved in the 1970s investigations of the Purple Gang. 
Both Meldish brothers belonged to the Purple Gang, which was known for killing and dismembering rivals as it controlled the heroin trade in Harlem and the Bronx in the 1970s and 1980s. Its members — many of whom were relatives of more established crime figures — often freelanced as “muscle” for the Luchese, Genovese and Bonanno families. Taking its name from a group of thugs that terrorized Detroit during Prohibition, the Purple Gang grew so powerful in the late 1970s that authorities feared it might attempt to become the area’s sixth organized crime family — potentially igniting an all-out mob war. 
The group murdered some 17, including at least two police informants, and dismembered many victims. They also were behind the "large-scale distribution of narcotics in the South Bronx and Harlem" as well as selling guns, allegedly to groups based outside the U.S.
Interestingly, the group is said to have had 30 "made" members," according to police reports and some 80 "associates," according to the DEA.
According to one law enforcement group, the Purple Gang supplied the drug network of black drug dealer Leroy "Nicky" Barnes with heroin at $75,000 per kilo.
The DEA, FBI and NYPD monitored the group closely in the 1970s.
A 1976 federal report cited the gang’s “enormous capacity for violence” and “lack of respect for other members of organized crime.”
The crew’s power waned in the late 1980s as members were ensnared in drug busts.
Numerous ranking Mafia members once belonged to the crew, including Bonanno boss Michael "Mikey Nose" Mancuso and Genovese capo Daniel "The Lion" Leo.