Ed Scarpo's Blog, page 2

Gomorrah Author Saviano Marks 10th Year in Protective Custody (Sort Of)

Roberto Saviano wrote an acclaimed best seller -- and has
lived under severe restrictions ever since. 
REVISED
In October 2006, precisely 10 years ago yesterday, Roberto Saviano, the award-winning Italian writer who lives under police protection, received the phone call that changed his life.

Saviano's widely lauded Gomorrah was issued earlier that year in his homeland by Mondadori, one of Italy's top publishing houses. (It wouldn't be available in the U.S. until 2008.) It was the...

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Violi's Revenge? Another Rizzuto Loyalist Whacked -- Just Last Night

Montreal mobster Vincenzo Spagnolo was shot to death.
An alleged Montreal Mafia member was shot to death last night.

Vincenzo Spagnolo, 65, a Vito Rizzuto loyalist who served as a consigliere of sorts, was gunned down at his Laval home. The shooting appears to be linked to a "settling of accounts" within the Mafia, Sgt. Audrey-Anne Bilodeau told one newspaper.

Laval Police were called to the house, on Antoine-Forestier Street after reports of gunfire had reached law enforcement.

Spagnolo was very close to Vito Rizzuto -- and was "one of his advisors,” according to retired Quebec police officer John Galianos.

"In fact, he was rumored to be one of the rare ones who could visit him in jail... (Spagnolo) had his (Rizzuto's) confidence."

"They’re trying to eliminate everyone who has ties to Vito Rizzuto,” Galianos said. "It could be some of the younger guys or from the opposing group in Toronto who is trying to take over the Paolo Violi group."
Violi's "sons are in Ontario and taking care of things there. There is some sort of revenge going on.”


Giordano was shot to death earlier this year as well.Paolo Violi was not good at building a coalition with the Sicilian wing of the Bonanno crime family's Montreal outpost (Violi and fellow Calabrians were in charge, though the Sicilian Nicolo Rizzuto, Vito's father, had won greater respect from important mobsters in New York, who called the shots back then.)
Violi was shot to death while dining in a restaurant in Montreal. 
His death marked the Rizzuto organization's rise in Montreal-based organized crime.

For the next 30 years, the Rizzuto clan ran Quebec. 
However, there's no escaping what Galianos called "the... long arm and a long memory" of the Mafia.

Last night's shooting occurred around 5:30 p.m. in the Vimont district of Laval, Quebec, according to the Sûreté du Québec, which is investigating.


Laval, the ritzy neighborhood where former Montreal Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto lived in a well-appointed estate, has been the setting for many shootings, acts of violence and law enforcement raids in recent years, following the allegedly ongoing attacks on the Rizzuto organization, which was severely weakened due to a major drug trafficking probe -- the coupling of two ongoing projects, Magot and Mastiff -- that led to the arrests of numerous members of the Montreal Mafia as well as their Hells Angels allies.

Co-boss Leonardo Rizzuto is still in jail, having been denied bail. The trial has slowly begun to proceed into the courtroom, nearly one year following the arrests.

Lorenzo Giordano, 52, was gunned down in a Laval parking lot and died in the hospital, as was reported on March 3 of this year.

The Sûreté du Québec said he'd been shot "at least once" in Carrefour Multisports's parking lot early one Tuesday morning. Due to the decedant's alleged ties to organized crime, the Sûreté du Québec took over the case from the Laval police department -- which likely is the case with the recent shooting.

Giordano was a key member of the Montreal Mafia's younger generation of leaders, which served as Vito Rizzuto's key shooters, when he began retaliatory strikes after his release from prison. While Rizzuto was behind bars, his father and first-born son were slain by Hamilton-based Ndrangheta clans believed to have been in league with former Rizzuto loyalists, including Raynald Desjardins, who is in prison for the Salvatore "Sal the Iron Worker" Montagna murder.

Giordano was one of six men who acted as leaders in the Montreal Mafia while it was the subject of Project Colisée, a lengthy RCMP-led investigation that left the Mafia’s ranks badly depleted," the Gazette noted.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2009 — one of the harshest sentences of the six men. 
Giordano still had 10 years to serve but was released under conditions to a halfway house last December.

In May, Rizzuto loyalist Rocco Sollecito was killed in a daytime shooting near Laval police headquarters.

Sollecito was alone in his SUV, when he was attacked and was declared dead at the hospital.
Vito Rizzuto himself placed Rocco and five others on a ruling panel to oversee the Montreal Mafia while Rizzuto was away, serving time in an American prison after former Bonanno crime family boss Joseph Massino had flipped and testified, implicating Rizzuto in a 1981 triple-slaying.

Members of the panel, however, were quickly swept off the streets in November 2006. The six men were in fact the "main players arrested" as part of Project Colisée, a Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigation that targeted the Rizzuto organization's heart.Who's Behind Recent Shootings?Giordano and Sollecito were key members of Rizzuto's inner circle; members of that group, as well as the Cosa Nostra's current management are believed to have been targeted by another crime ring. According to earlier law enforcement speculation, the current Rizzuto enemies are not the same group that was working with Desjardins and Montagna, before the former murdered the latter after the latter failed at killing the former.
That initial group allied with Rizzuto's former right-hand man were identified as Ndrangheta clans based in Siderno.



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Shooting Brooklyn: Indy Filmmakers Ready Debut of Mob Web Series

Brooklyn Ties is being filmed in Brooklyn as you read this...
We support the independent authors, writers, artists, etc., who create the stories and images that can move us. Today, the Internet's DIY emphasis has stimulated the growth of new storytelling formats, such as the ebook, YouTube video and the podcast, in addition to the traditional mainstays of stage, screen and T.V.

And despite all the critics and industry prognosticators ever seeking to raise the bar as high as possible, at any g...

Feds Delete Colombo Capo's Decisive Role in Civil Rights Murder Probe

The car in which three civil rights volunteers were brutally murdered in 1964.
The Justice Department recently closed a decades-long, multi-pronged investigation into the 1964 murders of three civil rights volunteers in Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

On June 21 that state's AG, James Hood, held a press conference during which he said, "I am convinced that during the last 52 years, investigators have done everything possible under the law to find those responsible and hold them acco...

Note Regarding Recent Link Glitch

I use two gadgets below in which I include links to other sites.

Both gadgets deleted a couple of weeks ago, for reasons unknown to me. Both gone, in a blink.

This is an ongoing Blogger gadget problem.
I seem to have forgotten some links; I just added several that I recently recalled. No doubt more are missing. Please contact me if a link is missing. This is extremely important to me as some links are to blogger friends; some are part of link swaps or other things.
I don't renege on my word but...

Italy's "Gomorrah" a Mob Tale Writ Large

Scene from the television show. Key character, Ciro, on left.

A convict in a Naples prison in Gomorrah: the cops chased us in helicopters “just like an American movie.”

REVISED
Robert Saviano's Gomorrah correctly depicts the Camorra — Italy's Neapolitan Mafia — as having a horizontal structure. This simple fact plays a key role in the plot machinations of the television show.

The Camorra, established in Campania and Naples, may be older and even larger than Italy's other Mafias, with its roots po...

An Ex-Corrections Officer Is a Bonanno Crime Family Associate?

A Brooklyn judge rejected Bonanno crime family associate Ronald "Monkey Man" Filocomo’s compassionate release request, as was recently reported.

Filocomo, in above pic, was a participant in the 1981 execution of former Bonanno crime family capo Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano. Monkey Man pleaded guilty to racketeering and is serving a 20-year sentence.

His effort would've shaved time off the remaining four years in prison he faces. However, Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis, ever...

Major Witness To Testify Today as Montreal Mafia Probe Inches Onward

Alexandra Mongeau, "Mom" Boucher's daughter, faces charges in Montreal mob case.
Project Mastiff, a lengthy drug trafficking investigation that ensnared Montreal Mafia boss Leonardo Rizzuto and around 40 others, who were arrested last November, is slated to inch forward in the courtroom today, with the scheduled debut of a key anonymous witness.
The witness sparked the investigation into alleged drug trafficking ties between the Montreal Cosa Nostra clan, the Hells Angels MC and various street gangs, the Montreal Gazette reported.

Rizzuto was identified by law enforcement as one of two bosses of the Montreal Mafia family previously run by his father, Vito, who died in December 2013. Leonardo was arrested on Nov. 19 as part of Projects Magot and Mastiff, a joint investigation into drug trafficking in the city.  Rizzuto was charged with drug trafficking and gangsterism, which was introduced into Canada's Criminal Code in 1997 as a way to apply longer sentences against organized crime members. Specifically it was designed following the bloody street battles between the Hells Angels and The Rock Machine MCs for dominance over Quebec.

As for today's events, the man’s testimony is part of the preliminary inquiry into the investigation that netted Leonardo Rizzuto, 47, and his co-boss, Stefano Sollecito, 48, who also was arrested last November. The inquiry, basically, is to help the judge determine whether enough evidence exists for the case to reach the trial phase.

Also see Who Filled Rizzuto Power Vacuum?

One unusual twist in today's proceedings, noted the Gazette:

"...the witness cannot be named, for the time being, because of an unusual publication ban intended to protect his identity. Last month, out of concerns for his safety, the Crown requested that any information concerning the informant, including his name, be subject to a publication ban. Quebec Court Judge Louis Legault is expected to rule on the matter mid-month. On Wednesday, Quebec Court Judge Nathalie Fafard, who will preside over the preliminary inquiry, agreed to the Crown’s request that a temporary ban, issued by Legault, be maintained until he hands down his decision on Oct. 18."

Banning the publication of an informant’s name is rare, the report further noted, adding that, ironically, "all of the people charged in Project Mastiff already know the man’s name, which has been mentioned in open court several times in the past."


Leonardo Rizzuto
Rizzuto's and Sollecito's respective lawyers requested that their clients only be required to hear evidence from one witness slated to testify in November, because they have already heard the evidence during a lengthy bail hearing.

As noted, Sollecito was granted bail this past June; Leonardo Rizzuto wasn't.
The judge agreed that Sollecito, who suffers from cancer, "cannot adequately be treated... inside a provincial detention centre."

Quebec Court Judge Daniel Bédard had denied bail for both mobsters on March 4.

The court imposed a publishing ban on evidence presented at the hearing.

The evidence presented then and today will in part focus on how the Crown intends to prove Rizzuto and Sollecito were part of a criminal organization, the key part of the gangsterism charge they face. Charged related to conspiracy to traffic in cocaine make up the investigation's other prong.

At least five others nabbed as per Project Mastiff "renounced their right to hear the evidence that will be presented during the preliminary inquiry," the Gazette noted.

Alexandra Mongeau, (daughter of Maurice (Mom) Boucher, the former leader of a Hells Angels’ chapter based in Montreal) is among the accused in Project Mastiff; she requested that she only be required to sit through the hearing when it focuses on the evidence related to her specific charge in the larger case. Her lawyer, Anne-Sophie Bédard, said that only a small part of the evidence involves Mongeau, who recently gave birth. 
Mongeau is charged with possessing illegal proceeds.


"Mom" Boucher plotted the murder of Raynald Desjardins.Who's This Big Witness?We've written of one turncoat here, noting his name: Patrick "Bart" Corbeil.

Since he was arrested in November, it doesn't seem he is the man described as testifying today.

But as someone once said (or should have): One never knows, does one?

The turncoat headed up a narcotics trafficking network until his arrest last November, when 200 police officers hauled away 48 as part of Projects Magot and Mastiff.

One major revelation of this investigation was that the Cosa Nostra, the Hells' Angels and major street gangs allegedly worked together to control drug trafficking in Montreal. The groups shared the profits of their drug trafficking operation.

Corbeil, 43, reputedly headed up "a very active network in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, a district of Montreal." It only took hours following his arrest last November for him to flip; he now works for the police, sources confirmed.

Also read: Recent Montreal Arrests

During the Mastiff investigation, several months prior to the arrests, an undercover agent slipped into Corbeil's organization and grew close to him. Corbeil was not a Mafia member, but he was well organized, formally paying his "employees" monthly envelopes and decreeing that all members purchase a Blackberry to communicate with one another.

The agent, not named in reports, carried money for the crew and played a role in the group's payroll. His position "would have allowed police to amass overwhelming evidence."

The Last Word on Kitty Genovese and the Mafia Crime Family...

This iconic photo is actually Kitty's 1961 mugshot.
One night in 1990s Kew Gardens, Queens, we parked on a side street and headed towards the bar up the block on the brightly lit main street.

At some point en route, we left the sidewalk and were walking through a parking lot, which at that hour of the night was nearly deserted, when Karen, my girlfriend at the time, told me, in her usual matter of fact tone, that "Kitty Genovese was murdered around here."

And that stopped me -- or rather, us --...