Ed Scarpo's Blog, page 24

An Offer You Won't Want to Refuse

Watch this and other films for free...

Well, today's my birthday -- and I'm giving you all a gift. Join Amazon Prime now and get a 30-Day free trial -- then you can view over 40,000 movies and TV episodes via the program, borrow Kindle ebooks, and enjoy unlimited FREE two-day shipping on purchases, with no minimum order size.

But this deal includes a deadline -- you must join by Friday, January 10, to take advantage. (On jump page I present a list of Mafia- related films you can watch for FREE....but it's not only crime films -- films and tv shows in every genre are included. See list here. I'm a horror fan and you'll have access to an especially larger number of horror flix via Prime, including a recently made Giallo-style film from Italy, Sonno Profondo (Deep Sleep) Limited Edition .

Once the Amazon Prime Video 30-Day Free Trial is over, you can decide whether or not to sign on as a member for $9.99 a month or for one annual $99 payment (for me, this is a no-brainer, I've belonged to Prime since they created it). But either way, you get to enjoy FREE AMAZON PRIME FOR 30 DAYS!





Giallo means yellow, but the color red is more closely associated with this distinctly Italian genre of horror film, forged by stylized Italian filmmakers like Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Sergio Martino, Pupi Avati and many more.

As Taste of Cinema notes:

Giallo movies are remembered by their beautiful female leads such as Edwige Fench, Barbara Bach, Daria Nicolodi, Barbara Bouchet, Suzy Kendall, Ida Galli and Anita Strindberg. Movies with annoying shocking music, disguised and masked murderers, sharp knives and sex maniacs in the shadows. Giallo movies came into existence in the 1960s, bloomed in the 1970s and declined in the 1980s. Yet its influence can be seen in today’s cinema; while Wes Craven, John Carpenter and Eli Roth kept it alive in the US, Dario Argento and Pupi Avati continued making giallo movies till today... 

As for Sonno Profondo (Deep Sleep) it has to do with a murderer who is traumatized by childhood memories -- after committing an especially heinous murder, he goes home and finds an envelope under his door filled with photographs of the murder.

The hunter quickly learns he's now the prey. But who is onto him? This is shot in a weird kind of POV style that really creates a horrific atomsphere for the disturbing events taking place. Reminds me of the technique used in the filming of the Maniac remake.

Filmed in the style of Italian giallo films, Sonno Profondo includes English subtitlesStarring:Luciano Onetti, Daiana García
Killing Jimmy Hoffa is next on my list. Gangster Report's Scott Burnstein stars in this insightful documentary about the "missing" former Teamster's boss, as does acclaimed Philadelphia-based crime writer George Anastasia, with Al Profit directing.


Profit also directed, as you'll see, The Frank Matthews Story, about the drug dealer who was "richer than Frank Lucas" and "more powerful than the Mafia." The biggest drug dealer in America, he jumped bail in 1973 and disappeared with $15 million. He has never been seen again. Nearly four decades later, the fate of Frank Matthews remains a complete mystery.
 

What are the benefits of Amazon Prime?
Well, in the case of Prime Video, you'd be able to watch instantly any one of these mob-related documentaries or films -- for free.... plus tens of thousands of other films, including cool obscure horror flicks.

Here's an Offer You Won't Want to Refuse

Well, today's my birthday - - and I'm giving you all a gift.

Join Amazon Prime now and get a 30-Day free trial -- then you can view over 40,000 movies and TV episodes via the program, borrow Kindle ebooks, and enjoy unlimited FREE two-day shipping on purchases, with no minimum order size.

But this deal includes a deadline -- you must join by Friday, January 10, to take advantage. (On jump page I present a list of Mafia- related films you can watch for FREE.....)





Once the Amazon Prime Video 30-Day Free Trial is over, you can decide whether or not to sign on as a member for $9.99 a month or for one annual $99 payment (for me, this is a no-brainer, I've belonged to Prime since they created it). But either way, you get to enjoy FREE AMAZON PRIME FOR 30 DAYS!

I don't like selling -- but I do like giving away free stuff. Do you like free stuff? Do you like this blog? If you like this blog, then sign on for the 30-day free trial by clicking any of the text links or banner ads.

What are the benefits of Amazon Prime?

Well, in the case of  Prime Video, you'd be able to watch instantly any one of these mob-related documentaries or films -- for free.... plus tens of thousands of other films, including cool obscure horror flicks.











The Iceman Confesses: Secrets of a Mafia Hitman
2001
NR








Momo: The Sam Giancaca Story
2013
NR








Motown Mafia
2015
Directed by:Al Profit









Killing Jimmy Hoffa
2015
Unrated
Directed by:
Al Profit


















Borough Of Kings
A witness to a mob murder tries to get out of town alive.
Directed by:
Elyse Lewin















Street People
A Mafia chief imports a cross from Sicily for a cathedral, but it contains a cache of pure heroin. He denies any involvement, and an attorney is brought in to solve the mystery.
Starring:
Roger Moore, Stacy Keach,Ivo Garrani, et al.
Directed by:
Maurizio Lucidi




Al Capone: Icon
2014
NR
Directed by:
Chris Valentini





Wannabes
NR
Directed by:
William DeMeo,Charles A. Addessi, et al.





Gangster
2014
NR
Starring:
Denis Lawson, John Hannah, et al.
Directed by:
Ray Burdis





Blood Ties
Violence erupts when two brothers on two sides of the law face off over organized crime in Brooklyn during the 1970s. 2014
RStarring:
Clive Owen, Marion Cotillard, et al.
Directed by:
Guillaume Canet




Mugshots: John Gotti - End of the Sicilians
2013
NR


Mugshots: Sammy "The Bull" Gravano - King Rat
2013
NR














Honor Thy Father  Story of the rise and fall of the Bonanno organized crime family.
Starring:Joseph Bologna, Brenda Vaccaro[image error]















Crime Boss Organized crime; Don Vincenzo leads the pack and his faced with a huge struggle. Starring: Telly Savalas, Antonio Sabato





The Frank Matthews Story
2012
NR
Starring:
Frank Matthews, Al Profit, et al.
Directed by:
Al Profit, Ron Chepesiuk, et al.



Mezzogiorno -Sicily: Palermo Begins in Palermo, the largest city in Sicily, whose reputation is more connected with Mafia that with other events in history..... See MoreRuntime:52 minutes

10 Years Off Scarpa Junior's Sentence

Greg Scarpa Junior
UPDATED ENDING

For assisting the FBI's anti-terrorism efforts, a Brooklyn federal judge deleted 10 years from the 40-year sentence that Gregory Scarpa Jr., 64, was given in 1999, though Scarpa will most likely die before his release date. As noted in the new ending, courtesy of Peter Lance's report on this story, both the Daily News and Post stories "didn’t even hint at the depth of cooperation from the son of Greg Scarpa Sr., the murderous capo chronicled in my latest book “Deal With The Devil.”"

Scarpa -- today given a 2025 release date -- has nasopharyngeal squamous cell cancer, which gives him a lifespan of possibly five years. The cancer "will probably kill him within the next five years" before he will ever benefit from the ruling, Justice Edward Korman noted in his decision.
Scarpa Junior, a former Colombo soldier, tipped off the FBI about a hidden stash of explosives, which the FBI initially had missed following a 1995 search of Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols's basement.


“By the time he is released, assuming he lives that long, he will have served the maximum sentence for his conviction for RICO conspiracy to commit murder — the most serious offense for which he was sentenced,” Korman writes.

Scarpa Jr. told the Fed's about Nicols’ stockpiled explosives in 2005, after the duo served a stint in Colorado’s Supermax prison.

Scarpa also offered Intel regarding 1993 World Trade Cener bomber Ramzi Youseff.

Judge Korman showed his hand during the proceedings today. By rewarding Scarpa (even if he dies in prison anyway) he was seeking to incentive other potential informants serving time to step forward.

“Incarcerated individuals, as a group, are not motivated to provide assistance without some realistic hope of attaining some benefit,” he wrote, the Post noted.


A Conspiracy Theorist's Dream
The FBI will never recall either Scarpa with fondness.
The father, aka The Grim Reaper, was a capo in the Colombo family who talked to the Fed's even before "Joe Cago" -- Valachi -- burst onto the scene. Scarpa offered intel on New York's five Cosa Nostra families on a periodic basis. Some of it was even accurate; all of it was self-serving. 
Scarpa provided other services as well. In 1964, the FBI, under enormous pressure to solve the "MissBurn" case, sent Scarpa to Mississippi to locate the body of three civil rights workers. It wasn't the only time the Fed's sent Scarpa to Mississippi, either.
In return for his services, the FBI kept Scarpa out of prison. Specifically FBI agent Lin DeVecchio, Scarpa's last handler (his other, Anthony Villano, wrote Brick Agent, basing two characters on Scarpa). Peter Lance, in Deal With the Devil, makes a case that DeVecchio's moral compass lost true north -- and that he may have even provided Scarpa with intel and further assistance that allowed Scarpa to pull off some key hits that were part of the Colombo crime family war of the early 1990s.
Junior passed on a plethora of intel about planned terrorist activity, too complex to go into in this space. Those interested should read Lance's Cover Up -- he also wrote a recent report based on this new development in the Scarpa case. This is a good one.

Aside from all the terrorism intel, Scarpa Junior also was set to testify for the prosecution in DeVecchio's trial. As the above article noted:

"Some seventy-five trials of New York-area mob figures hinged on DeVecchio's integrity. If that were impeached, there would be chaos in the courts. This is the story that Lance tells. Junior received no credit for his intelligence work. At the end of the day, the authorities called it a "hoax and scam," despite the fact that in February 1997 Junior passed along Yousef's comment that Islamic terrorists "will like hijacking airplanes so much that they will become addicted to them."

As Chief of the Criminal Division for  the Eastern District's U.S. Attorney office, Valerie Caproni, now a United States District Judge for New York's Southern District, tried Junior "on a non-lethal RICO charge and saw to it that he got a preposterous hard 40 at the Florence, Colorado, ADMAX. Caproni called the conviction one of her "proudest accomplishments." She went on to become chief counsel for the FBI."
The writer of the story doesn't seem to be aware that Scarpa Junior personally is believed to have murdered more than 20 during his Mafia career on the street. The bottom line, for this writer anyway, is how many lives would've been saved if the FBI had acted in good faith on the intel Scarpa Junior provided them. At the very least, he raised the unthinkable notion of terrorists flying airplanes into buildings in 1997, around five years prior to Sept. 11, 2001.

UPDATED:  See Peter Lance's must-read take on the Post and Daily News Scarpa stories in which he writes "[Judge] Korman’s action effectively vindicated Scarpa Jr. who helped the FBI in 2005 to uncover a cache of high explosives buried in a crawl space beneath the Herington Kansas home of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols, a spot Bureau investigators missed during a search of the premises ten years earlier."

More from the story:

But the News & Post pieces didn’t even hint at the depth of cooperation from the son of Greg Scarpa Sr., the murderous capo chronicled in my latest book “Deal With The Devil.” 

In fact, Junior first risked his life in 1996 in a sting of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, which, if properly acted upon by the FBI, could have led to the capture of Yousef’s uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and derailed the 9/11 “planes as missiles” plot.

I first told that story in my 2004 HarperCollins book “Cover Up”and offered additional details in a 2009 piece for PLAYBOY magazine titled, “The Chilling Effect.” 

As I reported back then, the Feds, led by former Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, later characterized Junior’s eleven month sting of Yousef in a Manhattan federal jail as a “hoax” and a “scam,” despite dozens of FBI 302 memos documenting the intelligence initiative.

In fact, one of the 302′s contained intel that KSM was then hiding out in Doha, Qatar. 

READ the rest on Lance's site.

10 Years Off Scarpa Junior Sentence

Greg Scarpa Junior

For assisting the FBI's anti-terrorism efforts, a Brooklyn federal judge deleted 10 years from the 40-year sentence that Gregory Scarpa Jr., 64, was given in 1999, though Scarpa will most likely die before his release date.

Scarpa — today given a 2025 release date  —  has nasopharyngeal squamous cell cancer, which has given him a lifespan of possibly five years. The cancer "will probably kill him within the next five years" before he will ever benefit from the ruling, Justice Edward Korman noted in his decision.
Scarpa Junior, a former Colombo soldier, tipped off the FBI about a hidden stash of explosives, which the FBI initially had missed following a 1995 search of Oklahaoma City bomber Terry Nichols's basement.


“By the time he is released, assuming he lives that long, he will have served the maximum sentence for his conviction for RICO conspiracy to commit murder — the most serious offense for which he was sentenced,” Korman writes.

Scarpa Jr. told the Fed's about Nicols’ stockpiled explosives in 2005, after the duo served a stint in Colorado’s Supermax prison.

Scarpa also offered Intel regarding 1993 World Trade Cener bomber Ramzi Youseff.

Judge Korman showed his hand during the proceedings today. By rewarding Scarpa (even if he dies in prison anyway) he was seeking to incentive other potential informants serving time to step forward.

“Incarcerated individuals, as a group, are not motivated to provide assistance without some realistic hope of attaining some benefit,” he wrote, the Post noted.


A Conspiracy Theorist's Dream
The FBI will never recall either Scarpa with fondness.
The father, aka The Grim Reaper, was a capo in the Colombo family who talked to the Fed's even before "Joe Cago" -- Valachi -- burst onto the scene. Scarpa offered intel on New York's five Cosa Nostra families on a periodic basis. Some of it was even accurate; all of it was self-serving. 
Scarpa provided other services as well. In 1964, the FBI, under enormous pressure to solve the "MissBurn" case, sent Scarpa to Mississippi to locate the body of three civil rights workers. It wasn't the only time the Fed's sent Scarpa to Mississippi, either.
In return for his services, the FBI kept Scarpa out of prison. Specifically FBI agent Lin DeVecchio, Scarpa's last handler (his other, Anthony Villano, wrote Brick Agent, basing two characters on Scarpa). Peter Lance, in Deal With the Devil, makes a case that DeVecchio's moral compass lost true north -- and that he may have even provided Scarpa with intel and further assistance that allowed Scarpa to pull off some key hits that were part of the Colombo crime family war of the early 1990s.
Junior passed on a plethora of intel about planned terrorist activity, too complex to go into in this space. Those interested should read Lance's Cover Up -- he also summarizes some of the Scarpa Junior story here. There's numerous articles about the book and what it alleges. This is a good one.

Aside from all the terrorism intel, Scarpa Junior also was set to testify for the prosecution in DeVecchio's trial. As the above article noted:

"Some seventy-five trials of New York-area mob figures hinged on DeVecchio's integrity. If that were impeached, there would be chaos in the courts. This is the story that Lance tells. Junior received no credit for his intelligence work. At the end of the day, the authorities called it a "hoax and scam," despite the fact that in February 1997 Junior passed along Yousef's comment that Islamic terrorists "will like hijacking airplanes so much that they will become addicted to them."

As Chief of the Criminal Division for  the Eastern District's U.S. Attorney office, Valerie Caproni, now a United States District Judge for New York's Southern District, tried Junior "on a non-lethal RICO charge and saw to it that he got a preposterous hard 40 at the Florence, Colorado, ADMAX. Caproni called the conviction one of her "proudest accomplishments." She went on to become chief counsel for the FBI."
The writer of the story doesn't seem to be aware that Scarpa Junior personally is believed to have murdered more than 20 during his Mafia career on the street. The bottom line, for this writer anyway, is how many lives would've been saved if the FBI had acted in good faith on the intel Scarpa Junior provided them. At the very least, he raised the unthinkable notion of terrorists flying airplanes into buildings in 1997, around five years prior to Sept. 11, 2001.

Major Twist in Greg Scarpa Jr. Story

Greg Scarpa Jr., left, Senior, right....
In a story posted here on August 24, 2015, What's Going on with Greg Scarpa Jr? I wrote:

Gregory Scarpa Junior, sentenced to 40 years to life for assorted mob mayhem (a law enforcement source told us he's been linked to 24 homicides alone), has been transferred from the same Supermax that Vinny Basciano was in. 

Only Scarpa Junior has been moved -- we're not sure when -- to something called a Residential Reentry Management Field Office based in Kansas City, Kansas. 

"He's never getting out," the source told us. "They might have moved him to make him more comfortable now that everything has settled down." But still -- a a Residential Reentry Management Field Office?

We phoned the RRMs press office to ask the question: if someone is transferred to an RRM, does it mean they are being prepared to be released.
The phone rep couldn't give us an answer and suggested we call another phone number.

But if a person who works for the RRM unit couldn't provide us with a simple definition of what an RRM is, can we honestly expect someone from the BOP to give us an answer? We never mentioned Scarpa Junior, only asked for a definition of what those places are....

On August 27, 2015 I posted a followup: Greg Scarpa Jr "Transitioning, Yeah"

A long-time friend of Cosa Nostra News telephoned the facility today and recorded the discussion, emailing the MPEG to yours truly.

Apparently, her feminine voice worked its magic on him and within seconds he gave her what we needed and couldn't get -- recorded confirmation.

Greg Scarpa Junior is "transitioning, yeah," the man on the phone finally admits after she asks what an RRM is. 

Specifically, she'd said "I thought it was a place for people getting out soon, who were...." And he said it: "Transitioning, yeah."

Gregory Scarpa Junior, as noted, was sentenced to 40 years to life for assorted mob mayhem. ... 

His BOP release data, however, is 2035 still, so it looks like -- if we're onto something here, and I believe that we are -- he is certainly getting "special" assistance which could have something to do with the information he gave - or has given - on those despicable terrorists who took him into their inner circle mistakenly believing he'd flex Mafia muscle in service to their hatred of these United States.

I don't have confirmation that this is the case -- but what else can we make of the recorded response of "transitioning, yeah"...? He grudgingly said it too, as if knowing he was hiding something in plain sight. 

Now we read in a story dated today, Monday, Jan. 4, 2016, "a Brooklyn judge is poised to reduce the 40-year sentence of a convicted mobster as a reward for his tip that led to the recovery of explosives hidden in the home of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, the Daily News has learned."

The judge does so "over the objections of prosecutors," as John Marzulli wrote in the story.

Some 13 years back, Peter Lance wrote in detail about Scarpa Junior's assistance to the FBI with regard to terrorism, saying he provided a "treasure trove of al Qaeda intel." Here are many key FBI 302s from interviews with Scarpa Jr.

The Daily News article continues:

Colombo soldier Gregory Scarpa Jr., the son of a murderous capo nicknamed the “Grim Reaper,” has been fighting a legal battle for nearly two decades to overturn his racketeering conviction. 

Those efforts failed, even after the mob scion served as an informant behind bars for the FBI to get information from Al Qaeda terrorist and 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Youssef.

But Federal Judge Edward Korman has suggested that Scarpa, 64 — scheduled to be released from custody in 2035 — may be entitled to credit for his undercover work involving Nichols.
Korman, last month, tipped his hand when he took the extraordinary step of asking the prosecutor assigned to the case to recommend how much Scarpa’s sentence could be reduced without waiving the government’s longstanding objection. Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Notopoulos declined to come up with a number.

The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building following an explosion Wednesday, April 19, 1995,
in downtown Oklahoma City.

“I frankly believe that Greg Scarpa has done nothing but attempt to, pardon the phrase, bastardize the system,” Notopoulos told the judge, according to a transcript. 

Scarpa and Nichols were inmates at the Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., in 2005 when the ex-mobster told the FBI that there was a secret cache of explosives still available to Nichols’ associates. 

Nichols is serving life in prison without parole for planning the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building with Timothy McVeigh that killed 168 people. 

Agents were skeptical of Scarpa’s intel on Nichols because Scarpa did not tell them where the explosives were located. Instead, he showed them a note written by Nichols in code and claimed he would try to decipher the code if the government agreed to reduce his sentence.
Meanwhile, Scarpa failed a lie detector test administered by the FBI — so there was no deal. 

But with the 10th anniversary of the bombing looming, Scarpa told a private investigator that the explosives were buried in the basement of Nichols’ home in Kansas, and the private eye passed it on to two congressmen who alerted the FBI. 

Korman acknowledged that he had been unaware that Scarpa provided the FBI with only partial information. The judge said at a court hearing that he was under the impression that the FBI held a grudge against Scarpa for embarrassing the bureau, which had failed to find the explosives after Nicholas was arrested.

But Korman noted that informants only get a benefit when they provide truthful information — and Scarpa’s tip was on the money. 

It remains to be seen whether Scarpa will get a few years shaved off the sentence or maybe walk out the door of a Kansas City, Mo., halfway house with time served — to the chagrin of the feds.

Click to purchase Linda Scarpa, Greg Junior's sister, has a book out about her story called The Mafia Hitman's Daughter's -- written with Linda Rosencrance. Marc Songini wrote the Foreword.

Mafia Exposed Website Shuttering "For Now"

Buy Carl Russo's book...It's with regret that I write this post based on a recent announcement that the Mafia Exposed website is closing down, "at least for a while," noted founder/blogger Carl Russo.

But on the bright side, he's keeping the blog alive on social media, where he plans to probably more actively post than he did on his blog.
There are different theories but the prevailing wisdom is that there's no such thing as competition between blogs. In fact, the more blogs covering a given topic, the better it is for all of them. 


Farewell, but please return for the sequel.
So I'm certainly hoping Carl and his Mafia Exposed blog return soon... here's what he's written:

AFTER FIVE YEARS of posting articles about Cosa Nostra and related photographs, it’s time to unplug Mafia Exposed—at least for now. I find it difficult to keep a regular schedule of producing these pieces, which require long hours of research, translation, and editing. It’s also quite expensive to make my archive of photographs available online, and to keep the whole thing free of advertising.

Mafia Exposed, however, will maintain a web presence onTwitter, Facebook and Google+, so please follow me there. If anything, I’ll post more frequently than I have on this blog, in shorter form that leaves me time to pursue other projects (some crime-related, others utterly unrelated). I feel the birth pangs of another blog or website for the near future, so please stay tuned via social media.

For now, I thank everyone who has purchased my book, come to the signings, contributed to the conversation, and offered hot tips about Mafia ne’er-do-wells and their families.... Lights will dim around February 10 or so.

Carl please hit me up if you're ever interested in guest blogging at Cosa Nostra News. And let me whisper in your ear again: Calabria.....!!!  Please keep in touch. I love your writing about  Giallo films too...

Junior Lends Film His Father's Jewelry, Car

John A. Gotti aka Junior is lending Travolta his father's personal items for a film about John Gotti Senior.
John Gotti, former Gambino crime family boss, died in prison of cancer in 2002 at the age of 61. Son John A. Gotti (aka "Junior"), after seeking and failing to gain his father's approval, says he left Cosa Nostra life in the dust many years ago..

If John Junior is eyeing any kind of mob these days, it's the one based on the West Coast, aka Hollywood. High-caliber star John Travolta will play the Dapper Don in the upcoming production based on Junior's self-published book Shadow of My Father.

Junior claims he wrote the manuscript in response to the release of another book, George Anastasia's Gotti's Rules, based on the life and prodigious crimes of former Gambino enforcer John Alite. (Disclosure, John Alite is a friend of mine and has helped connect me with sources for several of my top-ranking stories, all published on this blog. I have offered John A. Gotti the opportunity to respond to any article I have written about him but have not gotten anything from him.)





Gotti’s Rules was released about one month before Gotti’s book, Shadow of My Father, in February 2015.

This blog, heralding the publication of Alite's story, published the 302s that resulted from John "Junior" Gotti's proffer session with the Feds, a story that attracted not a single iota of attention from the mainstream press, including both New York tabloids, as well as online GangLand columnist Jerry Capeci, who belittled my contribution to mob history (those 302s were copied and pasted all over the Internet. I didn't watermark the pages for precisely that reason, to provide non-commercialized documents to the world.

(Further disclosure: Capeci also mentioned my ebook Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire in a column and mis-characterized it, calling it a business-advice manual written by Dominick Cicale. He didn't name the book or link to it, either. This wouldn't have bothered me as much -- if  Capeci himself had not emailed me requesting a copy, which I'd offered him on publication. All my responses bounced back and he never received a copy -- or a single word -- from me. So someone else decided to tell Mr. Capeci about my book. He got his bogus information from somewhere..... When all's said and done, I think I can easily enough decipher why and how this happened....Love ya anyway, Jer. I understand now I will never have anything like a mentor, anyone in "high places" to help me, and that is fine.

(I prefer to do things the hard way; it sweetens the victories.)

As for John Junior, he admits and regrets ever meeting with the FBI, where the information he gave was apparently useless, though gangland sources have pointedly told me otherwise in conversation.

Gotti says his father would not have approved of him writing a book -- never mind a film (although this confuses me -- HBO produced a film already based on the Gotti story, called Gotti in the 1990s. Supposedly the former Gambino boss's family provided a certain amount of input to the production, loosely based on Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustain's Gotti: Rise and Fall.

Junior is working with Fiore Films to incorporate material from Shadow of My Father into the movie. With the blessing of his mother, Junior is lending Travolta some of his father's famous ties and jewelry as well as his car (although the former Gambino Godfather supposedly rarely sat in the driver's seat, preferring to sit in the back with a driver handling the wheel.

Kevin Connolly of Entourage is directing.

I commend John Junior for paying no heed to inflammatory news reports that gained steam last September postulating that John Travolta is a homosexual. Whether he is or isn't is entirely the actor's own business.

Screen icon John Travolta will play John Gotti Senior.
In one of the more bizarre stories I have seen regarding this topic, called John Travolta Is Not Legally Gay (what the hell does that mean?) I learned a bit more about the allegation.

"Now--and not for the first time--someone is projecting homosexuality onto Travolta," one website reported.

It adds that Travolta is fighting a legal battle "to keep a former employee's alleged revelations about an alleged gay relationship with the actor from seeing daylight." 
Travolta contends the former employee is bound by a confidentiality agreement (love to see a copy of it, by the way...). The former employee, however, denies that the agreement is legally binding and is seeking to speak openly about his alleged time with Travolta, according to the Hollywood Reporter. 
"One thing is absolutely assured: Travolta will have the more high-powered legal team," the first quoted article said. 
"This is every celebrity's Achilles heel. It's just about people wanting money," Travolta told the Daily Beast.
Travolta's lawyer Martin Singer has warned this former employee to "proceed at his peril," according to The Independent. For speaking out, he faces a fine of "tens of millions of dollars."

The Star even ran a story about a possible divorce for the Travoltas, complete with exclamation point, over the gay rumors:

Through 23 years of marriage, Kelly Preston has firmly stood by her husband, John Travolta, despite enduring sordid allegations about his unwanted sexual advances toward men. Yet it appears to be John who has had enough of their marriage, and he may soon be filing for divorce!

I'd love to ask John Junior a few questions. I'd love to include photos of the jewelry and trinkets he's allowing Travolta to use in the film. 
I am using a certain back-channel to try to gain access to John Junior but he's not shown any specific interest in speaking with me.... My readership is heavily concentrated in the Northeast -- New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, especially. I'd be willing to share proprietary data with him about this website, too.

Who Filled Rizzuto Power Vacuum?

Vito Rizzuto went down fighting. In the end cancer "allegedly" killed him.
The 2013 death of Montreal Cosa Nostra boss Vito Rizzuto at age 67 (supposedly of natural causes) didn't mark an abrupt end to the mob war between the Sicilian Mafia and a united group of factions consisting of former Rizzuto loyalists and Calabrian Ndrangheta members based in Southern Ontario. (Unlike in the U.S., Canada has two homegrown Mafias: the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian Ndrangheta, based in Southern Italy.)

However as of January 2016, things seem to have quieted down, for the moment anyway, and we now have a grasp of how the leadership void created following Rizzuto's sudden death from cancer was filled. We also know a great deal more about the dynamics behind the Montreal mob war, thanks to published reports and in large part due to Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War.

Following last month's arrests, investigators revealed the names of the two alleged leaders of the Rizzuto crime family: Rizzuto's son, Leonardo, 46, a lawyer, and Stefano Sollecito, 48, the son of long-time Rizzuto clan member Rocco "Sauce" Sollecito. Police alleged that Sollecito had stepped in with Leonardo to fill the void following Rizzuto’s death. In 2003, "Sauce" was identified as being part of Rizzuto’s plans to expand into Toronto.

Quebec police rounded up and arrested 48 people following a nearly three-year investigation.

The arrests revealed that there still remains some residual animosity between the alleged Quebec-based Rizzuto organization's bosses and those linked to Ontario who tried to take control of the primarily French-speaking province. The official goal of Projects Magot and Mastiff was to explore links between the Mafia, the Hells Angels and Montreal-area street gangs in January 2013. The investigation also sought to determine exactly how the various criminal organizations were linked together, particularly the Hells Angels and the Rizzuto organization.

The principle aim of the street alliance involving the mob, Hells Angels MC and street gangs was to install in the region a drug-trafficking network. However, the group of confederates also was planning the murder of Raynald Desjardins.

This was because of a rival drug ring but was also partly to continue Rizzuto's campaign to murder all those who had turned on it and sought to push the Sicilian organization off its perch atop the Montreal underworld while Vito served time in a U.S. prison for killing three Bonanno capos in the 1980s.

Alleged street gang boss and biker Gregory Wooley, arrested in the raids, was a key link in the alliance.

Wooley at Vito Rizzuto's December 2013 funeral.

Another man in a key leadership position was Hells member and founder of the original Rock Machine bike gang, Salvatore Cazzetta.


Body of Salvatore Montagna, former Bonanno acting boss from New York.
Defense attorney Loris Cavaltere, 61, it was noted, used his office to meet with gangsters and other members of the associated crime groups. Apparently acting as a de facto consiglieri for the Rizzuto clan, the lawyer was arrested as well in the November raids.

Also arrested was former Hells Angels' Quebec Nomads president Maurice "Mom" Boucher, 62, serving life for the 1997 order he passed on that directly brought about the murders of two prison guards, and the attempted murder of a third. Boucher was handcuffed while in his jail cell as part of last month's raids.

His daughter, Alexandra Mongeau, 25, also was arrested for allegedly passing on Boucher's messages to Woolley. The messages were part of the planning of the murder of Raynald Desjardins, a former Vito Rizzuto friend and loyalist who turned on Rizzuto after serving a long stint in prison for drug trafficking. Reportedly, Desjardins felt he'd taken the fall to protect Vito, who was not as appreciative as Desjardins thought he should've been. (However, according to reports, Desjardins lived like a king behind bars, threatening everyone and getting whatever he wanted. Eventually, after tryng to poison another inmate, he was transferred to another harsher prison, a maximum security institution.)

Maurice Boucher, left, in the old days as a freewheeling HA boss.....


Today Desjardins is in prison for participating in the 2011 murder of Salvatore Montagna, a former acting boss of the Bonanno crime family. A Sicilian born in Canada, he'd been deported from Elmont, in New York's Nassau County on Long Island, to Montreal and apparently was trying to assume a high-profile and lucrative position in Canada's underworld.


Closest of Old Friends Can Be Worst Enemies
Desjardins was once Rizzuto's right hand man. But his feelings toward Vito had changed once he departed prison in 2004. Desjardins and brother-in-law Joseph DiMaulo sought to conspire with other Quebec mobsters, as well as members of Ontario's Ndrangheta.

Some eight years later, in November 2012, DiMaulo was murdered, causing some confusion as to who exactly was doing all the shooting in Canada and why.....

“In Montreal, there’s a state of war,” Pierre de Champlain, a retired RCMP organized crime analyst, said at the time. “People are very careful. They don’t want to be seen at the church.” 

Rizzuto completed his sentence and returned to Canada in early October with word that he'd written out two lists, one consisting of friends, the other for enemies. Di Maulo, formerly a trusted associate of the Rizzuto Sicilian crime family, even though Di Maulo was Calabrian. His ties harkened back to Rizzuto’s Calabrian predecessor, Frank Cotroni.  

Basically, Di Maulo was not believed to be on Rizzuto’s hit list, so no one really knew what the hell was going on at the time....

Sal "The Iron Worker" Montagna, deported from the U.S., joined the group, which planned to begin striking at the Rizzuto clan while Vito was in a Colorado prison serving a 10-year bid for his role in the slaying of three Bonanno captains in the early 1980s.

Apparently, Desjardin's group had been preparing to assassinate Vito Rizzuto before he was arrested in Montreal for eventual extradition.

The group -- consisting of Desjardins, Montagna, former Rizzuto loyalists and elements of Ontario's Ndrangheta crime clans -- was beset by internal squabbles that eventually led to Montagna's murder.

Raynald Desjardins - "Mom" Boucher was planning his jailhouse murder.

An Interesting Year
In the year 2004 a few members of organized crime got out of prison when Rizzuto was heading off to serve his sentence. Boucher was gone as well.

Among those getting out was Salvatore Cazzetta, an outlaw biker and a founder of the Rock Machine Motorcycle Club. He was known for wearing his long hair yanked into a ponytail, as well as his bushy beard (he looked like a member of the rock band ZZ Top). Cazzetta also was known for having an astute business sense coupled with strong leadership capabilities. He's an interesting figure in the overall story.

Despite the fact his gang had waged a long and bloody war against the Hells Angels in the late 1990s and early 2000s for control of downtown Montreal drug trafficking, he supposedly had few enemies. Fortunately for him, he'd spent most of the war years in a Florida prison; he'd not been involved in the prolonged battle for supremacy in the underworld.

Cazzetta had once been close friends with Boucher in the early 1980s, when the two were members of the SS, a small outlaw biker gang known for its strong racial prejudices (something that made many surprised at how close "Mom" seemed to have been with Wooley, a black man).  Boucher eventually moved on to the Hells Angels -- the gang supposedly allowed him and others to "patch in" -- meaning simply trade their patches for the Hells Angels' infamous skull patch, instantly becoming members.

Cazzetta declined the offer to join the HAs however, possibly owing to a dispute between two charters of the club (the Lennoxville group and the one in Laval). The Lennoxville-based Hells Angels suspected the Laval group of having too many members more interested in using the drugs than selling them. As a result, Lennoxville invited Laval members to a party. The group walked in expecting drunken biker-style merriment -- and were all promptly beaten to death with ball-peen hammers.

Cazzetta supposedly never forgot that slaughter, considering it a breach of the biker's brotherhood code to be an unpardonable sin. He strongly believed in that code. The Rock Machine's motto was: À La Vie À La Mort  (“As We Live, So We Shall Die”).

Cazzetta returned after Mom had gone away. Mom never lost his respect for Cazzetta, however. Cazzetta survived the war and was among those arrested last month. He apparently was working with the Rizzuto organization.

A year later, in June 2005, Giovanni "Johnny" Bertolo was out of prison. Like Cazzetta, he had shown his willingness to do time when required. Bertolo and Desjardins’s brother Jacques had together run a loanshark operation. He was arrested days before Christmas in 1992 for a major cocaine bust. He could've easily spared himself the stint by flipping and giving up the two men behind the drug operation: Desjardins and Rizzuto. But he didn't.

Bertolo was literally stricken with outright shock when he returned to his old turf to discover that his operations had been taken over by Frank Arcadi, an initial acting boss for Vito Rizzuto after his arrest, who had given them to another member of the organization. Furthermore, Bertolo learned he'd never be getting his businesses back. Arcadi acted as if he couldn't have cared less with Bertolo ever got out of prison.

It later was suspected that Bertolo was selling drugs on his old turf anyway, in defiance of Arcadi.

On August 11, 2006, Bertolo was leaving a gym near the Rivière des Prairies. Later that day, he and his son were flying to Italy. As he was standing aside his BMW X5 SUV, a spray of gunfire killed him.

Word at the time was that Bertolo’s murder had been ordered by the Rizzuto group, who'd outsourced the work to Colombians. Rizzuto hitters, as the public later learned, were renowned for their good aim and sparse use of bullets, especially in public places.

Shortly after Bertolo’s death, New York's Bonanno family sent a representative to Montreal. Who and why hasn't been revealed, to my knowledge. Ultimately it seems the Rizzuto's were behind Bertolo's death, as his funeral wasn't handled by the Complexe Funéraire Loreto funeral home, where all wiseguys working for the Rizzuto's were generally laid out.

Desjardins was enraged when he learned of the murder of his friend. It also is believed to be the murder that led Desjardins to war with the Rizzuto group.

The next volley against Rizzuto's group took place when mobsters in Granby, Quebec, a small city east of Montreal, believed they'd been cheated following an $11 million drug deal that had gone sideways.

There had been open negotiations between the groups in August 2005. They were a failure, however. Arcadi tried to strike first, using a rented helicopter to fly over Granby and firing a machine-gun on the home of a key member of the mob there. The "hit" failed to even wound anyone and was viewed as largely symbolic. It did tell other factions in addition to the one in Granby that Arcadi was ready for war.

Vito fiercely fought extradition when he learned of these developments. When his fight was finally lost and he was riding to the airport on August 17, 2006, he supposedly lost his composure. To the two police officers escorting him to the airport, he offered some pointed remarks. He needed to remain in Canada, he told them.

Didn't they foresee the violence that had already erupted in his absence was only the beginning?

Macri, a rising star in the Montreal mob, was the first Rizzuto loyalist slain by the opposition,
Officers Nicodemo Milano and Franc Guimond got an earful, but probably had no clue that Rizzuto was accurately predicting the milieu's pending upheaval.

"You should go after the street gangs," Vito told them. “Not me. They are the ones who would create trouble.” Vito apparently believed Arcadi was not capable enough to lead the family in his absence.

"You will rue the day that I leave Canada,” Vito told the police officers. “You will see what will happen when I leave Canada.”

But his final words were spoken softly. He pled for mercy for his father. “Spare my father,” he said. “He’s an old man . He’s a sick man. Spare my father...."

Two weeks later. Mid-afternoon on August 30, 2006, Domenico Macri, a rising star in the Rizzuto group, was traveling with his driver in his Cadillac through the intersection of Henri-Bourassa Boulevard and Rodolphe-Forget Boulevard when a motorcycle rolled to a hault beside the car. A gun was raised and the man holding it opened fire -- then the motorcycle hurtled away.

The driver recovered. But Macri didn't recover.....

It wasn't even two weeks after Vito issued his prophetic words to the two cops.


Rizzuto's Return
When Vito was in prison, the general consensus of newspaper reports and television's talking heads was that he was finished. Vito "the has-been" Rizzuto probably would return home and leave in the time it took to pack his bags, and he'd never look back.

Quite the contrary Rizzuto proved to be a formidable rival to his enemies and every bit up to the task of being the Mafia strongman thirsting for vengeance.

His return to Canada following his 10-year racketeering sentence stopped the coup cold in its tracks. It then went further as Rizzuto went on the offensive. Bodies began dropping like flies, primarily in Ontario but also in other parts of Canada, as well as in Mexico and Sicily.

No matter how far his enemies fled, Rizzuto had them hunted down and slain.

The shooters were the Rizzuto outfit's "young turks" -- the sons and nephews of older trusted members and associates of the Rizzuto organization. They systematically whacked key members of the opposition and traitors, partly in retaliation for the murders of Vito's son, Nicolo Jr., his father Nicolo Sr. and brother-in-law Paolo Renda (and other trusted associates).


Di Maulo family members at his funeral, which shortly followed Vito's return home.

Among those on Vito's hit list who were found dead on the street were Ndranghetta hit man Salvatore "Sam" Calalutti and Joseph Di Maulo. Also slain were "traitors" who fled North America (turns out, Vito wasn't the one who packed his bags). Moreno Gallo was shot dead while dining in Mexico. Juan Ramon Fernandez, aka "Joe Bravo" and his associate, Fernando Pimental, were both murdered in Sicily.

In May 2013, the charred, bullet-riddled remains of two gangsters from Canada were found in Sicily.Italian police feared a trans-Atlantic Mafia war was brewing -- but it was Vito's response to Joe Bravo's challenge...

Carmine Verducci, 56, killed in 2014, was probably the highest-ranking conspirator killed in Ontario, according to media reports. He was the link between the Southern Ontario Calabrian clans with the most powerful clan in Calabria, as well as a general go-between for Calabria-based families in Canada.

Taboo Topic? Mafiosi and the Church

Frank Costello's mausoleum, with the front gate blown apart. "Lilo" heralding his return to the streets....

This is a revise of an old story that I've been sitting on entirely too long....

Italy has exported two global entities -- the Mafia and the Catholic Church. Ironic.

Made men generally are Roman-Catholics. Still, not much has been generally written about Mafiosi making (or not making) peace with the New Testament God before shuffling off this mortal coil.

At the same time, Sicilian or Italian mobsters are very dedicated to their faith. In fact, some of them study the bible. "In Italy, there is not a single Mafioso who isn't religious," Padre Nino Fasullo, an anti-Mafia priest in Italy, once said. "For a phenomenon like the Mafia, which has no intellectual justification at all, religion may represent the only ideological apparatus to which it can refer . ... We're all in the church. Even the Mafia. Unfortunately. The church is embroiled in it. But regrettably not everyone in the church is convinced that opposition to the Mafia is necessary."



As noted, Toto Riina never sleeps in his prison bed without pictures of the saints pasted on the wall around his head...and Bernardo Provenzano's knowledge of the Bible's details is legendary. When finally arrested police found on his bedside table no less than four bibles, each brimming with annotations and underlinings.

In America, it's with a heavy dose of pragmatism that many Cosa Nostra members seemingly turn to their faith. Due to the Rite of Penance, one's sins are forgiven, absolution of one's sins, no matter who they are, is provided to those who seek it. Sometimes even if the person is unconscious and on the verge of death, a priest can wash away their sins (Extreme Unction, it is called).

The thinking in America -- and perhaps Italy -- seems to be: Why take a gamble on the chance of hell actually existing?

These are men who lived their lives leaving as little as possible to chance, by their very nature. Especially in the case of mobsters who are bosses or have some rank -- they hold a place in the hierarchy that another might be willing to murder them for. Why was Anastasia killed? Paul Castellano?

A savvy boss sits with his back to the wall, especially if tempers on the street are flaring. He posts his gunmen around him -- as Donnie Brasco learned when he helped show the Bonanno flag by guarding Lilo while he attended a sit down. These men know all too well how easily they might end up dead when they least expect it -- shot dead in midtown Manhattan in front of a steakhouse, blown apart with a shotgun while sitting idly in a car or shot in the head, then multiple times in the face while frying sausage and peppers, perhaps for the very man who came to kill him.

Carlo Gambino, the unofficial Boss of Bosses for decades supposedly made a deathbed confession and died in a "state of grace," washed of probably the most violent sins of which a human being is capable.

Mobsters like Stephen "Beach" DePiro think nothing of parading their religion before a judge when seeking parole, but the true test for such men is how they act when the Grim Reaper confronts them.

Rosario "Russell" Bufalino, boss of the tiny Pennsylvania crime family from 1959 to 1989, "got religion" while in prison. He got out and died at age 91 in a nursing home. In 1980, the Pennsylvania Crime Commission, now defunct, claimed Bufalino ran the most powerful organized-crime family in the state. That's interesting for those who know that Philadelphia is in that state.


Gambino sought forgiveness for his sins toward his life's end.
Old-time Godfather Joe Profaci had a rather bizarre notion of what it meant to be a good Catholic: Profaci was devout and made generous cash donations to Catholic charities. His New Jersey estate actually contained a private chapel. But when thieves stole a relic from a New York church. Profaci mobsters recovered the relic and, the rumor says, strangled the two thieves with rosaries. (This has been proven not to be true, but the fact so many believed it for so long, might say something about Profaci's nature.)

In 1949, a group of New York Catholics petitioned Pope Pius XII to confer a knighthood on Profaci. However, the Brooklyn District Attorney quashed it.

Perhaps the earliest and most famous deathbed "conversion" in mob land was that of Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Flegenheimer). In 1935 in an effort to avert a pending conviction, Schultz had gone to The Commission for permission to kill New York Prosecutor Thomas Dewey -- and his request was declined. Lucky Luciano and others were concerned, however, that Schultz would kill Dewey anyway (and he probably would have) so his assassination was ordered that same year. So... he was critically wounded on an October evening of that year while holding court with three cronies in the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. Rushed to a hospital, he registered as being of the Jewish faith. But the next morning, feeling sure that he was going to die, he called for a Catholic priest. Father Cornelius McInerney was summoned. Schultz wanted to die a Catholic. Father McInerney gave him a few simple instructions, baptized him, and gave him the last rites of the Catholic Church.

Dutch Schultz died on Oct. 28, 1935, and was buried in a Catholic cemetery, the Gate of Heaven, in New York City.

Fat Tony, on his deathbed, ordered a hit.

It would seem that no such epiphany ever came to Tony Salerno, at least based on what was probably his last act as a Mafiosi; but the thoughts/inner feelings of another human being are inscrutable to us, unless the person in question tells us. Tony didn't tell us. I am just conveying facts and reasonable assumptions based on those facts. And the facts are, while dying in the same prison hospital that Bufalino had resided in but at a different time, Salerno put out a contract to have someone killed and gave it to another inmate in the sick ward, an outlaw biker named Sailor, who was dying of cancer but poised to be released on a medical hardship. Salerno sent Sailor to whack someone who had testified against the old-time Cosa Nostra street boss in one of his trials, according to an anecdote buried near the end of Charles Brandt's, "I Heard You Paint Houses."

Frank Sheeran, the book's subject, who was in the hospital with Salerno, witnessed these events, he said.

Salerno served as the "front" boss of the Genovese clan, actually tricking the Feds and something like half the mob into believing he was the boss, when he really wasn't. (Chin Gigante, a criminal mastermind who outplayed so many lesser but higher-profile men, was happy being in the shadow, limping around the Village in his ratty bathrobe in a rehearsed, beard-stubbled psychotic stupor.)

Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno (August 15, 1911 - July 27, 1992) was convicted in 1986 as part of the Commission Case, which put away most of the legendary bosses, including Tony Ducks Corallo. Who could forget the precious few news clips of Salerno, fedora planted firmly on his head, cigar in mouth, waving his cane and barking at the surrounding paparazzi. Gotti, refusing to duck, smiled and bowed at the mobs of press--like a prince offering his blessings to the f---ing peasants--Salerno hit them with his cane. There's the difference.

Rather than regale you with his life story, some highlights.

Born in East Harlem in 1911, Salerno established his base there and never strayed far from the community, maintaining his headquarters at the Palma Boys Social Club, much like Neil Dellacroce did downtown in Little Italy at the Ravenite.

By the 1960s, Salerno was said by prosecutors to helm Harlem's biggest numbers racket, which they estimated earned as much as $50 million a year. Yet despite his notoriety among prosecutors, Salerno's first criminal conviction did not occur until 1978, when he pleaded guilty to Federal tax and gambling charges, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison. The infamous Roy M. Cohn, Salerno's lawyer, described his client as a "sports gambler" in a New York Times article.

In early 1981, after his release from prison, Salerno suffered a mild stroke and retreated to his Rhinebeck estate to recuperate. At the time of his stroke, Salerno was Genovese underboss.

During the 1980s, following the retirement of Philip Lombardo, Salerno ostensibly became boss of the Genovese family. He had reached the pinnacle of his power--and would spend almost all his remaining life behind bars.

And although law enforcement at the time thought that Salerno was the boss of the Genovese family, it later became clear that Salerno was not the true power: Salerno was only a "front man". Ever since the death of boss Vito Genovese in 1969, the real family leader had been "Benny Squint" Lombardo. Over the years, Lombardo used several acting bosses to disguise his true status from law enforcement and the other four New York crime families. At the same time Lombardo was grooming Vincent Gigante as his successor. According to "Fish" Cafaro, Salerno became front boss in 1981 to protect Gigante, who seems to have taken a page from Lombardo's book and ran all the way to the nuthouse with it.

In a 1986 article, Fortune magazine rated Salerno the most powerful and wealthiest gangster in America, citing earnings in the tens of millions from loan sharking, profit skimming at Nevada casinos and charging a "Mafia tax" on New York City construction projects. At the time, he maintained a home in Miami Beach, a 100-acre estate in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and an apartment in Gramercy Park. (How on earth could Fortune calculate his net worth? And how could they know he was the wealthiest?)

"He was extremely powerful," said Howard Abadinksy, professor of criminology at St. Xavier University in Chicago and the author of several books on organized crime, in a New York Times article. He compared Salerno to the reputed head of the Gambino family at that time, Paul Castellano.

"Castellano was perhaps first among equals, but Fat Tony would have been the other most powerful figure on the East Coast."

(Speaking of Castellano, John Gotti declined a priest's offer to meet. According to Peter Gotti, John Gotti's son, on a television interview, he watched his father turn down an offer many other men in his shoes probably wouldn't have been able to refuse. He then expressed to Peter that he'd lived his life on his own terms, and was not about to go running to the church and be a hypocrite. There's something admirable in that. Can't such acts of integrity hold a deeper meaning beyond our perception? For: Who can fathom the Spirit of the LORD, or instruct the LORD as his counselor?--Isaiah 40:13.)

In 1986, after the Commission Case trial that helped establish the use of RICO statutes against the mob, Salerno and seven other defendants were convicted of operating the "commission" that ruled the Mafia throughout the United States. He and others were given sentences of up to 100 years.
Salerno also was convicted in 1988 for a scheme to allocate contracts and obtain payoffs for constructing the concrete superstructures of 16 Manhattan buildings, including the Jacob J. Javits Convention Center. He was sentenced to 70 years on that conviction.

Salerno, who had been in failing health since entering the prison system in 1989, died of complications from a stroke that he suffered on July 18, the officials said. But not before sending Sailor out on that little mission. Salerno was 80 years old.

On a wiretap at a mob hangout, Federal agents once recorded Salerno bemoaning a disrespectful young gangster who had called him "Fat Tony" to his face.

"If it wasn't for me, there wouldn't be no mob left," Salerno said. "I made all the guys."

How true, Tony, wherever you are...

Giving Friends of Ours Blog Due Credit

Vito Genovese may have single-handedly done more
damage to the Mafia than any other mobster.Taking a cue from my good friend over at Friends of Ours, who did this on the appropriate date, I am posting, for posterity's sake, the New York Daily News's original 1957 article on Appalachin. 
The Friends of Ours blogger, Philip Crawford Jr., has an excellent book available now: The Mafia and the Gays. It is an historical analysis of the Mafia's control of gay bars in major U.S. cities, including New York and Chicago.

The unjust illegality of such establishments essentially green-lighted the Mafia to come in and cater to that demand.


However, the mob's reach into gay establishments didn't end back in the olden days. Or, as more eloquently explained on the book's Amazon page:

A common misunderstanding among the general public is that the wise guys were eliminated from the gay bars following the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City. However, organized crime kept a hidden hand -- often through violent means resulting in a few murders -- in many watering holes for the gay community at least into the mid-1980s if not later. Indeed, the Mafia hijacked gay liberation for political cover and used so-called Auntie Gays -- the Uncle Toms of the gay community -- as frontmen for their bars to evade suspicion. The Mafia and the Gays provides a comprehensive look at the mob's involvement with gay bars including the iconic Continental Baths which had Colombo protection and the infamous Haymarket which was under Genovese control. The Mafia and the Gays relies upon an extensive collection of historical sources including FBI files many of which have not been publicly available until recently acquired by the author through the Freedom of Information Act.

I will be honest right here and say I'd like to hear Philip offering insight on some of these Mafia-related documentaries, rather than the usual talking heads who say the same crap or pontificate far beyond their pay-grade. (And producers who read this blog -- yes, I am often contacted by them, begging for information, then forgetting the part about my "remuneration" after they get it --  they all should read Philip Crawford's Friend of Ours blog.)

Philip Crawford Jr. makes the rest of us bloggers
look like we're asleep.


He's on an enviable streak these days writing insightful stories regarding newly released FBI records.

A sample of some of his recent stories:

Brooklyn Federal Prosecutor Co-owned Brunswick Laundry Service With Mobster Joe Bonanno:

A must-read for the Mafia
enthusiast.Among the legitimate businesses owned by Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno was Brunswick Laundry Service at 39-45 Central Avenue in Brooklyn, NY which was incorporated in 1932, and recently released FBI documents reveal that the mobster acquired his interest supposedly by strong-arming its founding shareholders including Vincenzo Passalacqua who was the father of Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Anthony Passalacqua for the Eastern District of New York. Incredibly, AUSA Passalacqua at one time was a shareholder and officer of Brunswick Laundry Service, and fully aware of Bonanno's involvement in the company. Indeed, Peter Passalacqua admitted to FBI agents that while in private practice before becoming a federal prosecutor he prepared at his father's request in 1939 or 1940 the "legal papers in connection with the transfer of 1/5 of the shares of stock in the above corporation to JOSEPH BONANNO," and "it was on this occasion that he first met BONANNO."... 

 FBI Releases Surveillance Logs On Anthony Strollo: I Spy Tony Bender: Part I:

"Anthony "Tony Bender" Strollo was a nightlife operator and heroin trafficker in Greenwich Village under frequent surveillance by multiple law enforcement agencies throughout the 1950s and into 1962 until his "disappearance," and the FBI recently released its surveillance log of the Genovese capo which includes the below-listed 1958 entries from January through April. Among the more notable highlights are his frequent meetings with fellow doper Vincent Mauro who operated out of Dave's Blue Room at the Beverly Hotel on 565 Lexington Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets. (Midtown Manhattan on both the west and east sides was a longtime meat market, and Mauro pimped out his girls from Dave's Blue Room. It's another myth that the Mafia was not involved in sex trafficking, and the Genovese family in the 1950s was behind hotel lounges stocked with its working girls, and as late as the 1980s the FBI had caught Matty Ianniello on hidden bugs in his office at 135 West 50th Street admitting to his extensive role in the degenerate racket.) Mobsters are like vampires, and Strollo was most active after midnight into the wee hours before sunrise. Strollo controlled several establishments in Greenwich Village in the 1950s, and the FBI's surveillance log identifies him at some:
On 1/8/58, STROLLO observed in his car in Greenwich Village area. .....

On 1/7/58, STROLLO was observed in his 1957 Imperial hardtop proceeding from his residence in New Jersey to New York, where met by three male unsubs. Surveillance revealed STROLLO and unsubs visited Greenwich Village hangouts at San Remo Cafe and Cafe Expresso.

As for ApalachinNumerous stories can be found in this site about the historical event held upstate about a couple of months after Vito Genovese sent the Chin the crease Frank Costello's skull (the intent, of course, was to murder the man so Vito could assume power) and after Carlo Gambino ordered drug-dealing mobsters from the Lower East Side to gun down Albert Anastasia. I am now reading an excellent book on the topic: Mafia Summit

Milestone: When Apalachin Put the Mob on the FBI's Rader
Dec 14, 2013 ... The aftermath of the Apalachin Meeting would shed new light on a ... But for many years before Apalachin, the FBI refused to even admit that ...

Apalachin Summit Spotlighted American Mafia
Apr 25, 2014 ... The Apalachin trial resulted in guilty verdicts from the jury, but an appellate court overturned them on appeal.

The Mob Boss Who Sued Life Magazine and Lost
May 20, 2014 ... The obscure mob boss attended the Apalachin conference in 1957, although it is unclear if he'd officially been named boss of his borgata yet.


Two men seizing power by ousting others; two key moments in Mafia history that led to the Appalachin meeting, which over time may well prove to have been the beginning of the end for the American Mafia.

New York Daily News article on the mafia raid on November 15, 1957.

Seize 62 Mafia Chieftains in Upstate Raid
Originally published by the Daily News on November 15, 1957. This story was written by Howard Wantuch and Sidney Kline.




Sixty-two top leaders of the dreaded Mafia, ruling crime syndicate of the U.S., were grabbed by federal agents, state police and country cops last night during a top-echelon conclave called to deal with mounting official pressures on their lucrative stranglehold on the nation's purse.

The crackdown came at the end of a dead-end road in a tiny rural community in Tioga County 190 miles from New York, of whose existence most of the world has never known. The name: Apalachin. Population, 277. Nearest community of size, Binghamton, near the Pennsylvania border.
Into the net, scurrying like small-time gamblers fleeing a lower East Side dice game, fell hoods from New York, New Jersey, Ohio, California, Puerto Rico, Cuba and points in between.
Local law prevented the authorities from holding the catch. No weapons were found - naturally. And Tioga County has no vagrancy statute which would permit obviously well-heeled bums from being held while police investigated them, a contingency which New York City law has taken care of.
They Beat the Rap
By early today most of the mob had been freed. The others, apparently, also were destined to be let go.
But this much was clear, and the local authorities made no move to conceal their pleasure at the prospect: When Mafia Inc. holds its next board meeting, the chances are 1,000 to one, and no takers, that the session will not be in Apalachin.
At the top of the bag - in underworld prestige - was New Jersey's Vito Genovese, of Atlantic Highlands, close associate of the recently slain Albert Anastasia and generally regarded as top hand in the Mafia. Anastasia was assassinated in a midtown barber shop on Oct. 25.
Also rounded up were Joe Profaci, Brooklyn olive oil dealer, Joe (Joe Bananas) Bonnanno, also of Brooklyn, and John (Big John) Ormento, convicted dope peddler.

The crackdown on the underworld's supposedly smart rulers came about through a piece of stupidity which would have consigned a lesser hood to the untender mercies of the execution squad.
On Wednesday, the group began converging on the remote and palatial estate of Joseph Barbara, once a prominent mobster in the Pittsburgh area who more recently has fronted his activities by running a soda bottling business in and about Binghamton.
As befits a man of standing who prefers privacy, Barbara got himself a fine house, away from neighbors, in Apalachin, and who came and went presumably was nobody's business. The estate was big, but not big enough for the gathering envisioned for this week.
To meet the emergency, Barbara put out calls to the motels in the vicinity of Binghamton for rooms for his guests. He wanted the best and never mind the price.
Now police, including Tioga County's local cops and the state police, make a business of checking what goes on in local establishments, including motels. The request for a large number of rooms coming from Barbara, and especially Barbara, aroused official interest.
Call Reinforcements
The bemusement of authorities was not lessened when large, shiny and expensive cars, most of them 1957 Cadillacs, began pouring into the area on Wednesday - and kept coming yesterday - from all parts of the country. The oldest car in the group was a '56 Caddy.
Local authorities knew what to do. They called in reinforcements.
County cops conferred with state police. State police called in Treasury Department agents (counterfeiting) and agents of the federal alcohol tax unit (illicit booze).Hemmed Them In

The very obscurity of Barbara's home, with its dead-end road and its promise of privacy, gave authorities an ideal cul-de-sac. They set up roadblocks, preventing flight by car. They marshaled a ring of policemen in the wooded grounds around the estate so that flight by foot would be difficult, if possible at all.





At noon, authorities dropped the boom. Police started closing in. A lookout for the mob saw them. Like vermin scuttling out of burning woodwork, the underworld chiefs headed for open air.

It was no good. Those who fled by car were stopped by roadblocks.

Good Hunting

A dozen or so who ludicrously tried to make it to freedom through woods which the local police knew and the invaders didn't, were picked up sooner or later.

In the best hunting season in Tioga's criminal history, the beaters made a bag of 62, winding up at 11 P.M.

Some of the quarry tried to beat the problem by throwing away identification cards and auto registrations before they were grabbed, but that was no problem. Their faces were too well known - even up in the sticks.




These were the names state police took down at the Vestal barracks:

Michelle A. Miranda, 167 Greenway North, Forest Hills, Queens; Rosario Mancuso, Utica, N.Y.; Gabriel Mannarino, New Kensington, Pa.; Patsy Monachino, Auburn, N.Y.; Sam Monachino, Auburn, N.Y. and John C. Montana, Buffalo, N.Y.

Also Vincent Rao, 192 Dunwoodie St., Yonkers; Armand Rava, 1180 Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn; Joseph Riccobono, 781 Pelton Ave., Staten Island; Anthony Riela, 7 Benvenue Ave., West Orange, N.J.; Joseph Rosato, 2431 31st St., Jackson Heights, Queens; Frank Cucchiara, Boston; Domenic D'Agostino, Niagara Falls, and Natale J. Evola, 972 Bay Ridge Pkway, Brooklyn.

More and More

Also Roy Carlisi, Buffalo; Paul C. Castellano, 1737 E. 23d St., Brooklyn; Charles S. Chiri, 2 Bridle Way, Palisades, N.J.; James Coletti, Pueblo, Colo.; Joseph Falcone, Utica, N.Y.; Salvatore Falcone, Utica, N.Y.; Carlo Gambino, 2230 Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn, and James V. LaDuca, Lewiston, N.Y.

Also Sam Lagattuta, Buffalo; Louis A: Larasso, 115 Donaldson Place, Linden, N.J., Carmine Lombardozzi, 114 Stratford Road, Brooklyn; Antonino Magaddino, Niagara Falls; Frank T. Maguri, 629 Broad St., Elizabeth, N.J.; Michael Genovese, Gibsonia, Pa. Vito Genovese, 68 W. Highland Ave., Atlantic Highlands, N.J. and Anthony F. Guarnieri, Johnson City, N.Y.

And Still More

Also John Anthony DeMarco, Shaker Heights, Ohio; Simone Scozzari, San Gabriel, Calif.; Joseph Francis Civello, Dallas, Tex.; James Anthony Osticco, Pittston, Pa.; Frank Desimone, Doroney, Calif.; Joseph Bonanno, 1726 DeKalb Ave., and John Bonventra, 115 Cleveland St., Brooklyn; Ignatius Cannone, Endicott, N.Y.; Salvatore Tornabe, 1464, Second Ave., New York; and Patsy Turrigiano, Endicott, N.Y.

Also Frank Joseph Valenti, Rochester, N.Y.; Stanley Valenti, Rochester, N.Y.; John Ormento, 118 Audrey Drive, Lido Beach, N.Y.; Joseph Ida, 108 Lincoln Ave., Highland Park, N.J.; Joseph Profaci, 8863 15th Ave., Brooklyn; Joseph Magliocco, Bay View Ave., Islip, N.Y.; Louis Santos, Havana, Cuba and Angelo Sciandra, Pittston, Pa.

Also Patsy Sciortino, Auburn, N.Y., Frank Zito, Springfield, Ill., Gerardo Cateno, 21 Overhill Road, South Orange, N.J., and Domenic Oliveto, 1157 Magnolia Ave., Camden, N.J.

Sgt. Edgar Crosswell of the state police Bureau of Criminal Identification said: "They are the hierarchy of the eastern seaboard criminal world, with others from across the country and the Caribbean thrown in."



Ok, here's an interesting question (I thought, anyway!):

What did the early report get wrong?