Ed Scarpo's Blog, page 36

Did the Mob Beat the Crap Out of a US Senator?

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada.

Breitbart News reported that an investigation of the home exercise accident story told by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) appears basically "to discredit his version of events surrounding a New Year’s Day incident that left him with gruesome injuries to his eye, face and ribs."

On January 22, three weeks following the accident, Reid told his version of how he obtained his injuries to the assembled Washington DC press: "I know there are a lot of rumors as to what happened, but that’s very simple. My wife and I were in our new home. I was doing exercises that I’ve been doing for many years with those large rubber bands and, uh, one of them broke and spun me around and I crashed into these cabinets and injured my eye."

"It didn't knock me out but it sure hurt. And, uh, I was taken to the hospital, and, uhm, we came back here after a couple of days. I have some bones broken around my eye."

According to Breitbart:

From the moment the story broke, many have been highly skeptical of Reid’s claim his injuries came from a home exercise accident. Most of this skepticism–based mostly on speculation and the gruesome nature of the injuries—led some to offer a version of an alternate theory that somebody beat up Senator Reid.

“It’s pretty obvious from the photographs that somebody beat the bejesus out of the soon-to-be former senator from Nevada. And yet the national media has uncritically swallowed the cover story that ‘exercise equipment’ was to blame for the loss of sight in the former majority leader’s right eye. Baloney,” Michael Walsh wrote at PJ Media.

Even Rush Limbaugh weighed in with skepticism as to Reid’s story:

By the way, does anybody believe that Harry Reid really had an accident with his exercise machine? Does anybody really believe that’s why Harry Reid is still bruised and is still wearing dark glasses, what, months after this accident with his exercise machine? 

I don’t believe for a minute that whatever happened to Harry Reid has anything to do with an exercise machine unless somebody repeatedly threw him intoit. Harry Reid looks like and is acting like — and now with this announcement, behaving like — somebody who may have been beaten up. Nobody… I’ve never seen anybody have an accident with an exercise machine that ends up suffering symptoms much like Harry Reid’s for as long as Harry Reid has. 

Breitbart News noted that its investigation of Reid’s home exercise accident "has uncovered facts that appear to discredit Reid’s version of the home exercise accident for ... very specific reasons."


Reid seems to have lost an eye -- or at least he can't see through it. He also is not
running again for his seat.


PowerLine blog postulated what happened to Reid in a story called: What really happened to Harry Reid?

Their answer is: "he ran afoul of some mobsters."

... Yet the national press has studiously averted its eyes from Reid’s condition, and has refused to investigate the cause of his injuries. To my knowledge, every Washington reporter has at least pretended to believe Reid’s story, and none, as far as I can tell, has inquired further.  

A friend of mine was in Las Vegas a week or two ago. He talked to a number of people there about Reid’s accident, and didn’t find anyone who believed the elastic exercise band story. The common assumption was that the incident resulted, in some fashion, from Reid’s relationship with organized crime. The principal rumor my friend heard was that Reid had promised to obtain some benefit for a group of mobsters. He met with them on New Year’s Day, and broke the bad news that he hadn’t been able to deliver what he promised. When the mobsters complained, Reid (according to the rumor) made a comment that they considered disrespectful, and one of them beat him up. 

Is that what really happened? I have no idea, but it is a more likely story than the elastic exercise band yarn....

So we throw open this question to our audience, some of whom, we are reasonably certain, can offer a rather informed opinion as well as anyone else we can think of.

What the hell happened to Harry Reid?

And is he better off than the poor bastard that former veep Dick Cheney blasted with a shotgun?

We're just kidding with the second question but not the first....
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Friends of Ours Blogger Debuts Mafia Book

The Mafia and the Gays by Phillip Crawford Jr., the Friends of Ours blogger, is available at Amazon either as a Kindle e-book for $2.99 or a trade paperback for $9.95.

The Friends of Our blog is a must-read for anyone interested in crime -- it offers a comprehensive focus on criminal activity impacting America, including but not limited to traditional organized crime, including the various Mafia grows that expanded beyond Italy.

Since 2009, Philip has blogged about organized crime at Friends of Ours. He is the leading authority on the Mafia's historical role in gay bars and has been cited as a major resource in numerous books, foremost among them Alex Horts's The Mob and the City and John Strausbaugh's The Village.
According to the blog: "The Mafia historically controlled gay bars as part of their vice rackets in many cities across the United States including New York and Chicago due to their once illicit status. 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 -- over many watering holes for the gay community at least into the mid-1980s if not later. Indeed, the Mafia even 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 from the post-war years through the mid-1980s when federal prosecutors targeted the Outfit in Chicago and the Genovese family in New York for their alleged protection rackets and skimming operations involving some establishments.

"Phillip Crawford Jr. is a retired attorney from the New York bar. He attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine from which he graduated with a B.A. in English in 1985. At Bates he was President of the Gay-Straight Alliance in 1983, and spearheaded a campaign to oust military recruiters from the campus for their discriminatory policies against the LGBT community.

"He attended George Washington University Law School where he was a Notes Editor for the Law Review. After graduating in 1988 he clerked for Chief Judge Judith W. Rogers on the D.C. Court of Appeals, and then with Judge George H. Revercomb on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He practiced law for fifteen years in New York City including several years with the plaintiffs’ class action bar, and then retired after exposing his concerns about billing practices. Professor Lester Brickman characterized him in Lawyer Barons as a “whistle blower.”


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CLICK HERE for Part 2 of Mafia with Sir Trevor

Sir Trevor hosts two-part series on the mob.
CLICK HERE  to watch part Two  The Mafia with Trevor McDonald
Sir Trevor McDonald seeks to show viewers the "reality" and not the "mythology" of the Mob on the program.

Episode Two: After spending three months travelling across New York, Miami, Philadelphia and Southern California, Trevor hears detailed accounts of life in the Mafia as he meets major figures at home, at work and in bars, as well as on the streets where they operated for the documentary The Mafia with Trevor McDonald.

In the second episode, Trevor learns more about the lives the former mobsters have made for themselves since trying to leave the Mafia behind.





He continues his journey across America to meet prolific mob member John Alite at his home. John has recently been released from a ten year prison sentence after making a deal with the FBI and now lives just outside New York in his son’s apartment. John admits that on occasion his son accompanied him on hits, when he was as young as seven years old.


CLICK HERE  for  The Mafia with Trevor McDonald Episode 1

John said: "I’m an alcoholic, with violence, not with alcohol. I was (addicted to violence). Now I handle it. I changed myself and I've proven over the years I've changed myself. And every day is a struggle I’ll lie to you if I say it, if you said something wrong to me on the street and I didn't know you, my first thought in my mind is, hurt that guy."

Instead of living under witness protection, Alite chooses to live out in the open, working in the construction business, accepting that one day someone could make him pay for his betrayal.

He said: "I have more than dozens of victims, over a hundred people. Killing, shooting, batting, stabbing, more than a hundred guys…When you go out and hurt as many people as I did, you are going to get hurt too."

In the 1980s and 1990s Alite worked for John Gotti Senior, who was the Godfather of the Gambino crime family, the most powerful and feared mobsters in America.
Trevor then meets Michael Di Leonardo, also known as Mikey Scars, a former high-ranking member of the Gambino crime family. Mikey has single-handedly inflicted more damage on the Mafia than anyone else in recent times, testifying against the men he worked with, to save himself from a life behind bars.
His evidence consigned 80 of them to prison and he knows only too well the mob, known to its members as Cosa Nostra, will never forgive him.
As a result, Mikey lives in permanent fear of attack and until recently was in the US Government’s witness protection programme. However, after months of persuasion, he meets Trevor at a hotel in Miami to speak publicly for the first time.
Trevor also meets one of the most successful mobsters in history, Michael Franzese, who posed as a major Hollywood film producer so he could launder large amounts of stolen money.

His brilliance for inventing sophisticated scams made the Mafia over a billion dollars, until he was indicted on 65 counts of tax evasion, racketeering and grand theft. He struck a deal with the FBI and served seven years in prison.

Today Michael is trying to build a new life with his family in California. He has denounced the Mafia, but his father – one of the most notorious Mafia figures of all time, who is, today, the oldest federal prisoner in the entire US, at the age of 93 – is still a major figure in the Columbo crime family in New York.

Trevor is keen to understand whether it is ever possible to be a member of the mob and have a happy, family life, and meets Michael’s wife, Cammy, to hear things from her perspective.

Cammy explains how she didn’t know he was in the Mafia until after they were married, and that in the past she had fears Michael may be killed

And rounding off his journey into the world of the Mafia, Trevor also learns more about how the Mafia survives today, by travelling to Miami to meet a low level street enforcer for the Bonnano crime family in Miami, whose identity is concealed.

He has been in and out of prison all his life and explains his view that the Mafia has changed, with members now more likely than in the past to break their code of silence and testify against each other.. Amazon.com Widgets

Bonanno Family Readying for War? Probably Not....

Was Palazzolo set to take control of the
Bonanno family's Queens action?
Arrested yesterday was mobster John Palazzolo, 77, a reputed street boss of the Bonanno crime family's Bronx faction -- or at least he was; it appears he's been knocked down in rank.

Apparently the Feds found him committing a serious crime: having coffee with other wiseguys.... Well, we take liberties here. He was found "suspiciously meeting" other mobsters in the parking lot of a diner.

When wiseguys meet in the parking lot of a diner wouldn't they naturally act suspiciously? What exactly defines "suspiciously"? We had a little chuckle over this one. It sounds to us like whatever is left of the FBI working OC in New York is crying out for attention...

While freedom of assembly is a constitutional right, Palazzolo was violating his parole terms, a trick used to lock up wiseguys all over the place.

Pumping up the arrest with more juice and even a New York Daily News headline, the feds said they "feared the old gangster was conspiring to take over Bonanno operations in Queens — which could possibly unleash a wave of violence among rival factions."

Citing allegations of “a conspiracy to conduct a war to control the Bonanno crime family,” federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis ordered the ailing oldfella to jail pending a hearing next month."

Palazzolo was released in 2012. He served 10 years for attempted murder and is not allowed to meet with other mobsters.*

Despite his parole guidelines, surveillance found him "having a suspiciously long meeting in the parking lot of a diner in Bayside, Queens with “Fat Anthony” Rabito, a consigliere of the Bonannos."

He also met with "mob boss Michael “Mikey Nose” Mancuso" -- not really, Mancuso is three years away from departing federal prison. Palazzolo had actually met with a mobster with "ties" to Mancuso.
Tommy D doing the perp walk for Lufthansa...
The Nose hails from the Bronx, an entity unto itself, as we noted in Cosa Nostra News: The Cicale Files, Volume 1: Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire (about which our hero at GangLand News appears to be absolutely clueless). The borough is widely ignored by Mafiosi in all the other New York boroughs.

In the face of this supposedly looming Cosa Nostra street war, "a puzzled Garaufis" asked: "Is there still a leadership of the Bonnano family?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” said assistant U.S. attorney Nicole Argentieri.

Palazzolo recently had been knocked down by the family and was poised to make a move, the source added.

According to the article, the power struggle in the Bonanno family involves "another imprisoned mobster," which might be a reference to Thomas "Tommy D" DiFiore who was recently sentenced to 21 months. The Queens-based street boss was locked up as part of the great Lufthansa heist (though in the end he accepted a plea for loan sharking involving a mobster named "Vinny Car Wash.").


* We found an interesting story about Palazzolo's plight written in 2005 for The New York Sun by Jerry Capeci:

"Palazzolo, 67, who is charged with the May 29, 1991, murder of mobster Russell Mauro, was in court two weeks ago for a routine hearing regarding a potential conflict of interest that arose for his attorney, Flora Edwards, when her former client, Bonanno boss Joseph Massino, began to cooperate with the feds. 

If Massino were to testify for the government, Judge Garaufis explained, Palazzolo would have been at an extreme disadvantage because Ms. Edwards still owed loyalties to Massino. This meant she could not use any helpful information she had obtained from Massino, and would essentially be prevented from cross-examining Massino. 

With the ever-growing number of mob turncoats in recent years, potential conflicts have become common occurrences in organized crime cases. Defendants in similar situations discuss the possible pitfalls confidentially with court-appointed lawyers and then make a more reasoned determination to either retain a new attorney or waive any potential conflict of interest and proceed with the lawyer in question. 

Palazzolo was having none of that. 

After Judge Garaufis listed numerous pitfalls of continuing to retain Ms. Edwards, Palazzolo stated that he understood them, but wanted to waive any potential conflict and proceed with Ms. Edwards without discussing the matter confidentially with another lawyer the judge offered to appoint "free of charge." 

Prosecutor Greg Andres, obviously concerned that a conviction might later be overturned because Palazzolo had not consulted an attorney, suggested an adjournment to enable all parties to research whether the defendant's waiver would pass legal muster. 

"I think there's nothing else we could do today," Mr. Andres said. 

"I know what I am going to do today," Judge Garaufis said. "I'm directing the defendant receive a psychological evaluation to determine whether he's competent to waive anything. We'll start with that. I'm also going to appoint a guardian ad Litem for the defendant who will review the results of that to determine whether the defendant is capable of understanding what I'm asking him or whether he's under some duress.""

Shout out to Friends of Ours blog, which alerted us to this story today....
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Killing Alite (and Anyone in the Car With Him)

Alite was marked for death.
Bursts from two Uzis were going to blast John Alite apart in 1995. Anybody in the car with him was going to go, too. A longtime partner would play the Judas Goat.

The hit was arranged to take place at an auto-body shop in Queens at the intersection of Crossbay Boulevard and Redding Street. Alite's murder had been plotted down to the minutest detail....

This is only one such plot; no doubt there were others. The truth is, guys like Johnny Alite are not supposed to live this long. It's inconvenient for certain people. Today we see them trying to deny his existence. But when you speak to many of the guys who knew him back in his street days, like I have, a trend emerges. Some say the most outrageous and unbelievable things about John on social media. They are naive and misguided -- "useful idiots" -- though some have a specific agenda.

I know a small minority of you think I am pro-Alite. I say I am pro-truth.  One day, I like to think, an historian will stumble onto this blog, see the stories written here, and use them as his starting point....


We caught up with Stephen Newell a few weeks ago. He'd seen our story and had some corrections and amendments. Newell is an interesting person. He is mentioned in both Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia and Shadow of My Father.
John Alite shot him in the leg as part of a mob turf war over a large drug ring Alite operated in Queens. Because of the shooting, Carmine Agnello enlisted Newell in a plot to murder Alite. (Stevie had been a willing participant -- we incorrectly reported that he'd turned Carmine down.)

Bars in Alite's network either sold drugs outright or paid protection money, as did any dealers who wanted to keep dealing in any of the bars that fell under Alite's purview.
"I have firsthand knowledge of a lot of the bars we dealt in, not just Jagermeister -- we were the largest suppliers [of cocaine] in Queens," said Newell, who worked in Alite's ring.

Newell never knew John Junior, though he testified on his behalf. In return, John Junior labeled him in the eBook version of Shadow as a "law enforcement cooperator."
"I did Junior a solid," Newell said. "When a guy testifies for you to save your life, push you away from bodies, you do that back to him?"
"He says at one time I was a law enforcement cooperator, that I was a law enforcement cooperator that the defense had called.
Stevie Newell was willing to work his way up -- the hard
way. He agreed to hit Alite for Agnello.
"Where he got the info I have no idea. I tried to save his life and he puts that in his book."

Recently, Newell actually visited several of his criminal attorneys to see if there was any paperwork in his history that could have been misconstrued. His attorneys informed him there was nothing that could have conveyed an impression that Newell had ever been any kind of cooperator on any level.

"I was in touch with [Gotti] family members and he apologized through them. They told me he feels bad, he's sorry... that the info was given to him by a third party and he's going to correct this for the paperback."

Newell said he's saved copies of the messages he'd received from a Gotti family member.

"So I order the paperback when it's available and it's still in there."

Asked about the relationship between Alite and Junior, Newell said, "Alite, to my knowledge and from what I've seen, was Junior's right hand man."

"You'd see them together a lot. He always showed up at the PM Pub with John Alite."

Newell is no longer associated with the mob, hasn't been for more than a decade, and most of the gangsters he worked and hung around with are long gone, dead or in prison. The mob's presence has been largely reduced in neighborhoods such as Ozone Park, Woodhaven and Howard Beach. 
"That doesn't mean they're not around," Newell said. "You just don't see as many as often as you used to." 
In fact, GangLand News yesterday reported that Thomas "Monk" Sassano, 68, is now running the Queens-based crew once headed by Alphonse Trucchio, "a brash and relatively young capo once viewed as a rising family star." We noted previously that Trucchio, 38, had been busted down from capo to soldier, though Jerry Capeci reported that he may have been shelved, losing "all of his Mafia rights and privileges."

(Apparently, Trucchio had disrespected former Gambino consigliere Joseph "JoJo" Corozzo when they were codefendants awaiting trial.)

Though he is out of the life, Newell said he doesn't need any bogus information labeling him as a cooperator floating around on the street.

He still lives in Queens where he did when the events written about in today's books were actually happening.

---------
In 1995, Newell and Carmine Agnello were in the office of a junkyard Agnello owned in Queens.
Newell was walking with the aid of a cane. Weeks prior he'd been shot by Alite. Still, the cane was more of a prop that Newell didn't need. Agnello fixed his eyes on it, as Newell noticed.

"Lose that cane," he told Newell.

"I didn't need it. I was like, what the fuck am I doing? I tossed it," Newell told us.

Carmine directed his gaze at Newell, as if sizing him up. "He was looking at me and he said: 'You got any balls?'"

Newell knew immediately what Carmine was getting at.

"I never thought you'd ask," Newell responded.

This discussion sparked what was to be the hit on John Alite. Ultimately, there was never an attempt, but the planning was completed, the gunmen waiting for the call.

Newell had a few reasons to want Alite dead. First off, Alite had shot him in the leg, almost blasting off his testicles too.

Newell's strongest motive though was the oldest motive on the street.

"Alite was known as a badass tough guy. Privately in the mob world I would've been known as the guy who took out Johnny Alite. I felt I could move up and do things. I was thinking, maybe it was my time to shine.... Fugettaboutit!

"Then my brother gets arrested on Staten Island. He's in a wild chase, crashes into the train station. My brother was the reason the hit was called off."

"The FBI went to John's house to warn him. How do you think the FBI got the info in the first place?"

On that day in the junkyard when Stevie lost the cane, Agnello walked across the street to another junkyard where John Junior happened to be.
"Carmine comes back and says if we're gonna do it, then let's get it done."

From that day on, the two planned the murder of Alite.

Two vans were going to be used for the hit. Agnello would be in one. Carmine's brother, Mike, would be in a crash car.

A guy named Charlie was going to drive the van that Newell and his brother, each holding an Uzi, would be in.

"Carmine said it would go down in Queens at the intersection of Crossbay Boulevard and Redding Street."

The actual hit would occur on the grounds of a large towing company with a connected autobody shop. Someone important was going to set Alite up for the hit, Newell said he was told, knowing in his heart that this someone had to have been a made guy based on the careful instructions he'd been given.

"The guy that was gonna set up Alite was gonna keep his distance, Carmine told me. 'You'll know him when you see him. Don't shoot him. Under no circumstances are you to hit that guy.' It had to have been one of two guys," Newell said.

Gambino capo Ronald "Ronnie One-Arm" Trucchio was the guy who planned to set up Alite, Alite confirmed for us. Newell, to this day, still hadn't known the person's identity until I informed him. But Ronnie One-Arm was one of the two possibilities. The other was Charles Carneglia.

Newell was told, "If Alite shows up in a car with people in it, everybody in the car has to go."

After the hit, the vehicles and guns were to be shredded in a junkyard in Queens.

"Carmine asked me if I'd do it alone. I said that my brother would be with me. Carmine said, 'Then I  don't wanna know your brother.'"

There'd been brief discussion about Newell's brother positioning himself outside the van, but Carmine nixed it. He told Stevie once more, 'Remember, everybody in the car goes."

Vic Newell, Stevie's brother, gave up the plot before it could be executed.

Staten Island detectives got the info from him during an interrogation following his arrest after a car chase that ended in the crash. They relayed the threat to the FBI.

"This was my blood brother. When I found this out several years later I was devastated," Newell said. In 1999 when Newell was arrested on an unrelated charge, the Feds revealed the role his brother had played as an informer for them in the plot to kill Alite. They showed him the paperwork on his brother as part of another effort to flip him, which he also declined. (The first time, noted in the previous story, had been following his arrest over the murder of Bruce Gotterup; turning down the Fed's efforts to flip him, Newell took it to trial and won an acquittal. No mistrial for Newell.)

"Next thing I know, Carmine calls me up and tells me to come to the junkyard. I'd just been there, now I was in Staten Island and had to go all the way back to Queens."

"Me and him and Mike were talking in another junkyard. Carmine said the feds went to Alite's parent's house."

Alite, as noted in Georgia Anastasia's Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia, confronted Junior about the plot, bullshitting that the agents had played a tape recording of people discussing the hit for him, Alite.

Newell and Agnello believed they'd been caught on tape. In fact it wasn't until Anastasia's book came out this year that Newell realized Alite had made up the recording.

"Back then me and Carmine were backtracking where we could've talked on a bug."


We showed this story to John Alite prior to publication for his reaction (he had not known how developed the plot to murder him had been, although he had suspicions that Ronnie One-Arm was trying to set him up on more than one occasion).

His response:

"It's laughable that they're protecting Newell from.... Alite! And when he gets shot they ask that same person to do the work. They're too scared to do it themselves.

"It's ironic that the guy who testified isn't a rat but Gotti himself is one, but he doesn't write that about himself. Instead, he writes that Newell is a rat, the guy who saved Gotti's life."


This is one of the most interesting interviews I have seen yet...

In Danbury Prison, Albanians, Mobsters Fight It Out

Alex Rudaj, former boss of Albanian Mafia.
Jerry Capeci's GanglandNews today reports that "25 inmates — including five mobsters and two Albanian hoods whose names Gang Land has obtained," engaged in a "bloody jailhouse brawl"during leisure time in the rec room of the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, on Saturday, March 14.

Danbury, the article noted, is a low-security facility that houses 750 sentenced inmates.

Following the violent confrontation, everyone involved was "thrown into "the hole" after receiving stitches or treated for cuts, bloody noses and other non-life-threatening injuries."


Prison officials and the FBI are investigating but declined to confirm or deny the fight, the website reported.

Sources say the suspected mob pugilists included Colombo soldier Vito Guzzo, 50, Gambino mobsters Michael (Mikey Y) Yannotti, 51, Michael Roccaforte, 38, and Neil Lombardo, 59, and Bonanno wiseguy Robert Lino, 48.

Their primary victims, sources say, were Albanian gangsters Prenka (Big Frankie) Ivezaj, 49, and Nardino (Lenny) Colotti, an Italian-American hood who once ran with the Gambinos but defected and co-founded the violent gang of mostly Albanian heritage gangsters with Alex Rudaj in the 1990s. Colotti, 53, was with about six crew members during the riot. 

Sources say the fighting, which took place in an area that is constantly videotaped, stemmed from a beating early that morning that several Albanian gangsters gave to an older non-Italian inmate who is friendly with the wiseguys while he was asleep in his cell. .....

... Before the older inmate was attacked, the rival gangsters had been feuding about the allegiances of another inmate, who had ties to both groups, but whom the mobsters felt very strongly was "with them" and not the Albanians. The gangster, whom Gang Land was unable to identify, was "on the fence," but the wiseguys were adamant that he "belonged with them, not the other guys," said one source.

READ REST (WEBSITE IS PPV)


One Albanian gangster told Cosa Nostra News: "For sure we Albanians are serious, and in Europe we took over Milan and Bari. So we're pushing south. As we continue to migrate here, we will keep pushing them and become more organized. We do work -- all Albanians are workers. We're a violent people when we want to be."

The "Rudaj Organization" was named for Alex. Called "The Corporation" by its members, it started operating in 1993 in Westchester, then spread into the Bronx and Queens.

This Albanian Mafia shouldn't be confused with other iterations of the group, the FBI has noted.

Another Albanian Mafia, also highly active in the Bronx, apparently commenced operations in 2004, the same year the FBI cleared the Rudaj group off the streets before a bloody street war with the Luchese crime family could erupt.

The Feds gained intel from snitches and were compelled to arrest the group earlier than planned to prevent a potential bloodbath, according to an FBI source.
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Interview With "Mob Wives" Cast Member

This year Mob Wives really lived up to its tagline: Trust No One....
This year most of the drama on Mob Wives occurred off screen and after the season ended following a two-part reunion that got heated enough to make Vivica Fox weep. (It almost makes you forget she did a pretty good job kicking ass herself in Kill Bill. See pic--->.)

Since episode one, the major dynamic of the entire season was proclaimed loud and clear: this year it's all about the bitch called pay back that ultimately took the form of an implied major confrontation between Natalie Guercio and Natalie DiDonato.

But the big fistfight or shootout or whatever we all expected never happened. (Nor did we relish the thought of it. We don't like the idea of two women fighting.... we want women to act, well, womanly, not like dudes...And, yes, we did interview one of the cast members and we will get to her following some prefatory remarks.)









As OK Magazine put it, "the [final] episode fizzled into nothing more than another screaming match between the two ladies."

Furthermore, "Mob Wives vet Renee Graziano revealed that she purposely kept DiDonato from confronting Guercio in an attempt to keep the feuding pair from ruining the party she held to celebrate renewing her faith..."I kept telling her, ‘Don’t get up! This is my party. It’s a happy thing,'” Graziano recalled. “I tried to control it as much as I possibly could. I was trying to do the right thing in a situation that could have gone horribly wrong.”

Nice try, but we call bullshit.

Renee fanned the flames as aggressively as possible for the entire season, then used her phony baptism to distance herself from the monster she herself had created. We say this with no fear of contradiction.

Who staffs the show, sets the direction of the story lines and handles the editing? What is her last name? (Hint: Renee refers to this person as God.)

Why was the "baptism" juxtaposed à la The Godfather with the scene in which Natalie Guercio's fate was supposedly sealed?

We've been saying all along that the point of this season was to repair Renee's image by filling the show with as many Natalie Guercio-haters as possible. We're certain the "strategic" thinking went: destroy at all costs Natalie Guercio who somehow got so deeply under Renee's skin, Renee was forced to reveal her unflattering lunatic side during the infamous Las Vegas episode from season four.

Listen to the first reunion episode where Renee praises Karen Gravano for her loyalty, pegging it at 100 percent, when everyone else turned against her (meaning they were friendly with Natalie Guercio). Instead of trying to figure out why everyone turned against her, she got God to use an entire season of a reality show to get revenge.

So now, in true Renee fashion, Renee is actually trying to distance both herself and the show from ... the show, which makes sense to no one with a brain.

What happens when you base an entire season on petty vindictiveness, promise a payoff never delivered, and even leave a few tantalizing yet completely unnecessary loose ends? By loose ends we refer to whatever was going on between Drita D'Avanzo and Carla Facciolo, as an example. Something about talking to blogs? Of course it seemed Karen Gravano had her version of an answer -- the "elephant in the room" -- but the editor snipped it out.

"When did you make up with Renee?" Drita asks Carla, to which Renee answers, "We saw each other in the nail salon--I, honestly, I saw her and I was like--how are--"... Yes. Completely believable answer. But that is beside our larger point: Drita asked Carla, so why did Renee answer?

Drita's ice-cold, perfectly intoned retort, "Well then you made peace with everyone in your life Renee," is the one story line we'd truly like to hear more about.

We may be able to explain some of the unease between Drita and Carla (and Drita and Karen).

Longtime viewers of the show will recall that Ramona Rizzo, Carla and Karen left the show over money issues. Originally, Drita had joined with them. In other words, all four cast members had agreed to stand together and walk. No more money, no more cast.

But Drita changed her mind and broke the solidarity at the last moment, after the other three had walked... This is what we've heard.

Anyway, the bottom line of all this, the lack of an ending, etc., is that there is said to be some serious backstage concern about the fate of a sixth season for Mob Wives.

"Supposedly Jennifer Graziano knows she screwed up big time. They are worried if there will be a season six," one source told us.

So of course Renee is out there in full damage-control mode, blaming all the show's problems on the two girls from Philly. All that stuff between the two Natalies had gotten out of control! And it's not gonna happen again! Right, Renee... and the intertwining of the scenes of your baptism and Drita hearing a certain tape recording were just a chance of fate and not a deliberate nod to the Godfather....

Right about now we'd have said that in our opinion BOTH Natalies had been used by the producers of the VH1 reality show that is sort of about the mob, but not really at all about the mob. We would've said that -- but Natalie DiDonato wouldn't agree with us.

The editing process has long been the bane of reality stars and we've always wondered about storylines -- perhaps even entire people -- that we've heard were cut from the show.

We have now learned, following an exclusive interview with Natalie DiDonato, that viewers did indeed miss a key development that occurred during filming that would've helped to better define DiDonato's motive for the intense anger she displayed during season five's reunion against Natalie Guercio.

Natalie DiDonato 
Guercio referenced a horrific episode from DiDonato's past: when she was a child her stepfather sexually assaulted her, she told us.

DiDonato's experience on "Mob Wives" was generally positive nevertheless and she said she is quite pleased with how things turned out.

"I accomplished everything I wanted to," she said.


--------

DiDonato started talking with Jennifer Graziano about appearing on Mob Wives last May.

"They were looking for a new girl," she said. "New blood."

"None of the stuff with Natalie Guercio was brought up until we started filming."

Did they choose her specifically because they knew she'd put Guercio immediately on the defensive? Not really, she replied.

"They liked me for who I was. They knew I didn't like the girl and that I wouldn't get along with her but when we started filming in the beginning it was more about my life, what I did for a living, who I was.

"The other stuff gradually started working itself into the story line."

DiDonato expressed definite interest in appearing in season six if there is one.



---------


The feud between the two Natalies doesn't appear to have ended yet, either.

"She keeps trying to humiliate me," DiDonato said of Natalie G. "She works with a bunch of trolls. They put my address on social media. I don't give them a reaction because it is beneath me."

Nat. D. says one of her reasons for getting on the show was to clear the name of a friend of 15 years. Well, two friends, actually, but only one was really the show's focus.

"Natalie ratted on two friends of mine. Her reaction to my comment - she blew her top. So then I proceeded to carry on the way I did."

But the fact of the matter is: we, the viewers, missed quite a lot of background that ended up on the cutting-room floor, as Nat D. informed us.

Natalie G. found out about something that happened to Natalie D. at a young age involving her stepfather -- and brought it up on the show, which made Natalie DiDonato furious -- and probably left viewers a bit befuddled regarding the intensity of her anger.

"When I was a little girl, I went through a sexual assault case and Natalie brought this up during filming," DiDonato says.

"Natalie harassed me about it on the show. They cut it out -- they thought it was too awful to air."

Nat D. offered a sketch of her history with her stepfather, now serving a 30-year prison sentence.

"My stepfather blew my car up. Literally. It exploded minutes after I got out. There was dynamite found under the car."

Her stepfather, while in prison for earlier crimes, even tried to put a contract out on her life, she said. There were no takers. In fact it appears some Philly mobsters who heard about this somehow got word to the police. Immediately.

In addition to his murder plot and the dynamite, the stepfather also tried to shoot her. He stuck a loaded gun in her face. "He pulled the trigger but the gun misfired," DiDonato said.

But the assault at age 12 -- it was not rape, but close to it, Natalie said -- was probably the most devastating experience of her life. In fact, she decided it would be easier to keep it all under wraps. Her stepfather encouraged that thinking. "He threatened to murder my mother," DiDonato recalled. "I just decided to forgive and forget."

Natalie said that she spent most of her life looking over her shoulder on the verge of a nervous breakdown, as a result. Then eventually, she was able to find the inner strength to pull herself together.

"You can be a victim or a survivor," Natalie said. "I am not bitter. I don't say: Why me? I roll with the punches."

This, she said, is the first time she has told her story, and it would seem she is doing so for cathartic reasons.

She talks about how she never let that episode destroy her. She established herself in the real estate business, started working at one of the big six firms in Philadelphia. When she reached the age 20, Natalie was earning a nearly six-figure income.

Then, she was promoted. "I made management when I was 21," she said.

But something else happened to her that same year that brought back that awful incident from her childhood.

One evening, returning home following after-work drinks with friends, Natalie fell asleep on the couch in her home. She was abruptly awakened by her stepfather, who was on top of her aggressively trying to pick up where he had left off some 10 years prior. He'd been living in a halfway house at the time, and would end up back in prison.

His efforts had been fueled by a prefatory injection of cocaine into his neck vein, Natalie recalled.

"I got him off of me. Now I was going to keep everything a secret since I was 14. I never thought it'd happen again."

Then, last year shortly before filming began for Mob Wives "I get a phone call from a lieutenant," Natalie said.

This is how she learned her stepfather been seeking to hire a contract killer to take care of her for $5,000.

"He's demented, he's sick."

So Natalie Guercio, whether she knows it or not, is ripping open an old painful wound, as DiDonato tells it.

"Now I have to deal with people telling me that I made this up because my mother and me wanted him out of the house and we couldn't think of a way to do it. I would not make up a horrific story like that."

"This girl is a monster. This girl is a sick person."

The subject came up during the reunion -- and was hacked off by editors, according to Natalie D.

"Karen said to me: You know what, Natalie, you're a better person than me. Then Karen went off on her."

"There are lines you should never cross. I just said, Fuck it."

"The stage was like ice - I was in heels for eight hours and my feet were so swollen. But if I took my shoes off the security guys would know I was gunning for her.

"She tried to get out any which way. She was adamant about keeping me off the reunion show."

Natalie G. also targeted that ex-boyfriend, the one she supposedly was talking to on the tape recording, Natalie D. told us.

"She called his PO -- again. She tried to get him locked up. She is mentally warped. He is a sensible guy who wants nothing to do with her. He never touched her, either.

"If that was a bruise on her face it was makeup. My friend didn't do that to her."

"He has a family, a child. He had to file a restraining order against her. He didn't even want me to play the tape recording when I got on Mob Wives, but I told him to knock it off," she laughed.

What's important to her now, she said, was getting her story out.

"I can finally talk about it and not have a nervous breakdown."

As for the whole escalating feud between the two of them, Natalie D. said: "I only asked her to tell the truth.

"She made it so much bigger than what it was. Who gives a shit if you ratted on the guy, just tell the truth. She has an excuse for anything she does."


-----

DiDonato has a lot on her plate these days. She's been making appearances at parties/events at nightclubs as far away as Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

At the same time, she has managed to build a thriving business managing deejays. She has several in her stable and is always seeking to sign on some more. Her website is still under construction but we will post it when it debuts.

Charity work is a major part of her life. She spent last Thanksgiving and Christmas with her friends manning soup kitchens. On Thanksgiving Day alone, she and her friends fed more than 300 of South Philadelphia's indigent.

One upcoming event she's announced is the NatDGivesBack & Mercedes-Benz of Cherry Hill: Lisa Monterosso Charity Gala, which will take place on Saturday, March 28, 2015 at 8:00 PM and Sunday, March 29, 2015 at 12:00 AM (EDT) in Cherry Hill, NJ.

According to the website: "Join NatDGivesBack & Mercedes-Benz of Cherry Hill as they help raise awareness, and funds for Lisa Monterosso. Lisa was originally diagnosed with Cervical Cancer in 2009. After under going the procedure of a hysterectomy, she was cancer free for 5 years. Unfortunately, upon a visit to the ER in March of 2014, she was presented with the devastating news, that the cancer came back. Now a year later, Lisa is still one up in the fight against Cancer, but now she needs more support, and help. As the costs are tallying up for treatments, medications, and day to day expenses, she is unable to work due to medical leave.

"So by the end of the night, we hope to raise enough money for the next 6 months of expenses (Treatments, Medications, & Living Expenses) for Lisa Fight Against Cancer.

"Award Winning Event Design and Production Company "EVENT FX" will be the reason you are taken back in astonishment, as soon as you come through the door. They will be transforming the dealership into a chic, upscale, and glamorous oasis lounge setting.

"Mercedes-Benz Smart Car & A Live Painting by @mspassionart will be AUCTIONED off."

As for members of Mob Wives, Natalie Said she's invited Renee and Karen, so far.

We wonder if Renee will make an appearance.

"Wannabes" Star Helps Boost Brancato's Acting Career

Lillo Brancato to star in mob film alongside Alec Baldwin.
After spending eight years behind bars for his role in the killing of a city cop, Lillo Brancato, the actor known for his “A Bronx Tale” debut and a small recurring role in The Sopranos season two (he was one of the two guys who shot Christopher) has "landed a part in a boxing epic being filmed in Brooklyn and Staten Island."

The New York Post reported that Alec Baldwin, Danny Glover and Mike Tyson star in "Back in the Day," the story of a Bensonhurst youth who trains to be a prizefighter under the tutelage of a local mobster.

Not a single cliche in this one!

According to the Post, Brancato, 38, called the Hollywood role a “blessing” and gave all the credit to producer and star William DeMeo.

“I know a lot of people were nervous about hiring someone who had a tainted past,” DeMeo said. But “we didn’t care what other people think. I could tell deep down in my heart that he changed. I wanted to give him a second chance.”

Joe Viterelli
DeMeo played an even smaller recurring role in the Sopranos.

We remember DeMeo from his vanity mob flick "Wannabes." DeMeo somehow coaxed the venerable Joe Viterelli, who died in 2004, to appear in his film as the mob boss Santo (which is the only reason it's worth viewing). Known for his pug face and gruff voice, Viterelli made his 1990 acting debut playing a mob boss supposedly based on Roy DeMeo in the film State of Grace, a fine gangster film focused on the Irish Westies, which shot up Manhattan's West Side in the 1980s and 1990s under the Gambino family's flag. He appeared in many hit films, including Mickey Blue Eyes, Bullets Over Broadway and Analyze This, which really bought him to our attention.


 
Brancato met DeMeo in a battle to play a young and completely unbelievable version of Carlo Gambino in the forgettable 2001 made-for-TV film “Boss of Bosses” about Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano. Chazz Palminteri played the lead, though we always believed he should've used any excuse to get a script made in which he could play Vincent "The Chin" Gigante....

Brancato said he is thrilled to once again star in a major production and also work with former world heavyweight champ Tyson.

Art imitating life: Lillo himself was shot twice, but made out much betterthan his character on The Sopranos.

As reported, in December 2005, Brancato was charged with second-degree murder for his role in a burglary in the Bronx.

Off-duty police officer Daniel Enchautegui was killed in a shootout when he confronted Brancato and a former half-assed wiseguy nursing a drug problem. Brancato was subsequently acquitted of murder but was convicted of first-degree attempted burglary and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. 
Co-defendant Steven Armento, a former associate of the Genovese family who'd been shelved owing to his narcotics problem, was convicted of firing the fatal shot. The two had broken into the apartment of a deceased acquaintance to pilfer drugs they believed were still stashed in the rental unit.

Brancato, 37, paroled in January 2014, told the NY Daily News that the slaying of the NYPD officer was never far from his thoughts.

The New York Post reported in 2013 that Brancato had beaten a fellow inmate at an upstate prison because he wouldn't cut short a phone call to his wife.

On the night of Jan. 26, the jailed actor decided he was tired of waiting in line in a rec room at the Oneida Correctional Facility. First he started badgering petty thief Alvaro Hernandez, who refused to cut short his conversation with his wife.

Hernandez, 39, says Brancato jumped him and gave him a beating.

“He thinks he runs the place, like he’s God’s gift to this earth. He tells me, ‘Hang up the phone! I gotta use the phone!’ ” Hernandez said.

“He forces open the door and spits at me, and he’s punching me in the face and on the head.”

Other inmates, including Steven Molinaro, 22, grandson of Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, intervened, and Hernandez was taken to the prison nurse.

After an investigation, Brancato, 33, lost phone and commissary privileges and was “T-blocked” — confined to his cell for 23 hours a day for a month.

The Rome prison typically houses about 400 inmates.
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CLICK HERE To Watch Mafia with Sir Trevor in the US

Sir Trevor hosts two-part series on the mob.
We got the link -- for real. Here it is -- ready?

CLICK HERE  for  The Mafia with Trevor McDonald Episode 1
Sir Trevor McDonald seeks to show viewers the "reality" and not the "mythology" of the Mob on the program.

Episode One kicks off with John Alite and Michael Franzese, as well as Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo, who speaks here publicly for the first time since providing his damaging testimony. He lives in constant fear of Mafia reprisal.

In one scene, DiLeonardo drives Sir Trevor down the one block of Little Italy that remains, Mulberry Street, to offer a passing glimpse at the place where he was formally inducted into the Gambino crime family on December 24, 1988.


"It was a very proud day in my life," DiLeonardo recalls of the night he was made alongside John Junior Gotti in a ceremony conducted by Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano standing in for John Gotti.

Sir Trevor starts to speak -- when DiLeonardo abruptly turns his head away from the sidewalk outside the driver's side window and notes that two Luchese crime family members are sitting at a table in front of a restaurant, not far from where the car is stopped at a redlight.

DiLeonardo exited the Witness Protection Program and remains secretive about where he lives, not even revealing his address to the producers of the ITV show. He'd only agree to meet them in a palatial hotel room in Miami.

"You never feel safe, you don't dwell on your past," he notes.

His paramount fear: "Death for myself but also my family."

He says if the mob came for him, they wouldn't care who was in his house or car with him when they kicked the door in and blasted. This is why DiLeonardo claims to only sleep three to four hours a night at most for the past 12 years.

In addition, "my conscientious bothers me," he tells Sir Trevor, noting that he struggles with the "damage I have done." Also "my legacy, what I was born into and gave up..."

DiLeonardo's forebears were among the originators of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and arrived in America to found the Black Hand organization.

Watching him as he speaks, it seems clear that this former capo truly fears the Mafia; not as some abstract notion nor as a glossy fictional construct. He truly fears dying from bullets blasting into his skull.

This, he notes, is not a question of if, but when.

"I told my wife if I get killed, don't get mad at anybody," he says."She said you're out of it.... I am never out of that life. It's their job to find me and kill me."

"I chose this, I chose the consequences."

Exclusive Interview with Member of Mob Wives....

Who did we speak to?
We spoke with one of the cast members of Mob Wives today and will post the interview tomorrow today, Wednesday.Amazon.com Widgets

We'll include some input from a couple of anonymous sources, but the major thrust of the article will be attributed to the lady with whom we spoke today.....


Nope, we're not saying who it is -- but we will identify her in the story tomorrow, because, yes, the interview is on the record....