GOMORRAHTHENEWMAFIA
For many years the assumption inside New York City and other cities is that the Mafia is dead, names like John Gotti Jr, Carmine Persico, Matty Madonna, Vincent the Chin Gigante, Joey Merlino, Raymond Patriarca, these were dinosaurs dismantled by federal law enforcement and decimated by criminal informants or rats, that
can’t be farther from the truth, not ONLY IS THE MAFIA STRONGER THAN EVER, the leaders of the FIVE FAMILIES have GONE BACK TO THEIR OLD WAYS, NO CELL PHONES, COMPUTERS, LAYERS OF SOLDIERS BETWEEN THE LEADERS AND THE STREET, the old ADAGE: NO ONE TALKS EVERYBODY WALKS.
WHO SAID THE MAFIA IS DEAD?
Over the course of the last ten years, there have been major mafia trials inside the Southern and Eastern District courts, in Philadelphia, and even Las Vegas. These trials and stories give a new twist to the old-school mafia tales, it combines the savvy old guard of the Mafia heyday of the 1980s, with a mix of the new school breed of gangster, raised on the Internet, and a vicious code of violence.
THE STORIESNOTORIOUS&CASES
ALL ACCESS
New York City and The New Mafia has access to ALL of the famous federal mafia cases of the last ten years, and exclusive access to mafia figures working the streets, defense attorneys, judges, prosecutors, and family members entrenched in the “life” to give a new spin on what has always captivated viewers.
For more than 45 years, including the terror-filled last year of his life, Sylvester (Sally Daz) Zottola paid "tribute" to the mob. The money was to buy protection against anyone trying to muscle him or his vending machine business. But when the 71-year-old veteran of the tough streets of the Bronx was being confronted by gunmen, assaulted, and stabbed, the Bonanno and Luchese families he had paid for years ignored his plight, Gang Land has learned.The only gesture of sympathy for Zottola's dilemma came from ex-acting Bonanno boss Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano who is serving a life sentence. In taped talks from prison that Basciano had with Sally Daz and his son Salvatore, he told the Zotollas he would "make some calls" to "friends" on the street for them. But the help never arrived. Basciano's Bronx-based successor, current Bonanno boss Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso, ignored the desperate longtime associate of his crime family.
THE STORIES:SALLY DAZ
In late ‘17 & early ‘18, Sally Daz had survived three attacks, including a stabbing. In June of 2018, a gunman showed up in front of his Bronx home. Sally Daz fired a shot at the gunman, who fled. His son Salvatore hired a private security firm to protect his dad. This week, the would-be assassin, Ron Cabey, testified about his role in that assault at the trial of Zottola's other son, Anthony, who is charged with plottting to kill his dad to take over his $45 million real estate empire.
THE BARNEYSTORIES:BELLOMO
He’s the most powerful Mafia boss in the country, the leader of the Genovese crime family, the so-called Ivy League of Organized Crime. Liborio (Barney) Bellomo has prospered as other bosses have faded away. One reason for his mob success? He stays beneath the radar. But in a rare photo, obtained exclusively by Don Sikorski, the mob kingpin is seen celebrating his 65th birthday, with several top members of his brugad. The party took place on Jan 8, ‘22 at Gigante in Eastchester, a fouryear-old upscale Italian ristorante run by Louis Gigante, a nephew of Vincent (Chin) Gigante, the late Genovese boss. The locale is appropriate since it was the legendary Chin Gigante who singled him out as an up-and-coming mobster and tabbed him as his acting boss back in 1989. That was when the Chin learned he was likely to be hit with racketeering charges. As he closes in on a decade as the leader of the so-called Ivy League of Organized Crime, though, Bellomo is virtually an “invisible man” to the reduced contingent of FBI agents and other law enforcers who monitor the goings on of the crime family. Bellomo lives in the Bronx, on City Island, not in a tony suburban enclave “He’s still the same old Barney, “He has nothing is in his name, don’t waste your time looking,” he said. “Not a car, not a lease, not a place where he lives.”
THE STORIES:THE MUSH
The arrest of Andrew (Mush) Russo, the Mafia boss who was detained at the federal lockup in Brooklyn along with a gaggle of Colombo mobsters and a Bonanno family soldier. Russo, his underboss, his consigliere, and seven other gangsters named in a racketeering case that alleges a 20yr long extortion of a Queens construction workers union were rounded up and jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in September of 2021 after an FBI probe that received some important help from a snitch who used to sing on Broadway and at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Also detained as violent and dangerous mobsters were three Colombo capos, including Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico, the nephew and heir apparent to the late boss Carmine (Junior) Persico, and Vincent (Vinny Unions) Ricciardi, the accused architect of the decades-long extortion of the president of Local 621 of United Construction Trades & Industrial Employees Union.
(Carmine Pizza) Polito. The feds say his underlings, Salvatore (Sal the Shoemaker) Rubino and Joseph (Joe Box) Rutigliano
THE STORIES:THE GAMBLINGGENOVESEDEN
The feds say a gaggle of Bonanno and Genovese gangsters joined forces to run a “lucrative illegal gambling operation” at the Gran Caffe Gelateria in Lynbrook Long Island, where you could also get dozens of flavors of gelato along with espresso and the Italian pastry of your choice. That ended
“collected the proceeds for the Genovese crime family and distributed them up to higher ranking members.”
with the arrests of eight suspects and the filing of two indictments that also charge the Bonannos with using a corrupt detective to play dirty with their Genovese cohorts. The Genovese family half of the operation was allegedly headed by capo Carmelo
Pasqua III about mob violence and the Meldish murder “undermine” the government’s contention that the killing was ordered by Luchese leaders Matthew Madonna and Steven (Stevie Wonder)
The lawyers also wrote that 33 recorded prison phone calls by inmate David Evangelista that they received after the trial, would have discredited his uncorroborated testimony and led to a different verdict. The recordings show he was dealing drugs in prison and had “schemed to withdraw his guilty plea” by lying that “his lawyer tricked him into taking the plea” and had “threatened (to implicate) his mother and other family
members” in crimes “if they did not do what he wished.” In a 121-page court filing, the attorneys argue that the “public statements” by Pennisi and Pasqua “on multiple podcasts” and the phone calls that were recorded while Evangelista was at the Metropolitan Detention Center in 2017 are “newly discovered evidence” that warrants a new trial for the quartet.
Crea and carried out by mob underlings Terrence Caldwell & Christopher Londonio.
Citing numerous podcast accounts by mob turncoats about the gangland-style slaying of Purple Gang leader Michael Meldish that contradict important testimony by a federal investigator, defense lawyers are seeking a new trial for four convicted Luchese gangsters.The lawyers also cited dozens of tape recordings of a key jailhouse informer that weren’t provided to the defense until a year after the verdict in their request for a new trial from White Plains Federal Court Judge Cathy Seibel. The attorneys argue that numerous post-trial remarks by cooperating witnesses John Pennisi and Frank
THE STORIES:THE PURPLE GANGMURDER
The attorneys argue that Pennisi’s assertion that he plotted to kill John Gotti Jr. and that he had the right to do so as a made man, undercuts the “expert testimony” by a federal mob buster that was cited in the prosecution’s closing remarks in order to convince the jury “that the Luchese family hierarchy had to approve” the Meldish rubout and were thus guilty of murder.
A long-running investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office into alleged labor racketeering activity by a Staten Island-based Gambino crime family capo and more than a dozen construction companies, is heating up after a year-long, COVID-19 induced delay. Prosecutors with the DA’s Construction Fraud Task Force began presenting evidence linking capo Frank Camuso to extortion, bid-rigging, bribery, obstruction of justice and money laundering to a special rackets grand jury. Testimony on the four-year-long probe
“They shake down the builders for two percent to guarantee them quality contractors, and then they go back to the contractors and get two percent more from them for the service they provide,” said the source. In addition to Camuso, say the DA’s task force is investigating alleged labor racketeering by Anthony Rinaldi, the CEO of the Rinaldi Group, a Secaucus NJ based builder with numerous ongoing projects in New York, New Jersey and Florida. They are also investigating a former Rinaldi employee, mob associate Robert (Rusty) Baselice, and a reputed Camuso underling, Louis Astuto, and have obtained financial records from several companies they control.
In their 1986 trial, seven wiseguys were found guilty of demanding a 2% fee from all Manhattan construction projects greater than $2 million. The group headed by Camuso “works both sides of the street,” said one investigative source.
THE STORIES:THE RACKETS
began several weeks ago and is expected to wrap up before Labor Day. The sources say Camuso, 57, part-owner of a popular Staten Island restaurant called Bella Mama Rose, is the driving force behind a major extortion and bid-rigging scam.
Evidence shows, that the shakedown fees in the kickback scheme are double those collected in the historic Mafia Commission case that ended with 100 year prison terms for several mob bosses and other mobsters in 1987.
Mob defector John Pennisi, who has testified at three major racketeering trials against wiseguys from two crime families, now says he plotted to whack an old buddy — John A. (Junior) Gotti — for disrespecting him following his April 2013 induction into the Luchese crime family. Pennisi, who shot and killed a neighborhood rival in 1989 when he was cutting his teeth as a young apprentice gangster under the erstwhile Junior Don, says the planned hit was okayed by Gotti’s former Gambino crime family cohorts. “There’s nothing to do with us, do what you want,” the family’s consigliere said, according to Pennisi. Pennisi states that he planned, along with several Luchese wiseguys, including the current family underboss, to ambush Junior outside a Long Island restaurant.
THE STORIES:THE PLOT TOKILL JUNIOR
THE STORIES:THE CEREMONY
The Philadelphia mob has been called the “most dysfunctional Mafia family in America.” But if the wiseguys in the City of Brotherly Love tend toward screw-ups, so do the G-Men and women who chase them. That’s the only conclusion to draw from the inability of the FBI and the Philadelphia U.S Attorney’s office to agree on the date of the tape-recorded induction ceremony of the crime family that is the linchpin of the racketeering case against underboss Steven (Handsome Stevie) Mazzone and 14 others. The seven-count indictment states that the “making ceremony” involving Mazzone, his brother Salvatore and capo Domenic (Baby Dom) Grande took place in South Philadelphia on October 15, 2015. But a government transcript of the induction rite that was obtained by Gang Land states clearly in two places that the ceremony took place four days earlier, on October 11th 2021.
Philadelphia mob chieftain Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino has been called many things over an underworld career that stretches across four decades. But in his heart Merlino, 55, sees himself as a guy who likes to place bets. “I’m a gambler,” Merlino said shortly after finishing up a 14-year prison sentence for racketeering back in 2012. “That’s not illegal. I like to bet. Merlino is betting that he can beat federal
By January, Skinny Joey might be the last man standing. A case
that started out with great fanfare — trumpets blaring and drums pounding, in a government press release announcing the takedown of the then unheard of East Coast LCN Enterprise — has turned out to be more sound than substance. Most of the mobsters caught up in the flawed investigation jumped at the opportunity to take plea deals. Merlino, on the other hand, is not interested. I’m not pleading guilty.”
prosecutors who, on paper at least, indicate they are prepared to take him to trial in 2021 in a massive racketeering conspiracy case that has come apart at the seams. By the time the jury is seated in Judge Richard J. Sullivan’s courtroom in Manhattan, most of the 46 defendants who were charged back in August 2016 have taken plea deals.
THE MEETSPHILADELPHIASTORIES:NEWYORK