Mafia Slip-and-Fall: A Prison Ping Pong Lawsuit

Life in the mafia is never boring and sometimes it is even humorous.  

There was a time when made Colombo soldier Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli was well respected on the streets. He is alleged to have participated in at least eight murders over the years, including that of of a police officer. The police officer’s name was Ralph Dols, and he was murdered because his wife’s ex-husband, Joe Cacace, was a jealous man.  

He also helped chase down one of the makers of the film Deep Throat, Joseph Peraino Sr., along with his son Joseph Jr. This confrontation took place in a Gravesend Brooklyn neighborhood.  Tommy Shots blasted the father and son, and also a former Nun named Veronika Zuraw who was completely innocent. As a result, Veronika and Joseph Jr. were both killed and Joseph Sr. was paralyzed.

Tommy Shots was rewarded for his lifetime of crime in 2004, when he was upped to Street Boss of the Colombo family.

In 2014 he was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison, where he has been crying ever since.  

He was given the nickname Tommy Shots because he survived getting a bullet in his shoulder and in his stomach.  The man who took two bullets is now suing the government for ten million dollars after slipping and falling while playing a game of ping pong in prison.

He filed the negligence lawsuit after his slip and fall, blaming the injury on a wet floor in the Metropolitan Detention Center.  The obese Tommy Shots slipped and fractured his kneecap.  

Here is another good one.  The grandson of the late Gambino boss John Gotti, was arrested last year twice for dealing drugs.  He was pulled over in what has been called a traffic stop for tinted windows.  He was caught with a couple hundred pills and over $7,000 in cash.  Then the police busted him in the former Howard Beach home where his grandfather used to live.

In that bust they confiscated over $200,000 and 800 pills.  They also caught him (just like his grandfather) on a bug, bragging he sold over a $100,000 a month in pills and $1.6 million overall.

This week the whole ordeal came to a conclusion when John Gotti took a plea deal for 8 years with 5 years of supervised release.  He also gave up any claims to the seized cash.

He now joins the ranks of his family before him, heading to prison.

Joe Bilotti: Old School Gambino

It was just before 6pm on December 16, 1985 when the black Lincoln pulled up and parked in front of Sparks Steak House in Manhattan.  The streets were busy, but four men dressed in trench coats and fur hats moved with purpose.  The passenger was Paul Castellano, the boss of the Gambino crime family.  As he stepped out of the car, the men opened fire on him. The driver emerged and ducked a little to look towards Paul before he was shot in the back.

The forgotten man was Tommy Bilotti, Castellano’s driver and the new underboss of the family.

Tommy had a brother named Joe that passed away last week.  Joe was real Cosa Nostra, not like the clowns that run around playing the role in Brooklyn and Staten Island.  Guys who were in the life consider Joe the ultimate wiseguy. He kept a low profile, both before his brother Tommy was murdered by John Gotti’s crew and after.

The Billotti brothers were both known as tough guys with their hands.  They used that fear to build up a massive gambling business.  This proved a natural segway into their next business, which was loansharking.  They both prospered because of their talent as businessmen.

One of the men on record with Tommy was a man named Joe Watts, a childhood friend who grew up with the Bilottis in the South Beach section of Staten Island.

Joe Watts was known as “the German” because he was part German.  He managed the loan shark business for Tommy until Tommy was gunned down outside Sparks Steakhouse.

John wanted to get rid of Paul Castellano and Tommy Bilotti because he was caught up in the web of a heroin trafficking case and pure greed. Gotti and a few others plotted to take over the family, but they were not sure when to do it.

One plan was to put plastic down in the Watts home and invite Tommy over and murder him.

Then another man would take Tommy’s place as Paul's driver and murder him.

Instead, they settled on the midtown Manhattan spectacle.

Once Tommy was murdered, Sammy Gravano, the man who would later become John Gotti’s underboss, met with Joe Bilotti at a diner.  He told Joe that his brother’s murder was just business.

Joe Watts was urging John Gotti Sr. to murder Joe also, lest he seek revenge.  Joe agreed that he would accept it and not cause trouble.

John Gotti rewarded Joe Watts with Tommy’s loansharking book/business and it made him a millionaire.  No wonder Joe Watts was in on the murder of the boss.  He was one of the shooters.  Joe Watts might have made some money and had a few good years but he has been locked up for years.

In 2011 Joe Watts was handed another prison sentence of 13 years for his participation in another murder. At 69 years old who knows if he will see freedom.

Joe Billotti outlived John Gotti.  He was able to see him go away after Sammy Gravano helped team USA put him away.  Gotti would die inside, never again a free man.

He continued to take part in Gambino family business.  He was seen meeting with members of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra family in Florida in recent years.

Joe was a successful guy who most people don't know had a cigar factory in the Dominican Republic.  

So we say goodbye to another old timer who lived the life.

Informants and Law Enforcement

The FBI has used informants and the RICO statute to rip the guts out of the mafia in recent years. Why do they need informants?

The mafia was almost untouchable until the 1980’s because they had a structure with a defined chain of command.  The FBI or the local police would make a case and they would mostly get the low hanging fruit: soldiers or associates, occasionally a capo.

Then they started using a four pronged attack plan to go after the mafia: 1) informants 2) electronic surveillance 3)RICO and 4) witness protection.

They would use RICO to enhance sentences, seize assets and take down members who for a long time were almost immune to prosecution.  Decades long sentences made guys think twice about keeping their mouths shut.  

There are two kinds of informants. One flips when he is already awaiting trial.  He will testify at the trial of his co-defendants and others.  Another is an informant that agrees to help law enforcement gather proof of crimes by wearing a wire and gathering intelligence.  Both kinds of informants can be of immense help to law enforcement because of their historical knowledge and unique access to the group. They can give valuable insight into the types of crimes and the M.O. of the people being investigated.  They can can give layouts and details about places that will be bugged.  They can get and give up cell phone numbers that are used for crimes.

Then law enforcement began to master electronic surveillance.  They use pen registers to figure out what numbers are frequently called by a target.  With that knowledge and other information from informants they can obtain a wiretap and begin listening in on criminal conversations.  In the old days they would have to put a device in the phone or tap into the actual wires.  Most of the wires they use are not transmitters but recorders that last 10 hours or more. They are so small they can fit inside a watch.  They had remote video cameras all over because they are cheap and small. Today they just serve a warrant to your carrier and its done.  

Then comes RICO, which allows them to charge people with crimes that they may have already served time for in the past.  All they have to prove is that you committed them in concert with the organization.  They can seize assets that you gained or were used in crimes. This hit the mafia hard because guys would do the time and come back to economic ruin.

All of this would have not been so effective if not for the WITSEC or witness relocation program.  If you would just be left on street to be killed you might as well do the time.  The program offered a new life, new name and a new place to call home.  This is one of the most effective tools in law enforcement's arsenal against organized crime.

They do let some bad guys off with short sentences but they believe the long term good for society more than makes up for it. There are some bad apples that return to a life of crime, but most just live out their lives.  This aspect of law enforcement is very different in the United States than it is in Europe where they rarely use informants.  When they do, they refer to them as infiltrators and they do not provide WITSEC.

This week in Florida Governor Rick Scott and the clemency cabinet agreed to commute Kevin Bonner’s sentence.  Bonner had cooperated against the Gambino family in the Florida case 10 years ago.  He testified that John Gotti Jr. stabbed Danny Siva to death at the Silver Fox bar in Queens in 1983.  The jury chose not to convict Junior Gotti for that crime or a host of others.  

The FBI and the US Attorney's office went to bat for Bonner.  They all sent letters and some testified.  One of his letters was from Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General of the United States.

Bonner did not commit the murder with the Gambinos, but he was around them.  

You decide, are informants good?

The Gotti Follies

The name Gotti brings to mind the image of John Gotti as boss of the Gambino crime family, dressed in a two thousand dollar suit.  The public doesn’t understand the lasting negative effect John Gotti Sr. had on the Gambinos.  The truth is, John Gotti Sr. helped the feds weaken the crime family through his actions.

The Gambino family had a lot of crews in multiple states.  John Sr. started making all his capos check in every week at the Ravenite club in Little Italy. This made it easy for the law to keep tabs on who was doing what.  He held meetings inside an apartment above the club that the Feds had wired up.  He bragged, and they caught him on tape.  Sammy Gravano, the family underboss, flipped to team USA.

John Sr. went away for life and he left his son John Jr. as the acting boss.  Junior would later talk to the Feds when he had a proffer session.   He gave up guys for crimes.

Then his daughter Victoria had a reality show, “Growing up Gotti.” Today, they are shooting a movie about John Gotti.  I wonder if they will include anything about Gotti’s neighbor, John Favara, a hard-working man who “disappeared” after accidentally hitting and killing Gotti’s son Frank, who at the time he was hit was driving an illegal mini bike and not obeying basic traffic rules.

There is Gotti news in 2016.  John’s brother Gene, who did many years for dealing heroin, will be up for release soon.  

John Gotti Sr.’s grandson, John Gotti, the son of Peter Gotti, was arrested on June 30th for possessing 205 Oxycodone pills, Testosterone, Xanax, Marijuana and 18 methadone pills. He also had over $7k in cash on him along with the drugs, and was arrested while driving with a suspended license.  

On August 4th the NYPD concluded Operation Beach Party with the raiding of the former Queens home of John Gotti Sr., where his grandson John Gotti lived with his father Peter. The NYPD found a safe with $40k and over 500 Oxycodone pills inside.  They also raided the Rebel Ink Tattoo parlor and arrested seven other people involved in the drug crew.  The NYPD seized $200k from one of the players, who was said to be holding it for John Gotti.

Grandson John Gotti is now in a Rikers Island drug rehab where he awaits trial. A judge denied his bid to be freed on a $2 million bond because he is facing 25 years if convicted.

That is not all of the recent news in the Gotti saga. Victoria Gotti had her Long Island mansion raided by the IRS on September 14th. They also raided an Auto Parts store in Queens owned by her ex-husband Carmine Agnello, a made member of the Gambino family who is awaiting trial in Cleveland, Ohio where he ran some scrap yards.  The store is currently being run by Victoria and her three sons, who were all reality stars in her show.

Agnello, now divorced from Victoria, is facing charges for his part in a stolen car ring.

The Gottis are not keeping a low profile, although that seems like the best thing to be doing in their situation. Last year a tape was played in the trial of Vincent Asaro, a Bonanno family capo.  Asaro was inside the auto parts store when one of the Gottis said hello to him.

To continue the life of crime with the Gotti name seems crazy.

30 years after the Rise of John Gotti

30 years is a long time, and on the street it is even longer.  Things change fast in the criminal world.  In 1985 the world was just starting to learn about Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel. When most people thought of the mafia, Don Corleone came to mind.

There soon would be another name that everyone would know.  It was John Gotti, a gambling-addicted street thug from Queens, New York.  Gotti was a capo in the Gambino crime family, having taken over the crew of the Fatico Brothers.  The problem was, his brother Gene and his best friend Angelo Ruggiero were dealing heroin on a massive scale.  They had inherited the business from Angelo’s brother Sal, who died in an airplane crash while on the run from the Feds.  

The boss of the Gambino family was Paul Castellano, and he had a rule against dealing drugs.  It is funny because he still gladly took the cash from Gotti’s crew and other heroin dealers in the family. Paul was more of a white collar criminal and had made millions with his legitimate businesses.

Gotti was strictly blue collar, a meat and potatoes street guy.  He had been away for hijacking and murder.  He had a huge gambling habit and his headquarters were the Bergin Hunt and Fish club on 101st Avenue Ozone park Queens. A small place that probably never saw a hunter of animals in its membership rolls. The truth was, Paul Castellano was afraid of John Gotti and what he represented. Paul was what the mafia should have been and Gotti was its past.

John Gotti had big plans and Paul Castellano was standing in the way.  Paul was on trial and was facing a lot of time. Paul's underboss had died and he named his driver, Tommy Bilotti, as the new underboss.  This did not sit well with Gotti and the family.  So John Gotti put together a hit team that would deal with the Paul Castellano problem.

The hit team dressed in matching coats and Russian fur hats and as soon as Paul stepped out of his car they made their move.  It was over in seconds with Paul  Castellano and Tommy Bilotti lying dead in the street.  

John Gotti was watching as they were gunned down.  Thomas Gambino, a capo in the family and son of the late boss, watched as his cousin was gunned down in front of the steak house.

The hit changed everything for the mafia.  They stopped being a mythical criminal enterprise and they became front page.  

John Gotti soon held a meeting of all the capos and they voted him in as boss.  He had broken every rule of the mafia by killing his boss.  He did not have permission from the commission or any of the four other New York families.

The hit took place in Midtown Manhattan on a busy street as hundreds of people walked nearby the scene.  This made Gotti a household name. It also pushed the FBI to make an all out push to take down the mafia.  

They hit it hard and Gotti would die in prison.  The other families were hit just as hard.

Things had to change or they would not survive.  

Gotti had moved his headquarters from Queens to Little Italy.  He held court daily in the Ravenite Social club.  

I've spoken to guys in Nicky Corozzo’s crew and they used to disappear when Nicky went to the Ravenite. Nobody wanted the heat that came from a trip to the club.  Gotti made it easy for the FBI.  He had his capos come to the club on a weekly basis.

Today the Ravenite is no more.  It is now a high end shoe store.  Gotti died in prison and his son John Gotti Jr. went in and flapped his lips to the Feds when he was queen for a day.

The Bergin Hunt and Fish Club is vacant after a failed Italian Ice place took over.

The Gambino family is now run by secretive Sicilians that never meet at clubs.

The family uses diners at three in the morning for its meetings.  You will no longer see guys in 2000 dollar suits.  It's a jeans and t-shirt club that must stay secret if it is to survive.

The Junk Mine - Carmine Agnello

Carmine Agnello is the former husband of Victoria Gotti and the father of 3 boys who starred in the reality show, “Growing up Gotti.”  A more appropriate title would have been, “Growing up Agnello,” but the public doesn’t have a fascination with Agnellos.

Carmine had to really love Victoria and/or fear her father, John Gotti.  Legend has it he was beaten and shot in the ass by some guys John Gotti Sr sent after him because of something he did to Victoria.  He ended up marrying her in a wedding that was attended by 1500 of their closest friends like something out of a B movie.

Carmine ran a junk yard in Willets Point, Queens and he virtually dominated the scrap metal business in the area. That was because Carmine's father-in-law, John Gotti Sr, became the boss of the Gambino Family and Carmine was inducted into the family.  

Carmine brought in huge amounts of money for Organized Crime.  In the 1990’s there were over 50,000 cars stolen in and around New York City.  It became such a problem that local law enforcement set up special squads to combat this problem.  They succeeded, but the business itself changed.

Carmine started with Jamaica Auto Salvage at 20 years old where he learned to strip cars of their parts and send the rest to metal dealers who bought the metal from him.

This brought him to where he was.  By the 2000’s New York Shredding was the biggest scrap metal wholesaler in the state.  It brought in over 250k a week.  Carmine was helped along by a deal he had with Caterpillar.  They provided the equipment and purchased his scrap.  

The hitch is Carmine needed a steady supply of scrap metal.  The NYPD set up a fake auto salvage where they paid more than he did per car and it put a dent in his operation.  He threatened them and had their place firebombed. A lot of this was caught on tape.

He would end up taking a 9 year sentence and making a 10 million dollar payment to the Government for his crimes.  During that time he got divorced from Victoria Gotti and his father-in-law John Gotti Sr passed away while incarcerated.

Carmine had a fresh start and while he was in prison he met a new woman named Danielle who he later moved to Cleveland to start a new life with away from Queens and the Gambino Family.

He started a towing company called Charity that hauled autos that were donated to charity.

He started a new scrap business and an auto parts place.  Life seemed to be on the right track for Carmine.

That was until July of this year when Cleveland Ohio District Attorney announced that Carmine was arrested in an operation they called Operation Goodfella where he was the target.  

They claimed that he was injecting racehorses he owned with performance enhancing drugs.  They also claimed that he was up to his old tricks in the salvage business.  

They claim he made upwards of 3 million dollars in a scam where he sold crushed cars full of sand to wholesalers.  They claim he was also buying stolen cars from thieves around town.

Carmine, not one to sit on the sidelines. has already struck back at the locals by filing a lawsuit against the locals that says they seized his property just to put his company's Eagle 1 and Eagle 2 out of business.  He claims in the suit that they raided his businesses for evidence of his doping racehorses and money laundering yet they took car crushers. heavy equipment, forklifts and many other pieces of equipment that he needs to do business.

It is always amazing to me when a guy like Carmine gets a second chance at life outside of the mafia.  A guy who left New York with money and a new wife and a fresh start.  

Well, it appears he fell into his old ways.  Time will tell.   Where there's smoke, there's fire.  

We will see where this will go.

Danny Marino, Gambino Capo

Danny Marino has lived a charmed life as mafia royalty.  Danny was born into the Gambino crime family.  Danny’s uncle was Gambino family Capo Carmine Lombardozzi, known as the “King of Wall Street.”   Carmine brought in a huge amount of money for the Gambinos through stock fraud and shylock loans.  He had been one of those arrested, along with Paul Castellano, at the meeting in Apalachin.  

Danny was arrested in 1963 at the funeral for Carmine's father, when he punched an FBI agent.  Danny has a track record for punching people.  Later in life he would be thrown out of a casino for punching a guy in the face.

Danny played the Mafia game very well, and when John Gotti took over the family he was a well respected Capo.  He was also working with the Genovese and Lucchese family to topple Gotti.

Gaspipe Casso claimed that he was in on the car bombing that killed Gambino Underboss Frank DeCicco.  A few years later when Sammy Gravano turned against Gotti and other Gambinos, Danny helped Gotti.

Danny and a few others had someone tap Sammy’s wife and kid’s phones illegally before the Gotti trial.  It failed to stop Sammy from taking the stand.  

I've written about Danny and Frank Hydell but he was not the only guy he tried to silence before they gave up family secrets. Danny conspired to murder Thomas Spinelli with other Gambinos, because they feared he would tell the truth to a Federal Grand Jury.

Danny was into construction racketeering, gambling, shylocking, extortion and murder.  He has had a few rough years since the FBI came down on the Gambinos.  It is well known that Junior Gotti had a proffer session with the Feds and during that meeting he gave up Danny Marino because he hated him.  

I know guys who were locked up with Danny and they all say the same thing about him.  He kept to himself and he was cheap.  The guy would never go for anything, he never helped new arrivals, Wiseguys or not.  Danny would never help himself, he would workout and walk around afraid.  Danny was not afraid of anyone there, he was afraid he would catch another case.

He was close to Jojo and Chuckie Russo but behind his back they called him Ricochet because he would bounce off the walls anytime he was called by the guards.

Danny is free now, and what role he plays in the family is not known.  He is old and he has money, so maybe he will just fade into the background or Florida where old mob guys often retire.

The last of the Old Time Gambinos

Arnold “Zeke” Squitieri and Alphonse “Funzi” Sisca go way back to the days before John Gotti was made in the Gambino Family.  They worked with Gene Gotti, Sal Ruggiero and Angelo Ruggiero selling heroin.  They were given long sentences just like Gene Gotti, so they missed most of the John Gotti mess.   Zeke was made Underboss in 1999 by John Gotti and in 2002 when Peter Gotti went away he was bumped up to Acting Boss.  Zeke was still on parole for his 1989 heroin conviction so he relied heavily on Funzi to be his eyes and ears on the street.  He would use him to pass orders to the lower ranks.  

They committed all the usual crimes that gangsters commit, like extortion of construction companies, restaurants and nightclubs.  One that I had not heard about in a long time was the illegal numbers business.  Numbers or Policy games are an illegal lottery that used to be played in poor or immigrant neighborhoods.  In Florida the Cuban version was called Bolita.

The other term policy came from old time cheap life insurance policy that was seen as a long term gamble.  To play the game a bettor would pick a three digit number and at the end of the day the operator would take the last three digits of the “Handle” the amount of the total bets at a racetrack that was published in the racing form everyday.  These Gambinos ran a numbers game up to 2005 where they took in 2k a day in bets.  

The Sportsbook they ran made them 155k just on the Superbowl one year.  This goes back to what I've written in the past about gambling being the lifeblood of the Mafia.  

They didn't stop there either.  They were stealing money from the Union and extorting trucking companies.  

Shylocking was a huge earner for them as it always made money.  It is very similar to the way today’s payday loan places operate.  As long as shylockers who call themselves payday loan businesses give the government their cut, they are free to operate.

Things were moving along and the family seemed to be recovering from the succession of Gottis that held the top spot.  Junior Gotti had not yet gone in for his proffer session. The session that he now claims he lied during.  He wants us to forget that he broke Omerta the number one rule of Cosa Nostra.  He needs to accept that he is the same as John Alite, Mikey Scars and all the rest of us.  The only problem?  All those guys built their success in the mafia themselves and were not born with a Mafia silver spoon in their mouths.

Enter Joaquin “Jack” Garcia or as he was known on the street: Jack Falcone.   In the FBI it was known as Operation Jack Falcone.  Jack was an undercover FBI Agent who posed as Sicilian drug dealer and jewel thief from Miami. It seems a bit close to the Donnie Brasco Operation but if it isn’t broken, why fix it.  Jack hooked up with Greg DePalma a long time Gambino Soldier who was a sometime Capo.  DePalma became famous in the 1970s when he and the Gambinos infiltrate the Westchester Premier Theater.  There is a famous picture that includes DePalma, Carlo Gambino, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Fratianno and others.  

DePalma liked to talk and that was good for Jack because he was a good listener.  The operation would end in 2005 when FBI supervisors shut it down.  This was after DePalma wanted to make Jack Falcone a Gambino.  

Today Alphonse Sisca is the Boss of the New Jersey Faction of the Gambino Family.  

The family is run by the Sicilians and most of the Gotti Era guys are locked up or laying low.

Casella's Restaurant

1987 was a good year for John Gotti.   He was boss of the Gambino Family and he had been acquitted in a high profile case.  He knew that he was on someone's hit list but he thought it was for the killing of his boss Paul Castellano. He did not know that he had really pissed off the Genovese Family, and not just because Chin Gigante was mad about the Castellano murder.  John Gotti had moved in on the rackets that the Philadelphia Family had run until their family was decimated and their boss Nicky Scarfo was put away for life.  This really made the Genovese in New Jersey mad and the number three man in the family, Louis "Bobby" Manna wanted John Gotti and his brother Gene Gotti dead.  Bobby Mana was the Consigliere of the family and he ran the New Jersey faction of the family from Casella's restaurant in Hoboken. What Bobby did not know is that the FBI had a wire inside Casella's and they picked up these words "Wear a disguise, its an open place."  "A Big Hit John Gotti."  The plan was to shoot John Gotti on the corner when he did a walk talk from his Bergin Hunt and Fish Social Club in Queens. They then planned on gunning down his brother Gene who was on trial for running a Heroin ring. The FBI warned John Gotti and the hit never went down.

The wire at Casella's also picked up the planning of another hit.  This time the target was Irwin Schiff, a 350lb millionaire conman who had crossed Bobby Manna.  Irwin had shylock loans on the street and he had also failed to give back cash that belonged to the Genovese Family. It was believed he was laundering money for the family and had skimmed a lot off the top.  On August 8, 1987, Irwin Schiff was having dinner at Bravo Sergio on the Upper East side of Manhattan with a friend's wife when a gunman walked in the rear door and fired two 38cal slugs into his head and then calmly walked out. The NYPD was at a loss as to why or who killed Irwin and very few of the 20 witnesses came forward with any information. The FBI had a wire up in Casella's in Hoboken and they had picked up some talk. On August 5th the FBI had picked up "You want him hit," and "we will do him good at night." They referred to him as CC because he ran Consolidated Construction and one of the guys who partnered with him was a man named Domenico "Dom" RaBuffo.  Dom knew what was going on but that was to come later. The FBI wire picked up the Mobsters in Casella's talking about the hit two days after the hit on August 10th and it was damming.  They would all go on trial and Bobby Mana would get 80 years!

Dom Rabuffo would become a government protected witness and disappear after the trial.   Dom would move on to Florida where he did not get out of his life of crime.  Dom was convicted just last week of stealing 49.5 million in an elaborate mortgage fraud. Dom and his former wife Mae used two straw holding companies to gain control of a purported housing development in Cashiers, North Carolina that they called Hampton Springs. They then recruited straw buyers to apply for loans on parcels and then construction loans. They used an accountant to forge paperwork to inflate the straw buyers on paper. They had a guy in the mortgage company that helped push the fraudulent loans through banks. These
banks would include Bank Of America, Suntrust, Wachovia and Regions. 33 million dollars of this money was for construction loans and they created a number of shell companies that they funneled this cash through. It all blew up and they now face some major time.

All this fraud began in a small Italian restaurant in Hoboken.

A "Secret" Criminal Organization?

The FBI has downsized its Mafia Squad in New York.  They used to have a squad for every family but today they only have two squads, about twenty five agents for all the families.  One keeps tabs on the Gambino and Lucchese and the other handles the Genovese,Colombo and Bonanno.  I was working with the C-38 squad or the Colombo Squad, now they are gone.  The mob squads used to be a sought-after assignment for Agents but today its all about Terrorism, so any Agent who wants to move up in today’s ranks gets in one of the terrorism squads.


So what does this mean?  Could this be the end of the Mafia?  That is doubtful.  They need to return to their roots of operating as a secret organization. John Gotti took over the Gambino Family at the wrong time.  The FBI was determined to step up their assault on the Mafia Families.  John shot his way to the top of the family.  He basically thumbed his nose at the Mafia Commission by killing Paul Castellano without the okay from them. He really thought he was smarter than the old men on the commission, guys with 50 years of experience.  John wanted to guide the family into what he thought was a good direction.  Big Paul was much better suited for the job.  He operated on another level by using the Unions to consolidate the construction, waste and concrete business. John Gotti and his brother, on the other hand, were moving heroin and shylocking.  

John Gotti

Big Paul operated a very profitable poultry business called Dial Poultry that sold wholesale chicken all over the East Coast.  He even worked with Frank Perdue from Perdue Chicken.  John Gotti takes over and he makes his Capo's show up every week at his club The Ravenite in Little Italy and this circus made it easy for the FBI to Identify all the guys in power.  Then he strolls around in his 3,000 dollar suits when he has no job.  He was a Capo who beat up a guy honking at him and then stole a few hundred dollars. That is not boss material.  They want to make a movie about him?  So lets celebrate a guy who kills a neighbor for accidentally running into his young son.  The kid was on a non street legal mini bike and did not observe basic traffic laws and got himself killed.  So the big Mafia guy John Gotti had his men kidnap the neighbor and make him disappear so his family can not have closure. John Gotti was not a good boss and he was no Al Capone.  

The Gambinos will grow and become bigger on a worldwide scale but we will not hear about it because the new bosses will not be some hotheaded crooks from Brooklyn.  They will be men who can operate on an international level.

Tony Accardo aka "Joe Batters"

Al Capone consolidated the Outfit in Chicago and streamlined it, but his kind of flashy rule wore out its welcome.  The new bosses knew that to much publicity was bad for business.  They knew that the politicians would take their money for gambling but not drugs, so they stopped it.  Tony Accardo or Joe Batters would rule the family for many decades without spending a night locked up.  He would die a free man but his Outfit would face many problems in the future.  The new leaders would forget some of the lessons they had learned from the past.  They still have some guys on the streets but can they rebuild the family? 

The LA Family has maybe 7 or 8 guys left but how active are they?  They could go the way the Gambinos are headed, but they would need some solid men to step up.  The major problem with all the Mafia Families is where they find recruits.  Contrary to what is written in the media, it is not pressure from new criminal groups at all that holds back the mafia families.  Most of these groups will not even be around in 10 years. No criminal group controls the drug trade or things like prostitution, that is bullshit.  The old boss Peter J Milano came from another time when Italians were looked down on and many were poor.  Today this is not true, they have assimilated into American society.  

I used to talk with Jimmy Caci for hours in Terminal Island and he would talk about how messed up things had become.  Jimmy gave his life to the Mafia and at the end he told me it was a waste.  Jimmy did about half his life in prison for the Mafia. In the end Jimmy had just his family and real friends.

Hollywood will keep churning out Movies like The Gangster Squad or any number of TV shows about Mickey Cohen or Whitey Bulger but it will be the same stuff.  Guys dressed in suits screaming at their underlings. Bad writing and they wonder why people don't watch their work.

I never saw Jimmy or Teddy Persico raise their voice at a single guy in their Crew,  Hang arounds or guys who were chased, sure they would dress them down, but they would also really hurt someone, not just bark.The truth is Sammy The Bull lied out in the open and nobody really went after him.  Sure they made some moves and pretended to go after him but it was his own drug dealing that brought him down.Once you flip and join Team USA you are safe.

The Mafia will be around for a number of years but I believe that you will be hearing less about them.  The smaller families will disappear because who in their right mind would want to join them?  The bigger families will go international and it will be years until we find out what they did.

All we have to do is look at history. For many years there were no real stories.  They found out about Murder INC from Abe Reles and he spilled his guts on how it worked but he was limited.  Then you had Joesph Valachi and he had a good understanding about the structure of the Mafia.  Then it was Jimmy Frattiano from Los Angeles and he really put it on the map.  Its been one book after another and we had an actual boss flip!  Joey Massino of the Bonanno family is the biggest to flip up to today.  Why would a lowly Soldier keep his mouth shut when bosses flip.

The future is in their hands!

Lenny & Little Nicky: Then & Now

Little Nicky

"I am living the life that I wanted." - Little Nicky

Those were his words to his associate one day in the nineties in Brooklyn, New York. That was then: when he was on the street as a Capo in the Gambino Family, soon to be acting Boss. Fast forward to today: he is 73 years old living in the FCI Loretto with 9 more years inside. It has been a long run for Nicky who was born in the East New York, Brownsville area of Brooklyn in 1940. He and his brother Joseph aka JoJo made their name and money in gambling. JoJo is rumored to be a street craps whiz who made the Gambino craps games profitable. The games lost money until JoJo stepped in and ran them right.




Nicholas became known as Little Nicky because of his diminutive size 5 foot 5 inches tall and weighing a soft 170lbs. But he was no push over. Little Nicky was always in gangster mode, he was gangster 24/7. He was proposed to be made in the late 70's but he told the powers-that-be that he could not do it unless they made Lenny DiMaria because he would not be where he was without Lenny. So they made them both and soon Little Nicky had a vast gambling network in Brooklyn and Queens that included bookmaking, numbers, a horse room and shylock. He became a huge earner for the family and when his Capo Fat Andy went on the lam and joined a biker gang, he and Lenny reported directly to Neil Dellacroce, the legendary underboss of the Gambino Family. This made those in power take notice of what he was doing and the cash he was able to generate.He liked to recruit young guys, guys that he saw some criminal spark inside. So he gathered a good crew of capable guys like Mike Yannotti and he was soon a powerhouse in the family that the higher ups looked to when they needed work done.

Lenny

Leonard "Lenny" DiMaria has been Little Nicky's right-hand man for 30 years. He started off not as a criminal but as a train conductor working on the Long Island Railroad. He soon became a trusted Gambino associate along with Little Nicky. Lenny was the opposite of Little Nicky who was always gangster, Lenny is more gregarious and likeable. When Lenny and Little Nicky were on trial in 1985 with John Gotti, Lenny would stand up and thank each witness for coming to the trial. They were ultimately acquitted of all charges but years later turncoat Sammy Gravano would tell the Feds that he bribed the jury Foreman to secure an acquittal.When Gene Gotti, the drug dealing brother of John Gotti, went away on Heroin dealing charges, Little Nicky and Lenny started running his crew. Lenny was always more well-liked than Little Nicky among the rank and file.They built up their gambling network and soon they had a huge shylock business thriving in New York. Little Nicky sent Lenny and two other Capos down to Florida where they formed the South Florida Crew. They were huge earners and did well until it all came crashing down.
A lot of guys in the Mafia like to claim they have nothing to do with drugs and a lot of the public buys this load of crap. Little Nicky had guys all over the five Boroughs shaking down drug dealers. He used to have them give cash as a Christmas gift or throw it into the kitty for the crew but he knew exactly where the cash was coming from. When dealers who had been ripped off or extorted came to him he would get back their drugs from his guys and get a taste of the cash. He liked to play both sides against each other. One thing he did know was the rules of La Cosa Nostra and he knew how to use them to his advantage. When his guy Mikey Y shot a guy with the Lucchese Family and left him for dead in a Brooklyn parking lot, he had a sitdown with the Lucchese family. It was during that sitdown that he told the Lucchese guys that if they couldn’t get a hold of their guys to call them off, they would be dead. If you were in his crew and he didn't like you, he would still go to bat for you because he didn't want to appear weak or wrong. He would close his social clubs and take a meeting late at night off parkways around New York. He used to drive by his guys’ places and check up on them at night.

Mikey Y

Little Nicky ordered the killing of Lucchese associate Robert Arena because he said Robert had something to do with the killing of one of his crew members. Robert also stole a large amount of marijuana from a dealer associated with his crew and when ordered to give it back he refused. Robert Arena would be gunned down in his car in the Mill Basin area by Mikey Y along with a friend named Tommy Maranga. Nicky would plead guilty to taking part in planning the killing. Nicky became a Capo after John Gotti went away. He was on the ruling panel for awhile and then he was tapped as boss. He finally had made it to where he dreamed of being, but it was not to last. He had befriended a trucking guy named Joey V while locked up, but when Joey V was faced with new drug charges he decided to wear a wire. Nicky was boss for a week. When he gets out he will find that the family has changed and he will be in his 80's, Lenny today is free and completing his parole.