| Bosses | Friends of Ours | Friends of Mine |
|---|---|---|
Arnold "Zeke" Squitieri | Anthony "the Genius" Megale | Ernesto Grillo |
Get the latest breaking current news and explore our Historic Archive of articles focusing on The Mafia, Organized Crime, The Mob and Mobsters, Gangs and Gangsters, Political Corruption, True Crime, and the Legal System at TheChicagoSyndicate.com
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Gambino Crime Family
Colombo Crime Family
| Bosses | Friends of Ours | Friends of Mine |
|---|---|---|
Friends of Mine: |
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Canaries Get Tweet Salvation
Friends of ours: Junior Gotti, Bonanno Crime Family, Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, Patrick DeFilippo, Vito DeFilippo, Gambino Crime Family, Salvatore LoCascio, Genovese Crime Family, Joseph Ida, John Gotti, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo
Today's rats escape sleepin' with fishes
The stampede of Mafia turncoats joining Team U.S.A. is radically changing the way gangsters try to beat the rap. Faced with damning testimony from high-ranking rats, wiseguys are wising up to the fact that it's futile to deny they're in the mob.
It was once a violation punishable by death to publicly acknowledge one's membership in a crime family. But John A. (Junior) Gotti has done it. So too has a gaggle of gangsters in the hope the wiseguys can neutralize the government's weapons.
"He's in the Bonanno family," declared defense lawyer Barry Levin last week at the trial of Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano, once the clan's acting boss. "We don't care. So if you spend three weeks listening to the Bonanno family, you've heard it here. You can take a nap."
Levin's strategy so infuriated prosecutors they asked the judge to instruct the jury that it was out of bounds. The lawyer for Basciano's co-defendant Patrick DeFilippo was also up front with jurors about his client's mob lineage. "His father Vito was a member ... and it was as natural for him at that time a long time ago to join as it was, say, for me to become a lawyer," said attorney Richard Levitt.
Recently, lawyers for Gambino capo Salvatore LoCascio and Genovese soldier Joseph Ida admitted their clients were made men, but insisted each had decided to quit the Mafia.
It's a long way from the bold denials John Gotti's mouthpiece Bruce Cutler was making in 1990 when he said: "There is absolutely no evidence of what prosecutors call an Italian-American Mafia in America."
Mafia historian Thomas Reppetto recalled that Chicago gangster Joey (The Clown) Lombardo even took out an ad in a newspaper in 1992 to proclaim he wasn't in the Mafia anymore. Lombardo was indicted last year on a raft of charges.
For years wiseguys and their lawyers nervously tiptoed around naming the criminal enterprise when pleading guilty to racketeering. Has omerta - the Mafia's code of silence - been revised? "Apparently so," said former federal prosecutor Edward MacDonald. "There's no point in contesting membership anymore. The evidence is so overwhelming. You might as well concede the obvious."
Thanks to John Marzulli
Today's rats escape sleepin' with fishes
The stampede of Mafia turncoats joining Team U.S.A. is radically changing the way gangsters try to beat the rap. Faced with damning testimony from high-ranking rats, wiseguys are wising up to the fact that it's futile to deny they're in the mob.
It was once a violation punishable by death to publicly acknowledge one's membership in a crime family. But John A. (Junior) Gotti has done it. So too has a gaggle of gangsters in the hope the wiseguys can neutralize the government's weapons.
"He's in the Bonanno family," declared defense lawyer Barry Levin last week at the trial of Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano, once the clan's acting boss. "We don't care. So if you spend three weeks listening to the Bonanno family, you've heard it here. You can take a nap."
Levin's strategy so infuriated prosecutors they asked the judge to instruct the jury that it was out of bounds. The lawyer for Basciano's co-defendant Patrick DeFilippo was also up front with jurors about his client's mob lineage. "His father Vito was a member ... and it was as natural for him at that time a long time ago to join as it was, say, for me to become a lawyer," said attorney Richard Levitt.
Recently, lawyers for Gambino capo Salvatore LoCascio and Genovese soldier Joseph Ida admitted their clients were made men, but insisted each had decided to quit the Mafia.
It's a long way from the bold denials John Gotti's mouthpiece Bruce Cutler was making in 1990 when he said: "There is absolutely no evidence of what prosecutors call an Italian-American Mafia in America."
Mafia historian Thomas Reppetto recalled that Chicago gangster Joey (The Clown) Lombardo even took out an ad in a newspaper in 1992 to proclaim he wasn't in the Mafia anymore. Lombardo was indicted last year on a raft of charges.
For years wiseguys and their lawyers nervously tiptoed around naming the criminal enterprise when pleading guilty to racketeering. Has omerta - the Mafia's code of silence - been revised? "Apparently so," said former federal prosecutor Edward MacDonald. "There's no point in contesting membership anymore. The evidence is so overwhelming. You might as well concede the obvious."
Thanks to John Marzulli
Related Headlines
Bonannos,
Gambinos,
Genoveses,
John Gotti,
Joseph Ida,
Joseph Lombardo,
Junior Gotti,
Patrick DeFilippo,
Salvatore Locascio,
Vincent Basciano,
Vito DeFelippo
No comments:
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Sliwa says radio partner 'Judas'
Friends of ours: Junior Gotti, John Gotti
"The Curtis & Kuby Show" played on the radio - and in court - yesterday as Curtis Sliwa called his on-air partner Ron Kuby a "Judas" for testifying on behalf of John A. (Junior) Gotti. Kuby, a lawyer, bolstered Gotti's defense against claims the mobster sent two thugs to beat Sliwa for his on-air attacks against the Dapper Don John Gotti in 1992. Gotti contends that he left the mob in 1998.
"He told me he was sick of this life," Kuby testified. "He wanted this to be over. He wanted to rejoin his family and be done with this." Kuby said the spring 1998 chat occurred while Gotti and dozens of others were under indictment for a loansharking and extortion scheme that involved the Manhattan strip club Scores.
"John Gotti . . . specifically asked me if I would do him a favor," Kuby testified. Gotti, 42, wanted Kuby, then representing co-defendant Stephen Sergio, to approach federal prosecutors and discuss a plea deal for everyone involved.
Outside court, Kuby said he didn't question Gotti further about ending his mob life. "I was functioning as a lawyer, not a priest," he said. "He did not elaborate. I did not ask."
Kuby gave a preview of his testimony on his morning WABC radio show yesterday - prompting Sliwa to call his decade-long radio partner "Judas."
"Curtis, you should have nothing to fear from the truth," Kuby said.
Sliwa was shot near his East Village apartment after he hailed a cab carrying two men prosecutors say were sent by Gotti.
The issue of Gotti's pre-1999 withdrawal from the mob is key because prosecutors must show at least one crime in the long-running conspiracy case occurred within five years of his 2004 indictment.
Gotti's attorneys want to play for jurors a recording of a prison visit with his father that they say will feature the Mafia scion using coded language to say he wants out of the mob.
Thanks to Thomas Zambito
"The Curtis & Kuby Show" played on the radio - and in court - yesterday as Curtis Sliwa called his on-air partner Ron Kuby a "Judas" for testifying on behalf of John A. (Junior) Gotti. Kuby, a lawyer, bolstered Gotti's defense against claims the mobster sent two thugs to beat Sliwa for his on-air attacks against the Dapper Don John Gotti in 1992. Gotti contends that he left the mob in 1998.
"He told me he was sick of this life," Kuby testified. "He wanted this to be over. He wanted to rejoin his family and be done with this." Kuby said the spring 1998 chat occurred while Gotti and dozens of others were under indictment for a loansharking and extortion scheme that involved the Manhattan strip club Scores.
"John Gotti . . . specifically asked me if I would do him a favor," Kuby testified. Gotti, 42, wanted Kuby, then representing co-defendant Stephen Sergio, to approach federal prosecutors and discuss a plea deal for everyone involved.
Outside court, Kuby said he didn't question Gotti further about ending his mob life. "I was functioning as a lawyer, not a priest," he said. "He did not elaborate. I did not ask."
Kuby gave a preview of his testimony on his morning WABC radio show yesterday - prompting Sliwa to call his decade-long radio partner "Judas."
"Curtis, you should have nothing to fear from the truth," Kuby said.
Sliwa was shot near his East Village apartment after he hailed a cab carrying two men prosecutors say were sent by Gotti.
The issue of Gotti's pre-1999 withdrawal from the mob is key because prosecutors must show at least one crime in the long-running conspiracy case occurred within five years of his 2004 indictment.
Gotti's attorneys want to play for jurors a recording of a prison visit with his father that they say will feature the Mafia scion using coded language to say he wants out of the mob.
Thanks to Thomas Zambito
Gotti Hottie Right Out of 'Sopranos'
Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, John "Dapper Don" Gotti
Friends of mine: Soprano Crime Family
The Gotti glamour club debuted its newest member last week - and she's almost a double of Tony Soprano's daughter, Meadow. Forget the Dapper Don's grandsons, who set female hearts aflutter in the reality show "Growing Up Gotti."
The newest Gotti hottie jetted in from Southern California to support her uncle, John A. (Junior) Gotti, in his racketeering trial - and stole the show. Like Meadow Soprano, Victoria Gotti Albano - whose mother, Angel, is the daughter of the late John (Dapper Don) Gotti - has both beauty and brains.
The 18-year-old coed, who proudly wore a diamond "princess" necklace to court, attends a college in California and dreams of tangling with the legal system - though not in the same way as her grandpa. "She's going to be a lawyer," her grandmother, Victoria, said last week as they walked into Manhattan federal court.
The legal aspirations, good looks and mob upbringing raise strikingly similarities between the Gotti gal and the fictional Soprano daughter. Also a dark-haired beauty, Meadow Soprano studies at a prestigious college, Columbia University, and dreams of becoming a lawyer. Despite strained relations with her parents, the character shares a strong sense of family loyalty with her real-life Gotti counterpart.
The teen Gotti, who sources said wore a pendant with her grandfather's face while attending Stella Maris High School in Queens, is far from ashamed of the dead mob boss. In fact, her "princess" necklace was a gift from the Don.
"I think [John Gotti] was the greatest man who ever lived," she told reporters.
Thanks to Adam Nichols
Friends of mine: Soprano Crime Family
The Gotti glamour club debuted its newest member last week - and she's almost a double of Tony Soprano's daughter, Meadow. Forget the Dapper Don's grandsons, who set female hearts aflutter in the reality show "Growing Up Gotti."
The newest Gotti hottie jetted in from Southern California to support her uncle, John A. (Junior) Gotti, in his racketeering trial - and stole the show. Like Meadow Soprano, Victoria Gotti Albano - whose mother, Angel, is the daughter of the late John (Dapper Don) Gotti - has both beauty and brains.
The 18-year-old coed, who proudly wore a diamond "princess" necklace to court, attends a college in California and dreams of tangling with the legal system - though not in the same way as her grandpa. "She's going to be a lawyer," her grandmother, Victoria, said last week as they walked into Manhattan federal court.
The legal aspirations, good looks and mob upbringing raise strikingly similarities between the Gotti gal and the fictional Soprano daughter. Also a dark-haired beauty, Meadow Soprano studies at a prestigious college, Columbia University, and dreams of becoming a lawyer. Despite strained relations with her parents, the character shares a strong sense of family loyalty with her real-life Gotti counterpart.
The teen Gotti, who sources said wore a pendant with her grandfather's face while attending Stella Maris High School in Queens, is far from ashamed of the dead mob boss. In fact, her "princess" necklace was a gift from the Don.
"I think [John Gotti] was the greatest man who ever lived," she told reporters.
Thanks to Adam Nichols
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Affliction!
Best of the Month!
- Mob Hit on Rudy Giuilani Discussed
- Convicted Family Secrets Cop to Petition Police Pension Board to Keep Pension
- The Chicago Syndicate AKA "The Outfit"
- Mob Murder Suggests Link to International Drug Ring
- Prison Inmate, Charles Miceli, Says He Has Information on Mob Crimes
- Growing Up the Son of Tony Spilotro
- Chicago Mob Infamous Locations Map
- The Rise and Fall of a 'Casino' Mobster: The Tony Spilotro Story Through a Hitman's Eyes by Frank Cullotta & Dennis N Griffin
- Renee Graziano of VH1's Mob Wives
- Son of Mob Hit Man Takes Witness Stand