Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss

Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso is currently serving thirteen consecutive life sentences plus 455 years at a federal prison in Colorado. Now, for the first time, the head of a mob family has granted complete and total access to a journalist. Casso has given New York Times bestselling author Philip Carlo the most intimate, personal look into the world of La Cosa Nostra ever seen. "Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss" is his shocking story.

From birth, Anthony Casso's mob life was preordained. Michael Casso introduced his young son around South Brooklyn's social clubs, where "men of honor" did business by shaking pinkie-ringed hands—hands equally at home pilfering stolen goods from the Brooklyn docks or gripping the cold steel of a silenced pistol. Young Anthony watched and listened and decided that he would devote his life to crime.

Casso would prove his talent for "earning," concocting ingenious schemes to hijack trucks, rob banks, and bring into New York vast quantities of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin. Casso also had an uncanny ability to work with the other Mafia families, and he forged unusually strong ties with the Russian mob. By the time Casso took the reins of the Lucchese family, he was a seasoned boss, a very dangerous man.

It was a great life—Casso and his beautiful wife, Lillian, had money to burn; Casso and his crew brought in so much cash that he had dozens of large safe-deposit boxes filled with bricks of hundred-dollar bills. But the law finally caught up with him in his New Jersey safe house in 1994. Rather than stoically face the music like the old-time mafiosi he revered, Casso became the thing he most hated—a rat. It broke his family's heart and made the once feared and revered mobster an object of scorn and disgust among his former friends. For it turned out that a lifetime of street smarts completely failed him in dealing with a group even more cunning and ruthless than the Mafia—the U.S. government.

Detailing Casso's feud with John Gotti and their attempts to kill each other, the "Windows Case" that led to the beginning of the end for the mob in New York, and Casso's dealings with decorated NYPD officers Lou Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa—the "Mafia cops"—Gaspipe is the inside story of one man's rise and fall, mirroring the rise and fall of a way of life, a roller-coaster ride into a netherworld few outsiders have ever dared to enter.

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Francis Ford Coppola Gift Basket from The Director of The Godfather

Francis Ford Coppola Loves Food and Wine - Gourmet Gift Basket

Oscar-winning director, writer and producer, Francis Ford Coppola, loves creating. Not only are the wines produced under his direction, but as an avid cook, he has created "Mammarella," a line of authentic organic pastas and sauces honoring his mother, Italia Pennino Coppola. Included in this package are the Diamond Series Claret and Cabernet Sauvignon, two types of artisan pasta, classic tomato/basil pasta sauce, red pepper packets and a "Mammarella" kitchen towel. Delicioso!

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Willie Lloyd: Former Gang Leader of the Vice Lord Nation is Dead

Former leader of Vice Lord Nation and reformed advocate of anti-violence, Willie Lloyd died at the age of 64. He relocated with his family to Minnesota a few years ago and retreated to a quiet and solemn life. 

Lloyd joined the Unknown Vice Lords, a faction based along 16th Street in the Lawndale neighborhood. He soon became the faction’s leader and recruited thousands of followers. He proclaimed himself “King of Kings” and stated that he was the leader of the entire Vice Lord Nation. However, his tenure was interrupted by a prison term for his part in the murder of a police officer in Iowa.

During his incarceration, Lloyd wrote “The Amalgamated Order of Lordism”, a 61-page manifesto on the Vice Lord command structure in the prisons and on the streets. He was incarcerated in 1971 until his release on parole in 1986, then was back in prison a year later on a weapons conviction until another parole in 1992. In 1992, he was involved in a protracted gang war over control of the Vice Lord Nation, involving kidnapping and the murder of rival members’ children. Law enforcement intensified its efforts to remove Lloyd from the street, and from 1994 to 2001, he was again incarcerated for weapons violations.

Willie Lloyd quit the Vice Lords after his release from prison, and became an outspoken critic of gang life.

After his release from federal prison in 2002, Lloyd decided to retire from his life of crime and attempt to earn a legitimate living as a mediator for gang members. He began collaborating with Chicago’s School of Public Health, where he worked with the Chicago Project for Violence. He also involved himself with Cease Fire, a program that provides gang mediation efforts while mentoring at a Westside church.

In addition, Lloyd agreed to lecture incoming freshmen at DePaul University’s Discover Chicago program on the dangers of gang life. He would take sociology students on a field trip to give them an inside look at gangs in their natural habitat and discussed the pathology of crime. When parents learned of the arrangement, however, angry phone calls to school administrators shut the program down.

In August 2003, Lloyd was shot six times while walking his dogs in Garfield Park in Chicago. He survived the attack, but was paralyzed from the neck down this was the third assassination attempt on Lloyd. He was paralyzed from the neck down due to injuries from the shooting. Although rumors swirled around that Lloyd still wanted to collect a “tax” from the Vice Lords as its leader, even though he had allegedly left gang life.

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Mobster and Las Vegas Casino Owner Moe Greene Actor from The Godfather, Alex Rocco, Has Died

Alex Rocco, the veteran tough-guy character actor with the gravelly voice best known for playing mobster and Las Vegas casino owner Moe Greene in The Godfather, has died. He was 79.

Rocco died Saturday, his daughter, Jennifer, announced on Facebook.

No other details of his death were immediately available. Rocco, who studied acting with the late Leonard Nimoy, a fellow Boston-area transplant, also was the voice of Roger Meyers Jr., the cigar-smoking chairman of the studio behind “Itchy and Scratchy” on The Simpsons, and he played Arthur Evans, the father of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s character, on the stylish Starz series Magic City.

Rocco starred as a white Detroit detective who is reluctantly paired with a black detective (Hari Rhodes) in Arthur Marks’ Detroit 9000 (1973) and voiced an ant in A Bug’s Life (1998). “That was my greatest prize ever in life, because I did about eight lines as an ant, and I think I made over a million dollars,” he said in a 2012 interview.

Rocco won an Emmy Award in 1990 for best supporting actor in a comedy for playing sneaky Hollywood talent agent Al Floss on the short-lived CBS series The Famous Teddy Z, starring Jon Cryer.

He also had regular roles on The Facts of Life (as Charlie Polniaczek, the father of Nancy McKeon’s character, Jo), The George Carlin Show, Three for the Road, Sibs and The Division.

In the 2012 interview, Rocco said that landing the role of Jewish mobster Moe in The Godfather (1972) was “without a doubt, my biggest ticket anywhere. I mean that literally.” “When I got the part, I went in to Francis Ford Coppola, and in those days, the word was, ‘Read [Mazio Puzo’s] book,’ which I already did, and then the actor would suggest to him which part they would like. Well, I went for … I dunno, one of the Italian parts. Maybe the Richard Bright part [Al Neri]. But Coppola goes, ‘I got my Jew!’ And I went, ‘Oh no, Mr. Coppola, I’m Italian. I wouldn’t know how to play a Jew.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, shut up.’ [Laughs.] He says, ‘The Italians do this,’ and he punches his fingers up. ‘And the Jews do this,’ and his hand’s extended, the palm flat. Greatest piece of direction I ever got. I’ve been playing Jews ever since."

"And people on the golf course will say, ‘Hey, Alex, would you call my dad and leave a line from The Godfather?’ I say, ‘OK. “I buy you out, you don’t buy me out!” “He was bangin’ cocktail waitresses two at a time …” “Don’t you know who I am?” ’ [Laughs.] But I enjoy doing it. It’s fun. I’ve been leaving Moe Greene messages for 40 years.”

Born Alexander Federico Petricone in Cambridge, Mass., Rocco came to L.A. in the early 1960s and made his movie debut in Motorpsycho! (1965), directed by Russ Meyer, and he was a henchman on Batman in 1967 in the episodes in which the Dynamic Duo meet up with the Green Hornet and Kato. Rocco worked frequently with Alan Arkin, being paired with him on such films as Freebie and the Bean (1974), Hearts of The West (1975), Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (1975) and Fire Sale (1977).

His film résumé also includes The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), Joan Rivers’ Rabbit Test (1978), The Stunt Man (1980), Herbie Goes Bananas (1980), The Pope Must Diet (1991), Get Shorty (1995), That Thing You Do! (1996), The Wedding Planner (2001), Smokin’ Aces (2006) and Find Me Guilty (2006). He recently showed up on Episodes and Maron, where he played another agent.

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Carmine "The Bull" Agnello, Ex-Son-in-Law of John Gotti, Arrested as part of #OperationGoodfella

An ex-son-in-law of late New York mob boss John Gotti was arrested in Ohio on Wednesday in what police described as a scheme to scrap stolen cars.

Carmine "The Bull" Agnello was charged with theft, money laundering and conspiracy in connection with the alleged car-scrapping operation.

He was also charged with drugging race horses before competition, animal cruelty and "corrupting" sports following an investigation by Cleveland police and the Cuyahoga County prosecutors office, authorities said.

The charges were brought as part of an 18-month investigation called "Operation Goodfella."

"We are not going to let the Mafia sink their teeth back into Cleveland and make this into an outpost for their New York-based corrupt enterprises," Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said in a statement.

Police said they found multiple firearms and $45,000 cash in a search at Agnello's home in Bentleyville, Ohio, about 20 miles southeast of Cleveland, and also found evidence of illegal dumping at his scrap metal business in Cleveland.

Cleveland police said they had been investigating scrap metal yards after very few vehicles were recovered despite a spike in car thefts in the past three years. They focused on Agnello's yard because of the large amount of cars it processed.

Police accused Agnello of defrauding a regional scrap metal processor of more than $3 million since 2014 by weighing down stolen scrapped cars with dirt.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer quoted police as saying Agnello paid teenagers to steal cars, usually for $20 or $25 per vehicle, and bring them to his business.

Cleveland Deputy Police Chief Edward Tomba said Agnello, who is in his mid-50s, had been convicted in New York on federal charges in 2001 similar to those brought by Cleveland and served seven years in prison.

Agnello and Gotti's daughter, Victoria Gotti, star of the reality program "Growing Up Gotti," divorced in 2002.

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