The Gangster Report

New York City’s Black Godfather of the 1940s, 50s and 60s, Ellsworth (Bumpy) Johnson ran the rackets in Harlem for almost three decades, forging an alliance with the area’s Italian mafia, also known as the Five Families. Johnson was groomed by legendary lady crime lord, Stephanie (Madam Queen) St. Clair, Harlem’s “numbers” boss for most of the 1920s and 30s before going to prison and turning over her empire to him. A future film on St. Clair’s life and times was announced last week in partnership between HBO, Zero Gravity Management and director Tim Story (Barbershop, Fantastic Four, Ride Along, Think Like A Man).

Characters based either partially or directly on Johnson’s likeness have appeared in several movies, television shows, books and comics through the years. The 1997 film Hoodlum starring Oscar-nominee Laurence Fishburne chronicled Johnson’s rise and fall. Actress Cicely Tyson, also a one-time Oscar-nominee, portrayed St. Clair in the movie.

While the iconic Bumpy Johnson is a well-known entity in gangland circles around the country, besides maybe in the heart of Harlem, his tight-knit inner circle, a formidable crew of hustlers, pimps, gamblers and seasoned gangsters, are largely forgotten about today, barely footnotes in the annals of the storied New York underworld. Most of these men were Johnson’s longtime confidants and had lengthy and diverse arrest records. Nonetheless, Bumpy’s boys, like Bumpy himself, seamlessly integrated into Harlem high-society of the period, gaining local infamy and frequent write-ups in newspaper gossip columns and even in the nationally-distributed Jet Magazine.

THE BUMPY JOHNSON CREW BREAKDOWN

Jacob (Nat) Pettigrew – Bumpy’s best friend and right-hand man, Pettigrew was the crew’s top narcotics lieutenant.

Finlay (The Sly Fox) Hoskins – Bumpy’s No. 1 advisor, Hoskins was a notorious playboy, pool hustler, bookie and policy boss, overseeing all of Johnson’s numbers houses.

James (Alabama Black) Dellroy – Bumpy’s main enforcer early on in his reign, Dellroy opened a popular Harlem soul food joint called Country’s Place. The “Illinois” character in Hoodlum (played for comic relief by actor Chi McBride) was based loosely on Dellroy.

Jamison (Junie) Byrd – One of Bumpy’s most trusted men, Bumpy died in Byrd’s arms of a sudden heart attack in the early-morning hours of July 7, 1968 at Wells Restaurant in Harlem. Bumpy and Finlay Hoskins had been sharing a late-night meal of fried chicken and hominy grits.

John (Poor Johnny) Levy – A nightclub owner, hustler and racketeer, Levy romanced and married singer Billie Holiday. He owned The Vets Club and The Ebony Club.

Vincent (Vince the Prince) Nelson – The biggest pimp in Harlem in the mid-20^th Century, Nelson was partners with Levy on the street and co-owner of The Vets Club, Bumpy’s most beloved haunt of the day.

Frank Lucas – Bumpy’s driver and bodyguard, Lucas, a North Carolina transplant, went on to lead Harlem’s “Country Boys” drug gang of the 1970s. Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington played Lucas in the popular 2007 film American Gangster.

Carlton (Sonny) Chance – One of Bumpy’s most trusted men. Chance was present when Bumpy passed away in 1968 at Wells Restaurant.

Joe (Hoss) Steele – Colorful and flashy, Hoss Steel was the consummate businessman racketeer, known for a series of smart real estate investments on behalf of himself and Bumpy.

Richard (Pretty Ricky) Williams – Besides Nelson, Williams was the biggest pimp of that era in Harlem.

George (Georgie Boy) Rose – One of Bumpy’s most trusted men.

Frank Brooks & Horace Cartwright – Nat Pettigrew’s top two drug lieutenants.

The post Breaking Down Bumpy’s Boys: NYC Black Mob Boss Of Old Surrounded Himself With Cagey Crew appeared first on The Gangster Report.

News out of Western Massachusetts this week is that Springfield mafia crew leader Ralphie Santaniello has pled guilty to financing loansharking operations as part of a federal racketeering indictment filed in U.S. District Court in New York and his father and crew advisor Amedeo Santaniello is allegedly on the outs with crew management, according to area mobologist Stephanie Barry of MassLive.com. The younger Santaniello, 50, will probably receive less than two and a half years in prison due to the plea but still faces another set of federal racketeering charges out of Massachusetts and is currently behind bars after being denied bond.

The mob in Springfield has long been a satellite wing of New York’s Genovese crime family. The elder Santaniello, 78, came up in the notorious Sciabelli brothers’ regime of the 1970s and 80s, looking after a string of policy lottery banks spanning territory in both Massachusetts and New York.

Barry reports that Santaniello has “fallen out of favor” with the powers that be in the Springfield mafia contingent. Back in 2015, Barry was the first to report that the Springfield crew was in the hands of convicted loan shark Albert Calvanese, Santaniello’s nephew.

However, according to Barry’s sources on the street in the South End, since his son went away to jail in 2016, the local gangland elder statesman has butted heads with unidentified crew higher-ups. Whether or not that includes the burly 54-year old Calvanese is unclear.

Per court records, three years ago in 2014, Ralph Santaniello, Calvanese’s reputed second-in-command, and fellow Springfield mobster Frank (The Shark) Depergola met with Genovese captain Eugene (Rooster) O’Nofrio and an undercover FBI agent posing as O’Nofrio’s driver, in a pizza parlor and Santaniello handed an envelope stuffed with $15,000 in cash to the disguised fed for the purpose of starting a loan-sharking business. O’Nofrio and Depergola were busted alongside Santaniello last summer in a sweeping east coast mob takedown bagging almost four dozen wiseguys across six states.

Investigators contend O’Nofrio, 75, is responsible for Genovese affairs in Manhattan’s Little Italy, Connecticut and Springfield. He’s pled not guilty and is awaiting trial.

The Massachusetts indictment accuses Ralph Santaniello and a handful of his enforcers of extorting local Springfield residents and businessmen for “retroactive” street tax. He is alleged to have threatened to kill those unwilling to yield to his demands and is accused of slapping one shakedown victim when he scoffed at forking over $20,000 in back mob taxes, telling the man he intended on chopping off his head and burying it in his backyard if he didn’t pay up.

Amedeo Santaniello avoided being collared in the case, yet has been effected by the fallout – his son’s absence on the scene has apparently exposed a generational divide in the small mob community, leaving him at odds with the crew’s younger members. Santaniello fled Massachusetts for Florida in the 1990s after feuding with former confidant Adolfo (Big Al) Bruno, at that time on his way to the top of the Springfield mob crew hierarchy. Following Bruno getting assassinated in a palace coup staged by his protégé Anthony (Bingy) Arillotta in the early 2000s, Santaniello returned to Springfield and allegedly resumed his standing in the Springfield underworld.

Frank Depergola, 62, was with Big Al Bruno the night he was gunned down in the parking lot of his social club in November 2003. Arillotta replaced Bruno as mob capo of the region until he became a witness for the government in 2011. In a bombshell report back in the spring, Barry revealed Arillotta, 48, is out of prison and living back in the Springfield area.

The post Springfield (MA) Mob News Update: One Santaniello Pleads Guilty In NY Fed Case, Another Not Getting Along W/ The Boys Back Home appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The Outlaws Motorcycle Club’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida was destroyed by a fire last week amid undergoing renovations. Authorities believe arson was involved in the blaze which occurred on August 25. Responders allegedly recovered traces of an accelerant, according to television news reports out of Tampa.

Based and founded in the Midwest, the Outlaws have always maintained a stronghold in the American South, especially Florida, where the club has 16 individual chapters spread throughout the state. The Tampa area is considered “Ground Zero” for Outlaws in Florida.

Back in July, the Outlaws’ St. Petersburg chapter president James Costa survived an attempt on his life when he was shot by rivals while driving his motorcycle. Costa is a retired firehouse captain who worked for the Hillsborough County Fire Department.

Florida has been buzzing with Outlaws violence in recent months. Veteran Jacksonville chapter member Christopher (Louie the Lip) Keating was stabbed to death in a Daytona Beach bar brawl in April. That same month, Ocala chapter president Marc (Knothead) Knotts allegedly ordered and personally oversaw the execution of Kingsmen MC vice president David (Gutter) Donovan on the final day of a Florida biker fest. Knotts and three other Ocala Outlaws are currently in jail awaiting trial for Donovan’s slaying.

The post Florida Outlaws MC Clubhouse Burns To The Ground In Suspected Arson, Ends Tough Summer For Bikers In St. Pete appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Former Detroit Iraqi mob lieutenant Najah (Jaguar Nick) Konja recently secured a reprieve from deportation back to Baghdad with proof of a permanent Green Card that awarded him amnesty via a court filing known as a “212” motion. Konja has been a vocal leader for those targeted by the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement push, doing multiple interviews with the local and national press regarding the hot-button issue from inside prison walls.

Back in the summer, the 55-year old Konja was one of hundreds of Christian Iraqi-natives living in the United States with criminal records hit with deportation orders and detained by the federal government. Most remain behind bars awaiting a decision by a federal judge on the constitutionality of returning people to their home country if it’s likely they will become victims of religious persecution.

Nicknamed for his choice of automobile, Konja was busted for narcotics trafficking in 1989 and did two decades behind bars, having been indicted and convicted by both the feds and the state of Michigan. He was released from federal prison in 2010 and has been clean ever since. The Konja family arrived in Detroit from Baghdad in 1977.

In the 1980s, Konja was a high-ranking member of young, swaggering drug kingpin Harry Kalasho’s inner circle. Konja was with Kalasho in February 1989 when the handsome, charismatic 25-year old crime lord was killed gangland-style by a rival in the midst of a turf war that raged in Detroit’s Iraqi underworld at the time.

The post Detroiter, One-Time Drug Dealer “Jaguar Nick” Saved From Deportation At The Nick Of Time appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Multi-platinum recording artist Kid Rock was known to pal around with a notorious Detroit mobster and once dealt drugs for the city’s most dangerous urban narcotics syndicate according to sources. Kid Rock, a proud native Detroiter born Robert Ritchie, has sold $25,000,000 albums and will be opening the city’s sparkling new Little Caesars Arena next week with a string of six concerts. The decision to have him kickoff the event-slate at the much-anticipated debut of the state-of-the-art downtown arena has recently come under fire by local liberal advocacy groups and media pundits for the rap-rocker/country singer’s outspoken conservative political views and one-time use of the Confederate Flag at his shows.

As a teenager and aspiring white rapper in the 1980s, Kid Rock slang crack cocaine for the murderous Best Friends Gang out of Mount Clemens, one of the many cities outside of Detroit the gang expanded into in its coke boom heyday. In interviews throughout his music career, he’s admitted to dabbling in narcotics trafficking in his youth.

Once he was on the ascent as a popular performer in the 1990s and early 2000s, Kid Rock is alleged to have befriended imposing Detroit mob figure Michael (Greektown Mike) Katranis, a powerful associate of the area’s Zerilli-Tocco crime family. Katranis died of natural causes in the summer of 2015 at 76 years old. His last run-in with the law was a weapons charge.

“Bob (Kid Rock) would always be at Mike’s birthday bashes, he would even get on stage and do some songs,” one exclusive Gangster Report source recalled. “Mike helped him out when he was on the come-up again in the local club scene, clearing the way for a few bookings here or there after he got booted from his first label. Bob never forgot that.”

Mike Katranis

Kid Rock was signed straight out of high school by Jive Records in 1989 and went on tour with rap legends Ice Cube and Too Short. Jive Records dropped him as an act in 1991, paving the way for him to reinvent himself, first by helping pioneer the rap-rock movement later in the decade and then transitioning into the country music genre. The 46-year old currently lives between Alabama, Nashville and Detroit.

The Best Friends Gang was founded in the mid-1980s by the four Brown brothers (Terrance aka “Boogaloo,” Reggie aka “Rocking Reg,” Gregory aka “Ghost,” and Ezra aka “Wizard) and got its start as a murder-for-hire operation for Eastside Detroit drug lords prior to becoming drug lords themselves. The FBI places the gang’s body count at well over 100 in less than a 10-year span.

At first, the Brown brothers and their brutish band of bloodthirsty lieutenants called themselves “The Ghoolies.” Some time in 1985, they rebranded the gang the Best Friends, printing up hats, shirts, jackets and car decals featuring their catchy, newly-coined moniker.

By the late 1980s, the Best Friends had branched off into Metro Detroit suburbs like Mount Clemens, Pontiac and Troy and out to Westside Michigan locales such as Grand Rapids and Muskegon. While he peddled the Best Friends drugs in Mount Clemens, a gritty, working-class town that rests less than 30 miles north of Detroit city limits and serves as the Macomb County Seat, Kid Rock was a member of an area hip-hop group known as the Beast Crew.

Boogaloo, Ghost and Wizard Brown were all slain gangland style. Ghost and Wizard Brown were both killed in the same week in 1986. More than a dozen Best Friends were indicted in a massive drug, murder and racketeering case in 1991 with Rocking Reggie Brown being convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

“Boogaloo” Brown (far left) & “Rocking Reggie” Brown (far right)

Spawning from Greek heritage, Mike Katranis was a feared enforcer and collector for Detroit’s Italian mafia. His father, Petros (Pete the Greek) Katranis, was the boss of the crime family’s former wing of Greek wiseguys, stationed in Greektown, which has traditionally been downtown Detroit’s primary entertainment district dating back to the 1940s. Gregory (Little Pete) Katranis, his brother, was brutally killed — beaten to death and stuffed in the trunk of his Fleetwood Cadillac — in December 1972 for skimming extortion cash, freelancing in loan sharking and drug rackets and getting into a fist fight in a Greektown tavern with a popular Italian mobster.

The Katranis family answered to the Detroit mafia’s Vitale and Giacalone crews. The Vitale brothers (Paul aka “The Pope” & Peter aka “Bozzy”) headquartered their activities at their Grecian Gardens restaurant in the heart of Greektown. Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone was the Zerilli-Tocco clan’s street boss for over 40 years. Giacalone died of kidney failure in 2001, while the Vitales passed away peacefully in 1988 and 1998 respectively.

The post Kid Rock Rubbed Elbows With Gangsters, Greek Mobster In His Past, Will Tip-Off Music Bill At Little Caesars Arena Amidst Protests appeared first on The Gangster Report.

When rap superstar Eminem shot to international fame in the late 1990s, he did so with his group D12 at his side. Sadly, two of the original six founding members of D12, Karnail (Bugz) Pitts and DeShaun (Proof) Holton, were killed in heated exchanges with rivals in 1999 and 2006, respectively, in their hometown of Detroit.

Pitts never got to see the group achieve fandom and financial success, dying two years before the groundbreaking Motor City hip hop collective dropped its first album, the quadruple-platinum selling Devil’s Night, which was a No. 1 record in the summer of 2001 and dedicated to his memory. Holton on the other hand was well known to music fans as Eminem’s trusted sidekick, rap mentor, best friend, hype man and “brother MC,” prior to his slaying. In Eminem’s smash-hit movie 8 Mile in 2002, a version of Holton was portrayed by actor Mekhi Phifer.

Eminem’s transformational megawatt-mainstream debut The Slim Shady LP was released to worldwide praise in February 1999. By April of that year, the album was certified platinum, his first of many.

The following month, he’d lose the first member of his group.

Bugz got murdered while attending a BBQ on Detroit’s famous Belle Isle, hours before he was supposed to perform with Eminem and D12 across the state in Grand Rapids. On the afternoon of May 21, 1999, Pitts and several of his friends got into a physical altercation with another group of picnickers at the sprawling park bordering the Detroit River and offering views of the Canadian coastline that turned deadly. Bugz was just 21.

Upon a female friend of Pitts’ named Tamika Franklin getting sprayed with a high-powered water gun, Pitts and his crew of buddies, which included Franklin’s brother and cousin, began beating the perpetrator, a teenager named Jimmy Lloyd in retaliation — Lloyd had allegedly pushed Franklin when she confronted him regarding the unwelcomed gesture. As Pitts tried to extricate himself from the fracas, Lloyd’s friend, a man named Andre Hamilton shot him with a hunting rifle and proceeded to run him over with his SUV. Hamilton was convicted of first-degree homicide.

Proof & Eminem

Proof was shot to death by Mario Etheridge in the early morning of April 11, 2006 after he argued with and then shot Etheridge’s cousin Keith Bender in a fight that broke out at the Triple C, an after-hours establishment off 8 Mile Road, over a game of pool between former high school classmates. Bender died from his wounds too.

Holton, 32, and Bender, 29, had attended Detroit Osborn High School together. Ethridge was the club’s bouncer and eventually acquitted on second-degree murder charges by pleading self-defense. Reggie (Mudd) Moore, a Motown rapper and Proof’s protégé who was present at the scene, claimed in an interview in the years following Proof’s slaying that Ethridge shot and killed Holton and then shot and killed Bender by accident.

Eight Mile Road is the dividing line between the city of Detroit and Southeast Michigan’s suburbs. The since-closed Triple C rested at the corner of 8 Mile and Gratiot Avenue on the northern-most tip of the 48235 area code, the nation’s deadliest neighborhood as measured by overall murder rate and nicknamed the “4823-Die” by local gangbangers.

The grimy after-hours joint was owned by Detroit mob capo Frank (Frankie the Bomb) Bommarito, the area Italian crime family’s representative in the rugged region. Bommarito died of natural causes last fall at 86. He headed mob affairs with Detroit’s African-American and motorcycle club underworlds for years before being hospitalized for sudden organ failure in late 2016.

The post The D12 Murders: Rap Superstar Eminem Lost Two Close Friends, Group Members To Streets Of Detroit appeared first on The Gangster Report.

An infamous inactive former Detroit drug gang lieutenant has taken time to do an interview with the media regarding a lesser-known one-time contemporary caught up in trouble again with the law. On the heels of Darryl Terrell’s recent federal indictment on cocaine-trafficking and money-laundering charges, his former fellow Young Boys, Incorporated henchman Maurice (Moe Heart) Gibbs sat down with The Detroit News and gave his opinion on the situation.

The 60-year old Terrell was indicted back in May and is set to go to trial in November. He’s being held without bond. Jerome Terrell, his 27-year old son, faces the same set of charges and will go to trial at the end of 2017 as well.

“Darryl is a quiet cat,” Gibbs told Detroit News reporter Robert Snell last week in Snell’s front-page story on Terrell’s current legal issues (read the whole story here). “He was into dressing well, staying sharp, having a nice car and plenty of women. At the end of the day, that’s what it was about for all of us.”

Gibbs, 58, was one of more than 40 members of the transcendent Young Boys, Incorporated or “YBI” to go down on federal narcotics and racketeering charges in 1982. Founded by Gibbs’ cousin, Milton (Butch) Jones and three other westside Detroit drug lords in 1978, YBI went on to revolutionize the Midwest heroin trade with its pioneering sales and marketing techniques and its ability to not have to rely on the Italian mafia for its supply source.

While Gibbs did four years in prison for the 1982 bust, Terrell avoided arrest in the case. Terrell would be convicted of cocaine-distribution charges at trial in 1996. He served 12 years in prison and walked free in 2008.

“The pressure of the drug business is intense…..You’ve got police breathing down your neck, you’re trying to stay alive from the cats on the street, you’ve got guys trying to rob you, trying to get next to you and arrest you,” said Gibbs of the dope game. “The bigger you get, the bigger target you become. And then if you get really big, you have to start worrying about the feds. You’ve got all these obstacles to contend with in order to win. You have to tiptoe through the landmines (if you want to be successful) and you’re lucky if you actually do make it to the other side.”

Gibbs isn’t shocked by Terrell’s return to the streets.

“I’m not surprised……I’m disappointed at this age he’s having (these kind) of legal problems and that his son is tied up in it. I hate to hear that. But I’m not surprised….”

According to sources, Gibbs said goodbye to the drug world a long time ago and today is a local legitimate businessman in Southeast Michigan. In his younger years, he was equally loved, feared and respected in the area’s traditionally tumultuous dope game – obviously a rare combination.

YBI turncoat Kevin (Lughead) Wilson testified Gibbs was one of the men who killed YBI co-founder Dwayne (Wonderful Wayne) Davis in 1982 after Davis butted heads with Jones regarding Davis’ independent expansion efforts out of state. Moe Heart was also top suspect in the May 1983 gangland slaying of YBI soldier Joe (Wamp) Brown, who named Gibbs as one of the men who shot him on his deathbed. Hit with a first-degree homicide charge, Gibbs was found not guilty at trial later that year.

Terrell’s attorney, Otis Culpepper, served as YBI’s de-facto in-house counsel throughout the height of its reign in the late 1970s and first half of the 1980s. Butch Jones did just over seven years in prison on the 1982 indictment, but got convicted of murder, drugs and racketeering in the 1990s for his role in leading a street gang known as “The Dawg Pound.” Jones is doing life behind bars. During their YBI days, Gibbs was a valued member of Jones’ personal enforcement unit known as “The Wrecking Crew.”

The post To The Heart Of The Matter: “Moe Heart” Gibbs, Once Of Detroit’s Iconic YBI Drug Gang, Speaks On Darryl Terrell Indictment appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Boston mob bigwig Anthony (The Little Cheese) DiNunzio is a free man once again. Welcome to the Trump Era, Cheeseman No. 2!

DiNunzio, the 58-year old former acting boss of the New England mafia and baby brother of the Patriarca crime family’s current reputed Godfather, Carmen (The Big Cheese) DiNunzio, was released from federal prison this month, but will be on home confinement at his East Boston residence until February. He was gone as a guest of the government for almost six years. Carmen DiNunzio, 60, got sprung from federal custody in early 2015 and just off parole in July. Per sources, he took over the crime family’s official top spot after spending the past two years as the syndicate’s acting boss and the previous dozen as the clan’s underboss.

Before he was busted for extorting a string of Rhode Island strip clubs in April 2012, the younger DiNunzio was the Patriarca’s day-to-day skipper on the streets for roughly four years, looking after the shop for his then-incarcerated big brother and recently-deceased don Pete Limone, who preferred a hands-off leadership approach. The Boston-based Limone died of natural causes back in the summer at 83.

The DiNunzio brothers headquarter their mob affairs out of the Gemini Social Club located in Boston’s North End neighborhood. The elder DiNunzio ran the Fresh Cheese Shop on Endicott Street before going to prison for racketeering, extortion, bookmaking, bribery and corruption charges in a pair of state and fed cases he incurred in 2006 and 2008 respectively. Gregory (Fat Greg) Costa, the Big Cheese’s protégé, is reportedly running the old North End crew these days.

Both DiNunzios did federal prison time in the late 1980s and early 1990s for collecting mob debts on behalf of the Chicago Outfit’s Las Vegas crew, within which the rotund siblings took refuge in the wake of a falling out with former North End mafia overlord and New England mob underboss Jerry Angiulo. The DiNunzio’s came back to Boston following their prison stints and are said to have been made into the Patriarcas almost immediately with the eternally-cranky Angiulo tucked away behind bars himself.

Louie DiNunzio, Little Cheese DiNunzio’s 30-year old son, got nailed for drug dealing in 2016. He’s been identified by law enforcement as an up-and-comer in Boston mob circles and by the U.S. Attorneys Office as a recent initiate to the Patriarca Borgata, part of a growing North End contingent comprised of young, eager DiNunzio family loyalists.

Anthony DiNunzio was caught on an FBI wire in December 2011 telling a high-ranking New York mobster “I’ll (kill you) and get to watch you die in the ground….and I’ll dig you back up and make sure you’re dead.”

He further bragged, “Even if I go to the can, I’m still the boss. No matter what.”

The Little Cheese was wrong. Seasoned Boston Goodfella Anthony (Spucky) Spagnolo replaced him as acting boss until his arrest for racketeering and extortion in 2014. The 75-year old Spagnolo is set to be released from a federal correctional facility in New Jersey later this year (December 4, 2017) and should either be in a halfway house or on home confinement soon.

Well-liked Providence wiseguy Alfred (Chippy) Scivola, Anthony DiNunzio’s co-defendant in his 2012 case, died peacefully at 76 in July. Another co-defendant of DiNunzio’s in that case, Edward (Little Eddie) Lato, a Providence captain in the Patriarcas, will be cooling his heels in that same New Jersey lockup Spagnolo is about to be sprung from for another two years. Lato, 70, and his alleged role in the 1992 murder of New England mob enforcer Kevin Hanrahan are the focus of ongoing federal grand jury proceedings, per sources with intimate knowledge of the proceedings.

The post New England Mafia Leader “Little Cheese” DiNunzio Let Loose By Feds, Mob Don’s Baby Bro Returns To Beantown Following 6 Yrs. In Fed Custody appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Former Rochester, New York Teamsters union member and east coast labor and mob historian Blair T. Kenny recently put out his second book, The Rochester Mob Wars (purchase a copy here) , chronicling the now-defunct crime family’s turbulent turf battles of the 1970s and early 1980s. The conflict became known in the media as the Alphabet Wars for its confusing alliances and “A”, “B,” and “C” team faction designations.

Kenny’s first publishing effort was The History of the Rochester Teamsters and he’s working on a third book tentatively titled Arson For Hire. looking into the mob torch racket of the Alphabet Wars era. Kenny is retired from Local 118.

In honor of Kenny’s new book, The Gangster Report gives you a Rochester Mob Wars timeline, spanning the years 1972 and 1984 and complete A, B and C Team rosters.

THE ALPHABET WARS (1972-1984)

May 1972 – Rochester Godfather Frank Valenti is booted from the boss’ seat in a meeting at the Red Lion Inn with his underboss Sam (Red) Russotti and consigliere Rene (The Painter) Picarretto after Russotti and Piccaretto discover Valenti is hoarding profits from a secret stash of rackets being conducted by a local mob subunit which reported directly to him and nobody else. Russotti takes Valenti’s place as boss as Valenti leaves for exile in Arizona and is soon indicted, convicted and incarcerated on racketeering charges.

June 5, 1972 – Rochester mob soldier Dominic Chirico, a Valenti lieutenant and the leader of his secret subunit, is shot-gunned to death outside his girlfriend’s apartment building.

April 3, 1973 — Rochester mob associate Ernie White is killed, his body dumped under a local bridge, the day after he was part of a mafia armed-robbery crew that knocked off a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Irondequoit, New York

November 23, 1973 – Rochester mob enforcer Vincent (Jimmy the Hammer) Massaro, a Valenti loyalist, is killed and stuffed in the trunk of his car after bucking under the thumb of the city’s new mafia regime.

December 1974 – Rochester mafia associate William (Zeke) Zimmerman flips, leading to the flipping of soldiers Charles & Angelo Monacchino and Joe (Spike) LaNovara, a chain-reaction that results in charges being brought in the Jimmy Massaro homicide.

November 10, 1976 – Sam (Red) Russotti, his underboss Salvatore (Sammy G) Gingello, his consigliere Rene (The Painter) Piccaretto and others are convicted at trial for murdering Jimmy Massaro and sent to prison. Russotti names Tommy Didio, a bodyguard of Gingello’s, as his acting boss and their relationship strained quickly.

January 31, 1978 – Amid a massive scandal in the police department and prosecutor’s office regarding tainted and manufactured evidence in the Massaro case, Russotti, Gingello and Piccaretto have their murder convictions tossed and are set free, forming the so-called “A Team.” Refusing to get back in line behind Russotti’s regime, Didio goes underground, seeks support from an incarcerated Frank Valenti through Valenti’s brother and aide-de-camp Stan, and prepares for war as leader of the “B Team.”

April 23, 1978 – Ambitious Rochester mob underboss Salvatore (Sammy G) Gingello, 39, is killed in a car bombing in front of Ben’s Café Society Social Club after a long night of doing the town with his bodyguards, Tommy Torpey and Tommy Taylor, who survive the explosion. Dick (Molly) Marino assumed underboss duties in. Torpey and Taylor go on to start up the C Team.

Spring 1978 – The city erupts in a spat of shootings and bombings connected to the Alphabet War: a number of Russotti’s betting parlors are bombed and B Team hit man Rosario Chirico, the brother to slain Valenti hit man Dominic Chirico, survives being shot by a sniper on May 25.

July 6, 1978 – Rochester mob chief and B Team boss Tommy Didio is machine-gunned to death inside a room at the Exit 45 Motel in Victor, New York.

July 30, 1978 – Rochester mafia associate and B Team member Rodney Starkweather is shot three times and flips soon thereafter.

December 17, 1981 – Rochester mob capo and labor union leader John (Johnny Flowers) Fiorino is shot-gunned to death outside the Blue Gardenia restaurant by John (Mad Dog) Sullivan, on orders of the C Team. The Blue Gardenia was a favorite area mob haunt of that era and was owned by Rochester mafia associate Ben (Benny Manning) Managazze. Fiorino was the Teamsters vice-president in the Rochester region.

March 1982 – Members of the C Team severely beat a Red Russotti betting-parlor operator, putting him in the hospital for a month for not paying them tribute. Court records show in reaction to the assault, Russotti via Piccaretto placed open murder contracts on the C Team.

May 25, 1982 – Rochester mobster and C Team member Nick Mastrodonato is allegedly slain by A Team hit man Dominic (Trigger Dom) Taddeo.

August 26, 1982 – Rochester mobster and C Team member Gerry Pelusio is killed in a hail of shot-gun fire in an attack on him and his brother and fellow C Team affiliate Tommy Pelusio. A Team hit man Dominic Taddeo is again linked to the latter Alphabet War violence.

November 1982 – Red Russotti and Rene Piccaretto are indicted with eight other A Teamers in a wide-reaching federal racketeering case.

April 2, 1983 – Rochester mobster and C Team member Dino Tortarice is killed outside his home in another murder tied to Taddeo.

April & November 1983 – Rochester mob capo and A Team member Tommy Marotta survives attempts on his life in the spring and late fall of ‘83, with the April attack seeing him shot seven times. Marotta was Sammy Gingello’s right-hand man in the 1970s and Tommy Didio’s first cousin.

October 1984 – Red Russotti is convicted in his federal racketeering case, pulling him off the street for good. Russotti died of a heart attack in a Michigan prison hospital in June of 1993.

The Rosters

The A Team

Sam (Red) Russotti

Salvatore (Sammy G) Gingello

Rene (The Painter) Piccaretto

Dick (Molly) Marino

Salvatore (Sammy Camps) Campanella — eventually joined the B Team

Salvatore (Sammy D) Di Gaetano

Eugene (Gene the Firecracker) DeFrancesco

Dominic (Trigger Dom) Taddeo

Anthony Colombo

Joe (Joey T) Trieste

John (Johnny Flap) Trivigno

Angelo (Oskie) DeMarco

Tommy Marotta

Anthony (Tony G) Gingello

Loren Piccaretto

Angelo Amico

Joseph (Joe the Hop) Rossi

Anthony (Tony Dags) D’Agostino

Nick (Bugsy the Fence) Fosco

Lou (Louie Tree Tops) Imburgia

Joseph (Joe the Genie) Geniola

Joseph (Joe Desserts) La Dolce

Anthony Oliveri

Bobby Palmiere

Lenny Stebbans

Joe (Joey Tubes) Tiraborelli

Anthony (Nippy) Arena

Joseph (Joe the Banker) Lippa

Don (Monroe Street Donnie) Paone

Orlando (Orlie P) Paone

Lou (Yamaha Louie) Santonato

Robert (Bobby Fernwood) Silveri

The B Team

Tommy Didio

Dominic (Sonny) Celestino

Charles (Charlie the Ox) Indovino

Frank (Frankie the Farmer) Frassetto

Angelo Vaccaro

Jimmy Canarozza

Rosario Chirico

Tony Chirico

Rodney Starkweather

Billy Barton

Vinnie Tobacco

Vincenzo (Vinnie the Captain) Cottone

Jimmy (Crazy Carlos) Bates

Joseph (Joe the Bowler) La Mendola

The C Team

Tommy Torpey

Tommy Taylor

Louie DiGuilo

Danny Bookles

Paul Comfort

Ray Sampson

Dino Tortarice

Jimmy & Stevie McAfee

Nicky Mastrodonato

Gerry, Tommy & Mike Pelusio

Richie Tribunella

Mario Tribunella

The post The Rochester Mob Wars Scorecard Gets A Boost From In-Depth New Book: Alphabet Decoder Cheat Sheet appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Well acclimated to portraying high-profile American gangsters of the past, British actor Stephen Graham has been hired to play deceased east coast mob captain Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano in The Irishman, the much-anticipated upcoming Martin Scorsese-helmed movie about the relationship between hit man Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran and iconic labor union boss Jimmy Hoffa. Graham, 44, was previously cast as Al Capone in the Emmy-winning HBO television series Boardwalk Empire and Baby Face Nelson in the 2009 film Public Enemies.

Hoffa, the stubborn, hard-nosed former president of the Teamsters, vanished from a suburban Detroit restaurant parking lot on the afternoon of July 30, 1975 on his way to a purported peace conference with Provenzano. The pair had once been close friends but they were in a heated feud at the time the 62-year old Hoffa went missing. Aiming at another run for the Teamsters top spot in the 1976 election, Hoffa needed to make amends with the powerful New Jersey-stationed Genovese crime family capo for the sake of his bid to reclaim the union’s presidency.

Provenzano wielded considerable weight in the Teamsters from his Local 560 in Union City, New Jersey, while running a crew of Genovese soldiers and associates out of the Garden State for his bosses in New York. He died in prison of a heart attack in 1988 at the age of 71, serving time behind bars for murder and racketeering unrelated to the Hoffa case.

In the years preceding his kidnapping and murder, Hoffa was in a growing beef with the same organized crime figures whose support and accompanying muscle he rode to the presidency in the 1950s. Nobody has ever been charged or even arrested in the Hoffa homicide probe. Tony Pro and several members of his Local 560 crew, most of whom are dead, are considered prime suspects in the still-ongoing investigation.

Joe Pesci has been cast as Sheeran’s direct superior in the mafia, Pennsylvania mob don Russell Bufalino. Graham worked with Scorsese in 2002’s Gangs of New York. Pesci and De Niro have both won Oscars in prior Scorsese movies (Pesci in 1990’s Goodfellas and De Niro in 1980’s Raging Bull).

Jimmy Hoffa (L) and Tony Provenzano (R) in better days at Teamsters convention in the 1960s

The post Stephen Graham Comes On Board Scorsese’s New Mob Flick ‘The Irishman’ As N.J. Gangster ‘Tony Pro’ appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Veteran character actor Domenick Lombardozzi is slated to portray portly 20th Century New York mafia don Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno in The Irishman, the much-anticipated upcoming Martin Scorsese-helmed movie about the relationship between hit man Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran and iconic labor union boss Jimmy Hoffa. The 41-year old Lombardozzi has been appearing in gangster-centered movies and television shows for close to 25 years, highlighted by memorable roles in A Bronx Tale, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Miami Vice, Public Enemies, Carlito’s Way: Rise To Power,The Yards and Find Me Guilty, among others.

Hoffa, the stubborn, hard-nosed former president of the Teamsters, vanished from a suburban Detroit restaurant parking lot on the afternoon of July 30, 1975 on his way to a purported peace conference with mobsters representing both mafia factions in Michigan and New York, including Fat Tony Salerno’s Genovese crime family.

In the years preceding his kidnapping and murder, Hoffa, 62, engaged in a growing beef with the same organized crime figures whose support and accompanying muscle he rode to the enormous union’s presidency in the 1950s. Nobody has ever been charged or even arrested in the Hoffa homicide probe.

Several members of Salerno’s Genovese clan, most of whom are dead, are considered prime suspects in the still-ongoing investigation. FBI informants have said Salerno and his fellow Genovese brass signed off on the Hoffa hit. A number of Midwest mobsters suspected of playing a part in the murder conspiracy were observed by FBI surveillance teams visiting Salerno at his Palma Boys Social Club headquarters in East Harlem in the days following Hoffa’s disappearance.

Salerno was the Genovese Family’s acting boss and street boss for most of the 1980s. Rising through the ranks of the east coast mafia as a powerhouse in the multi-ethnic Harlem policy lottery racket, Fat Tony eventually took over the Genovese syndicate on a day-to-day basis in the 1970s until his incarceration in 1986 after being convicted in the now-famous “Commission Case.” He died of a stroke in a Missouri federal prison hospital in 1992 at the age of 80.

Domenick Lombardozzi

Back in 2011, Lombardozzi starred in the A&E Prison Break spinoff, Breakout Kings. He played Al Capone’s brother Ralph (Bottles) Capone in HBO’s Emmy-winning television series Boardwalk Empire. Besides his work in “good-guy, bad-guy” films, Lombardozzi had a recurring role in HBO’s pop-culture smash Entourage. His co-star and on-screen sibling Stephen Graham (Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire) was cast in The Irishman last week and is set to play the Genovese crime family’s former New Jersey capo Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano, who was scheduled to lunch with Hoffa at the exact time he went missing in the summer of 1975. Provenzano died in prison of a heart attack in 1988, serving a sentence for an unrelated gangland slaying linked to Teamsters activity.

The post The Irishman Movie Gets Its ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno, Familiar Face Domenick Lombardozzi Cast As NYC Mob Boss appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The Sons of Silence Motorcycle Club established its foothold in the Midwest in the 1970s when Michael (Righteous Mike) Ramsey brought the Sons of Silence to the heartland, setting up a chapter in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ramsey rose to become a revered SOS national president and dropped dead of a heart attack in March 1991 at the age of just 50 following his retirement from club affairs years earlier

Founded in Colorado in 1966, the club didn’t plant any Midwestern roots until Ramsey left his full-patch status in The Outlaws Motorcycle Club and ventured out to the Rockies to ask permission from legendary Sons of Silence Godfather Bruce (Dude) Richardson to open up shop on a SOS chapter in the Hoosier State.

Currently, there are 18 SOS chapters across the United States, three residing in the Midwest (Indiana, Illinois and Minnesota) and a collection of chapters overseas in Europe based out of Germany. Ramsey turned in his Outlaws cut and colors in 1974 in the wake of internal dissention within the club and headed west to team up with Richardson

The Outlaws and the Sons of Silence went to war in Indianapolis in the late 1970s and early 1980s, resulting in a string of homicides – two being of bikers’ girlfriends – and dividing the city in half, with Indy’s westside being dubbed SOS turf and the eastside remaining Outlaw territory. Formed in a suburb of Chicago, The Outlaws have long been the biggest biker gang in the Midwest.

On the west coast, the Sons of Silence are aligned with The Mongols Motorcycle Club. Like The Outlaws and The Mongols, the SOS are enemies of the Hells Angels. Richardson, the club’s founder, went to prison in 1984 for the remainder of the decade for organizing the abduction of a man from Buffalo, New York who owed his wife $250,000. He died peacefully in 2013 at 74 years old.

Tensions between the Sons of Silence and The Outlaws in Indiana broke out into the open in July 1978 when a bar fight resulted in the near-fatal stabbing of Outlaws member Dale (Dummy) Larque. In March 1980, Outlaws International Vice President Thomas (Satan) Reeves was killed at the club’s Indianapolis chapter headquarters by automatic-weapon fire. Authorities suspect local SOS VP Steve (Crescent K) Kressin of pulling the trigger in Reeves’ murder. Kressin was locked up for drugs and weapons distribution in the 1990s.

More recently, the Sons of Silence contingent operating in the state of Indiana absorbed drug and gun charges in August 2011 and April 2012, respectively. Back in the summer of 2011, the SOS Indy chapter’s sergeant-at-arms, Jack (Little Jackie) Craft, got busted for narcotics and illegal firearms trafficking. The next year, the club’s crew in Terre Haute was nailed for selling crystal meth.

The post ‘Righteous Mike’ Ramsey Brought Sons Of Silence MC To Midwest In 1970s, Challenged The Outlaws For Power In Indy appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Former Detroit drug world figure Stephen (Freaky Steve) Roussell was slain 30 years ago this week in the fall of 1987, a victim of romance-gone-wrong amid the city’s bullets-and-brawn charged crack wars. The 20-year old Roussell had been high-profile teenage drug dealer Richard (White Boy Rick) Wershe’s right-hand man and closest friend.

Wershe, 48 and the nation’s longest-serving non-violent juvenile felony offender, was paroled from state prison in Michigan back in the summer from a narcotics-possession conviction he took in 1988, but is currently incarcerated in Florida finishing up a separate sentence for participating in a stolen car ring behind bars in the early 2000s. He was recruited into the drug game as a 14 year old boy fresh out of eighth grade in the summer of 1984 by a federal narcotics task force created to target “weight men” on Detroit’s eastside and paid by the government to infiltrate local drug gangs.

In just a few months, Wershe’s story will hit the big screen in the January 2018 film White Boy Rick, starring newcomer Richie Merritt as Wershe and Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey as his father. The role of Freaky Steve Roussell will be played by Milwaukee rapper IshDarr.

Roussell, nicknamed for his reputation as a ladies man, was gunned down on September 21, 1987 by gangland rival Reginald (Rocking Reggie) Brown as he slept on the living room couch of his eastside Detroit home located on the 13600 block of Glenwood. Another Wershe associate, Patrick (Little Pat) McLeod, Roussell’s first cousin, was shot in the attack and survived. McLeod is the son of world-famous gritty Detroit novelist Donald Goines, slain himself in 1974 alongside his common-law wife in their Highland Park apartment.

Brown and Roussell were feuding over a girl they had both dated in the months preceding Roussell’s murder. Two weeks before Roussell was killed, Brown was convicted of physically assaulting him in a brawl earlier that year at an area nightclub. At the time of his death, Roussell was on probation for a gun charge tied to a public shootout he engaged in with Brown on a crowded eastside street the prior spring.

Rocking Reggie Brown and his three brothers led the fearsome Best Friends Gang, a murder-for-hire crew turned urban narco conglomerate. He was found guilty of first degree homicide in Roussell’s slaying at an April 1988 jury trial and is serving life behind bars.

While out on an appeal bond in the Roussell case, Brown went after Alfred (Rudy) Austin, a Best Friends affiliate allegedly contemplating cooperating with authorities, and shot Austin and three innocent bystanders dead in a May 1992 massacre on Austin’s front porch. One of those killed in the incident was a 3-year old girl in a stroller. The Best Friends are suspected in littering the state of Michigan with bodies in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The DEA estimates the gang’s body total reaches well into the triple digits.

Roussell was known to have a love for the University of Michigan’s football and basketball teams, making Maize and Blue his signature colors and driving a Wolverines-themed Jeep Cherokee. Honoring his flair and penchant for high fashion ensembles, he was laid out in his favorite gator boots at his wake.

The post ‘White Boy Rick’s’ Right-Hand Man ‘Freaky Steve’ Roussell Met An Unhappy Ending 30 Years Ago, Casualty Of Menacing ‘Best Friends’ appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Iconic prize fighter Jake LaMotta, who died of pneumonia in a Florida nursing home this week at 95, had his name appear on numerous FBI and Michigan State Police surveillance reports for his mingling with the mob on his trips to Detroit in the 1940s and 50s during his pro boxing heyday. The subject of the 1980 film Raging Bull starring Rober De Niro in an Academy Award-winning performance, LaMotta, a tenacious, hard-slugging world middleweight champion hailing from The Bronx, New York, fought 22 times in Motown throughout his career and was known for his rivalry in the ring with Detroit-based Sugar Ray Robinson.

The fight game in Detroit those days was run by mob captain Salvatore (Little Sammy) Finazzo, the owner of the Motor City Boxing Gym. One FBI surveillance report from March 1950, notes LaMotta’s presence in Finazzo’s company at high-stakes card games being operated both at the gym and in the back room of the Grecian Gardens Italian restaurant in downtown Detroit’s Greektown neighborhood, an authentic eatery and mob hangout of the era owned by the Zerilli-Tocco crime family’s Corrado and Vitale crews.

Another MSP intelligence report from 1952 lists him in attendance at a barbeque hosted by Finazzo at Finazzo’s home. Pietro (Machine Gun Pete) Corrado and the Vitale brothers (Peter and Paul) lorded over the lucrative rackets in Greektown, the city’s primary entertainment district, from their Grecian Gardens headquarters. The Grecian Gardens shuttered in the 1990s.

LaMotta won his world middleweight crown at Detroit’s long-demolished Olympia Stadium on June 16, 1949 with a knockout of Marcel Cerdan in the tenth round of action. His lone victory over Sugar Ray Robinson occurred in Detroit at The Olympia too in February 1943. Finazzo was seen in LaMotta’s locker room before and after both fights, according to state police informants. The Finazzo crew specialized in gambling, loan sharking, labor-union strong-arm work and narcotics.

Admittedly, LaMotta took a dive for his associates in the mob in the fourth round of a fight against Billy Fox held at Madison Square Garden in the fall of 1947. He went on to write about the incident in his autobiography and testify about it in front of the U.S. Senate in hearings investigating the influence of organized crime in pro boxing being conducted in 1960. Retiring in 1954 with an 83-19 overall record in the ring, LaMotta dipped into the entertainment industry, working as an actor and stand-up comedian for a while before going on the speaker and autograph circuit later in life.

Little Sammy Finazzo did federal prison time for bribery and racketeering in the early 1980s and died of heart failure in 1994 at 86 years old. Finazzo had been a brother-in-law to legendary Detroit mob don Joe Zerilli (d. 1977), a member of the mafia’s national commission. The Motor City Boxing Gym staged the first-ever nationally televised fight broadcast in 1951. FBI surveillance records indicate Finazzo met with a who’s who of mobsters wielding power in the boxing world, including east coast hoodlums like Frankie Carbo, Frank (Blinky) Palermo and Anthony (Tony Meats) Ferrante, at his office inside the gym over the course of his reign.

The post Like A Bull In A China Shop: Jake LaMotta Landed On Law Enforcement Radar In Detroit As Champ In 1950s appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Trusted Detroit mob associate Tommy Mackey was released from federal prison this week after doing 14 months behind bars for running an internet sports gambling ring based out of a popular eastside suburban pasta place. The 60-year old Mackey is a top lieutenant under reputed Detroit mob street boss Pete Tocco.

Mackey and eight others were indicted in 2014 for an on-line bookmaking conspiracy operating out of Luciano’s Italian Restaurant in Clinton Township, Michigan. All nine co-defendants in the case pled guilty, but Mackey was the only one who wound up serving prison time — he was sentenced in June of 2016. Luciano’s is considered one of the best and most authentic Italian restaurants in Metro Detroit.

Mackey’s “book” was hosted on an internet betting site called Betchopper.com. The bust stemmed from an anonymous 2012 tip to Fraser, Michigan police. The investigation was quickly turned over to the FBI.

Longtime area bookie Kenny Green, a close friend of Mackey’s, was nailed in the case as well. Mackey and Tocco went down together in a 2006 bookmaking and racketeering bust. On the street, Mackey is sometimes called “Irish Tommy,” “The Leprechaun” or “Mackey the Lackey,” in reference to his tight relationship with Tocco and the fact that he can often be seen flanking him on trips around town.

Pete Tocco, 70, watches over the Zerilli-Tocco crime family’s daily affairs, according to multiple sources. Back in 2006, Tocco, who’s uncle is former don Giacomo (Black Jack) Tocco, the Godfather of the Detroit mafia for almost 35 years prior to his death of heart failure in 2014, was just a captain in rank.

The post Motor City Mob Homecoming: The Detroit Mafia’s Tocco Crew Gets One Of Its Own Back, Tommy Mackey Out Of The Can appeared first on The Gangster Report.

United States District Judge Nancy Edmunds nullified efforts by imprisoned Highwaymen Motorcycle Club member Gary (Junior) Ball to get a new trial last week, ruling the uncovering of a co-defendant’s prior work as an informant wasn’t enough grounds to assume that co-defendant had worked with federal authorities to subvert the overall defense of the case.

Ball, 52, was one of close to 100 Highwaymen in Detroit, Michigan indicted for racketeering, narcotics and murder-for-hire schemes in 2007. He was convicted at a jury trial in December 2010 and sentenced to 30 years behind bars. While on the street, Ball ran a multi-state stolen-bike racket and served as a liaison for the club to the Motor City’s Italian mafia.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, Ball began researching his case from his prison cell in the years following his conviction and found out that his co-defendant, Aref (Scarface Steve) Nagi, a college-educated former club vice president and one-time sergeant-at-arms, had been used as an informant for the Troy, Michigan Police Department and the Detroit office of the DEA in the early 1990s. The 53-year old Nagi, also convicted in the case, isn’t eligible for parole until 2024.

Ball’s attorneys argued to Judge Edmonds that if he had known of Nagi’s status as a snitch, he would have never allowed Nagi’s attorney, James Thomas, to be the defense team’s spokesman in the courtroom and that it was possible that Nagi was feeding the prosecution information on defense team strategy sessions. Thomas, a high-powered Detroit attorney, denies that Nagi was an informant and there was any wrongdoing on his part as defense team leader in the case in an affidavit he signed in the fall of 2016.

The Ball appeal delved into his own counsel at trial as well, questioning if his lawyer, Larry Shulman, compromised himself by handling plea negotiations for another co-defendant of his without informing him of the situation. Alabama attorney David Schoen represents Ball for his appeal process.

According to what Ball unearthed in his researching quest, Nagi set up a drug deal for Troy cops and the DEA in a Troy shopping mall parking lot in 1992. Despite Thomas’ rebuke of the assertion that Nagi ever worked for the government, the U.S. Attorney’s Office admits Nagi was an informant for federal and local law enforcement in the past, but says it played no role in the 2010 trial or overall prosecution of the case.

In a DEA and ATF raid of Nagi’s suburban Sterling Heights, Michigan residence in 2006, agents found a cache over 30 firearms. Wiretaps of his cellular and home phones displayed his hair-trigger temper and penchant for violence. On one call with another Highwaymen, Nagi bragged of stabbing and physically assaulting an employee of his at a Mexican restaurant he owned that he had caught stealing, finally leaving the man badly beaten and bleeding in a trash bin in the alley.

The Highwaymen are the state of Michigan’s largest biker gang, founded in Detroit in 1954 by Elburn (Big Max) Burns. The club maintains chapters in Indiana, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, New York and New Jersey. There are eight chapters in Michigan alone – Downtown Detroit, Eastside Detroit, Westside Detroit, Northwest Detroit, Downriver, Ann Arbor, Lansing and Monroe. The club’s Godfather Leonard (Big Daddy) Moore and its former national president Joseph (Little Joe Whiting) went down in the 2007 indictment out of Detroit too and both have filed similar appeal briefs to the one Ball just had tossed.

The post Motown Biker Takes One On The Chin In Court, Highwaymen’s ‘Junior’ Ball Sees Appeal Kicked Loose appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Slain Philadelphia mob boss Phil (The Chicken Man) Testa was memorialized in song by Bruce Springsteen back in the 1980s. Now, he’ll get the Hollywood treatment and appear on the silver screen. Seasoned character actor Larry Romano will play Testa in The Irishman, the much-anticipated upcoming Martin Scorsese-helmed movie about the relationship between mob hit man, Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran and iconic labor union boss Jimmy Hoffa.

Romano, 54, is best known for his recurring role on the hit late 1990s-early 2000s CBS sitcom The King of Queens and co-starring roles in the Sylvester Stallone 1989 prison film Lock Up, the 1996 Al Pacino political thriller City Hall and the Pacino and Johnny Depp classic mob-flick Donnie Brasco. Testa, blown to bits by a nail bomb planted underneath his porch in March of 1981 — part of an unsuccessful palace coup launched against his regime –, was one of Sheeran’s direct superiors in the mafia. He was 56 at the time of his death.

Native Garden Stater Bruce Springsteen opens his 1982 song Atlantic City with the line “Well, they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night and they blew up his house too.” Testa helped spearhead the darker side of 1970s and 80s casino boom in Atlantic City and got his nickname for his involvement in the wholesale chicken industry. The Philadelphia mafia has traditionally controlled underworld affairs in “AC” and parts of North Jersey. Sheeran was a Teamsters boss in Delaware and worked for Pennsylvania dons Russell Bufalino and Angelo Bruno, who preceded Testa as Godfather of the Philly mob and like the Chicken Man met a violent end (assassinated the year before Testa was) and will appear as a character in The Irishman.

Larry Romano (L) at the height of his TV fame

Hoffa, the stubborn, hard-nosed former president of the Teamsters, vanished from a suburban Detroit restaurant parking lot on the afternoon of July 30, 1975 on his way to a purported peace conference with mobsters representing both mafia factions in Michigan and New York. In the years preceding his kidnapping and murder, Hoffa, 62, engaged in a growing beef with the same organized crime figures whose support and accompanying muscle he rode to the union’s presidency in the 1950s. Nobody has ever been charged or even arrested in the case.

Scorsese has collected a star-studded ensemble for his adaption of Charles Brandt’s 2004 best-selling book, I Heard You Paint Houses, in which Sheeran claims to have been the man who shot and killed Hoffa on his deathbed. Robert De Niro will play Sheeran and Pacino is cast as Hoffa. Harvey Keitel will play Bruno and Joe Pesci is portraying Bufalino. Cameras are already rolling on the 100-million dollar Netflix production expected to have a limited theatre run next year. De Niro, Pesci and Keitel are frequent Scorsese collaborators, however The Irishman will be the first time Scorsese and the equally-beloved Pacino work together.

The Chicken Man near the end

The post Flying The Chicken Coup…..Right To The Big Screen: Philly Mafia’s ‘Chicken Man’ Testa To See Face Time In New Scorsese Mob Flick appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The final on-screen pieces are in place for movieland’s version of Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano’s infamous mob crew, a colorful collection of bad guys, bandits and bullies, who worked for the Genovese crime family’s Garden State capo out a Teamsters union hall in Union City, New Jersey in the 1960s and 70s. After Martin Scorsese cast Stephen Graham (Boardwalk Empire) as Tony Pro in The Irishman, the much-anticipated gangster “supergroup” movie about the relationship between hit man Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran and iconic slain labor union boss Jimmy Hoffa, he tapped Louis Cancelmi (also from Boardwalk Empire) as Provenzano’s right-hand man Salvatore (Sally Bugs) Briguglio and Jeremy Luke and Joseph Russo as the Andretta brothers, Tommy and Stevie, respectively, a pair of young, eager pupils mentored by Tony Pro and Sally Bugs. They’re all considered suspects in Hoffa’s kidnapping and killing.

Luke is best known for Don Jon and Sully. Russo played the Joe Pesci character in the Jersey Boys movie, a film Luke also appeared in about the music group The Four Seasons. Pesci, the Oscar-winning actor, was a childhood friend of the band’s and has come out of retirement to be in The Irishman, along with fellow frequent Scorsese collaborators Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. The film is currently shooting in New York and New Jersey.

Sally Bugs, Tony Pro and Stevie Andretta are all deceased. Tommy Andretta, 80, resides in Las Vegas, allegedly long retired from his days working for the east coast mob. Briguglio, a suspect in a number of mob executions as well as Hoffa’s, was killed gangland style in New York’s Little Italy in 1978 in the weeks before he and Provenzano were set to stand trial together. The Andrettas were convicted in 1979 for labor racketeering and sent to prison. Stevie Andretta died of cancer in the 2000s.

The Andretta brothers (Tommy on the left, Stevie on the right) in 1975

Hoffa, the stubborn, hard-nosed former president of the Teamsters, vanished from a suburban Detroit restaurant parking lot on the afternoon of July 30, 1975 on his way to a purported peace conference with Provenzano. The two men had once been close friends but they were in a heated feud at the time the 62-year old Hoffa went missing. Aiming at another run for the Teamsters top spot in the 1976 election, Hoffa needed to make amends with Provenzano for the sake of his bid to reclaim the union’s presidency.

Provenzano wielded considerable weight in the Teamsters from his Local 560 in Union City, New Jersey in which Sally Bugs and both the Andrettas were also employed. He died in prison of a heart attack in 1988 at the age of 71, serving time behind bars for a murder and racketeering offenses unrelated to the Hoffa case.

According to FBI informants, at least one coming from Tony Pro’s inner circle, Sally Bugs and the Andrettas were part of the hit team sent to Detroit to do away with Hoffa in the summer of 1975. Most informants implicating the Provenzano crew in the famous hit, peg Sally Bugs the triggerman and the Andrettas as the men in charge of the clean-up and disposal process.

“Sally Bugs” Briguglio in 1975

Tony Pro himself was playing cards at his New Jersey union hall headquarters the day Hoffa disappeared. Tommy Andretta allegedly went to visit Tony Pro’s driver Ralph (Little Ralphie) Picardo in a Trenton, New Jersey prison in the days following the Hoffa execution and confessed to him regarding the Provenzano crew’s central role in the kidnaping and murder conspiracy. Picardo eventually entered the Witness Protection Program.

Scorsese has collected a star-studded ensemble for his adaption of Charles Brandt’s 2004 best-selling book, I Heard You Paint Houses, in which Sheeran, on his deathbed, claims to have been the man who shot and killed Hoffa. De Niro will play Sheeran and the equally-legendary Al Pacino is slated to play Hoffa in his first-ever collaboration with Scorsese. Pesci plays rural Pennsylvania mob boss Russell Bufalino and Keitel is playing Philadelphia mafia don Angelo Bruno. Cameras began rolling on the 100-million dollar Netflix production in New York City earlier this month and the movie is expected to have a limited theatre run in 2018.

The post Scorsese Rounds Out Casting Of Provenzano Crew For ‘Irishman’ Movie, Gets His Sally Bugs & Andretta Brothers appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The echoes of the notorious Purple Gang will now be heard in more posh surroundings. The historic Oakland Avenue Bath House, better known as simply, “The Schvitz,” — a set of steam rooms and swimming pools located in Northeast Detroit steeped in underworld tradition dating back almost a century –, has undergone an extensive renovation and according to its new owners will reopen with a more 21st Century feel while not forgetting its old-school roots.

The Eastern-European style bath house was opened for business in 1930 by the Purple Gang-staked Meltzer family and immediately became a frequent meeting spot for the Purples, (Detroit’s infamously murderous all-Jewish crime syndicate during the Prohibition Era), and then for members of the area’s Italian mafia in the years after that. The newly-refurbished Schvitz (Yiddish for the word “sweat’) will debut to the public this weekend. Swanky spa treatments, such as massages, skin cleanses and facial treatments, and additional personal beautification options, are expected to be available going forward.

Mobsters, both Jewish and Italian, once enjoyed using the steam-room facilities for highly-sensitive, top-secret discussions because of the assurance that the conversations couldn’t be recorded. The extreme heat and wet air in the steam rooms made it impossible for law enforcement to successfully install audio-surveillance equipment and the fact that everybody is either naked or in a towel allowed people to know the person they were talking to wasn’t wearing a wire.

Located at 8295 Oakland Avenue on the near eastside of Detroit, the Schvitz, originally called the Oakland Athletic Club, the bathhouse has always been known for its’ excellent food, serving large, delicious spreads featuring freshly-prepared salads, sandwiches, pasta and bbq for its’ primarily male clientele and the kitchen is set to reopen for business soon. Starting in the 1970s, the establishment began hosting couples and swingers nights on the weekends. More recently, the Schvitz held woman-only events on weekday evenings.

The iconic Purple Gang, internationally recognized, feared and respected, was founded on Detroit’s eastside by the four Burnstein brothers (Abe, Joe, Ray and Izzy) in the early 1920s. The Burnstein boys and most of their soldiers were of Russian and Polish heritage, places where bath houses were popular. As aspiring hoodlums, the Purples got their start in the Oakland Sugar House Gang, which headquartered down the street from what eventually became the Schvitz. Rising from the Hastings Street ghetto, the Purples went on to rule large swaths of Michigan bootlegging territory in the late 1920s and early 1930s, forging critical and mutually-beneficial bonds with their Italian counterparts in the underworld, including Al (Scarface)Capone in Chicago and Meyer Lansky and Charles (Lucky) Luciano in New York, and reportedly killing more than 500 people in its roughly decade-long gangland reign.

A Purple Gang associate named Charles Meltzer built the Schvitz in 1929, opened its’ doors in 1930 and when he retired handed over the keys to the shop to his son, Harold (Uncle Harry) Meltzer, who would run the bath house until he sold it 1977. Charles Meltzer’s nephew was Harold (Chinky) Meltzer, a part of what was called “The Junior Purples” or “JV Purples,” a group of young-pup wiseguys that learned the rackets from the core Purple Gangsters themselves and carried on in some loose configuration after the first-wave of Purples disbanded in around 1935.

Chinky Meltzer ran a big bookmaking business out of the Schvitz until he was imprisoned in the 1950s for his role in a counterfeit money scam. According to FBI documents from the 1970s, upon Meltzer’s incarceration, Detroit mob associate and Jewish underworld figure, Charles (Chickie) Sherman, took over the sports-gambling racket being conducted at the bath house. Sherman worked for the Giacalone brothers, Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone and Vito (Billy Jack) Giacalone, the Detroit mob’s longtime street bosses and the crime family capos responsible for the crime family’s Jewish racketeers, drug dealers and bookies.

Both Giacalone brothers are still considered two of the prime suspects in the July 1975 disappearance and murder of former Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa, possibly the most debated unsolved crime in modern American history. The ascent of the pitbull-spirited Hoffa up the ranks of the organized labor movement was aided by using members of the Purple Gang, Junior Purples and Italian mafia as muscle, per testimony in front of the U.S. Senate in the 1950s. One of Hoffa’s main Purple contacts was Joseph (Monkey Joe) Holtzman, a labor consultant and known “Schvitzer” in his day, along with Hoffa himself. Hoffa would sometimes dispatch Monkey Joe Holtzman and Chinky Meltzer for intimidation purposes, according to the 1952 Senate testimony.

Another suspect in the unsolved Hoffa homicide case was Giacalone confidant and labor-union liaison Leonard (Little Lenny) Schultz, groomed by the Purples, specifically Holtzman and fellow Purple Gang lieutenant Abe (Abie the Agent) Zussman. Schultz owned Tony Jack’s headquarters, the Southfield Athletic Club, and he along with Tony Jack and Billy Jack were observed by FBI agents attending mob powwows at the Schvitz.

Per Michigan State Police records, the Giacalones liked using the Schvitz ‘s steam rooms as a place to pass on important information to their underlings, especially Billy Jack, who spent more time there than his older, less affable brother did. Particularly worried about the government listening in on his affairs, the younger Giacalone went to great lengths to ensure privacy while chatting about illegal endeavors. Besides holding get-togethers with his troops at the Schvitz, Billy Jack frequently summoned his men to meet him in the freezing-cold meat lockers at his Farm Fresh Produce in Eastern Market’s warehouse district, where the arctic climate, just like at the Schvitz, prevented government surveillance techniques from operating properly – despite all the precautions, Billy Jack would get bit by the FBI’s bugging of the trees and lampposts outside Farm Fresh where he would hold “walk-and-talks.”

Tony Jack died in 2001, stricken with cancer and kidney failure. Billy Jack passed away from natural causes in 2012, having risen to syndicate underboss in the latter years of his life following his brother’s death. Little Lenny Schultz died in Florida in the fall of 2013 at nearly 95 years old.

Just like the Schvitz, the Purple Gang’s old day-to-day headquarters, the Book Cadillac Hotel on Washington Street in downtown Detroit, has been remodeled and reopened in the past decade. Abe Burnstein, Detroit’s lone Jewish Godfather, lived in the penthouse suite at the Book Cadillac for more than 40 years. Burnstein was close to Motown mafia dons and “founding fathers” William (Black Bill) Tocco and Joseph (Joe Uno) Zerilli and acted in an advisory capacity to them in the years after the Purples shuttered their activity and ceded territory to the Italians. Tocco and Zerilli, according to FBI and Michigan State Police files from the 1960s, would meet Burnstein at the Schvitz for lunch, sauna and counsel, starting during the Prohibition days and lasting up until Burnstein died of natural causes in 1968.

The post “The Schvitz” Bathhouse In Detroit, For Decades A Mobster Hangout & Meeting Place, Gets Makeover appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner died this week at 91, an icon of the American sex revolution and having endured a painful, emotionally-taxing federal drug probe at the height of his fame and popularity in the 1970s. Hefner and his Playboy empire were the high-priority targets of a high-profile, yet ultimately unsuccessful multi-year narcotics probe that concluded in 1975 with the suicide of Hefner’s 34-year old female personal assistant, executive secretary and close friend, Bobbie Arnstein on the heels of a cocaine-trafficking conviction herself.

The U.S. Department of Justice shut down the investigation shortly after Arnstein’s death citing lack of evidence. It certainly wasn’t due to a lack of trying.

The feds aggressively hounded Hefner for close to four years, intent on proving that he was benefiting from a massive drug distribution conspiracy, using his two mansions (one in his hometown of Chicago and the other in L.A) and a series of popular nightclubs and resorts he had stationed around the world for laundering the illegal proceeds and ports of sale. Despite its exhaustive efforts, the government couldn’t directly link Hefner to any illegal activity.

“Hef” started Playboy, the first mainstream nude-pictorial, in 1953 and turned it into a staple of western-world pop culture and multi-million dollar kingdom of cool at a time where conservative values dominated the mainstream.

Like Hefner himself, Roberta “Bobbie” Arnstein came from a Jewish family in Chicago. She began working at Playboy headquarters in downtown Chicago right out of high school. After briefly dating Hefner, she quickly transitioned to his “social secretary” and moved into an apartment at the first Playboy mansion, located on State Street in Chicago’s exclusive Gold Coast section.

Arnstein oversaw the risqué activities at the mansion whenever Hefner was away and ran his day-to-day meeting and appointment schedule in the years before he moved out to California full time. When she reached her 30s, Arnstein began dating younger men and fell into a romance with a 22-year old drug dealer named Ron Scharf. Due to his relationship with Arnstein, Scharf became the Chicago Playboy Mansion’s main narcotics supplier.

Once holding a stringent anti-drug stance, Hefner warmed to the counter-culture once he discovered that marijuana enhanced his sex life. Reports of abundant cocaine use at Playboy parties in Chicago and the then newly-opened and now lone-standing L.A. mansion were rampant, as the soirees began attracting an increasingly jet-set, celebrity crowd and getting constantly written up in media gossip columns.

At some point in early 1971, the government became convinced that Hefner was allowing a wide range of drug-dealing business to transpire at his mansion estates, clubs and resorts and suspected he was pocketing cash in the form of kickbacks on the transactions. The FBI and DEA focused in on the relationship between Bobbie Arnstein and Ron Scharf, a young man they had already heard from informants was in the process of constructing a vast network of cocaine, marijuana and pills customers spread across the affluent north shore suburbs of Chicago

The cocaine Scharf was receiving from his connection in Florida came straight from Bolivia and it was the drug-dealing operation in the Sunshine State that drew the feds attention to Sharf in the first place. Tapping Sharf’s phone and having his Florida contacts heavily monitored, investigators hoped that Scharf would lead them to Arnstein and Arnstein, in turn, to Hefner.

Bobbie Arnstein

Those testifying in front of a grand jury related to the Playboy drug investigation told of wild parties being hosted by Hefner where he passed around bowls of cocaine for his guests to partake in. Several Hollywood movie and television stars were called in front of the grand jury, one of whom, after being granted immunity, admitted to helping supply mansion parties with cocaine. More than one Playboy Club member testified that they were provided controlled substances by club employees during a number of their visits.

On September 15, 1971, federal agents followed Scharf to Florida, where he negotiated a large cocaine deal (6 pounds) with George Matthews, his supplier and a wholesale drug trafficker from Coral Gables. Matthews got his drugs from a source in Jamaica who was tied into the Bolivian coke market. The next week, on September 23, they tracked Scharf and Arnstein on a flight from Chicago to Florida to meet Matthews and secure a part of the deal – a half-pound of blow –, which Arnstein carried back on the plane to Illinois in her purse.

The bug on Scharf’s phone line intercepted conversations with Arnstein requesting some “dynamite coke” for mansion parties and a hand-to-hand sale by Scharf to a wired-up FBI informant in November 1971 proved the final straw. A federal drug indictment landed in February 1972, nailing Scharf and Matthews, but sparing Arnstein for the time being. The government tried to leverage the potential charges over her head as a means of getting her to flip on Hefner, pulling her into dozens of interrogation sessions with the FBI and DEA offices in Chicago. U.S. Attorney Bill Thompson even informed her of a murder contract placed on her head, implying that it came from Hefner or those acting on his behalf.

Still, she steadfastly refused to give in nor give up her friend, former lover and boss. Arnstein’s days of avoiding charges were waning. Finally, on the afternoon of March 23, 1974, she was arrested by DEA agents as she walked out of Chicago’s Playboy Mansion to attend a lunch date. Her name was added to the original indictment and by the end of the year, she would go on trial and be convicted. The conviction was based primarily on the testimony of George Matthews, who had cut a deal and fingered her and Scharf in the September 1971 coke transaction witnessed by federal agents.

Scharf was sentenced to six years in prison, while Arnstein was slammed with a 15-year term, to many an obvious extra-harsh punishment for denying the government its bloodlust in its quest to topple Hefner and what it perceived he represented. Distraught by the prospect of prison, Arnstein committed suicide on January 12, 1975, checking into the Maryland Hotel some 10 blocks south of the Chicago Playboy Mansion and overdosing on sleeping pills. Less than a year later, in December 1975, the U.S. Department of Justice discontinued the Playboy drug probe, quietly issuing a press release stating there wasn’t enough credible evidence to proceed with the investigation. Hefner sold the Windy City mansion soon thereafter and moved full-time to the west coast.

The post Hugh Hefner Escaped Feds Wrath In The 1970s, Lost Friend, Executive Secretary Bobbie Arnstein To Drug Inquiry appeared first on The Gangster Report.