October 21, 2019 – There hasn’t been much to laugh about for Chicago mob legend Joey (The Clown) Lombardo the last 15 years or so. Lombardo, 90, passed away in prison over the weekend, nearly a decade and a half into his life sentence for the 1974 gangland slaying of mafia associate Danny Seifert, a man who felt so close to Joey the Clown he named a son of his after him. But nonetheless was on the verge of testifying against him in federal court.

The man they called the Clown for his sense of humor was one of the American mob’s most colorful characters of the past half-century, earning an equal reputation for both brutality and a quick wit. He got his start as a teenage caddie on the golf course for Outfit heavyweights like Tony (Big Tuna) Accardo and John (Jackie the Lackey) Cerone in the late 1940s.

According to FBI and court records, Lombardo lorded over the Chicago Outfit’s Grand Avenue crew from the early 1970s until he was indicted in the epic Operation Family Secrets case in April 2005, putting to rest well over a dozen mafia-related murders that dated back to 1970 and closing the case on the infamous Spilotro brothers slaying depicted in the Martin Scorsese-film Casino. He was promoted to consigliere in 1992, per federal documents. Along with the Windy City mob’s then-acting boss James (Jimmy the Man) Marcello and Outfit hit man and loan shark Frank (Frankie Breeze) Calabrese, Joey the Clown was convicted at a 2007 trial and sent to prison for the rest of his life.

Calabrese died of cancer in December 2012. Joey the Clown had to endure the final several years of his incarceration at the Florence, Colorado “Supermax” facility for the nation’s worst, most dangerous criminals.

“Joey didn’t deserve that, he was a frail old man, he could barely move a limb and he’s got to be locked in a cage 23 hours a day? For what?” remarked a retired Chicago mob figure.

Lombardo was formally inducted into the Chicago mafia in the months after he allegedly carried out the September 11, 1965 murder of bookie, Schiller Park hotel owner and suspected-snitch Manny Skar and promoted to capo of the Westside-based Grand Avenue regime in 1973, according to Lombardo’s Chicago Crime Commission file. He was put in charge of the Outfit’s robbery, pornography and Las Vegas rackets and for a short time, he headed an elite enforcement wing for the crime family’s most powerful bosses, per the CCC file.

Joey the Clown co-owned a fiberglass company with Danny Seifert and they were indicted the following year for fraud and money laundering tied to a Teamsters union pension fund loan they had received to start the business. Seifert was gunned down in front of his wife and child outside his Bensenville plastics factory on the morning of September 27, 1974 after it became known Seifert intended on taking the witness stand.

Lombardo is believed to have been one of the gunmen on the scene that morning. In 1982, he was arrested for bribing a U.S. Senator and skimming money from Las Vegas casinos and would have to do ten years in prison. When he got out in 1992, Lombardo ran a one-page add in the Chicago Tribune newspaper pronouncing his innocence of any affiliation with La Cosa Nostra and asking people to contact his parole officer if they see him breaking the law.

“The character Joey the Clown was real, that’s how he was, it wasn’t an act,” said a former G Man who worked the Grand Avenue crew. “He was a real character. And he was also a real killer.”

The post The Godfather Of Grand Avenue Is Gone: Chicago Mafia Power Joey The Clown Dies In Prison At 90 appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Sicilian-born Mafioso John Stanfa came to the United States in the 1970s and was placed by New York’s Gambino crime family in the Philadelphia mob under don Angelo Bruno. Stanfa was acting as Bruno’s driver on the night he was assassinated in March 1980. The Gambinos installed Stanfa as boss of the Bruno-Scarfo crime family in 1990, hoping to calm the waters in a syndicate reeling from the bloody Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo era and the ripple effects still being felt by the Bruno slaying in South Philly a decade later.

Instead, the opposite happened. Stanfa couldn’t connect with the family’s younger members and pretty quickly had an insurgence on his hands, fighting a war with upstart gangster Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino, the son of jailed Scarfo underboss Salvatore (Chuckie) Merlino. Skinny Joey was being backed by Stanfa’s old rival from the Bruno days, Ralph Natale, who he met in prison and secured support from the Genovese, Colombo and Lucchese crime families out of New York, in a move to unseat Stanfa by force. The power play worked and when Stanfa was busted for murder and racketeering in early 1994, Merlino and Natale had control of the Philly mob.

The Stanfa Era Murder Timeline (1990-1994)

May 24, 1990 – Scarfo era gangster Louis (Louie Irish) DeLuca is gunned down outside his bar after butting heads with the Skinny Joey Merlino crew.

January 29, 1992 – Old school Philly mobster Felix (Little Felix) Bocchino, Stanfa’s No. 2 man, is shot to death as he got behind the wheel of his late-model Buick parked down the block from his South Philly residence, the first casualty in the Stanfa-Merlino war.

May 29, 1992 – Cop turned wiseguy James (Jimmy Brooms) DiAddorio is slain while talking on the phone at his South Philly athletic club for refusing to get in line behind Merlino and his crew.

November 29, 1992 – Drug-addled waiter Francesco DiGiacomo is shot to death and dumped on the side of the road for not repaying a debt to the Stanfa crew.

January 7, 1993 – Mob debt collector and bodybuilding champion Rod Colombo is killed for skimming profits from pick-up assignments.

January 28, 1993 – The recently released from prison Mario Riccobene, a mob soldier from a rebel Philly mafia faction in the 1980s led by his brother (“Harry the Hunchback”), is killed for trying to push his way back into the picture despite his reputation as a snitch. Mario Riccobene was only out of prison because he had been a government witness.

August 5, 1993 – Renegade mob soldier Michael (Mikey Chang) Ciancaglini is gunned down crossing the street outside the Merlino faction clubhouse in South Philly. Skinny Joey, Mikey Chang’s best friend, was wounded in the attack.

September 17, 1993 – Local mob figure Frank (Frankie Bronze) Baldino, loyal to the Merlino faction of the raging South Philly mafia war, is shot to death behind the wheel of his car in the parking lot of the Melrose Diner.

January 19, 1994 – Nicasio Zagone, Stanfa’s nephew, is killed in what is a suspected case of mistaken identity.

*Credit to “Chin Gigante” of the RD Forum for his help.

The post Philly Mob’s Sicilian Phase Was Quite A Mess: The John Stanfa Era Hit List (1990-1994) appeared first on The Gangster Report.

October 24, 2019 — Former Springfield (MA) mob affiliates and local businessmen Jimmy Santaniello and Victor Bruno has their homes and offices raided by the IRS and FBI this week. The news broke Wednesday on MassLive, reported by the region’s resident mobologist Stephanie Barry.

“I’ve got nothing to hide, they can take what they want,” Bruno told Barry.

Santaniello, who owns the Mardi Gras strip club and is the nephew of Springfield mob elder statesman Mario Fiore, paid a mafia street tax for decades and is known to have given information to the government related to the shakedowns. Bruno owns Adolfo’s, a restaurant named after his dad, slain Springfield mob boss Aldolfo (Big Al) Bruno and was a target of an unsuccessful IRS-FBI probe into his affairs almost 20 years ago.

The post The 6 In The Morning Crew: Feds Raid Springfield Businesses, Residences Owned By Bruno & Santaniello appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Rizzuto crime family rivals Salvatore and Andrew Scoppa were both killed this year in the ongoing Montreal Mafia War, which started in Quebec in the 2000s and has since spread to Ontario mob hotbeds Toronto and Hamilton. Salvatore Scoppa was slain back in the spring in an audacious gangland hit carried out in a hotel lobby. Andrew Scoppa was shot to death earlier this week (October 21, 2019) in a West End strip mall parking lot.

The war has reached biblical proportions this past decade, with the body count reaching into the triple digits. Gauging the current climate, there appears no end to the fighting in sight.

So, let’s look back at the greatest hits.

The Montreal Mafia War Murder Timeline (2005-2019):

August 11, 2005 – Montreal mobster Johnny Bertolo, a racketeer, builder and construction union rep aligned with Raynald Desjardins, is killed as he left his gym after a falling out with Vito Rizzuto.

August 30, 2006 – Rizzuto crime family enforcer Domenico Macri is killed in a drive-by shooting as he sat at a traffic light in downtown Montreal.

September 7, 2007 – Montreal mob figure Frank Velenosi, a main lieutenant of Rizzuto crime family underboss, Francesco (Compare Frank) Arcadi, is found stabbed to death in the trunk of his car.

January 15, 2008 – Rizzuto crime family enforcer Constantin (Big Gus) Alevizos is killed.

December 4, 2008 – Rizzuto crime family soldier Mario (Skinny) Marabella is killed as gunmen open fire on him as he exits his vehicle and goes to fill up his tank at a Montreal gas station.

January 16, 2009 – Montreal mobster Sam Fasulo, a top henchman for Compare Frank Arcadi, is murdered.

August 21, 2009 – Montreal mobster Freddy Del Peschio, a Rizzuto confidant, is slain.

December 28, 2009 – Montreal mobster Nicolo (Ritzy Nick) Rizzuto, Jr., Vito’s son and protégé, is shot dead in broad daylight.

March 19, 2010 – Greek mobster Pete Christopulous, a bodyguard for Haitian gangster Ducarme Joseph, is killed in an attempt to assassinate Ducarme inside Ducarme’s women’s clothing boutique located in a Montreal shopping plaza (Joseph, the leader of the 67s Gang, was the suspected shooter in the Ritzy Nick Rizzuto hit).

May 19, 2010 – Rizzuto crime family consigliere Paolo Renda, Vito Rizzuto’s brother-in-law, vanishes and is presumed dead.

June 29, 2010 – Rizzuto crime family acting boss Agostino Cuntrera and his bodyguard Liborio Sciascia are killed in a hail of bullets outside Cuntrera’s office.

September 29, 2010 – Rizzuto clan enforcer Ennio Bruni is killed, gunned down in a crowded Montreal strip mall.

November 10, 2010 – Montreal mafia patriarch, Nicolo (Uncle Nick) Rizzuto, a mafia dignitary on multiple continents, is shot dead in his kitchen by a sniper’s rifle.

January 31, 2011 – Montreal mobster Antonio Salvo, one of Compare Frank Arcadi lieutenants, is killed outside his home.

October 24, 2011 – Rizzuto ally-turned-rival Larry Lopresti, the son of a slain Rizzuto lieutenant, is killed on his home balcony in suburban Montreal while smoking a cigarette.

November 24, 2011 – New York mob don Salvatore (Sal the Ironworker) Montagna is assassinated near a woodsy riverbed as he runs from an ambush in suburban Montreal after his and Desjardins’ palace coup goes awry (Desjardins eventually pleads guilty in the murder plot).

March 1, 2012 – Montreal mobster Giuseppe (Joe Closure) Colapelle, a Rizzuto lieutenant-turned-Desjardins loyalist is slain.

May 4, 2012 – Montreal mobster Joe Renda, a stealthy Rizzuto ally-turned-Montagna-backer, disappears and is presumed dead.

July 16, 2012 – Money-laundering expert Walter Gutierrez, tasked with washing illegal windfall for the Rizzuto crime family, is killed in a barrage of bullets as he walks towards his house in a West End Montreal neighborhood.

August 14, 2012 – Haitian street gang leaders Chenier Dupuy & Lamartine Paul are gunned down within hours of each other, Dupuy is killed as he sat in his truck outside a restaurant, Paul was murdered as he left his apartment. They were suspected of providing muscle for the anti-Rizzuto wing of the Montreal mafia.

November 5, 2012 – Montreal mob capo, Giuseppe (Smiling Joe) Di Maulo, a one-time top Rizzuto crime family power who joined forces with Montagna and Desjardins (Smiling Joe’s brother in-law), is killed outside his home by Rizzuto gunmen.

November 17, 2012 – Montreal mob associate, Mohamed Awad, a top Desjardins associate, is slain.

December 8, 2012 – Rizzuto crime family lieutenant Emilio Cordeleone is killed.

January 22, 2013 – Montreal mob associate Gaetano Gosselin, a Desjardins ally and local builder, is murdered outside his home.

January 31, 2013 – Montreal mobster Vinnie Scuderi, a Desjardins loyalist, is murdered outside his home.

May 8, 2013 – Deported Toronto mob crew boss Juan (Joe Bravo) Fernandez, the Rizzuto crime family’s captain in Ontario, is found dead in Sicily, after being marked for death by Vito Rizzuto himself for staying neutral in the war.

July 8, 2013 – Montreal mob figure and Rizzuto rival, Giuseppe (Ponytail) De Vito, is poisoned to death in his cell in a Quebec prison.

July 12, 2013 – Toronto mob enforcer Sam (The Young Gun) Calautti and his driver Jimmy Tusek, are murdered outside a bachelor party in the Woodbridge neighborhood while a suspect in the slayings of a number of Rizzuto crime family members.

November 10, 2013 – Montreal mobster Moreno (The Turkey) Gallo, a Rizzuto ally-turned-rival is killed in Acapulco on the three-year anniversary of the murder of Uncle Nick Rizzuto inside his estate.

December 18, 2013 – Montreal mob associate Rogert Valiquette, closely aligned with Moreno Gallo and Smiling Joe Di Maulo loyalist Roger Valiquette is murdered.

April 24, 2014 – Highly-feared Toronto mobster Carmine (The Animal) Verducci is shot dead on the sidewalk outside of his restaurant.

August 1, 2014 – Ducarme Joseph, the powerful Haitian street gang leader, is killed.

March 1, 2016 – Montreal mob figure Lorenzo (Skunk) Giordano, the acting underboss of the Rizzuto crime family, is shot to death outside his health club.

May 27, 2016 – Montreal mob figure, Rocco (Sauce) Sollecito, the acting boss of the Rizzuto crime family, is shot to death as he sat at a stop sign in his luxury SUV within less than 100 yards from a suburban Montreal police station.

June 2, 2016 — Semi-retired Montreal mobster Angelo D’Onofrio is shot to death while sitting outside a suburban Montreal coffee shop (Café Sinatra) drinking an espresso.

June 30, 2016 – Low-level Montreal mob figures Joe and Vinnie Falduto disappear and are presumed murdered.

October 15, 2016 — Montreal mobster Vince Spagnolo, one of Vito Rizzuto’s most trusted lieutenants, advisors and messengers, is shot to death outside his home.

March 14, 2017 – Mila Barberi, the 28-year old girlfriend of Toronto mobster Saverio Serrano, is killed sitting in Serrano’s car in an attack Serrano survived.

March 18, 2017 – Montreal mobster Nicola (Big Nicky) Di Marco, a top lieutenant of Ponytail De Vito’s, is killed.

May 2, 2017 — Prominent Hamilton, Ontario mobster Angelo (Big Ange) Musitano is shot to death in his driveway bringing the war to Western Ontario.

August 17, 2017 — Montreal mobster Antonio De Blasio, one of Sauce Sollecito’s closest friends, is gunned down outside his son’s football practice.

November 2, 2017 — Montreal mobster Jacques Desjardins, the brother of Raynald Desjardins, disappears and is presumed dead.

February 3, 2018 – Toronto mob figure, Daniel (Dark Danny) Ranieri, the Rizzuto rime family’s Ontario crew boss, is found dead in Mexico, two years after fleeing an indictment out of Canada.

June 28, 2018 — Montreal mob associate Steve (Stevie the Jew) Ovadia is shot to death in the parking lot of a strip mall parking lot.

June 29, 2018 — Toronto mobster Cosimo Commisso, the nephew of Ontario mob boss Cosimo (The Quail) Commisso, and his girlfriend, are killed.

September 13, 2018 – Hamilton mob associate Al Ivarone is gunned down outside his residence in the city’s Scenic Woods neighborhood in payback for his connections to those responsible for the Angelo Musitano hit and his involvement in a feud over gambling territory in Niagara Falls.

January 24, 2019 — Montreal mob associate and construction magnate Tony Magi is gunned down on a construction site. The 50-year old Magi did business with the Rizzutos and was suspected of possibly being the setup man in the Ritzy Nick Rizzuto hit. He had averted a number of attempts on his life before finally being felled.

January 30, 2019 — Hamilton mob prince CeCe Luppino is shot to death in his parents driveway. The 43-year old’s dad Rocco is a heavyweight in the Hamilton mafia scene as was his grandfather Giacomo.

February 14, 2019 — Mob connected drug dealer Ray Khano is shot dead on a suburban Montreal street corner. Khano, 43, was linked to Rizzuto crime family leader Francesco (Compare Frank) Arcadi.

March 25. 2019— Montreal mob enforcer Mike Di Battista is shot to death behind the wheel of his car in the Dominican Republic. Di Battista was tied to mafia chief Liborio (Poncho) Cuntrera.

March 29, 2019 — Montreal mob associate Mario Simeone is slain. Simeone was linked to Tony Magi.

May 4, 2019 – Montreal mobster Salvatore Scoppa, a Rizzuto ally turned enemy, is gunned down inside the crowded lobby of a suburban hotel.

October 21, 2019 – Montreal mobster Andrew Scoppa, a Rizzuto ally turned enemy and Salvatore Scoppa’s brother, is gunned down in a strip mall parking lot in the city’s West End

The post Body Count Continues To Rise In Montreal Mafia War, Add Scoppa Brothers To Growing List Of Casualties appeared first on The Gangster Report.

October 28, 2019 — The feds hit pay dirt 30 years ago this week in Boston when they successfully recorded a mafia induction ceremony held by New England’s Patriarca crime family in the middle of a mob war that would rage well into the next decade. The results were historic.

FBI agents in Beantown bugged a small Medford, Massachusetts residence and listened in on the afternoon of October 29, 1989 as members of the Patriarca clan gathered to “make” four new soldiers, three of them as a peace gesture to freshly-minted consigliere Joe (J.R.) Russo, who had declared war on crime family leaders in the preceding months. Russo was the overlord of the family’s East Boston crew.

The Patriarca crime family has long maintained dual headquarters in Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. When family namesake and longtime don Raymond Patriarca, a Providence underworld legend and the most notorious mob figure in the history of the region, died of a heart attack in 1984, his son Ray, Jr. took over and isolated the organization’s Boston faction headed by the “OG” J.R. Russo and his protégé Vincent (Vinnie the Animal) Ferrara of the North End crew.

The younger Patriarca aligned with his father’s former prison cell mate, the unhinged Billy (Wild Man) Grasso of Connecticut, naming him underboss, and the ambitious, capable and politcall-savvy Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme, a Boston hit man just released from serving 15 years behind bars, his new main man in Massachusetts. Salemme did his prison time for a car-bombing attack on a mobbed-up attorney considering testifying against Ray, Jr.’s dad.

The rising tensions reached a crescendo in the summer of 1989 when Russo and Ferrara put murder contracts on both Grasso and Salemme’s heads – Grasso was killed on June 16, Salemme was wounded (shot seven times) in a failed hit outside a suburban Boston pancake house that same morning – and threatened to personally strangle Patriarca, Jr. to death if he didn’t cede power immediately at a face-to-face meeting in Providence that allegedly brought the weak and ill-equipped mob boss to tears.

The FBI was getting a blow-by-blow of the feud from their mole on the inside, Boston mob soldier Angelo (Sonny) Mercurio, a confidential informant. Mercurio had called Cadillac Frank to the pancake house that morning, setting him up on behalf of the Russo group. After the shooting, Salemme retreated to California.

By the fall, things had simmered down thanks to Dapper Don, the then famous New York Godfather John Gotti of the Gambino crime family. Gotti summoned Russo to a sit-down and instructed him to make peace, arranging for Russo to get a bump-up to consigliere and a group of his loyalists inducted into the family. As part of the cease fire, the family’s Providence wing got to propose a member as well.

For Russo, he proposed Richie Floramo , Carmen Tortora and Vincent Federico. The Medford home at 34 Guild Street used for the ceremony on Sunday, October 29, 1989 – wired for sound the day prior courtesy of a tip from Sonny Mercurio – belonged to Federico’s sister. Federico was in the midst of serving a state prison stint for bookmaking and extortion and secured himself a furlough for the weekend so he could get himself made.

From the Providence camp, Robert (Bobby the Cigar) DeLuca, who acted as Salemme’s eyes and ears in Rhode Island and aided in the peace negotiations, got the nod for his button. Mercurio drove Patriarca, Jr. to the ceremony and lowered the volume on the television set so the FBI sound techs could get a clearer recording.

Patriarca, Jr., Russo and Sicilian-born soldier Biagio (Benny the Greaser) DiGiacomo led the ceremony, with DiGiacomo administering the oath in Italian.

“You go in alive in this organization and the only way you out is dead….it’s no Jesus, no Madonna, nobody can save you if you give up this secret,” DiGiacomo told the initiates.

To open the festivities, Patriarca, Jr. tried to ease concerns of the 20 attendees and reassure them that all the bad blood had been settled.

“Place all that stuff that got started behind us, bygones are bygones and it will be a good future for all of us,” he said.

As Russo and the college-educated Vinnie “The Animal” Ferrara were locking up the house for the evening after everyone else had gone, they ironically spoke of how top-secret the ceremony had been.

“Only the ghosts know what took place here today,” remarked Ferrara to Russo while they prepared to leave.

Well, Vinnie, the FBI knew too. And within weeks indictments began coming down, nailing almost everyone in attendance. The recording of the making ceremony is considered a crowning achievement in the U.S. government’s fight against the mafia.

The ripple effects of the bug and the subsequent bust sent the Patriarca crime family spiraling back into war, as Cadillac Frank Salemme returned from California and with Gotti’s backing in New York and a strategic alliance made with Boston’s Irish mob, grabbed the reins as don himself, and remnants of the Russo crew in East Boston began planning a resistance. Salemme immediately took aim at his enemies and purged any dissidents to his administration in the Russo camp, a body count that reached near double figures by the time of his arrest in 1995.

Russo died behind bars in 1998 at 67. Salemme flipped while in prison a year later and entered the Witness Protection Program. Last summer, Cadillac Frank, 86, was convicted of the 1993 gangland slaying of mobbed up nightclub owner Stevie DiSarro and sent back to prison for the rest of his life. The star witness at his 2018 trial was his former right-hand man, Bobby DeLuca.

The 74-year old Patriarca, Jr. and the 70-year old Vinnie Ferrara both retired from the rackets upon their respective releases from prison. Today, Patriarca, Jr. sells real estate and Ferrara owns several pieces of property in the North End.

The post Patriarca Listening Party: Boston FBI Bugged Mob Making Ceremony In October ’89 appeared first on The Gangster Report.

October 30, 2019 — Legendary Hollywood producer and playboy Robert Evans sought help from the mob and a female drug kingpin he was romancing in rounding up the financing for the 1984 film The Cotton Club. Evans, who was famous for turning around the fortunes of Paramount Pictures and producing such American cinema classics like The Godfather, Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, Serpico and Love Story, died this week at 89.

Evans was out of the studio system though by the 1980s, coming off a high-profile cocaine bust and hoping for a big comeback by reteaming with Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, The Godfather Pt. II) to make what he hoped would be another epic mob tale, but with a musical twist. The idea for a Cotton Club movie was conceived around the famous Prohibition Era Harlem jazz club owned by New York gangster Owney (The Killer) Madden and frequented by all the top celebrities and Big Apple mob elite of the day.

Coppola and Evans famously fought like cats and dogs throughout the production of The Godfather, ultimately however triumphing with an Oscar for Best Picture and a film some consider the No. 1 movie of all-time. The second time around for Coppola and Evans wasn’t nearly as fruitful. In fact, it was quite a disaster.

The movie’s first financial backer, Roy Radin, was murdered execution-style before the production of the project ever got off the ground. The primary financiers that came into the picture after Radin’s death and contributed the majority of the movie’s 60-million-dollar budget were the reputedly mobbed-up Doumani brothers, casino owners and real estate investors from Las Vegas.

Evans met Radin in 1982 through his girlfriend at the time, Lanie Jacobs (also known as Karen Greenberger), a heavyweight drug dealer in Beverly Hills. Radin was a multi-millionaire who made his money from a traveling variety show and promoting rock concerts and was eager to get into the movie biz. Jacobs supplied Radin drugs in bulk for the musicians at his rock concerts.

Radin and Evans agreed to create a production company and go 50-50 partners in making the film, The Cotton Club. They even got Sylvester Stallone to sign on to star in the picture. But Radin was slain before the movie started shooting, killed on Jacobs’ orders for her belief that she was being squeezed out of the movie deal and that Radin had masterminded a burglary of her Sherman Oaks home where large amounts of cash and coke were stolen.

According to court documents, Evans tried to mediate the dispute at a dinner meeting held at his townhouse in Manhattan and the meal quickly degenerated into a screaming match and Jacobs storming out in tears. Less than three weeks later, Radin was whacked.

Jacobs picked Radin up from the Hollywood Regency Hotel in her trademark limo on the evening of May 13, 1983 and he was never seen alive again. She had recruited her new boyfriend, Billy Mentzer and two accomplices, Bobby Lowe and Alex Marti, to do the job. They were all former bodyguards of porn king Larry Flynt, the founder of Hustler Magazine. Menzter, Marti and Lowe drove Radin, 33, to a desolate section of Gorman, California and executed him, pumping 12 gun shots into him and leaving his bullet-ridden body dumped in a barren canyon.

Four years later, Larry Flynt’s brother-in-law and head of security, Billy Rider, came forward and told LAPD detectives that he heard Mentzer and Marti bragging about murdering Radin during a late-night poker game at Flynt’s Hustler Mansion. He agreed to wear a wire. That was the big break the cops needed.

In October 1988, Jacobs, Mentzer, Marti and Lowe were arrested for the Radin homicide. They were all convicted at trial in 1991 – Jacobs and Lowe were nailed on kidnapping and second-degree murder charges and Mentzer and Marti were slammed with twin first-degree homicide beefs).

Evans never faced charges in the case and pled the fifth when called to testify at a pretrial hearing. He had pleaded guilty to a cocaine conspiracy in 1980.

Testifying in her own defense at her trial, Jacobs absolved Evans of having any knowledge of the murder conspiracy. Lowe on the other hand implicated Evans in being aware of the murder plot beforehand and detectives found a record of a call placed from Jacobs to Evans in the hours after Radin was bumped off.

Jacobs, 71, ran in some pretty heavy duty circles in the drug world throughout her heyday on the street. Her boyfriend throughout the 1970s was Caribbean drug lord Milano Bellachasses and the pairing produced a son. After dating Evans and Mentzer, Jacobs married Florida “kilo dealer” Larry Greenberger, one of Colombian narco baron Carlos Lehder’s top smuggling lieutenants in the United States. Greenberger popped up dead under suspicious circumstances on September 14, 1988, a month before her indictment in the Radin case.

Radin’s murder spooked Evans, according to court documents, leading him to believe that he would be killed next. He sought protection from the infamous Hollywood attorney and mob fixer Sidney Korshsk and Korshak put him in touch with Eddie and Freddie Doumani, two brothers with alleged ties to mob figures in Chicago and Kansas City.

The Doumani brothers owned the K.C. mafia-controlled Tropicana Hotel and Casino along with the El Morocco Hotel and Casino on The Strip and agreed to front Evans some $50 million dollars of his $60-million dollar film budget. Behind the Doumanis’ money was some heavy muscle – per FBI records, informants told investigators that a portion of that $50 million dollar investment was held by Anthony (Tony the Ant) Spilotro, the Chicago mob’s crew chief on the Vegas Strip, and his wiseguy buddy, Joey Cusumano. Both Spilotro and Cusumano were on-set during production of The Cotton Club and Spilotro is alleged to have gotten into some form of physical confrontation with one of the associate producers, according to The Ant’s Las Vegas Police file.

Spilotro, small, violence-prone and power-obsessed, was brutally slain in June 1986 for his insubordinate behavior, stomped and strangled to death with his younger brother Michael in a suburban Chicago basement. Cusumano, 83, was convicted of racketeering in 1987 stemming from his activity working under Tony the Ant.

Following a troubled production of ballooning costs and a deluge of script rewrites, The Cotton Club was finally released to theatres on Christmas Eve 1984 to positive reviews, but disappointing profits. The near $60-million dollar gangster movie-musical hybrid brought in roughly $25 million in box-office receipts. Richard Gere replaced Stallone as the film’s lead character, jazz trumpeter-turned-movie star “Dixie Dwyer.” Coppola’s nephew, Nicolas Cage was cast as a character based on Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll, Bob Hoskins played Cotton Club-owner Owney Madden, James Remar played Jewish mobster Dutch Schultz and Lawrence Fishburne portrayed a character named “Bumpy Rhoades” based on African-American numbers kingpin Ellsworth (Bumpy) Johnson, a role he would reprise in his 1997 film Hoodlum.

Slipping away from the Cotton Club fiasco unscathed, Evans continued producing movies in Hollywood for another two decades. He retired in 2003, his final project being the hit romantic comedy How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson ($50 million budget, $180 Million return). His 1994 biography, The Kid Stays In The Picture, was made into a hit 2002 documentary that he narrated.

The post Drugs, Sex & Murder: Production Of Robert Evans’ ’84 Cotton Club Movie Was Rollercoaster Filled With Crime-Figure Financiers appeared first on The Gangster Report.

October 31, 2019 — The Skinny Joey Era of the Philadelphia mafia began with a gun blast 30 years ago this week, when, according to FBI informants, Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino, pumped 8 shots from a MAC-10 machine pistol into friend-turned-rival Nicky Scarfo, Jr. as he ate spaghetti and clams at old-school South Philly dining-staple Dante & Luigi’s on Halloween night 1989. Scarfo, Jr., son of then-jailed don Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo, survived the attack, but the attempt on his life made it clear it was a new day in the Philly mob and Skinny Joey was making a play for power.

Merlino, 57, was never arrested for the attack and went on to serve a short prison sentence for an armored truck heist and then became boss of the Bruno-Scarfo crime family himself in the 1990s, a job he still holds today. Per informants, Skinny Joey plotted to kill Scarfo, Jr. again after he took over the Philly mob.

The 54-year old Scarfo, Jr. was eventually “made” into New York’s Lucchese crime family via an arrangement brokered by his father from behind bars. He was convicted in federal court in 2014 for mortgage fraud and racketeering and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Little Nicky Scarfo died of natural causes in 2017 at 87, having spent the final 30 years of his life locked up in a federal correctional facility.

The Little Nicky Scarfo Era in the Philly underworld was hectic, hell-raising and blood-ridden, a throwback to Prohibition and the brash, headline-grabbing antics of Scarfo’s gangland idol, Al (Scarface) Capone. Scarfo assumed power in 1981 and killed indiscriminately. Salvatore (Chuckie) Merlino, Skinny Joey’s father, was Scarfo’s close friend and underboss. Skinny Joey and Nicky, Jr. palled around together quite a bit until Little Nicky and Chuckie Merlino had a falling out and Little Nicky demoted the elder Merlino from his underboss post.

When Scarfo and his mob entire administration, including Chuckie Merlino, were indicted in a giant murder and racketeering case in 1987 and with them off the streets, the crime family instantly split into two factions, one supporting the imprisoned Scarfo, who delegated his authority through his son and his uncle and acting boss Anthony (Tony Buck) Piccolo, and the other supporting the “Young Turk” camp led by Skinny Joey Merlino and his best friend Michael (Mikey Chang) Ciancaglini, son of Scarfo-era capo Joseph (Chickie) Ciancaglini.

Skinny Joey and Mikey Chang began going after Scarfo-protected bookies and loansharks within weeks of Little Nicky getting put in the can. Mikey Chang is alleged to have driven the getaway car in the Halloween night hit on Scarfo, Jr.

According to witnesses, on the evening of October 31, 1989, a man wearing a Batman mask and carrying a shopping bag filled with candy entered Dante & Luigi’s, went over to where Scarfo was in the middle of his meal and unloaded a clip into him from his MAC-10. The gunmen dropped the MAC-10 at the scene “Michael Corleone style,” a move some say was a message to Little Nicky in prison because of Scarfo’s love of the film The Godfather.

Dante & Luigi’s was opened by the DiRocco family in the early 1900s. In its first 35 years of existence it had a different name. The historic restaurant rests on the corner of 10th and Catherine Street in South Philly’s Bella Vista neighborhood.

Scarfo, Jr. made a full recovery and after a two-week hospital stay took cover behind his great uncle Tony Piccolo. He was jailed himself for racketeering and did four years in federal prison in the 1990s (1993-1997).

Meanwhile Skinny Joey Merlino was climbing his way to top of the crime family by sheer will. Securing backing from Ralph Natale, an old-time labor union fixer and mob hit man he met behind prison walls in the early 1990s (1990-1992), Merlino and Mikey Chang went to war with Scarfo’s successor, Sicilian-born John Stanfa, for the rackets in South Philly. Natale provided them a co-sign from the Colombo and Genovese crime families in New York. Mikey Chang was slain as a result of the warfare, gunned down in front of Merlino in the summer of 1993. Upon Stanfa being indicted and jailed for murder and racketeering in the spring of 1994, Merlino declared victory.

Skinny Joey hasn’t let the reins go since. Natale turned against him in 1999 and testified against him at a 2001 murder and racketeering trial. Convicted of racketeering but acquitted of the homicide counts, Merlino did 12 years in prison and walked free in 2011. Nailed on a gambling offense last year, he just finished up a short stay at a South Florida federal correctional facility and is currently residing in a Miami halfway house.

The post Trick Or Treat Philly Mob Style: Aspiring Don “Skinny Joey” Made Presence Felt In ’89 Halloween Hit Attempt appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 1, 2019 – In 2009, Providence mob captain Robert (Bobby the Cigar) DeLuca reached out to cooperate with the Rhode Island State Police and FBI as a way to eliminate his enemies and clear a path for himself to become boss of the Patriarca crime family, according to the brilliantly-crafted Channel 12 WPRI television special, The Mafia Tapes, hosted by local award-winning investigative reporter Tim White, that aired Tuesday. Instead, the 72-year old DeLuca went into the Witness Protection Program.

The man once known in East Coast underworld circles as Bobby the Cigar for his signature stogie, was inducted into New England mafia at the infamous October 29, 1989 ceremony recorded by the FBI 30 years ago this week. The Mafia Tapes served as a retrospective on the historic FBI coup. The New England mafia broke out into a war in June 1989, the battle lines split mainly between Boston and Providence – the “making” ritual was held as a conciliatory gesture to the Patriarca clan’s Boston faction in order to tamp down the violence.

Word came in from the mob’s national Commission in New York that four new members would be brought into the crime family from the Boston camp and one from the Providence regime. The Providence wiseguy selected to get his button that day was Bobby the Cigar DeLuca.

Fast forward two decades later and DeLuca, fed up with fellow mob figures he considered rats and undeserving of his loyalty, decided to become a rat himself, contacting RISP organized crime squad commander Steven O’Donnell and wiring up for the next two years. He recorded conversations with New England mob powers Luigi (Baby Shacks) Manocchio, Edward (Little Eddie) Lato and Anthony (Little Cheese) DiNunzio, among others.

When the racketeering indictment DeLuca’s cooperation helped the feds build finally dropped in 2011, Bobby the Cigar didn’t move into the boss’ sear as he had intended, but moved to Florida with his wife and young kids and assumed a new identity. Then a former drug-dealing mob associate of his back in Providence got pinched in 2016 and led authorities to the remains of long-missing Boston nightclub owner Stevie DiSarro on his property, telling the FBI that DeLuca had buried DiSarro’s body there in the spring of 1993.

DeLuca was arrested again in July 2016 and implicated his former boss and best friend Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme for ordering DiSarro’s murder and tasking him with disposal duties. DiSarro was strangled to death on May 10, 1993 inside Salemme’s suburban Boston residence because Salemme suspected DiSarro, his partner in a failing strip club, was stealing and snitching on him to the government.

Salemme was boss of the Patriarca crime family for the first half of the 1990s, surviving an assassination attempt in the unrest of ‘89. He too would go on to enter the Witness Protection Program, however never pointed the finger at his right-hand man DeLuca for involvement in any murder conspiracies.

Following his 2016 arrest, DeLuca admitted to his participation in a pair, including the DiSarro hit and the 1992 gangland slaying of rogue Providence mob enforcer Kevin Hanrahan in which DeLuca claims Salemme set in motion after getting wind of Hanrahan’s plot to murder Salemme and his underboss Baby Shacks Manocchio. DeLuca did all of Cadillac Frank’s bidding in Rhode Island during the topsy-turvy Salemme era of the New England mafia, deemed a “Kingsman capo” and reporting directly to Cadillac Frank in Boston himself. Manocchio succeeded Salemme as boss, retiring in 2009.

Cadillac Frank was charged with Stevie DiSarro’s murder and went on trial in May 2018. With DeLuca as the government’s star witness, Salemme, 86, was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Salemme had been living in Atlanta under an alias prior to DiSarro’s bones being dug up.

A federal grand jury has been convened since April 2017 probing DeLuca’s accusations in the Kevin Hanrahan hit. According to sources familiar with the inquiry and Bobby the Cigar’s 2016 debriefing, DeLuca names Providence capo Little Eddie Lato as one of the triggermen in Hanrahan’s homicide. Hanrahan was gunned down on the night of September 18, 1992 leaving a dinner with DeLuca crew members in the city’s Federal Hill neighborhood.

The post Up In Smoke: Bobby DeLuca Hoped Cooperation Deal Would Result In Promotion To Don Of New England, WPRI Reports appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 2, 2019 — Boston biker gang boss Bruce (Monster) Sartwell, the president of the Brockton, Massachusetts chapter of the feared Outlaws Motorcycle Club, was arrested last week on federal weapons charges. Facing 10 years in prison, the convicted felon pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Thursday. He was denied bond and will be cooling his heels in custody awaiting trial.

On October 19, Homeland Security officers at JFK International Airport in New York intercepted a package sent to Sartwell from China containing a silencer. A subsequent search of his East Bridgewater, Massachusetts residence found an unregistered AR-15 with the serial number removed, a handgun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition for assault rifles (specifically, of the AR-15 variety) and 20 hunting knives.

Delivery logs at JFK show more than 60 prior packages being transported from Asia to Sartwell over the last 18 months. The delivery pattern coincides with rising tensions between The Outlaws and their arch-rival, the Hells Angels on the East Coast, a trend authorities root in a recent Outlaws’ expansion initiative launched in New England — five new chapters have opened in the region in the past two years, three in Massachusetts alone. Midwest cities Chicago and Detroit and southern biker staple Florida have long made up the club’s power base.

The Brockton chapter of the club currently headed by 48-year old Monster Sartwell has been its home office in the Boston area for the last two decades. Sartwell owns Pins & Needles tattoo parlor in downtown Brockton. His arrest record dates back to 1987.

The post The Monster Mash: Outlaws MC Chief From Beantown Busted By Feds For Gun Possession appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 3, 2019 — Motor City drug lord Corey (Cocaine Sonny) Bailey, the second-in-command and co-founder of the Seven Mile Bloods street gang, and his lieutenant Arlantis (Grimy) Shy were both hit with heavy prison time for convictions they took over a year ago. Bailey, who has been incarcerated since 2014 on an unrelated gun charge, was sentenced to two consecutive life terms for murder and Shy was sentenced to 18 years for racketeering and narcotics trafficking. The pair and three other co-defendants were found guilty at a federal RICO trial that spanned two months in the summer of 2018.

The case was brought against the entire leadership structure of the Seven Mile Bloods (SMB) in 2016 and broken up into separate trials for the 21 people named in the indictment. The 31-year old Bailey and co-defendant Billy (The Killer) Arnold founded SMB in the 2000s on the dangerous northeast side of Detroit. Now days, the area is commonly referred to as the “Red Zone.” Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Arnold, who is still awaiting trial.

Bailey was convicted in the slaying of rival gang member Djuan (Neff) Page, killed in a drive-by shooting in July 2014. Page belonged to the Hustle Boys gang, which was at war with SMB over drug dealing turf.

Shy, 31, was in charge of a pill pipeline that ran from Detroit and to West Virginia. He was acquitted of one of the four murder counts brought in the original indictment.

The Seven Mile Bloods have been the most dominant street gang in Detroit’s underworld for the past decade. The group’s penchant for being active and boastful on a number of different social media platforms and releasing rap videos (under the Hard Work Entertainment banner) bragging of their exploits gave the feds the ammunition they needed to dismantle the SMB hierarchy.

The post Blood In, Blood Out: Detroit’s Seven Mile Bloods Get Sentenced In Federal Court appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 4, 2019 — Chicago bar owner Vince Dublino, the star witness at the trial of jailed Windy City mob boss Michael (Fat Mike) Sarno in 2010, was arrested last week for felony theft. The 45-year old Dublino is alleged to have stolen money from Accel Entertainment Gaming, the state’s biggest joker poker machine distributor, by filing falsified reimbursement invoices back in 2017 and 2018.

Dublino got into a beef with Sarno over the placement of video poker games at mob-controlled establishments in the 2000s when Sarno was a capo in the Chicago Outfit (he served as acting boss from 2005-2010) and Dublino was just getting started in the notoriously mobbed up industry. The pair had previously been partners in an ATM business. Sarno and members of The Outlaws Motorcycle Club — on Sarno’s orders — threatened to physically harm Dublino if he didn’t remove his machines from the The 47th Street Grill in Lyons Township, Illinois.

According to court records, Dublino rebuffed Sarno in person and then insulted him.

“I don’t work for you, mind your own business fat ass,” Dublino reportedly hissed at Sarno upon Sarno first approaching him in 2002

Three months later, in early 2003, Dublino’s C&S Coin Operated Amusements’ office and warehouse in Berwyn, Illinois was firebombed by The Outlaws at Sarno’s behest. Dublino’s tavern, The Forget About It, was vandalized by The Outlaws in the days prior. These days, Dublino owns Vinny’s Cafe in Berwyn on Roosevelt Road.

Sarno, 62, was federally indicted for racketeering and extortion in 2008. Dublino testified against Sarno at his trial where he was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Last week, Dublino pleaded not guilty to his theft charges and was released on bond to await trial. At a 2018 meeting of the Illinois Gaming Control Board, the board voted to ask Accel Entertainment Gaming to stop providing Dublino with video poker machines. Dublino is currently appealing the decision.

The post Doing The Hokey Pokey: Video Poker Proceeds Alleged Stolen By Fmr. Chicago Mafia Witness appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 6, 2019 — High-ranking Pagan’s Motorcycle Club member Michael (Montana) Barringer was indicted for felony aggravated assault, attempted murder and witness intimidation last week in state court out of Pennsylvania. According to state prosecutors in the Pittsburgh suburbs, back in April, the 59-year old Barringer ordered the beating of Troy Harris, a former Pagan’s full-patcher who left the club on bad terms and joined another smaller club known as Sutars Soldiers.

Barringer pleaded not guilty and Washington County Circuit Court Judge John DiSalle denied him bail, ordering him held without bond until trial. Per the indictment, Barringer is the Pagan’s national sergeant-at-arms, the third most powerful post in the club’s hierarchy.

Harris suffered brain damage from the attack at a Charleroi, Pennsylvania entertainment hall perpetrated by a group of Pagan’s Barringer dispatched. In August, he allegedly sent retired police officer and Pagan’s associate, James (The Bear) Baranowksi to visit Harris and his wife at their home and persuade them not to cooperate with authorities in the investigation.

Baranowski was paid $2,500 for the job, with the promise of a $1,500 bonus if Harris stopped talking to the cops. Besides, Barringer and Baranowski, ten other men – mostly Pagan’s – were arrested for the assault back in the summer.

The Pagan’s have been making waves the past year with an aggressive consolidation campaign on the country’s east coast. Upon New York Pagan’s boss Keith (Conan the Barbarian) Richter being elected to the club’s national presidency in late 2017, he declared his intentions of taking over the entire east coast region of the United States. Under Richter’s guidance and game planning, the club has been pushing into areas controlled by the rival Hells Angels, inciting violence and patching over smaller clubs to the Pagan’s family.

Hugo (Zorro) Nieves, Richter’s Garden State stationed Vice President appeared in front of the New Jersey Crime Commission last week and pleaded the fifth amendment at a proceeding convened to address the expansion effort, now being considered a pressing issue by local and federal law enforcement. Leaving the courthouse, Nieves told reporters the Pagan’s were not a criminal enterprise.

Founded in Maryland in the 1950s, the Pagan’s long maintained their powerbase in the state of a Pennsylvania. Former Pittsburgh Pagan’s boss Dennis (Rooster) Katona and current Philadelphia club boss Steven (Gotilla) Mondevergine both had runs as national president. Last year, Richter reinstalled Mondevergine as president of the Philly chapter after he had been ousted in a hostile takeover back in the late 2000s.

The post Pagan’s MC Leader In Pittsburgh Picked Up For Directing Attack On Deserter appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 8, 2019 — Toronto mobster Antonio (Scratchy) Fiorda was gunned down this week in the suburb of Etobicoke, Ontario. The 50-year old Fiorda is the latest victim in the ongoing gangland war that has engulfed the Canadian underworld this past decade. He was murdered Thursday afternoon in broad daylight in the parking lot of Via Allegro, an upscale Italian restaurant across the street from the busy Sherway Gardens mall known for its giant wine cellar and as a popular meeting spot for wiseguys.

There have been nine slayings tied to the war just this year alone. The conflict started in Montreal in the late 2000s and has since spread to Ontario. Mafia figure Paulo Caputo was killed in Toronto in August.

Scratchy Fiorda was a member of the Commisso crime family, a branch of the Calabrian mafia (‘Ndrangheta) operating in Toronto and his nickname came from his gravelly-sounding voice. The Commisso crime family is headed by Cosimo (The Quail) Commisso, whose nephew was slain in the war back in the summer of 2018. Fiorda was one of Commisso’s top enforcers and loansharks and did a stint in prison for a 1996 arrest on possession of illegal guns and explosives. Per police records, he often acted as security for some of the crime family’s most powerful players.

Caputo, 64, died in a hail of bullets in front of his Domani Restaurant on Roncesvalles Avenue. He was aligned with deceased Montreal mob don Vito Rizzuto.

The imprisonment of Rizzuto for a notorious 1981 triple homicide in New York depicted in the classic mob movie Donnie Brasco sent the mafia in Canada into a tailspin it still has yet to recover from. While he was behind bars, Rizzuto’s father, son and brother-in-law were all murdered. Rizzuto, 67, died of an aggressive bout with cancer in December 2013, a little more than a year after he was released from an American prison and returned to Montreal intent on exacting revenge on his enemies.

The post Cat Scratch Fever: Mafia War In Canada Claims Another Body, Commisso Clan Strong Arm Clipped appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 9, 2019 — Aging Chicago mafia soldier, Joseph (Jerry the Hand) Scalise and his best friend and longtime partner-in-crime Art (The Genius) Rachel were recently released from federal prison after serving seven years on burglary charges. Local mobologist Chuck Goudie, the leading reporter in the Windy City on Outfit affairs, broke the news of the releases as part of his award-winning I-Team series on Channel 7 ABC-TV Friday night.

Scalise, 81, has been free since the summer. Rachel, also 81, was just put into a halfway house in October. The pair pulled off the infamous 1980 Marlborough Diamond heist in London, an armed-robbery in which Scotland Yard investigators have still never recovered the precious jewel, but nevertheless Scalise and Rachel both did almost a decade in an Isle of Wight prison as a result of being found guilty of the crime that captured headlines around the globe.

Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, Scalise was a member of the notorious Wild Bunch, an elite Chicago mob hit squad working out of the Outfit’s Cicero crew. The FBI considers him a top suspect in at least a half-dozen gangland slayings, all linked to his membership in the Wild Bunch.

In 2012, Scalise and Rachel were convicted for attempted robbery and racketeering after being caught on a wire planted inside Scalise’s car plotting to boost an armored-car and planning out a string of intricate home invasions. Fellow Windy City wiseguy Bobby Pullia was in on the job too. Their home invasion ring included a conspiracy to break-in to deceased Chinatown capo Angelo (The Hook) LaPietra’s former residence in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood and crack open his old safe in the basement which they thought was holding millions of dollars worth of cash and jewelry and they believed his widow had access to.

Scalise got his nickname “The Hand” because he’s missing four fingers on his left hand that is deformed due to a birth defect. He’s sometimes referred to on the street as “The Monk” as well. His arrest record is littered with a litany of offenses dating back to the early 1960s.

Scalise took a drug pinch in 1998 when he was nabbed for trying to purchase 20 kilos of cocaine by an undercover FBI agent and did eight years behind bars. Upon his release, he was hired as a script consultant by acclaimed Chicago-born film director Michael Mann for his 2009 movie Public Enemies about famous Prohibition era outlaw John Dillinger.

The post The Hand That Rocks The Cradle: Famous Chicago Mob Duo Back On The Street appeared first on The Gangster Report.

In the 1970s, the Chicago mob created an epically lethal enforcement unit known as the Wild Bunch. The group of heavy hitters was made up of a half-dozen young assassins led by Harry (The Hook) Aleman, the nephew of Cicero capo Joe Ferriola. Dubbed the Wild Bunch after the 1969 Sam Peckinpah-helmed movie about a ragtag gang of bandits in the Old West, Aleman was joined by a fierce clique of compatriots in the exclusive Windy City hit team, including Jerry (The Hand) Scalise, William (Butch) Petrocello, Anthony (Little Tony) Borsellino, Jimmy (The Icepick) Inendino and Gerry Scarpelli, all capable and eager to please.

The Wild Bunch Hit List (1971-1981):

Oct. 19, 1971: Chicago mobster Salvatore (Sambo) Cesario, 53, is clubbed and shot to death by two masked men as he sat with his wife in lawn chairs in front of his home smoking a cigar.

Sept. 27, 1972: Labor union-connected Chicago mob associate, Billy Logan, 37, a Teamsters steward and ex-husband of Aleman’s cousin, is shotgunned to death in front of his home.

Dec. 20, 1973: Chicago cop and “made” man, Richard Cain, 49, tied to Illinois mafia boss Sam Giancana, is shotgunned to death at point-blank range by two masked men in Rose’s Sandwich Shop on the westside of Chicago

Feb. 24, 1974: Chicago mob associate and expert counterfeiter, Socrates (Sammy Paper) Rantis, 43, is found with his throat slashed and with puncture wounds in his chest in the trunk of his wife’s car at O’Hare airport parking terminal.

April 21, 1974: Chicago mob associate, counterfeiter and “Sammy Paper’s” funny money apprentice, Billy Simone, 29, is found in the back seat of his car with his hands and feet bound and a gunshot wound in the head.

July 13, 1974: Chicago mob associate Orion Williams, 38, a suspected mob informant, is found shotgunned to death in the trunk of his girlfriend’s car.

Sept. 28, 1974: Chicago mob associate Bobby Harder, 39, a jewel thief and burglar who was believed to have become an informant, is found shot in the face in a bean field near Dwight, Ill. Previously, Harder had escaped a hit attempt by Aleman and, “Jimmy I.”

Jan. 16, 1975: Chicago mob associate and collector Carlo Divivo, 46, is killed by two masked men who opened fire with a shotgun and a pistol as he walked out of his house

May 12, 1975: Chicago mob associate Ronnie Magliano, 43, an Outfit fence, is found blindfolded and shot behind the left ear in his set-ablaze residence,

June 19, 1975: Chicago cop and Outfit loanshark Chris Cardi, 43, is shot eight times in the back and once in the face by two masked men as his wife and children looked on inside Jim’s Beef Stand in Melrose Park.

Aug. 28, 1975: Greek Chicago mob associate Frank Goulakos, 47, a federal informant, is shot six times by a masked man near DiLeo’s Restaurant, where he worked as a cook.

Aug. 30, 1975: Greek Chicago mob associate and bookie Nick (Keggie) Galanos, 48, is found shot nine times in the head in the basement of his home

Oct. 31, 1975: Chicago mob associate and bookie Anthony Reitinger, 34, is shot to death in Mama Luna’s restaurant by two masked men.

Jan. 31, 1976: Chicago mob associate Louie DeBartolo, 29, a heavy gambler deeply in debt to Outfit bookmakers, is found shot in the head and with his neck punctured four times with a broken mop handle in the rear of the store where he was employed.

May 1, 1976: Chicago mob associate Jimmy Erwin, 28, an ex-convict who was suspected in the murders of two other reputed mobsters, is killed by two masked men with a shotgun and a .45 caliber pistol. He was shot 13 times as he stepped out of his car.

July 22, 1976: Kansas City mafia soldier David Bonadonna, 61, is fatally shot and found in his car trunk in Missouri. His murder was one of several unsolved gangland slayings connected to a local mob war in Kansas City stemming from the fight to control KC’s then-trendy River Quay entertainment district.

March 29, 1977: Chicago mafia soldier and hit man Chuckie (the Typewriter) Nicoletti, 60, is shot three times in the back of the head while sitting in his car parked in front of the Golden Horns Restaurant in a suburban Northlake.

June 15, 1977: Chicago mob associate Joey Theo, 33, a burglar involved in stolen auto parts, is found with two shotgun wounds to the head in the back seat of a car parked on the city’s southside.

July 25, 1977 – Chicago mobster Sam (The Mule) Annerino is gunned down in front of his Mirabelli’s Furniture Store in Oak Lawn, blown away with five shotgun blasts to the chest and neck.

January 15, 1978 – Outfit burglar John Mendell disappears 11 days after leading a break-in of Accardo’s house as payback for Accardo ordering Mendell and his crew to return a giant score from the robbery of a jewelry store they had pulled off in the days before Christmas 1977. The owner of the jewelry store was a friend of Accardo’s and requested the Big Tuna’s aid in retrieving the stolen merchandise. Mendell’s body wasn’t found until February 20, discovered in the trunk of his car on a southside street corner, naked, hogtied, stabbed and strangled to death.

January 20, 1978 – Outfit burglar Bernard (Buddy) Ryan, second-in-command in the Mendell burglary ring, is found behind the wheel of his Lincoln Continental sitting on the side of a west-suburban street with four bullets lodged in the back of his head and his throat slit.

February 2, 1978 – Outfit burglar Stevie Garcia, Ryan’s right-hand man, is found slain in the trunk of his car in a Sheraton Hotel parking lot by O’Hare Airport, stabbed to death with his throat slit.

February 4, 1978 – Outfit burglar and fence Vince Moretti and his buddy Don Renno are beaten to death, their throats slashed, in a Cicero bar in what became known in Chicago mob circles as the “Strangers in the Night Murders,” due to the fact that the song was playing on the bar’s jukebox as Moretti and Renno were being killed. Moretti was an ex-cop and seen wearing Accardo’s monogramed gold, diamond-encrusted cuff links around town in the days after the high-profile heist. While Moretti was a high-ranking member of Mendell’s crew, Renno, a small-time crook, wasn’t and just happened to be with Moretti when he was summoned to be clipped.

April 6, 1978 – Outfit burglar Robert (Bobby Toggs) Hertogs is found in the trunk of his car in a grocery store parking lot on Grand Avenue, shot in the back of the head and his throat slashed. Hertogs was connected to the Mendell crew and had fallen behind on a juice loan.

April 14, 1978 – Outfit burglar Johnny McDonald, the final Mendell crew member to get bumped off, is found lying dead in a westside alley, shot in the back of the head and his throat cut. McDonald allegedly was forced to set Buddy Ryan up to be killed.

October 5, 1978 – The Accardo residence’s Sicilian caretaker Michael Volpe vanishes on his way to work in the days after testifying too candidly in front of a federal grand jury investigating the string of slayings linked to the break-in.

May 22, 1979 – Outfit lieutenant and hit man Anthony (Little Tony) Borsellino is found in a Will County cornfield shot in the back of the head. Borselino was part of the infamous Wild Bunch, a westside troop of assassins dispatched on the Chicago mob’s most pressing murder assignments, and suspected in taking part in a number of the slayings tied to the fallout from the break-in.

September 18, 1979 – Outfit lieutenant and hit man Gerald (Jerry the Dinger) Carusiello is shot in the back of the head and left on the concrete an in Addison, Illinois apartment complex parking lot. Carusiello was a driver and bodyguard for Accardo’s acting boss Joseph (Joey Doves) Aiuppa and suspected in at least one of the fallout slayings.

July 2, 1980 – Windy City mobster William (Billy Choppers) Dauber & his wife Charlotte are killed as they drove home from a court hearing. Dauber was an enforcer for the Outfit’s Chicago Heights crew and had been in charge of the Chop Shop War on behalf of area mob brass. Word had spread on the street that Dauber was cooperating after taking a drug pinch.

March 13, 1981 – Infamous Outfit enforcer and Wild Bunch mainstay William (Butch) Petrocelli is tortured and killed for skimming proceeds earmarked for delivering to imprisoned bosses relatives on the outside.

June 24, 1981 – Outfit associate Mike Cagnoni is blown up in his Mercedes-Benz as he drove on to the Tri-State Tollway at Ogden Avenue. Cagnoni looked after Chicago mob activity in the produce business.

The post Born To Be Wild: Chicago Outfit Hit Squad Littered The Streets With Bodies Back In The Day appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Below is a guest piece written by Gangster Report correspondent Ricardo Ferrell telling the inspiring story of three men behind bars, including himself, trying to change their lives in a positive manner. These men are making their prison time work for them by building constructive skill sets and taking ownership of their past wrongs.

November 2019

The least likely place where you would expect someone to change their lives, is in a prison. But in the state of Michigan, there are three men —, myself, Ricardo Ferrell, LeRoy Washington and Quentin Jones — who have worked diligently to make a change by transforming their lives for the better.

Combined we have served over 82 years as wards of the state. Most of their time has been geared toward these transformations, a stark contrast to destructive paths they’re journeys began on. Together, we founded the groundbreaking program known as: TAB-MI – Thinking * Attitude * Behavior – Modification Initiative,

WASHINGTON, JONES & FERRELL are setting out to revolutionize the idea of intervening in the lives of at-risk youth and young adults, who struggle to stay on the right path. We are striving to provide a curriculum-based program that will help curb cultural violence and reconstruct the mentality of those who find themselves lost in a maze of confusion, dysfunctionalism, disadvantage, and sadly, the indulgence in criminal thinking and criminality.

Here are some profiles on us:

LeRoy Washington, 50, is serving a 42 to 60 years (virtual life) sentence for Second Degree Murder that he committed in 1995. He has successfully completed paralegal studies with Blackstone Career Institute. He has been involved in the field of personal development for over two decades.

Since his incarceration, Washington has earned a MBA in Business Administration-Management from California Coast University’s Distant Learning Program and is currently working on a Doctorate’s in Education. Upon completion, he will become the first MDOC inmate to earn such honors from an accredited school while incarcerated. He has also earned a State Mediator Certification, authored a series of children’s nursery rhyme books, created an anti-bullying curriculum (cofounding the “Anti-Bully Crusaders Organization” with his daughter Lauren.

LeRoy told me this about his own journey:

“I am deeply sorry, with every fiber of my soul, for the crime I committed. As a man, I accept full responsibility for what I did. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison. I have so much more to give and so much to offer. I just want one more chance to show the world that I am capable of redemption. Another chance to share my hard-earned wisdom by making a positive contribution to the economic stability of my family and community, while demonstrating that my life has value beyond the sum of my errors. I am definitely not the young reckless, carefree, bad decision making man that I once was in my 20’s. I would like it to be said at the end of my life that ‘I, LeRoy Washington, descended to the bowels of despair on my life’s journey and was exiled, for a time. However, rather than succumbing to the ignorance, darkness and hopelessness of that hour, I chose to remember and reclaim my humanity and that of my fellow man’s, redeem my soul and paid restitution with my life’s works.’ Life is all about the ability to make a decision that will honor the law and respect humanity regardless of the individual or collective challenges we may face. I can attest, that whether we are tested by our own hand or in ways beyond our control, our lives will unerringly reflect how we elect to respond.”

Quentin Jones, 39, is serving a mandatory life sentence for First Degree Murder. Locked up since he was 18, he is the founder of MYLIFEMATTERSTOO, a movement that has taken a realistic approach towards humanizing incarcerated men and women by giving them a voice and platform to show and prove that their lives have greater significance beyond the sum of their errors. He has twice completed the Inside Out Prison Exchange Program and in 2016, he enrolled into Jackson Community College, where he continues to take courses. Quentin is currently taking paralegal courses with Blackstone Career Institute.

Quentin told me this about his journey:

“I truly am sorry for the pain that I caused everyone effected by my actions. While I know sorry doesn’t take away the pain, it is the first step in forgiveness, which is what, I one day hope to receive. I have spent the last 20 plus years transforming my life and now that I have changed, I dedicate the rest of my days on this earth to helping all of humanity to become better human beings.”

To learn more about Quentin – go to: www.mylifematterstoo.org and @silentcry on instagram on Facebook SilentCry,Inc.

I’m Ricardo Ferrell. I’m 62 and serving a parolable life sentence for Second Degree Murder. I personally embraced the idea of the need for transformation when i came to the realization that in order for me to find life’s purpose i would have to work diligently toward making a significant change in my own life indicative of a renewed way of thinking. During my nearly 40 year journey, I’ve taken on the belief and attitude that i must make amends for the harm and pain I am responsible for. I have accepted the fact that my past behavior could likely cause me to spend the remainder of my life behind bars and I have to own that fact because my behavior put me here in the first place.

I think about the pain and harm I’ve caused my victim James Turner and his family, who didn’t deserve to go down the road of sorrow due to my reckless behavior, every single day.. There are times when I have written letters of apology to James, his family, the court, and society, but those words of expression are obviously never enough.

I’ve also learned that time is a value of no limit and by learning that I have taken a simple way to pass time and converted it into a passion. my life had been a symbol of mediocrity, but upon humbly embracing the experience of writing and literary expression, my life has taken a turn into the spectacular. I know I can help other people with my words and give them a voice they might not have otherwise.

It was in early 2015, I began to recognize I had talent in the literary arts and i have set out to become a profound writer. Besides being brought on as a staff writer for the online independent newspaper, Voice of Detroit, I have been frequently published in several newsletters, and on DreamBigLiveBig.Net, a free online website for troubled at-risk youth and young adults.

In 2008, I was among the 12 original founders of the Youth Deterrent Program at the Ryan prison facility in Detroit — the program helped deter at-risk youth from destructive thinking and criminality. I have also worked to prevent severely mentally ill individuals from engaging in self-injurious and suicidal behaviors in the prison system. I worked in the Prisoner Observation Aide Program, (known as suicide watch) at 3 different facilities since 2013.

According to staff reports at the Chippewa, Handlon and Michigan Reformatory prisons, “Ricardo is an asset to this life changing & saving program, where he has intervened and helped fellow prisoners decrease and in some cases, cease, harmful self-inflicted behaviors.”

I have accumulated 16 college credits toward a higher education and have participated in all available self-help programming. I drafted an initiative known as the My Brother’s Keeper Program and I am working with Michigan State University (via Dr. Austin Jackson and Dr. Lisa Biggs,Richard A. Handlon ) to try to receive grant funding for implementation.

In a world where society is looking for answers to curb the Thinking – Attitude – Behavior of our children, who’s better equipped to address these social issues and lead them towards a pathway to success, than someone who understands their plight. And the answers can very well come from the above named men.

Just as a New York organization believes, “Those closest to the problem are closest to the solution…” — We have to be willing to invest in our youth by spending quality time with them, showing example positive and productive conduct, providing pathways for them to succeed, and teaching them a better, more positive way to live and love. It’s only then we will see a significant shift in the reduction of crime, and help change a criminal culture that only brings despair. Together, we can make a difference and create a path for success that others can follow.

The post Making Amends, Flipping The Script: Prison Lifers In Michigan Look To Reinvent Themselves appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 12, 2019 – Historic crime boss Tony (Scarface) Virmontez is back in the Motor City. The 49-year old leader of the Latin Counts was released to a halfway house last week after spending more than a decade in a federal prison in Pennsylvania for drugs and racketeering.

Scarface Viramontez brought the Latin Counts to Michigan from his native Chicago in the late 1980s and planted a flag for the gang in Southwest Detroit, the epicenter of the city’s Latino community. Fighting a war for turf on simultaneous fronts against established local crews like the Latin Cobras and the Latin Kings and pop-up powers like the Bolo Boys and the Cash Flow Posse, by the end of the 1990s, the Latin Counts were the preeminent street gang in the area and Viramontez himself was the most notorious crime lord in Southwest Detroit.

His business dealings with The Highwaymen Motorcycle Club proved his undoing. Besides a short prison term for assault and gun possession, Viramontez had stayed out of handcuffs. The Latin Counts were doing drug deals with the Highwaymen and two of the bikers Viramontez were working with, “Downriver” chapter boss Phillip (Jocko) McDonald and his right-hand man Doug (Doc) Burnett, a newly patched-in soldier, were wired for sound. He was convicted on narcotics and attempted murder charges in 2008. Jocko McDonald recorded Viramontez requesting permission to murder Burnett, who had been identified as a confidential informant.

Octavius (Boots) Viramontez, Scarface’s Viramontez’s little brother, was slain in a drive-by shooting that took place in October 1990 in the midst of the increasing tensions in Southwest Detroit tied to their arrival and the founding of the city’s Latin Counts satellite operation. Per court records, the Viramontez brothers were banned from Chicago as teens for a beef Scarface had engaged in and gotten shot in the chin over, prompting their move to the Motor City where they had relatives, in the summer of 1987.

The post The Face That Launched 1,000 Ships: SW Detroit Crime Lord Scarface Viramontez Returns Home From Prison appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 13, 2019 — Pittsburgh Pagan’s Motorcycle Club heavy Brian (The Dude) Keruskin copped a plea in state court this week, pleading no contest to leading a beat down of a former associate back in the spring in exchange for a shortened prison term. The 57-year old Keruskin, a widely-respected club veteran nicknamed for his resemblance to the Jeff Bridges character in the cult-classic movie The Big Lebowski, was sentenced to 2 to 8 years behind bars by Washington County Circuit Judge John DiSalle Monday morning. He did 3 years in the can for a federal assault conviction in the 2000s.

On April 18 of this year, Keruskin and nine other Pagan’s brutally assaulted Troy Harris inside the Slovak Club in Charleroi, Pennsylvania on orders from Pagan’s brass in Pittsburgh. According to the July indictment, Keruskin was tasked with coordinating the beating of Harris for Harris’ decision to leave the club and join another.

Earlier this month, the man who allegedly sent word to Keruskin that Harris needed to be “tuned up,” Michael (Montana) Barringer, the Pagan’s national sergeant at arms, was arrested and charged with attempted murder and witness intimidation. Harris suffered brain damage in the attack. As part of Keruskin’s plea deal, prosecutors agreed to drop the attempted murder counts.

Barringer, 59, pleaded not guilty last week and awaits trial from his prison cell, denied bond by Judge DiSalle. Prosecutors claim Barringer is the third most powerful Pagan’s boss in the country, behind only national President Keith (Conan the Barbarian) Richter of New York and his Vice President Hugo (Zorro) Nieves out of New Jersey.

Richter got the reins in the club two years ago and immediately issued an expansion mandate, per court records. Informants tell the FBI and ATF, Richter is gunning for a total Pagan’s takeover of the east coast and advocating violence against the Hell’s Angels, the other prominent biker club in the region and the mass absorption of any smaller clubs they can get their hands on.

Keruskin and Barringer were lieutenants under Dennis (Rooster) Katona in the 2000s when Katona was the club’s president and ran the Pagan’s national office out of Pittsburgh. Katona and Keruskin were arrested together in 2002 after Katona coordinated an attack on a formal Hells Angels gathering in New York that resulted in a homicide.

The post Wheeling & Dealing In Steel Town: Pagan’s MC’er Pleads Out In Assault Case appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 15, 2019 — Boston mob soldier Stevie Rossetti and Patriarca crime family associate David Turner were recently released from prison early. They were sentenced to nearly 40 years and but did just 20. Both were convicted for plotting to rob the Loomis-Fargo vault, an Easton, Massachusetts armored car way station. Turner is considered a suspect in the infamous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, the biggest art-theft in world history. Another museum heist suspect, infirmed New England gangster, Robert (Bobby the Cook) Gentile, 82, was let loose from a weapons charge back in March.

On the morning of March 18, 1990, two armed men dressed as police officers fleeced the private museum for a half-billion dollars in precious artwork – 13 pieces, including classic paintings from Rembrant, Manet and Vermeer. According to people familiar with the investigation, Turner matched the description of one of the perpetrators.

The art has never been recovered and no arrests have ever been made in the case, yet the investigation remains open and very active to this day. Investigators believe it’s possible that one or both of the stick-up men could be dead and the rare art most likely was never sold (instead, sits somewhere hidden). The museum keeps the original frames empty awaiting the eventual return of the historic paintings.

In the 1990s, Gentile, Rossetti and Turner were part of the same East Boston mob crew. Gentile and Turner headquartered out of the TRC Auto Electric body shop in gritty Dorchester. Turner, a former star football player in high school, was a protégé of Gentile’s longtime partner-in-crime, Robert (Bobby Boost) Guarente, who died of cancer in 2004.

Rossetti, once a rising star in Beantown mob circles, was Guarente’s nephew. He was re sentenced last month by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns to time served.

Guarante gave pieces of the stolen art to Gentile before he passed away, according to Guarente’s widow. The FBI recovered a hand-written list of the paintings and accompanying black-market values in a search of Gentile’s Connecticut residence in 2012.

Gentile and Guarente jumped ship to the Philadelphia mafia in 1998, helping set up an outpost of the Bruno-Scarfo crime family in New England. That same year, Rossetti and Turner were busted alongside Patriarca crime family member Carmello (The Auto Man) Merlino and Merlino’s nephew Billy for planning on blowing up the Loomis-Fargo vault with a grenade and running off with the up to $50,000,000 in cash inside.

Billy Merlino also matched the description of one of the museum robbers. Carmello Merlino died of cancer in 2005 behind bars. The elder Merlino owned TRC Auto Electric, operating gambling, narcotics and fencing rackets out of his office in the back. Rossetti’s brother Mark rose to become capo of the Patriarca’s East Boston crew prior to taking a drug pinch in 2011 and being outed as a confidential informant for the FBI.

The post Massachusetts Mobsters, Gardner Museum Robbery Suspect Get Out Of Prison Early appeared first on The Gangster Report.

November 19, 2019 — Reputed Gambino crime family soldier Joe Isgro, a powerful player in the music business for years dating back to the 1970s, gave Jimmy Hoffa the Hollywood treatment long before Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Netflix got into the game. The 72-year old Isgro produced the 1992 film Hoffa, starring Jack Nicholson that despite his riveting portrayal of the slain Teamsters boss got lukewarm reviews and lost money at the box office.

Isgro is allegedly the Gambino’s representative on the west coast. He did three years in prison for running a loansharking racket out of his Beverly Hills office (2000-2003), giving out juice loans (charging 5% interest a week) to a clientele made up mostly of people in the entertainment industry. In 1990, he was indicted for racketeering and money laundering tied to a payola conspiracy that was eventually tossed for prosecutorial misconduct and in 2014, Isgro was arrested for bookmaking out of New York.

Scorsese’s The Irishman debuted in theatres this month to widespread critical acclaim and will land on Netflix on November 27. The film chronicles the friendship between Hoffa, played by Pacino and Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran, a Teamsters executive and mob hit man who dubiously claimed to have killed Hoffa and is portrayed by DeNiro. Sheeran confessed to the being the triggerman in the notoriously never-solved gangland hit right before he died of natural causes in 2003. Hoffa’s body was never found. 

The book in which the confession went public in, I Heard You Paint Houses, was authored by Sheeran’s attorney, Charlie Brandt, and acted as the source material for the movie’s script. The FBI and most experts on the Hoffa murder investigation dismiss Sheeran’s claim and instead point to either members of the Detroit mafia or the New Jersey wing of New York’s Genovese crime family as the “hitters.”

Hoffa, the most powerful labor union leader in the history of America, disappeared on the afternoon of July 30, 1975 from a suburban Detroit restaurant parking lot on his way to meet Detroit mob street boss Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone and Genovese capo Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano for a sit down to settle a beef between him and Tony Pro. The one-time allies were in a bitter feud and Hoffa needed Provenzano’s support in his attempt to reclaim the Teamsters presidency after relinquishing the post five years earlier in order to get out of prison via a sentence commutation from the Nixon White House. Nobody has ever been arrested in the case and the FBI and Michigan State Police are still actively pursuing the investigation.  

Isgro was the first person intent on telling the Hoffa story on the big screen. Using a script penned by legendary screenwriter David Mamet, the movie was directed by and co-starred Danny DeVito. The $35,000,000 budgeted project was produced and distributed by 20^th Century Fox Pictures. Hurt by middling reviews, the movie only brought in $30,000,000 in receipts. Nicholson’s performance was lauded though and he got a Golden Globes Awards Best Actor nod. DeVito played a fictionalized character named Bobby Ciaro, seemingly a composite of Detroit Teamster Bobby Holmes and Hoffa’s surrogate son Chuckie O’Brien. 

Born in Philadelphia, Isgro served in the Vietnam War as a U.S. Marine and came home with a Purple Heart. He jumped into the world of record promotion and found success promoting such chart-topping superstars like Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, U2, Elton John, Billy Joel, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Richie, The Who, The Rolling Stones and many more successful rock and pop rock acts. Before going out on his own in 1979, Isgro was the Head of Promotions at Motown Records, Roulette Records and EMI.   

Roulette Records was owned by New York mob associate Morris Levy, who was closely tied to the Genovese family. Motown founder Berry Gordy allegedly received a portion of the start-up financing for his iconic label from a small street loan provided by the Detroit mafia, according to FBI informants in the 1960s.

The post Mafia Movie Magic: First Jimmy Hoffa Film In The ‘90s Had Mob Links appeared first on The Gangster Report.