The Mafia Princer next door

My name is Philip Leonetti, or I should I say that was my name.

For the last twenty years I have lived under a different name since my defection from the mob, or as we called it, La Cosa Nostra, which means this thing of ours in Italian.

My decision in 1989 to become the highest ranking member of La Cosa Nostra to break the sacred vow of omerta, the mafia's code of silence, has made me a marked man for the rest of my life.

As I write this, there is a reported $500,000 bounty on my head to anyone who can find me and kill me.

Today I am 59 years old and living far away from the Atlantic City Boardwalk I once controlled with my uncle, a man named Nicodemo Scarfo.

Back then they called us "Little Nicky" and "Crazy Phil."

Murder, loan-sharking, extortion, beatings, illegal gambling, you name it, we did it all.

We were the real Boardwalk Empire. Movies like The Godfather, Goodfellas, A Bronx Tale and Casino and television shows like The Sopranos have offered dramatic interpretations of our life, but my life wasn't a movie, or a TV show; it was the real thing.


One time, my uncle used me as a decoy to help him following a murder that he had just committed.

As we were driving in the pick-up truck that had just been used to transport the dead man's body to a freshly dug hole in the woods where he was buried, my uncle told me what he had done and why he had done it. read more    http://.com/philip-leonetti/mafia-prince-next-door_b_2280929.htmlwww.huffingtonpost

Mob-made: Retired FBI agent shares story for Hollywood

NEWTOWN -- Not many people get to meet a mobster in a friendly situation, let alone hear a ranking member of New York City's Gambino crime family, with the title "made man," describe his daily tasks.

But that was one of the surprise perks members of the Newtown Citizen Police Academy got this year.

Standing 6-feet-4 inches tall and weighting almost 400 pounds, 56-year-old Joaquin "Jack" Garcia certainly fits the stereotype of an Italian gangster, which is one of the many reasons he was the undercover agent the FBI chose to infiltrate the family.

Over the 26 years Garcia was an agent, he had more than 100 different identities, but his most intense stint was the three years he spent as Jack Falcone, a third-generation Sicilian, whose parents were buried in Florida.

Starting in 2002, Garcia was able to infiltrate the Gambino family -- one of the top five crime families in New York City. He was made to look like an investor in a strip club that the Gambinos, and Greg DePalma, a family capo, provided security for.

To play the part, he needed a fancy car, Rolex watch, a 3-carat diamond pinky ring, a cross necklace and a few Italian suits.To gain trust, he used watches and other items that had been confiscated by police during drug arrests, telling members of the family he would give them a good price for them. Or he would buy a TV and offer it, claiming it fell off a truck, to gain the respect of the group.

If something's hot, they'd rather get that -- to know they got away with it," he said.

He continued to gain the trust of the higher-ups, and was invited to join La Cosa Nostra and named a "made-man," someone who has mobsters working directly for him.

He maintained this persona, using wiretaps and helping organize video surveillance, until he aroused suspicion by not participating in a gang beating in a Bloomingdale's store.

The FBI pulled him from the job before he was found out. But despite his urgent removal, the agency was able to put 32 members of the Gambino family behind bars on charges of racketeering, extortion and violence.

Now retired, Garcia wrote a book, "Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family," which became a New York Times bestseller soon after it was released in October 2008.

Garcia subsequently appeared on "60 Minutes" and other news broadcasts, as well as many news publications.

What was the scariest part of being an undercover mobster? That is the most common question he gets


He said he hoped if he was found out he "could be made (out as) an agent, because the fate of an informant is a death sentence."

Mobsters know better than to kill an FBI agent, he said.

Garcia explained that in his experience mob families were run exactly as they are portrayed in "The Godfather" movie.

"With the mob you eat 24-7. It's like you're on a cruise ship with the mob," he joked. He gained 80 of his 390 pounds in his three years as a gangster.

But he did not have to kill anyone, or do anything illegal to harm someone.

"(They) used to have people whack someone, to get their hands dirty so they couldn't turn and be a rat, (but) the mob has changed ... You could be called upon to whack someone, but it wasn't a prerequisite.

He said as long as he was making the money for the family, they were happy to have him on board.

Garcia recently sold the rights to his story to a movie producer, and is hopeful someday soon someone impersonating him will tell his story.

Mad Crazy Joey Gallo

Joe Gallo catapulted to mob fame while sitting before a panel of U.S. senators and their charismatic general counsel, Robert Kennedy.
An Italian-American dressed in black and sunglasses, Gallo gleamed as a rebel for the TV-watching public in 1959.
He made wisecracks, dropped an ash tray and generally played to the cameras, which broadcast Gallo's testimony, or lack thereof, on the lucrative mob stronghold of jukebox vending.
"Gangsters were fascinating stuff ... and they were really being bad boys," writer Tom Folsom said of Gallo and his brothers, Lawrence and Albert, who also testified. "That kind of national attention was really kind of their breakthrough moment."
But that's just what took place in front of the cameras.
Behind the lens, Gallo painted, killed people, studied philosophy and launched a revolution against the Profacis, the New York crime family that employed him.
The character-driven saga is fit for the 1960s and perfect for Folsom's brand of made-for-Hollywood storytelling, complete with a true "to the mattresses" scene later adopted by "The Godfather" author Mario Puzo.
"It's really this kind of world that they've created. That's the kind of thing you see in the movies," Folsom said of Gallo and his brothers. "They definitely blurred fantasy and fiction."
Folsom, a University of Georgia graduate and New York resident, chronicles the Gallo story in his latest book, "The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld," which Weinstein Books published and optioned for movie and television.
He learned quite a bit about Gallo, nicknamed "Crazy Joe," during lengthy interviews with Leroy "Nicky" Barnes.
Barnes was a high-powered heroin dealer in Harlem, N.Y., who led his own Mafia-like operation during the 1960s and 1970s. He later testified as a federal witness and entered protective custody.
Folsom co-wrote Barnes' story, "Mr. Untouchable: My Crimes and Punishments," with him in 2007, learning all about Barnes' prison time with Gallo, who plotted their takeover of New York's drug underworld.
"Joe predicted one day the Mafia would have to start aligning with the black heroin dealers," Folsom said. "He wanted to take over the Mafia. He thought that Nicky Barnes would be a really strong ally of that. ... They were preparing for the revolution."
The time and place is as much a part of the Gallo story as the man himself. He and his brothers grew up in the rough Red Hook neighborhood on Brooklyn's industrial waterfront, learning quickly it's better to take as a mobster than be taken by one.
But they did not settle for their otherwise small-time scores.
Inspired by the spirit of the 1960s and its countercultures, Gallo portrayed himself as an outsider, mixed with various members of high and low society and even mingled among Greenwich Village's intellectuals and artists. (After Gallo's death, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan wrote a romantic tribute to "Joey.")
"This guy had this real thirst for knowledge. He wanted to learn," Folsom said of Gallo. Yet, he also killed. "These were the two forces that were pulling him apart. ... They essentially destroyed him."
True mobsters shunned attention of any kind, Folsom explained. But the Gallos, led by Joe, invited it.
Folsom said even during their war with the Profacis, FBI agents tasked with surveillance were granted unusual access.
"This is like the boys in the mailroom taking over IBM. They're completely in over their heads. They get 20 mattresses, right on the Red Hook waterfront in their grandmother's tenement," Folsom said, describing the mobsters at war.
During their years-long camp-outs together, they enjoyed family gatherings and even invited the FBI to share meals. Since the agents could neither arrest nor evict them, the lawmen accepted.
"(Their attitude was) if we're both going to be here, we might as well enjoy our jobs. When the Gallos' father would cook these big pots of spaghetti, the cops would hang out, and they'd all have dinner together," Folsom said. "It's one of the more unique aspects of the story that you don't get from a lot of other cops-and-robbers tales."
As a result, the FBI sensed what the gang was like behind the scenes and recorded a lot of what transpired in detailed reports Folsom researched for his book.
Additionally, the writer interviewed former FBI agents and Barnes. He also scoured news accounts highlighting Gallo's actions, right up until his shooting death weeks after the release of "The Godfather" in 1972, a movie that incorporated several aspects of Gallo's story.
"Rather than duck for cover, he flaunted himself out in the public. Some people actually think - I think - he was courting death. ... Joey thought he could fight the system," Folsom said. "The moral of the book is, you can't fight the system. It doesn't mean you can't fight against the system, but the paradox is the system will always win

Mafia Book by Brooklyn's Rackets Chief

Mafia Book by Brooklyn’s Rackets Chief Hits Shelves

JAY STREET – A local prosecutor’s outspoken account of investigating organized crime, and how Brooklyn federal prosecutors tried to steal credit from local authorities, hit bookstore shelves Tuesday. Assistant District Attorney Michael Vecchione, chief of the rackets division at the Kings County District Attorney’s Office, co-wrote Friends of the Family: The Inside Story of the Mafia Cops Case

The book is a tell-all account of the infamous police corruption case that led to life sentences for former NYPD officers Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, two cops who were on the payroll of Luchese family boss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso.
The book openly names and criticizes federal prosecutors who Vecchione says took credit for investigations that they didn’t deserve. It was co-written with retired Det. Tommy Dades and writer David Fisher.
A more detailed review of Michael Vecchione’s ”Friends of the Family” and the allegations it makes against federal prosecutors will be featured in an upcoming edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Clevland Crime Family, Threesome mobs Code's 'Irishman'

Ray Stevenson, Christopher Walken and Val Kilmer will play the leads in "The Irishman," a crime story that Jonathan Hensleigh will direct.Code Entertainment is producing the action movie, which is based on the real story of mobster Danny Greene (Stevenson). Hensleigh and Jeremy Walters ("Dali") wrote the script, inspired by the book "To Kill the Irishman: The War That Crippled the Mafia" by Rick Porrello.Greene was a violent Irish-American gangster who competed with the Italian mob in 1970s Cleveland and ended up provoking a countrywide turf war that crippled the mafia. Walken will play the loan shark and nightclub owner Shondor Birns, and Kilmer is a Cleveland police detective who befriends Greene.Code's Al Corley, Bart Rosenblatt and Eugene Musso are producing, along with Dundee Entertainment's Tommy Reid and Tara Reid, who brought the property to Code. Jonathan Dana, Peter Miller and Porrello are exec producers, with George Perez serving as co-producer.The production has also hired cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub, production designer Patrizia von Brandenstein and editor Douglas Crise. Principal photography begins May 19 in Detroit.Lightning Entertainment will shop the project to international buyers at Cannes, while ICM and Dana handle domestic sales. The ICM-repped Hensleigh co-wrote and directed "The Punisher." The writer or co-writer of "Die Hard With a Vengeance" and "Jumanji" has the crime story "Nine Lives" in development with Jerry Bruckheimer Films.Walken and Kilmer are repped by ICM and Affirmative Entertainment. Stevenson is repped by Endeavor.Code last produced "You Kill Me" and "Spring Breakdown."

Frank "Bomp" Bompensiero hollywood mafia

Frank “Bomp” Bompensiero was a top notch killer in the Dragna Mafia Family. He whacked out more than fifteen men, and he even had a hand in clipping a woman named Tamara Rand. ”Bomp” blasted a member of Mickey Cohen’s gang with a shotgun on the Sunset Strip. Another time he clipped a guy named Phil Galluzzo.. He pistol whipped Galuzzo , and then shot him six times. Bompensiero became an informant for the FBI, and he had a contract put out on him by Los Angeles Mafia boss, Brooklier. While talking on the phone, in a phone booth, “Bomp” was shot to death by hitman, Tommy Ricciardi.

Tom Dragna Hollywood Mafia

Tom Dragna aka Tomaso Rizzoto
Tom Dragna was Consigliare in the Dragna Mafia Family. Tom was Jack Dragna’s brother ,and the father of capo, Louis Tom Dragna. Tom helped plan, and he implemented several of the attemts on Mickey Cohen’s life. Tom Dragna was future mob boss , Nick Licata’s closest friend. Tom backed Nick Licata for boss when Frank De Simone died

Jack Lo Cicero Hollywood Mafia

Giacomo ”Jack” Lo Cicero was made in the Los Angeles Mafia by Nick Licata, Jack rose in rank to consigliare in the Crime Family under new boss Dominic Brooklier.Jack drove the getaway car for hitman Tommy R icciardi when Ricciardi whacked out mob rat Frank Bompansiero in a phone booth in San Diego

Friars Club Gold mine For Mob

Matthau

Fiato



Rizzitello




In the sixties,the Beverly Hills Friars club was a cash cow for major-league wiseguy Johnny Roselli. Johnny, and his crew of card cheats, milked the joint for a bundle of bucks.

Years later.the club was still fullof fat-cat entertainers, and Hollywood celebrities , who loved to gamble on sports.
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BIG ACTORS like the late Walter Matthau, and Get Smart, star, Don Adams, wouldn’t think twice about betting ten grand on a football game.

Through the years, the Friars Club resident bookies have always gotten rich off the losers. In 1980 Bobby Craig was the in-house bookie…He was making money hand over fist..The greedy fuck didn’t want to share the wealth with Capo Mike “Rizzi” Rizzitello.

I pushed Bobby down a flight of stairs in the Friars Club, and then he coughed up the cash….Two grand a week rent.

Next was an ex Brooklyn copper named Al Lazaar. Al took over the bookie action at the Friars Club when Bobby Craig died.


We did a job on Al too. Mike Hammer actor Stacy Keach was taking action up there for a while. I went to Stacy’s wedding in Malibu so I gave him a pass for a present. Anthony Fiato aka "The Animal"

Dominic Brooklier Hollywood Mafia

Dominic Brooklier aka Jimmy Regace aka "Old-man". Brooklier became boss of the Los Angeles Crime Family after Nicky Licata died. Brooklier was a Dragna shooter in the Sunset Strip war with Mickey Cohen’s mob, and he shot and wounded a Cohen henchman. Brooklier thought himself to be very smart .He proudy held a law degree. He hated Mobster’s Jimmy “the Weasel “Fratianno, and Frank ” Bomp” Bompensiero. He considered them both to be treacherous,and beef -brained gunsels. Brooklier ordered the hit that killed Bompensiero and he put a contract out on Fratianno for his seditious attempted try at taking over as boss of his Mob while he was serving a stretch in the slammer. He also believed that Jimmy Fratianno was a rat. That belief proved to be true, when ”The Weasel” testified against Brooklier and other members of the Los Angeles Crime Family in the FBI Forex extortion trial.

Hollywood Mafia, Frank De Simone

Frank De Simone

De Simone became the boss of the Los Angeles Mafia after Jack Dragna. He was a capable killer, as well as a very capable lawyer.
DeSimone attended the infamous mob meeting at Apalachin.. According to a mob canary DeSimone raped the wife of his Consigliari , Girolamo “Momo” Adamo.

. Adamo reacted by shooting his wife in the head then he committed suicide. His wife survived and married Mafia hitman, Frank “bomp” Bompensiero.

thousands march against Mafia

More than 100,000 people marched in Naples on Saturday in one of the biggest anti-mafia rallies in recent years to commemorate the victims of organised crime and demand an end to its stranglehold on southern Italy.
Relatives of victims, some wearing white gloves and holding pictures of their loved ones, led the demonstration as the names of some 900 people killed by the mafia were read out through loudspeakers.

One banner said: "You didn't kill them. They are walking with us." Another read: "Don't turn the other way."

Writer Roberto Saviano, a symbol of the fight against the mafia since his best-selling book "Gomorra" exposed how the mob dominates life around Naples, was also at the rally. The 29-year old has received death threats and lives under police escort.

Organisers said some 150,000 people from across Italy and 30 other countries attended the demonstration. Police put the number at more than 100,000.

"Today is a day of celebration because we remember our dead with all these young people gathered here. They are the future of Italy," said Vincenzo D'Agostino, the father of a policeman who was killed by the mafia with his wife and son.

Some families said they were still waiting for the killers of their relatives to be identified.

"We are still battling to know what happened. We are asking the state for the truth," said Anna Adavastro, whose 18-year-old son Daniele vanished in Reggio Calabria in 2005. His body was later found, charred.

The march was organised by Libera (Free), an association of civil society groups involved in many anti-mafia activities, including acquiring farms and buildings confiscated from the mafia and using them for social good, such as school and drug rehabilitation centres.


TIGHT GRIP ON ECONOMY

"A day like today is meaningful only if we keep fighting the other 364 days of the year," said Father Luigi Ciotti, a priest and Libera's president. Italian police have inflicted major blows on the Sicilian mafia in recent years, arresting several high-profile mafiosi, such as the "boss of bosses" Bernardo Provenzano and his heir apparent Salvatore Lo Piccolo in 2007.

But the country's four biggest mafia organisations -- Calabria's 'Ndrangheta, Sicily's Cosa Nostra, Naples' Camorra and Puglia's Sacra Corona Unita -- are believed still to account for a large chunk of Italy's economy.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has said that the 'Ndrangheta alone, now considered the most powerful of Italy's crime syndicates, makes 45 billion euros ($61.6 billion) a year through its hold on the European drugs market.

Italy's intelligence services said this month the global downturn was giving mobsters the chance to tighten their grip on the economy as they use proceeds from their illegal activities to buy stakes in the retail, tourism and real estate sectors.

Cash-hungry businesses have also become more vulnerable to loan sharks and protection rackets, they said in a report.

See more in the Photogallery: Tens of Thousands March in Naples Against Mafia.

Watch the protest in: March Against Mafia.

Me and My Shadow, Bugsy

Allen Smiley aka "Smiley The Russian"
1947

.First of all, and last of all, Allen Smiley was Bugsy Siegel’s friend. In a sense, he was Bugsy’s shadow. When you saw one, you usually saw the other The hitman that shot Bugsy Siegel saw them together too…
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Bugsy and Smiley were both seated on the same couch when the Slugger blasted Bugsy to smithereens..Smiley dove down on the floor, and he ended up with three bullet holes in his jacket sleeve
but none of them in him.

Bugsy had died , but his legend was alive and well in the person of Allen Smiley.

Fast Forward 30 years
I walked into the La Cierniga Bridge Club on Pico blvd with my shylock partner Puggy Zeichick..The place was a haven for big time Jewish bookies and gamblers. Even a few hoodlums were allowed in the joint. That would be us.

But on this particular day we are meeting Danny Wilson aka James Iannone. Danny was a made guy back when Pikes Peak was just a pebble. He was sitting at a table with a guy playing gin.


Like a goo-goo-eyed-groupie, Puggy says to me, ” Anthony , look, look, do you see the guy with Danny Wilson? That’s Al Smiley, Al was there with Bugsy Siegel when he got whacked” .

I already knew that about Al. I had heard it many times before Like the time I was in Schwab’s drug store on Sunset boulevard with my cousin Mario the actor. Smiley was sitting in a booth talking to the owner Leon Schwab

After Smiley left, Leon Schwab sees us and rushes over to the counter where we are sitting and says, ” Mario , did you see that guy I was talking to.”?. I stop Leon, I say, “ I bet you one of your famous coffee shakes that I know what you’re about to say.” Bingo, the boy won a shake.


Al Smiley wasn’t a gangster, or mobster, those labels are stamped on tough guys. His persona was more polished than rough. It made him a fabulous front man for the Mob. So “Organized Crime Figure” fits him better.



Al knew many of the Mob’s General’s . He was well connected with Mafia , maven, Frank Costello. He steered suckers with big bankrolls to Costello’s illegal gambling parlors for a percentage of their losses.

He was a first class felon.. On his rap sheet his repertoire of rackets included Ponzie schemes and trafficking in narcotics.

I knew Al, but not that well . He was old when I met him. His star had long since fallen, and mine was on the rise. He was always a big gambler and sometimes he went bust.


Although one day I ran into Al at the track when he was flush with cash . I knew he had just made a score with a scam artist associate of mine named Jack Fine.

Jack could sell holy water to a Vampire. They both probably sold some sucker the Brooklyn Bridge. That was the last time I saw Al .




Al Smiley died broke,but he ended his criminal career on a high note when he beat a racketeering beef with Mob boss, Dominic Brooklier and Capo, Pete Milano… .


Smiley lived in Bugsy’s shadow, but the shadow belonged to Al’s best friend.




By Anthony Fiato

MOB MOUTHPIECE

Hollywood Attorney, Eddie "The Fixer" Gritz was Mobster, Mickey Cohen's mouthpiece .Gritz greased the palm's of plenty of prosecutors and LAPD detectives. .Even Jack Dragna used Gritz when any member
of his mob got in a jam . A young Anthony Fiato saw how fast Gritz squashed a beef... Fiato heisted a liquor store and got caught cold by two cops with a bag of cash , and a gun in his hand.. Fiato's father reached out to a Mickey Cohen associate named Harry Diamond, who then got Gritz to give a pound of C-notes to the on-the-take Robbery-Homicide-detectives working the case.. .They dropped the case for lack of evidence

Another True Hollywood Story.

Los Angeles Crime Family Fink Jimmy The Weasel Fratianno.

Jimmy "The Weasel" Fratianno was a chip-on-his-shoulder mob-shooter who transplanted to "Tinsel Town " from Cleveland . Fratianno had over a dozen mob hits under his belt . "The Weasel" never thought while on a mob ordered rub-out , when he coined the phrase ,".I'll take the back seat",. that it would become infamous in underworld folk lore -- but it did, when he used it to get sure-shot aim-- to blast two tough hoods' in the back of their heads -- from the back seat of their sedan. . Fratianno was always a rock-solid, stand-up guy, that is, until he sold his mob amico's down the river when he finked to the feds. . Jimmy ''the Weasel " Fratianno died a, miserable, dismal, death, demented from Alzheimer's disease .

Another true Hollywood story by Anthony Fiato.

mob mutt

Dino " The Dumbell' Dagastino was a mob mutt from Providence RI. He transplanted to tinsel town after Patriarca-crime family capo , Nick Bianco, spit in his ugy puss for robbing an old lady.

After hitting the streets of Hollywood , the low-life teamed up with another mob moron named John Dimattia. The two stooges dealt drugs and scammed bookies untill they took a fall in a mob bust in 1987 . Dino told a judge that he was forced into dealing by a Mafia maniac named Anthony "The Animal" Fiato.The judge called Dino an imbacile--and he told him in so many words to man up. Then he gave him 6 years. Dino left the coutroom crying like a bitch