1930′s Men’s Fashion – Influenced by Hollywood, Mobsters, & the Zoot Suit mafia today

Hollywood life and cinema




The 1930s was an era that saw various changes in men’s fashions. One reason why of the sudden sartorial interest by more males was mainly because that Hollywood was beginning to have an impact concerning the right way fashionable clothing had become viewed. Having a modern and trendy appearance was starting to be crucial you both men and women




The 1930s was an era that saw various changes in men’s fashions. One reason why of the sudden sartorial interest by more males was mainly because that Hollywood was beginning to have an impact concerning the right way fashionable clothing had become viewed. Having a modern and trendy appearance was starting to be crucial you both men and women.

Restructured Matches
Men’s suits were being restructured in the 1930s to provide an exploration that featured a larger than normal torso and squared off, padded shoulders. This newly tailored effect gave men an imposing silhouette. Double breasted jackets with shiny buttons turned into a status symbol and men rushed to buy them. Even very inexpensive suits chose to give out these new, sharp lines that held like an appeal to males throughout the country.

Mob Character Actor Tony Darrow Sentencing Verdict

Anthony Borgese, who goes by the stage name of · NY goodfella accused in unholy shakedown · Tony Darrow, has been a fixture in gangster films since his memorable role in the classic film Goodfellas.

In Goodfellas, Darrow portrayed lounge owner Sonny Bunz and in one of the film's most memorable scenes, Bunz was struck in the head with a bottle by Joe Pesci's character Tommy DeVito.While Goodfellas might have been the movie Darrow is most recognized for, he has appeared in several films such as, Bullets Over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, Analyze This, Mickey Blue Eyes, Small Time Crooks, Searching for Bobby D, Kill the Irishman and the soon to be released gangster film GOAT. Darrow also portrayed the character Larry Boy Barese on the hit HBO series The Sopranos
.
Borgese's legal troubles began after he admitted that he enlisted the help of some real life gangster friends to collect a debt. The vicim of the attack who apparantly owed $5,000 to a Borgese friend, suffered a broken jaw and ribs.

Since his arrest, Borgese has appeared in an anti-Mafia public service announcement and has visited schools such as The School of Visual Arts in Manhattan to warn students about the dangers of Mob life and breaking the law.

Under Federal sentencing guidlines, Borgese could have faced 41 months in prison for orchestrating the Mob shakedown. Due to Borgese's past record for helping raise millions of dollars for several charities and his public service announcement, Judge Eric Vitaliano sentenced Borgese to six months house arrest and 250 hours of community service.

Recently Borgese was roasted at a celebrity Sopranos roast in NJ where partial proceeds were donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. In attendence were several of Borgese's Sopranos castmates such as James Gandolfini, Tony Sirico, Vincent Pastore, Federico Castellucio and William DeMeo.
Borgese can be seen in the soon to be released film GOAT as Patsy Pirati.

http://www.examiner.com/gangster-movies-in-national/mob-character-actor-tony-darrow-sentencing-verdict

"Rats": Why Juries Believe Them

Vinny "Gorgeous" Basciano has just been convicted of racketeering and murder in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York and faces the death penalty. His conviction was based in large part on the testimony of one of the most powerful and nefarious "rats" ever to get on a witness stand for the government -- the former boss of the Bonanno crime family Joseph "Big Joey" Massino. To be sure, Vinny "Gorgeous" unquestionably is among the worst society has to offer -- apart from his serial murders, he conspired to kill the presiding judge in his trial -- but is he any worse than "Big Joey"?


In finding Basciano guilty, the jury obviously believed Massino. There were also secretly recorded conversations by Massino, but his testimony was critical. Is it surprising, even an insult to one's intelligence, that a jury would believe Massino? The reality, however, is that jurors typically accept the testimony of these reprobates, even though to believe such testimony would seem to defy common sense. Why in a million years should or would anyone with half a brain believe that a witness is telling the truth when he has admitted to a life of ruthless, horrendous, murderous conduct? Such conduct, most normal people would argue, should land him in Dante's innermost circle of the Inferno, rather than a champion witness for the government. Indeed, Massino's long criminal history probably should disqualify him from testifying entirely.

But rats commonly are among the most celebrated and accomplished trial witnesses. Rats are those treacherous stool pigeons and spies who turn on family and friends with scathing accounts of their ruthless criminality, and juries routinely accept their accounts as dramatic, entertaining, and believable. The rat usually makes for great courtroom theater. Prosecutors who produce and direct the performance are adept at using the rat for a broad array of investigations and prosecutions, but none is as celebrated and consequential as trials against the Mob. Prosecutors in arguing to the jury boldly and easily justify the use of such miscreants: "Sure, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we would ideally have wanted to place before you as witnesses for the prosecution members of the clergy, distinguished judges, respected ministers of government. But men and women of such high standing do not reside in society's sewers. When you need to navigate your way through the sewer of crime and search through the muck and the garbage, you need a rat."

Added to the Honor Roll of famous Big Time rats -- i.e., gangster Sammy "The Bull" Gravano and drug-kingpin Nicky Barnes -- is Big Joey Massino. Unquestionably the most prominent mob figure ever to testify for the government, Massino appeared to be enjoying his moment. Sixty-eight years old, a huge belly, and a droopy countenance, he probably resembled to some of the jurors their uncle. Courtroom observers watched almost in disbelief as the jury listened raptly as Massino recounted his less than distinguished personal resume -- teenage thefts and burglaries, then graduating to murders, lots of murders, and finally culminating in the notorious "Three Captains" hit, in which Massino orchestrated and participated in the executions of the three heads of his rival faction by ambushing and slaughtering them in a Brooklyn social club.

What is it about Massino, and the other rats, that incline juries to believe them? There is virtually no empirical and anecdotal evidence from which to try to draw conclusions, even tentative ones. Mock trial experiments with fake juries have tried to diagnose how jurors react to a wide array of witnesses, including eyewitnesses, alibi witnesses, experts, and police witnesses, but there is no scientific data on rats. From our own courtroom experiences and observations, several important points stand out. First, to be believable the rat must make a full confession to the jury of all his nefarious deeds. He cannot hide them, minimize them, or ask forgiveness. Thus, Massino recounted calmly, almost matter-of-factly, the enormity of his wrongdoing. Apparently to jurors, his "confession" to big-time sin had a quasi-religious quality. Indeed, jurors find it fascinating to hear a person expose in such excruciating detail his own ruthless and despicable behavior. People don't generally say such things about themselves that are so disserving of their character and humanity. Thus, regardless of a juror's moral qualms about the witness's character, there is usually a very good reason for the jury to believe his testimony to be truthful.

Moreover, the preparation and rehearsal of the rat's courtroom performance should not be minimized. Prosecutors, like stage and film directors, over days and weeks of trial preparation, are adept at contriving the dramatic personae for their witness. Massino's courtroom demeanor obviously was artfully staged; his unassuming persona was carefully crafted, and his use of mob jargon ("clip," "brokester," "hit," "boob") was obviously orchestrated by the prosecutors to amuse the jury, which it clearly did, and give an air of authenticity to the role. Massino's crime stories were vivid and realistic and impressed the jury. And lest one forget, these rehearsals were not limited to the prosecutor's own direct questions to his witness. The prosecutors spent many hours, even days and weeks, with their rat, in mimicking the anticipated cross-examination by the defense, and this feigned interrogation effectively prepared the rat for almost every conceivable attack by the defense.

Other prosecutorial tactics invite the jury to make a favorable assessment of the rat's credibility. Every rat makes a deal with the prosecutor, and enters into what is known as a "cooperation agreement." This agreement is like a contract. It stipulates that the rat agrees to testify fully and truthfully, and the prosecutor in turn agrees to consider the rat's cooperation with respect to the rat's punishment, and in his case to help Massino avoid the death penalty and maybe, someday, as Massino put it, "to see a light at the end of the tunnel." Sometimes the terms of the agreement are explicit, sometimes unspoken but tacit. The lawyer for the defendant may actually spend days cross-examining the rat on this deal, in the hope that the jury will conclude that the rat is lying to save his own skin.

But this endeavor by the defense lawyer is usually futile. The cooperation agreement misleadingly invites the jury to see it as the prosecutor's method to bring out the truth from the witness, with the unspoken message that the prosecutor knows what truth is, and through this agreement is assuring its revelation. Jurors thereby get the impression that the prosecutor is carefully monitoring the testimony of his rat to ensure that the jury gets only the truth. The prosecutor in this way effectively buttresses his witness's credibility by vouching for its accuracy, and in a trial featuring as the cast of characters the prosecutor, the rat, the defendant, and his mob lawyer, the prosecutor stands head and shoulders above everybody else for honesty, integrity, and the vindication of the law. And paradoxically, given the rat's association with the defendant, the more the defense lawyer attempts to paint the rat as the evil person he assuredly is, the more the jury sees the paint as staining the defendant as well, usually terminally.

But given the fact that the jury typically is willing to believe men such as Massino and his ilk, as the jury did here, what does this say about the criminal justice process when, unlike the defense lawyer's role, the prosecutor's most important duty is to dispense truth and do justice? How careful should prosecutors be in using rats to catch rats? Should prosecutors simply throw a rat on the witness stand in the hope the jury will believe him?

Despite Massino's horrific past and his probable motives to "cooperate" with the authorities in giving testimony (although he testified that such motives did not include his own desire to avoid the death penalty), it is our experience that the overwhelming majority of prosecutors offer "rat" testimony only if they actually believe it themselves. In many respects, jurors, even though they are lay persons, arrive at their decisions on witness credibility in the same way that prosecutors do -- they bring to their decisions their ordinary life experiences, common sense, and good judgment. Decisions that we make every day require us to use our skill sets in accepting or rejecting the word of persons who represent to us certain facts, or vouch for things, and ask us to rely on their word. Juries do it the same way.

We are long past the day when the law imposed the paternalistic rite of disqualifying certain witness as "incompetent" to testify, for example, for having a criminal record. The majesty of the jury system is that it affords the defendant's peers, meaning jurors -- euphemistically the "man in the street" -- the task of deciding if a witness is telling the truth. Jurors most likely believe "rats" when most other people would believe them, although one has to swallow hard in doing so. And maybe that's the way it should be.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-cohen/rats-why-juries-believe-t_b_862752.html

'Gangster Squad' Gets Green Light With Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling

By Eric Sundermann , Hollywood.com Staff Thursday, March 31, 2011 Hey, ... Casino and Goodfellas which, if my uncle has anything to say about Hey, look at that -- another mob movie is headed our way. According to Deadline, Warner Bros. just green lit Gangster Squad, a crime drama written by Will Beall and to-be-directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland).

Remains believed to be those of Gary Westerman may hold many clues, says forensic expert Dr. Michael Baden

Organized-crime investigators likely found a fully-clothed skeleton when they uncovered in Agawam 10 days ago what are believed to be the remains of an ex-convict missing since 2003, a renowned forensic pathologist says.

Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno- Even years after their demise, the dead can talk, says Dr. Michael M. Baden. Baden has served as the forensic expert in high-profile criminal investigations, including the O.J. Simpson case and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

“The dead can say a lot. They can tell us what happened to them and who it is who may have killed them,” Baden said during a telephone interview this week.

FBI agents and State Police organized crime investigators on April 5 closed in on a wooded area behind a home at 160 Springfield St. in Agawam, bringing with them excavation equipment and other tools.

They remained there for four days, working into the night under blazing lights towards the end of the search. A medical examiner’s van ultimately carted away what are widely believed to be the remains of Gary D. Westerman, a 49-year-old Springfield man who vanished in late 2003.

Dr. Michael BadenThe dig came seven years after Westerman’s whereabouts had been labeled a missing-persons case. Westerman, who had a string of criminal convictions dating back to his teen years and strong ties to organized crime, was believed to have been killed by rival gangsters. However, his body had never surfaced.

The excavation in Agawam came just days after reputed Genovese crime family captain Anthony J. Arillotta – charged in federal court in Manhattan with the 2003 murder of his predecessor Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno – dropped out of sight in the federal prison system.

That particular vanishing had all the marks of a turncoat, but law enforcement officials have refused to confirm or deny it.

Authorities also have refused to officially say they were searching for Westerman, but sources close to the investigation say they were led there by someone with knowledge of Westerman’s whereabouts.

Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said it appears Westerman was shot twice in the head at the site, and then buried a short distance away in a hand-dug grave approximately 8 feet deep.



Baden said that, depending on the quality and dampness of the soil, there could be a complete loss of soft tissue but that investigators would likely find bones, bullets, hair, teeth and some personal effects of the deceased.

“Of everything in the body, the teeth stay the longest,” explained Baden, who still acts as a forensic consultant to the New York State Police in addition to his cases across the country and around the world. He is not a consultant in the Westerman case.

“If they were looking for somebody in particular they probably could make an identification within minutes from dental records,” he said

Baden also said most clothing holds up well, particularly cottons and other natural fibers. So Westerman could have, for example, been unearthed in the same jeans and sneakers he was wearing on the night he was allegedly killed.

“The nature of the clothing can be important if they had a snitch who told them what kind of clothing he was wearing when he died,” Baden said.

At such exhumations, Baden said, a forensic anthropologist is typically summoned to the scene. The digs are painstaking and mostly done through gentle sifting by hand of the soil around the remains.

Ballistics tests will ensue, according to Baden, along with an examination of entrance and exit wounds if the victim was, in fact, shot to death.

“They’re also looking for any other kind of information in the area . . . fibers of clothing on the surrounding brush .¤.¤.One time we found a boot print in a grave that was helpful in identifying the digger,” Baden said.

He added that though identification through dental records is quick and decisive, investigators will almost certainly send the remains for DNA testing also.

“They may not make any official announcements until they get the DNA results back, which usually takes about a week,” Baden said. “It’s not even really necessary but juries expect DNA evidence.”

The final step will be a criminal prosecution of those believed to have been involved in the killing. Prosecutors have refused to say when charges might come in connection with the Westerman case. However, federal court filings have stated investigators believe that at a minimum, Arillotta, who also was Westerman’s brother-in-law, and Arillotta enforcers Fotios and Ty Geas, brothers, had a hand in Westerman’s death.

Gary Westerman arrives at Springfield District Court September 13, 1974, to be arraigned on a burglary charge.Fotios Geas, 43, is Arillotta’s codefendant in the Bruno murder case – part of a broad racketeering indictment out of U.S. District Court in New York. Ty Geas lives in the area since he was released from jail in 2007 after an assault conviction.

State Police investigators have said previously that Arillotta, backed by the brothers, went on a short but violent reign to unseat Bruno as the region’s mob boss and that Westerman may have been part of that campaign.

Westerman served a 10-year state-prison sentence beginning in 1988 for his involvement in a Florida-to-Massachusetts cocaine trafficking ring that was tied to organized crime. A witness at his trial said Westerman used to tote kilos of cocaine stuffed in the legs of baggy pants.

While out on parole, he was convicted of a 1996 truck heist with Fotios Geas, when the two made off with furniture and computers. The Geases and co-defendant Arthur “Artie” Nigro, the reputed onetime head of the Genovese crime family – which mob investigators label the most feared of ...


Even at 19, Westerman was in 1973 charged along with two others with robbing Eastfield Mall vendors for jewelry, fur and leather coats, $28,000 in prescription drugs. Police said the men crawled in through the roof and slithered into the stores through air conditioning vents.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/remains_believed_to_be_those_o.html

Genovese organized crime family Capo, Joseph 'The Eagle' Gatto, dies

Joseph “The Eagle” Gatto of Paterson, a reputed captain in the Genovese Crime Family who allegedly inherited his legendary gangster father’s lucrative North Jersey gambling rackets, died last week in Hackensack.

The cause of death of the 65-year-old son of the late Louis “Streaky” Gatto was not made public.

The brief notice announcing his death, published April 10, was in stark contrast to the reams of newspaper stories connecting Gatto’s name to gambling and loan-sharking investigations.

The notice stated that he was born in Paterson, lived in Hawthorne from 1960 until 2001 when he moved back to Paterson, and served in the Army in Vietnam.

Most relatives could not be reached for comment, or would not speak on the record.

“He was a nice guy, a business guy,” said one relative, who didn’t want to be identified. “We’re just working people.”

Tall and heavy set, Gatto took over the crew once run by his father, who reportedly controlled a multimillion-dollar gambling empire, when the elder Gatto was sentenced to 65 years in prison June 1991 for racketeering and murder conspiracy.

At the time, Louis “Streaky” Gatto, a captain in the North Jersey Genovese family, was said to be a favorite of imprisoned Genovese boss Vincent “Chin” Gigante.

“Streaky” Gatto died in prison in 2002, after a battle with prostate cancer.

Joseh Gatto’s brother, Louis Gatto Jr., died in 2000 while serving in federal prison.

At a New Jersey Commission of Investigation hearing in 2003 on organized crime in the state, Joseph Gatto was identified as a capo, or crew leader, of one of five main Genovese crews in New Jersey.

The Genovese family has long been the dominant crime family in Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties, running the largest bookmaking and loan-sharking rings in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area.

Gatto’s death came nearly one year after a grand jury declined to indict him in a case that authorities had dubbed “Operation Jersey Boyz,” a joint probe by the State Police and Bergen County.

Gatto, and 43 alleged mobsters and associates, were rounded up in December 2004 on racketeering and gambling charges in connection with a vast offshore gambling operation by the Genovese crew that took in millions of dollars in illegal wagers for the Genovese, Lucchese, Bonanno and Gambino crime families.

Also arrested was Frank Lagano, 67, of Tenafly, an alleged Lucchese soldier who was shot and killed in April 2007 in what authorities said they believe was a hit outside a diner he owned in East Brunswick.

In well-publicized raids, investigators seized 25 guns and nearly $1.3 million in cash.

Gatto, who had been released from Ray Brook federal prison in upstate New York in October 2003 after serving 53 months of a 61-month federal gambling and loansharking conviction, was accused of controlling a wire room in Costa Rica, known as Catalina Sports.

Prosecutors said the gambling venture had 12,000 customers nationwide and raked in about $300,000 a week for the family.

Federal agents arrested Gatto a day after he was charged in the “Operation Jersey Boyz” investigation, charging him with violating terms of his release from federal prison.

The “Jersey Boyz” case began unraveling in late 2005 amid concerns over the handling of informants and other legal issues.

The probe was compromised after an investigator with the state Division of Criminal Justice tipped off one of the targets — a mobster-turned-informant — that he was under scrutiny by another agency and promised to protect him, a recorded conversation that was withheld from a state judge, The Record reported in 2008.

A state judge vacated pleas from 10 defendants in the case and opened the way for 33 others to be cleared and suppressed all the wiretap and search warrant evidence. The Bergen Prosecutor’s Office appealed the judge’s ruling.

Some of the wiretaps were reinstated, and Superior Court Judge Marilyn C. Clark of Passaic County, who authorized the electronic surveillance in the case, notified defense lawyers that the prosecutor’s office was going to proceed with charges against 22 of the defendants.Also assigned to the Lucchese crime family will be with am Eastern crime But the Gambino and Genove

The grand jury’s no-bill in May 2009 meant that Joseph Gatto died a free man.

By Justo Bautista. http://www.northjersey.com/obituaries/Joseph_The_Eagle_Gatto_reputed_captain_in_Genovese_crime_family_dies.html

Camorra-Mafia boss, Nicola Panaro captured after 7 years -Hollywood Mafia Mobsters

ROME – POLICE on Wednesday arrested the boss of the Naples-area Camorra mafia, Nicola Panaro, considered one of Italy’s 30 most dangerous fugitives, the ANSA news agency reported.

The 41-year-old head of the most powerful Camorra clan the Casalesi had been on the run for seven years, ANSA said.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni hailed the arrest as ‘another extraordinary success by the state against the Camorra.’ Late last month police arrested 12 alleged members of the Casalesi clan including the father and brother of Michele Zagaria, a boss who has been on the run for 15 years.

Last week authorities seized land and buildings worth more than 700 million euros ($1.3 billion) from suspected Camorra mafia members in what Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called the biggest operation of its kind.

The Camorra are one of Italy’s four organised crime syndicates



http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_514777.html

Michael Franzese:Colombo,Mafia boss to meet with Calgary's top cop

Michael Franzese (born May 27, 1951), is a former New York mobster with the Colombo crime family who was heavily involved in the gasoline tax rackets


Anyone who’d want to come after me is either dead or in prison.”

Maybe so, but when former Mafia boss Michael Franzese sits down in a restaurant, he still has a reputation for choosing a seat where he can keep his eye on the door.

You can’t blame him. Once named the world’s 18th richest gangster and notorious enough to be featured as a character in the mob movie Goodfellas, Franzese did the one thing no made man ever does — he quit the Mafia.

“I certainly had my share of contracts and death threats on me, and that went on for years. For a long time, I was looking over my shoulder everywhere I went,” said Franzese.

“But I know the life, and I also know what people would do to come after me and what they wouldn’t.”

Franzese’s strategy for staying alive after stepping down as heir-apparent underboss to New York’s Colombo crime family apparently works.

Two decades after Franzese pulled the plug, no one has pulled the trigger.

The 53-year-old New Yorker remains the highest-ranking Mafia boss to ever leave a crime family without resorting to protective police custody.

It’s all the more remarkable given the high-profile life of a man once said to be the biggest Mafia money-earner since Al Capone, earning five to eight million dollars a week on an illegal gasoline racket.

“I make a little less than that now,” laughs Franzese.

His racket now is trying to steer kids and petty criminals away from organized crime, while offering advice to police forces on how deal with the mob.

Franzese arrives in Calgary late next month, on a tour promoted by After-Care Ministries.

His four-day itinerary includes an anticipated meeting with Calgary Police Chief Rick Hanson, as well as speeches at four prisons, two churches and a high school.

Hanging out with high-ranking cops and voluntary visits to jail is hardly the life Franzese anticipated, on the day in 1975 when a Mafia boss sliced his thumb, sealing his blood oath as a newly made man.

Franzese’s father is notorious mob enforcer John (Sonny) Franzese, the 93-year-old Colombo underboss who reportedly bragged, “I killed a lot of guys ... you’re not talking about four, five, six, ten.”

The family connection resulted in Michael being brought into the family business — exactly how closely he followed in dad’s footsteps remains lost in a murk of rumour and innuendo.

What is clear is Franzese’s acumen with shady financial business, and he is credited as the mastermind behind a multitude of lucrative scams, involving gas taxes, car dealerships, and sports.

Prosecutor and future New York mayor Rudy Giuliani once went after Franzese, vowing to jail him for a century, but failing miserably, as did the next four indictments.

Franzese was a powerful captain with a bright future — but then the mob boss had a change of heart, literally, falling in love with a Mexican dancer he met on a film set.

Camille Garcia convinced her besotted Mafia suitor to embrace God, while giving up his life of crime.

Franzese copped a plea, announced he was quitting the Mafia, and then he cut a deal which saw him give evidence against two non-mob crime contacts, earning an early release.

Now, he tours the U.S., writing books and giving lectures on organized crime and his faith.

Franzese says his planned meeting with Calgary’s police chief is more than a handshake — he believes Chief Hanson and his officers can learn plenty from his Mafia past.

“Organized crime is organized crime, and I know you have issues up there in Calgary,” said Franzese.

“I can give the chief and his detectives insight into how the mob operates — they’re not exactly the same, but if you know one organized crime group, you know them all.”

Just as important, says Franzese, will be his talks at places like the Calgary Remand Centre and James Fowler high school, where his reputation earns him respect — and open ears.

“Credibility is everything, and I have that,” said Franzese.

“You don’t realize it when you’re in the life, the fascination people have with it — but people want to hear the mob guy, and I use that respect to get my message across.

“Hopefully, it’s helping people make the right choices

Jessica Biel Is A Mob Girl

Jessica Biel’s stepping up to produce and star in Mob Girl, based on the real-life story of a mafia mistress, and now An Education’s Lone Scherfig is attached to direct it.

Mob Girl, which will be based on Teresa Carpenter’s book, follows Arlyn Brickman, who spent her life around racketeering types, with her grandmother and father as early examples. She ended up running packages and letting mobsters use her home as a safe haven, and even bedded a few.

But years of abuse at the hands of her Mafia associates eventually led her to become a government witness.

This one is still in the early stages – the project doesn’t even have a writer yet, so chances are Scherfig will make Anne Hathaway rom-com One Day first.

Chicago Outfit::video poker kingpin of Chicago mob made bail

The alleged video poker king of Chicago, who once said he wasn’t sure who owned the Bridgeport home he lives in, saw that home pledged to make his $250,000 bond Friday for his release from jail.

Casey Szaflarski, 52, is charged with helping run a video gambling operation for the Chicago Outfit. His sister put up the house, which is held in a trust.

Szaflarski was equally vague when questioned by a court official on his finances, leading Assistant U.S. Attorney T. Markus Funk to say “there are more questions than answers as to his income. We believe he has provided false information.”

Szaflarski’s attorney, Catharine O’Daniel, said Szaflarski wasn’t being dishonest, just cautious, because he did not know what he should say because his lawyer wasn’t present during the interview on his finances.

The bond hearing turned into a family affair when it was revealed that Szaflarski illegally had two guns. His ex-wife, who still lives with Szaflarski, handed them over to a relative, Chicago Police officer Mary Versetto, who said she is keeping them in her home.

Szaflarski is the son-in-law of the late Chicago mobster Joseph “Shorty” LaMantia. Versetto is LaMantia’s niece.

When Funk questioned her, Versetto had few details about Szaflarski’s guns.

She said she didn’t actually know whose guns they were.

She said she didn’t know where the guns had been stored.

But she did believe they weren’t stored in the house where Szaflarski and his ex-wife live.

Versetto, who was not in court but questioned over a speakerphone, sounded impatient with the prosecution’s questioning, at one point asking, “Is that it?”

Szaflarski is accused of sharing profits of his video gambling business with Michael Sarno, who is also charged in the case and is the reputed head of the mob’s Cicero crew

written by STEVE WARMBIR

Michael Franzese: Ex-mobster heads for court date

Self-proclaimed reformed mobster Michael Franzese, 58, posted bond and is out of jail after allegations of passing bad checks landed him behind bars, according to Williamson County Circuit Criminal Court. Read Full Story

Nikolay Marinov :Lawyer Advises Wanted Bulgarian Crime Boss to Surrender

Lyudmil Rangelov, lawyer of alleged crime boss Nikolay Marinov who is wanted over the murder of journalist Bobi Tsankov, has called on his client to turn himself in to the police.
The police have been after Marinov, aka the Little Marguin, as his brother Krasimir Marinov is already arrested and charged with ordering the murder of Bobi Tsankov.
Speaking on Nova TV Thursday, Rangelov said he did not think his client was hiding from the police. Yet, the lawyer stated he had not seen his client since a court hearing in December.
He made it clear he was going to advise Nikolay Marinov to surrender because he had no reason to be worried as he had nothing to do with the latest gangland murder in Sofia.

Junior Gotti's ex-best friend John Alite says Gotti helped in three slays, spoke of four others

John A. (Junior) Gotti once stood up as best man for John Alite, but Tuesday Alite stood against him, tearing down the ex-mob boss as a merciless killer behind seven murders. "John Gotti Jr. was my boss," the turncoat mobster said flatly to open his damning Manhattan Federal Court testimony.

The veteran Gambino family associate, the feds' star witness, testified Gotti collaborated with him on three killings and told him about four others.

The second-generation gangster was one of the drivers when the Gambino family whacked informant Wilfred (Willie Boy) Johnson in August 1988 for ratting on his dad, "Teflon Don" John, Alite testified.

Gotti and ex-brother-in-law Carmine Agnello killed another man and crushed him in a car chopper at Agnello's Queens junkyard, he testified.

And as Gotti stared him down, Alite also told jurors that Junior admitted to him that he killed Daniel Silva in a 1983 barroom brawl and an eyewitness later found hanging from a tree. A pair of drug dealers and another mob murder brought Gotti's total to seven bodies, he said

.
The gruesome testimony was greeted angrily by the Gotti contingent in the courtroom. Alite was once Junior's best friend and asked Gotti to serve as best man at his wedding.

Prosecutors showed photos of the pair at the wedding of Junior's sister Victoria, along with a shot of Gotti holding Alite's 18-month-old son.

Since flipping in 2007, Alite has implicated his buddy and claimed that he had an affair with Victoria Gotti. She, along with sister Angel and mother Victoria, glared at Alite as he recounted a decade of running with Junior - pricey cars, $500 shoes, Rolex watches.

Alite recalled a wild trip in the 1980s to Las Vegas, where he and Junior Gotti lost $30,000 at the craps and blackjack tables and had to play the "nickel slot machines."

"All lies," said a subdued Gotti's mother, her eyes red from crying, outside the courtroom. "Mom, don't even bother," said daughter Victoria, who last year passed a lie-detector test after denying Alite's claim.

Alite, in a gray sweatshirt that bared a neck tattoo, said he had shot about 35 men - mostly on orders from Junior.

Before Alite testified, another prosecution witness took the stand to describe Alite as a heartless hit man who once cursed and spit on the still-warm corpse of one victim.

"Motherf-----," a remorseless Alite snapped after the December 1988 slaying of George Grosso. Corrupt ex-NYPD Detective Philip Baroni, 57, recounted Alite's point-blank execution of the Queens drug dealer. Gotti became a made man four days later.

Grosso was hit for running his mouth about Gotti's drug dealing, the feds charge.Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/09/30/2009-09-30_junior_exbest_friend_says_gotti_helped_in_3_slays.html#ixzz0Sf6L6pPC

Gotti's former pal testifies that he saw Jr. stab a man - and that his dad paid to make case go away

John A. (Junior) Gotti sat placidly in a nearby apartment after brutally stabbing a man to death in a wild 1983 barroom brawl, a drug-dealing ex-pal testified

The knife-wielding killer "showed no emotion at all" after leaving a gorespattered Daniel Silva to die on an Ozone Park barstool, career criminal Kevin Bonner told a Manhattan federal jury.

Gotti avoided prosecution for the vicious slaying in the Silver Fox when his mob boss father paid an NYPD detective $10,000 to make the case disappear, Bonner claimed.

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Kevin Bonner

Dapper don 'bribe' says mob rat Bonner

John "Junior" Gotti fatally stabbed a man during a Queens bar brawl in 1983 -- but his father paid an NYPD detective $10,000 to make the investigation "go away," a former member of Gotti's crew testified yesterday.
Kevin Bonner said the up-and-coming mob scion "went to work" after 24-year-old Danny "Elf" Silva wouldn't stop drunkenly pestering Gotti one night at the Silver Fox Bar in Queens.
Gotti's youthful gangsters surrounded their 19-year-old leader as he savagely beat Silva on March 12, 1983, but all hell broke loose after someone tossed a glass that shattered on Bonner's forehead. It just became a big brawl," Bonner, 45, said during a day of highly detailed testimony at Gotti's racketeering and murder trial in Manhattan federal court. "As I was tussling, I looked over at John and I seen he stabbed this kid."
Other patrons dragged Silva onto a bar stool, where he moaned in pain.
"He had blood all over," Bonner said. "He got stabbed in the belly."
Gotti and his group hightailed it to a woman's apartment in the Lindenwood section of Howard Beach, where Bonner said Gotti showed "no emotion" after washing off Silva's blood in the bathroom.
"It was a little awkward at the table. Nobody said nothing," said Bonner, who then coldly headed off with his girlfriend for a late-night dinner in Manhattan.
But Bonner said neither he nor any other crew members were ever questioned by the cops afterward, with crew member John Gebert explaining that Gotti's father -- at the time a "very feared" captain in the Gambino crime family -- "was taking care of the investigation" by paying off a detective.
"He paid him money to kind of, I guess, make it go away," Bonner said, without naming the rogue cop.
The testimony marked the latest claim of police corruption tied to Junior Gotti's case, following a leaked FBI report last week that detailed allegations from former Gambino thug John Alite about cops in league with the mob.
Bonner -- who turned rat after being hit with a 25-year sentence for a string of armed robberies in Florida -- also pinned a mid-'80s shooting on Gotti, saying he opened fire during a fight that erupted at a Queens disco after a bouncer demanded proof of Gotti's age.
The victim, Bonner said, turned out to be connected to the Bonanno crime family, and everyone present was later summoned to the elder Gotti's Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park to help settle the matter.

Mob-tied building inspectors in bribe & drug scandal

AT LEAST six city building inspectors -- some with ties to a powerful crime family -- were videotaped taking bribes at construction sites, and some were seen dealing cocaine and prescription pills while on duty, The Post has learned.
The corrupt Department of Buildings workers -- who lined their pockets by ignoring violations or expediting construction and building work permits -- will be arrested later this month, along with about two dozen Luchese crime-family captains, soldiers and associates, sources said

"This is going to be big," a well-placed source said.
Among the other startling revelations:
* Two of the crooked city employees are known by law enforcement as full-blown Luchese associates.
* The investigation included several landlords who own buildings in Manhattan and The Bronx -- with at least one facing certain arrest, sources say.
* About 50 search warrants were executed in city offices, mob-run social clubs, wire rooms and wiseguys' homes.
The nearly two-year probe grew out of a 2007 New Jersey case involving a Luchese faction that ran a staggering $2 billion-a-year gambling operation and supplied drugs and cellphones to Bloods gang members in state prisons.
That probe -- which netted 32 wiseguys -- soon spread across the Hudson River into the family's Big Apple hierarchy, prompting surveillance and wiretapping by the NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office, the sources said.
The probers, who made hundreds of hours of recordings, quickly found mobsters taking bets and conducting loan-sharking operations worth tens of millions of dollars.
On one of the recordings, their targets discussed a normally forbidden topic -- the names of people selected to become made members of the mob.
The eavesdroppers had hoped to discover where an induction might occur so they could take the unprecedented step of bugging the location and recording the fabled omerta oath of undying allegiance.
Instead, something more sinister emerged -- a thug said he knew a corrupt building inspector who could help with "violations" dogging an undisclosed construction site.
"I know a guy over here who can take care of it," the hood said.
Probers soon began following inspectors on their rounds and eavesdropping on their conversations with building representatives and hoods.
As the weeks passed, they captured crooked city workers taking mere $50 and $100 payoffs to ignore violations that had the potential to halt construction at several sites, most of them in The Bronx.
"They were compromising the city and their jobs for nickels and dimes," said one source familiar with the case.
Probers also watched in amazement as several inspectors brazenly sold the prescription drugs OxyContin and Vicadin -- along with small amounts of cocaine -- while on duty.
Two of the inspectors are now said to be cooperating in the investigation, the sources said.
This will be the latest scandal to rock the city's Department of Buildings, which is still reeling from its failures at the doomed Deutsche Bank tower that contributed to the deaths of two city firefighters in August 2007.

Who's Who Now In The Philly Mob

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PHILADELPHIA - A newly released organizational chart made headlines in an Atlantic City courtroom this week, providing a who's who on Philadelphia's organized crime family.
As Fox 29's Dave Schratwieser and the Inquirer's George Anastasia report, there are a few surprises in the details.

In Italy, Godmothers taking over from Godfathers

The Italian-American Mafia continues to dominate organized crime. Anti-Mafia police in Italy say women in the underworld crime scene are rising in rank as Godmothers in a break from its male-dominant past. Godmothers are gradually replacing Godfathers as mob leaders in the Camorra, a crime organization that controls Naples, much like the Mafia in Sicily. Camorra has been the target of police crackdowns recently. "There is a growing number of women who hold executive roles [in the Camorra]," Gaetano Maruccia, commander of the Carabinieri paramilitary police in the Naples area told The Associated Press. The paramilitary police say these women are filling in places left vacant by the leaders, who are often their husbands. Anti-Mafia raids have seen a large number of Mafia bosses arrested. It is believed that these women are as deadly as their spouses and take part in all kinds of activities ranging from blackmail to murder, according to a BBC correspondent in Italy. Eleven women were arrested in a drug bust by police last month, but officers say it is impossible to guess how many women are involved in the organized crime rings as they often take on roles such as preparing and packaging cocaine and heroine. Detained Maria Licciardi is one the most powerful female Mafia leaders in Naples. Police believe she is still controlling the crime cell from behind bars.

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.

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.