Reputed mobster sings like a canary

Ralph “Ralphie Head” Abruzzo, granted a one-night reprieve from house arrest, covers Louis Prima tunes in South Philly last night

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – You shoulda been at La Stanza last night. The place was mobbed.

Sure, they make great ravioli, but most of the restaurant’s patrons came to see Ralph “Ralphie Head” Abbruzzi, the reputed mob associate who talked his way out of house arrest for the night to sing Louis Prima tunes.

He didn’t disappoint, opening with “Buona Sera,” then a hip-shaking version of “Jump, Jive an’ Wail” backed by a horn section. He didn’t have a saxophone, but the air sax worked just fine.

“I’m doing what I love to do,” Abbruzzi said. “I should have done this sooner.”

Might’ve been a better career choice.

In 2001, when Abbruzzi was convicted of participating in an interstate theft ring, prosecutors described him as a “confirmed criminal likely to remain so” and said it’s “unlikely that he will ever be a productive member of society.”

But Ralphie Head looked pretty damned productive in his pork- pie hat last night at 20th Street and Oregon Avenue. He had the audience eating out of his hand in between bites of pork medallions.

“The crowd goes crazy when he starts singing. They go nuts,” said Debbie Leuzzi, his daughter’s godmother, who has known Abbruzzi since they were teenagers.

Abbruzzi, 59, started singing in the early 1980s alongside “Cookie Jar and the Crumbs” in Atlantic City, Leuzzi said.

“Ralphie’s just a really sweet guy,” she said. “I know he has not too good of a record, but he’s good-hearted.”

Earlier this month, Abbruzzi pleaded guilty in Media to criminal use of a telephone, a third-degree felony. He was busted last summer in the “Operation Delco Nostra” organized-crime probe for selling winning lottery tickets to Nicholas “Nicky the Hat” Cimino to conceal Cimino’s illegal income..  Read more

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/42042467.html

RIINA `STILL DANGEROUS Don

ANSA) – Rome, March 27 – Cosa Nostra`s former `boss of
bosses` Toto` `the Beast` Riina is still too dangerous to be
allowed out of a high-security jail regime, Italy`s highest
court ruled Friday.
The Cassation Court said there a “real risk“ of the
ailing Riina, who has been in jail for more than 16 years,
linking up with his old cohorts if the so-called 41-bis
regime were relaxed.
The Cassation judges noted that Riina, 78, “has never
repented of his past actions and never shown any inclination
to help authorities“.
The court, Italy`s highest court of appeals, turned down
Riina`s request for the tough regime to be eased in view of
his age and recent poor health.
Riina has sought repeatedly in recent years to be let out
of 41-bis.
He was last turned down in May last year when the
Cassation Court made the same finding.
The judges said police investigations had confirmed
that many of his underlings remained active in organized
crime in Sicily.
Until his arrest in 1993, Riina was the Mafia`s leading
don. He was convicted of a range of crimes including ordering
the car-bombings that killed anti-Mob magistrates Giovanni
Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.
Riina, who is serving out 12 life sentences, has had
three heart bypasses and is said to be suffering from back
and thyroid problems, as well as suspected prostate cancer.
Inmates subject to 41-bis prison treatment can be kept in
single-person cells in maximum-security jails, almost
entirely cut off from the outside world.
They have restricted visiting rights and are not
permitted to buy anything or to receive parcels. They can
spend up to four hours a day in the open air and are allowed
to mix with five other inmates at a time.
Some 650 prison inmates are currently subject to 41-bis
but cases sometimes occur where prisoners have been found to
have continued running their affairs from the inside.
The 41-bis regime was introduced in 1992 as a temporary
measure designed to help cope with a Mafia emergency.
In 2002, the measure became a permanent fixture in the
penal code.
The London-based human-rights group Amnesty International
has expressed concern that the 41-bis regime could in
some circumstances amount to “cruel, inhumane or degrading
treatment“ for prisoners.
In 2007 a Los Angeles immigration court denied an
extradition request from Italy for a reputed gangster on the
grounds that the 41-bis system was inhumane.
Rosario Gambino, a member of the well-known New York
crime family, had already served 22 years in jail in the
United States for heroin trafficking.
According to the judge, the 41-bis treatment was a form
of coercion “not related to any lawfully imposed sanction or
punishment, and thus constitutes torture“, which is banned
by the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/node/4728

Italy anti-mafia film sparks anger with relatives

An undated handout photo shows Italian actress Miriana Fajia playing the fictional character Rita Mancuso as a girl, kneeling over actor Marcello Mazzarella in a scene from the feature film La Siciliana Ribelle (“The Rebellious Sicilian”).

REUTERS/Eurofilm S.r.L./Handout

An undated handout photo shows Italian director Marco Amenta discussing a scene for his feature film La Siciliana Ribelle (“The Rebellious Sicilian

ROME (Reuters) – An Italian film inspired by the tragic death of a celebrated anti-mafia informer has sparked controversy with her relatives and an association named in her memory.

La Siciliana Ribelle (“The Rebellious Sicilian”) tells the story of Rita Atria, a 17-year-old girl from a mafia family who braved the fury of the organization in 1991

by collaborating with authorities after the mafia killed her father and brother.        

A year later, Atria was dead: throwing herself from the seventh storey of her Roman safe house in despair just a week after the mafia killed her protector, anti-mafia attorney Paolo Borsellino, with a car bomb in Sicily.

In her diary she wrote: “You have died for what you believed in, but without you, I too am dead.”

read more   http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE52P43Y20090326

Mob boss’ brother agrees to Rat

John Ambrose is charged with leaking info on Nick Calabrese, a hit man he was protecting.

Nick Calabrese

Mob boss, James Marcello.

FAMILY SECRETS | Marcello will take stand vs. U.S. marshal charged with leaking to Outfit

For months, Michael Marcello passed along key information about a top mob snitch during his 2003 prison visits to his half-brother, James “Little Jimmy” Marcello — the Chicago Outfit’s top boss.

 

 

 

The details about the key witness, mob killer Nicholas Calabrese, were allegedly coming from the man assigned to protect Calabrese from the mobsters who wanted him dead — deputy U.S. Marshal John Ambrose.

 

Now, in a stunning reversal, Michael Marcello, once his imprisoned half-brother’s eyes and ears on the street, will testify against Ambrose next month, a prosecution filing shows

Ambrose is charged with leaking important information about Nick Calabrese to the Outfit. Marcello could provide key testimony about how the information allegedly made its way from Ambrose to Ambrose’s friend with Outfit connections to reputed mobster John “Pudgy” Matassa to Michael Marcello to James Marcello. Matassa has not been charged in the case.     thanks  STEVE WARBIR 

 

 

Michael Marcello pleaded guilty in the Family Secrets case in June 2007, admitting he ran an illegal video-poker business.

 

He didn’t agree to cooperate then and got 8½ years in prison.

 

It’s unclear what prompted the turnaround. Prosecutors would not comment, and an attorney for Marcello did not return a message. Such cooperation often results in less prison time.

 

Prosecutors secretly recorded Michael Marcello’s conversations when he visited James Marcello in prison.

 

The Marcellos were intent on finding out what Nick Calabrese had revealed about James Marcello’s involvement in the 1986 killings of mobsters Anthony and Michael Spilotro.

 

James Marcello drove the Spilotros to a Bensenville area home, where the two men believed they were going to get promotions in the mob, according to testimony in the Family Secrets case. Instead, several mobsters, including Nick Calabrese, pounced on them and beat them to death.

CHARLIE ROSE ‘WHACK JOB’

HUSH, HUSH: Talk-show host Charlie Rose was almost killed in a case of mistaken ID, says a new Mafia book.

Bring me the head of Charlie Rose

No, not the PBS talk-show host. The other one the legendary Mafia-busting prosecutor.

Unfortunately, bumbling mob cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa and the Mafia assassin they dispatched to Long Island didn’t know the difference and nearly bumped off public television’s dapper yapper.

So says “Friends of the Family,” a new book about the mob cops by retired detective Tommy Dades and Brooklyn prosecutor Michael Vecchione, who cracked the case.

The authors write that the disgraced NYPD detectives gave bad information to their benefactor, Luchese underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, who dispatched a triggerman to the talk-show host’s house, not knowing it wasn’t the home of a Brooklyn federal prosecutor he wanted dead.

The killer never saw Rose and left, according to the book.

“It’s a surprise it’s all new to me,” the TV host told The Post.

He confirmed that he’s owned a home for years in Bellport, which is near the beach on eastern Long Island, about 20 miles west of Quogue.

Casso told FBI agents the house was in “the Hamptons,” according to the book.

Casso was furious with Mafia-busting prosecutor Charles Rose, believing that Rose embarrassed him by leaking a story about Casso having killed his former architect for having an affair with the mobster’s wife.

The bloodthirsty Casso did the unthinkable and put out a contract on the former assistant US attorney, who died of a brain tumor in 1998.

“Naturally, the only people Casso trusted to get Rose’s address were the cops,” the book says.

“Casso was captured before he could make his move against Rose, but supposedly he did get an address for the prosecutor in the Hamptons. One of his people waited at the house for the prosecutor to show up, but for whatever reason Rose never got there.

“That was truly fortunate it turned out to be the wrong Charlie Rose . . This was the home of the TV show host, not the prosecutor.”

“It’s a ‘wow’ revelation in the book,” said Vecchione, who heads the investigation unit of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. “I mean, Charlie Rose!”

The 1992 incident wasn’t the first goof by the corrupt former detectives, whom Casso paid $4,000 a month to help kill rival hoods and supply tips on turncoats and probes.

Caracappa and Eppolito, who were sentenced to life on March 6, were asked to find the address of Nicholas Guido, a conspirator who tried to knock off Casso in a botched hit.

The cops got the wrong information; this time, Casso’s henchmen killed an innocent Brooklyn man also named Nicholas Guido.

The book says Casso told FBI agents that Eppolito, Caracappa and an unnamed uniform cop ripped off millions in heroin in a notorious heist of the French Connection evidence from the NYPD property office.

The book “Friends of the Family” comes out May 12.

thanks BRAD HAMILTON

Public Enemies

Johnny Depp- Dillinger

Johnny Depp has done playful, mischievous, childlike, soulful, creepy and pretty much any other mode you can imagine.

The one thing he hasn’t done is menacing — true, bloodthirsty, win-at-all-costs menacing. His potentially nastier turns have been limited to those where has a heart (“Chocolat”) or where he’s surrounded by camp (“Sweeney Todd”).

Even when he’s done gangster it’s been in the service of something good, as it was in the (criminally) underrated “Donnie Brasco.” And when he’s a pirate he’s a pretty lovable one.

The only time he was ever what you might call a truly villainous character was “Blow.” And we know how that turned out.

So can he pull off the nihilism of a figure like John Dillinger, as he’ll do in the much-anticipated “Public Enemies

If the first pieces of key art are to be believed — a bunch of them can be viewed here — he’ll play the role with a bit of a smirk.

 In other words, he’ll play it as Johnny Depp.

thanks Steven Zeitchik                      

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2356151065/

Mafia families seek help of psychiatrists

Paulie Walnuts has a quiet word with Psychiatric patient, and Mob boss, Tony Soprano, in a scene from The Sopranos

In scenes familiar from the television series The Sopranos, the so-called “men of honour” are no longer content to keep their problems within their families, researchers have found.

Godfathers and their relatives are breaking the Mafia’s code of silence to discuss their problems on the psychiatrist’s couch

Hollywood blockbuster Analyze This,  Mobster also talks over his anxities on a psychiatrist’s couch

Girolamo Lo Verso, a psychologist who led the research, said: “Psychiatric problems are steadily rising among the families, a sign that the monolithic culture of Mafia society is crumbling.”

Dr Lo Verso’s research, The Psychology of Organised Crime in the Mezzogiorno, studied the cases of 81 patients linked to Italy’s three main Mafia organisations – Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, the Camorra in Campania and Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta.

Dr Lo Verso said: “These people are victims of terrible identity crises because they aren’t used to seeing their world view challenged.

“They’re like fundamentalists, but as soon as something happens that brings the security wall down, they have crises.

“That’s why they go and see a psychiatrist and many say that they feel a lot better for speaking to someone about their problems.”

Dr Lo Verso said that food disorders, anxiety and depression, sexual problems and a sense of inadequacy and shame at failing to live up to macho stereotypes were the most common problems encountered.

“In one real-life case, a homosexual son of a top … boss rebels against his  father’s code and dares to come out of the closet, causing personal pain and wider clan uproar.”

In the hit television series about New Jersey mobsters, Tony Soprano confided his depression and panic attacks over his “business” to a psychiatrist, while in the Hollywood blockbuster Analyze This, Robert De Niro’s Godfather also talks over his anxities on a psychiatrist’s couch               

By Nick Pisa in Rome

Gambino family hit man Charles Carneglia found guilty of 4 murders

 hitman  Carneglia

Mob lifer’s looking at life in prison: Mafia hit man Carneglia convicted in 4 murders

victim, mobster,  Louis DiBono .

A feared Gambino family hit man known for dissolving corpses in acid faced life without parole after his Tuesday conviction for racketeering and four murders

.
 Charles Carneglia, 62, betrayed no emotion as the Brooklyn federal jury returned its verdict at the start of the day. He never looked at the courtroom crowd – including the wife and twin daughters of one murder victim – as he was led away

“I’m happy the animal who murdered my father will be in jail the rest of his life,” said Milta Delgado-Wheeler, whose father was killed by Carneglia during a 1990 Kennedy Airport heist.

“He has no remorse for the victims or families he has hurt.”

Jurors apparently reached their verdict late Monday – and then slept on it before coming back. In addition to the murders, Carneglia was convicted of extortion and robbery charges after the jury deliberated for five days.

Carneglia – one of John Gotti’s most-trusted hitmen – was found guilty of killing armored car guard Jose Delgado Rivera at Kennedy Airport.

The slain guard’s widow, retired NYPD detective Ana Delgado, gasped loudly before bursting into tears as the verdict was returned. The defendant faces a June sentencing.

Carneglia was not found guilty in the March 1976 slaying of court officer Albert Gelb. Prosecutors said Carneglia killed Gelb to prevent his testimony in a gun case.

“While we didn’t get exactly what we wanted, it’s important this guy will sit in a jail cell the rest of his life and wake up every morning and not be able to see the sun,” said court officers union head Dennis Quirk.

Seven mob turncoats portrayed Carneglia as a murderous Gambino family enforcer and a member of the late mob boss Gotti’s inner circle.

Prosecutors said Carneglia became a made man in 1990 after murdering fellow Gambino member Louis DiBono in a garage beneath the World Trade Center. Carneglia was convicted of that murder.

The other two victims were a pair of mob associates, both stabbed through the heart: Sal Puma in 1983 and Michael Cotillo in 1977.

Co-conspirator Kevin McMahon, a 5-foot-2 hood known to other mobsters as “The Midget,” provided the most damning evidence against Carneglia – including witness accounts of the Rivera and DiBono slayings.

McMahon was a homeless teen when he was taken in by Carneglia’s brother, John. On the witness stand, he recounting growing up in the mob, spinning tales of jury tampering, body disposal, torture and murder.

Carneglia dissolved the bodies of some victims with acid, prosecutors say.

Carneglia’s lawyer offered a combination defense, citing his client’s heavy boozing and heavy beard as evidence the mobster had turned his back on the Mafia.

Carneglia, employing a strategy used by John A. (Junior) Gotti, claimed he left the Gambino family in 2001 – well beyond the five-year statute of limitations for racketeering.

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/03/17/2009-03-17_gambino_family_hit_man_charles_carneglia.html

FBI plans to resume dig at Long Island mob burial site

 FBI   mob burial site

Carmine Gargano Jr.

  Wild Bill Cutolo 

The FBI plans to resume digging in a Long Island field used by mobsters as a burial ground.

 

FBI spokesman James Margolin said agents plan to use heavy excavation equipment to search for two victims of mob hits believed to buried in the East Farmingdale industrial park.

 

Authorities suspect mobsters buried former Pace University student Carmine Gargano Jr. in the wooded area. He was believed to have been killed in a revenge plot targeting his cousin, a member of a rival crime family.

Authorities also suspect Colombo associate Richard Greaves may be buried at the site. He was killed in 1995 because bosses feared he might become an informant.

In October, agents dug up the remains of Colombo underboss William Cutolo. Cutolo’s body was one of three that informers told officials were buried in the industrial park.  Mob leaders Alphonse Persico and John DeRoss were recently sentenced to life in prison for their role in the 1999 Cutolo killing.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20090309/NEWS01/903090362/1019/rss0102

 

Suspect in Mafia Massacre

Giovanni Strangio

The shooting left six men dead

Suspected Italian mobster Giovanni Strangio, 30, was taken into custody late Thursday in Amsterdam. Strangio was arrested in the town of Diemen, where he has been living with his wife and child in a modest block of apartments.

Strangio is accused of having taken part in a 2007 shooting in which six men were gunned down outside a pizzeria in the western German city of Duisburg.

Italy’s Ansa news agency reported that Strangio’s brother-in-law Giuseppe Nirta, also wanted for his mafia connections and activity, was also arrested in the joint operation between Dutch, German and Italian police. Measures such as telephone wire tapping and surveillance were used to locate the men.

Authorities believe the killings in Duisburg were the bloodiest episode in a long-running fight between two rival clans of the mafia, Nirta-Strangio and Pelle-Vottari, from Calabria in southern Italy, known as the ‘Ndrangheta.

The ‘Ndrangheta is considered one of the most powerful Italian mafia groups.

Victims shot in their cars

The shootings in Duisburg grabbed headlines in Germany, underscoring the group’s wide network in Europe.

Witnesses said they saw two attackers fire about 70 bullets at the six victims, aged 16 to 39, as they were sitting in their cars after leaving the Da Bruno restaurant in the industrial city.

After the shooting, Strangio and Nirta allegedly fled to Ghent, Belgium where they abandoned a rental car and fell off the radar. According to Renato Cortese, the Italian policeman who coordinated Thursday’s arrests, “the two led perfectly normal lives, mingling with people in Amsterdam, but often wearing disguises, including hats and spectacles.”

Strangio, his wife Caterina and their son were “getting ready for bed,” when police raided their apartment, Cortese told the Italian news agency Ansa.

Police also seized fake passports, other documents and an estimated 1million euros ($1.28 million) in cash and a firearm with ammunition.

Police said they had begun closing in on the whereabouts of the two men after three of Strangio’s sisters visited Amsterdam in mid-November 2008.

One of the Duisburg victims was a chief suspect in the December 2006 murder in San Luca, Calabria, of Maria Strangio, the wife of the suspected leader of the Strangio-Nirta clan and cousin of Giovanni Strangio.

The Duisburg hit was believed to have been revenge for the Christmas-time killing of Maria Strangio and the wounding of her son.

Giovanni Strangio ran two pizzerias in Kaarst, Germany, 30 kilometers south of Duisburg, and was believed to be active in the Nirta-Strangio clan. He was one of the most wanted people in both Germany and Italy.

 

 http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4094356,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf