by PolackTony » Fri Feb 21, 2025 10:10 am
johnny_scootch wrote: ↑Fri Feb 21, 2025 8:42 am
New bio on Carmine (Turi) Franzese.
When I first saw your post, I got hyped because I thought this meant that JD had found info confirming the LCN membership of Carmine “The Lion” (who JD of course noted as a suspected Colombo member).
Still a great bio on “Little Carmine”, though. I didn’t know that his mother was non-Italian. JD notes that her maiden name was Grace Cosgrove and I was able to confirm that she was of Anglo-Canadian and German ancestry. JD also notes that a couple of CIs reported that when Carmine was made in 1976, there was resentment from some quarters as there were those who believed that others deserved it more than him. One CI even reported that the then jailed Sonny Franzese opposed Carmine’s induction for unknown reasons. This seems a little surprising, given that sources had previously painted Carmine as a highly respected associate who acted as the right hand man for Joe Brancato, which makes me wonder if his ancestry was the issue.
One source also said that Carmine Galante “sponsored Tutti Franzese of the Colombo Crime Family with the approval of Joseph Brancato”. I don’t know if this claim was previously discussed on the board. As I don’t know who the source is, I’m not sure how to weigh the claim. Could be just confusion on the part of the CI, or it could be that Galante was in fact involved in some way with Carmine Franzese’s induction. Clearly the source was not Scarpa, or JD would have stated this, so I have no idea if the source was a made guy in the position to actually know anything of substance about Franzese’s induction.
[quote=johnny_scootch post_id=289990 time=1740152559 user_id=105]
New bio on Carmine (Turi) Franzese.
[/quote]
When I first saw your post, I got hyped because I thought this meant that JD had found info confirming the LCN membership of Carmine “The Lion” (who JD of course noted as a suspected Colombo member).
Still a great bio on “Little Carmine”, though. I didn’t know that his mother was non-Italian. JD notes that her maiden name was Grace Cosgrove and I was able to confirm that she was of Anglo-Canadian and German ancestry. JD also notes that a couple of CIs reported that when Carmine was made in 1976, there was resentment from some quarters as there were those who believed that others deserved it more than him. One CI even reported that the then jailed Sonny Franzese opposed Carmine’s induction for unknown reasons. This seems a little surprising, given that sources had previously painted Carmine as a highly respected associate who acted as the right hand man for Joe Brancato, which makes me wonder if his ancestry was the issue.
One source also said that Carmine Galante “sponsored Tutti Franzese of the Colombo Crime Family with the approval of Joseph Brancato”. I don’t know if this claim was previously discussed on the board. As I don’t know who the source is, I’m not sure how to weigh the claim. Could be just confusion on the part of the CI, or it could be that Galante was in fact involved in some way with Carmine Franzese’s induction. Clearly the source was not Scarpa, or JD would have stated this, so I have no idea if the source was a made guy in the position to actually know anything of substance about Franzese’s induction.