by RushStreet » Wed Apr 02, 2025 9:26 pm
April 3, 2025 — From the end of the pandemic lockdowns forward, Gambino mob power Gene Gotti, slowly, but surely gobbled up territory, politicked with all the right people throughout the Big Apple and successfully wrangled back control of the Gambinos’ entire Queens faction for the Gotti mafia brand, per exclusive GR sources. Gotti, 79, leads one of three developing factions within the Gambino mob right now, along with the ruling Sicilian faction of the borgata and longtime Brooklyn skipper Nicholas (Little Nicky) Corozzo, a former Gotti camp loyalist. He got out of a three-decade bid in the feds for drug trafficking and racketeering in 2018 and playing it lowkey for a few years, steadily eased his way back into the mix in the Gambino crime family, according to sources in Queens and Brooklyn. “Little Nicky” did 11 years on a separate case and got out in 2019.
These Queens and Brooklyn sources claim Gotti commands his Queens troops by way of Gambino captains and Gotti stalwarts Thomas (Tommy Sneakers) Cacciopoli, Thomas (Monk) Sassano and Mike (The Rock) Roccaforte, using a Brooklyn restaurant and catering hall owned by a reputed mob associate with no criminal record, but an LCN lineage, as a nerve center for his activities and relaying messages and orders to the street. Roccaforte, 48, is allegedly “Monk” Sassano’s acting capo. The 78-year old Sassano is semi-retired these days, spending much of the year in Florida. “Tommy Sneakers,” 75, did a three piece in the can for extorting trucking companies making deliveries to NASCAR events in Staten Island and besides Queens, maintains turf in Manhattan, Westchester County and New Jersey.
The heavily-celebrated and well-chronicled Gotti Era of the Gambino crime family in the 1980s, 90s and 2000s captivated the masses and became embedded in American pop-culture and gangland lore simultaneously. Gene Gotti went to prison in 1989, four years after his older brother John, orchestrated the assassination of Gambino mob don Paul Castellano and seized power for himself and the Queens faction of the crime family. His nephew, John (Junior) Gotti and his other brother Pete (Petey One Eye) Gotti, ran the Gambino organization in the years following the elder John Gotti’s conviction at a murder and racketeering trial in 1992, while he was away at college as a guest of Uncle Sam.
The Sicilians grabbed the reins from the Gotti regime in a peaceful transfer of authority in the late 2000s. Gotti Era initiates Domenico (Italian Dom) Cefalu and Lorenzo Mannino are boss and acting boss, respectively, and leaders of the Gambinos’ Sicilian faction. “Junior” Gotti is retired. Petey One-Eye died of COVID-19 in the joint in 2021. After a dozen years of smooth waters and free sailing in the boss’s seat, Cefalu is alleged to have encountered some pushback from old Gotti Era guys, like Gene Gotti and Little Nicky Corozzo.
Although satiated at first with being used as a sounding board for decisions by Cefalu and Mannino, as Gotti got better acclimated to the modern-day mob landscape, he began pressing for more say-so in Gambino affairs, allege sources. According to the same sources, Corozzo, 85, feverishly campaigned for the borgata’s consigliere position in 2023 and part of 2024 until he was ultimately passed over for another ex-Gotti guy, Louis (Big Louie) Vallario in a snub Corozzo took very personally. Sources claim Gotti has expressed an interest in the underboss spot in the administration when Little Nicky’s best friend, 83-year old Lenny (The Conductor) DiMaria, retires. Known for his connections and diplomacy, DiMaria is the man who is refereeing the internal dispute, keeping everyone calm and open-minded, and negotiations to resolve differences ongoing, per sources with first-hand knowledge of the precarious situation.
GR sources say, at first, Cefalu and Mannino’s plan to fend off potential pockets of resistance from the Gotti camp by naming less-confrontational, more diplomatic Gotti Era figures like DiMaria and Vallario to administrative posts looked to be sound thinking and most of all working, however, now the desired effect seems to be waning. Two separate sources claim Cefalu, 78, and Mannino, 66, were asked to step down and that they refused and the issue hasn’t been brought up again. Corozzo’s house was vandalized in February, per sources, in an incident that is not yet been confirmed to be related to the current tensions within the Gambinos.
April 3, 2025 — From the end of the pandemic lockdowns forward, Gambino mob power Gene Gotti, slowly, but surely gobbled up territory, politicked with all the right people throughout the Big Apple and successfully wrangled back control of the Gambinos’ entire Queens faction for the Gotti mafia brand, per exclusive GR sources. Gotti, 79, leads one of three developing factions within the Gambino mob right now, along with the ruling Sicilian faction of the borgata and longtime Brooklyn skipper Nicholas (Little Nicky) Corozzo, a former Gotti camp loyalist. He got out of a three-decade bid in the feds for drug trafficking and racketeering in 2018 and playing it lowkey for a few years, steadily eased his way back into the mix in the Gambino crime family, according to sources in Queens and Brooklyn. “Little Nicky” did 11 years on a separate case and got out in 2019.
These Queens and Brooklyn sources claim Gotti commands his Queens troops by way of Gambino captains and Gotti stalwarts Thomas (Tommy Sneakers) Cacciopoli, Thomas (Monk) Sassano and Mike (The Rock) Roccaforte, using a Brooklyn restaurant and catering hall owned by a reputed mob associate with no criminal record, but an LCN lineage, as a nerve center for his activities and relaying messages and orders to the street. Roccaforte, 48, is allegedly “Monk” Sassano’s acting capo. The 78-year old Sassano is semi-retired these days, spending much of the year in Florida. “Tommy Sneakers,” 75, did a three piece in the can for extorting trucking companies making deliveries to NASCAR events in Staten Island and besides Queens, maintains turf in Manhattan, Westchester County and New Jersey.
The heavily-celebrated and well-chronicled Gotti Era of the Gambino crime family in the 1980s, 90s and 2000s captivated the masses and became embedded in American pop-culture and gangland lore simultaneously. Gene Gotti went to prison in 1989, four years after his older brother John, orchestrated the assassination of Gambino mob don Paul Castellano and seized power for himself and the Queens faction of the crime family. His nephew, John (Junior) Gotti and his other brother Pete (Petey One Eye) Gotti, ran the Gambino organization in the years following the elder John Gotti’s conviction at a murder and racketeering trial in 1992, while he was away at college as a guest of Uncle Sam.
The Sicilians grabbed the reins from the Gotti regime in a peaceful transfer of authority in the late 2000s. Gotti Era initiates Domenico (Italian Dom) Cefalu and Lorenzo Mannino are boss and acting boss, respectively, and leaders of the Gambinos’ Sicilian faction. “Junior” Gotti is retired. Petey One-Eye died of COVID-19 in the joint in 2021. After a dozen years of smooth waters and free sailing in the boss’s seat, Cefalu is alleged to have encountered some pushback from old Gotti Era guys, like Gene Gotti and Little Nicky Corozzo.
Although satiated at first with being used as a sounding board for decisions by Cefalu and Mannino, as Gotti got better acclimated to the modern-day mob landscape, he began pressing for more say-so in Gambino affairs, allege sources. According to the same sources, Corozzo, 85, feverishly campaigned for the borgata’s consigliere position in 2023 and part of 2024 until he was ultimately passed over for another ex-Gotti guy, Louis (Big Louie) Vallario in a snub Corozzo took very personally. Sources claim Gotti has expressed an interest in the underboss spot in the administration when Little Nicky’s best friend, 83-year old Lenny (The Conductor) DiMaria, retires. Known for his connections and diplomacy, DiMaria is the man who is refereeing the internal dispute, keeping everyone calm and open-minded, and negotiations to resolve differences ongoing, per sources with first-hand knowledge of the precarious situation.
GR sources say, at first, Cefalu and Mannino’s plan to fend off potential pockets of resistance from the Gotti camp by naming less-confrontational, more diplomatic Gotti Era figures like DiMaria and Vallario to administrative posts looked to be sound thinking and most of all working, however, now the desired effect seems to be waning. Two separate sources claim Cefalu, 78, and Mannino, 66, were asked to step down and that they refused and the issue hasn’t been brought up again. Corozzo’s house was vandalized in February, per sources, in an incident that is not yet been confirmed to be related to the current tensions within the Gambinos.