Hootie Russo

[Shellackhead]

Hootie always mentioned how 3 of his friends “went in first”, one became a captain, and were all in the same crew together. He’s talking about Al T, Roccaforte, and the third person I think is Anthony Moscatiello? Anyone know anything about this guy? Around the same age as the rest of them. No pic of him, not a lot of info. Gotta be related someway to the older Moscatiello from the Gambinos, right?

Could it be the same Moscatiello John Pennisi was talking about? Or maybe the father since Al, Mike Roc are in there 40s, and Pennisi is in his 50s. Guessing that Moscatiello he talks about must be in his 60s or 70s.

[newera_212]

Hootie always mentioned how 3 of his friends “went in first”, one became a captain, and were all in the same crew together. He’s talking about Al T, Roccaforte, and the third person I think is Anthony Moscatiello? Anyone know anything about this guy? Around the same age as the rest of them. No pic of him, not a lot of info. Gotta be related someway to the older Moscatiello from the Gambinos, right?

Could it be the same Moscatiello John Pennisi was talking about? Or maybe the father since Al, Mike Roc are in there 40s, and Pennisi is in his 50s. Guessing that Moscatiello he talks about must be in his 60s or 70s.

not the same guy, but im wondering if they are related. son, nephew, something like that. its not that big of a world. but theres not much info on the younger one (who was indicted with al, hootie, etc) at all. searches bring up info on the older one that Pennisi talks about

[chubby]

Kind of feel bad for Hootie... I wonder what he did with all the money he made from selling drugs

He said in the MBA pod, he gambled away most of it. I'm always genuinely confused by that shit. Like, you RUN a bookmaking office. Why gamble away all the money you had to hustle for?

If he transforms that street money into a couple businesses, he maybe GETS made. It was a clear difference in attitude between him and say Arrilotta, who was all about running not just business, but controlling everything too...

Honestly, I often wonder and can’t wrap my head around the fact that a lot of these guys who make a pretty insane living running sports books, and see firsthand how things play out, meaning, obviously the percentage of people who lose are in the majority or else these guys wouldn’t be running profitable books.... I imagine they’ve seen gamblers literally lose every dollar they have, their houses, everything.. yet still some of these mob guys are hooked on the action... there’s lists of wealthy captains who were straight up degenerates.... I understand how the lifestyle could lead you to gamble, cause a lot of these guys are just into any kind of action.. I can see gambling some money that you’re ok with losing here and there, that isn’t going to make it so you can’t pay your bills... but there’s been a lot of guys in the life who didn’t have 2 pennies to rub together from gambling...

It’s similar to a drug dealer hustling all day just to turn around and use all his profit on his own product... there’s plenty of those too..

I’ve just been around gambling since I was in like 8th grade, yet have never gambled but hung out with some kids I grew up with and we would go after hours spots for high stakes poker, lol and I remember at our local casino you walked in the automatic doors and there was security right there to check id’s we would have 1 friend with a good fake distract him as the rest of us would try to sprint up the escalator before they would notice, then we would run straight to the bathroom and then slowly come out 1 by 1.. over years of doing that we only got caught a handful of times, and if we did we would just go hangout outside for 30 mins and try again.. but after seeing my friends do the most dope fiend moves for gambling, whether it was flashing a counterfeit stack of 10k at a big house game cause my friend was convince he was going to win (he didn’t, and the guy he was playing heads up wouldn’t allow him to leave til he came up with the money, lol he was stuck there for like 2 days) to one friend driving his successful business into the ground by ripping off his wholesale customers, to pay day loan scams, to seeing him lose $140k within a week... just further turned me off from that side of gambling..

[chubby]

Hes a J! I mean if you been around opiates (percs, ocs, oxys, beans, blues, w/e the f*** you ppl call them now i have no idea) at all you know hes on them. Its not that hard to figure out. I dont know why that would bother them though. Unless it was affecting his ability to be productive. But if hes doing shit then going to work idk why anyoe would care. If it doesnt have a negative impact your performance-like my job i got guys who do shit, some drink at 6 am but they work fine if not are better then me sometimes and i dont do shit.

It’s very obvious he’s on opiates.. the one thing that is always a tell tale sign is that groggy voice, I call it the chainsaw voice... I’ve know people who are 100 percent productive on opiates and you would never know cause they don’t nod out, itch their nose off, shit like that.. but there’s no escaping that sound of voice everyone gets when they’re using...
Shit as far as we know he was using way back when he was getting all those 750 Vicodin’s... and maybe was a reason why he got “knocked down” when he claims his name was passed around. Who knows,, none of these guys ever tell the full truth so it’s impossible to even confirm their “street stories” let alone them admitting to being junkies.. it would make sense though, he’s in that age group right when the opiates really started hitting...
I’ll say one thing though.. I bet there’s dozens of soldiers and captains who are in their 50s and Below who have habits... it’s just reality with how bad of a problem it was/is in the tristate area, you have all walks of life getting strung... and I feel like guys who are in the street already living an illegal lifestyle ups their chances of falling victim..

[Tonyd621]

All that shit is garbage. But theres money in garbage

[Shellackhead]

Has he ever said why he got knocked down? It really makes no sense, he wanted to be in the mafia so bad, after the first knock down i would of quit trying to join the mob & continued doing what he was doing alone since he said he made more money that way. Maybe saving it for a book? He’s doing a book right?

[Jbravo]

Hes a complete clown..was never even close to being straightened out..LMAO.
Did you see the podcast where he says he walked in a room lined with plastic and had a tech 9 put to his chest but talked his way out of it.....Lol..please

[Joeyboy1982]

Staxx is a terrible host and has no real idea how to conduct an interview, *but* the guy genuinely seems to have his heart in the right place and is trying really hard. It’s almost like Pennisi has taken him under his wing or something because he’s been promoting Staxx content and giving Staxx production credit on their shows. Seems like they felt he got fucked over by Hootie and he and Tom are trying to do him a solid.

hes the rudy of the mafia podcast world

[Joeyboy1982]

The dude comes across as more of a wannabe rap Mogul then he does a wise guy. His early interviews were pretty awesome and he has dropped a lot of knowledge about OC but it's tough to take a grown man in his 40 seriously when he's talking about " it's ya boy and shout out to my haters." It's just hoodrat shit.

[Amershire_Ed]

Hes a complete clown..was never even close to being straightened out..LMAO.
Did you see the podcast where he says he walked in a room lined with plastic and had a tech 9 put to his chest but talked his way out of it.....Lol..please

Because it’s been verified by folks on here in the know, I believe Hootie’s drug stories much more than his wiseguy stuff, so I actually have no problem believing that one. And he didn’t say he talked his way out of it. Vlad asked him “so you talked yourself out of it?”, and Hootie said “no I just told the truth. It was ultimately about him trying to get me to sell drugs for him”.

I think the only 3 things we know for sure about Hootie is he ran with Al’s crew and was really tight with Al and Roc. He was a big drug dealer. And he played queen for a day and cooperated. His apparent drug problem and sporadic story telling make it hard to verify anything else.

[queensnyer]

Hootie always mentioned how 3 of his friends “went in first”, one became a captain, and were all in the same crew together. He’s talking about Al T, Roccaforte, and the third person I think is Anthony Moscatiello? Anyone know anything about this guy? Around the same age as the rest of them. No pic of him, not a lot of info. Gotta be related someway to the older Moscatiello from the Gambinos, right?

Could it be the same Moscatiello John Pennisi was talking about? Or maybe the father since Al, Mike Roc are in there 40s, and Pennisi is in his 50s. Guessing that Moscatiello he talks about must be in his 60s or 70s.

the moscatiello hootie and al where around is a reletive of big tony moscatiello. he was a gotti hanger on that eventually got made.. got caught up in some murder scheme in florida with casino boats... not sure if the young one is a son/grandson/nephew or what but thats who he is. nothing special or notable. just a neighborhood guy with wiseguy family who went that route,

[Amershire_Ed]

Also I’m guessing Hootie’s estrangement from his family is more likely due to drugs than cooperation. I think his kids are teenagers. If I was a teenager (or any age really) and saw my dad acting like that on social media I would get as far away as possible.

I will say I feel bad for the guy because he obviously grew up in a shitty situation and spent the first 30-35 years of his life only wanting to be a street guy. And now, not only can he not get back into the streets, but he’s also a rat—which I guarantee eats at him. Daily. He’s estranged from his family. He’s probably got a shitty job making shitty money because of his record. All those factors aren’t exactly a recipe for sobriety. And throw in the fact that the only attention or love this guy has probably seen in years is from strangers on the internet who wanna hear mob stories. Best thing for Hootie is probably to log off for a long while and get his life in order. Reconnect with his kids and stop seeking validation or attention from internet strangers who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.

[newera_212]

Also I’m guessing Hootie’s estrangement from his family is more likely due to drugs than cooperation. I think his kids are teenagers. If I was a teenager (or any age really) and saw my dad acting like that on social media I would get as far away as possible.

I will say I feel bad for the guy because he obviously grew up in a shitty situation and spent the first 30-35 years of his life only wanting to be a street guy. And now, not only can he not get back into the streets, but he’s also a rat—which I guarantee eats at him. Daily. He’s estranged from his family. He’s probably got a shitty job making shitty money because of his record. All those factors aren’t exactly a recipe for sobriety. And throw in the fact that the only attention or love this guy has probably seen in years is from strangers on the internet who wanna hear mob stories. Best thing for Hootie is probably to log off for a long while and get his life in order. Reconnect with his kids and stop seeking validation or attention from internet strangers who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.

All really good points. That’s really gotta sting to go from making a year’s pay every 2-4 weeks and doing whatever you want, to living in the sticks and having to commute a couple hours round trip to do manual labor...completely cut off from your family, friends, neighborhood, everything you like. In that situation the internet and drugs seem like viable escapes. He really doesn't seem like that bad of a guy either

[JakeTheSnake630]

Also I’m guessing Hootie’s estrangement from his family is more likely due to drugs than cooperation. I think his kids are teenagers. If I was a teenager (or any age really) and saw my dad acting like that on social media I would get as far away as possible.

I will say I feel bad for the guy because he obviously grew up in a shitty situation and spent the first 30-35 years of his life only wanting to be a street guy. And now, not only can he not get back into the streets, but he’s also a rat—which I guarantee eats at him. Daily. He’s estranged from his family. He’s probably got a shitty job making shitty money because of his record. All those factors aren’t exactly a recipe for sobriety. And throw in the fact that the only attention or love this guy has probably seen in years is from strangers on the internet who wanna hear mob stories. Best thing for Hootie is probably to log off for a long while and get his life in order. Reconnect with his kids and stop seeking validation or attention from internet strangers who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.

I remember him saying on an early podcast that his kids don’t talk to him. I assumed it was because of cooperating at the time.

[Tonyd621]

You have to do the time. All the guys who flip seem to be indenial about it. Then again, what about guys like Baldo Amato who are doing life and been sitting there for 20+ yrs and probably be in there for another 20+, i wonder what they are wishing they did