Pennisi particularly made some interesting comments about his experiences and knowledge of the Bonanno family.
On the shelving of Cammarano, Zancocchio, and the Grimaldis:
This is the first I've heard about Anthony Rabito being in the rival faction. The way Thomas Carrube talked about it, he described Vincent Badalamenti as the head of that faction. Maybe Rabito being on the other faction explains the "title/ position" thing Lovaglio talked about with Zancocchio.This was an attack on that – I don’t wanna use the word faction but I’m gonna – on that faction because there was a split and I remember when Joe had the position, and Porky, there were certain members of the Bonannos that were split with the Anthony Rabito faction. There was another faction there. […] Anthony Rabito was a consigliere. […] So you had a split in the Bonannos, so there were two factions and, obviously, Porky was with the Joe C faction.
On John Spirito, Jr.:
On the Coddington Club incident:His father is a high-ranking member with the Bonannos. At one time, this is a guy – and I’ll use the term kid – who made himself the underboss of that family. Went up on a visit, came back, and told everybody his father made him the underboss of the family, and wind up straightening out – which means inducted – about twenty-something of his friends. There was no names that went around, it was a whole big controversy. They actually wind up shelving him, the Joe C faction. They actually wind up shelving him when this whole thing came out, and giving us the names of these guys, you know. And now, and then he was reinstated. He was actually brought back.
There was a woman behind it who was actually once married to a Lucchese captain. A current captain with the Lucchese family, right. They’re divorced. She started dating Mikey Nose. When Mikey Nose went to prison, she started dating Michael Meldish, and that’s what the Michael Meldish beating that took place outside of Rao’s was over. Over the woman. Well, a Lucchese associate – and I’ll say his name – Joey Cupcakes Urgitano, starts dating this woman also. I don’t know the timeframe, was it during the Michael Meldish or after, but he starts dating her. She shows him a letter from Mikey Nose sent to her from in prison. He sends her this letter. And in the letter he’s discussing street business, which is a no-no, with the woman. This Cupcakes allegedly takes this letter and says, “Let me have this letter”. He gives it to Matty. Matty goes on a campaign to try to get the Bonanno family to take Mikey Nose down as the boss as a result of this letter. And during this discussion he makes this statement that we don’t recognise this guy, that he’s incarcerated as a boss, and like I said it was not a great statement to make.
[…]
During the planning of “let’s get together and let’s go storm the Lucchese club in the Bronx”, Anthony Rabito, who is an old-timer, had a position, is involved. They know Anthony Rabito is not gonna storm the club. Anthony Rabito’s gonna go in there and try and be diplomatic.
[…]
They knew, “Ah, you know what, nobody pick up Anthony Rabito”. Anthony Rabito was left on a corner waiting to get picked up, they never picked him up. And I know this because Sideburns – Johnny Sideburns – was very close friends with Anthony Rabito. Anthony Rabito said, “They were supposed to pick me up – they left me standing on the corner.” Why did they leave him standing on the corner? They didn’t want diplomacy.
