Top Mafia Misconceptions

[OlBlueEyesClub]

Yea, so the killing of rats had to go on well into late 80's, right ? With Willie Boy being the last one, at least recorded whom was killed under the penalty of ratting.

[Doobeez]

Slight correction..Gene Pontecorvo bought the items for the juror.

Carry on.

[Cheech]

Man Gets 3 Years In Racketeering Case
November 05, 2004|By EDMUND H. MAHONY; Courant Staff Writer
The man who ran a multimillion-dollar illegal sports betting operation in Greater New Haven for the Providence-based Patriarca organized crime family was sentenced to more than three years in prison and fined $25,000 in federal court Thursday on charges of racketeering and tax fraud.

Anthony Ascenzia, a bulky, made member of New England's dominant criminal organization, was charged as part of a law enforcement crackdown on multiple Patriarca family gambling rackets in Connecticut. The investigation took off when a rookie police officer spotted two Ascenzia associates engaged in what looked like suspicious activity in an East Haven parking lot about a week before Christmas in 1999. After stopping to inquire, the officer noticed gambling records and cash.




The investigation showed that, over one four-month period, Ascenzia's bookmaking operation collected more than $2.3 million in illegal bets on football, basketball and baseball. In addition, he ran a numbers, or illegal street lottery, business. Investigators charged that court-authorized wiretaps showed Ascenzia supervised the gambling businesses from at least 1997 to March 2000.

Law enforcement sources said that for at least part of the time Ascenzia was in the mob's gambling business, he reported to reputed Providence-based Patriarca capo Matthew Guglielmetti, who collected the family's share of the New Haven gambling proceeds.

About a year ago, someone tried to blow up automobiles driven by Ascenzia and one of his associates. Authorities said no charges have yet been filed in the destruction of the cars.

When pleading guilty to tax and racketeering charges, Ascenzia pointedly refused to acknowledge that he had taken an oath of loyalty and silence to become a soldier or made member of the Patriarca mob.

``As far as being a member of some organization, I'm not going to acknowledge that at all,'' Ascenzia told U.S. Magistrate Judge Holly Fitzsimmons during a court hearing in May.

But he did admit claiming only $23,239 in income in 1999, when he earned at least $194,125. And he admitted lying when he claimed on his tax forms to be a sundry salesman.

In addition to imposing a jail sentence and fine, Senior U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas on Thursday ordered Ascenzia to pay more than $100,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest. Also, Ascenzia agreed to give up about $140,000 in confiscated cash, property and gambling proceeds.

Twenty-one others were convicted of crimes as a result of the Ascenzia investigation. They are Alphonse Amendola, Carl Apuzzo, Charles Cerreta, Andrew Colavolpe Jr., Thomas Coppola, James Cretella, Steven Datillo, Kevin Dolan, Anthony Fry, Dominic Vincent Gentile, Mariano Grasso, Ralph Iannuzzi, Michael Lamberti Sr., Angelo Lucifora, Biagio Martinelli, Benedetto Minichino, Anthony M. Natalizio, Anthony Notarino, Nicholas B. Onofrio Jr., John Joseph Vitello and John Zullo.

Ascenzia is scheduled to report to prison on Nov. 29.

[JCB1977]

You have examples of both happening. John Gotti refused to let Joe Armone take a please whereas the Genovese have plead out for years.

Do you remember in The Sopranos when Johnny Sack did the allocution? Do you remember the reaction of Phil Leotardo and Tony? Cooperating is acknowledging that you are a member of LCN and more specifically, the family in which one is a part of.

JCB that's a horrible example. That's not to say similar events occurred but not in the 2000 decade when pleading shaves time off an inevitable conviction. But prior to the 1980's most convictions resulted in relatively short sentences and it's easy to sweat a 2-4 year conviction as opposed to a 10-20 year one.

You'll argue anything that doesn't align with your thinking/mentality, so I'll take your response. Shaving time off? If you do a proffer or allocution, you are cooperating with the Govn't. Legally and logically. Like I said prior, just because times change doesn't mean the rules do.

[Angelo Santino]

You have examples of both happening. John Gotti refused to let Joe Armone take a please whereas the Genovese have plead out for years.

Do you remember in The Sopranos when Johnny Sack did the allocution? Do you remember the reaction of Phil Leotardo and Tony? Cooperating is acknowledging that you are a member of LCN and more specifically, the family in which one is a part of.

JCB that's a horrible example. That's not to say similar events occurred but not in the 2000 decade when pleading shaves time off an inevitable conviction. But prior to the 1980's most convictions resulted in relatively short sentences and it's easy to sweat a 2-4 year conviction as opposed to a 10-20 year one.

You'll argue anything that doesn't align with your thinking/mentality, so I'll take your response. Shaving time off? If you do a proffer or allocution, you are cooperating with the Govn't. Legally and logically. Like I said prior, just because times change doesn't mean the rules do.

I don't know why we would use Phil Leotardo's outrage over Sack pleading out as an example of reality when we have real examples of such things occurring to much different outcomes. The Sopranos took certain creative measures in terms of mob protocol, Tony was able to beat down and staple Michael Palmice to the ground and yet suffered no reprisals despite Palmice becoming Consigliere two episodes later. I doubt we would use that as an example of made members physically assaulting each other and nothing else coming out of it. That's why I said it was a horrible example, I wasn't trying to be argumentative. Sorry.

If you go back to what JB said about "omerta" it literally means "to be a man" and members have viewed it differently. For John Gotti, not acknowledging guilt was "being a man," but for Franzese, admitting guilt but not implicating made members was his way of "being a man," JB wrote an entire book about LCN history and the commission, and despite that assisting Giuliani rather greatly in his commission case, JB was "being a man" when he refused to testify.

[JCB1977]

You have examples of both happening. John Gotti refused to let Joe Armone take a please whereas the Genovese have plead out for years.

Do you remember in The Sopranos when Johnny Sack did the allocution? Do you remember the reaction of Phil Leotardo and Tony? Cooperating is acknowledging that you are a member of LCN and more specifically, the family in which one is a part of.

JCB that's a horrible example. That's not to say similar events occurred but not in the 2000 decade when pleading shaves time off an inevitable conviction. But prior to the 1980's most convictions resulted in relatively short sentences and it's easy to sweat a 2-4 year conviction as opposed to a 10-20 year one.

You'll argue anything that doesn't align with your thinking/mentality, so I'll take your response. Shaving time off? If you do a proffer or allocution, you are cooperating with the Govn't. Legally and logically. Like I said prior, just because times change doesn't mean the rules do.

I don't know why we would use Phil Leotardo's outrage over Sack pleading out as an example of reality when we have real examples of such things occurring to much different outcomes. The Sopranos took certain creative measures in terms of mob protocol, Tony was able to beat down and staple Michael Palmice to the ground and yet suffered no reprisals despite Palmice becoming Consigliere two episodes later. I doubt we would use that as an example of made members physically assaulting each other and nothing else coming out of it. That's why I said it was a horrible example, I wasn't trying to be argumentative. Sorry.

If you go back to what JB said about "omerta" it literally means "to be a man" and members have viewed it differently. For John Gotti, not acknowledging guilt was "being a man," but for Franzese, admitting guilt but not implicating made members was his way of "being a man," JB wrote an entire book about LCN history and the commission, and despite that assisting Giuliani rather greatly in his commission case, JB was "being a man" when he refused to testify.

JB? Jon Benet?

[OlBlueEyesClub]

Joe Bonanno .

[SonnyBlackstein]

JB? Jon Benet?

Now that was fucking funny.

[DPG]

Not sure if anyone buys into this anymore, but Congressional Hearings in the 1950s and 1960s produced a narrative that a nationally coordinated syndicate of alien (Italian immigrant) gangsters controlled every aspect of org crime in America. So the mafia took a piece of every single illegal bet, every ounce of drugs sold, every labor shakedown, every loan sharking operation and so forth. Social scientists started debunking this narrative early on, but policy-makers and the media stuck with it for a long time.

Tjis

[OlBlueEyesClub]

Robert Lombardo debunked that in his book Organized Crime In Chicago: Beyond The Mafia, which is an amazing book. Proved that Organized Crime and Vice was around long before the Italians immigrated to America . Which anyone with a brain should know is a fact . I mean , I dont know how anyone could think that Organized Crime just started once Italians came. It was a theory created by the media , media backed and funded by the US government because they didnt want to face the facts and admit self-blame and acknowledge that their enforcement groups and laws weren't ever enough to combat homegrown, good ol' American, organized crime and vice. So they blamed it all on the immigrants.

[Pogo The Clown]

Not sure I buy OC being around before Costa Nostra. Sure you had some localized criminals and small gangs and general political corruption but that doesn't really equate to organized crime. Much less a nationwide criminal network like Costa Nostra.


Pogo

[OlBlueEyesClub]

The Mafia isn't responsible for Organized Crime . They're just not . The definition of Organized Crime itself is "a category of international, transnational and local groupings of highly centralized enterprises consisting of criminals who intend to engage in illegal activity for money or profit". So even if its local, as long as they're groupings of individuals engaged in criminalistic activity simply for money, its Organized Crime. There were plenty of groups here prior to the CN who were engaged in the above. Whether it was the Irish gangs in NY, who had political connections to Tammany Hall long before the Italians did, or the Chinese based gangs who ran opium dens and prostitution in American cities dating back to the early 1900's and even earlier , it was Organized Crime. The average street gang , whether we'd like to admit it or not, is Organized Crime . The Taliban/Al-Qaeda and ISIS is Organized Crime before its Terrorism. They engage in illegal activity to help a portion of its funding for its activities toward terrorism and it's weapons buying. You had black groups in Chicago which were engaged in the policy racket among other things that were organized , and had political protection in it's own wards prior to Al Capone and Johnny Torrio , and they only worked with each other and within their own neighborhoods, this is another example of Organized Crime. Just factually speaking, Organized Crime was here prior to the Italians immigrating here and bringing it's "secret societies".

[Pogo The Clown]

I guess. But I find it a really big stretch to call the few Irish and Chinese groups in the 1800s "highly centralized enterprises".


Pogo

[JCB1977]

Joe Bonanno .

Lol, I know

[phatmatress777]

I guess. But I find it a really big stretch to call the few Irish and Chinese groups in the 1800s "highly centralized enterprises".


Pogo

I would agree the Italian Mafia were the originators and the first major force of organized crime... If you go back and look in the 1800s it was outlaws and small gangs, it seemed to be that way for most time periods prior to 1900s, unless you want to consider history stand outs such as gengus Cohn and Cochise but they were just more savages as compared to criminals...


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