January 16, 2020
This Week in Gang Land
Pizza Pie Man Has A Big Fan In Barney Bellomo
Three
decades ago, Vincent (Chin) Gigante tabbed him as acting boss of the
powerful Genovese crime family. Five years ago, he is known to have
taken over as the official leader of the so-called Ivy League of
Organized Crime. YetLiborio (Barney) Bellomo remains an enigma, a
virtually "invisible man" both to wiseguys and to the law enforcement
community.
But while Bellomo has stayed well below the radar, Gang Land has it on excellent authority from reliable sources on both sides of the law that Bellomo has a very soft spot in his heart for pizza. Not the Italian delight you can enjoy by the slice, but for Carmelo (Carmine Pizza) Polito, the antagonist whose conviction for the 1994 attempted murder of Genovese gangster Michael (Cookie) D'Urso was reversed on a technicality. Yes, that D'Urso, whose open letter to the mob was featured in Gang Land last week.
Polito, whose federal conviction for the shooting of D'Urso and the murder of his cousin Tino was overturned in 2004 on the grounds that it stemmed from a $60,000 debt and not mob business, was inducted into the crime family within the last two years, according to underworld and law enforcement sources. He is now a respected acting Genovese capo.
Last
Gambino Wiseguy Gets Bail; Father & Son Mobsters Want To Talk
Gambino soldier Vincent Fiore, who was caught on tape saying that last year's murder of underboss Francesco (Frank) Cali was a "good thing" for his own Mafia prospects, has been released on bail.
Accused
Killer Of Dad Seeks Bail - Says His Family Needs Him at Home
He's charged with choreographing the gangland-style slaying of his own father in a fiendish scheme that he disguised as a movie plot. But lawyers for Anthony Zottola say he deserves to be home while he awaits his trial because he's a loving husband and father. They're not alone: 23 friends and family members have also urged Zottola's release despite being charged with the "unimaginable crime of patricide."
Read this week's column
Unless you get really lucky, and find a copy squirreled away in the
wrong section of your local bookstore, you won't be able to get a
first printing of Mob Boss: The Life Of Little Al
D'Arco, The Man Who Brought Down The Mafia. But there
are still some second print versions of the hardcover available
as gifts or for your own reading pleasure.
Because of the heavy demand, Thomas Dunne Books went to the well again for a second printing of Mob Boss, the book that The New York Times called a "gripping, novelistic biography — a bulls-eye."
The mass market, paperback version was published in 2015. It is available online and at your favorite bookstores for about eight bucks. You still should be able to pick up a copy of the hard cover at your favorite bookstore, or, as Claude Raines might say to Humphrey Bogart, from any number of the usual online suspects: Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and BooksAMillion, as well as an independent book seller near you.
See why Mob Boss has been praised by Pete Hamill, Jimmy Breslin, Nicholas Pileggi, Mister District Attorney Robert Morgenthau — as well as readers everywhere.
Mob Boss is also available in a special BIG PRINT edition. And for those who would rather hear every word of the 406 page book read to them, Mob Boss is also available on an MP3 CD from Tantor Audio.
