November 8, 2018
This Week in Gang Land
Ex-NYC Buildings Inspector Fingers Genovese Wiseguy In 1997 Cold Case Rubout
A
corrupt, mob-connected former New York City buildings inspector is a key
witness against a Genovese mobster who is awaiting trial for what could
be the most unlikely alleged mob rubout to ever make its way into
federal court – a 21-year-old cold case stabbing murder outside a
neighborhood tavern in Yonkers, Gang Land has learned.
Law enforcement sources say the witness, a longtime Luchese family associate, has told the feds that wiseguy John (Johnny T) Tortora ordered the killing of Richard Ortiz because he suspected that Ortiz had stolen money from Joker Poker machines that Tortora had in several bars and other locations in Westchester at the time.
The sources say the witness, Carmine Francomano Jr. asserts that he got that information from the man who was arrested and charged with stabbing Ortiz to death in November of 1997, Abdill (Chino) Saez. Francomano Jr. allegedly claims that Saez told him that "he killed Richie for Johnny T" because Tortora suspected that "Richie and his brother were breaking into his machines and stealing money from him."
Guilty
Pleas In 'Extraordinary' Case Of The Turncoat Who Videotaped His Mob
Induction
It took a little longer than planned to iron out the details, but federal prosecutors in Brooklyn quietly got two guilty pleas last month in cases stemming from the daring undercover work of Vincent (Enzo) Morena, the Italian-born mob informer who tape recorded his induction into the Bonanno crime family in Canada three years ago next week.
Ask
Andy: The Mafia And Skimming In Las Vegas
Six decades after the Chicago Outfit and Cleveland gangster Moe Dalitz operated the casino at the new Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, and 23 years after the movie classic Casino put the story of the Mafia's huge cash cow on the big screen, the only mob skimming you'll see in the billion dollar a year gambling mecca these days is in reports about the old days in the Sin City's mob museum
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.
