October 17, 2019
This Week in Gang Land
FBI Report: Luchese Soldier's Escape Plan Called For Sheets, Dental Floss & A Tough Diet
It's
hard to imagine a wiseguy admitting a mob murder to a guy he just met in
prison, especially when he hadn't acknowledged the killing in taped
talks with his mob buddies. Even a federal judge found that hard to
fathom. But in a fact-filled FBI report obtained by Gang Land, two G-men
explain why Luchese mobster Christopher Londonio owned up to the
gangland-style slaying of gangster Michael Meldish, and why he also
sought the inmate's help in an escape plan.
In mid-September, 2017, top law enforcement officials declared that Londonio's escape plan "sounded like a script for a made-for-TV movie." But based on a November 2017 FBI report just unsealed at Gang Land's request, the escape plot rivals the one by the Tim Robbins character in Shawshank Redemption, the classic 1994 escape film starring Robbins and Morgan Freeman.
Not only did Londonio's alleged plan called for enlisting a wide array of characters, including his mother, his father, his estranged wife, a bookie from the Bronx, and a priest. It called for bedsheets, braided dental floss, a hacksaw blade, a safe house in Brooklyn, and a hideout in Monticello. And then there was the toughest goal of all: a crash diet-exercise regimen to insure that the 350-pound mobster would lose enough weight to squeeze through the prison's window.
Appeals
Court Shines A Little Light At The End Of The Tunnel For Frankie Loc
A federal appeals court has granted a surprising and rare review to the long-shot bid by imprisoned Gambino wiseguy Frank (Frankie Loc) Locascio to overturn his conviction for a 1990 mob murder that was ordered by the late John Gotti.
Bonanno
Wiseguy Vinny Asaro Has Suffered A Stroke
Vincent Asaro, the 84-year old Bonanno soldier who's been behind bars since 2017 when he was arrested for torching a car following a road rage incident in 2012, suffered a massive stroke several weeks ago at a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, Gang Land has learned
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.
