By  George Anastasia , Inquirer

The alleged mastermind of the organized-crime-linked, multimillion-dollar looting of a Texas mortgage company wants to be sprung from a Philadelphia jail.

Salvatore Pelullo, a brash, tough-talking wannabe wiseguy, said he can’t adequately prepare his defense from the Federal Detention Center, where he and a codefendant, convicted mobster Nicodemo S. Scarfo, are being held without bail.

So next week, Pelullo and his lawyer will be in federal court in Camden to ask a judge to reconsider his request for house arrest pending trial.

So next week, Pelullo and his lawyer will be in federal court in Camden to ask a judge to reconsider his request for house arrest pending trial.

The 45-year-old Pelullo, a wheeler-dealer who according to former associates boasted about his ties to organized crime while quoting lines from famous gangster movies – “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse” being one of his favorites – has been in jail since his arrest on Nov. 1.

Gone are the fancy cars (a Bentley convertible, a Ferrari, and, at the time of his arrest, a Porsche) and the lavish accommodations (a stately stone house in Elkins Park, a waterfront condominium in Miami).

read more philly.com   Here

Ex-Bonanno mob Boss Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano (left) with  former Bonanno crime family captain turned FBI informant Dominick Cicale

By MITCHEL MADDUX, New York Post

A former Bonanno crime family captain who helped put mob boss Vinny “Gorgeous” Basciano away for life — and who also ratted out dozens of other wiseguys — was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for his role in two Mafia rubouts.

Dominick Cicale, who has already served seven years behind bars, will get credit for that time, and when he gets out will be re-settled under a new identity in the witness-protection program.

At one time, the 44-year-old was a close friend and trusted lieutenant of former Bonanno boss Basciano.

But Cicale eventually betrayed his friend, became a government informant, and took the witness stand last year as one of the star witnesses to help convict Basciano of a mob murder

was a momentous decision that may have saved his life.

Prior to becoming an FBI informant, Cicale was facing a potential death penalty trial for his role in two fatal mob hits – including the 2004 killing of Bonanno associate Randy Pizzolo

In the end, Cicale’s decision to switch sides has brought a new lease on life, considering the “extraordinary assistance he has given the government,” Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis said.

”Alright, Mr. Cicale – this is your chance. I hope you will live a law-abiding and productive life,” Garaufis said.

The judge, however, noted the “Faustian bargain” that law enforcement authorities must make with unsavory criminals in order to glean information that will aid in prosecuting other mobsters.

He described Cicale as a man whose hallmarks of adult existence were “a lifetime of violence and an utter disregard for human life.”

Garaufis also pointed out that Cicale’s admitted participation in three different murders suggested traits of “viciousness and violence that were exceptional – even by organized crime standards.”

“Mr. Cicale is a true career criminal,” the judge said.

Assistant US Attorneys Nicole Argentieri and Greg Andres said nevertheless that Cicale provided a wealth of vital intelligence that helped convict a long list of ruthless mobsters.

In a detailed 58-page brief, prosecutors documented case after Mafia case where Cicale offered insider information that proved helpful — among them prosecutions of “more than a dozen inducted members of the Bonanno family.”

“Cicale’s information was particularly critical due to the leadership fluctuations in the Bonanno family’s hierarchy in the days after the incarceration and conviction of longtime Bonanno family boss Joseph Massino, and the arrest of acting boss Anthony “Tony Green” Urso and others,” the prosecutors wrote.
Inside information supplied by Cicale also “fueled a series of additional prosecutions and was used, in part, to eliminate — or at least incapacitate — the succeeding four Bonanno family administrations and bosses,” including Basciano, Michael “The Nose” Mancuso, Nicholas “Nicky Mouth” Santora, and Salvatore “Sal the Ironworker” Montagna, the feds wrote read more  Here

The attempted mob hit on Nicky Scarfo Jr. here, in 1989, didn’t put a dent in the business at South Philly’s venerable Dante & Luigi’s, at 10th and Catharine.

William Benderm,Philly.com

SURE, BULLETS were flying in the barroom at Dante & Luigi’s on Halloween night in 1989, when a masked man pulled a gun out of his trick-or-treat bag and starting pumping round after round into Nicodemo Scarfo Jr., son of the former Philadelphia mob boss.

Before that, the Italian restaurant at 10th and Catharine streets was a hangout for Angelo Bruno, the mob boss who was killed outside his Snyder Avenue home in 1980 by a hitman with a shotgun.

You’ll still see a wiseguy having dinner there from time to time. Phil Narducci, a reputed mob soldier during Scarfo’s reign, is said to have stopped in about a week ago.

“I do still have people that are ‘connected’ come in here. I don’t make a fuss about it,” said owner Michael LaRussa, brother of the late mob associate Salvatore “Sam the Barber” LaRussa.

Plenty of restaurants have embraced their Philly Mafia roots, including Bomb Bomb’s, near 10th and Wolf, named after a pair of mob-related bombings in the 1930s, and the Kitchen Consigliere Cafe. in Collingswood, N.J., run by former mob associate Angelo Lutz.

In Florida, super-tanned celebrity chef Steve Martorano, the “Godfather of Italian-American cooking” and nephew of the late Philly mobster Raymond “Long John” Martorano , plays clips from gangster movies at his Café Martorano, in Fort Lauderdale. read more Here

“Thieves in law” are the elite of the Russian world of organized crime

Associated Press, Washington Post

GENEVA — Switzerland’s attorney general has charged four men with being managers of a Europe-wide organized crime ring whose members are believed to be behind a wave of burglaries and shoplifting in the Alpine nation.

Swiss authorities said Monday that indictments were returned by the nation’s highest criminal court against four members of the so-called Thieves in Law  criminal organization who are now in police custody

Authorities said in a statement they are investigating 30 others in the transnational organization whose members sport tattoos showing their rank and function, share a common fund and even speak their own language.  read more Here

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Police chief Leonard Gallo of East Haven, Connecticut will retire amidst a racial profiling scandal involing the FBI arrest of his officers for federal civil rights violations . Cnn’s Jason Carroll reports.Website: http://www.cnn.com