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Showing posts with label The Last Gangster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Last Gangster. Show all posts
With
the recent death of South Philly mob legend Chickie Ciancaglini, I've been thinking about an earlier
era of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family.
Perhaps
the best book on that era is George Anastasia’s Blood and Honor.
You
can read my 2020 Washington Times On Crime column on Blood and Honor
below:
In a previous column, I wrote about Frank Sheeran, the late
Philadelphia criminal who was portrayed by Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s
Netflix film, “The Irishman.” Although I don’t subscribe to Sheeran’s claim
that he murdered Jimmy Hoffa and his other boasts, I liked the film.
I especially
liked the film as it featured organized crime figures from South Philadelphia,
where I grew up. Readers have contacted me and asked how to learn more about
the South Philly-South Jersey Cosa Nostra crime family. I responded by
suggesting that they read George Anastasia’s true crime books, “Blood and
Honor,” “The Goodfella Tapes” and “The Last Gangster.”
Jimmy Breslin
said George Anastasia’s “Blood and Honor: The Scarfo Mob, the Mafia’s Most
Violent Family” was the best gangster book ever written. Mr. Anastasia, a
former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, covered the rise and fall of the
Nicodemo “Nicky” Scarfo Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family in the 1980s.
With Mr.
Anastasia’s knowledge from years of covering the mob and his interviews with
Nick Caramandi, a Scarfo mob soldier turned government witness, “Blood and
Honor” offers the backstory of the murder of South Philly-South Jersey mob boss
Angelo Bruno (portrayed by Harvey Keitel in “The Irishman”) and the eventual rise
of Scarfo. The book details the schemes, the internecine mob war and the many
murders ordered by Scarfo.
I interviewed
Philip “Crazy Phil” Leonetti, Scarfo’s nephew and underboss who became a
government witness. He described his uncle as smart, devious, calculating and
psychopathic. He said his uncle enjoyed committing murders.
The Washington Times
published my On Crime column about veteran organized crime reporter and author
George Anastasia (seen in the below photo) and his books on the South Philly-South Jersey mob.
In a previous column, I wrote
about Frank Sheeran, the late Philadelphia criminal who was portrayed by Robert
De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s Netflix film, “The
Irishman.” Although I don’t subscribe to Sheeran’s claim that he murdered Jimmy
Hoffa and his other boasts, I liked the film.
I especially liked the film
as it featured organized crime figures from South Philadelphia, where I grew up.
Readers have contacted me and asked how to learn more about the South Philly-South
Jersey Cosa Nostra crime family. I responded by suggesting that they read
George Anastasia’s true crime books, “Blood and Honor,” “The Goodfella Tapes”
and “The Last Gangster.”
Jimmy Breslin said George
Anastasia’s “Blood and Honor: The Scarfo Mob, the Mafia’s Most Violent Family”
was the best gangster book ever written. Mr. Anastasia,
a former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, covered the rise and fall of the
Nicodemo “Nicky” Scarfo Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family in the 1980s.
With Mr. Anastasia’s
knowledge from years of covering the mob and his interviews with Nick
Caramandi, a Scarfo mob soldier turned government witness, “Blood and Honor”
offers the backstory of the murder of South Philly-South
Jersey mob boss Angelo Bruno (portrayed by Harvey Keitel in “The Irishman”) and
the eventual rise of Scarfo. The book details the schemes, the internecine mob
war and the many murders ordered by Scarfo.
I interviewed Philip “Crazy
Phil” Leonetti, Scarfo’s nephew and underboss who became a government witness.
He described his uncle as smart, devious, calculating and psychopathic. He said
his uncle enjoyed committing murders.
“He couldn’t handle the job.
He talked about everybody else going power-crazy, but he went power-crazy,”
Leonetti told me. “He wanted to kill everybody.”
Another fine book on the South Philly
mob by George
Anastasia is “The Goodfella Tapes: The True Story of How the FBI
Recorded a Mob War and Brought Down a Mafia Don.”
The book covers how the FBI
secretly recorded John Stanfa, the mob boss who took over after Scarfo went to
prison. Stanfa, a Sicilian-born criminal, was engaged in an internecine mob war
from 1993 to 1995. As Mr. Anastasia
explains, one side was old world Sicilian and the other side was born and bred
South Philadelphians, the sons and nephews of the previous mob leadership.
… “Goodfellas
don’t sue goodfellas,” one mob philosopher advised a mob associate and
potential litigant as the FBI listened in. “Goodfellas kill goodfellas.” The
book offers a good number of other insightful comments as well.
You can read the rest of the
column below or via the below link:
Veteran organized crime
reporter and author George Anastasia looks back at the life of criminal Ron
Previte for jerseymanmagazine.com.
They called him the Fat Rat,
but he didn’t really care.
Ron Previte always knew who
he was and what he had done. And he was okay with that, which made him unique
in the underworld and immune to the slurs and epithets other wiseguys threw at
him.
For him, it was a game and he
always thought he knew how to play it better than they did.
It wasn’t about right or
wrong, about morals or ethics. When it came to crime, he was totally amoral. He
would smile and say he was a “general practitioner.” He did it all.
And becoming an informant,
first for the New Jersey State Police, and then for the FBI, was part of his
practice.
Previte died two months ago.
He had been sick for over a year, battling various ailments that eventually led
to a fatal heart attack. He was 73.
“What would you have bet that
it would have been a heart attack that took him out?” an FBI agent asked at
Previte’s memorial service. A dozen other law enforcement officials standing in
the back of the funeral parlor down in Hammonton, NJ, that night nodded and
smiled.
Nobody figured he would die
of natural causes.
Ronnie Previte lived life on
the edge and most people figured that he would die out there taking another
chance, trying to make one more score.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
Veteran organized crime
reporters George Anastasia and Dave Schratwieser (seen in the above photo) discuss mobster/informant Ron Previte (seen in the below photo), who recently died, with former FBI Special Agent John Terry in a recent video.
A Mob Talk Exclusive: The former head of Squad One, The FBI's elite
Organized Crime Unit in Philadelphia, breaks down the career of former cop,
turned Mobster, turned FBI informant Big Ron Previte. Previte just passed away at the age of 73,
but left his mark, putting away three Mob bosses and other Wiseguys.
You can watch the Mob Talk
video via the below link:
Note: If there were to be a film or TV series made based on The Last Gangster, I'd cast actor Vincent Pastore (seen in the below photo), who was "Big Pussey" in The Sopranos, as Ron Previte.
Veteran organized crime
reporter and author George Anastasia offers a piece at PhillyVoice.com on Ron
Previte, who died at 73.
Previte (seen in the above photo), a criminal who helped
the FBI convict numerous organized crime figures in Philadelphia and South
Jersey, was the subject of Anastasia’s true crime book, The Last Gangster.
Big Ron Previte, the
mobster-turned-government-witness whose cooperation brought down three crime
bosses and changed the face of the Philadelphia mob, died last week after
suffering a heart attack, according to family members and friends.
A former Philadelphia police
officer who once said he learned the most about how to be a criminal while
working as a cop, Previte was a larger-than-life figure who never tried to
sugarcoat who he was or what he had done.
Six-foot tall and sometimes
weighing 300 pounds, Previte (pronounced prev-i-tee) was an imposing and
intimidating figure, but he also was a shrewd and astute underworld
entrepreneur. He described himself as a "general practitioner of
crime" and admitted his involvement in almost every mob gambit...with the
exception of murder.
"If a guy owes me money
and I kill him, how am I gonna get paid?" he asked, explaining that
beatings, assaults and intimidation were part of his business, but murder was
not.
Born in Southwest
Philadelphia, Previte grew up in Hammonton, a South Jersey town that he loved.
He opted not to go into the Witness Security Program after testifying in a 2001
racketeering trial that led to the convictions of Joseph "Skinny
Joey" Merlino and six co-defendants. Instead, he remained in South Jersey.
"Where am I gonna
go?" he asked. "I like it here."
Previte wore a body wire for
more than a year, recording conversations for the FBI while helping to make
cases against Merlino and titular mob boss Ralph Natale. He often said wearing
that wire on a daily basis was the most exciting time of his life.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
Veteran organized crime reporter and author George Anastasia offers a piece at Bigtrial.net (with permission from Gangland News) on the closing of the Florida restaurant run by Joey Merlino, the reputed boss of the Philadelphia Cosa Nosa organized crime family.
If you picked up a snazzy Merlino's wineglass on your last trip to Boca, don't throw it away. It may soon be a collector's item. It looks like Joey Merlino is out of the restaurant business.
Reports from Boca Raton, where his posh, eponymous nightspot was located, indicate that the restaurant is closed and the property is for sale. In June, Skinny Joey denied a Miami Herald report that Merlino's had gone belly up. He insisted that his joint was shutting down for the summer season and would reopen in the fall.
Who knows? That may have been the plan. But that was before the racketeering indictment that snared him and 45 co-defendants for being part of what federal prosecutors have dubbed an East Coast LCN Enterprise.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
Note: George Anastasia mentions former mobster Ron Previte in the piece. You can read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of his book on Previte and Merlino, The Last Gangster, via the below link:
There is an old joke about how when mob guys used to discuss a "contract," they were talking about murder. Today a mob conversation about a contract probably means a book or movie deal.
Case in point: Andy Lewis at the Hollywood Reporter offers a piece on former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra mob boss Ralph Natale's book deal. (Natale is seen in the above center photo to the right of Ron Previte).
Ralph Natale, the boss of the Philadelphia Mob in the mid-90s, is set to tell his story with the help of producer Dan Pearson (I Married a Mobster) and New York Daily News investigative reporter Larry McShane.
Lost Lives and Forgotten Vows will be published by Thomas Dunne Books in Fall 2016.
Natale becomes only the second Mafia Godfather to tell his own life story, following New York’s Joe Bonanno. The book pitches “a behind-the-scenes master’s class on organized crime.”
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
You can also read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of George Anastasia's The Last Gangster, which is about Ron Previte, the FBI informant who took down Natale and other Phillly mob guys via the below link:
Bob Shryock at nj.com offers a piece on an award given to veteran organized crime reporter and author George Anastasia.
George Anastasia, who launched his career at this newspaper in 1969 when it was the Woodbury Daily Times and became an award-winning journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer and author of eight books about organized crime, has been selected as 2014 Italian-American Citizen of the Year by the Gloucester County Italian Heritage Commission.
The Pitman resident will be honored Wednesday, Oct. 22, 6 p.m. at the commission's annual "Night in Sicily" fund-raising event at Auletto's Caterers in Almonesson.
Organized in 2007, the commission promotes the study of Italian language in Gloucester County schools and fosters the traditions and art forms of the Italian culture. This event supports commission activities and student scholarships with dinner proceeds.
Widely considered one of the country's foremost experts on mob-related activities, Anastasia has been retired since 2012 but continues his passion as an author and freelance writer.
His eighth mob-related book, "Gotti's Rules," a graphic tale about the demise of the American Mafia, is scheduled for release in January 2015.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
I just watched an interesting program on youtube.com about Ron Previte, known by the South Philly Cosa Nostra organized crime family as "Big Ron."
After testifying against the mob guys for the FBI, Previte was called the "Fat Rat."
Previte, a former corrupt Philly cop turned mob member turned FBI informant, brought down three Philly mob bosses. Previte makes no bones about being a crook. Unapologetically, he said his life was "24 hours of crime."
You can watch the I.D. Investigation/Discovery Channel documentary via the below link:
Paul Davis is a writer who covers crime. He has written extensively about organized crime, cybercrime, street crime, white collar crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, the military, espionage and terrorism. His 'Crime Beat' column, which covers crime news, crime issues and crime prevention in South Philadelphia, appears weekly in the South Philly Review, and his 'On Crime' column, which covers crime in the Greater Philadelphia region, appears weekly at Philly Daily and Broad and Liberty. He is also a longtime contributor to Counterterrorism magazine and writes their online 'Threatcon' column, which covers crime, espionage and terrorism. Paul Davis' crime fiction appears in American Crime Magazine. His work has also appeared in the Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Weekly and other publications. As a writer, he has attended police academy training, gone out on patrol with police officers, accompanied detectives as they worked cases, accompanied narcotics officers on drug raids, observed criminal court proceedings, visited jails and prisons, and covered street riots, mob wars and murder investigations. He has interviewed police commissioners and chiefs, FBI, DEA, HSI and other federal special agents, prosecutors, judges, public officials, WWII UDT frogmen, Navy SEALs, Army Delta operators, Israeli commandos, military intelligence officers, Scotland Yard detectives, CIA officers, former KGB officers, film and TV actors, film writers, directors and producers, journalists, novelists and true crime authors, gamblers, outlaw bikers, and Cosa Nostra organized crime bosses. Paul Davis has been a student of crime since he was a 12-year-old aspiring writer growing up in South Philadelphia. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy when he was 17 in 1970. He served aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk during the Vietnam War and he later served two years aboard the Navy harbor tugboat U.S.S. Saugus at the U.S. floating nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland. He went on to become the civilian administrative officer of a Defense Department command in Philadelphia, where he oversaw security, safety and other programs for the command's military and civilian employees, and served as an investigating officer, while working part-time as a newspaper crime reporter and columnist. He retired in 2007 after more than 37 Navy/DOD years of service and became a full-time writer. From 1991 to 2005 he was a producer and on-air host of "Inside Government," a public affairs interview radio program that aired on Sunday mornings on WPEN AM and WMGK FM in the Philadelphia area. You can read Paul Davis' crime columns, crime fiction, book reviews and news and feature articles on this website. You can read his full bio by clicking on the above photo (by Brittany Davis-Pearson). And you can contact Paul Davis at pauldavisoncrime@aol.com.
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