My Washington Times On Crime Column On 'Little Vic And The Great Mafia War'

 The Washington Times ran my On Crime column on Larry McShane’s Little Vic and the Great Mafia War. 

You can read the column via the link below or the text below:

A look back at the Colombo 1990s gang war - Washington Times 

In 2013, I interviewed former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra underboss and cooperating government witness Philip “Crazy Phil” Leonetti.

 

He explained mobsters’ rationale for killing one another during mob wars.

“All the crimes I committed, like the murders I was involved in, were all against bad people, guys that were involved in our life, so I didn’t think anything of it,” Mr. Leonetti told me. “They were looking to kill us, and we were looking to kill them. We weren’t looking to kill no legitimate people.”

 

In Larry McShane’s “Little Vic and the Great Mafia War,” the author looks back at the New York Colombo Cosa Nostra organized crime family’s internecine war in the 1990s between the imprisoned Colombo boss, Carmine “the Snake” Persico and Victor “Little Vic” Orena, the acting Colombo boss.

 

I contacted Mr. McShane (seen in the bottom photo) and asked him why he wrote the book.

 

“Two things: It was the last of New York’s major mob wars, following the federal government’s takedown of the Five Families during the 1980s, particularly with the Commission trial (where Carmine Persico represented himself and wound up with a 100-year sentence),” Mr. MacShane replied. “And second, it was ultimately a war about nothing, two sides fighting for control of an enterprise on its last legs, a self-destructive conflict destined to end with no winners on either side. I found the pointlessness of the whole thing oddly compelling, akin to the last days of a dynasty.

 

How would you describe Vic Orena and Carmine Persico, and why did they go to war against each other?

 

“Both Orena and Persico were Colombo family veterans, with Little Vic a more low-key earner living in suburban Long Island and Persico a fearsome boss from Brooklyn who took the top seat two years after the infamous hit on his predecessor Joe Colombo in 1971. Oddly enough, the Orena and Colombo families were like family apart from the crime family, with two generations described by Vic’s son Andrew Orena as “as close as you can be in the life.” Michael Persico, son of Carmine, stood as godfather for John Orena’s son and was his partner in a legitimate business outside the mob. The interfamily dynamic was something I found compelling.”

 

How would you describe Gregory Scarpa, a hit man and an FBI informant, and how he was involved in the internecine conflict?

 

“One of a kind in the annals of organized crime. Greg Scarpa, aka “The Grim Reaper,” emerged as the deadliest fighter in the war, responsible with his crew for multiple murders. Colleagues recalled Scarpa as a cold-blooded figure who took great pleasure in his lethal work during the conflict. His support of the Persico side was a game-changer. Scarpa was a fearsome presence with a long history inside the Colombo family and was famously exposed as working for the FBI after the murders of three Civil Rights activists in 1964.”

 

Who also stood out to you as a combatant in the bloody Columbo war?

“Wild Bill” Cutolo was one of Vic Orena’s top guns and his most ardent backer. His failed hit on the Persico team’s deadliest acolyte kicked the war between the two sides into high gear. Cutolo, in the years after the war, eventually mended fences within the crime family  — and was killed on orders of Persico’s son Little Allie Boy.”

 

How many people were arrested during the conflict, and what was the death toll?

 

“On the Orena side, 61 arrests. On the Persico side, 60 arrests. The death toll was 12.”

Who came out on top in the conflict?

 

“This was absolutely a war with no winners. Vic Orena (still alive and behind bars) was locked up before the shooting ended. His sons Vic Jr. and John were both convicted and spent time in prison, with both now free and back in the legitimate world. Carmine Persico died in prison back in 2019; his successor son Allie Boy remains imprisoned for the murder of Cutolo.”

 

How were you able to secure interviews with two of Orena’s sons? And who else did you interview?

 

“I’d also covered New York City organized back in that era (I was on scene after the Paul Castellano hit outside Sparks Steakhouse) and then into the 1990s. The Orenas were introduced to me by a mutual friend, and they were incredibly helpful in revisiting the war. We would meet for coffee, and the brothers’ insights and accounts of the war were invaluable. No questions were out of bounds. Other interviews included Sammy Gravano, Michael Franzese, FBI agent Lin DeVecchio, former FBI Gambino Squad head Bruce Mouw, ex-federal prosecutor John Gleeson.”

 

• Paul Davis’ “On Crime” column covers true crime, crime fiction and thrillers.

• • •

Little Vic and the Great Mafia War
Larry McShane
Citadel, $29.00, 224 pages

My Crime Fiction: 'The Count And The Cook'

The below short story first appeared in American Crime Magazine in 2018: 

The Count and the Cook

 By Paul Davis

I carry my father’s Scot-Welch name and his blood proudly. I’m proud of my Italian blood as well.

I'm half-Italian – Sicilian, in fact. My mother’s maiden name was Guardino, and her parents came over to America from Sicily in the 1930s.  

I was reminded of this side of the family when I was contacted by a cousin that I remember only as a baby when I was a teenager. My cousin, Mike Guardino, read my newspaper crime columns online and sent me an email message.  

Like me, my cousin had served in the U.S. Navy. We emailed each other for a while and exchanged photos. I have little memory of him, but I recall clearly his father, my Uncle Sal, who was my mother’s brother. 

My uncle used to visit my house in the 1960s when I was a teenager. I recall a wiry guy of average height, with a rugged face and a strong voice. He and my father would sit at the kitchen table, drink beer and argue about World War II.  

My father had served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific as a chief petty officer and Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) frogman, and my uncle served in the U.S. Army in Europe as a rifleman. The two would share their war experiences and rib each other. Often the exchanges would get heated, but the nights always ended on a friendly note.  

My father died of cancer in 1976 and my uncle died of heart failure in 1988.

Mike emailed me and suggested we meet in person. He lived in South Jersey, not far from my South Philly home, so we met at Russo's bar in South Philly. Mike knew the owner and we were served great Italian sausage sandwiches and red wine.  

Mike said he felt like he knew me, as he was a regular reader of my crime column in the local newspaper. He also recalled his father speaking lovingly about his beautiful sister Claire, my mother. 

Originally from South Philadelphia, my cousin moved to South Jersey after getting out of the Navy. He told me that he was a New Jersey state trooper, having followed in the footsteps of his father, who had been a Philadelphia police officer.   

Like our late fathers, we swapped stories about our time in the military. I served on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War and afterwards on a Navy harbor tugboat at the nuclear submarine base in Holy Loch, Scotland. My cousin told me he served more than a decade later on a Navy Destroyer in the Mediterranean. I also discovered that like me, my cousin was an amateur boxer while in the Navy.   

We spoke eventually of Sicily, which we both visited while in the Navy. We both have fond memories of our time in Sicily. My cousin also told me of the time he visited Sicily as a young boy with his mother and father and his father’s friend and family.  

He could not recall the name of the town, which was near Palermo, nor could he remember the name of the seaside resort where they spent a wonderful week. But he did recall that the fine vacation was marred somewhat by an altercation with a powerful local man known as “The Count.”  

The Russo and Guardino families had a great first day at the resort. They eat fabulous Sicilian food, drank wine, basked in the warm sun, and swam in the ocean and the pool. 

Also at the resort was a large party of local men and their wives. The leader of this group was a man in his late 30s that everyone called “The Count.” He was darkly handsome, athletically fit and possessed a regal bearing. He gave all of the instructions to the resort staff and did most of the talking among the men. 

Mike Guardino, all of 10-years-old, first understood the expression “looking down one’s nose at someone,” as the man called the Count did indeed rear his head back and look down his nose at people.  

The man, Luigi Di Salvo, who was called Count Luigi, was the center of attention that first day, showing his prowess as a diver and swimmer as he leapt from the diving board and dove into the pool. He also showed his prowess as a fencer, as the resort had set up an area near the pool where Di Salvo and a friend matched fencing swords. Di Salvo won the match and his group of friends all applauded.   

At dinner that first night, Sal Guardino and his wife and small child sat with his friend, Angelo Russo, known as “Ange,” and his wife and young son. Russo owned and operated a small bar and grill in South Philadelphia. Russo, who came from a poor family, was proud of his success as a cook and bar owner.  

Russo was a big and heavy man with a large belly from eating his own food, and huge muscular arms and legs from the physical work he performed in the bar and grill.  

It was Russo’s idea that he and his good friend Sal Guardino visit the island where their two families had come from originally. The two men had visited the island once before, as they were both veterans of the Allied invasion of Sicily in World War II. Russo had been Guardino’s sergeant and as the two men both hailed from South Philly, they became good friends. 

Russo, thrilled to have returned to Sicily, ordered a local wine and gave a toast in Sicilian. 

At a table nearby, Di Salvo sat with his party. He heard the toast, and he called over the resort’s manager. Loudly in Sicilian, he upbraided the manager for allowing "fat, loud and ignorant American tourists" to sit near his table. The manager apologized and said he would arrange more appropriate sitting in the future.  

Young Mike Guardino did not understand what was said but he saw Russo’s face turn dark red and saw his powerful, big hands grip and twist his napkin. Sal Guardino, who didn’t understand Sicilian, didn’t know what was said, but he too saw Russo’s anger.  

Russo rose out of his chair and walked up to Di Salvo and shot him an angry look. 

“Meet me on the beach – now!” Russo said to Di Salvo in Sicilian. 

Di Salvo got up from his chair, slowly and disdainfully. He waved his arm, bidding Russo to go first. Sal Guardino told the wives and children to stay at the table and he would find out was happening.  

On the beach, Russo told Di Salvo that he heard his remark, and if his wife and family understood Sicilian they would have been insulted and humiliated. He then would have to do something.  

Di Salvo, surrounded by three men, laughed and said in perfect English, “Do what exactly?” 

Guardino stepped behind Russo and Di Salvo’s men looked at each other and backed up a bit. 

Mike Guardino had broken free from his mother’s grip and ran to the beach after his father. He watched the men face off against each other.  

“This conversation is over. I have nothing more to say to someone like you,” Di Salvo said, looking down his nose at Russo. He then simply walked away, his three men in tow. 

The manager ran up to Russo and Guardino and he looked as if he were going to cry. 

He pleaded with Russo to not make a scene. Russo countered by saying that the man had insulted him, his family and friends. The manager apologized for Count Luigi and said the resort was large enough to accommodate both parties - separately, but equal in service.  

The manager put his arm around Russo and said in a low voice that Count Luigi was not truly a count, but he had come home from the university showing airs. He was, however, truly the son of an important man in Palermo - "a Man of Honor." 

“Cosa Nostra?” Guardino, the South Philly cop, asked. “We got those guys where we come from as well.”  

The manager again pleaded for peace.  

“OK,” Russo said. “I can see that this guy is an athlete and I’m an old, fat guy now. But in my day, before the war, I was a professional boxer, and I can still throw a good combo. You tell the Count that.” 

The manger did not know that a “combo” was a combination of left and right punches, but he understood the idea. And he had no intention of telling Di Silva anything of the sort.  

But one of Di Silva’s men was standing nearby and he heard every word.                  

The next day Russo was getting drinks for his group at the poolside bar when one of Di Salvo’s men sided up to him.  

“The Count wishes to speak to you,” he said, pointing towards Di Salvo at a nearby table.  

“I’ll be right there,” Russo replied.  

Russo dropped the drinks off to his family and walked over to Di Salvo. Di Salvo rose and looked Russo up and down disdainfully.   

“I heard you threatened me with your boxing skills,” Di Salvo said. “Well, as it happens, boxing is among my skills as well. I boxed at university. If you were not a fat, old man, I would challenge you to a boxing match.”  

“Challenge accepted,” Russo said flatly. “I’ll take you in the first.” 

Di Salvo looked confused until one of his men explained that Russo meant that he would end the match in the first round in his favor. Di Salvo smiled and said they would meet on the beach that night. Lights and a boxing ring would be set up. He would make all of the arrangements with the resort manager. 

Later, as Russo nursed a drink with Guardino, the manager came up to him and asked if he was insane. 

“The Count is a world-class athlete, and you are old! The Count’s father, Don Antonio, is here,” the manager said, pointing surreptitiously to an elderly man sitting by himself at a table with a big man standing nearby. 

“Make the arrangements he ordered,” Russo said. “The fight is on.”  

The manager stormed off waving his arms and muttering. Russo walked back to his room. Guardino walked over to Don Antonio’s table. The big man moved in front of the table. 

"Get out of the way," Guardino told the man. 

The man at the table barked an order in Sicilian and the big man moved. 

Guardino sat down and faced the Sicilian Cosa Nostra organized crime boss. Guardino pulled out his wallet and slapped his police badge on the table.  

“I hope this will be a fair fight between your son and my friend,” Guardino said. 

 Don Antonio slowly sipped his coffee. He looked directly at Guardino.

“I do not fight my son’s battles. He is capable of fighting the foolish fights he himself begins, " Don Antonio said in English. “Frankly, I hope your friend knocks him on his ass, as you Americans say.”  

The two men laughed. 

 

Later that night, Russo and Guardino arranged for a car to take their wives and sons to a restaurant in Palermo, but Mike Guardino slipped away and hid behind a low wall near the beach to watch the fight. 

Lights were strung over a makeshift near-regulation boxing ring. Di Salvo came out in boxing gloves and a pair of shorts, his bare torso and arms thick with toned muscle. The large crowd cheered for him. 

Russo and Guardino walked towards the ring. Russo had on boxing gloves and was in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, which covered his protruding belly and showed his big arms. His bare legs were as thick as tree stumps.  

The fight began with Di Salvo delivering a series of solid blows to Russo’s face and middle. Although Russo’s left eye was closed, and his nose bloodied, he stood toe-to-toe with his younger opponent and traded punches.  

Then Russo delivered a good left to Di Salvo’s nose and a strong right hook to Di Salvo’s ear, which dropped him hard to the canvas. 

The crowd gasped, and some brave souls even cheered. Di Salvo got up quickly and showed that he was not injured. It appeared that only his pride was hurt. He rushed Russo and pounded him, but the old cook took the beating and stayed on his feet.  

Round two saw the two hit each other repeatedly and both were bloodied. Russo looked the worst of the two, as he had blood coming from his eyes, ears and nose. The referee the resort had hired tried to stop the fight.  

Russo would not have it. He waved Di Salvo on.  

Like Rocky Marciano, Russo’s boxing hero, Russo dropped his right hand low to the canvas and then brought it up swiftly where it connected under Di Salvo’s chin. Di Salvo collapsed on the canvas floor.  

The referee gave Di Salvo an “eight count” and then Di Salvo rose slowly to his feet. 

He came at Russo slowly, cautiously. Russo leaned on the ropes with his hands up. His left eye was closed, and his right eye was filled with blood, so he had trouble seeing Di Salvo. But when Di Salvo came in slugging, Russo wrapped his left arm around his opponent and drove his right hand repeatedly into Di Salvo’s middle.  

Di Salvo tried to break free as well as block the powerful blows to his body, but Russo had swung him around and pinned him against the ropes. Russo rained down punches into Di Salvo. The referee tried to break up the fighters, but he was not strong enough. 

Finally, Di Salvo collapsed in Russo’s grip and Russo let him drop to the canvas.             

 

The next day a much humbled and bruised Di Salvo walked up to Russo’s table and bowed to the two families assembled for lunch. He brought a bottle of fine wine and offered it to Russo. 

“My father suggested that I apologize for my rude behavior and congratulate you on your win in the boxing ring,” Di Salvo said. “As always, my father offers wise advice. I am truly sorry if my boorish behavior spoiled your vacation.”  

“Apology accepted,” Russo said gruffly. “Sit down and have a drink with us.”  

Di Salvo sat down. This time, Di Salvo offered a Sicilian toast.  

“If you and I recover sufficiently during your stay, I’d like to once again challenge you," Di Salvo said. "But not in the boxing ring!”  

Everyone at the table laughed.  

“We can set up targets here. How are you with guns?” Di Salvo asked Russo. “Can you shoot?”  

“Ask the Nazis he kicked off this island,” Guardino said.  

 © 2018 Paul Davis 

Note: You can read my other crime fiction stories via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction Stories 

My Crime Fiction: 'Murder By The Park'

 The below short story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine in 2021. 

"Murder By The Park" 

By Paul Davis 

“I’m a criminal,” the man at the bar said to me as a way of introduction. 

He said this as nonchalantly as if he stating he was a salesman or a lawyer. 

I was at the bar talking to an old friend from the old neighborhood in South Philadelphia when the 30ish, dark-haired, thin and short man approached me and asked if I wrote the crime column for the local newspaper. He said he recognized me from my column photo.   

I said yes. The man introduced himself and said he read my column on a recent murder by a nearby park. 

"The story was really good. Really interesting," the man said. 

I thanked him, he shook my hand, and he rejoined his friends at the other end of the bar. 

The column the man at the bar liked was about the murder of a drug dealer whose body had been discovered in a car parked next to the park at 13^th and Oregon Avenue. 

The story interested me as I grew up at 13^th and Oregon. Murders in that middle-class, predominantly Italian-American neighborhood were rare. And I played sports in that park as a teenager and, frankly, I did somewhat less wholesome things with girls in the park after dark. 

After the man walked away, my friend told me the man was Anthony “Tony Banana” Venditto, a local thug. My friend explained that he was called “Tony Banana,” as all of his friends described him as a banana, a South Philly euphemism for an insane person or a goof. 

I was later informed by a Philadelphia detective I knew that Venditto was the prime suspect in the murder of the drug dealer found next to the park. Small wonder that he found my column about the murder so interesting. 

The detective filled me in on the story of Venditto and the murder by the park.

 

Venditto was proud of being a criminal. His life-long goal was to be a “made man” in the Philadelphia-South Jersey Cosa Nostra crime family. But because he was, as his nickname indicated, a banana, he didn’t stand a chance. 

Venditto had a police record with multiple arrests and two convictions. He was convicted on two separate burglaries, and he was given parole on the first and served two years in Graterford State Prison for the second. He had been briefly married, but his wife divorced him while he was in prison. 

Venditto hung around a mob crew in the neighborhood, and they used him for assorted jobs, such as robbery and extortion. For Venditto, being an associate with the crew was the next best thing to being a made member of the local mob. 

The crew of gamblers, thieves and extortionists spent their usual days at a local bar, gossiping, bragging and scheming. The crew captain, Joseph “Big Joe” Farina, sat at a back table up against a wall and held court all day and some nights, as if he were a king. His crew would report in, hand over money, and linger as Farina, a large, overweight man with sparse gray hair, would sip Sambuca and impart his wisdom and wit to his fellow criminals. 

No one questioned his wisdom, and everyone laughed at his jokes and asides. 

The crew didn’t do much in the way of work. Mostly, they extorted money from other working criminals, such as bookmakers, drug dealers and burglary crews. The crooks paid their “street tax” to the crew as they figured it was the cost of doing business in South Philly. The crooks who didn’t pay had a visit from crew members, who wielded baseball bats or pointed guns. 

Farina waved over Venditto and Salvatore “Sonny” Grillo. Grillo was huge, muscular and tattooed. Standing next to the diminutive Venditto, he appeared even larger. 

“Did you see that drug guy about our money?” Farina asked Grillo. 

The man Farina referred to was John “Opie” Taylor, a South Philly drug dealer who resembled the child actor Ron Howard from the 1960s Andy Griffith TV show. Taylor was told on several occasions that he had to pay a “street tax” to Farina’s crew if he wanted to sell drugs or commit any crime in the neighborhood. 

“I sent him an email.” 

“You did what?” Farina said, slapping the table. 

“I sent him an email, telling him he better get right with us.” 

“Look at you, ya mamaluke. What’s the point of being a big ugly gorilla, when ya gonna send email messages to a guy we want to scare?” 

Grillo stood there, his head held low, and kept quiet. 

“When I was a soldier back in the 1960s we didn't send emails. We looked them in the eye,” Farina told Grillo and Venditto. “We were true gangsters and racketeers then. Now look at what I have to deal with,” Farina said, throwing his hands up in the air in disgust. 

“I’ll handle the guy, Skipper,” Venditto said. 

“Oh yeah? And how will a skinny banana like you do that?” 

“I’ll scare the shit out of him.” 

“All right. But take this mamaluke with you.” 

“Two stunods,” Farina said out loud as Grillo and Venditto left the bar.

 

Venditto and Grillo went to the variety store where Taylor worked. They walked in and told Taylor to come outside with them. Not wanting to cause a scene where he worked, Taylor walked out with the two. 

Venditto pulled a .38 Ruger hammerless revolver out of his jacket pocket and placed it up against Taylor’s side. 

“Where’s your car?” Venditto asked.  

Taylor pointed to the Toyota on the corner. Venditto told Taylor to give the keys to Grillo. 

“Get ina car,” Venditto told the drug dealer. 

Venditto shoved Taylor into the back seat and sat next to him with the gun between them. Grillo drove them to the park at 13^th and Oregon Avenue. Grillo parked the car next to the park on 13^th Street between Oregon Avenue and Johnson Street.  

“You gotta come up with our money,” Venditto told the visibly shaken drug dealer. “We own this city and if you want to make money from drugs, we got to get our tax.” 

“I ain’t making all that much money,” Taylor whined. “Why do you think I’m working in the store?” 

“Bullshit. You got a new car here. So pay up, motherfucker.” 

Taylor grabbed the door handle and attempted to get out and flee. Venditto grabbed his shirt and placed the gun against his chest. He shot Taylor and the drug dealer slid down on the seat. 

The gun blast inside the car deafened the two mobsters. Grillo held his ears in pain. A minute later he said, “What the fuck, Tony?”

“He had it coming. He was disrespectful.” 

Grillo wiped down the steering wheel and door handles with a hankie and the two criminals left the car next to the park with Taylor’s dead body inside. Venditto took off his blood-stained jacket and rolled it up in a ball. They walked the three blocks to the bar.

 

Venditto approached Farina’s table in the back of the bar. 

“I handled the drug guy, boss.” 

“Good. Did you get our money?” 

“No, he didn’t have no money. But I whacked him.” 

“You did what?” 

“He was disrespectful to us, so I shot him.” 

“Is he dead?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Then how the fuck are we supposed to get our money from him, ya fucking banana?” 

Venditto shrugged sheepishly and looked away.

 

A man walking his dog noticed the slumped corpse in the backseat of the parked car and called the police. A 3^rd District patrol officer responded. He looked into the backseat. With blood all over the seat and the floor of the car, he knew the man was dead. 

The officer called his sergeant. The sergeant rolled up and got out of the patrol car. He looked into the back seat and opened the car door. The awful smell of the corpse drove him to step backwards, and he shut the door quickly.

The sergeant called his lieutenant as three more patrol cars pulled up and parked. The lieutenant called South Detectives. 

Two detectives rolled up and stepped out of the car. They peered into the car but didn’t touch anything. One of the detectives interviewed the dog walker as the other detective called Homicide at Police headquarters. 

A crowd of onlookers stood on the sidewalk and gawked and spoke among themselves. 

The uniformed officers tried to stop the onlookers from getting too close to the car and the two detectives walked among the gathered people, asking if they heard or saw anything. 

A half hour later, Detectives Angelo Marino and Charles Magee rolled up and took charge of the investigation. 

The two were veteran homicide detectives and worked as partners for the past five years. Both detectives were in their mid-40s. Marino was a South Philly Italian American. He was a six-footer and well-built former soldier who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq. 

Magee, a Black cop from North Philly, had a squat and solid figure and was of average height. Like Marino, he was a veteran, having served as a Marine in Afghanistan. Both detectives had seen scores of dead bodies and much blood, both overseas and in Philadelphia.

The two detectives watched as the forensics team rolled up, unloaded their gear, and began to examine the crime scene. 

“I live about six blocks from here,” Marino said to Magee. “We don’t see many murders in this neighborhood.” 

“Mob hit?” Magee asked Marino.

“Could be.”

When the forensics team finished, Marino and Magee looked for a wallet on the corpse. The found a wallet in his back pocket and they looked at the name on the driver’s license. Neither detective knew John Taylor. 

Marino and Magee added the Taylor murder to their already overloaded case load. 

 

The forensics report came in and established that fingerprints lifted from the car matched the fingerprints of both Grillo and Venditto, despite Grillo’s wiping down the wheel and door handles with a hankie. 

Marino and Magee ventured out and arrested Grillo and Venditto. 

In police custody, Venditto sat still and said nothing to the detectives. With a smirk on his face, he refused to answer their questions. He also refused to respond to the detectives’ claims they had him dead to rights with fingerprints and witnesses from the variety store who can testify that Grillo and Venditto walked Taylor out of the store and placed him in his car. 

Venditto, acting like a tough guy, sat back and smiled. 

"I want a lawyer," Venditto told the detectives. 

The detectives then laid out their case to Grillo in another room. Grillo sobbed and beat the table with his huge hands.

“I don’t wanna go to prison,” Grillo said. “I can’t do hard time.”  

“Tell us what went down,” Magee said. “And maybe we can help you.” 

So Grillo gave up Venditto.   

Venditto pled guilty on advice of counsel. He was sentenced and shipped off to prison.

Venditto, the man who introduced himself to me as a criminal, said he liked my column on the murder by the park.  

I don’t know what he thought about my follow-up column, which covered his arrest and imprisonment.

© 2021 Paul Davis 

'Super Mafia' Fears As 'Leading Figures From Italy's Three Most Powerful Mobs' - 'Ndrangheta, Camorra And Cosa Nostra - Are 'Seen Sharing A Meal Of Wine And Pasta Together'

Jonathan Guildford at the British newspaper The Daily Mail reports that leaders from the three largest organized crime groups in Italy broke bread together. 

There are fears Italy's three most powerful mafia groups may formed a formidable alliance after images emerge of leading figures sharing a meal together.   

Senior members from the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate based in the peninsular region of Calabria. the Camorra of Naples and Cosa Nostra, which is based in Sicily, were allegedly caught on camera sharing a meal of pasta and wine together in a garden in April 2021.     

The meeting was reportedly one of many that police had under surveillance with prosecutors warning the emergence of a grand crime coalition in the affluent

'This is Milan,' one alleged Camorra mafia don was heard saying to an ally. 'We're not in Sicily, we're not in Rome, we're not in Naples, this is where we're doing the good stuff,' according to a Telegraph report. 

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

'Super mafia' fears as 'leading figures from Italy's three most powerful mobs' - 'Ndrangheta, Camorra and Cosa Nostra - are 'seen sharing a meal of wine and pasta together' | Daily Mail Online 

My Washington Times On Crime Column On The Italian Squad, Part Two

The Washington Times published part two of my On Crime column on Paul Moses’ The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia. 

You can read the column via the below link or the below text:

BOOK REVIEW: 'The Italian Squad,' part two - Washington Times

 

As I noted in part one of my coverage of Paul Moses’ “The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia,” I’m half Italian, and I grew up in South Philadelphia’s Little Italy.

 

I knew many future Cosa Nostra members as a kid. As a writer, I’ve interviewed many Cosa Nostra members, including Philip Leonetti, the former underboss of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family who became a cooperating government witness; Ralph Natale, the former boss of that crime family who became a cooperating government witness; and Michael Franzese, a former New York Colombo Cosa Nostra crime family captain who walked away from the criminal life and became a Christian public speaker and author.

 

I also know many Italian police officers.

 

So with my background, I was interested in “The Italian Squad.” I contacted Mr. Moses (seen in the below photo) and asked him who the most interesting and prominent Italian Squad members were.

 

“After Joseph Petrosino, three of the detectives he’d worked closely with took center stage at various times. All three — [Anthony] Vachris, Lt. Charles Corrao and Sgt. Michael Fiaschetti — were nationally celebrated sleuths. Vachris (seen in the above photo) completed the mission Petrosino was on in Italy when he was murdered.

“He was an impressive commander, but throughout his career he ran into political obstacles. A commissioner transferred him to patrol in far-off City Island in the Bronx — a four-hour commute from his home in Brooklyn — in retribution for speaking up. Corrao was the first recipient of the NYPD’s highest award, the Medal of Honor; he snuffed out a bomb’s burning fuse in a tenement. Fiaschetti was a national celebrity for, among other cases, using his sources in New York to help convict the killers of four police officers in Akron, Ohio.”

 

Was the Black Hand in America affiliated with the Cosa Nostra in Sicily?

 

“No. The first thing to know about the Black Hand was that it wasn’t a single organization, but rather a brand name that different groups of thugs used, aware that drawing a black hand on a blackmail letter would terrify the recipient. The Italian Squad detectives often made that point to reporters, but it didn’t sink in.

“There was one gang with ties to the Mafia in Sicily, however. Ignazio Lupo and Giuseppe Morello, brothers-in-law who both fled from criminal charges in Sicily, were the leaders. The evidence indicates they were probably responsible for the murder of Petrosino in Sicily, working with a leading Sicilian mafioso. No one was convicted of the murder, but the Secret Service sent Lupo and Morello to prison for counterfeiting.”

 

Did the Italian Squad make a difference in New York?

 

“It made a big difference for the many people who found a unit of savvy detectives willing to take them and their crime problems seriously. It helped to break up some serious gangs that were starting to grow into multi-tasking criminal enterprises, but ultimately, the Italian Squad wasn’t able to stop the rise of an American Mafia. It was shut down in 1922, just when needed most: Thanks to Prohibition, the gangs were becoming rich and powerful.”

 

Why was the Italian Squad disbanded?

 

“One reason was that leaders of the Italian community, who’d initially wanted the squad when it was created in 1904, began to push back against having an ‘Italian’ squad. After all, there were major gangs from other ethnicities, but no specific squads for them. Another reason is that it lost all sponsors in the internal police politics.”

 

Like me, you are part Italian. What was the most surprising thing you discovered about immigrant Italians in your research?

 

“Yes, my ancestry is Italian on my mother’s side. My grandfather was from Cerasi, a village in the Aspromonte mountains in Calabria, and my grandmother from Laurenzana, a town in Basilicata. (Both died before I was born.) Writing this book further heightened my appreciation for what they went through to establish themselves in America; they lived on Mott Street, right in the middle of many of the crimes I describe.

 

“From researching this book and the previous one on the Irish and Italians, I was surprised to see just how much Italian immigrants were despised. I knew, of course, that it was difficult for them, but saw that under eugenic theory that was widely accepted at the time, they were viewed as if inherently unfit to be Americans. It’s humbling, but I also came to appreciate the innate sense of dignity those Italian immigrants had. Through their focus on the family and willingness to work hard, they rose above it.”

 

Readers interested in history and a good crime story will enjoy “The Italian Squad.”

 

 Paul Davis’ On Crime column covers true crime, crime fiction and thrillers.

You can read part one of my On Crime column on The Italian Squad via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Washington Times On Crime Column On 'The Italian Squad: The True Story Of The Immigrant Cops Who Fought The Rise Of The Mafia,' Part One