As far as career paths go, joining the Mafia is a pretty risky one. There is no set wage, no 401k, as well as the looming threat of incarceration. And, as Colombo crime family associate Walter Samperi discovered the hard way, there's no health insurance either. The Italian-born Samperi stood at over two metres tall, making him a useful enforcer for powerful Colombo family figures like Teddy Persico Jr. and Tommy Gioeli. But for all his physical might, Samperi was powerless to retaliate when he was stabbed not once, but twice, in two separate incidents by a fellow Colombo associate and then, years later, by a Gambino. On neither occasion did Samperi get any sort of retribution, according to tape-recordings made in 2009 and 2010 by FBI informants.

As the rest of New York is in self-isolation, three alleged wiseguys indicted last year are having a rough-time in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center. In various court motions, wiseguys Joseph Amato, 61, Thomas Scorcia, 52, and Daniel Capaldo, 55, have been pushing for their release before they are slated to go to trial on racketeering and loansharking charges. Time is of the essence, their lawyers say, as the three alleged racketeers all have a myriad of health problems which puts them at a high-risk of contracting the COVID-19 in the “petri dish” conditions of the understaffed and underfunded federal prison.

This is the final part of our trilogy series about 60-year-old Colombo crime family captain Joseph Amato, and his Staten Island-based crew of mobsters and associates. In the latter half of 2019, prosecutors started compiling their indictments and unsealed search warrants on the Amato crew. In the wake of October 2019’s damning federal indictments, the future of the crew is unknown.

February 17, 2020.

The Godfather of Staten Island is a three-part series covering the rise-and-fall of the most powerful Colombo mobster in Staten Island, 60-year-old Joseph Amato, and the nine-month FBI investigation into him, his son, and his soldiers. Three wiretaps placed over the course of the investigation revealed an inside glimpse into Staten Island’s modern-day Mafia subculture, the day-to-day life of a large-scale loanshark, and the generational divides between the old-school mobsters of the 20th Century to the up-and-coming hoodlums of today.

February 6, 2020.

This month, a longtime Bensonhurst mobster was released from prison after spending just over a year behind bars. Ilario "Fat Larry" Sessa, who tips the scales at over 400 pounds, was charged back in July of 2018 with violating the conditions of his parole. In court, he promised that he was trying to go "legit" after he was previously sprung from prison in 2017, having served six years behind bars for racketeering and loansharking.

September 27, 2019.

Long Island's best-kept culinary secret is finally catching on. Over the past decade, the grandma-style pizza - square, thin, and crispy - has surged in popularity among foodie circles. But what most pizza fanatics don’t know is that the man credited with originating the grandma-slice, Long Island restaurateur Angelo Giangrande, has a less than reputable background. In 2008, a federal racketeering indictment revealed Giangrande’s dual career as a longtime associate of the Colombo crime family who used his underworld clout in his restaurant ventures, muscling his way to the top of Long Island’s pizzeria scene through extortion and bullying.

December 7, 2010, was supposed to be a sacred date for the Colombo crime family. It was on that Tuesday that New York's smallest crime clan was scheduled to hold a ceremony to induct four new members into its ranks. Unfortunately for the proposed associates, the FBI had a cooperating witness with an eye-witness view to the whole affair. In this in-depth look at the new members bolstering the New York Mafia’s beleaguered ranks, we will introduce all four of the proposed inductees, and discuss how the planned ceremony came crashing down.

"Street" Boss
2010-2011

"Street" Boss
2008-2009

Acting Boss
2003-2008

DOB - 1934 (Aged 85)
Current Status - Incarcerated from 2011-2013 for extortion, currently residing in Old Brookville, Long Island.
When Ralph F. DeLeo, the Colombo family’s Massachussetts-based street-boss, was arrested and embarrassingly caught on tape discussing crime family inductions with his sister, the Persico regime went back to their old guard in New York. There was nobody more suited to the task than Andrew "Andy Mush" Russo, who is believed to have helped run the family in the 1980s and 1990s on behalf of his first cousin, the longtime family boss Carmine "Junior" Persico. Andy Mush’s job was to officially unify the family by bringing in the last of the Orena faction holdouts, and to bolster the family’s ranks after years of attrition. He was doing everything right, as far as mobsters went, but was doomed from the start once another Long Island Colombo powerhouse, Paul "Paulie Guns" Bevacqua, agreed to wear a wire for the FBI. Part of Andrew Russo’s reunification strategy was to hold regular "captain’s meetings" to iron out disputes and discuss family policy. Bevacqua recorded each of the those meetings for the feds, giving the FBI an unprecedented look into the top-level affairs of the Colombo mob.

DOB - 1944 (Aged 76)
Current Status - Imprisoned at Lexington FCI: Scheduled for release on October 2, 2025.
Ralph DeLeo’s bizarre promotion to "street boss" in late 2008 was a kneejerk move in the wake of an indictment against both the longtime acting boss and underboss. From behind bars, Allie Persico - the prince of the ruling Persico regime - handpicked DeLeo, an elderly Massachusetts bank robber, to move up from the position of "soldier" to "street boss" practically overnight. DeLeo wasn’t versed on the ins-and-outs of New York’s underworld, and his reign didn’t last long - only weeks into his tenure as street boss, he was wiretapped over his cellphone coordinating cross-country drug-deals.

DOB - 1952 (Aged 67)
Current Status - Imprisoned at Danbury FCI: Scheduled for release on September 9, 2024.
Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioeli was one of the few victors in the Colombo family’s 1991-93 civil war, after crippling indictments and defections across the organization created power vacuums for him to fill. His Long Island-based crew were the main hitmen for the ruling Persico regime during the 1990s, but he never flaunted his status in the underworld, and he wasn’t a fixture at Mafia social clubs and hangouts. His murderous reputation ironically made him somewhat of a calming presence when he elevated to acting boss in 2003, and he helped patch up longstanding disputes with the holdouts from the old 1990s rebel faction that almost toppled the Persico regime. In 2008, FBI agent Scott Curtis was ultimately able to convince several of his longtime underlings, many of whom Tommy had schooled since their teens, to join Team America and testify about murders they had committed years prior, allegedly on Gioeli’s orders.