My father was the mafia hitman who killed Jimmy Hoffa

My father was the mafia hitman who killed Jimmy Hoffa. Robert De Niro is about to bring the extraordinary story of Frank Sheeran - The Irishman - to the big ...

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Mario Rainone linked to rash of residential crimes

Mobster Mario Rainone has crossed both sides of the law enough times, it is a wonder his legs aren't permanently tangled.

After a spasmodic career as both a criminal and a government witness, Mr. Rainone, 54, is once again sitting in jail. This time Rainone is in the Lake County lock-up on one count of residential burglary and on an outstanding retail theft warrant from South Barrington.
For years, the beefy hoodlum was considered a prime "go-to" guy for the Chicago Outfit's Rainone thanks Chuck Goudie
In the 1980's, when Mob bosses needed a job handled quickly and efficiently, Rainone was often enlisted

He was especially adept at collecting unpaid debts, whether as a result of Mob juice loans or illegal gambling debts.

Among the legends of Mario Rainone is the time he informed a shakedown target that his family would pay if he didn't. The old man asked Rainone exactly what he meant. Rainone told the elderly extortion victim that if the debt wasn't handed over, he would kill his children and plant their heads in his front yard. The man settled up.

Rainone quit Organized Crime in late 1989, when he was deployed to murder a wayward mobster. As he prepared to take up a position for the hit, Rainone realized that he was actually the intended target. Rather than waiting to be whacked, Rainone escaped to his truck and sped away. He went straight to the FBI in Chicago and spilled his story. Agents convinced him that he could only help himself by wearing a wire and working undercover against his one-time Mob bosses.

Rainone got a couple of wise-guys on tape but his cooperation was short-lived. He stopped helping the FBI in November, 1989 when a his mother's front stoop was blown up.
The message-bombing freaked Rainone, who felt it was better that he spend a stretch in prison rather than his mother end up in pieces on her porch.

So he gave up witness protection and in 1992 pleaded guilty to extortion and racketeering. He was sentenced to nearly 18 years and released in 2006.
Rainone, last known to reside in Bloomingdale, was arrested on Friday by Lincolnshire police and charged with the Feb 12 burglary of a home in the Trafalgar square subdivision. Also charged as an accomplice was Vincent T. Forliano, 39, of Addison.

Both men are being held on $500,000 bond. Rainone is schedule to appear in Lake County Court Tuesday at 9am. Forliano is due in court on Friday at 9am. The duo has been under investigation by several northwest suburban police departments in connection with a string of home invasions.

Other than the alleged burglary business, the connect between Rainone and Forliano is not known. Mobwatchers say if the accused break-in artists were not paying a kick-back to the Outfit, known as "tribute" or "street-tax," Rainone could once again find himself on short hit-list.

'Gomorrah' is gripping and powerful

The bleakly violent, true-life-based "Gomorrah" isn't your

father's crime saga "Gomorrah

Gomorrah" is a fictionalized adaptation of an Italian crime exposé, but it plays like an angry cinema vérité document of mob life.
Roberto Saviano's riveting bestseller tore the lid off Naples' murderous Camorra crime family, the cousin of Sicily's Cosa Nostra. It was quite a piece of journalism -- unglamorous, viciously unsentimental, and now the author lives under 24-hour police protection. In the hard-boiled film version, professional actors mingle with local kids and actual Camorra thugs, several of whom have since been arrested for crimes like those they perform onscreen. To say the film has an aura of authenticity is understating it. It's gripping, occasionally terrifying, but unlikely to be anyone's favorite movie. Is there such a thing as too real?
Writer/director Matteo Garrone's film records daily life under a brutal crime regime as dispassionately as an X-ray revealing cancer. This is a "slice of life" movie made of raw, impressionistic scenes, not a plot. Garrone throws us into the thick of things without a road map, insisting that we stay alert, connect the dots, work things out for ourselves, sink or swim.
The film opens in a surreal blue glow as a few Camorristi bake at a tanning salon. They're shockingly shot dead in a twist on the old gangster-film barbershop rub-out. The who and why of the scene matters less than the brutally realistic depiction of the murders. Mob wars have been going on for generations; this is just today's tally. "Gomorrah's" body count is high, but the killings never feel routine. Each death comes as a moment of horror with huge emotional impact.
The story is a constant, bloody struggle for money and power set in a prison-like housing project, scrubby public parks and garment industry sweatshops. Here we encounter a half-dozen men trying to get into the mob, survive it or escape it. Marco and Ciro are loose cannons with a taste for chaos who wave guns, shout Al Pacino's lines from "Scarface," and stage impulsive robberies. Don Ciro, a Camorra bag man, doles out payoffs to families of jailed Mafiosi, a once-routine clerking job growing increasingly dangerous. University student Roberto becomes a junior executive, applying his chemical training with a mob toxic-waste subsidiary that is poisoning his hometown. Pasquale, a master tailor for mob-controlled couture clothing factories, risks his life by secretly teaching workers in a Chinese competitor's facility. Toto, a grocery delivery boy from the projects, takes up drug dealing as unselfconsciously as is it were skateboarding. The characters' stories don't intersect, and the episodic narrative allows little character development, but the film evokes a panorama of greed and betrayal.
The Italy we see looks like a Third World viper pit at worst, drab and banal at best. Travel-poster vistas appear only in a brief scene when Roberto accompanies a smoothly tailored Camorra businessman to Venice for a corrupt poison-control deal. "We'll be traveling a lot," the older man says, a tossoff remark that reverberates with menace.
Garrone's world view is dark and disconcerting, but not hopeless. Several characters move away from lives of mob control. Others die, soon to be replaced by eager new opportunists. "Gomorrah" is stark and powerful filmmaking, a welcome alternative to romanticized American mob melodramas.

WILLIE BOY JOHNSON MOBSTER

Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson (September 29, 1935 – August 29, 1988) was a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant from 1969 to 1985. He provided the FBI with information relating to John Gotti and other members of the Gambino family. He was a friend of Gambino crime boss John Gotti even though he was informing on him.

Johnson was born in Canarsie, Brooklyn, one of five children of a Algonquian-speaking Native American father John Johnson who was a descendant of the 17th century tribe known as the Lenape from The Narrows of Staten Island and an Italian-American mother. His Indian father was estranged from their Staten Island Indian reservation and settled in Red Hook, Brooklyn where Wilfred Johnson was raised with his brothers and sisters. His father's ancestors were involved with the Dutch in the fur trade, specifically beaver pelts for European-made goods.

He was known on the streets as "Indian". Johnson's father, John Johnson, was an abusive alcoholic who frequently beat his wife and children. Johnson's father often spent his entire paycheck on alcohol. Johnson's mother would periodically desert her husband and children, only to return later. This dysfunctional and vicious childhood helped mold Johnson into a criminal. He was referred to as a "half breed" in reference to his mixed Italian-Iroquois heritage and Cher's song "Half Breed".Johnson's criminal career began when he was only nine years old; he was arrested for stealing money out of a Helen's Candy Store cash register, a Murder Inc. mob hangout. Johnson's school life was quite traumatic as well. The boy had a hair-trigger temper that frequently got him into trouble. At age 12, Johnson either fell or was pushed off the school roof during a fight. As a result of this accident, Johnson sustained head injuries that would plague him with persistent headaches for the rest of his life.

As a young man, Johnson was 6'6" and weighed close to 300 pounds and had extremely large hands. This led him to become a Mafia enforcer. By 1949, he was running a gang of thugs in East New York who strong armed debtors into paying their mob debts. In 1957, Johnson met John Gotti for the first time. Gotti was a 17 year-old high-school drop-out and Johnson was a street thug perpetually in trouble with the law.When Gotti joined the Gambino family, Johnson came with him. Johnson became known as the "terminator" because of his skill with strong-arm work. Requiring a steady income, Johnson was given a modestly-successful gambling operation. Because Johnson was only half-Italian from the wrong side of the family, he could never become a made man. However, he brought in money as well as anyone else in the family. Johnson married an Italian woman and never had a mistress. In Johnson's mind, he was part of the family. willie boy Johnson

In the late 1960s, Johnson the loyal soldier would turn against his crime family. It started in 1966, when Johnson was imprisoned for armed robbery. His Caporegime, Carmine Fatico, vowed to financially support Johnson's wife and two infant children. However, Fatico soon broke this promise. Johnson's wife, who was to remain loyal to him throughout all his prison terms, was forced to go on welfare. Johnson felt the mob was not living up to its obligations. Almost always, Wilfred did not volunteer information, but would answer direct questions asked by law enforcement officials. His FBI handler Special Agent Martin Boland would submit questions from various organized crime squads inside the FBI and the DEA. In 1967 during an FBI interview, someone spotted Johnson's apparent dissatisfaction with the mob. After his release from prison, the FBI approached him about becoming an informant. Reluctant at first, Johnson finally agreed to talk in return for the government dropping some counterfeiting charges. Johnson also wanted to pay back the Gambinos for their dishonesty. In 1978 Johnson informed Boland about the whereabouts of Lucchese crime family capo Paul Vario's hijacking headquarters which at the time was operating out of a scrapyard owned by Clyde Brooks. Although he was an informant, Wilfred customarily was careful about discussing his friend John Gotti. Johnson had a curious relationship with Gotti, at one point remarking to Boland, "Sometimes I love him, and sometimes I hate him." He did not provide much elaboration except for occasional hints, among them complaints about Gotti's gambling addiction, which often involved, he said, bets of up to $100,000 a week. Some of that action, Johnson complained would be laid off at his modest bookmaking operation, forcing Johnson to absorb the loss. On other occasions, Johnson would say bitterly about Gotti, "You know, he wears these expensive suits now, but he's still a lot of bullshit; he's still a mutt. Don't be fooled by that smooth exterior." Underlying Johnson's bitterness was apparent resentment over his continuing lowly status in the crew of Carmine Fatico, a seemingly state of permanent inferiority, despite all his loyal service. He resented how Fatico and Gotti always treated him like a peon: "They still see me as a gofer and make me handle swag." Except for one hundred dollars John once borrowed from Boland as an "emergency personal loan" which was promptly paid back, Boland declining an offer of "vig" on it, Wilfred did not receive a dime from the FBI. Although he did make some profit, his information solved a number of major hijackings for the FBI, and in cases where insurance companies offered large rewards for recovery of stolen goods, the FBI provided confidential affidavits attesting that Johnson was directly responsible fr recovery of hijacked goods. Johnson collected the rewards, in one case thirty thousand dollars for recovery of a large shipment. As an informant, Johnson did not seek, as many do, intervention by the FBI to get criminal charges reduced or drop

During his 16 years as an informant, Johnson provided information on all the different New York Mafia crews that he worked on and the FBI used that information to make many arrests. However, as his FBI "handler," Special Agent Martin Boland noticed, Johnson refused to discuss his background or childhood in any detail.One of the most significant pieces of information provided by Johnson was how The Vario Crew was avoiding FBI wire taps and bugs. The crew was using a parked trailer in a junkyard owned by Paul Vario in Brooklyn.Johnson provided the FBI with information on a large-scale narcotics ring, run by John Gotti and others, called the "Pleasant Avenue Connection." He revealed that Gotti and Angelo Ruggerio had murdered Florida mobster Anthony Plate. Johnson also had details on the murder of James McBratney, the man who kidnapped Emanuel Gambino.

In 1985, Johnson's career as an informant came to an abrupt end. In a public hearing that year, Federal prosecutor, Diane Giacalone inadvertently revealed that Johnson was working for the FBI. Johnson's FBI handlers tried to convince him to enter the Witness Protection Program, but for some reason he refused.On August 29, 1988, Bonanno family hit men, Thomas Pitera ("Tommy Karate") and Vincent "Kojak" Giattino ambushed Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson as he walked to his car and shot him to death. the gunmen fired 19 rounds at him. Johnson was hit once in each thigh, twice in the back, and at least six times in the head. The hit team then dropped jack-like spikes on the street to prevent the possibility of pursuit. Pitera had done this as a favor to Gotti.In 1992, Thomas Pitera and Vincent Giattino were indicted and tried for the murder of Johnson. Giattino was found guilty. Pitera, suspected in as many as 30 killings, was acquitted, but was later convicted of six other murders.

Memo to Mobsters: Don't "Adopt" Anyone - He May Turn Out to be a Rat

John A. (Junior) Gotti learned that the hard way with "adopted" son Lewis Kasman, who taped Gotti family meetings for the feds.Reputed killer Charles Carneglia is about to get a taste of the same medicine with "adopted" kid brother Kevin McMahon.Both mob turncoats are to testify in Carneglia's ongoing murder trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.Kasman, a former Long Island garment exec who wormed his way into Gotti's inner circle and called himself the adopted son of the late Gambino crime boss, wasn't close to Carneglia.McMahon was as close as you can get without being a relative. "When Kevin walks into that courtroom I would expect Charles will want to jump over the table and strangle him," a law enforcement official said.McMahon was not only a member of Carneglia's crime crew, he was like a member of the Carneglia family.In 1980, McMahon was a 12-year-old Irish kid from Howard Beach "at the beginning of his long and extraordinarily close relationship" with Charles Carneglia and his brother John, court papers show. McMahon is 20 years younger than Charles, 62, and John, 64.On a fateful day in March, McMahon lent his minibike to mob scion Frank Gotti who was accidentally hit and killed by neighbor John Favara as he drove home from work. Favara was slain on Gotti's orders and, prosecutors say, Charles Carneglia dissolved his body in a barrel of acid.Before the incident, McMahon had been "informally adopted" by John and Charles Carneglia. Charles Carneglia promised to protect the lad from retaliation for his role in Frankie's death.McMahon was treated as a member of the Carneglia family, living with them for long stretches, attending family dinners and going on Carneglia family vacations, Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Burlingame said.Former capo Michael DiLeonardo has testified that McMahon was a "goofy kid" who taunted FBI agents, running up to them and grabbing his crotch.McMahon had jobs with Local 638 steamfitters union and Local 52 motion pictures mechanics union, but those paid only $40,000 a year, chump change for a wanna-be Gambino associate with an ailing wife and two kids.Prosecutors say he and Carneglia took part in extortions, art fraud and robberies, including the stickup of an armored car at Kennedy Airport in 1990 in which guard Jose Rivera Delgado was shot to death. McMahon dropped a baseball cap at the scene. DNA tests linked him to a strand of hair in the hat.Shortly after he was arrested in 2005 on an indictment charging him with racketeering for the Gambinos in Tampa, McMahon sent a "thank you" letter to Brooklyn Magistrate Robert Levy for releasing him on bail."As I was leaving the courtroom you said to me, 'Don't let me down.' I assure you I have not," he wrote. "As soon as I'm acquitted I'll write you again."McMahon turned on his adoptive mob family after he was convicted and faced 20 years behind bars. He is cooperating in hopes of winning a lesser prison term.Thanks to John Marzulli

Jimmy Hoffa hit

Americans' fascination with the Mafia has produced a slew of best-selling stories, from "The Godfather" to "The Sopranos." Behind these riveting tales of crime, murder and corruption are writers who sought out true stories.
As a trial attorney with a knack for cross-examination and interrogation techniques, part-time Ketchum resident Charles Brandt embarked on a career as a true-crime writer. Brandt's works reveal the activities of the nation's most notorious crime families, and include the long-unsolved mystery behind the murder of Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa.
"They helped elect a president and kill a president," Brandt said. "I didn't intend to write about the Mafia, that's how it worked out."
In a free talk, "Writing About the Mafia," at the Community Library in Ketchum tonight, Nov. 12, at 6 p.m. Brandt will discuss his work and experiences.
Brandt gained the trust and respect of Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, who confessed to Brandt about his mob hits, which included Jimmy Hoffa. "I Heard You Paint Houses" is a result of Brandt's five years of recorded interviews with Sheeran and will become a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro.
"Confession is a basic human need," Brandt said. "Sheeran wanted to tell his side of the story."
Brandt is working on another book about an FBI agent framed by the Colombo crime family.
Mr. Brandt wrote a fascinating and great book in "I Heard You Paint Houses" which is extremely important to understanding the latter half of the 20th century. A must read...

"I Hear You Paint Houses" finally reveals how James Hoffa died and what became of his body. Thanks to Charlie Brandt we can all stop sneaking into the Meadowlands in the middle of the night and digging for him.

Mob killer Calabrese in solitary for threats

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December 3, 2008
BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter/swarmbir@suntimes.com
Mob killer Frank Calabrese Sr., who once threatened in open court to kill a prosecutor, has been placed under tough lockdown measures usually reserved for terrorists at the Metropolitan Correctional Center after allegedly threatening again to kill the same prosecutor, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Calabrese Sr., 74, has been placed in solitary confinement since last month and is extremely limited in whom he can talk to, in an apparent attempt by the feds to stop him from communicating any orders for outsiders to carry out.
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Frank Calabrese Sr. is awaiting sentencing on his conviction in last year's Family Secrets trial. He was placed under lockdown at the prison after allegedly threatening to kill a prosecutor.
RELATED STORIESThe Outfit on trial: Updates from our blog
He can only be visited by three immediate family members and cannot speak with fellow prisoners. His defense attorney, Joseph “The Shark” Lopez, said he was turned away from visiting Calabrese Sr. Tuesday even though Lopez signed a form swearing he will not pass on any communications.
“If he has hemorrhoids, I can’t tell his wife,” Lopez said.
The U.S. attorney’s office had no comment on the restrictions, described as special administrative measures. White supremacist Matt Hale, who plotted to murder a federal judge, was under similar restrictions five years ago.
In last year’s Family Secrets trial, Calabrese Sr. was found to have committed seven mob hits. During prosecutor Markus Funk’s closing argument, he threatened that Funk was a “f------ dead man.”
He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 11 and faces life behind bars.

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From Wigderson Library &Times.