By Katherine Q. Seelye The New York Times From an early age, Catherine Elizabeth Greig knew the life of a moll. By about 20, she had married a Boston firefighter named Bobby McGonagle, joining a family with close ties to a gang that was part of the Irish mafia in their South Boston neighborhood. Violence…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The headline on the website Gang Land News says it all: “Red Hot NY Lawyer Tacopina Gets Big Chill From Wiseguys.” The headline was in reference to hotshot lawyer Joseph Tacopina, who was once the go-to guy for a lot of mobsters. But no more — apparently not since he became a…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com South Florida isn’t just the home of white belts, white shoes, early bird specials and transplanted New York mobsters. The Miami Herald reports that the Eastern European mob has become a big concern for the FBI — bigger than the Italian mafia. “Eurasian organized crime is our No. 1 priority,” FBI…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com One hundred retired FBI agents — including two deputy directors — aren’t giving up their fight to try and exonerate and free convicted ex-Boston agent John J. Connolly Jr., whose relationships with the Boston mob landed him in big trouble. The Los Angeles’s Times Richard Serrano reported that the agents, known…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Joseph Watts, a close associate of the late Gambino Crime family boss John J. Gotti, becomes the latest mobster to get a stiff prison sentence. Watts,69, was sentenced Wednesday in Manhattan federal court by Judge Colleen McMahon to 13 years in prison for participating in “murder and assault conspiracies in order…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Ex-Bonanno mob boss Joseph Massino — the first N.Y. family boss to ever take the witness stand for the government — testified Thursday that a crooked FBI agent tipped off the Mafia back in the 80s that he and others were about to get arrested, the Associated Press reported. As a…
By Allan Lengel For AOL News The historic mobster roundup that collared more than 120 people in the New York region last month provided a snapshot of the Mafia of today: murder, gambling and extortion; big bosses and small fries; “made guys” and associates. But what it didn’t show was the pervasive nepotism that still…
Read Column About Glorifying the Mob by William Donati
