Word: mobbing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...whole score. Like all the other bosses, he hews to the law of omerta (silence) established by the original Mafia in Italy and honored by the Bonanno clan, which has roots in the Castellammare del Golfo, a town in western Sicily. The Bonannos are one of only two U.S. Mob families (the other is New Jersey's DeCavalcantes) that still import highly disciplined, Mediterranean-grown recruits...
...Mob lore has it that to foil concealed recording devices, Massino went so far as to order his men never to utter his name during a conversation and instead to touch one of their ears to indicate Big Joey. It was a bit of theater he borrowed from Gigante, whose cronies used to tap their chin to signify their boss. The Bonannos' Old-World code of discipline was such that until recently not a single "made guy" (ranking gang member) had ever cooperated with law enforcers. As the other bosses bunked down in prison, that helped the Bonannos become...
...prison in '92 and with Gotti's O.K., quickly rebuilt the family, set up rackets, installed new captains and established his power. And he was careful. According to the government, he closed down the social clubs (they were like flypaper to electronic bugs), stopped going to Mob funerals and weddings (enterprise evidence in a RICO case) and traveled as far as Mexico, France and Italy to meet with family captains and avoid surveillance. But Massino made one mistake. He believed that his men, including his brother-in-law, would honor omerta as scrupulously as he did. Massino was arrested...
...previous Mob trials, a defendant's attorney often performed handsprings in denying the Mob's very existence. "What Mafia?" the lawyer would ask, with the righteous nonchalance of a cigarette manufacturer disclaiming any harm in his product. Breitbart, who has defended Mob suspects for more than 20 years and wore a gun holster during a recent interview, says he will skip the denial: "If they are going to bring in 15 witnesses to say Joe's a father in organized crime, why beat my head against a wall?" Breitbart's plan is to beat the feds' heads instead. "It doesn...
...includes civil libertarians, the baseball players union and Martha Stewart fans--is Attorney General John Ashcroft. "He's been bitching and moaning lately that not enough people are seeking the death penalty," Breitbart charges. "Ashcroft is dying to stick a needle in some white guy's arm." The first Mob lord executed by the state was Murder Inc.'s Louis (Lepke) Buchalter, electrocuted in 1944. Massino could become the first Mob boss executed since the federal death penalty was reinstated in '88. His lawyer claims that Massino isn't sweating it: "He understands that he's accused of a crime...