 Welcome back to the original gangsters podcast. I'm Jimmy Buccellato in the in something off air. So we're sorry to be so giggly here. But something that was that was struck me as funny. So we're in the og command center here the original gangsters podcast. Welcome. I'm here with my colleague and good friend Scott Bernstein. Now we've got Benny in the house. I just want to remind everyone please subscribe to us the video channel the audio podcast. Please follow us on social media. It's a big help when you help spread the word and retweet and like and what have you. This is going to be one of these shorter episodes. Scott has been and been even producing some of these once in a while I'll jump in some of them will be Scott solo. And I think they're going to be popular and you know I think people want more content so we're happy to bring that when we can. So this is going to be probably a shorter 10 15 20 minute video. And it's a New York update some some big news coming out of New York especially related to the Bonanno crime family and the boss Mancuso and people within his administration. So Scott if you want to walk us through some of your reporting and the latest updates and we'll we'll talk about it and then I can throw it to you for the controversial part of the part of the story that I'm getting kind of dinged on from online but we can explain it and I got no problem taking criticism. Yeah you know I think in this situation there's there's nuance to it. So we've been talking about the Mikey Mancuso administration on the OG pod for a while and how it's evolving since he got out of prison in in 2018 it's been five years and it looks like as of the last couple weeks it's now definitive that he's heading back to prison to do 18 months to 24 months on a violation of a supervised release. He's had a couple court hearings in the last month and it looks like he'll be reporting to prison at some time before Labor Day and he's got to go back inside and it looks like this is the second part is based on reporting from Jerry Capesi you know the Dean of organized crime reporters in America you know he's the top of the top and I always tip my hat to Jerry. Jerry came out with a really good piece last week where he was able to a name Mancuso's underboss as Johnny Joe Spurrito senior and that Johnny Joe is also being violated and is going to be going back to prison I think a little less time he has to do than Mancuso but it's the same thing supervised release violation they both came out around the same time from a murder case separate murders both related to to Bonanno business. Spurrito came out in or Mancuso came out in fall of 2018 into a halfway house and then was out of the halfway house by early 19 and Spurrito came into the halfway house in 19 and was out of the halfway house by 20 and they're both going to be going back to prison and that I guess brings us to the controversial part was that I think some of my reporting before Jerry's reporting I don't believe it was inaccurate I believe that it was dated I think it was a couple weeks dated and that the plan that I had I had reported that the plan was from when Mancuso went away that Johnny Joe was going to step up and be acting boss and that I've reported for the last couple months that Ernie Aiello one of Mikey Mancuso's protege's a young guy he's only about 43 years old that he has been acting in some underboss capacity I said that he was the underboss the last three or four years I believe for all intents and purposes that's true but based on Jerry's reporting I think going back to my sources and talking to people I was actually been the acting underboss street boss while Johnny Joe has been the underboss and I misfired on on Johnny Joe's role I guess over the last couple years anybody that knows this current banana group of guys knows that Mancuso and Johnny Joe are longtime best friends they go back in that Bronx crew to the 1970s. Was Burrito a purple gang guy too? I'm not sure. He's a Burrito was like three or four years younger than Mancuso. I've been told that Mancuso baptized Burrito's son Johnny Boy was also involved in the crime family. So you know I can admit when I when I miss fire I knew that Johnny Joe was playing a role in things and that's why I was told that he was going to take over the acting boss to his woman who so went away and I believe when I was told that that's what the plan was and then I think over the last couple weeks or what I've been told was that over the last couple weeks, Spurrito and his attorney have been told that he's also being violent and Jerry Jerry broke that last week. So I didn't get the story 100% true. I think I got it about you know 80 80 to 90% and then I corrected the record. So that that's that's kind of where we are right now. So when Mancuso and Spurrito go away. You're saying I yellow will be the acting one. I don't know I don't want to know just like Ernie I think I stand by what I've reported yeah the last couple of months that right now in that family everything goes through Ernie before it gets to Mikey and that Ernie is like the point of contact kind of for everything in that family and it started after I was told after Mancuso got out of out of prison and around 1920 I yellow at that point would have just been coming up on 40 started to be tapped or groomed as street boss. I guess it was acting under boss I was saying under boss Spurrito I believe based on Jerry's reporting and people I've talked to had the official title but you have to understand just like Mancuso and we know because they're both going away for this. They had to be weary of who they were meeting with and they couldn't really freely go about their business in New York City because of those violation or because of the supervised release. So they needed someone like I yellow to be running point on the street for them. He can meet with anybody. Right. Although it obviously we see that they they eventually did start to go out and about and that's what they're right and that's how they got violated which our audience might not know I mean they met with guys from the Columbus. That's one of the pieces and they have a picture was released two weeks ago of Mancuso walking with Johnny Joe in Long Island on a walk and talk. Right. They're not supposed to be together. Right. And then there were other pictures that prosecutors released in the hearing to discuss the the supervised release violation to kind of prove it. They rolled out a bunch of pictures some wiretaps. The pictures were of Mikey Mancuso with Johnny Joe Mikey Mancuso with another group of guys hanging out at what appear to be his day to day headquarters right now which is a an optical Oh right place on Long Island called I think it's called Red Eyes and it's owned by Mikey Mancuso's girlfriend and he's seems to be taking meetings there and walk and talks in that vicinity. And then there was photos of him going to a dinner in the Bronx by himself on a company to go meet other members of the Bananos in a restaurant in the Bronx. And then there were photos of a birthday party that he attended in October of 2020 of Vinnie Union's aka Vinnie Riciardo who is a capo in the Columbus. Right. Who's facing a racketeering indictment right now. And Vinnie Riciardo was having a birthday party and Mikey Mancuso and some members of his inner circle showed up and we've seen pictures of that. And there was actually a picture that looks like well there's one picture that was taken that looks like it was taken from a another table. Could have been like a fad dressed as a patron and snapping a photo like surprise. Right. But then there was another photo that they released which was clearly a staged photo that Mancuso took over the guys with Vinnie Riciardo and some other people and they were clearly smiling for the camera. Right. That's just it blows my mind that you could be a mob boss knowing that you can't be seen with certain people and then allowing your picture to be taken like with your arm around the guy smiling. Yeah. And then Jerry you know this isn't either here or there but you know Jerry kind of editorialize a little bit in his reporting last week and you know I'm not disputing it that Mancuso's leadership in terms of these decisions I think the word he used was boneheaded. Well his words. Right. But what I would say is as the theoretical criminologist here I've said this on other episodes when when you were talking about Mancuso being active in day to day operations there were some people that scoffed at that and said oh he's on supervised released he can't do that. And I just made the point like are you are you serious. You think that career criminals guys who are outlaws by nature. I don't mean like like you know I'm saying like guys were rogue outlaws by nature. They're rule breakers in their DNA. Yeah. And and there's a spectrum some guys when they're on supervised release they they try to do their best to stay out of trouble. But if you think every motherfucker that's on supervised release is laying low that's clearly not true. These guys like to push things as far as they can push it and in this case they got they got caught they got caught and with Mancuso you know put it into context. He'd been in prison for us roughly 15 years and he became the official boss of the Bananos while he was in prison. He only had about two years on the outside as acting boss a year and a half in the 2000s. Right. So he gets out in 1819. He's the official boss. You you want to go of course you want to take that out for a spin. I think he's been Netflix playing fucking bingo. He wants to get out there and be you know treated like he's a boss. Yeah. I mean don't don't don't be naive about that. And is that well if the feds knew they they would bust them right away. Not necessarily either right because it's not the same thing as tickle the wire but it's a it's a sort of similar thing is they want to see who they're who they're fucking with. Yeah. They want to see who they're all that's why they waited. They waited three years to bring two two years to have years. Right. Right. And then we'll finish up by saying that you know what my reporting is saying what my reporting is telling me my sources that Mikey Mancuso is is remaking this family over the last four or five years. And and this is part of who's going to look after the family when he goes away. It all starts and ends in the Bronx. And he realized when he was inside that that letting the power go over to Brooklyn and Long Island with the Cameranos and that faction was was the wrong move. I don't think he felt he had any choice. There was circumstances that he had no one else to kind of turn you to run the family. And it quickly got out of control because Camerano within a year or two was trying to take the family for himself. But I think when he retroactively looks back and does an autopsy of that, or what I've been told is that he laments not keeping the power in the Bronx. And right now, all the power in that family is really in the Bronx, with the exception of Vinnie Battle of many, who is Mancuso's alleged conciliary who comes from Brooklyn. But he's on good terms with Mancuso. Yeah, he's what he's I call I have been told that he's called the the Mikey knows whisperer that he can talk the Mancuso away that other people can't in terms of calming him down and giving him counsel. And then Bruno and Delacato is still a yeah, a powerhouse. And but Bruno and and Mikey have an up and down relationship. I know, right? That's Bruno so close to Vinnie Bastiano. And Bastiano wanted to kill Mancuso at the end. Yeah. But I have heard that in Delacato is chiming in on some things and sending word he's on supervised release right now. He just got out in the last six, five, six months recently, very recently. But I'm told that everything's kind of in the Bronx right now, Ernie, ILO in some old school guys, like Johnny Palazzolo, who they call Johnny Skyway, who was in his 80s right now was a former acting boss for for Mancuso, who I think is the elder statesman in in that Bronx crew. But then you got Patty Boy, my arena, who I think is another guy to really keep an eye out for either as somewhere in the administration, he's been a coppo in in in Queens for for a little bit now. And I've been told that with Spurrito and Mancuso going away, ILO, my arena and then another group of of like old elder statesman counselors are going to help run the family. But, you know, ILO will be the head of the snake and possibly Patty Boy will be either head of the snake B to Ernie ILO's head of the snake A or he'll be right behind the head of the snake. And you know, Patty Boy was sponsored for his his induction, his making into the Bananos came from Mancuso, because Mancuso was sponsored for his button by Patty Boy's dad, Chubby, my arena sponsored Mancuso. So there's this preexisting relationship. Yeah. So. And then Johnny Boy, Spurrito, I think should also be mentioned. And that's not Johnny Joe. There's Johnny Boy Spurrito, who is the son who's 40 years old. And then there's Johnny Joe, who's the underboss who's 64. And Johnny Boy has had a bit of a roller coaster of the last five, 10 years. In terms of, you know, if you're going to look at gangsters as stocks, you know, the stock market has been up and down with Johnny Boy. He was very powerful and a big part of the early Mancuso regime when Mancuso went to prison and was running things through people on the street. Johnny Boy is a young guy was helping out with that was relaying messages back and forth. He got in trouble for messing up some of the messages. Some people thought that he was intentionally misleading messages that were coming from prison. And then when Joe Camarano takes over, they demoted him when Mancuso comes out of prison in in 1819. And then his dad comes out in 1920. He's back into the good graces. Not even 2020. Right. Sorry. In 2020. And then the last thing I'll say about Johnny Joe, and we'll wrap this up. Johnny Joe remains the top suspect in the last Bonanno gang man hit, which was little Anthony Secafico, who was killed in July of 2009. There's a variety of reasons. He was allegedly stealing money. He was allegedly sleeping with the wives of in prison Bonanno members and their girlfriends, wives and girlfriends. And then when he was allegedly when he was called on the carpet for some of this behavior by Johnny Boy, little Anthony smacked Johnny Boy. And little Anthony was was gunned down in Staten Island early morning hours of of July, I think second 2009. And it looked like he recognized the assailant and people believe there's been the FBI believes that that Johnny Boy might have been the shooter. So Johnny Boy is proven is that is that in I mean, how do you just just so people are it's research methods? I mean, what this is coming out of this is coming from law enforcement and from grand jury testimony that was tied into the Secafico murder that was never brought. OK, as well as there's a lot. There's a lot. So the grand jury didn't find it compelling enough. No, the grand jury never brought any charges. But there was there was grand jury testimony in the in the Secafico murder. Interesting. Well, one thing I'll just say, which is kind of interesting because I'm more interested in the macro stuff and you're the you're the man on the street is the shift from Messino, who put a lot of kind of white collar earners in administrative positions. And that's the direction he wanted to take things in. And then it turned out those guys couldn't couldn't handle like the prison sentences and Mancuso, they flipped it. It's a 180. Like now most of those guys in his orbiter are known as tough guys, tough guys. Yeah, it's it's you know, guys, you know, brute brute strength and power is very different is what is going to allow you to rise in the Mikey Mancuso regime. Right. Yeah. So it's kind of an interesting. It's an interesting, you know, I guess, point of departure or discerning between the two regimes. Yeah, I think so. And we know historically like a family like Detroit always had that I know at smaller scale than New York, I'm well aware of that. So it's not a it's not a 100 percent comparative analysis, but they were always able to have that balance between guys like the the Jackalones and other guys who were more known as enforcers and then guys like Jack Toko, who was more of a boardroom kind of racketeer. And they always had that balance. Obviously it didn't work in the campaign. Also, because some of the some of the earner times it doesn't work. Some of the earners in the Mancuso regime are being marginalized. It sounds like that doesn't mean that they're being shelved. No, I think they're just some of them are capped in terms of promotions and so forth. Yeah. So it's someone like Ernie Aiello and he obviously has shown quite a bit of talent and and and instills confidence in the older guys, but he's pretty young. And in order for him to get to this point. And again, this is this is established. You know, he was involved in three really high profile physical altercations on behalf of Mancuso to prove his. Yeah, it's been well done. Prove his lawyer. I mean, going all the way back to 2012, when Mikey Meldisch got beat down in front of Rayo's or sleeping with Mikey Mancuso's girlfriend, Aiello, who at that time was in his thirties was at the forefront, allegedly, of that of that altercation. So we'll keep an eye out for it for it. For all this for you. And we went a little longer than I thought, but I think this was good. And for Scott or for Scott for Jimmy Buccellato and Ben Agusta behind the glass. I'm Scott Bernstein. We'll see you next week. O.G. Pat out.