 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast. We're here for another quick hitter edition. I am your host Scott Bernstein along with my partner in crime Jimmy Bucci Lotto. Hi everyone. The doctor. Hey now doesn't always join us on these quick hitters but today he is. We're going to break down the new boss of the Colombo crime family news that was broken by Jerry Capesi last week at Gangland news. Please like, subscribe, share, spread the word about the original gangsters podcast and this YouTube channel and we're kind of ramping up the content now with some of these quick hitters and touching on the breaking news and when that global plea in the Colombo bust was made public a couple weeks ago, Jerry and some other reporters reported on the fact that the feds had misidentified the new boss of the Colombo's and that for a couple years they had been naming skinny Teddy Persico as the boss when in reality he is the boss in waiting. He is the heir apparent. The family is his when he comes out of prison after about five years he has to go do for this labor racketeering case that he just pled guilty to. So there was a lot of speculation over the last couple weeks of well if Teddy's not the boss then who's the boss? And you know, let's tip the hat. Danza. Right. I love that the theme song took to the boss. I'm sorry to around. I think it was called around the bend. So tip the hat to Jerry Capesi. He's the OG. We all owe him a debt of gratitude because he started this whole game that we're playing right now and Jerry rolls out a name that nobody had been talking about. There had been a lot of names that were being bandied about. But according to Jerry and according to some other people on both sides of the law, the new boss of the Colombo crime family is Robert Denofrio goes by the nickname little Robert or little Rob 65 years old. Has been around for quite a while. Got his button either late 80s, early 90s was sponsored by Wild Bill Cattolo very close to Wild Bill and was initially on the other side of the war. He was not on the Perseco side of the war. When it broke out in the 90s, he was aligned with Dick Arena, Patty Amato and Cattolo and Bill Cattolo. I know he was a part of Cattolo sponsored him and then he was put into Patty Amato's crew. And then at some point in the middle of the war between Vic Arena and the Persecos, little Rob jumped ship and comes over to the Perseco side of the war and is involved in a number of murder conspiracies and is busted in 93 and sentenced to. He goes away for seven and a half years and he's been looking at some of his court documents. I think you got busted with loan sharking and yeah. And then a couple and a bunch of murder conspiracies tied to the war. And I believe one of the murder conspiracies was them trying to kill Wild Bill, who was his mentor. And I want to credit Jerry for this. Jerry mentions in his column and I've heard other people speak to it that even though he aligned against Cattolo, he was hurt on wiretaps over the years after Cattolo was eventually killed, how much he admired Wild Bill, how much he loved Wild Bill. So even though he left Wild Bill's camp and jumped into the Perseco camp and probably that move itself paved the way for where we are now where this guy who's been incredibly low key and off the radar is now leading the family as an acting boss keeping the seat warm for skinny teddy. Yeah, I mean, I don't I'm not an expert on the Columbus at all, but I've just heard a couple of things from some people on the street that that Perseco when he gets up because right now I think my understanding of the Columbus are on hard times in terms of like the scale of their operations and made members in the family that they're fifth right now in the pecking order. And that Perseco is the one guy who seems to have the potential to resuscitate everybody. Love everybody at least in that for God, everybody loves and respects Teddy. There were some wiretaps that were put into court documents that Jerry highlighted in his in his reporting where there were a bunch of these racketeers, high level, Colombo administrators, capos, and so forth talking in the last couple years about Teddy saying Teddy has the power. Once Teddy comes home, everything's going to be, you know, beautiful. And I think the other families like him too. Yeah. I mean, he's a he's a die as Jerry would say he's a died and wall gangster. Has been in and out of prison a lot the last 20 years. When this comes out, this this quick hitter comes out. There's also going to be kind of a companion quick hitter where we talk about the 12 years in prison that skinny Teddy did or maybe more than that. I'm not sure, but did a nice chunk of time because of him ordering a murder from his grandmother's wake being surrounded by state police guards when he was on a furlough from prison on state drug charges that he came down to Brooklyn in the summer of 93 and ordered Joey Skopo's murder. And that murder two months later ended the Colombo mob war. But the order came from the wake with him in shackles being surrounded by prison guards. He called his crew in and whispered to them that they should kill Joey Skopo. The U.S. Marshals didn't weren't privy to that. I mean, how do we know it was from informants? People that yeah, yeah, from someone that was from people that were at the meeting. They weren't U.S. Marshals. They were state police guards because it was a state case, which makes me think that the guards were paid off. So, you know, Rob De Nofrio, a guy that he's the he's the snake's nephew, right? Teddy Persico is the snake's nephew. Okay. Carmine Perceco's nephew. Yeah, I know it's very, it's very confusing. And then Andy Mush Russo, who had been the acting boss for a long time just recently died. He was one of the people that was indicted in the 2021 case. The whole administration of the Columbus went down. They all Andy Mush died, but the remaining defendants all caught please this month. And they were all old time. Yeah, they're all a lot of the most of them are going to do five years. The underboss, Benji Castelazo is going to do, I believe two or three. But Rob De Nofrio just as we finish up a really low key guy. Everybody respects this guy. I've heard that he was somebody that the administer, even though he's never risen above soldier, from what I understand, he was being looked at in the in kind of a counselor capacity by the leaders of the family, the last five or six years, six, seven years. And Andy Mush and other people in that Persco Brooklyn camp were were leaning on on De Nofrio for for advice and for, you know, shout out to Cosinostra News and Ed Scarpa, who back in 2018, he was writing about Rob De Nofrio. The first time I didn't realize this until I looked it looked it up. He's the first person to ever mention De Nofrio as a potential boss. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was a while back. What do you make of just the last thing? Again, you know, I don't know that much about the Columbus, but from people I talked to in that world, they seem to think Joe Waverly is a significant decision maker in that family. I know you got you mentioned that you've heard that too, and then you got some pushback. Do you have any thoughts on that? I think he's someone that that's in the brain trust right now. Yeah, he came out of prison in 2020. Teddy Persco came out in 2020. Persco was re indicted in 21. Joe Waverly wasn't. He's 80. I think he's 82 years old. He another person like De Nofrio. Unlike De Nofrio, he never jumped ship, but he was in the arena Catollo camp. Joe, Joe Waverly was. It was interesting that, you know, 25, 30 years later, it seems like, you know, maybe some bygones can be bygones. Oh, sure. Yeah. Business, not person. But with Catollo, we know that, you know, the war ended in 93. Catollo was locked up, came out of prison, or I should say, came out of jail. I think you beat the case that they had tried to nail him on. And then the Persco's, you know, rocked him to bed. They named him under boss to get him to lower his guard. And then Carmine, the snake son, who was his acting boss at the time is about to go to prison. And the Persco's made the decision. Hey, if we are all locked up and wild bills on the street, he's going to take over the family. So they killed in May of 99. Yeah. And Dino Frio, again, has been pretty vocal in his love for wild bill, even though wild bill was on the opposite side of this thing. But but Dino Frio is obviously incredibly trusted. And there's a lot of belief in him that he can keep the seat warm for the next five years and that he'll have no designs on keeping the job that he'll just hand it over to Teddy. I heard him and Teddy are there's about seven years difference in age, but I know they've known each other for a long time. And not a lot of pictures about this a lot, not a lot of photos of Rob Dino Frio online. I've seen a couple of them, you know, real low key guy, probably the best, you know, best choice, not of Dick Arena, who took power from from Carmine, the snake in the 80s, and it went to his head very quickly. But yeah. So we just wanted to update you with that shout out to Jerry again for breaking the news, Rob Dino Frio, the new acting boss of the Colombo crime family for Jimmy Bucciolato and Ben behind the glass. Scott Bernstein, OG podcast out.