Turncoat Bonanno Boss Confidential: Joe Massino Lived As ‘Ralph Rogers,’ Enjoyed Food, Casinos In Cleveland Before Dying In Glen Cove

He was just a regular Joe named Ralph in his last years of life being lived out in the Witness Protection Program. Once, he was even recognized, almost outed as the former boss of bosses in the New York mafia living in hiding under an assumed identity in the Cleveland area. Nonetheless, it was a quiet, humble existence for a man who was the Big Apple’s last old-school mob boss to die free and the only one to ever wire-up and testify against the mafia in open court.

New details have surfaced regarding Massino’s years in the Witness Protection Program where he spent the final decade of his time on earth in the American Heartland, Ohio to be exact, minus the last few months when he came back to the East Coast to see his family and die back at home in New York. Jeff Nadu at The Sitdown — A True-Crime History Podcast broke the news in a video posted Saturday afternoon.

Joe Massino, the highest-ranking mob boss ever to become a witness for the United States government died at a Glen Cove nursing home on Long Island on September 14, 2023, He was 80 years old and far removed from the glitz and glamor and pomp and circumstance of his previous life as a Godfather. According to sources, less than 75 people attended his wake and funeral.

While a don, Massino led the Bonanno crime family in one capacity or another for roughly 30 years until he flipped after a conviction at a racketeering and murder trial in 2004. Due to his historic cooperation, he walked out of prison in 2013 and was immediately placed in an upscale retirement community in a suburb of Cleveland and rechristened Ralph Rogers, per sources. Rumors and reports of time spent in Florida in the early years of his time in WITSEC were inaccurate.

Massino enjoyed the food of Cleveland’s Little Italy — “pleasantly surprised how the Midwestern Italian dishes compared to his old Queens stomping grounds — and the gambling at the city’s downtown casino, these sources claim. His favorite restaurant was the Timber Lodge in Medina, Ohio, about a 30-minute drive south of Cleveland’s city limits. Mostly rolling solo or with one close friend from his retirement home, he frequented the neighborhood TGI Friday’s and Ruby Tuesday’s. He spent a good deal of time at church taking counsel with a priest to try to atone for his past sins.

During one trip to the casino in the late 2010s, Massino encountered someone insisting he recognized him, per sources. Massino responded that the man was mistaken and that his name was Ralph Rogers. The man found him at his retirement home and confronted Massino again about his true identity, but again, Massino told him his name was Ralph Rogers and he was a born and bred Buckeye. Reporting the incidents to the FBI and U.S. Marshals, Massino was instructed to relocate, however, refused and never had any problems with the man again. Gambino mob soldier Carmine (The Bull) Agnello, the one-time son-in-law of deceased Gambino boss John Gotti (d. 2002), lives in Cleveland these days and reportedly has a small crew of NYC expats around him, per sources. It’s unknown if the person who recognized Massino was connected to Agnello or his alleged crew.