Vittorio "little Vic" Amuso

Just would like to know what what do you think about this discussion about the gangster Vic Amuso? http://www.topmobs.com/?p=123

When I found it on internet, I was really surprised how the people on that blog defended him, in spite of him being a known gangster and racketeer. What embarrassed me the most is that there were even a couple of retired policemen who took his side in the discussion. When I joined under the nick “antimafioso” and tried to say something about the life of crime being a shameful thing, I received little more than insults. Could you please read this discussion and say what do you think? Is the world really going this way so that the mob bosses become “good guys” in the opinion of common people?

Amuso has gotten alot of credit where it is NOT deserved, and some that is. I will explain:

Because Gaspipe was such a physcopath and then flipped people starting giving Amuso respect. While they were both on the street together it was thought that Gaspipe was the brains behind the family and Vic was his puppet.

After all the Bullshit got sorted out, Gaspipe flipped and Amuso stood up to a life sentence and people started giving Amuso the credit that Gaspipe got while they were on the street together.

It shows you how crafty Gaspipe was - he let Vic assume the mantle of boss and he settled for Underboss.
Meaning the cops would target Vic first

Amuso is your typical drug dealing, self absorbed, dishonest, low life, murdering gangster. He is really not that different from any of the other idiots that choose that life.

hey dwlalin 2011 i was one of vic amuso supporters he was and is my friend and you shouldnt judge someome that you know nothing about casso was the asshole not vic kenny n boca remember me? oh i cant find that blog it seems to be gone

Gaspipe was a very intelligent and amazing earner in his day thats for sure

I think Vic has demonstrated himself to be an individual that chose a different life, and lived up to everything he knew he was getting himself into. I don't understand the debate of who was smarter - Vic or Casso - both are in prison for the rest of their lives. But only Vic can say he lived by his (own) set of principles.

too bad his paranoia and trigger happiness over shadowed him in later years

Yeah, but Casso will spend the rest of his life with the shame of being a rat, more regret than just being in prison. That and Casso is in ADX, Amuso at USP Allenwood, I believe (Stanfa's there too). Casso even over shadowed Amuso on the streets. Though I've always though of the Lucchese's as way below the radar than the other 4 families.

Anyone know the full details of Casso dealin' drugs in the PC prison he was at?

Don't know the details of him dealin' drugs. And is Casso really living with the shame of flipping, or are you hoping that he is living with the shame of flipping? I don't think he has ever lamented flipping; in Carlo's book he does lament having gone into "the life." Not trying to be contentious, just asking a question.

It's one to live with the thought or shame of flipping while in a small town in Montana, quite another when your staring at slabs of concrete in your cell. It's more of a regret feeling. In Casso's situation, flipping or not flipping, he'd still be in prison. I don't think he has interaction with other inmates, which must make him wonder, if he didn't flip and instead went to another USP instead of USP/ADX Florence he'd be less regretful.

well Casso does regret flipping in that book he talks about how one day they were transferring him from prisons and out of chance he wound up on the same van as Vic Amuso who was also being moved around during the transfer, Amuso looked him in the eyes and was like I can tell you regret flipping,etc and Casso explained to him what happened with the feds and how they reneged on his deal and he did regret it

in that casso mobsters episode you can hear casso in the end being pissed that he made a deal with the govt and they broke it, hes like "the govt on a handshake? fuhgehabbouitttttt"

Wasn't he given 'em bullshit information on purpose?

^^^the govt says he gave them some bs info, but idk im not sure, he claims the govt ostracized him cause he said gravano was a drug dealer and the govt didnt want to hear that about their star turncoat and with that the gotti conviction so they played casso

From what I got out of Five Families, he only pulled that out after he was not slated to testify against Gigante. Did he ever bring it up before that letter?

yea he did before and after the letter

I only thought of Gotti being the drug dealer in the Gambino crews at that time. I mean I know other Gambino crews dealt, i.e. the Cherry Hill's. I always thought that Gotti was the run that dealt or at least got Sammy into it.



Gigante went on trial in what, '97, right? Dying in prison in 2005. I think Casso was already doing life by then.

Even Gotti didn't have much direct involvement in drugs. It was his brother Gene, Angelo Ruggiero, and John Carneglia that were more directly involved.

And even if Gravano had been involved in a marijuana deal, like Casso alleged, he was certainly never big into drugs either. He made most of his money from construction, nightclubs and other legit businesses, and loansharking.

Was Gotti ever close with Squitieri? Speaking of, Frankos spoke very highly of Squitieri, did time and worked with him. Half of Gravano's book is him talkin about his construction businesses.

i think we all know that gravano was never huge into drugs during his time with gambino's you have any insight on what made him get into ecstasy with a bunch of kids and family members in Arizona?

not much else to do i dont think theres much labor racketeering, loan sharking, unions, etc out there idk i could be wrong

His deal was first revoked in 97, and the appeal was rejected in 98. Looking through Google News, I'm not sure what year a sentence was imposed.

I really don't think it was for financial reasons. He didn't "need" the money. In my opinion, he missed the life and that was as close as he was going to get to it again.

Ivy, that's fascinating. Makes a lot of sense too, I remember that Diane Sawyer video that was posted last week, and the remarks about that money he was sitting on in Witness Protection and his smugness of it in regards to the questionaries with the victim's daughters.

I bet his family still has a lot of it too.

If I remember right, after he had been in Arizona a while, Gravano invested his money in a pool construction business and a restaurant. But maybe that wasn't exciting enough.

Things could have been worse for Vic Amuso, he could have been a Colombo! He supposedly ran with Joey Gallo for a time when he was beefing with Profaci. I've read on Wiki and other places Amuso was caught with two kilos or pounds of heroin at a NYC airport coming back from Thailand in the 70's. I wonder how true this is, because I don't think he did much time before his life sentence.

I've brought that up before best quote ever..All my life ive done business with the worst people you could ever meet on a handshake do biz wit the government on a handshake..fugettabout lol..the brooklyn accent and his demeanor makes it even funnier

We know all about Gotti, Gravano, Casso, Gigante, Massino and Persico but we don't know a lot about Amuso.

I mean we have a sense of who all those people were and we know their many layers and characteristics but we don't really know shit about Amuso apart from the seeming contradictions that he was both "shy" and "psychopathic". We also know that he was supposedly submissive and manipulated by Casso but the Casso book by Carlo doesn't really give us a sense of any of this. He is basically just a footnote.

It's amazing that this guy was boss for 25 years up until just recently and he is probably even more of a mystery than even Salerno, Squint and Corallo.

His brother Bobby is a ghost too. Made man, wasn't he?

I agree that there's not much written about him, other than Casso's version of things. But just for the record, the Lucchese powerbase has been back in the Bronx/Harlem/Westchester faction of the family for a LOOOOONG time now. That 25 years as boss was really in name only .


Yeah, Bobby was a made guy. He may have been an acting skipper for awhile, too.

The amazing thing, pizza, is the fact that people read the gaspipe book, take everything at face value and just talk about what a genius gaspipe must have been.

The fact is we only have one account. And the account we have is the functional equivalent of politicians glorified auto-biographies about their lives.

Yup, and when younger kids read that book early on in their OC research, it tends to give them a very shaky foundation as far as that family goes. It's honestly bullshit piled on top of bullshit.


Exactly. I've said it here a hundred times: That book was an autobiography. No ifs, and or buts.

Is his brother Bobby dead now?

I was under the impression that even as Vic holding the title of boss, Steve Crea has been running things for a while now.

thats pretty much the consensus opinion

Correct. And even while Stevie was away, the panel was made up of guys loyal to him and that faction of the family. For all intents and purposes, the power shifted back to the Bronx/Harlem guys way back in the '90s.

Anthony Baratta is a Harlem guy isn't he? He and Crea despise each other, don't they?

Yes, Bowat sided with Brooklyn back then. And look at him now .

Is danny miano a lucchese

I wanna say his brother is dead and has been for quite some time now.

Not sure if he is dead. I know that in 2011 he was still alive so if he is dead it was in the last couple of days.

Take Care.

Fuck Vic , he killed my grandpa brother for no good reason and in fact broke a big mafia rule . May he Rot in jail forever

Vic and Casso almost destroyed Luchesse but they have re grouped to some extend

This may have been asked before, but who is your grandpa's brother?

http://www.leagle.com/decision/199823710FSupp2d227_1213.xml/U.S.%20v.%20AMUSO

This acknowledges all the talk about Amuso being a puppet leader and debunks it. It says he had full autonomy over the Lucchese family.

Right? Wrong?

Has Casso's influence being overstated too much?

Casso was the dominant one in that sick relationship, Moe. It was almost like one of those sick tandems on "Criminal Minds," where both guys are capable of murder, but one guy is calling all the shots and completely dominating the other.

Sure, without Casso around to instigate him, Vic was a different guy. I've heard he was actually pretty easy going and well liked. But by the time Casso got through with him, he was basically going along with everything he had to say.

It's a shame, though. Vic ended up being the true gangster. He stood up, where that psychopath went on "60 Minutes," and helped ghostwrite one of the worst books in the history of true crime.

So, with these two guys it was basically you were either with them or against them?.. and if you were not with them, God help you?

Maybe with Vic. But with Casso, even if you were "with" him, you could never really get too comfortable.

He was too paranoid. He'd kill anyone he viewed as a threat, real or imagined. And imagined is the key word there.

These were the two guys that had the two NY Detectives in their pocket, right? The one detective's daughter is fighting his innocence, blah, blah...

I saw one those hour shows about this. Unbelievable that they proclaim their innocence after all the evidence. I also saw the 60 Minutes thing with Casso and he came across as the "victim" in all this. Classic OC stuff.