In this weeks gangland Colombo Capo Reynold (Ren) Maragni flipped and recorded a few captains talking about the wild bill rubout

Jezus? Is this true?

The colombos are sinking ship,so many rats they have...hope they will reorganise.

This is the article:
Yet Another Colombo Capo Turns On Tommy Shots Gioeli


You’d think things couldn’t possibly get worse for Thomas (Tommy Shots) Gioeli, the accused Colombo family street boss awaiting trial for six murders. Since he was jailed in 2008, he’s missed his father’s funeral, his daughter’s wedding, and his cousin became a stool pigeon.

But they just did – for him, his codefendant, and what’s left of his beleaguered crime family.

Yesterday, Gioeli and his fellow wiseguys learned that yet another Colombo mobster has been secretly working with the FBI for more than six months, and has tape recorded more evidence linking Tommy Shots to the 1999 rubout of former underboss William (Wild Bill) Cutolo.

The new turncoat, Gang Land has learned, is capo Reynold (Ren) Maragni. And he’s been a busy little mob beaver, managing to tape record four conversations with another mobster between November 18 and December 8 that tie Gieoli and codefendant Dino (Little Dino) Saracino to the Cutolo rubout, prosecutors disclosed in court papers yesterday.

On Tuesday evening, sources say, Maragni, who has long been a stalwart supporter of imprisoned Mafia boss Carmine (Junior) Persico, was whisked away from the home he shared with his girlfriend. The girlfriend stayed behind and quickly passed along the bad news to his former buddies.

In each of the tape-recorded talks – and another in which the recorder malfunctioned – Maragni recorded mobster Vincent Manzo as he admitted his role in the slaying and as he fingered Tommy Shots and Little Dino, according to prosecutors Elizabeth Geddes, James Gatta and Cristina Posa.

The discussions were triggered by a subpoena that Manzo’s son was served by another busy beaver, the very pro-active FBI agent Scott Curtis. On the tape, the elder Manzo is heard stating that he picked up Cutolo’s body at Little Dino’s Brooklyn home, then drove it to a Long Island bowling alley where he met up with Tommy Shots, who “directed Manzo to the burial site.”

In one conversation, recorded on a Brooklyn pier, Manzo, 73, and Maragni, 58, were joined by acting capo Luca DiMatteo, 67. In short answers to questions his mob superiors posed, Manzo said that he used his own car to drive Cutolo’s body from Brooklyn to Long Island, assuring DiMatteo that he had gotten rid of the car “a long time ago.”

“You’re still involved,” observed DiMatteo, who was ostensibly at the meeting so he could be officially introduced to Manzo as his new skipper. That was part of an elaborate sting the FBI pulled off in August when Maragni, 58, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in open court in an effort to convince his mob cohorts that he wasn’t a turncoat.

Sources tell Gang Land that when Maragni, who had been charged with home invasion, drug dealing, bribery, and several violent extortion counts and detained as a danger in January, was released on home confinement in April, wiseguys suspected he was a “rat” and shunned him.

“The guy’s detained, facing more than a hundred years and all of a sudden he’s out, on house arrest with an ankle bracelet, and he’s coming around,” said a neighborhood source. “I said hello, and good-bye,” he said, adding, “What am I, a fucking jerk?”

“He’s supposed to be sick, and he’s coming to card games,” added an underworld source who told Gang Land that he “told everyone the guy was a rat. I can’t believe people talked to the guy.”

After several months of getting nothing from Maragni’s efforts, the feds apparently moved their sting into high gear, arranging for Maragni to plead guilty to racketeering charges calling for a maximum of eight years in prison and restitution of $500,000.

“It was a scam, and a disgrace,” said one defense lawyer who asked that his name not be used.

“The FBI actually tried to use him as a spy in the defense camp,” said another attorney, who recalled that Maragni “yelled and screamed and tried to intimidate an attorney into letting him attend a co-defendants’ meeting at the MDC. (Metropolitan Detention Center.)”

Asked by Gang Land if Maragni’s guilty plea was a scam, attorney Richard Shanley said he did not have “any comment that I want to make about this matter. He pled guilty and that’s all I want to say about that.”

FBI agent Curtis and supervisor Seamus McElearney referred calls to spokesman Jim Margolin. Said Margolin: “The FBI’s conduct with regard to cooperating witnesses is strictly regulated and the FBI complied with all internal guidelines and legal requirements in this matter.”

Gioeli’s lawyer, Adam Perlmutter, declined to comment, as did Saracino’s attorney, Samuel Braverman.

Maragni is the sixth Colombo mobster (four capos) to have joined Team America since Gioeli was indicted. He is the third defendant in the 39-defendant Colombo family racketeering indictment filed on Mafia Takedown Day in January to defect.

At the end of his discussion with Manzo and DiMatteo last month, Maragni wondered aloud whether there was “anybody” they should worry about.

“Well listen,” said DiMatteo, in an incredible faux pas, “I heard through the grapevine, okay, that somebody’s out here with a wire. You don’t have a phone on you."

It is disgusting... They keep getting their asses kicked by the feds. Must say that the Colombos really get hammered.

Carmine Persico should not be boss anymore ! I think they will stand on their feet again.

The Columbos are done. I understand the US has RICO laws (which are insane), but the ease at which US LCN "flips" is pretty sad. If no one talked, than not as many guys would end up with ridiculous prison sentences. What ever happened to the oath these guys swear?

They're all criminals. They make a living exploiting each other, other criminals and the general public. Their primary concern is always their own self-interest. The government has the ability to follow and monitor them in ways their forebears could never have dreamed of. And once you start talking about long sentences it would only make sense for a criminal to flip and rat out his buddies-especially since many of them would do the same in a heartbeat.

They are?

Nah. I know you're asking rhetorically, and I pretty much agree.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the family stabilized and started to regroup after Persico croaks and the fallout from the war is played out. Kind of like how the Luccheses are doing now that the ripple effect of the Casso chaos has petered out.

I know you've been on these forums quite a while Ivy - remember like 10 years ago when everyone was saying "the Luccheses are just a street gang now"? Same thing's happening with the Colombos at the moment it seems.

What's ironic is, on one hand you've got people who believe some of the NY families are finished. While, on the other hand, you've got other people who don't believe families in certain other cities actually are.

It'll never cease to amaze me what the Feds have gotten and for so long from this guys death




They suspected this guy was a rat and questioned how he had gotten out so early on bail/bond and did not kill him?!



It seems down right unprofessional and not of legal etiquette to do this, if not illegal or unconstitutional.

True, Ivy.

There are people who will tell you with a straight face that the Detroit or Kansas City families are alive and well, then tell you in the same breath that the Colombos or the Luccheses are finished .

There's way too much local jingoism on boards like these. And what a thing to get jingoistic about, a bunch of fucking thugs!

All the indictments that have come out of the Cutolo hit are the Colombo equivalent of the Fred Weiss hit for the Gambinos, seems like half the Gambino borgata has some charges from that hit and they are still sentencing guys for it! (Jackie Nose recently)

Cutolo must be laughing from wherever he is now at all the payback hes continuing to get on these guys that are alive

Freaking Colombos are like a Mickey Mouse family

glorified (because of the Snake, Sonny) crew!

I wonder what the current sitting administration of the colombos is right now? if there even is one? do you guys think capos are just running their own crews and literally just sitting on the money? who would want to step up into an administration role right now in that family?

I don't get that phenomenon at all, it's fucking weird.

Some of those guys when they talk about their local dying/dead mob family sound like they are rooting for their city's NFL team or something. I call them "cheerleaders" because of this.

I've run into this phenomenon IN REAL LIFE by the way. Seriously, half the people I know from Youngstown (I'm in Columbus, and a lot of Youngstownites have fled here) seem to be weirdly proud of the city's organized crime presence and insist that there's still an all-powerful Youngstown Mafia controlling everything, even though it was destroyed at the end of the 20th century. I tell them there are no made guys left at all, and they retort "hey they just went underground - they WANT you to think they're gone". Others have reacted with apparent sadness when I give them the "bad news" about the status of the Youngstown Mafia.

Not sure why they have such warm feelings for an organization that essentially raped Youngstown, made the city a punchline of morbid jokes, and caused it to acquire charming nicknames like "Murdertown" and "Crime City, USA".

Great post, Ivan.

only one i can think of that might be tapped for the new admin is Joseph Baudanza who got out the can in Feb, but being in the admin is another one way ticket to the can with all the guys lining up to work for the feds, how does a guy get to rebuild the family?

Maybe some of the influential soldiers got bumped up to acting capo, most of the capos are in prison. So its up to the soldiers now.

new gangland this week talks about how the feds have maragni lined up to testify against michael and teddy persico jr

apparently he was made in 2007 and now in 2011 hes a capo, pretty quick ascension if you ask me

he was very close with allie boy and michael growing up and served as allie's bodyguard/driver while allie was in ft.lauderdale

I personally know Luca and he's a standup guy. FUCK THE FEDS!!

I sure hope you're bringing more than just this to the boards.

You're talking about Michael Persico being made in 2007, and is now a capo? I thought he was supposed to be the straight living Persico... The Persico family might have served more years in prison than any other family in the US.

no, you misunderstood, im saying maragni was made in 2007

but apparently i been reading over on the other forum that some guys say michael persico was made a long time ago and its just never been revealed...

Yes. According to Greg Scarpa Sr, Michael Persico was made in the late 80´s.

Oh ok, I thought it was Maragni who was made years ago, he must have just been an associate.

Yeah, back in 2000 Margani was indicted as an associate down in Florida. Some time after that he was made.

yep then bumped up to capo not long after