I talked to george around the time it went down. It was so out of control, I just mentioned it might hurt his good reputation not to mention the law firms to allow john john to post death threats in the comment section. Georgie made the right call.

Personally, I think they should of kept the comments.

I liked reading the comments cause it made me laugh out loud! But I could imagine why they stopped people from commenting with all the drama and shit talking some people do. If everyone could just be civil! Lol

This isnt Civil trial. This is a MURDA trial!

I guess your right about that one Sonny!

Haha

All these cases going on in Philly and no word about any of them all week.. and no word on Borgesi and Ligambi going to them speakeasys after they got busted. Dave and George need to step up there game.

Personally I think Dave needs to get a life he's pretty much a wanna be George. Anastasia is much better.

Hearing what you guys are saying about George A and Shratweiser, but you know they cant win with us. If they report nothing, we rip them. If they put out a repetitive fluff piece, we rip them. I truly believe that they arent holding anything back. Seems to me, they dont have a good anonymous source on the street like they used to in the Merlino days. Cough, cough, George Borgesi. IMO

I think a few of them learned their lesson talking to the media. Angelo Lutz got 9 years and then came out to open a restaurant and do weight loss commericals

yeah i agree dave is so annoying, i cant stand him and he tries so hard. George is much more laid back . Damn i wish they kept the comment section to , it was fun to read. wish someone had some copies

What did the comments say?

Exactly.

They're just regular people.

Back to a previous question, who is the other dude in all of those pics? He seems pretty friendly with everyone especially Chang...

His cousin looked after Johns son when he is/was in the can.

Three Unsolved Hits Haunt Mob Boss "Uncle Joe"

John Alite offered testimony on the hit
on Johnny "Gongs" Casasanto.
Anthony Nicodemo's Philadelphia murder trial ended in a mistrial last month.

In addition to the murder for which he currently faces charges, Nicodemo has been identified as a suspect in the 2003 murder of John "Johnny Gongs" Casasanto. Law enforcement sources have said that the young mob soldier could work out a deal using his supposed information regarding the Casasanto murder and other acts of violence, including two additional murders said to be linked to Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his top associates.

The other murder victims are Ronnie Turchi, who was hit in 1999, and Raymond “Long John” Martorano, who reached the end of the road in 2002.

In this article we take a look at the three hits that law enforcement would love to pin on Uncle Joe, one of the more successful modern bosses. He is credited with cooling down the Philly underworld following decades of unrest. Departing jail after two of his own two mistrials, Ligambi started talking about retirement.

We include insights that a source from Philadelphia shared with us...

Aside from Nicodemo, authorities reportedly have the names of other people connected to the three shootings, as well as scraps of information that could be used "to build cases" against "Uncle Joe," as George Anastasia wrote. He noted that nothing appears imminent, but that was before the possibility of Nicodemo flipping after losing big time in a trial largely considered unwinnable for one of the "dumbest mob hits ever."


Johnny "Gongs" fancied
himself a ladies' man, right
up until his pals killed him.
Anastasia, in a 2009 article on Philly.com, reported that South Philadelphia mob associate John "Johnny Gongs" Casasanto "was angling to join New York's Gambino crime family in 2002, but a bullet to the back of the head short-circuited that career move.

"None other than John Gotti Jr. backed Casasanto, 35, who hoped to get "straightened out" - formally initiated - after befriending the mob boss while they were inmates in a federal detention center in New York state, according to a key government witness."

John Alite, the prosecution's star witness in the then-ongoing racketeering trial of Gotti Jr. in federal court in New York City, offered the information.

Alite told authorities that, during his stay in South Jersey, he met with Casasanto several times in 2002 as well as with various leaders of the Philadelphia mob, including those suspected of ordering Casasanto's murder in November 2003.

Alite said Gotti "set up appointments for me with the bosses in Philly," including Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino and Ralph Natale in 1995.

Alite said he met with Casasanto several times after Casasanto came home from prison in 2002.

Alite had served time with Casasanto at a federal prison in Allenwood, Pa., in the mid-1990s. Later Casasanto was transferred to Ray Brook, N.Y., where he met Gotti.

Alite said Gotti sent messages from prison through Casasanto's brother, Steven, who would visit Gotti and Casasanto there.

Testifying at the Gotti trial, Alite said that after Casasanto was released from prison he had sought from Alite an introduction to New York. According to Casasanto, Gotti wanted Alite to bring him to New York "to introduce him to a couple of guys . . . to get him straightened out," Alite testified. Alite said he confirmed that was true through other Gambino family associates who had heard from Gotti Jr.

But Alite said he didn't go along with the program. "I met with him after that and I said, 'Johnny, you'll get killed in New York. Every corner there's guys, not like in Philly where there's only one crew. And they fight each other all the time.'

"He was a wild kid . . . and he didn't understand the life, not New York gangster life. He might have understood the mob life in Philly. It's a big difference."

Anastasia noted: "According to those investigating his death, he was killed by people he trusted. Authorities believe he let two associates into his rowhouse on Durfor Street around 2 a.m. on Nov. 22, 2003. Minutes later he was shot in the back of the head."

Alite said he had met with Ligambi in Haddon Township, in the law office of M.W. "Mike" Pinsky, who had represented Ligambi and Alite.

Ligambi and his associates asked Alite several questions about Casasanto, "including questions about [his] behavior in prison."

Alite said he and other inmates suspected Casasanto was a jailhouse informant.

"Casasanto, who was sentenced to 97 months on a racketeering charge in 1994, was a mob outsider when he came home in 2002. He had sided with crime boss John Stanfa in the mid-1990s during a bloody war with the faction of the mob that Ligambi reputedly now heads," Anastasia wrote.

Considered a hothead, he returned to South Philadelphia where he got into bar fights and a stabbing. He also was suspected of dealing drugs and shaking down local bar and restaurant owners.

A ladies' man, his relationships with the girlfriends or wives of other mobsters created friction within the underworld and added another potential motive for his death, authorities have said.

As if he didn't have enough of those...


Turchi was found in his
wife's trunk.


A Philadelphia source told Cosa Nostra News: "Johnny Gongs was a little renegade... he was a neighborhood guy who got too big for his britches and started running his mouth off that he was fucking [a former mob boss's ex-wife]. There you have it -- the dysfunctional philly mob."


Hit on Turchi Was Classic...
There is no shortage of theories regarding the 1999 brutal gangland hit of Ronald Turchi, either, a convicted arsonist and one-time Mafia consigliere busted to capo in the mid-1990s. In and out of prison, the troubled mobster was found in the trunk of his wife's car in South Philadelphia.

He was found around noon on Passyunk Avenue near Christian Street. Turchi, naked, was shot twice in the back of the head, over which a white blood-filled plastic bag had been pulled. His hands and feet were tied with white rope.

"It was reminiscent of many mob hits of the 1980s," wrote Philly.com.

Turchi was considered an ally of one-time mob boss Ralph Natale, who, it was later learned, only was boss following the abrupt violent reign of Sicilian boss John Stanfa because Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino and his crew of young turks who went to war with Stanfa wanted a "front boss" to keep the heat off of themselves.

Natale flipped shortly before the Turchi slaying. On the stand in February 2001, Natale said that Turchi was killed for trying to pull a bizarre move: He had paid $10,000 to a high-ranking Gambino to "buy" the position of Philadelphia mob boss.

A source told us: "Ralph was a stone cold killer but he was even a bigger liar... Joey ran the show back then and he still has guys in top positions that are loyal... As for Ron Turchi he was playing both sides, giving Stanfa info on Joey's crew and giving Joey info on John's crew. .. Ralph and Joey were on the way up after Stanfa was arrested. They might have promised Ron something, but they didn't want to share the wealth; there lies the problem. When Ralph was locked up again Turchi wanted to make a move against the younger crew. Some say Uncle Joe wasn't having any of that had him clipped.

"Turchi was always talking about being boss some day to certain people but as far as the $10,000 he didnt have 2 cents to rub together; he was a degenerate gambler. It was later learned he was working as an informant... another reason he was killed."

Turchi once controlled the lucrative numbers operation in South Philadelphia and was reported to have been circulating in gambling circles in South Philadelphia.

He'd been inducted into the Mafia in the early 1990s by then-mob boss John Stanfa. Turchi later switched sides in the middle of a 1993 mob war.

After Stanfa was arrested in 1994 and Natale took over the local mob with New York's approval, Natale elevated Turchi to consigliere. The two apparently had a falling out over a year later, however, and Turchi was busted down to capo in 1996.

During testimony in Merlino's trial one mob informant linked Ligambi toTurchi's slaying.


Long John Didn't Step Aside...
Raymond "Long John" Martorano, an aging mobster and one-time major moneymaker, was shot and critically wounded on Jan. 17, 2002.

Martorano, 74, was in his car and about to drive to a doctor's appointment that afternoon, when two

Ray "Long John" Martorano was supposed to retire. He didn't.
So they whacked him while he was driving. It took him three
weeks to die.
gunmen ran up on him and opened fire. He was hit several times in the chest and arms, but managed to drive the six blocks to his doctor's office before crashing his Lincoln Towncar into a fire hydrant.

He remained in critical condiction for three weeks and died on Feb. 5.

A police officer who talked to Martorano said the dying mobster didn't know who had shot him.

One law-enforcement source believed the shooting was connected to an attempt by Martorano to reestablish himself in the underworld.

Martorano was once a major methamphetamine dealer. A source told Philly.com that the veteran mob soldier had been trying to move into the gambling business in South Philadelphia since his release from prison in 1999.

"He can't help himself," said an underworld source. "It's like people who can't retire. They have to have something to do. There's money in gambling. It's the easiest and it's the best money."

Federal and state investigators said that acting mob boss Joseph Ligambi had taken control of the gambling operations in Merlino's absence. Martorano and Ligambi, 62, were both soldiers under mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo in the early 1980s. Both were convicted of gangland murders, and both were released from prison after those convictions were overturned.

While in prison, Martorano reportedly had a falling out with Scarfo.

Martorano served more than 17 years in prison on drug-trafficking and murder charges before his release in November 1999. The release came after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling overturning his 1984 conviction in the murder of Philadelphia Roofers Union boss John McCullough. The conviction was tossed out based on prosecutorial misconduct.

Martorano once owned a popular South Philadelphia restaurant, Cous' Little Italy at 11th and Christian Streets. He also served as point man for the mob in its control of the South Jersey Bartenders' Union in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Martorano had been an associate of mob boss Angelo Bruno in the 1960s and 1970s. Bruno, who was killed in 1980, was a salesman for John's Vending, a cigarette-vending machine company run by Martorano and his brother.

Our source told us: "Long John was from the old regime and had no respect for nobody and started stepping on the wrong toes. He had no help to make a move... all his guys were in jail or dead. They were letting him earn... "

He then named a capo and soldier in Philadelphia who were responsible for carrying out the hit. We won't name the two here.

good article i just found from Friday June 13th.

The capo/ soldier they are talking about have to be a combo of lance, nics, lucibello, and dame.

I think Alite is full of shit to be honest.

JMack where are you getting that from?
I assume bc that crew was on the street at the time of Long John? There were more on the street in 99' I think almost everyone

Exactly. They were the only ones on the street in 02 with that kind of potential. Oddly enough I heard a rumor a while back that one of long Johns shooters was gongs. Again take that for what it's worth.

I agree. I would also think it was either Mikey Lance, Dame, or Nicodemo. Im nor sure about Lucibello but hey its possible.

The reason I said lucibello as well was because there was talk for the gongs hit that tony gags drove the car. Gags reported to lucibello when he was alive and on the street. Just a thought.

Yeah it's pretty widley believed that's Gongs and his brother were the two guys that shot Long John, and if I'm not mistaken after the hit Johnny Gongs was bragging that it was him who clipped Martorano

He was talking about it and he wasn't listening to the admin was trying to run schemes with ny guys ( plus going up there as well) and held out on everyone else

yea Johnny Gongs was wild and in a league of his own. I wonder if Steve Casasanto got his button or if he is just an associate. He must be made or why else would he do the hit on Long John. I know I wouldnt if I wasnt gettin made for it. But Steve seems like he is a lot smarter then his brother. Johnny gongs was already beefin with a lot of people and then he goes around braggin about long john, no wonder they shot his ass. I still think it was Nicodemo and Canalichio who did Johnny Gongs.

Michael Angelina and Steve Casasanto

Hey Stevie,

No Margate 2014 beach pics yet?

No not that I have seen yet. I am sure they will start coming in soon. But this next pic im about to post is a classic

Avenue Cafe Days!