Saw that Frank Lino was just released.. Has he or Massino given a true eyewitness account of exactly what happened when the unlucky 3 walked in?


Long time lurker, 1st time poster.

im not sure if Massino has but Lino definitely gave a first hand account of how it went down at Massino's trial. he choked up on the stand when describing how Trinchera got shot. he ran of the place and went to someone's house to use the phone and have his son pick him up.

id love to be able to read those testimonies in full from Massino's trial. lino, frank coppa, joe d'amico, and richard cantarella all testified at one point or another and each gave their history; when they were made, who they came up under, etc

you can read quotes from Lino's testimony in sam destafno's book about massino "the last godfather"

Agreed. There are snippets of the testemonies on the internet (articles) and in various books but no place where to read them in full. I guess they are available in the court house where the trials were held but transcripts from trials are extremely expensive and usually takes a long time obtaining them.

One interesting thing Massino said about Sonny Black´s murder is that he was not killed because of the Donnie Brasco incident, but rather because he feared Sonny Black was making (or planning) a power grab move. He also said that Mirra was killed for being an informant, not because Donnie Brasco or his aggresive, abusive style.

Welcome aboard JimmyIrons!

I still don't get the picture about how the Sonny Black hit went down: Lino's and Filocomo's stories don't match with the body: wrong bullet caliber, wrong number of wounds. What did Massino say, was it ever published?

Thank you, for some reason I've always been fascinated about this particular murder.. Wiping out 3 powerful men with killers underneath them and there was never much repercussion. As much of a gangster as Bruno was, I'm surprised he took it like he did.


I've seen small snippets of Lino's testimony, but would love to hear more. I'll have to check out the book. I don't believe Massino's talk of Lefty's murder, I don't see him making a power grab after the Brasco debacle.

yeah its weird about the conflicting reasons for some of those murders; i think massino gave a conflicting reasons for the murders of george sciascia and cesare bonventre as well.

but, id go with what he said about hitting Napolitano due to a power play. he had a huge crew and was a powerful guy, and was also a Rastelli loyalist. him and massino were the most powerful guys on the street when rastelli was in jail and were both jockying for position in their own right. itd be interesting to see what happened if Napolitano had the same vision as Massino and ended up striking first

Well, if you think about it, there is nobody else in better position to know the truth than Joe Massino. He may have told his underlings like Vitale, Lino and others (and perhaps Rastelli too) that Sonny Black was killed due to him introducing Pistone into the Bonanno Family, which would be a "justifiable" cause to kill him. But Massino may have had a more sisnister motive, not revealed until he gave testimony on the hit. He may have been jelous at Sonny Black´s power and growing closeness to Rastelli and feared a power grab. I read somewhere that sometimes when Massino and Sonny Black met and talked, the discussions often ended in shouting matches.

Would Sonny Black make a power grab after making such an error? Doesn't seem likely. To me anyways. It sounded like he knew he would be killed, doesn't seem like someone making a power grab would allow themselves to be killed like that.

Exactly. It's illogical that SB would attend a sit-down knowing it was most likely his life if he were embroiled in a power play with JM.

He knew he would be hit, he went knowing his infraction had cost him his life. He would never attend if it was a power play. It's absurd.

I'm also skeptical that Mirra was an informer. Mirra brought Pistone in. That is basis enough easily, for him to get hit. He also spent most of his life in Jail and even did a stint whilst Pistone was on the scene. Tough as hell, psychotic. An unlikely profile for an informer.

It seems JM potentially was motivated to disassociate hits he ordered from being motivated by the infiltration of a federal agent.
Perhaps he thought that ordering a hit basis a federal agent would be viewed more sternly by his sentencing judge.

The likelihood that two major hits were carried out, one on the guy who introduced a fed, the other on the guys crew he was in and whom proposed him for membership, for reasons completely unrelated is HIGHLY improbable.

They all got wacked cause of Brasco

From everything told of Mirra, he just doesn't sound like an informant. I don't trust anything Massino says.


Did the crews of the 3 capos just assimilate into other crews or were there new captains named?

How much longer does Robert Lino got, or is he out already?

Who, the kid?

He has like fifteen years to go.

Thanks PB... Yeah the kid, i thought he only got 84 month sentence?

He got 27 years. He's not eligible for parole until 2028.

http://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/