Hello

I registered here pretty quick after finding this place - the knowledge you people have is admirable. I see that you not only take this topic seriously but the research needed as well.
And thank you for having this site where we can discuss This Thing of Ours(Theirs).

I posted in (and started) a couple threads but since I am going to be asking many questions I thought I would make this thread for my questions instead of possibly disrupting your alrady ongoing conversations. (I also did not see an 'Introduce Yourself" thread so I felt this thread even more fitting/needed)

About me: I am 32. Born at Phelps Hospital. Grew up in Croton, Montrose, and finally Powder Horn <3 (Furnace Woods school area). Then moved to Rochster at 12.

My uncle-in-law was a drug dealer, among other things, who was good friends with some of the bigger guys. He got out in '68 on a murder charge. In the can he had made a lot of friends. One of them being Daniel 'The Lion' Leo who got my uncle-in-law playing with the big guys. He got the Purple Gang rolling and was their source of Heroin. His source was the Chinese which was why his was so much better than the Turkish and similar grade the Families were supplied with.

He got pinched in '86. It was the biggest drug bust in the US at that time. Of course the DEA agents pocketed all the 100$ bills. (Funny thing, that was only one of 5 stash houses he had; feds never knew, until this post, that he had others)
He was in Block J at Lewisberg and even got his Irish friend to live in Block J with the rest of the Italian crews. (This Irish person passed so I mention him - there is another 'right hand man' to my uncle-in-law who is still alive but I want to find more info on, just cautiously)
The Feds tried to link get him in the Blue Thunder trial but he lucked out big time.

Because he was a 'free agent' he was able to be friends with anyone he wanted without having to worry about politics (as much). But most importantly, he didn't take orders from anyone. Leo was the closest thing he ever had to a boss but he never followed orders from him

I hope to learn from you as well as share the stories he told me.

(I would be willing to discuss more details in PM's)

I will refer to my uncle-in-law as LUI

(oh, my fathers brother married LUI's sister)

First story,

LUI's uncle 'B' (not a real criminal, just an Italian doing the numbers, who happens to have a loving nephew who is a criminal) is setting up in Queens. At the same time Pete DeFeo is reclaiming Queens and goes to shake down 'B'. 'B' is scared excretionless and holes up in a safe house. LUI says this ain't happening so he goes to DeFeo's house. LUI said they(Defeo and his crew) made a 'federal case' out of it and "Went to "Benny Eggs" who went to the underboss and to Benny... They wanted to kill me (laughs)."

So, who is Benny Eggs?
and the higher-up Benny, I'm guessing that would be Philip Lombardo (Benny Squint)?
I'm thinking since DeFeo was a Capo and was taking this drama to the higher ups I would think the highest 'Benny' in this ladder (he said 'all the way to Benny') that it is not Beneditto Aloi

Thank you SC for moving my thread here.
Much appreciated.

what is this dumb shit?

What part are you unpleased with?
As1234

I'm confused. U writing a script or something?

Its boring to begin with...uncle-in-law?

If you stop feeding the thread, it will go away .

Sorry, I was at my buddy's place for the weekend celebrating his Birthday.

Yea, my uncle-in-law.
I interviewed him for a novel.

I did not get a chance to do a follow up interview because, well, Cancer. Seems like a lot of inmates seem to get Cancer.

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/15/nyregion/2-prisoners-charched-in-heroin-sales-by-phone.html

http://articles.philly.com/1986-01-10/news/26056262_1_drug-bust-drug-operation-drug-deal

Maybe one of youse has heard of him, likely not. But I believe his associates were better known.
I am hoping to learn more about the era he worked in.

Maybe that seems boring to some of you. Hopefully there's one or two that would enjoy learning/teaching some History here.

Salut

Any idea on who this Benny is?

Dude there are a few key people here who are like an encyclopedia on stuff like this. You could try to PM people and see if they're more open to you privately, but if people were willing or able to give u a bunch of names and stories from that era, they would have by now. There's a couple people who probably could give u info here but haven't responded. I'm thinking they're not gonna cough it up

edit*- the 80s were an exciting time for the mob. Searching old stories and articles could give u a crazy amount of info. In my opinion tho, people don't give up sensitive info easily on a message board

Fine I'll bite, which one of those guys in the articles is your uncle.

It's not Benny Eggs. He's a downtown guy. He never had anything going on with the Purple Gang. Those guys answered to one guy from Duck's crew on 108th, and one guy from the Buckaloo crew on 116th. That's how it was set up for the entire time the Purple Gang ran in Harlem.

And no offense, but I think your uncle might just be blowing smoke up your ass. Your timeline on the Purple Gang is so far off base than I don't know where to begin (so I won't).

Thank you.

Phil Vasta.
He wasn't with the Purple Gang, he got many of them into the business.
Instead he was an independant who was protected by Leo.
He got out in '68 for a murder wrap an started bookmaking. He got squashed by Vegas an so went into the Coke business with the Columbians. Around '75 he went broke again and then got the connection for Heroin from the Chinese.
He went to Lewisburg in '86 but when the guys he got started got pinched the Feds tried to get him on the Blue Thunder case as well. There was also a murder case they wanted to tie to him.
He lucked out avoiding the RICO count in '86 and was able to get out in 2004. He passed a few years back.

One of the Girls he was with was Anika, from Penthouse. She was datin Guccione the went with my uncle.

According the the fed inmate thing he got out in 02 not 04

Original post:



More recent post:


In your initial post you said that your uncle got the Purple Gang rolling. Which is it?

As far as being their "source for heroin," the Purple Gang's beginnings in the heroin trade pre-date your uncle by ten years, all the way back to Vinny Papa and Fat Gigi.


Patty Prisco was the point man on Blue Thunder from day one.

Sorry about the '02/'04 thing.
I have dyslexia. It's a mother.

Yes, I/he said he got them rolling. What I meant by him not being a part of them was that he was not in any of the families. He was proposed by two but he had a problem with authority thanks to an abusive father. So he with these crews, not in them. Sorry, is there a term for someone like that (all I can think of is Lone Wolf, or associate)

Thank you again Pizza Boy.

By 'ten years before,' do you mean in the 50's?

You can't be proposed by two families at the same time. The entire point of being on record with someone is that you're under the umbrella of a soldier and afforded the protection of that soldier's family.

Now don't get me wrong, as a freelance dope dealer he could have been working with two families (and in that area at that time it more than likely would have been the Genovese and Lucchese families). But proposed for membership by two? Nope.

And I'm not trying to pick on you, buddy. But if you're going to write a book about the mob, you can't get such basic information wrong because the general public just knows way too much about the the life today. It's not like when Puzo was writing "The Godfather," and only had McClellan, Kevauver and Valachi as his points of reference. Today you have the entire history of the American mob at your fingertips.


Like I said, the roots of the Purple Gang's involvement in heroin go back to Tony Loria and Vinny Papa, then a bit later to guys like Fat Gigi. Just research the French Connection case.

And yeah, the French Connection reached its peak in the late '60s. But that dope pipeline was active much earlier.

If you are going to come around here and tell stories that you claim were told to you (I have no idea either way) you better be dead on and get your dyslexia fixed because these guys will pick you apart and rightfully so considering you are claiming you have all this inside info.

I don't get it. If he has good stories to tell w names/dates/places I'm all ears. If he is asking for information than ask something. I'm confused by the tidbits but dealing dope out of lewisburg w paradiso in 86 has what to do w the purple gang and French connection of the 60s/70s. Please clarify cuz your uncles name is familiar and the stories you may be able to pass on would prob be better than asking really vague questions

I really am sorry.
I have to apologize about getting my facts wrong.
The Leo wasn't Leo Daniel but another guy. He is still alive so I won't say whom.
And I am not taking any offense to your criticisms, I actually thank you for them. Like I said earlier, I respect how you all work to keep facts straight. That is what made me excited about this place - people who value facts and will do the work to find them.
Sorry if I have ever come off sloppy or like a punk; I never mean to be either.

Would there be a better way for me to lay this story out, perhaps more organized?
I've been going over the tapes of our interviews again and I was only two hours into the first sitdown with my uncle in law when he was talking about his uncle getting shaken down for collecting in a neighborhood he wasn't supposed to and not kicking up because my uncle in law wouldn't have it.
Perhaps it would be better for me to spend more time trying to piece the stories together, on my own, before coming here for help?

Here is his trial:
https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-vasta

Here, he got these guys union cards for this little venture:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Perrino#The_Post_Circulation_Crew
http://www.ipsn.org/court_cases/People%20v_%20Newspaper%20and%20Mail%20Deliverers'%20Union%20of%20New%20York%20and%20Vicinity.htm

Okay doc, I'm not feeding the thread anymore, its taken a life of its own and its still shit. This guy writes like he's sixteen. just don't make sense.

YOUS A RAT!

I'm far from writing anything.
I think it's obvious I am still in the initial data collection phase.

I was hoping to find out more about this guy,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_D%27Angelo
It's weird they took the page down because he's not notorious enough (or there was sensitive info published)

as per http://www.factualworld.com/article/Leo_D'Angelo,
"D'Angelo was employed as the general foreman at the New York Post in the 1970s and 1980s. He served under reputed Bonanno crime family caporegime James Galante. He was nicknamed "The Mad Hatter" (after Gambino crime family mob boss Albert Anastasia because of his violent temper. In the 1960s he let fellow employees at the newspaper plant and mobsters that he had been convicted of murder in the 1960s. Leo D'Angelo was fired from his position at the New York Post after being convicted of extortion in 1990. After he was sentenced to prison, John Nobile, another mobster who served under James Galante at newspaper replaced him."

http://www.justice.gov/dea/about/history/1985-1990.pdf

If you scroll down to the bottom of pg12 you'll see the money seized from Vasta's home (minus the big bills).
He said he was lucky they didn't know about the other stash houses (there were 3 other houses with drugs and money).