Lisa B here...wanted to share some John Pennisi information and articles...

John Pennisi was an alleged “soldier” in the Lucchese Family who had a criminal past that included a 1990 manslaughter conviction. He was only 20-years-old at the time. In 1989, he and another man were dating the same girl. When the other boyfriend found out Pennisi was at her house, he went there to confront her, but her father sent him away. He left and went to a bar.

Pennisi was upset that the other man had the nerve to show up the girl’s house, so Pennisi called up a friend and hunted the other boyfriend down, shooting him in the chest and killing him. It was never determined which one of the two friends killed the other man, but Pennisi took off and went into hiding for months. He was finally arrested, brought to trial and sentenced to 17 years behind bars.

However, he had lied during his testimony at that 1990 trial to protect him and his co-defendant. This “false narrative” was brought to light at the May 2019 trial of alleged Lucchese “soldier” Eugene Castelle when the government admitted this fact to the Court, saying in part: “CW-2 has admitted to the Government that during his testimony in the 1990 trial, he deliberately made false statements in an effort to shield himself and his co-defendant from liability.”

While in prison, Pennisi had many problems. He tried committing suicide because he couldn’t deal with prison life. He was a very paranoid and jealous man, too. He required his former girlfriend to “answer him on FaceTime (even if she was traveling on a highway or otherwise unable to use her phone at that moment) to ensure that another man was not present with her” and had burned her hair and knocked her teeth out with his fist.

However, the defense wasn’t allowed to ask about any of this because it wasn’t relevant to his "credibility." So, what was relevant to his credibility?

It seemed that the main purpose of having Pennisi testify was so the government could complete its special hierarchy board for the jury to see. His testimony mostly consisted of identifying people in pictures and providing background information on the "Mafia" and Lucchese Family activities because he, apparently, knew everything and everybody even though he was a self-described "nobody."

But despite being a “made” member from approximately 2013 to 2017 and knowing all the players allegedly involved, the prosecution didn’t even ask about the main plot of the trial – the murder of Michael Meldish.

Even Gang Land commented on it in their October 24, 2019 column, stating, “You’d think that a wiseguy who’d been made before the hit, and was active for more than four years after it took place, would have heard some scuttlebutt tying Crea or former acting boss Matthew (Matty) Madonna to the slaying.”