As I said above, I will defer your expertise, but I am getting different feedback. Do you know who "Tim" might be...his name has come up several times, but I don't have any idea of who he might be. Also, from what I am told, the FBI really has no to nominal interest in what these guys are doing, so I'm not sure any of them have any good info. at this point. I have recently heard, more than once, that Bobby I. is really running things while Sonny plays the ponies, and that the whole kick up scheme is still intact....at least in regards to book/sharking.
Timmy Leonardo...somebody pm'd me about him and he has never come up in any case regarding OC in Pittsburgh for the last 30 years. Bobby I always was an independent associate of LCN but he is pushing 85. Again, I don't doubt that there is bookmaking going on, but the traditional LCN hierarchy died with Mike Genovese.
Keep in mind that the FBI and the Justice Dept had dismantled the crime family and it's factions. West Virginia went under after the 1990 trial of high ranking associate Paul Hankish. The 1999 cooperation of Lenny Strollo who secured close to 70 convictions in Youngstown alone put the nail in the coffin on the NE Ohio faction. By the year 2000, the only made guys (with the exception of Strollo & Porter who defected) left were Mike Genovese (died in 2006), Pat Ferruccio (died in 2006) Charlie Imburgia (who was retired and died in 2002), Sonny Amato (died in 2003), Sonny Ciancutti and John Bazzano Jr(died in 2008) who were all in their 70's and 80's by then. The Altoona faction went under after the conviction of John Verilla in the mid 80's. The LaRocca's still had associates in Erie but their strength there went away when James "Westfield Jimmy" Salamone died in the late 1980's. Mike Genovese only made 5 guys in his 21 year reign. Chucky Porter and Sonny Ciancutti in 1986, Joey Naples & Lenny Strollo in 1987 and Henry Zottola in 1989-90.
