Before I address the Violi thing, I'd just like to mention something I find really interesting about this thread. If you look at the first few pages of this thread, Rooster says that his information comes from beat cops. In a previous thread he said he didn't know any wiseguys nor did he want to IIRC. Rooster's entire argument is based on the words of beat cops. These beat cops apparently know the entire hierarchy of the crime family. These beat cops know what rackets they're into. These beat cops know whose being made.






Fast forward a few pages and look at what Rooster is saying. When asked about why his ALLEGED beat cop sources haven't made any busts, he responded with:

So wait a minute. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that he actually DOES have cops talking to him about the Mafia. That's a huge maybe, and to be honest with you, I don't think he does.
If he does have cops talking to him, what makes these beat cops more reliable or trustworthy than the FBI? What makes them more reliable than longtime Buffalo OC investigative journalists? What makes them more reliable than DAs and federal prosecutors?
Some posters here are attacking the credibility of feds, DAs, and said journalists, but no one is questioning the credibility of Rooster's "beat cops." He acknowledged that some of these beat cops were related to mobsters;

And he acknowledged that Buffalo is a corrupt area, which I know to be true. For the record, the feds have a far, far, far better track record when it comes to Mafia corruption than city cops do. There is absolutely no question about that.
So even if, and that's a big IF, Rooster is telling the truth about his beat cops, are we really going to believe possibly corrupt beat cops over the feds? Especially when cops in Buffalo have not acknowledged the existence of the Buffalo mob in years? And the FBI has explicitly said that the mob in Buffalo (i.e. the Todaro crime family) is dead?

By this point, we know Rooster has conflicting thoughts about law enforcement in Buffalo. He acknowledged the area's corruption, as have many other posters and the DOJ itself has discouraged the corrupt culture of the Buffalo/Niagara Falls area, and has acknowledged that some of his sources are related to crime family members. But, fast forward even more, he gets to a point where he is straight-up dissing law enforcement in general, especially the feds, even though the feds are helluva lot better Mafia fighters than city cops.

This is a post aimed at me:

So wait... when I link actual, written statements by law enforcement, somehow I'm 'grasping?' But when you hang on to ALLEGED beat cops' words like the bible, that's okay with you? It's important to remember that Rooster has offered nothing which indicates he even speaks to Buffalo cops, let alone that what they're saying is the same as what he's posted.

So my reliance on PROVEN, DOCUMENTED law enforcement somehow has fallen apart, yet Rooster's ALLEGED talks with self-proclaimed corrupt beat cops hasn't?

But then he calls back on his beat cops and says this:

They apparently have insight, but not enough to make a conviction after over 15 years. And no, Cohen isn't a "Buffalo associate." Ciminelli isn't a "Buffalo associate." The bust you mentioned where you claimed two Rochester soldiers were indicted also never happened.
Rooster's "evidence" consists of him linking an unrelated arrest in Buffalo, like the Cohen arrest, and then trying to connect the dots with the Todaro crime family even though guys like Cohen were never, ever, ever connected with the Todaro crime family. It's not evidence if you have to tell us what the bust/article is missing.

Also, have a look at this little tidbit from Rooster:

How the fuck can a "current member" flip to that the family doesn't exist? If he's a current, active member, and he's flipping, then it obviously means there's something to flip over?
Anyways, let's claim that Rooster's convoluted example makes sense.
This means that the Trafficante crime family is still active, because no "current member" has flipped to say that it hasn't.
Has anyone flipped to say Pittsburgh isn't active?
Milwaukee?
Los Angeles?
Kansas City?
Dallas?
Seattle?
Denver?
I could go on. Watch Rooster try and say "Apples and Oranges" to this, even though he explicitly stated that the only way to tell if a family is defunct is if a member flips and says the family is defunct. Go figure...

Anyways, I continue with his hypocritical comments on law enforcement.

By this point, Rooster seems to be having memory trouble. As in, he is forgetting who told him the information about the Todaro crime family. Just to jog your memory Rooster, you claimed that beat cops told you the hierarchy, rackets and members of the family.

And Rooster claims that I'M the one with an agenda? My agenda has, and still is, strictly evidence. If I've somehow got an agenda because I believe the feds over an internet nobody and an admitted liar (Giacomo), then hey, I guess that's my agenda. But it seems that Rooster's agenda is to claim the family is still active at all costs. Which is why he claims his law enforcement sources are correct, and then later discredits law enforcement as a whole. It's also why he consistently shits on acclaimed reporters, until he manages to find little tidbits in articles which support his story. Acclaimed journalists for the Buffalo News and Niagara Falls Reporter are all wrong, but then Rooster references a chart from Gangsters Inc., an amateurish mafia news website (I enjoy the website, but - like About the Mafia.com - I wouldn't take it over the the feds, prosecutors and the Buffalo News). Where's the double standard?



So, to all the people that have discredited the feds, DAs, and other sources, in order to back up Rooster's story, where's the double standard? Bensonhurst, what makes you think that corrupt beat cops who haven't been able to make a bust are any more reliable than the feds? If you want to discredit the feds, fine, but what would we know without them? 90% of the information online about the Mafia comes from the feds. Wiretaps, busts, surveillances, informants... all the work of the feds. If you want to discredit the feds than you can discredit most of what we know about Buffalo's mob history. We only know about Joe Todaro Jr.'s closeness to Pete Capitano due to the feds, since the feds wiretapped Todaro's restaurant and caught him talking about Gerace and Capitano? That's just one example from this thread. When the feds caught Todaro Jr. talking about Capitano in 1990, that was good enough for you guys, but now when they call Local 210 an "aggressive but clean" union, that isn't enough for you?