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Aging Wiseguy Moves To The Government's Side Of The Street

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn got some very important help from an aging wiseguy in order to take down the Colombo crime family Admistration, along with three powerful capos and four other mobsters and associates this month in the biggest Mafia roundup in a couple of years, Gang Land has learned.

Colombo capo Dennis (Fat Dennis) Delucia, who is 80 years old, just may be the oldest mobster to ever wear a wire on behalf of the government.

Sources say the geezer gangster is the latest in a long line of Colombo family defectors. Delucia helped the feds charge family boss Andrew (Mush) Russo, underboss Benjamin (The Claw) Castellazzo and consigliere Ralph DeMatteo with shaking down a Queens-based construction workers union official for 20 years.

THIS is big trouble. Big, Big trouble.

If Dennis flipped, a ton of guys are going down. Period!

And I'm not talking about Russo and the others who got nailed last week either. Lots of guys are gonna have a headache.

MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!! HOW DARE HE!!!!!!???? Dennis was one of the good guys. What a piece of fucking shit. How selfless and horrible can these people be?

Flipping at 80. How is this even possible? Is he okay in the head?

His son is also the security treasure of the union that was being extorted so maybe he flipped to save his son from a long sentence or that both are flipped. For me is loke Nicky Skin that flipped for save his son.

He so far is the 17th Colombo member to cooperate with the government here’s a list

Alan Quatrache (Soldier) - flipped in early 1990's.

Greg "The Grim Reaper" Scarpa Sr (Captain) - flipped in 1993 but had actually been an informant since the 1950's.

John Pate (Captain) - flipped in 1993.

Michael "Mikey" Franzese (Acting Captain) - flipped in 1993.

Salvatore "Big Sal" Miciotta (Acting Captain) - flipped in 1993.

Carmine Sessa (Consigliere) - flipped in 1993.

Rocco Cagno (Soldier) - flipped in early 2000's.

Joseph "Joe Camp" Campanella (Soldier) - flipped in 2003.

Frank "Frankie Blue Eyes" Sparaco (Soldier) - flipped in 2010.

Dino "Big Dino" Calabro (Captain) - flipped in 2010.

Michael "Mikey" Souza (Soldier) - flipped in 2010.

Joseph "Joey Caves" Compatiello (Soldier) - flipped in 2010.

Sebastiano "Sebby" Saracino (Soldier) - flipped in 2010.

Paul "Paulie Guns" Bevacqua (Acting Captain) - flipped in 2011

Anthony Russo (Acting Captain) - flipped in 2011.

Reynold Maragni (Captain) - Flipped 2011

Denis Delucia (Captain) - Flipped 2021

They're all a bunch of rats.

Very good thinking Furio. And you may be very much correct. Dennis flipped to save his son from jail who may have gotten caught up in the labor racket. OR, he's just a complete piece of shit at 80 to flip and ruin his name in CN. But the son angle makes sense to me personally

And these are just the guys you KNOW about. I'm sure there's others (made guys) and top associates alike who are also undercover rats to this day. Dry snitches like Scarpa was.

I don't care what his excuse for flipping was, he's a piece of shit to me. Whatever the excuse, it's not as understandable as others out there. I'm willing to bet he starts a YouTube channel, crying and whining to his audience that the life wasn't what he thought it was, how he flipped to save his son and how he's such a martyr for doing so. How he's a hero because he risked his life, although we know that the mob doesn't kill anymore.

Times are changed,if DeLucia would be a true mobster in the sicilian way,he would disown or kill his lesbian daughter and let his son go to jail. But because his a human he supported his daughter and maybe tried to save his son,that made him a bad mobster and a decent person.

You can have your views and I'll have mine. He's right for not disowning his lesbian daughter, but wrong for flipping to save his son, turning his back on a life that he and his son both chose and selling out his comrades in the process.

This is US and not Sicily or Calabria , in Sicily in 2017 we had case when mobster ordered a hit on his own daughter because she was dating a cop, stuff like that just don't happen in US.

Anyway, at 80 years old he must have had very good reason to flip and wear a wire. I can agree on what DillyDolly said , if you are a mobster , stay a mobster till the end , you choose that life, same as if u are a cop , don't be a dirty one , stay a cop.

If he flipped to save a straight and narrow son, then maybe. But that is not the case here.

You think it's okay if he's doing it to save his son?

It is NEVER okay to rat. No matter what the reason is. I don't care if he's saving a starving village in Africa. YOU NEVER RAT!!!!!!!

I did not give my opinion if it was right or wrong to rat. I only stated my thoughts as to why Delucia turned. At 80 years old, after almost doing 15+/- in the joint, why would he rat at the 11th hour? Saving his kid might be the answer to that question.

I believe that 99.9% percent of the time, there is NO good reason to turn. But being a logical individual (familiar with that life, and life in general), there IS a 0.1% percent reason where I can see a guy justified for turning. He's still a rat, but he had damn good reason. In fact, I can think of 2 off the top of my head.

THEY made him a rat! .... and guys only had themselves to blame.(but thats me). How I think. Everybody has their own opinions, and they are entitled to em. Lol

BTW, on an unrelated (related) note. I just discovered that Chicago mobster Charles (Chuckie) Nicoletti was an FBI informant. Wow!

In his time he was one of the most dangerous guys in Chitown. Just goes to show, ya never fucking know who's good, and who's bad.

He made himself a rat!! I'm not saying that there aren't guys in that family who treated Dennis and his kid like shit. Maybe they did and fuck 'em for being assholes, but Dennis is gonna rat on good people also. Trust me, he will!

Chuckie Nicoletti? No way. Where are you getting this? I don't know much about Chicago but I always ONLY heard good things about Chuck. Everyone said he was a stand up guy

This is maybe the reason of why he was killed and his case remained unsolved.

Yep. Back in the 70s when all the rats were getting whacked with .22 calibers and the FBI shit because so many of their informants were getting clipped around the country, it came out that Nicoletti was a cooperator. And that most probably the reason he got whacked out.

Ratting to save his son who also chose the gangster path is no excuse to me. We don't know if they were treated like shit or not, but even if they were, that's not how you handle it. You're not a regular average Joe civilian, you're a made man or an aspiring wiseguy, the legal system is off-limits to you. If you wanted to use the law, then you should've stayed on the straight and narrow. It's not a good look, is all I'm saying. This reminds me of the Cantarella father and son rat team of the Bonannos. It's disgusting. In fact I'll use an even better word, it's purifying!

Then again at 80-years old, maybe he isn't all there. I only have one wish though, that he doesn't try to become a YouTube star like the other rats or start his own podcast.

At 80 yo, I doubt he's looking for YouTube, or even capable of it lol

I guess a better question is, how are these guys still getting recorded by their fellow mobsters? Haven't they learned already? Whatever happened to Gigante-style caution.

they're creatures of habit

The aren't asociale guys so happens to talk to the fellow mobsters ,it normal,were social animals,the paranoid men who always on their own are the exceptions. And if an a mobsters talk to a 80 years old wiseguy maybe he believe that "come on he an old style guy,he will never flip". But happened.

Full Gangland Article

Aging Wiseguy Moves To The Government's Side Of The Street

Gang Land Exclusive!Dennis DeluciaFederal prosecutors in Brooklyn got some very important help from an aging wiseguy in order to take down the Colombo crime family Admistration, along with three powerful capos and four other mobsters and associates this month in the biggest Mafia roundup in a couple of years, Gang Land has learned.

Colombo capo Dennis (Fat Dennis) Delucia, who is 80 years old, just may be the oldest mobster to ever wear a wire on behalf of the government.

Sources say the geezer gangster is the latest in a long line of Colombo family defectors. Delucia helped the feds charge family boss Andrew (Mush) Russo, underboss Benjamin (The Claw) Castellazzo and consigliere Ralph DeMatteo with shaking down a Queens-based construction workers union official for 20 years.

The sources say Fat Dennis attended two meetings in a Brooklyn restaurant with the family's top mobsters and capo Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico last November. Delucia's name is not mentioned in any court filings, but sources say he was at both sessions that are detailed in a 49-page detention memo the government used to detain 10 mob-linked defendants without bail.

Andrew RussoIt's unclear why Fat Dennis decided to flip, or when he turned on his Cosa Nostra pals. But several reliable sources have told Gang Land that he's a cooperating witness in the case. "Since he was at two high-level meetings and he's not indicted," cracked one source, "it's a pretty safe bet that he was working on the government's side of the street."

Prosecutors James McDonald and Devon Lash were likely referring to the octogenarian wiseguy when they wrote that the "diverse array of investigative tools" they used to obtain the multi-count racketeering conspiracy indictment included "consensual recordings by a confidential witness in which many defendants discuss a variety of criminal activities."

The prosecutors wrote that Persico, Castellazzo, and DeMatteo were at a November 19 restaurant meeting also attended by capos Richard Ferrara and Vincent (Vinny Unions) Ricciardo, the architect of an extortion plot that he allegedly began against a leader of Local 621 of the United Construction Trades and Industrial Employees Union (UCTIE,) back in 2001.

Russo, the family's new "official boss," oversaw a second meeting at the same restaurant, they wrote. At the confab, the prosecutors wrote, the family leaders "decided that Russo would continue to serve as family Boss" until Persico, a nephew of late boss Carmine (Junior) Persico, completed his supervised release term in 2023 and was capable of taking over the reins — a plan that the feds scotched two weeks ago.

Benjamin CastellazzoAt that session, the prosecutors wrote, the "Colombo administration" also discussed the long-running Vinny Unions extortion plot against the Local 621 union leader that Colombo family consigliere DeMatteo allegedly took over — to the crime family's detriment — in 2019, as we detail below.

During the same session, wrote prosecutors McDonald and Lash, the Colombo family leaders placed capo Ferrara "in charge of supervising the scheme" to also extort "at least $10,000 per month" from Local 621's benefit funds and funnel that cash "up to (the) senior leadership" of the bourghata.

Delucia, who's had no known legal problems since 2016 after he completed three years of post-prison supervised release, is not named in any publicly filed documents in the case.

But sources say he was a participant at both November meetings, which took place at Brennan And Carr, a legendary 83-year-old Sheepshead Bay restaurant that specializes in juicy roast beef sandwiches. The eatery, ironically, has long been a favorite meeting spot of law enforcement officials.

Theodore PersicoAccording to court records, Delucia's sons, David, 56, and Dean, 52, have each been affiliated for nearly two decades with Local 621 of UCTIE — David as an administrator of the union's benefit funds, and Dean as secretary treasurer of the 1179 member union that represents workers in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Neither brother responded to telephone or email requests for comment. Gang Land was unable to reach their father, whose former attorney said he hadn't spoken to Fat Dennis in several years.

Delucia spent 27 months behind bars following his January 2011 arrest in the FBI's historic Mafia Takedown Day roundup of 127 gangsters. At his sentencing for racketeering in April, 2013, the 71-year-old Delucia convinced the judge he would not show up again in Brooklyn Federal Court "as a criminal defendant."

That may yet turn out to be true, but it's not very likely. Delucia, who had spent 11 of the prior 19 years behind bars in separate cases for murder conspiracy and labor racketeering convictions, did not "go home and retire" from The Life as he promised Judge Kiyo Matsumoto he would do when he was released from prison just three months later.

Conrad IannielloAs prosecutors predicted, Fat Dennis resumed his role as a Colombo family skipper. But they are now presumably quite happy that he did, given his crucial aid to Uncle Sam.

In 2008, three years before he was hit with the Mafia Takedown Day racketeering charges, Delucia came to the aid of his son Dean during a long, losing battle he had with Genovese capo Conrad Ianniello when Dean Delucia tried to organize the workers of a Long Island chocolate factory that Ianniello controlled.

Delucia had been a partner, and a convicted codefendant, of Genovese underboss Venero (Benny Eggs) Mangano in a 1980s bid-rigging scheme installing windows in city housing projects, but it didn't help Fat Dennis. He was bested by Ianniello, who sent 300-pound enforcer Ryan (Baldy) Ellis to the Local 621 office to threaten Dean Delucia — and his wife — if he persisted in trying to organize chocolate factory workers in June of 2008.

Fat Dennis was unable to use his well-honed gangster prowess to help Local 621 win its fight with the powerful Genovese crime family. But a decade later, he was able to help the feds put an end to the Colombo clan's 20-year-long shake down of Local 621 president Andrew Talamo and put all his alleged antagonists behind bars.

Ryan EllisTomorrow though, lawyers for Vinny Unions Ricciardo are planning to seek a release on bail for the 75-year-old mobster, who has had numerous heart attacks since his first one at the age of 38, on the grounds that he is likely to die if he is not released from the Metropolitan Detention Center sooner rather than later.

Prosecutors McDonald and Lash, who wrote two weeks ago that Ricciardo exploded in anger and threatened to kill Talamo "right in front of his fucking house" and vowed he wasn't "afraid to go to jail" and "would fucking shoot him right in front of his wife and kids" say conditions at the MDC may not be perfect, but that's where Vinny Unions deserves to be.

It remains to be seen whether Judge Matsumoto was right to tell Delucia, back on April 9, 2013: "I do have faith that you will not appear again in this courthouse or any other courthouse as a criminal defendant." Or if Fat Dennis decided to turn on the Colombos because he was up to his old tricks and got caught, and decided that was the best way to avoid going back to prison

They say Teddy was supposed to become boss in 2023 lol. That guy will be hit hard and he ain't coming home until he's an old man. The smart play would be to give it to Craig Marino