Turncoat Bonanno gangster from Mob Wives show resurfaces in new interview
Showing posts with label Anthony Graziano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anthony Graziano. Show all posts
Thursday, January 13, 2022
Renee Graziano from Mob Wives is grateful to be alive after recent DUI arrest
Renee Graziano is “grateful to be alive” after crashing her car into a parked SUV on Staten Island.
The “Mob Wives” star, who was arrested for DUI, addressed the accident on Instagram Wednesday after she was released from police custody and immediately clarified that “no one was involved in the accident but me no one was touched, or injured.”
“I was taken to the hospital as a precaution, there I was tested, & treated, grateful to be alive!!” she captioned a photo of her and her late father, Anthony Graziano, adding that she did “bang” her head but sustained no other injuries.
Renee, 52, also acknowledged that while under the care of physicians she took “whatever test without hesitation” and was released with “no charges.”
“I was treated respectfully and kindly, so I have the utmost respect for the SI PD, EMT, FF, nurses and drs who helped me,” she added.
The reality star, who publicly has struggled with substance abuse issues, ended her message by asking for privacy as she focuses on her recovery and maintained that “no one was hurt” in the accident. She also warned her followers of black ice on the road, noting, “yeah that’s a real thing too.”
Page Six reported that Renee was arrested Tuesday night after crashing her car into an unoccupied 2020 Jeep Wrangler on Staten Island.
Sources told Page Six that Graziano — who informed police she had taken Adderall earlier in the day — was allegedly “wobbly on her legs” and had “slurred speech” and glassy eyes.
“Officers, when they went to speak to the driver of the vehicle, she displayed physical characteristics consistent with being under the influence and was subsequently taken into custody,” a spokesperson for the NYPD told Page Six.
“She was charged with operating a motor vehicle while impaired.”
Renee rose to fame when she starred on “Mob Wives” as the daughter of Anthony, who was a consigliere of the Bonanno crime family.
https://pagesix.com/2022/01/06/mob-wives-star-renee-graziano-addresses-accident-dui-arrest/
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
Mob Wives star arrested after car crash on Staten Island for driving under the influence
“Mob Wives” star Renee Graziano was arrested on charges of operating a motor vehicle while impaired — after she crashed her car into a parked SUV in Staten Island Tuesday night.
A spokesperson from the NYPD confirmed to Page Six that Graziano, 52, was driving a 2020 Nissan Murano when she allegedly lost control and collided with an unoccupied 2020 Jeep Wrangler at the intersection of Arden Avenue and Arthur Kill Road around 10:35 p.m.
Sources told Page Six that Graziano — who informed police she had taken Adderall earlier in the day — was allegedly “wobbly on her legs” and had “slurred speech” and glassy eyes.
“Officers, when they went to speak to the driver of the vehicle, she displayed physical characteristics consistent with being under the influence and was subsequently taken into custody,” a spokesperson for the NYPD told Page Six.
“She was charged with operating a motor vehicle while impaired.”
We’re told Graziano is awaiting arraignment in Staten Island criminal court.
A rep for the reality star did not immediately return Page Six’s request for comment.
The VH1 star has previously struggled with substance abuse and depression over the years and sought treatment for the latter in 2017.
“Renee is doing great,” a source told Page Six after she left rehab in December of that year.
Graziano rose to fame when she starred on “Mob Wives” as the daughter of Anthony Graziano, who was a consigliere of the Bonanno crime family.
She was previously married to Hector Pagan Jr., who was also a former associate of one of the “Five Families” that dominated organized crime activities in New York City.
The show was created by Graziano’s sister Jennifer, and it aired for six seasons from 2011 to 2016.
The series originally starred Drita D’Avanzo, Carla Facciolo and Karen
Gravano alongside Graziano. Karen Gravano, the late Angela “Big Ang”
Raiola, Love Majewski, Alicia DiMichele Garofalo and Natalie Guercio
also joined throughout the series.
https://pagesix.com/2022/01/05/mob-wives-star-renee-graziano-arrested-for-dui-after-car-crash/
Monday, May 27, 2019
Former Bonanno consigliere linked to Mob Wives stars dies at age 78
Reputed
Bonanno crime family consigliere Anthony Graziano, whose daughter Renee
starred on the reality show “Mob Wives,” has died at age 78.
The
passing of the Staten Island-born gangster known as “T.G.” was
announced Saturday by Renee in a heartfelt Instagram posting. Her sister
Jennifer was the creator of the popular VH-1 program that reportedly
caused problems for the Graziano patriarch with his organized crime
colleagues.
“I
can’t believe you’re gone, life will never be the same without you,”
wrote Renee. “My hero, my protector, my rock, my dad and the best man in
the world ... We sure are gonna miss you ... rest in peace Daddy.”
Graziano’s
disdain for his daughters’ television careers led him to stop speaking
with them for a period of time until fences were mended. And there were
reports that the daughters’ involvement in the reality show led his
fellow mobsters to take away many of the father’s organized crime
responsibilities.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-20190525-yxbnarzozzhgbdop3oc5hxsvge-story.html
Graziano,
owner of a seventh-grade education, became a well-respected gangster
and top family earner who moved up through the Bonanno ranks to capo and
then consigliere under boss Joseph "Big Joey" Massino — who eventually
flipped and became a federal witness.
In
contrast, Graziano’s reputation among his fellow Mafiosi was sterling. A
co-defendant, once asked if Graziano could ever turn on his mob
compatriots, ridiculed the idea: “Are you nuts? That man is a man and a
half.”
Graziano
was famously ratted out by his son-in-law Hector Pagan, who wore a wire
in a case that stuck Graziano with a 19-month prison sentence in 2012.
He previously did time for a 1990 conviction for tax evasion, and served another prison term for a 2002 racketeering conviction.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-20190525-yxbnarzozzhgbdop3oc5hxsvge-story.html
Sunday, July 2, 2017
Loyal Bonanno mobster was shelved after daughters made reality tv show
The warden and some guards were shaking prisoners down as they left the chow hall at FCI Loretto, a federal prison in Pennsylvania, when Anthony “TG” Graziano sauntered by with fellow mobsters in tow. “If I were the warden,” Graziano said to his buddies, “I wouldn’t have the hacks out here searching prisoners for food.” His minions — I was among them — laughed while Graziano glared at the warden. “What the fuck am I saying?” he continued. “I’d never be a fucking warden anyway.” They then walked off as other prisoners marveled at Graziano’s nerve.
Known as the ultimate stand-up guy within the mob, this tough-talking mafiaso was respected for his nerve and his loyalty. He did his time, twice, but didn’t become a household name for faithfully following the code of omertà . Instead, Graziano shot to fame when his daughters aired the mob’s dirty laundry on TV.
Graziano was born in the 1940s and is still feared in his Staten Island neighborhood. An old-school hoodlum from the start, the stocky and brutish kid — who never made it past seventh grade — seemed to wear a permanent smirk. And it wasn’t long before he got involved in the neighborhood business, climbing the ranks of the Bonanno crime family and becoming a capo by the 1980s.
TG paid the price for his daughters’ sins.One of the guys in his crew, John “Porky” Zancocchio, was the bookmaker who took bets from Pete Rose. Zancocchio was under the notorious Dominick Napolitano, aka Sonny Black, until Napolitano was killed in the 1981 Donnie Brasco fallout. Porky was Graziano’s son-in-law, married to his daughter Lana, and Graziano’s other daughters, Jennifer and Renee, also married Bonanno mobsters, Christian Ludwigsen and Hector Pagan. With Graziano raking in cash from Zancocchio’s bookmaking, his daughters were mob royalty who never wanted for anything.Larry McShane, author
By 1990, Graziano had landed in prison, sentenced to five years and a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty to a tax-evasion charge for hiding his assets in other people’s names. When explaining to the court what he did for a living, Graziano said, “I was a broker… I put two people together.” He was released in 1993, resuming his role as a capo and eventually rising to the position of consigliere in the Bonanno crime family.
He was sentenced to just 11 years because of health concerns, and a smiling Graziano reportedly told the prosecutor, “I wish I was a little younger. I would have fought this case.” “TG is as old-school as they get,” says Scott Burnstein, author of Motor City Mafia: A Century of Organized Crime in Detroit. “He’s not a New Millennium mobster, someone who courts the limelight or wants attention on social media. He goes all the way back to Joe Massino’s height of power, when he was the most powerful godfather in New York City.”
It was during this prison stint that Graziano’s daughter Renee rose to fame as the star of the hit VH1 series Mob Wives. “Graziano’s name really became more widely recognized because of his daughters,” says Christian Cipollini, author of Murder Inc. But the show, created by her sister Jennifer, embarrassed Graziano, who hated how his daughters were exploiting the organization he’d dedicated his life to honoring. When he got out in 2011, he refused to appear on the show. To make matters worse, Renee’s then ex-husband, Pagan, secretly recorded Graziano and other Bonanno members as they planned to collect an illegal $150,000 gambling debt, leading to the 72-year-old gangster being indicted again.
Due to Pagan’s informant status and the case being broadcast on Mob Wives, the judge granted the jury partial anonymity. Graziano was sentenced to 19 months for his role, but the Bonanno family leaders were furious that their business had been aired in public.
“TG paid the price for his daughters’ sins,” says Larry McShane, author of Chin: The Life and Crimes of Mafia Boss Vincent Gigante, noting how the crime family’s leaders stripped him of his senior role. “The longtime mafioso suddenly found himself with no rights or responsibilities within the Bonannos.”
Upon his release in 2013, Graziano’s lawyer told the press that reports of the mobster being upset with his daughters about the show was old news. Still, says Cipollini, it’s “ironic that the daughters of this old-school mobster, the ultimate stand-up guy, created and starred in this Mafia reality series.” A fact that he says Graziano will never live down.
Efforts to reach Graziano through his lawyer and family for comment were not fruitful.
http://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-mob-boss-whose-daughters-betrayed-him-by-starring-on-reality-tv/78747
Thursday, February 18, 2016
The mafia ties of Big Ang from Mob Wives
"Mob Wives" star "Big Ang" wasn't
actually married to the mob — but rather a niece of it.
Brooklyn-born Angela Raiola “Big Ang” tragically lost her
battle with cancer early Thursday at age 55.
Raiola, who later moved to Staten Island, was the niece of
Salvatore "Sally Dogs" Lombardi, a deceased captain of the Genovese
crime family.
She managed and owned several Mafia hangouts throughout the
years. Most recently, she owned the bar "Drunken Monkey" in Staten
Island with her cousin, Sally Dogs' daughter, Sallyann Lombardi.
"She is what many consider a 'mob moll.' Owning many
Mafia hangouts over the years, she became like "one of the guys" —
even catching a case with some high ranking members of the mob. She was loved
by them all," Raiola’s VH1 bio reads.
"She is like a character straight from the movie
'Goodfellas' and lives by the lifestyle code."
Salvatore Lombardi was arrested in 1992 at age 51. He was
the uncle of "Big Ang" of "Mob Wives" who died on Thursday
morning.
There are no reports of Raiola being married to a Mafia man,
but she had said she dated "wiseguys" or crime-connected men in the
past. VH1 noted that the larger-than-life personality has dated many gangsters.
Her uncle was a low-key captain of the Genovese family — one
of the five families in New York Mafia.
The capo was so low-key that not much information is
available about him. His crew operated out of the Gravesend section of Brooklyn
and dealt heavy drugs.
Lombardi was first arrested in 1979 for conspiring to
manufacture and sell Quaaludes. He was imprisoned in 1992 after wiretap
surveillance of his home telephone in Brooklyn led authorities to discover he
was planning to obtain a large quantity of heroin.
After serving 22 years in jail, he died in 2009.
Raiola spoke of her uncle on the television show, according
got the book "The Men Behind Mob Wives." She recalled fond memories
and remembered him as a "good guy."
"Sally Dogs" was close friends with fellow
"Mob Wives" cast member Karen Gravano's father Salvatore "Sammy
the Bull" Gravano.
Gravano was an underboss of the Gambino crime family and is
credited with ratting out and bringing down the family's infamous boss, John
Gotti.
Alicia DiMichele Garofalo of “Mob Wives” is married to
Edward “The Tall Guy” Garofalo of the Colombo crime family. “The Tall Guy’s”
father was allegedly killed by Sammy The Bull.
Other mob-connected cast members include Renee Graziano, the
daughter of Anthony Graziano — a high ranking member of La Cosa Nostra.
Drita D’Avanzo of “Mob Wives” is married to Lee D’Avanzo —
an alleged leader of a Bonanno and Colombo crime family farm team.
Ramona Rizzo appeared in seasons two and three and is the
granddaughter of the infamous Benjamin Ruggiero “Lefty Guns.” Her granddad was
portrayed by Al Pacino in the movie “Donnie Brasco.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/big-ang-mob-wives-connected-ny-mafia-article-1.2535980
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Mob Wives back on VH1 for a fifth season
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Mob Wives 5
Mob Wives 5
“Mob Wives” is back for a fifth season of screeching, yelling, shopping, more yelling and jail visits as Staten Island gun molls Drita D’Avanzo, Renee Graziano, Karen Gravano, Natalie Guercio and Angela “Big Ang” Raiola go on the prowl.
Last season, Renee, 46, mainly dealt with her father, Anthony Graziano, who was sentenced to one-and-a-half years in prison after her ex-husband, Hector “Junior” Pagan, wore a wire for the FBI and secretly taped conversations of his father-in-law with five other members of the Bonanno crime family. Four men, including Graziano, were sentenced to four-and-a-half years collectively after the recordings revealed they had attempted to collect a $150,000 illegal gambling debt.
Drita, 38, has a husband who is doing time. Lee D’Avanzo is serving time in prison for bank robbery — his second time in the big house. Karen, 35, who is the daughter of Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, returned to Staten Island after relocating to Arizona with her family.
Natalie, 31, is the single mother of a 9-year-old and wants to bring her family business, Carto Funeral Home, back to its former glory. And despite her over-the-top personality and zaftig proportions, Big Ang, 54, is known to most as the levelheaded one.
One question viewers would like to see answered this season is what exactly causes Big Ang and Renee to get into a huge fight. Hair is pulled, skin is bruised and accusations are hurled — irresistible scenes for those who get their rocks off on girl fights.
These ladies are bringing back the drama that we all thrive on from our reality starlets.
“Mob Wives” premiered Dec. 3 at 9 p.m. on VH1.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Two mobsters found guilty of murder after testimony from Hector Pagan Jr of Mob Wives fame
The daughter (right) of James Donovan and an unidentified male companion leave Brooklyn Federal Court on Thursday after the conviction of Richard Riccardi and Luigi Grasso in Donovan's 2010 murder.
A pair of fatso Mafia wannabes were convicted Thursday of murder largely on the turncoat testimony of “Mob Wives” star Renee Graziano’s ex-husband.
Richard Riccardi and Luigi Grasso were fingered in the fatal robbery of a Brooklyn check casher by mob rat Hector Pagan, who shot and killed the victim in Gravesend on July 2, 2010.
“Hector Pagan was not lying to make these defendants look more guilty,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Argentieri told the jury in her closing statement. “He told you he was the shooter and there is absolutely no other evidence in this case that Hector Pagan was the shooter, none.”
There was no mention of the reality TV show in which Pagan actually appeared around the same time he was wearing a hidden wire for the feds to nail top Bonanno gangsters, including his father-in-law Anthony "TG" Graziano.
The trio had targeted victim James Donovan, a reputed Luchese associate himself, for a stick-up because Riccardi knew he carried a large amount of cash.
The ex-husband of 'Mob Wives' TV personality Renee Graziano ratted out the pair of gangsters.
Donovan was ambushed outside an automotive repair show and tried to flee after Grasso grabbed him by the hand.
“Who the f--- are you?” were Donovan's last words, according to a witness, before Pagan shot him in the leg. Donovan’s femoral artery was shredded and he bled to death.
“The jury saw through their attempts to shift responsibility for their actions and held them accountable for Mr. Donovan's senseless death,” said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.
In addition to Pagan’s cooperation, NYPD Det. Peter McMahon broke the case by recovering cigarette butts from a parking lot where Riccardi was surveilling the victim. Riccardi’s DNA was found on the butts.
Richard Riccardi is one of the Mafia wannabes convicted on Thursday in the murder of James Donovan.
Earlier this week, Grasso did some squealing of his own — to the judge — complaining that the feds weren't feeding him enough lunchtime grub.
Grasso was furious that Federal Judge John Gleeson had cut off his catered lunches from a downtown Brooklyn delicatessen and that he was back on bologna sandwich rations.
“We're starving!” Grasso wailed, although co-defendant Richard Riccardi wisely kept his mouth shut.
Tough luck, Gleeson shot back, reminding Grasso that he had abused the privilege when family members sneaked extra bottles of iced tea in with the order.
The government provides each defendant a sandwich, an apple and a container of milk for lunch while they are in court, but Grasso and Riccardi appear to tip the scales at 300 pounds apiece and complained they were famished before the end of the trial day.
The defendants face life in prison. Pagan testified that he recently told family members that he'll be home soon.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/testimony-mob-wives-star-leads-convictions-article-1.1728796#ixzz2wbUmrJmW
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Courtroom drama as Mob Wives snitch Hector Pagan Jr testifies
While the murder trial in Brooklyn
Federal court possessed a storyline with all the dramatic trappings of a
must-watch reality TV program, the most captivating part was that it
wouldn't be publicized.
On Monday, there was Dr. Tara Margarella a trauma resident turned plastic surgeon who was once featured on the show New York Med. She testified about her desperate efforts to save the victim in this murder and robbery conspiracy case.
On Tuesday, it was Hector Pagan, ex-husband of Mob Wives star Renee Graziano. He appeared as the government’s star witness against two alleged accomplices in a killing where he himself had been the triggerman.
The fury and shame that the other people he had ratted out in unrelated cases, included his father-in-law—reputed Mafia capo Anthony Graziano—had actually been a major story line on Mob Wives.
As a result, this is the first trial in history where the government sought to keep the jurors anonymous not only to ensure their physical safety, but also to protect the jury from (God forbid) ending up on a reality TV show.
“Members of the press or the producers of Mob Wives may attempt to contact jurors, if their identities are known, to generate additional stories surrounding the trial and [Pagan’s] testimony,” prosecutors said in court papers.
Prosecutors further worried, “The expected media attention may put significant pressure on jurors to reach a verdict based on considerations other than the evidence presented at trial, for example to either avoid the notoriety associated with the show or to seek it out.”
The situation is all the more unique because the judge, John Gleeson, is a former prosecutor who back in 1987 joined fellow Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Gicalone in being the first to prosecute flamboyant mob boss John Gotti. The two put on a valiant effort in this very same courthouse with Giacalone, in particular, suffering terrific abuse from the defense, only to lose the case after one of the jurors was bribed.
Gleeson now ruled that the jury in the present case against the two accomplices, Richard Riccardi and Luigi “Ronnie” Grasso, would be granted partial anonymity. Their names would be known to the prosecution and to the defense, but not to the media—including reality TV shows.
The jurors were thus dually protected when the government called a former figure from New York Med to the stand on Monday. Dr. Tara Margarella is now a plastic surgeon in Florida, but she was still a trauma resident at Lutheran Medical Center back on July 2, 2010. She had been near the end of her shift when James Donovan was brought in with a gunshot wound he had suffered during a robbery.
“He was bleeding profusely,” Margarella said. “I wasn’t able to bring him back.”
During Margarella’s testimony, and while the bloody crime scene photos were flashed onto the courtroom screen, the reality of the mob was personified by the murdered man’s sobbing daughter. She had a small box of tissues when she returned on Tuesday and she sat in the front row holding it along with a holy card bearing her father’s picture.
In the late morning, 47-year-old Pagan took the stand in tan, prison-issued short-sleeved shirt and pants. More sobs from the victim’s daughter seemed certain as the testimony commenced with the starkest of questions and answers.
“What’s the most serious crime you have committed in your life?” the prosecutor began by asking.
“Murder,” Pagan replied.
“Who did you murder?” the prosecutor asked.
“James Donovan,” Pagan said.
Not a sound came from Donovan’s daughter, as if she had exhausted all her sobs and tears the day before. Pagan proceeded to testify that he had begun committing crimes when he was just 13. He said he had met the defendant Grasso some months before the murder.
“I told him I did scores, sold some pot, gambling stuff like that,” Pagan testified. “He said he had a couple of scores lined up.”
“Can you explain to the members of the jury what a score is?” the prosecutor asked.
“Robbery,” Pagan said.
He reported that he and Grasso subsequently kept in touch via cell phone. Pagan said he had two.
“One for street activity, one for family,” he said. “One was under my name, one was under nobody’s name.”
Pagan said that he subsequently also met the defendant Riccardi, who joined him and Grasso in robbing a pot dealer.
“The plan was to go by the house and wait for the guy and when he goes in, pop his door and rob him,” Pagan testified.
A fortnight later, the three met up at a Brooklyn Dunkin’ Donuts. Pagan climbed into Grasso’s white Toyota and headed for a supermarket parking lot facing an auto body shop. Pagan said Riccardi arrived in his black Mercedes and walked over to the Toyota.
“What did he carry with him?” the prosecutor asked.
“A bag with guns in it,” Pagan said. “We took what we wanted. I had a 9-milimeter. I think the rest were .38s.”
Pagan said he briefly exited the car to buy a bottle at a liquor store.
“Just to cool things off,” he testified.
“Did you drink the liquor?” the prosecutor asked.
“A little bit,” he answered.
Pagan said they soon after saw a luxury car pull up the auto body shop across the street. Grasso was at the wheel.
“Ronnie said, ‘There he is,’” Pagan testified.
Donovan was making one of his regular stops in a business where he cashed checks for a two percent fee. He was just climbing out of his car when Pagan and the others pulled up.
Pagan said that his job was to hold Donovan at gunpoint while Ronnie grabbed the money.
“I put the gun to him and said, ‘Stay right here,’” Pagan told the jury. “He wiggled away from me and started running. I shot him.”
Pagan and the others drove off.
“There really was no getaway plan,” Pagan testified.
He said that one of the others claimed to have shot Donovan.
“I said ‘No, you didn’t, I did,” Pagan recalled.
In a Brooklyn basement, they counted their take and it came to some $200,000.
“Ronnie took the guns,” Pagan testified. “He said he was going to melt mine.”
Pagan reported that Ronnie later told him that Richie had been blabbing about the killing.
“I said, ‘You should kill Richie,”” Pagan said, explaining to the jury, “He’s going around saying things that should not be said.”
The prosecutor then led Pagan through a recounting of his decades-long life of crime. Pagan said he had been an associate of the Lucchese crime family until he became engaged to Renee Graziano. Her father was reputedly a capo in the Bonanno crime family.
“He said, ‘If you’re going to do that we have to transfer you,’” Pagan told the jury.
Pagan was henceforth associated with the Bonanno crime family as he settled into a life of robbery, extortion, beatings, kidnapping and drug dealing.
Pagan said the day then came when, by chance, he saw his wife’s car parked by the side of the road with nobody inside. She then pulled up in a vehicle with another man.
“I started shooting at him,” Pagan testified.
The man survived. Pagan and Renee subsequently separated and reunited several times, once during an episode of Mob Wives, when he told her he had been shaken on hearing she had nearly died while undergoing plastic surgery. She asked if it was because he loved her or because he was in love with her.
“Both,” he told her.
“For years I’ve be in love with you, only you,” she told him.
The final break seems to have come when she learned that he had turned informant, or what he calls “an associate of the government,” rather than face a lengthy prison term for the armed robbery of a card game. He had even worn a wire when speaking with her father, who had subsequently been indicted for extortion.
At one point, Pagan’s handlers instructed him to put on his wire and pump a hoodlum of his acquaintance for information about the Donovan murder. Pagan employed the opposite of a typical reality TV strategy by steering the conversation away from any dramatic revelations. But Pagan figured it was just a question of time before the feds heard his name in connection with the killing.
“There was already an investigation going around,” Pagan testified on Monday. “I figured if I’m in this already, I might as well go all the way.”
Pagan said that he confessed to the shooting and cut a deal. He now testified that there had been one primary requirement on his part.
“Just to, uh…” Pagan began.
Pagan choked up and paused. His voice caught as he continued.
“…just to give information.”
He had shown no emotion at all earlier, when describing how he killed Donovan.
The reality of the mob in the person of the murdered man’s daughter sat there still holding the holy card bearing her father’s picture.
At least the jury was safe from Mob Wives.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/12/mob-wives-courtroom-drama-exposes-rat-but-protects-jury.html
Mob Wives rat Hector Pagan Jr details three decades of crime during court testimony
The Mafia turncoat ex-hubby of “Mob Wives” star Renee Graziano laid out his life of mob mayhem Tuesday at a murder trial in Brooklyn federal court.
Admitted killer Hector Pagan was testifying against a pair of former pals accused in the murder of Luchese associate James Donovan outside a Gravesend body shop in 2010.
Pagan has admitted to pulling the trigger in the slaying but agreed to cooperate against reputed Gambino associate Luigi Grasso and reputed Bonanno associate Richard Riccardi to lighten his own sentence for a host of separate crimes.
“I put the gun to him and said, ‘Stay right here,’” said Pagan. “He wiggled away and started running. I turned around and shot him.”
Several of Donovan’s family members were reduced to tears as Pagan recalled the cold-blooded killing.
The mobsters targeted Donovan because he was known to carry around thick wads of cash and they ambushed him as he pulled up to a body shop.
Now 47, Pagan chillingly outlined his more than three decades of violent and criminal behavior that began at the age of 13 for jurors.
Pagan, who told the court that he’s half-Italian and half-Spanish, shifted allegiances between mob families before he settled with the Bonannos after marrying Graziano, whose father was then consigliere of the crime crew.
Pagan admitted to selling hundreds of pounds of pot, committing numerous assaults, loan sharking and illegal gambling.
He coldly recalled one gruesome prison incident where he punched a man who then fell onto a sharp object that popped out his eyeball.
Pagan became a prolific mob rat and wore a wire to record incriminating conversations with his own father-in-law, Anthony Graziano, to save his skin.
http://nypost.com/2014/03/11/mob-wives-stars-ex-hubby-lays-out-crime-past-in-murder-trial/
Doctor details Lucchese associate's final moments before death
A stunning Brooklyn-born surgeon who parlayed reality show celebrity into a thriving Atlanta plastic surgery career returned to her roots Monday to offer graphic testimony at a mafia murder trial.
Before performing nips and nose jobs at a high end spa down south, Dr. Tara Margarella treated gunshot and stabbing victims in the chaotic emergency room at Lutheran Medical Center in her home borough.
The head-turning physician testified at the murder trial of mobsters Luigi Grasso and Richard Riccardi in Brooklyn federal court Monday where she recalled the dying moments of the man they’re accused of killing.
The Fontbonne Hall Academy valedictorian — who was the featured on the 2012 ABC show “New York Med” and appeared on the Dr. Oz show last year — described treating the “shredded” body of Luchese associate James Donovan on July 2, 2010.
Speaking with a slight Brooklyn accent, the married mom said she was about to finish up an otherwise quiet shift when she was told that a seriously wounded patient was on the way.
“He was bleeding profusely,” Margarella recalled as Donovan’s relatives burst out into sobs in the crowded courtroom gallery.
After his vital signs began to fade, she said the situation was hopeless. “I wasn’t able to bring him back,” she said.
Gambino associate Grasso and Bonanno associate Riccardi are accused of taking part in the botched robbery of Donovan at his Gravesend body shop.
The accused triggerman in the murder, Bonanno associate Hector Pagan, is testifying against them after agreeing to cooperate with the government.
The ex-husband of “Mob Wives” star Renee Graziano, Pagan has worn a wire to bust a slew of mobsters.
http://nypost.com/2014/03/10/doctor-details-dying-mans-last-moments-in-mob-murder-trial/
Hector Pagan Jr from Mob Wives admits to being a snitch since 2006 and 2010 murder during testimony
Hector Pagan became a government informant in 2006 — five years before he agreed to wear a wire against his father-in-law, reputed capo Anthony Graziano, and other Bonanno bigwigs.
"Mob Wives" star Renee Graziano was sleeping with a snitch longer than she apparently knew.
The reality TV mob princess’ ex-husband testified Tuesday in Brooklyn Federal Court that he became a government informant in 2006 — five years before he agreed to wear a wire against his father-in-law, reputed capo Anthony Graziano, and other Bonanno bigwigs.
Luigi Grasso (center) is escorted into Manhattan Supreme Court on Dec. 16. He is on trial for killing check casher James Donovan in a 2010 robbery outside a Brooklyn auto body shop.
Hector Pagan, 47, turned rat “to take the focus off myself” and pocketed $15,000 for information he gave the FBI.
He took the stand Tuesday against two accomplices in a fatal robbery outside a Brooklyn auto body shop in July 2010.
'Mob Wives' star Renee Graziano was sleeping with a mob rat longer than she knew.
Mob wannabes Luigi Grasso and Richard Riccardi are on trial for the killing of check casher James Donovan.
Pagan admitted that he fired the fatal shot during the stickup in Gravesend that netted the thugs $50,000 apiece.
Grasso and Riccardi face life in prison if convicted.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/mob-snitch-explains-role-feds-article-1.1718512#ixzz2vl19CPp7
Monday, February 17, 2014
Graziano sisters from Mob Wives release collection of recipes in new book
From left, Lana, Renee and Jennifer Graziano, prepare sausage and
peppers, one of the dishes in their new cookbook, “How to Use a Meat
Cleaver.”
Even in the kitchen, “Mob Wives: New Blood” star Renee Graziano and her sisters don’t turn their backs on each other.
“ You don’t turn your back on any of us when we’re holding a cleaver,” barks Renee, who co-authored a cookbook out Tuesday called “How to Use a Meat Cleaver: Secrets and Recipes From a Mob Family’s Kitchen.”
It’s is a collection of recipes from Renee and her sisters and collaborators Lana and Jennifer Graziano.
Jennifer created the reality series “Mob Wives,” as it was known when it began airing on VH1 in 2011. It made stars out of Renee and Angela "Big Ang" Raiola. The franchise has even expanded to include “Mob Wives Chicago.”
Food has always been an important ingredient on the show, as the women come together in restaurants or at each other's homes to make war or broker peace over a meal, whether it’s baked ziti or Frutti di Mare.
Recipes for both are in the book, as well as many drawn from cards their mother, Veronica, stored under the kitchen sink in a yellow box in the family home on Staten Island.
Their father, Anthony Graziano, was serving time last year when, according to Gang land News, he was stripped of “all his mobster rights and responsibilities” by Bonanno crime family members annoyed by mention of their legal troubles on the series.
“He will always be mad and angry about the show,” says Jennifer.
Anthony co-owned an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, Mama
Rosa’s, with Lana. The sisters say Lana is by far the most professional
cook, while Renee’s dishes have more flair and spice. Jennifer likes to
bake.
The recipes in the book are Italian classics running the gamut, perfect to draw on if, for instance, you are welcoming someone home from prison.
“For that you want soup to nuts,” Lana advises. “Antipasto, pasta with Sunday gravy, all of it.”
Renee stresses: “You’ve got to serve everything that they’ve been missing while they’ve been gone.”
The sisters agree that collaborating on the book was a wonderful experience in family togetherness, particularly for Renee.
“Doing this I didn’t have anyone attacking me,” she says . “Not like on the show. I don’t really play well with girls and this has been a very trying season for me.”
At which point, Jennifer interrupts, “Try to be positive, Renee. We’ve talked about this.”
Along those lines, the family is both developing a food line and hoping to open a restaurant on Staten Island, and, in the meantime, they’ve got the cookbook.
As Jennifer says, “Outside of everything, it will always be food that brings us together.”
½ cup olive oil
5-6 cloves garlic, cut into large pieces
1 cup chicken stock
Salt and pepper, to taste
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans, divided
½ cup grated Pecorino-Romano cheese.
Heat the oil in a 2-quart saucepan and sauté garlic until light brown. Add the chicken stock, escarole, salt, pepper and red pepper, if using, and bring to a boil for 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and add 1 can of beans.
Place remaining beans in a blender and blend on medium speed for 2 minutes. Scoop the mixture out with a spatula and add the beans to pot. Add the grated cheese, stir to combine, and simmer 10 to 12 minutes.
Note: Make sure to thoroughly clean the escarole. For a spicy main dish, serve the escarole and beans over grilled sausages. If you want it soupier, add more chicken stock and some pasta.
From “How to Use a Meat Cleaver: Secrets and Recipes From a Mob Family’s Kitchen,” by Renee, Lana and Jennifer Graziano, by arrangement with Perigee, a member of Penguin Random House, © 2014 Perigee Books.
“ You don’t turn your back on any of us when we’re holding a cleaver,” barks Renee, who co-authored a cookbook out Tuesday called “How to Use a Meat Cleaver: Secrets and Recipes From a Mob Family’s Kitchen.”
It’s is a collection of recipes from Renee and her sisters and collaborators Lana and Jennifer Graziano.
Jennifer created the reality series “Mob Wives,” as it was known when it began airing on VH1 in 2011. It made stars out of Renee and Angela "Big Ang" Raiola. The franchise has even expanded to include “Mob Wives Chicago.”
Food has always been an important ingredient on the show, as the women come together in restaurants or at each other's homes to make war or broker peace over a meal, whether it’s baked ziti or Frutti di Mare.
Recipes for both are in the book, as well as many drawn from cards their mother, Veronica, stored under the kitchen sink in a yellow box in the family home on Staten Island.
Their father, Anthony Graziano, was serving time last year when, according to Gang land News, he was stripped of “all his mobster rights and responsibilities” by Bonanno crime family members annoyed by mention of their legal troubles on the series.
“He will always be mad and angry about the show,” says Jennifer.
“How to Use a Meat Cleaver:
Secrets and Recipes From a Mob Family’s Kitchen" is a collection of
recipes from Renee, Lana and Jennifer Graziano.
The recipes in the book are Italian classics running the gamut, perfect to draw on if, for instance, you are welcoming someone home from prison.
“For that you want soup to nuts,” Lana advises. “Antipasto, pasta with Sunday gravy, all of it.”
Renee stresses: “You’ve got to serve everything that they’ve been missing while they’ve been gone.”
The sisters agree that collaborating on the book was a wonderful experience in family togetherness, particularly for Renee.
“Doing this I didn’t have anyone attacking me,” she says . “Not like on the show. I don’t really play well with girls and this has been a very trying season for me.”
At which point, Jennifer interrupts, “Try to be positive, Renee. We’ve talked about this.”
Along those lines, the family is both developing a food line and hoping to open a restaurant on Staten Island, and, in the meantime, they’ve got the cookbook.
As Jennifer says, “Outside of everything, it will always be food that brings us together.”
Recipe: Escarole and Beans
Serves: 4Ingredients
2 large bunches escarole½ cup olive oil
5-6 cloves garlic, cut into large pieces
1 cup chicken stock
Salt and pepper, to taste
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans, divided
½ cup grated Pecorino-Romano cheese.
Instructions
Cut the tough root off the escarole and remove any damaged outside layers. Peel back the leaves and wash the escarole well under cold water. Drain well in a strainer, then cut escarole into 2-inch pieces.Heat the oil in a 2-quart saucepan and sauté garlic until light brown. Add the chicken stock, escarole, salt, pepper and red pepper, if using, and bring to a boil for 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and add 1 can of beans.
Place remaining beans in a blender and blend on medium speed for 2 minutes. Scoop the mixture out with a spatula and add the beans to pot. Add the grated cheese, stir to combine, and simmer 10 to 12 minutes.
Note: Make sure to thoroughly clean the escarole. For a spicy main dish, serve the escarole and beans over grilled sausages. If you want it soupier, add more chicken stock and some pasta.
From “How to Use a Meat Cleaver: Secrets and Recipes From a Mob Family’s Kitchen,” by Renee, Lana and Jennifer Graziano, by arrangement with Perigee, a member of Penguin Random House, © 2014 Perigee Books.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Feds want secret jury in murder trial linked to Mob Wives tv show
Reputed Bonanno member Luigi Grasso (center) will face accusations from mob triggerman Hector Pagan at trial in February.
Prosecutors fear jurors for an upcoming gangland murder trial with stars in their eyes may become part of the cast of the reality TV show “Mob Wives.”
Hector Pagan, the star witness against reputed mobsters Richard Riccardi and Luigi Grasso, has become a recurring plot line on the popular show because he is the ex-husband of “Mob Wives” star Renee Graziano.
Pagan, who admitted to slaying Luchese mobster James Donovan in 2010, sports a tux from his cameo on 'Mob Wives.'
Pagan's so-called "betrayal" of his ex-wife and father-in-law, Bonanno capo Anthony Graziano, will undoubtedly be the subject of further discussion when he takes the stand in Brooklyn Federal Court next month, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Argentieri stated in papers seeking an anonymous jury.
The feds want the jurors' identities kept secret to prevent anyone from hunting them down "to generate additional stories," Argentieri warns.
'Mob Wives' star Renee Graziano, who was married to Pagan, at Brooklyn Federal Court.
Worse, jurors might ignore the evidence and reach a verdict to "avoid the notoriety associated with the show or seek it out."
Pagan is the actual gunman who fatally shot reputed Lucchese mobter James Donovan during a stickup in Brooklyn in 2010.
He cut a deal with the feds to get out from under the murder in exchange for testifying against Riccardi and Grasso. Pagan, who made a cameo appearance on the show, even helped the feds make a racketeering case against his father-in-law.
The feds want the Brooklyn Federal Court jurors’ identities kept secret to prevent anyone from hunting them down “to generate additional stories,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Argentieri wrote in court papers.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/feds-eye-secret-jury-mob-wives-trial-article-1.1593409#ixzz2rkfkdpc7
Friday, January 17, 2014
Feds plan to use rap songs containing violent lyrics found on mobsters cellphone at his trial
Luigi Grasso (carrying cane), on trial for a gangland murder, is escorted out of Manhattan Supreme Court last month.
Federal prosecutors want to spin the rap songs “Snitch” and “Hands Up” found on a mobster’s cell phone against him at his gangland murder trial.
The lyrics are relevant because reputed Gambino associate Luigi Grasso is charged with killing another mobster during a July 2010 Brooklyn robbery and a co-conspirator is ratting him out, according to court papers.
“The songs reference robbery, firearms possession, drug trafficking and violence against cooperating witnesses, or ‘snitches,’” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicole Argentieri and Darren Laverne wrote in the filing.
They included a snippet from “Snitch” by rapper Obie Trice in the court filing to drive home the point to Federal Judge Sterling Johnson.
Songs by rapper Obie Trice (pictured) were found on mobster Luigi Grasso's cellphone.
The lyrics go: “Steppin’ with the mindstate of the mobster . . . Just don’t whatever you do, snitch/ Cause you will get hit.”
The government’s star snitch is Hector Pagan, the ex-husband of “Mob Wives” reality show producer Renee Graziano.
Pagan actually fired the fatal shot into the victim, loanshark James Donovan who was a reputed associate of the Lucchese crime family. Donovan, who resisted the robbery at an auto body shop in Gravesend, Brooklyn, bled to death.
But Pagan cut a deal with the feds to testify against Grasso and co-defendant Richard Riccardi, a Bonanno gangster.
The feds made Pagan wear a hidden wire leading to the arrests of a gaggle of gangsters including acting Bonanno boss Vincent "Vinny TV" Badalamenti and Pagan’s ex-father-in-law Anthony "TG" Graziano.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/mob-guy-bad-rap-article-1.1582508#ixzz2qfWeYwxK
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Jailed Colombo associate conspires to oust Karen Gravano from new season of Mob Wives
One of the new stars of “Mob Wives” won’t be seen on camera next season.
Viewers of the VH1 reality show will only get to hear the voice of Edward “Tall Guy” Garofalo from federal prison as he talks on the phone to his wife, Alicia DiMichele, a sexy mother of three.
Gangland News blogger Jerry Capeci reports that Garofalo negotiated the couple’s roles with the show’s creator/executive producer Jennifer Graziano, the daughter of Bonanno crime family mobster Anthony “TG” Graziano.
Tall Guy — whose father was whacked in 1990 by a hit squad led by Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano — pleaded guilty last year to murder conspiracy. Now he’s conspired to get Sammy’s daughter Karen Gravano ousted from the show on which she appeared for three seasons.
Garofalo, a member of the Colombo mob, can be very persuasive. Capeci quotes a law enforcement official as saying, “One time, after [Garofalo] used a broom handle to beat up one of his [trucking company] workers, he warned him that the next time he’d use a pipe.”
“Mob Wives” is slated to make its return in January.
http://pagesix.com/2013/10/26/mob-wives-star-in-prison-stripes/?_ga=1.110479749.1886704178.1342036279
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Staten Island surgeon sues Renee Graziano from Mob Wives for $77 million dollars
"Mob Wives" reality-TV star Renee Graziano allegedly told the world a "full-body lift" performed by a plastic surgeon nearly dropped her six feet in a grave.
The Oakwood resident wanted to nip and tuck some fat and sagging skin, but instead claimed to have "flat-lined" and "almost died" after Dr. Andrew Klapper put her under the knife.
She called the procedure, broadcast on the show, a "plastic surgery nightmare."
Ms. Graziano, 43, the daughter of reputed Bonanno crime family consigliere Anthony (TG) Graziano of Huguenot, allegedly told media outlets she lost six pints of blood and underwent emergency treatment at Staten Island University Hospital.
Dr. Klapper, who denies any medical error, struck back with a $77 million defamation lawsuit against Ms. Graziano, VH1 and the show's producers. The action was filed in Brooklyn state Supreme Court.
Klapper was gashed recently when Justice Bernard J. Graham dismissed his case against VH1 and the producers. He said the Manhattan-based surgeon had signed a release barring him from suing those defendants.
"Seemingly wildly popular, this genre [of TV show] offers opportunities for embarrassing and insulting participants and the more outlandish the conduct, the higher the ratings," the judge wrote. "... The medical professional who agrees to participate in such as program does so with a certain amount of risk.
"While the potential benefit may be a boost in the doctor's business from the exposure to the viewing audience, the risk is that he or she may be criticized or second-guessed and portrayed in an unflattering manner."
The case against Ms. Graziano and a former employee of Dr. Klapper's was allowed to proceed. Court papers indicate Ms. Graziano is representing herself.
"We were both very disappointed, and we felt Judge Graham expanded dramatically the purpose of the appearance lease my client had signed," said Barry Levin, Dr. Klapper's Garden City, L.I.-based lawyer. "The judge gave these reality shows carte blanche to destroy people's lives."
According to court documents, the procedure was performed and filmed on June 27, 2011, in Dr. Klapper's office. He practiced on Staten Island at the time.
The operation cost anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000, according to published reports.
Ms. Graziano allegedly developed complications after Dr. Klapper removed a tattoo on her lower back and the skin couldn't be closed, said court records. Dr. Klapper ordered the TV cameras removed from the operating area.
What happened afterward is in dispute.
Ms. Graziano claimed to have bled badly, losing six pints, said court records. She said she required emergency medical treatment at University Hospital.
Dr. Klapper denied any wrongdoing.
The surgery became part of the "Mob Wives" storyline and was discussed in the second season's first three episodes
Ms. Graziano said she had "flat-lined" and "almost died" and branded the experience a "plastic-surgery nightmare," said court documents.
"I went in beautiful and I came out ugly," published reports quote her as saying.
Ms. Graziano discussed the procedure on several other TV and radio programs and alleged medical negligence, said court filings.
Dr. Klapper maintained VH1 and the producers publicized the "knowingly false" statements in a campaign to boost ratings. Those statements, made on shows such as "Today" and "Anderson Cooper" months after surgery, formed the crux of the lawsuit, said Levin, Dr. Klapper's lawyer.
"He did not sue based upon anything that took place on the ("Mob Wives") show. He sued her for going on other shows and making those outrageous claims. It was all done at the behest of Weinstein," said Levin, referring to the Weinstein Company, which owns "Mob Wives." rights.
The judge, however, ruled the release Dr. Klapper signed allows the producers to use his appearance on the show "for advertising, publicity, marketing, promotional and commercial tie-in purposes."
"To a certain extent, he bargained for the chance for publicity with the possibility that the outcome may not be as he expected," the judge wrote.
He added there was no evidence VH1 or the producers intended to discredit or defame Dr. Klapper or had deliberately tried to destroy his practice.
Dr. Klapper also alleged Ms. Graziano filed a false complaint against him with the state Office of Professional Medical Conduct. Online agency records show no disciplinary action has been taken against the doctor.
Levin said the Professional Medical Conduct Office investigated Ms. Graziano's allegations and dismissed them.
Meanwhile, the judge couldn't resist a poke at reality-TV viewers.
"There does not seem to be a bottom to the viewing public's appetite for this brand of entertainment," he wrote.
Attempts to reach Ms. Graziano and the lawyer for the other defendants were not immediately successful."
http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/07/plastic_surgeon_sues_staten_is.html
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Bonanno crime family puts Mob Wives dad TG Graziano on the shelf
Forget sleeping with the fishes — the father of a Mob Wife has been “put on the shelf.”
Anthony “TG” Graziano, the imprisoned dad of VH1 reality star Renee Graziano, has been sidelined by the Bonanno family as a result of his daughter’s appearances on the show.
The elder Graziano, 72, “has been stripped of all his mobster rights and responsibilities,” the Gang Land News site reported yesterday.
Despite efforts by the former capo to distance himself from the series, members of the Bonanno family are “irate” over regular on-air references to the group’s legal troubles, the site said.
Renee Graziano
“It means ‘pay him no mind,’ ” a law enforcement official said. “He has no mob responsibilities, and he can’t earn. They don’t know if he’s cooperating. They’re not ‘unmaking’ him, but it means he’s not active.”
“It’s totally devastating to these guys,” added a federal prosecutor who specializes in mafia cases. “It’s such a blow that some of them have even testified that that’s the reason that they have decided to cooperate [with law enforcement]. It means people aren’t supposed to deal with you at all.”
The penalty marks the latest setback for Graziano, who returned to prison last year after being charged with racketeering and extortion.
Even from the slammer, he’s figured prominently on the series, a ratings powerhouse now in its third season. Sunday’s episode featured Renee Graziano burning pictures of her ex-husband, Hector “Junior” Pagan, whose testimony as a DEA informant proved crucial in the case.
Another daughter, Jennifer Graziano, created “Mob Wives” and serves as an executive producer.
The senior Graziano has never taken kindly to his daughters’ TV work, refusing to appear on the series during the few months of its run when he hasn’t been in prison.
Renee Graziano has claimed in interviews that she and her father haven’t spoken since before the show began.
For the most part, however, she and her sister have suffered little for their involvement. Gang Land News cited a report that the sisters were refused service recently at Rao’s, an restaurant in East Harlem.
STATEMENTS BELOW FROM RENEE GRAZIANO AND FELLOW CAST-MEMBER RAMONA RIZZO:
Graziano:
"My father has never 'allowed' me to do anything as it pertains to the show. He was completely unaware of its existence at first. In fact, he wasn't speaking to me and we were estranged for quite some time over it. The show is about the women's lives and not the men. I definitely don't understand why anyone would feel that there is constant focus on TG. Out of 33 episodes so far there were maybe 3 where Renee discusses him and her relationship with him. We can't help that she is her father's daughter - again that's a part of HER life and HER identity," says Graziano via email. "I guess this 'usually reliable' source isn't on instagram cause if they were they would see that two weeks ago we were at Rao's enjoying my sisters birthday dinner. Same goes for Ang. Oh and there is no woman on the show from the Bronx, so I really question these sources. The only accuracy is my quote that 'I have no idea what goes on amongst men' but it seems to me with this many innacuracies neither do Mr. Capeci's sources."
Rizzo:
"Half of this so called source's credibility is out the window. My father did not go to jail in 1983. My father and I do not speak to each other so he has never threatened me or spoke to me about the show - nor would I tolerate it. It was mine and Jennifer's choice not to mention him and he had nothing to do with keeping his name from being mentioned."
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/mob_wives_dad_has_been_put_on_the_g3zbcc32IwOWGE0kk48gOP
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Life Inside The American Mafia For The Mob Wives
Her father is a New York mafia bigshot who is now serving time (like just about every other man she knows). So what does Jennifer Graziano do? She makes a reality television show about the wives and girlfriends left at home. Brave woman…
Forty years ago a New York mafia boss called Joe Colombo began attracting a lot of media attention.
He’d come up with the clever idea of spinning police interest in his affairs into an attack on the Italian-American community. He picketed FBI headquarters, gave speeches and appeared on television protesting against this terrible injustice.
But the bosses of the other mafia families were unhappy with his high profile and in June 1971 he was shot.
How times change.
I’ve come to Staten Island, a suburb of New York long popular with Italian Americans, to interview Jennifer Graziano. She is the daughter of a high-ranking mafioso – and the creator of a reality TV show, Mob Wives, starring her own friends and family.
The Mob Wives cast is made up of the partners and daughters (or both) of mafiosi. It offers an irresistible glimpse into a secret world.
And no, I don’t mean the world of protection rackets and crooked politicians – thanks to the likes of Henry Hill (on whose testimony the film Goodfellas was based) and Joe Bonanno (whose autobiography helped Rudy Giuliani bring down the heads of New York’s five families in 1985) we already know plenty about that.
'I wanted to show what this lifestyle is like for the women,’ says Graziano: how it feels to be a powerless bystander in a volatile world, to surrender the right to know your husband’s business and to pick up the pieces and explain it to the children when he’s thrown behind bars.
Graziano filmed her sister and three of her oldest friends – including the daughter of the Gambino family underboss, Sammy ''The Bull'’ Gravano – for the first series. (A second series and a spin-off, Mob Wives Chicago, have followed in America.) Graziano herself stays behind the camera.
The opening sequence shows the four women marching under stormy skies clad in furs and flashing jewellery.
They are glossy-lipped and foul-mouthed with fiery temperaments and complex, contradictory feelings about what they call 'the lifestyle’. What emerges is a cross between The Sopranos and The Jeremy Kyle Show.
The Sopranos, incidentally, is 'very, very true to life,’ says Graziano. 'A lot of the storylines were based on real occurrences. There was one my father [Anthony Graziano] swore was about us. But I’m not going to talk about that.’
Mob Wives owes more than a little to The Real Housewives reality television franchise. It is, in fact, why Graziano created her show. She’d started writing a drama about her life when she saw how popular Housewives was.
'I thought, “I can do that. I have everyone right under my nose.”’
Her sister, Renee, is made for reality television. She’s a self-described drama queen overflowing with one-liners: 'Either play on team Renee, or team go away’; 'I need a break. I have to go fur shopping.’
Other cast members include a gravelly voiced blonde feared for her street-fighting and two quieter, but no less steely women.
A typical episode of Mob Wives involves a perceived slight that snowballs, thanks to much gossiping and several shots of Patrón tequila, into a full-on hair-pulling catfight. Sometimes it ends in hugs all round; other times they have to be dragged apart.
Graziano’s house is being renovated so we meet at her cousin’s place. It is exactly as you’d imagine a gangster’s mansion:
a grey limestone building with carved mahogany doors wide enough to drive a car through and ornamental trees trimmed into spirals dotting the kryptonite-bright lawn. Inside, a gold and white shih-tzu called King Oscar pitter-patters on the tiled floors.
Unlike the surgically enhanced women in the show, Graziano, 39, doesn’t like to be 'all glammed up all the time’.
She is wearing a simple black outfit with just a couple of bling touches: big diamanté hoop earrings and leopard-print stilettos. 'Eighty-five per cent of Staten Island women have had plastic surgery,’ she says with a laugh. She hasn’t – 'yet’.
All of the cast’s fathers and husbands are currently in prison so, reasons Graziano, the show 'isn’t exposing anything that wasn’t already public knowledge. And the girls know what to say and what not to say; we’ve been trained.’
Still, I’m not surprised when she tells me her father was 'very angry’ when he found out about it. 'He didn’t speak to me for a while.’
Another person her father has had cause to be angry with is Gravano, a family friend who turned government informant in 1991, bringing down John Gotti in exchange for a reduced sentence.
'The code of silence went a long time ago,’ says Thomas Reppetto, a former chief of detectives in Chicago, now a Harvard fellow and the author of American Mafia.
'Before, the sentences were light and often the mob could bribe a jury. And if you talked, you were dead – there was no witness protection. Now [since the 1980s], they’re facing 40 years or life. A lot of people talk to save themselves.’
Gravano’s betrayal made his family pariahs overnight. They moved to Arizona, and the return of his daughter, Karen, to Staten Island is the opening drama of Mob Wives.
Gravano himself, a convicted hit-man with 19 known murders to his name, apparently told his daughter 'he didn’t like some of the language Karen used’ in the programme.
Their language, in fact, is as idiosyncratic as their moral code. 'Away’, for example, means in prison.
Carla Facciolo explains her shoulder-shrugging acceptance of her husband’s incarceration thus: 'My father went away, my uncles went away so when Joe went away I was like, “Oh, there goes another one.”’
'Growing up,’ says Graziano, 'I didn’t have any friends outside the lifestyle. Things like your father going away, that’s kind of embarrassing. Within the lifestyle it’s like, “Such-and-such got arrested.” “Oh yeah? What’s the charge for?”’
Is it common for the men to go to prison? 'Yes. This is my father’s third or fourth time in jail during my lifetime. My brothers-in-law, both of them, a couple of times. Karen’s father. Everyone.’
In the second series, one of the cast members turns out to be an FBI informant – the cause of Anthony Graziano’s latest sentence. Graziano takes a deep breath when I bring this up.
'It was the most unexpected person on earth to do that.’
Some of the show’s most difficult and poignant scenes involve the children. When they’re very small, says Graziano, 'we tell them Papa’s in the army’.
But Facciolo decides that, at eight, her son is old enough to know where his father is. Joe Junior’s response? 'I want to go to jail.’
His mother’s stunned, tormented face as she navigates between telling the boy his father’s done bad things and preserving the child’s respect for him is quite agonising.
Fortunately for Graziano’s mother, Jennifer was 18 and her sister Renee 22 the first time Anthony was imprisoned. By then they were well aware of the illicit nature of their father’s business.
The first time Graziano heard the word mafia she was 10.
'It was the first day of school and everyone had to state what their parents did for a living. I was like, “My mother’s a housewife and my father’s a… a…” I didn’t know what to say.
'And the next day this kid said to me, “My dad says your dad’s in the mafia.” And I went home and I asked my dad, “What’s the mafia?” And he said, “What do you mean, 'What’s the mafia?’ Yeah, Mothers and Fathers Italian Association. What about it?”’
Her father was 'a successful mobster. We used to go to school in a limo. We used to get free things all the time, we would always be taken to the front of the line, free dinners in restaurants.’
She remembers a trip to a fairground when she was seven years old. She had 'seven thousand goes at this game but I didnt win so I was walking away.
'Then one of my father’s friends said [to the stallholder], “Give her her prize.” And I said, “I didn’t win.” And he was like, “Yes you did.”
'I was so confused. The guy gave me the biggest prize. I won a load of games that I didn’t win that day. There was a guy behind us carrying all my animals.’
Did people fear her father? 'Yeah, definitely. They feared me as well and my sister – nobody would do anything wrong to us.’
When they grew older, 'Our guy friends who knew my father would tell other guys who were trying to hit on us, “You can’t talk to her.”' Wasn't that annoying? 'It was very annoying!’
Does she feel guilty about the people who might have suffered at her father’s hands? She draws back and sucks in her breath. There’s a long pause.
'Luckily for me, I’ve never heard of any particular person having suffered because of my father.’ She drinks some iced water. 'That’s a tough question. It’s something I really don’t think about.’
The Italian-American community in New York has tended to stick together.
'Most of the Italian guys want Italian women. The girls who aren’t Italian are usually…’ Graziano cups her hand over her mouth and stage-whispers, 'the girlfriends.’
Ah, yes. The mafiosi’s notoriously relaxed concept of fidelity.
'What was the toast? “To our wives and sweethearts!”’ says Reppetto, an Italian American whose own father 'was not on this side of the law’.
Is cheating still so pervasive? Graziano nods.
'They usually have a mistress and a girlfriend,’ adds her cousin. Mob wives are 'more tolerant’ of affairs, says Graziano. Do the men tolerate the women’s affairs, too? 'Oh, no! Are you crazy?’
Graziano is divorced with a 13-year-old son and hasn’t had a mafioso boyfriend since her teens. She understands the appeal: 'They dress well. They carry themselves a certain way. They’re very confident. It was never my thing.
'I mean, I like a tough guy, of course, and I like a sharp-looking guy, but I prefer it if they’re not a mobster.’
Her reasons are not moral; she’d just 'rather not suffer the consequences’: the seized assets, prison visits. 'I’d rather be with a regular businessman.’
There are cultural issues, too, that might put a woman off. When I ask if mafia men do much housework she laughs.
Her cousin cuts in: 'None! What! So! Ever!’ What about childcare? 'Childcare? Childcare? Oh my god! They spend $10,000 to go for a weekend somewhere. Then they don’t see them.’ Graziano smiles. 'They do it their own way.’
Do the women ever get involved in business? 'Business? With the guys?’ Graziano finds this absurd. 'No.’ Did that bother her? 'Yes, it did. You can’t go out unless you ask your husband for money. I said, “Oh, no, I’m not living that way.”’
One of the women, Drita D’Avanzo, has been married for 10 years, eight of which her husband has spent in prison. Her decision to stick with him – they call it 'waiting’ – is a source of continual heartache.
'You’re kind of programmed to wait,’ says Graziano. But in recent years some women have turned their backs on this tradition.
And others. 'Families are becoming more liberal and girls are going to college, and that means they’re meeting guys from outside the lifestyle. It’s not usually approved of.’ She gives a wry smile. 'And I’m sure their new boyfriends tread lightly.’
She intends to steer her son away from the lifestyle, too. 'I want him to be a doctor or a football player or something.’ Is he good at football?
'Yeah. Number-one draft pick every year.’ The boy probably has real talent. On the other hand, as Graziano says, 'My father is still who he is.’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9631385/Married-to-the-Mob-Life-inside-the-American-Mafia.html
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