Thursday, May 10, 2007

Franzese, 90, arrested for parole violation

Franzese
Federal agents on Wednesday arrested John "Sonny" Franzese, 90, charging him with his fifth parole violation in the last 25 years, according to an AP story by Larry McShane.

The arrest occurred at Franzese's regularly scheduled visit with his probation officer. The FBI reported that he had been associating with known mobsters.

Federal agents believe the 90-year-old Franzese, reputed longtime Colombo Crime Family capo, recently became the family's underboss. Franzese was convicted of bank robbery and sent off to a lengthy prison sentence in the late 1960s. He was first paroled in 1978 but violated parole four years later.

Canada nabs Giordano after 5 months

Giordano
After a five-month search, Canadian authorities arrested reputed Montreal Mafia lieutenant Lorenzo Giordano, 44, on May 8, according to a story in yesterday's Montreal Gazette.

Giordano was wanted in connection with Operation Colisee, in which more than 90 arrests were made last November. He was arrested while working out in a Toronto gym. He faces charges of conspiracy to commit criminal acts of extortion and gambling as well as attempted murder.

He is scheduled to make a court appearance on May 23.

On Nov. 23, the Ottawa Citizen reported that Giordano was an "aggressive lieutenant in the Rizzuto organization." He was questioned in the 2005 murder of John Zanthoudakis, CEO of Norshield Financial Group. He has been named as a suspect in the murder of another man in Montreal on April 18, 2004.

The Montreal Crime Family was believed to have been led by Vito Rizzuto, recently convicted in New York of participating in the slaying of three Bonanno Crime Family bigshots. Last November, Rizzuto's father Nicolo Rizzuto, 82, was among those arrested.

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Writer, editor, researcher, web publisher, specializing in organized crime history. (Available to assist with historical/genealogical research, writing, editing. Email at tphunt@gmail.com.)
Editor/publisher of crime history journal, Informer; publisher of American Mafia history website Mafiahistory.us; moderator of online forums; author of Wrongly Executed?; coauthor of Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia and DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime; contributor of U.S. Mafia history to Australian-published Mafia: The Necessary Reference to Organized Crime; writer/co-writer of crime history articles for several publications.
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