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Corleone Sicily with Justin Cascio
Podcast |
Gangland Wire
Media Type |
audio
Categories Via RSS |
Documentary
History
Society & Culture
True Crime
Publication Date |
Nov 20, 2023
Episode Duration |
00:35:12

Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. In this episode, Gary discusses with Justin Cascio, a mafia genealogist, his book In Our Blood: The Mafia in Corleone, Italy, In Our Blood: The Mafia Families of Corleone. We explore the roots and activities of […]

The post Corleone Sicily with Justin Cascio appeared first on Gangland Wire.

Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. In this episode, Gary discusses with Justin Cascio, a mafia genealogist, his book In Our Blood: The Mafia in Corleone, Italy, In Our Blood: The Mafia Families of Corleone. We explore the roots and activities of the Mafia in Western Sicily, debunking many romanticized notions. We also discuss the migration of mafia families to the United States and their influence in various cities. The conversation concludes with insights into the rise of the Mafia as a political force. Listen n to learn more about the history and impact of the Mafia. Subscribe to get new gangster stories every week. Get 50% off use the code gangland50 when you check out at Factor Foods Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here.  To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos. To subscribe on iTunes click here. Please give me a review and help others find the podcast. Donate to the podcast. Click here! Transcript Transcript Introduction to Mafia genealogist Justin Cascio [0:00] Well, welcome all you wiretappers back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. You know, I have a guest that we had him before, Justin Cascio. And if you follow my Facebook group, you’ll see him post a little bit. And he is a mafia genealogist. Justin, welcome. I really appreciate you coming back on the show. [0:19] Thanks for having me on, Gary. Justin, I remember us talking before. Now, you’ve written a book about your search for the roots the Mafia in Corleone, Italy, or Sicily. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this work. Mafia genealogy is kind of interesting. I think you have a personal connection, don’t you? [0:39] I do. I first heard the name Corleone from my grandmother when I was a little kid. So way too young to have watched The Godfather. It took me years before I made that connection between the mythical, fictional Don Corleone and the place where my grandfather was from. Both of his parents were born in Corleone, which is a little mountain town about an hour away from Palermo. If you drive it today, I think it’s about an hour. Country town, but it’s also a transportation hub, and it was also a center of culture in the mostly rural place that ...

Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. In this episode, Gary discusses with Justin Cascio, a mafia genealogist, his book In Our Blood: The Mafia in Corleone, Italy, In Our Blood: The Mafia Families of Corleone. We explore the roots and activities of the Mafia in Western Sicily, debunking many romanticized notions. We also discuss the migration of mafia families to the United States and their influence in various cities. The conversation concludes with insights into the rise of the Mafia as a political force. Listen n to learn more about the history and impact of the Mafia. Subscribe to get new gangster stories every week.

Get 50% off use the code gangland50 when you check out at Factor Foods

Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee”

To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here

To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. 

To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here

To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.

To subscribe on iTunes click here. Please give me a review and help others find the podcast. Donate to the podcast. Click here!

Transcript Transcript Introduction to Mafia genealogist Justin Cascio

[0:00] Well, welcome all you wiretappers back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. You know, I have a guest that we had him before, Justin Cascio. And if you follow my Facebook group, you’ll see him post a little bit. And he is a mafia genealogist. Justin, welcome. I really appreciate you coming back on the show.

[0:19] Thanks for having me on, Gary. Justin, I remember us talking before. Now, you’ve written a book about your search for the roots the Mafia in Corleone, Italy, or Sicily. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this work. Mafia genealogy is kind of interesting. I think you have a personal connection, don’t you?

[0:39] I do. I first heard the name Corleone from my grandmother when I was a little kid. So way too young to have watched The Godfather. It took me years before I made that connection between the mythical, fictional Don Corleone and the place where my grandfather was from. Both of his parents were born in Corleone, which is a little mountain town about an hour away from Palermo. If you drive it today, I think it’s about an hour. Country town, but it’s also a transportation hub, and it was also a center of culture in the mostly rural place that didn’t have a lot of institutions of higher learning, for instance. It attracted skilled artisans, so it had some wealth. It was a little more of a destination than any of the other villages that surround it. So Corleone was just a little bit special in Sicily’s history. Discussion on the roots of the Mafia in Corleone

[1:30] William Sturkey You know, I noticed as I was doing a little research before you came on the show here that, for example, Ciro, the artichoke king Terranova, and Tommy Gagliano, and the Dragna family are all from the little town of Corleone, and I’m sure there’s others from that province right around there between there and Palermo. That was a hotbed of mafia activity to the roots of the mafia in the United States, correct? Absolutely. The Mafia started in Western Sicily, just that one little tip of the island.

[1:58] Interesting. Does that go all the way back to when the French soldier supposedly, raped or came on to a Sicilian woman and they had the real night of the Sicilian Vespers, or is that after that, in that area? The Sicilian Vespers happened in Palermo. The Mafia started a little later, maybe in the 1800s, maybe as early as the late 1700s. And most people would say that it started in Western Sicily and probably in the countryside, although some theorists say that they think it started in the city. So there’s a little dispute about exactly where and when it started, but generally speaking, Western Sicily around the 1800s. And Corleone was a really important part of that history. Most of the history books that you’ll read about the Mafia today will tell you that the first documented mafia ring was led by a man named Luca Patti di Giuseppe, and he was from Corleone, and he was part of a cattle rustling operation that involved a number of different cities in the Palermo countryside, one of them being Corleone. Luca Patti wasn’t just an outlier, he was part of a family that is still involved in the mafia today. Cattle rustling as a classic mafia crime in Sicily

[3:12] CB. That’s amazing. I’ve also found evidence that I write about in my book for a much earlier cattle wrestling gang, about 50 years before Luca Patti. And the same thing is true for them.

[3:24] What was it? Broke up into large patrons, large owners of land and cows, and then the poor people would then band together and steal these cows from the el patron, the rich man of the area. Is that how that worked, kind of like in the old West? I think that cattle rusting required more than just poverty and desperation to pull off well. It was really a professional sort of an operation. If you think about it, it’s probably a lot like auto theft today. It’s a profession. It’s not just a one -and -done that you do because you don’t have any money. It’s something that you know how to do. It takes some skill. And then once you’ve stolen a car, what are you going to do with it? You have same problem with cattle. Cattle theft has been a classic mafia crime in Sicily going all of the way back, and it continued very far into the present. The most recent that I remember reading about was after World War II, Dr. Michel Navarro was the boss in Corleone, and he got on track to get some military trucks, vehicles, and he used them to steal cattle. So he was doing the exact same crime that his forefathers had been doing there for generations.

[4:36] And what people used to do back in the day was they would steal the cattle and then they would hide them in the woods somewhere. So that you couldn’t find them. It was a ransom situation. You would have to buy your cattle back from them. BF. Interesting, because I’m thinking Sicily is such a small place that where would you sell them that it wouldn’t be really noticeable. You couldn’t take them to the market in the next town over, but everybody in that market knows everybody. They know you or they know where these cows come from. I can see the ransom deal. It would be much smarter than just trying to sell Yes, although I suppose you could possibly get away with selling them because you had two things working in your favor. It was very decentralized. Decentralization and isolation in Sicilian villages

[5:18] City towns and villages didn’t have a lot to do with one another. When you look at the way the roads were all laid out forever and ever in Sicily, they all lead to the port towns, but they don’t really connect one another. So people really lived isolated from one another in villages. They didn’t have a lot of contact with their neighbors. They would go to a market in their own town. They would not necessarily go to one in a neighboring town. And the way that people lived in these villages, they would create a little dense urban center where they would all live, because it was safer that way, versus living all spread out in the countryside because of how many thieves and how much violence was going on out there because there wasn’t any police.

[6:01] So maybe some of the mafia, I mean, kind of historically, romantically, we will say that the mafia formed in these little towns, a mafia organization or an organization, was more like a vigilante organization that protected their own from outsiders. Is that anywhere near the origins of that? No, I wouldn’t say so. They were more descended from thieves, not vigilantes. They were trying to make money, not protect their neighbors. If they were trying to protect somebody, it was themselves, their family, their own interests. So they would steal from their neighbors. Well, yeah, they sure did. I mean, that’s definitely who they stole from. Yeah, and I think that that’s probably a trait that you continue to see with the mafia. They would rely upon a little Italian enclave, whether it was their village in Sicily or a neighborhood in New York City or Chicago or Los Angeles. But then their principal pool of victims was their own people, other Italians. The black hand. In the Black Hand letters, I’ve read about here in Kansas City, they would extort a successful grocery store owner who was one of their own.

[7:08] I’ve heard of a couple of different rings of Black Hand operators where in order to become a part of the ring, you had to submit some of your neighbors that would make good targets for extortion. Interesting. Well, that’s so much for the romance of the mafia being the protector of their friends and neighbors. The importance of blood relations in the Mafia

[7:28] Now, you mentioned, I noticed in your little bit about your book that you talked about the.

[7:34] You know, we think the mafia as, you know, the boss, underboss, captain or a capo, a consigliere, soldiers, all dependent on each other. But really, the roots of this are more blood family oriented. Is that what you were learning in what your research developed in this, the blood relations and how you could connect that to the families. Yes, it’s my belief that the Mafia is more based on the extended family than it is on a business or a military structure. The original Mafia were extended families that didn’t have anybody else to rely on that they could trust more than themselves, and so they were banding together to protect their own family interests. An extended Italian family was more communal in that they shared what they had amongst their members. It wasn’t divided up into little nuclear families. It really was one entity with one head of the family that even grown men in that family would turn to and get permission from for whatever they wanted to do, whether it was get married or start a new business enterprise. Any sort of a major decision was going to impact the family. And so, there was one person who would decide what would be allowed to happen to benefit the family.

[9:01] And those are the roots. BF. The living arrangements were probably all around Living arrangements in Corleone and extended family dynamics

[9:05] a central compound, a large house, within as people got married, building smaller houses close by the senior member of the family. Is that how it worked? When I’ve looked at the maps of Corleone, and I look at what the houses look like today, would often see an extended family living in one household, more than two generations, I mean. But the living situation was actually much more familiar to what we would see today. I see widows living alone, I see rich families living with their servants, I see a wealthy family that’s maybe taken in some nephews, or I see a young couple and their six little kids, or… But they’re nuclear families living in these, I’ll call them apartments because that’s what they look like. The homes look like apartments. They’re set up sort of like townhouses.

[9:59] And so, they don’t have a compound like you would see in the Godfather where they’re out on Long Island and you let somebody in through the gate. BF. Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking even when Michael went back to school. CB. They’re poor peasants living in a city. BF. Okay, interesting. I know in more modern times, I’m pretty familiar with the Calabrese family in Chicago. And so the oldest brother was kind of the kingpin and his son and all the extended family. It was like a multi unit, like three unit building and the whole, you know, all different levels of the family lived in that building. Family Unity: Living Together in the Mafia

[10:36] And nothing happened unless that oldest brother, Frank Calabrese Sr. Approved of it. Like his son couldn’t do anything. The brother, Nick Calabrese, was kind of a loose cannon, but he was in his crew. So the whole family was part of the mafia in Chicago and mainly lived together. So everything old is new again. Mafia Families and their Influence

[11:01] Do you see much more? Do you notice much more of that in more modern times? I’m trying to think in New York or some of these families where they kind of family members, because it’s it’s so common. John Gotti, John Gotti Junior, you know, Vincent Gigante and his two sons, two of his sons were involved in the business. And that’s so common today. same way in Kansas City. Nick and Carl Savella were brothers, and then one of their sons, and Nick’s nephew, Tony Wright, took over. And so it’s such a family -oriented thing today. CB. I do see examples. I mean, I’m mostly looking at people who lived and worked before 1950 because of the kinds of records that I have available to work with. And I do see examples of mafia families trying to, I think, control who lives very close to them. So it’s really common to see the boss and then some of his enforcers and his closest relatives all living in the houses right around his. In New York City, the family owned a few of these buildings. They were in the construction business for a while too, and they held onto some of those buildings for a long time. And so even when times were tough, they had some place that was like a homestead to get back to. And when you look at the census records for those buildings, usually the people that are living in that building, it does appear to be curated, that they have decided who is going to be allowed to live in their building near them. Early Mafia Activity in Corleone

[12:24] So now in Sicily, tell us a little more about what you learned in Corleone, in that city itself. Tell us a little more about that. What did you learn about that? Because Corleone was special in certain ways compared to its neighbors, it was a little bigger, it was a little more of a destination, had a little more money. It was an attractive place, I think, for the Mafia to begin. And what I’m finding is that there is evidence of a very early Mafia activity happening there in the 1830s. And the reason that I call it Mafia and not just another cattle wrestling gang is because the families of the people who were in that ring, in the cattle wrestling gang.

[13:05] Their descendants are continuing to be active in the mafia through the generations. So there’s a definite set of families active in Corleone who have been active in the mafia for a long time. In the 1940s, when Placido Risotto, who was a union leader, was killed by the mafia, his father talked to the police, and the police told him that the mafia had about 300 active members at that time, and that they were part of 64 families. Now, they might have been speaking a little bit poetically, but what I am learning is that there. The Mafia’s Clans and Leadership in Corleone

[13:44] Distinct clans of mafiosi in Corleone that have been fairly stable, and that they’ve managed to coexist, to find harmony, and to share leadership. And the people who emigrated to the United States from Corleone, who were closely related to those families, tended to also become active in the mafia, and to bring it to other cities. Years ago, I guess, in 1900s, 1800s, 1900s, people started leaving, coming to the United States, because at times that must have been really tough. But say just before they started leaving, now, was there any kind of local government? How did they relate to the government and any kind of regular, normal law enforcement or court systems? And they just kind of everybody handled their problems among themselves or how did that work? How was the relationship with law enforcement? It was really hard to get justice if you didn’t have a lot of money. There were multiple court systems in operation in Sicily up until it became a country in 1861. So if you had a problem with one of your neighbors, what kind of a problem it was, what guilds professions you belong to would all weigh into which court system you would take your dispute to.

[15:04] And so the lawyers that you could hire to represent you had to know their way around different court systems. So there was a church court, there was one for shoemakers, there was one for stonemasons and so forth. And you had to know what all the laws were in all the different courts in order to really be a competent lawyer. So that was very expensive. There wasn’t a lot education in those days, and so it was very concentrated in these people who had a ton of education in how to navigate the law. And, So it was just priced out of most people’s pockets. They would never be able to take somebody to court. So their only reasonable alternative was to have some kind of a negotiation, and you would bring in somebody who was respected to moderate that conversation, a mediator. That person was often the most powerful, wealthy person in town, somebody that everybody would respect their answer because they were one of those people that when they said something, it went. The Role of Mediators in Dispute Resolution

[16:06] And so, that was how the mafioso becomes, traditionally, somebody who mediates disputes. And when you read early mafia histories of Nicola Gentile or somebody like that, they often talk about that role and how important it was to your prestige to be the person that mediated disputes. It’s a lot of power in that milieu to be able to say, well, this is how we’re going to create justice in this situation. Because of course, you can split that pie in a way that’s going to benefit yourself or friends of yours. BF. Yeah, I’m sure a lot of that happened, but that’s really interesting. How did that translate when they first came to the United States?

[16:49] What happened that so many people start coming over around 1890 to 1900. Did something, was there a significant event or just transportation got better or overcrowding, overpopulation or famine or something? What happened? The new Italian government was not very fair to Sicily. They had a lot of expenses from the war, and the burden fell disproportionately on the South. So they were paying a lot of taxes on things that they needed to live, like food. At the same time, there weren’t a lot of opportunities that never had been, because Sicily was kept as a colony. And the way that you keep a colony under your thumb is you don’t let it develop. You don’t put schools and roads and industry there to give them clout and a way to make their own money. money. You just extract the raw goods and you pay people at the price that you pay them to dig up potatoes or whatever the crop is, not to turn oranges into chemicals that Europe can use in the new industrial revolution that they would do in Europe. They wouldn’t do it in Sicily, they would just take the oranges.

[17:52] And so, because Sicily was never really developed and didn’t have all this infrastructure, it was poor and continued to be so under the new administration. Now, the mafia had initially been a part of the revolutionary movement because it grew out of all these independence movements that were happening in Europe in the years before Italy became independent. The Mafia’s Role in the Revolutionary Movement in Sicily

[18:14] First, it was France, and France sort of set off a chain reaction where all these other countries were like, well, heck, if France can run themselves and kick out the monarchy, we can do that too. We should be able to rule ourselves. It was a big philosophical movement that was going on where this possibility was just coming into people’s heads. You mean God doesn’t choose the king and just have to live with that. There’s an alternative.” And so, that was what was happening everywhere. And in Sicily, there were a lot of people who wanted Sicily to be its own country. It wasn’t originally, wow, we should really join our fortunes to this country that has never existed before called Italia, because Italy had literally never existed as a country until Garibaldi won the war there. And it did become a monarchy, but with a parliament, so it’s sort of like England in that way. But the South didn’t have a lot of enfranchisement. Most people didn’t own land, and at first, voting was based on whether you had land.

[19:08] And the mafia, after it saw that the independence movement for Sicily wasn’t going to go anywhere, that they were definitely going to be tied to the king in Piedmont instead, they switched gears and they made friends with the Christian Democratic Party. And that was a very long relationship. So that party was thoroughly corrupted by the mafia. The mafia would deliver votes and then they would get concessions back.

[19:30] So poor people in the South, they can’t vote, money’s getting even tighter. And then suddenly this release valve is being opened where it’s a possibility to get on a ship and sail away and go get a job in Europe somewhere or Africa or in the Americas. And so, people started going to all these different places. The Appeal of Leaving Sicily for a New Life

[19:51] And the voyage got shorter over time as technology got better. So, it became a more appealing option to take this trip. Because at first it was really, really arduous. There’s just no provisions. You’re basically on hold of a ship for two weeks. So it got a little better and more of the kind of thing that you might actually ask your wife or mother to endure, or little children, not just working men. And so it became not just a way for a man to leave for a year and go make money and bring it home, but to bring your family to some new place where you could have a whole new life, where you don’t have to deal with any of the oppressions that you’ve dealt with in Italy. You can just start fresh. And so it became a really appealing option. And that changed the dynamics in Italy too, because now all these people don’t have to take your crap anymore. They can just go.

[20:45] And they did. A tenth of Sicily left. A tenth of Southern Italy left. BFN Well, that’s interesting how technology was so important. We don’t think about that. We think about social conditions or physical conditions, but technology made that so much easier so quickly because we went from sailing ships to steam -powered ships to diesel -powered ships. And it went down from maybe three weeks in a hold on a sailing ship to a week on the Queen Mary or that kind of a ship. Agricultural labor and discrimination in the Southern United States

[21:18] So that’s really it. And the opportunities in the United States were similarly being affected by both technology and society. There’s all these new industry jobs possible that you have in the north mostly. But in the south, New Orleans was a very popular port of entry for Italians, and they would go into agricultural labor. And the reason there were so many agricultural jobs is because the white planters in the South prefer to hire Europeans over African -Americans. Even though the African -Americans had been doing it for generations, knew the job inside and out, the discrimination was so harsh that it was inconceivable to promote a black laborer to a supervisory position where he was going to have any authority over white workers. That just was unheard of. It couldn’t be done. Black people were leaving the South and going and taking opportunities at West and in the North, and Southern Italians were coming in and filling in those gaps. They were planting the sugar cane and doing that kind of work.

[22:20] And I’d read about somebody that who was at they, they can’t land it in New York and then they went to New Orleans to Louisiana and worked in the sugarcane fields for a while and and thought there was opportunity down there and they ended up going back up north. But, you know, another demographic switch and how that why, why that happened like that? Why New Orleans came such a because there is always been a hotbed of mafia activity in New Orleans and they’ve got their own boss down there. And so it’s really interesting to learn about how all that work that we pay so much attention to today is such a huge part of our popular media. I mean, Mario Puzo was a genius when he named that the Corleone family, wasn’t he? That was the ideal name for this mythical mob family is the Corleone. So it’s really interesting to learn about. I imagine in your book, give us a little teaser about what else we’re going to find in your book. You’re going to trace some of the families in your book? Yeah, some of the chapters deal with their spread to different cities. I follow Jack Dragna, for instance.

[23:30] Most people don’t know that he spent most of his childhood in New York City, so he mostly grew up in the United States. And he grew up in the same building as the Morello family When he went back to Sicily as a young man to fulfill his military obligation as an Italian, he made more mafiosi friends in Sicily, in Corleone. And between his connections in Corleone and in New York City, when he came back after his military obligation… service, he immediately was involved in a hit contract killing and had to flee the city. And he ran to Los Angeles, where I was surprised to learn that there was already a very well developed mafia culture for them to become a part of. They found a mentor from Corleone, who had them running another racket within a year, for which they got in trouble. So there was already so much going on, even in just the 19 -teens, that is just roiling with mafia activity in all these different places that we don’t necessarily think about the mafia having reached yet, like Los Angeles or San Francisco or mining towns and coal towns and agricultural places, like the interior of, let’s say, of Louisiana.

[24:48] But they were in all those places. Yeah, I don’t really think about that when I read that about being in the sugar working and sugar cane fields more up by Baton Rouge. I’ve never heard of any mafia outside of New Orleans. So that’s and I can imagine out west you had the mining towns anywhere you’ve got mining. You got a whole lot of men that are hardworking that are making money. And so you’ve got gambling and prostitution. Now what do you got? You got organized crime of some kind. So they’ve got expertise in that, running those kinds of rackets.

[25:23] It’s fascinating. And they were rough towns. There wasn’t a lot of police there either. And I know where in Missouri, not three hours south of Kansas City, there was a lot of lead mining along Missouri -Kansas border. And there’s a town called Frontenac down there. And this is a town that Joey Iupa drove south from Chicago and shot 500 doves and brought them back home got caught and he got the name Joey Doves for having too many doves. But I went down there and I stopped at a little museum because I couldn’t figure out what was the deal, what was the connection down there. And the lady at the museum said, you know, when these mining jobs and lead mines opened up.

[26:01] Tons of Sicilians flooded into that town and created, really created this whole town. They gave it a French name for some reason, Frontenac, but they flooded in and it’s still, the names of the major stores and restaurants today are still Italian names in this little rural Kansas town. So it’s, that whole demographic shift, as I said before, from Sicily and Southern Italy over the United States is really interesting because it’s part and parcel of the mafia as it became this almost a potent political force in the United States. They never really achieved any political power, it doesn’t seem like in Sicily, did they? Did they work on that at all? Yeah, the Mafia was completely entrenched in the Christian Democratic Party. They owned that party. Really? All right. So they have a long -standing history of getting entrenched in a local political party. Well, anywhere there’s ability to use your power and money to get more power, then they’re going to gravitate into that, aren’t they? Absolutely. Interesting. Well, guys, the book is…

[27:12] I’ve got to get my glasses on here. Well, guys, the book is In Our Blood, The Mafia Families of Corleone. Justin Cascio, who has his own website and does his own independent writings and studies on Mafia genealogy about all kinds of different Mafia families. What’s the name of your website, is it Mafia Genealogy? Yes, MafiaGenealogy .com.

[27:39] And In Our Blood is in Amazon and all the usual places, I would imagine. Do you ever do talks? Do people contract with you to do talks, groups, and stuff?

[27:49] Yes, I was in a documentary last year about a bootlegger from Springfield, Massachusetts. Her name was Pasqualina Albano, and her great niece made a documentary about her and about her family’s continued involvement in organized crime. And she had a screening in Springfield not long ago, I live near Springfield, so I was there. And so was most of her family. So I met all of Gina’s family, including Mario Fiori, who is a 99 -year -old member of the Genovese family. He was part of the local crew. So I sat next to him and listened to stories about gambling junkets to Las Vegas in Atlantic City in the 60s. So I get to meet all these… It wasn’t just Uncle Mario, there’s other members of her family who were also involved in organized crime. And she was very concerned about what this meant for her family, like what’s going to happen to my nieces and nephews, for instance, like the little kids. What are they going to grow up into? And how do they see organized crime? And are they going to choose the same life that their families have been choosing for now generations in Springfield? And I think that she made that movie because she wanted to try and interrupt that to make can talk about it and bring it to consciousness. So it was a really powerful experience to be a part of that. BF. Really interesting. I know it is a family legacy all the way up to today.

[29:18] Firsthand, I know it here in Kansas City. And secondhand, I know it about other cities back east that it is a legacy that people just keep doing it. And their sons do it, and their nephews do it. And some of them don’t. Some of them go on to be doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs and and successful in the Spilotros. Two of the brothers were in the mob, basically, in the outfit, and the other brother was a dentist. So, you know, you can’t… I could see what she was trying to do there. It’s really interesting. I hadn’t really heard of that, an example of that before. What was the name of that documentary? Do you remember? I have to look for it. It’s called Pasqualina of Springfield. Pasqualina of Springfield. Do you know where she is? She got it online anywhere, or is it? It’s not streaming yet, but that is the plan. It was the last year it’s been touring film festivals. Oh, okay. Yeah. That’s a deal to get a documentary into Amazon anymore. You have to been accepted in a certain film festivals, only the better film. I did a third one and the other two, I was able to put them in and rent them on Amazon. And that last one, I never put it in a film festival. I just gave up after that. OK, I don’t have the energy to go around to film festivals and get rejected by some of them and accepted by others. And they take your money no matter what. Sometimes you just retire. Sometimes they just wear you down. You know what I mean, Justin? The Challenges of Marketing for Creators

[30:42] Yeah, marketing, like we were saying, it’s marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing for the creators is hard. So just buy our stuff or rent our stuff and don’t make us go out and try to sell it. Right, Justin? Plea for Support: Help Us Sell Our Product

[30:58] We hate to go sell it. We earnestly put out the best product we can now just help us out a little bit here. Come on, guys. Help us. Yes. All right, Justin. Parting Words: Buy My Book

[31:11] All right, well, Justin Cascio, in our blood, the mafia families of Cordeleon. Do you have any parting words here to say to these guys? Buy my book.

[31:21] I got you. That’s it. I know you put it. If you wanna know what my writing is like, read my website, and it’s more of the same in the book. I include my sources. I’m very thorough. I take a lot of pride in that. You can trust what I say. Cool, yeah, and you can, guys, you really can. and you’ll find some really interesting stuff on that website, like the two different, Little Sicily and in Chicago, the two different kind of areas of mafia influence in Chicago. So the patch and then Little Sicily was different from that. And so he’s got some great stuff in there that will kind of blow your mind and some of the long -held maybe myths that you’ve had. If you don’t, hope you don’t mind having a little myth blown up in your face because you’ll get that done on Justin’s website. I promise you that. So Justin Cascio, I really appreciate you coming on the show.

[32:10] Thank you so much for having me, Gary. I appreciate it. It’s always fun. And guys, don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. So look out for motorcycles when you’re out there. If you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, be sure and go to the VA website and get that hotline number. If you have a problem with drugs or alcohol, speaking of Mafia legacies, the son of a Gambino soldier, Anthony Ruggiano, know is a drug and alcohol counselor and out of the mob and in the drug and alcohol counseling business down in Florida. And he has a hotline number on his website. I think it’s reformedgangsters .com or he has a YouTube page. Don’t forget, like and subscribe. Keep coming back, guys. I really appreciate y ‘all listening in. Thanks a lot, Justin. Thanks, Kerry.

The post Corleone Sicily with Justin Cascio appeared first on Gangland Wire.

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