Updated news on the Gambino, Genovese, Bonanno, Lucchese and Colombo Organized Crime Families of New York City.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Mafia makes new members remove clothes for initiation


Drop your pants, take the cannoli.
The Mafia added a new twist to its initiation ceremony for wiseguy wannabes, a turncoat mobster revealed — if you wanna get your “button,” you’ve gotta get naked.
Anthony “Bingy” Arillotta, 42, testified that fears of FBI surveillance meant clothing wasn’t an option when he became a “made” member of the Genovese clan.
The mob rat’s Manhattan federal court revelation marked the first time La Cosa Nostra’s “take it all off” rule — with an exception for modest mobsters to leave their underpants on — has been made public.
The rule was reportedly adopted after the feds secretly taped a 1989 initiation ceremony.
Authorities have been aware of the skin-duction ceremonies since at least 1999, when reputed Genovese mobster Vincent Aparo was recorded blabbing to an informer about his induction, according to mob expert Jerry Capeci, who first reported Arillotta’s testimony on his Gangland News Web site.
Arillotta, of Springfield, Mass., told jurors he had long awaited the call that summoned him to the Nebraska Steakhouse in The Bronx at 11 a.m. on Aug. 11, 2003 — the day before his daughter’s birth.
He and another made-man hopeful were told to leave their jewelry, beepers and cellphones at the bar, and then were driven to an apartment building.
They were met by reputed Genovese soldier Steve Alfisi, who told Arillotta to wait his turn in a tiny bathroom.
About 15 minutes later, he said, “The door opened and Stevie said, ‘Ant, it’s your turn.’
“And he told me to undress, take all my clothes off, and put on a bathrobe,” Arillotta recalled.
“Then, after I was undressed, he said I could leave my underwear on. He gave me the bathrobe.”
“What was your understanding of why you had to undress and put on a bathrobe?” prosecutor Mark Lanpher asked.
“Make sure there was no wire — I wasn’t wearing a wire or listening devices or any type of something to record anything with,” Arillotta replied.
From there, Arillotta described a scene familiar to mob-movie fans. He said he was led into a room where reputed Genovese mobsters Arthur Nigro and Pasquale “Scop” DeLuca were seated at a table with a gun on it.
After being told by Nigro — a reputed former acting boss of the crime family — that “they were part of the secret society called La Cosa Nostra,” Arillotta eagerly agreed to become a member.
“And he asked me if — if he asked me to commit murder, would I commit murder for him? I said yes,” Arillotta said.
Nigro then pricked Arillotta’s trigger finger with a pin and smeared the blood on a piece of blank paper that he set ablaze in Arillotta’s cupped hands.
“And then he had me repeat after him that I’m never to divulge this meeting ever took place, never to divulge any secrets or cooperate with any law enforcement,” he said.
“If I do, I’m going to burn like this piece of paper.”
Despite that oath, Arillotta jumped at the chance to turn rat in exchange for leniency from a potential life sentence after he was busted last year along with Nigro on murder and racketeering charges, including a 2003 hit on the very person who proposed him for membership: former Springfield mob boss Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno.


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