Puggy Zeichick - Anthony Fiato Los Angeles Mafia

Robert Puggy Zeichick


Puggy Zeichick bankrolled a seven figure juice loan operation that was backed by Mafia mobster Anthony Fiato's mob muscle. Zeichick and Fiato incorporated all the top west coast Jewish bookies and loan sharks into their crime syndicate.. Law enforcement and Mafiosi alike referred to Anthony Fiato and Puggy Zeichick as the Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky of Los Angeles.

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CityBeat Podcast 22: Mafia Enforcer Anthony Fiato

Former Mafia enforcer Anthony Fiato tells stories from his life of crime. Fiato was the subject of the memoir The Animal In Hollywood by John Smith which was published in 1998. The interview was recorded the same year

http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/blog-938-citybeat_podcast_22_mafia_enforcer_anthony_fiato.html

Puggy Zeichick - Anthony Fiato Los Angeles Mafia

Puggy Zeichick bankrolled a seven figure juice loan operation that was backed by Mafia mobster Anthony Fiato's mob muscle. Zeichick and Fiato incorporated all the top west coast Jewish bookies and loan sharks into their crime syndicate.. Law enforcement and Mafiosi alike referred to Anthony Fiato and Puggy Zeichick as the Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky of Los Angeles...

JLSMITH: mobster Anthony “The Saint” St. Laurent Sr., leaves Las Vegas black mark:

Anthony "The Saint" St. Laurent Sr., what are we going to do with you?

Didn't we show you enough respect for one street guy's lifetime back in September 1993 when we added your name to Nevada's infamous List of Excluded Persons?


We bestowed upon you the highest honor Nevada awards mobsters and racketeers and cheats by placing you in the casino Black Book. (Population: 35.) The honor comes with a lifetime membership, and you're banned from setting foot in any of Nevada's sacred gambling halls.

You didn't lose sleep over it, I realize. But your Black Book membership was a signal Nevada gaming authorities believed you were a clear and present danger to the credibility of the casino industry. read more
John L Smith Review Journal

Breakfast in OJ trial with Mafioso Anthony fiato

. Anthony Fiato
Breakfast In The Neighborhood: Hearty Food and Toasty Talk (Archive fee)
...hangout for law enforcement officers. Ironically, Anthony (Tony the Animal) Fiato, the reputed mafioso and North End native who testified in the O.J. Simpson trial, also used to favor this place where you can get some killer coffee,the district attorney's office. incredibly...read more.

Boston Globe Archive (Nominal fee required)

A rare memory of steak-eating Spilotro

John L Smith review journal

Former mobster Anthony Fiato, who grew up with the Boston mob and became a powerhouse member of the Los Angeles La Cosa Nostra before cooperating with the FBI, read with interest my recent post on the nature of greed whether you’re a gangster like Tony Spilotro or a “financier” of the ilk of Bernard Madoff.

It reminded him of one of the times he came to Las Vegas for a meeting with Spilotro, who had considerable street clout from Chicago
to Las Vegas and out to Los Angeles. His Chicago bosses had tough Tony pegged as that city’s representative on the West Coast.

Fiato, the subject of my book “The Animal in Hollywood,” came to Las Vegas with the infamous Mike Rizzitello to meet with Spilotro regarding the completion of a drug deal at a local steakhouse.

“Tony did love good steak, and cash was his favorite dessert,” Fiato writes on his Hollywood goodfella blog (WordPress.com.) “I chopped up a drug score with Tony over a New York steak dinner in the Flame, a steakhouse in Las Vegas.”

Prosecution rests rebuttal case in Simpson trial

Prosecution rests rebuttal case in Simpson trial
September 19, 1995
Web posted at 12:38 a.m. EDT

From Correspondent Jim Hill

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- The prosecution in the O.J. Simpson double murder trial ended its rebuttal case on Monday. But prosecutor Marcia Clark reserved the right to call more witnesses if the defense raises new issues with its remaining witnesses.


O.J. Simpson's lead trial attorney read a list of witnesses he intends to call, including a most unlikely figure -- a confessed mob-world hitman named Tony Fiato, who goes by the nickname Tony the Animal.
( 75K AIFF

Defense sources say Fiato and possibly several other people heard Detective Philip Vannatter say police considered Simpson a suspect almost from the start -- before they entered Simpson's home without a warrant.

Vannatter had testified police were only concerned with the safety of people in the house, and did not think Simpson was a suspect at that time.

"I think that the testimony will cause the trier of fact to question some of the central and primary themes the prosecution has offered," said Simpson attorney Carl Douglas.

Prosecution sources say Vannatter does not recall making the comments in question.

The first defense witness of the week was a blood expert who did an experiment reportedly showing blood-stained gloves don't shrink much.


Herbert MacDonell testified that he could detect "no shrinkage or change or shift" in a pair of gloves identical to the ones allegedly worn by the killer of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.(85K AIFF or 190K WAV sound)

Prosecutors have argued the crime scene gloves didn't appear to fit Simpson because they'd shrunk.

Meanwhile, a hearing will determine if FBI agent Frederic Whitehurst can testify for the defense. Whitehurst believes the FBI crime lab is often biased toward prosecutors.

"We interviewed him over the weekend," said Deputy District Attorney Brian Kelberg. "The question is whether his testimony is relevant."

Prosecutors say the weekend interviews revealed Whitehurst has no information about the Simpson case, and they expect the judge to bar his testimony.

Defense attorneys say they want to wrap up their case this week. And clearly, they're trying to do so with a bang.

Field notes on Monday's proceedings
- Members of the jury looked attentive Monday morning during FBI agent William Bodziak's testimony. Some took notes.

- O.J. Simpson talked frequently with members of the defense team during the morning session. Later, attorney Johnnie Cochran pointedly touched the defendant's hand during testimony about the fit of the gloves.


- Ron Goldman's sister, Kim, and Simpson's sister, Carmelita, were both in the courtroom on Monday.

- Actor Richard Dreyfuss, who is preparing for a role as an attorney in his next film, was a guest of Ito's in the courtroom.

- The jury showed no reaction when Clark announced that the prosecution was conditionally resting its rebuttal case. Many of the jurors were still settling into their seats, getting out pens and pads of paper. 75K AIFF



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CONTENTS SEARCH CNN HOME PAGE MAIN O.J. SIMPSON TRIAL PAGE

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Copyright © 1995 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

JAMES CAAN GETS REAL GODFATHERS HELP

In a scene that could have been lifted from the Godfather ,actor James Caan enlisted the help of Los Angeles Mafia member Mobster, Anthony “The Animal” Fiato , and his crew, to rescue his brother Ronnie from ronsom seeking kidnappers. Ronnie Caan had been lured to a hotel room and held at gun point. The kidnappers called Jimmy Caan and demanded fifty thousand dollars . Jimmy made a meet to pay them only the bad guys got surprised by Goodfella’s with guns and ball bats and they beat Ronnie Caan’s captors to a bloody pulp

ADRENALINE RUSH- FBI Bob Hamer- LasVegas Review Journal

R-J columnist John L. Smith talks to author and retired undercover agent Bob Hamer about life in the FBI

EDITOR'S NOTE: This partial interview by Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith with retired FBI undercover agent and author Bob Hamerere http://www.lvrj.com/living/38776657.html . . Listen play first aired in its entirety Jan. 21 on KNPR-FM, 88.9 "KNPR's State of Nevada." A recording of the interview is available online at knpr.org.
JOHN L. SMITH: Thanks to television cop shows and movies such as "Donnie Brasco," the public has an image of the undercover investigator that borders on caricature. Hard-drinking, wisecracking, two-fisted and ready to shoot first and then start the interrogation

Bob Hamer shatters the stereotypes.

Hamer was a U.S. Marine and an attorney when he joined the FBI back before it was known as an agency that specialized in undercover operations. He soon found his niche and began working against some of the darkest forces in the American underbelly: the Mafia, violent street gangs, international money laundering rings and the North American Man/Boy Love Association.
Hamer has hammered them all, winning new convictions and carving out a career that is the subject of his new book, "The Last Undercover: The True Story of An FBI Agent's Dangerous Dance With Evil."
BOB HAMER: I was an attorney. I reluctantly say that. I spent four years in the Marine Corps. I went on active duty in the Marines after graduating law school, and I think I really saw myself after law school as being this high-powered trial attorney that was fighting crime and corruption at every turn.
I got into the Marine Corps, had 150 trials, everything ranging from unauthorized absence to murder, and really did not find any excitement at all in being an attorney. It didn't grab me. Probably for one I wasn't really as good as I thought I was. But every case came down to whether the confession was admissible, whether the case was legal. There were never any whodunits. (Hamer found a new home in the FBI as an undercover agent.)
SMITH: How did you get there and what did you find so fascinating about it?
HAMER: It is actually kind of a limited field even within the FBI. There are currently about 12,700 special agents in the FBI, and maybe only a couple hundred that are what they call certified FBI undercover agents, those that have been selected, have attended the school and have undergone all the psychological screening and then are dubbed undercover agents. So, you're right, it's a pretty limited field. I got into it well before they had all of the screening process. I'm not sure now if I went into it now I could even pass it. But back when I first started. I actually joined the Bureau in 1979, went through the four-month academy, and then reported to the San Diego office in 1980.
Within about six months I was already undercover. Now it requires several years of actual experience as a street agent before you can even apply to the undercover program. So I was there at a time you essentially raised your hand and said 'Yeah, I'll try this.' ... I think it just seemed like the excitement that I was looking for that I didn't find in the courtroom. And trust me after that very first undercover meeting that I had, that adrenaline rush was, I'm assuming, since I'm not a drug addict, that it's the equivalent of the heroin rush that people talk about. I mean I was chasing that adrenaline dragon the rest of my career. I loved it. I loved that rush. I loved that idea of going face to face with the bad guys, of convincing him that you are who you say you are and that you're playing this role. I really relished it. Very early in my career I got hooked on that and continued it throughout my career.
SMITH: Let's talk about one of those early stops. This is where our paths cross at some level.
I wrote a book called "The Animal in Hollywood" about a very tough guy in the L.A. mob, Anthony Fiato, and his experience both as a criminal and as a cooperating witness. You worked in the middle of his world. ... Can you talk a little bit about working La Cosa Nostra in those days in Los Angeles. L.A. is a very big place, but the mobsters weren't too hard to find, I assume, they were just hard to catch.
HAMER: The difference between L.A. and a lot of cities is we didn't have a Little Italy. L.A. had Little Tokyo, they sort of have a Little Saigon. There are a lot of different ethnic communities there, but the Italian family wasn't maybe as strong as maybe they were in other major cities. And as you well know they were sometimes dubbed as the Mickey Mouse Mafia. But they had some pretty significant key players that were involved. They reported to the Commission. They were legitimate La Cosa Nostra, Mafia guys as most of us refer to them. And Anthony Fiato was a major player in that whole organized crime scene.
I worked it both from a case agent perspective, when we were actually targeting Fiato, sat in on hours and hours of wiretaps when we were actually listening to his conversations. And then eventually, when we put together a pretty significant case, he decided to cooperate with the FBI and it was he and his brother Larry who actually introduced me into the L.A. Mafia family.
read full story here http://www.lvrj.com/living/38776657.html . . Listen play

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith/.

Curtis Sliwa Guardian Angel's Cab Ride from Hell

Radio host Curtis Sliwa captivated a federal jury with an action-packed account of how he was kidnapped and shot in a stolen cab by two alleged Gambino goons - and then narrowly escaped death by hurling himself out the window. Testifying at the trial of John "Junior" Gotti, who stands accused of hatching the plot to stop Sliwa from bad-mouthing his father John "Dapper Don" Gotti, the radio host described how a cab ride to work turned into a nightmare in which he was shot at "like a duck in a duck pond."Sliwa, 51, said he sensed trouble when the taxi made a sudden wrong turn the morning of June 19, 1992. "Hey, Mack! Turn this hack around! You're going in the wrong direction!" Sliwa recalled barking at the driver.Seconds later, Sliwa - founder of the Guardian Angels civilian patrol group - said he heard rustling in the front seat. "All of a sudden there was this guy who had popped up. His backside was on the dashboard. He was pointing a gun at me," said Sliwa. "The gunman said, 'Take this you son of a bitch,' " Sliwa told Assistant U.S. Attorney Joon Kim. "The gun sounded like a cannon . . . I saw the fire of the gun."Sliwa said he heard three shots and felt excruciating pain in his abdomen and legs as he tried to escape the rear of the taxi, which had been stripped of its door and window handles. "I'm stuck in a corner. I'm thinking in a matter of seconds I'm going to be dead," Sliwa said. "He's shooting you like a duck in a duck pond."The radio host said he grabbed his two-way radio and shouted, "Angel One! Code Red!" He said he then felt a gust of wind from the front passenger area as the speeding taxi rounded a turn. "I used the back seat like one would a trampoline. I bounced off there," Sliwa said, describing a death-defying stunt that propelled him past the gunman and through an open window. Sliwa said he underwent extensive surgery for damage caused by two bullets and was forced to wear a colostomy bag for a year.This is the second time Sliwa has taken the witness stand against Gotti in Manhattan federal court. Last year a jury failed to reach a verdict on the kidnapping charge against Gotti and acquitted the alleged shooter. The admitted driver of the cab, mob turncoat Joseph D'Angelo, is set to testify.Under cross-examination, Sliwa said he could not identify either the gunman or the driver, but said, "I had always been suspicious of the Gottis and the Gambinos."Defense lawyer Charles Carnesi asked Sliwa if he'd said on his radio show that before he testified he planned to "rub onions in your eyes so you would be crying." Sliwa acknowledged making the statement, but said it was a joke. "I wouldn't do that," he said.Sliwa also acknowledged six instances in the late 1970s and early 1980s when he staged acts of heroism to get positive media attention for his fledgling Guardian Angels group."I appreciated the opportunity of being able to tell the jury my story a second time," Sliwa said, speaking outside of court. "I should have been dead long ago."

Godmother

Blonde beauty Georgia Duranti is a gritty and gutsy gal.Talk about life in the fast lane, Georgia did everything from driving getaway cars for mob stick up men to delivering mob messages on the down-low to Mafia boss Carlo Gambino.
Georgia's book, "The Company she keeps" is just terrific. We were both on the A&E (Love Chronicles) "Love & The Mob" in Spring 2000.... Georgia sends me an Invite every year to her "Godmother" gala held in her swanky Tinseltown diggs.
..
by. Anthony "The Animal" Fiato

Godfathers Moe green was a real Mobster.

Hollywood actor Alex Rocco was born Alexander F Petricone in Boston.Mass Petricone was known by the nickname "Bobo" in his early years as a hard fisted hood in the infamous Winter Hill Gang
...
According to Vincent Teresa in “My Life in the Mafia,” it was Rocco whose girlfriend Charlestown mobster Georgie McLaughlin tried to pick up on Labor Day weekend 1961, setting off the bloody Irish Gang War.
.

Rocco was arrested along with Winter Hill boss, Buddy McLean, as a suspect in the October 1961 murder of a gangster but was never charged.

.Petricone then bolted out of bullet riddled Boston and moved to California in 1962, and began using the name Alex Rocco. . He took acting classes and lost weight..

Rocco made his movie bones and scored the solid-gold role of Mobster,Moe Green in the Godfather. The Winter Hill Mobs most famous felons watched the movie and rooted for Moe Green to whack out Michael Corleone.

Boston Mobster

Frank Capizzi, was an associate of the Notarangelis--"Indian Joe" and "Indian Al" who started a renegade gang that tried to muscle in on some of Angiulo's racquets.. .Joe and Al were both whacked out by hitman Johnny Martarano of the Winter Hill Gang. . When FBI agent Zip Connolly was convicted in federal court, Frank Capizzi wrote Judge Joe Tauro a five page letter about what it was like to be machine-gunned by Whitey Bulger in 1973 as Capizzi and two other hoods rode in a car in the North End. The driver, Al Plummer, was decapitated by the bullets

. Frankie Capizzi and his family begged well respected "made man" Paulie Intiso to get him off the hook with the Hill and Angiulo. . Capizzi knew Paulie since he was a kid. .He cried like a baby but he got to live as long as he stayed out of Boston. . . I started out in the Patriarca mob in Paulie Intiso's crew.

Paulie is mentioned in my book. "The Animal in Hollywood"

Anthony Fiato .
.

MOB INSIDER; Fiato focuses on FBI agent murder comviction

Las Vegas Review Journal
MOB INSIDER: Fiato focuses on FBI agent murder conviction
Posted by John L. Smith review Journal Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008

Anthony Fiato, the subject of my 1998 book “The Animal in Hollywood,” (at left) was the double-tough underboss of the Los Angeles mob in the early 1980s before he became ensnared in an FBI undercover investigation. Fiato was a made guy with criminal credentials in Boston and Los Angeles — and connections in Las Vegas and New York. When he decided to cooperate with the FBI, mobsters from Hollywood to the North End of Boston took a beating.


I spoke with Fiato recently about the conviction in Florida of former Boston FBI Agent John Connolly(at right), who was in connection with the mishandling of Irish mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Far from simplistically condemning “Zip” Connolly, Fiato said he understood how a dedicated FBI agent could get lost along the way while trying to put the mob out of business. The fact is, he says, the good guys have to be able to relate to the bad guys in order to gain their trust. Favors are common. Friendships form on both sides of the fence.

Here is an excerpt from that conversation.

“When you’re working undercover as an FBI agent, some of the mob guys rub off on you, and some of you rubs off on them,” Fiato says. “When Mike Wacks (a veteran FBI undercover agent who was a key player in the Bribery and Labor investigation known as BRILAB that nailed New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello) worked that BRILAB case, he told me they almost had to deprogram him for a year after he surfaced. Wacks told me it took him a year to get back to being himself. He was committing crimes along with them, getting to know them as people, getting to know their families.

These FBI guys will tell you anything to get you to do your job, but they also do things undercover that they wouldn’t normally do. People are people. The bad rubs off on the good and visa versa. That’s what I think happened in Connolly’s case.

“He was told to work those guys, make cases, get them to flip, nail the mobsters — and follow every rule or face the consequences. Well, life on the street is never that simple. Never. And I think it’s unfair to throw the book at a guy who was trying to do his job.”

More from Fiato soon.

Hood hit it big

Joe Di Carlo was a longtime associate of Mobster, Mickey Cohen, and organized crime figures, Joe and Fred.Sica. De Carlo was sitting with Mickey Cohen and cowardly, gunman, Sam Lo Cigno, the night La Cigno shot to death, unarmed hoodlum, Jack Whalen , aka Jack O'Hara... Joe Di Carlo started out a minor hood and he wound up making a big success of himself as a entertainment manger. He got rich managing Hollywood Superstar Cher.. . In my book, "The Animal in Hollywood" . I mention how I grabbed Di Carlo to do me a solid, "or, else", in a private Beverly Hills club named Pips with my associate John Di Mattia... Anthony Fiato .

Louie Gelfuso aka " The Couch"

Louie "the Couch" Gelfuso was a Capo in the Milano Crime Family. He was nicknamed " The Couch" by FBI agent's who were listening to the planted bug in his broken-down-dump of an aparment


Gelfuso was always laying down on his couch while he was watching soap opera's like an old scrub woman. He would talk to the soap show characters, and he would even cry at some of the sentimental scenes.

Gelfuso really had the Fed's almost pissing in their pants with laughrer, when he said to a soap character who was claiming she was a virgin to her boyfriend,, " you fucki'n douche bag , your cherry is so far up your ass, you can use it for a tailgate."

FEDS THROW EX FED UNDER THE MOB BUS

Joe Pistone aka Donnie Brasco, was an FBI agent who worked undercover for six years as an associate of the Bonanno Crime Family. He also helped FBI agent.Zip Connoly with -Mob-informants, Whitey Bulger, and Stevie Flemmi.. Pistone had met and talked to Flemmi and Bulger at a social dinner with Connolly at another FBI agents home in a Boston suburb .
After Connolly was convicted of federal racketeering charges in 2002, Pistone wrote a glowing letter to the sentencing judge urging leniency for .John Connolly,saying, ” he should never have been singled out to take the hit for the admitted flawed policies of a government that benefited from his skills, courage and dedication . I thought that was a cool thing to do.
Pistone must have caught some flack from the feds because now Pistone came up with some lame excuse for not testifying for the defense at Zip’s Conspiracy to Murder trial.. Pistone claims he can’t, and won’t testify without wearing a disguise, which the judge won”t allow. This guy has had his puss shown on TV almost as much as Barack Obama. In my opinion, Pistone is keeping his big trap shut to stay golden with Uncle.Sam. I met Pistone doing a show in the late eighties We compared war stories about what it was like wearing a wire According to Pistone. his wire had malfunctioned many times, which made me wonder if he ever really put it on in dangerous situations, or did he just claim to his superiors that it didn’t work when the going got hairy and scary. I busted his balls about it for a few laughs.
I had flipped to informant and wore a wire on many of the Boston mob . . Something Flemmi and Bulger never really had to do, or they were to scared to do. Connolly’s goose is going to be cooked because of the raw deal he is getting from the deaf, dumb. and blind agents who have thown him under the bus. Pistone should believe his own glowing letter, and have the balls to testify for Zip Connolly . Man up Joe !!! .
Anthony “The Animal” Fiato

BARTENDER HAMMERS MOBSTER

Frank "Puggy" Sica (on the right) was the hoodlum brother of big time Los Angeles racketeer, Joe "JS" Sica . Frank was a pint sized punk,with a big chip on his shoulder... He was nothing like his older brother, JS, who was well connected and respected by Mafia figures all over the country. Puggy Sica and Sal Di Giovanni were burglars in the Sica gang.. They both got their clock cleaned by a bartender who first shot at them, and then beat the fuck out them both for punching and kicking a woman to the floor in a Hollywood gin mill.. The woman was Sal the Creep's girlfriend... Sal got beat so bad he looked like a racoon because he got two black eyes.. .Frank Sica had been arrested plenty of times, but my old lawyer Eddie "the Fixer" Gritz kept him out of the pokey.. .When I was an enforcer for JS, I hated seeing this little drunken fuck.... Anthony Fiato

..Another true Hollywood story

BUSTED SUITCASE

Some guys get their start in the mob busting knee caps, others whacked-out some mug in a carport,— but Tony ”Toothless Tony” Sposado busted his mob cherry lugging coca cola cases –and stocking up vending machines for a Los Angeles Mob associate of Louie Dragna’s named Mike Marquese.. ..Mike’s vending business was also a legitimate front for his bust-out scams and drug deals., The place was a haven for hoods and swindlers .. –who urged Sposado to start pushing drugs and pulling a few minor mob scams. He did, and he was going great guns,and making big money, until he palled up with a punch drunk stew bum named Ronnie Rome Although he didn’t look it, Rome was a street savvy swindler and he convinced Sposado to invest all his money in a vending business and then he robbed him blind . A broke Sposado went back to dealing drugs and got busted , He did a ton of time in the slammer and came out a useless and toothless busted suitcase.

Another True Hollywood Story

MOVIE ACTOR MITCHUM TOUGH GUY

Robert Mitchum was a legitimate tough guy.. His macho mannerisms were a templet for Hoodlums everywhere ..They copied his swaggering walk, hell, others even smoked their cigarettes like him. .Mtchum’s machismo didn’t only extend to the silver screen, he became double-tough as a result of many bouts of barroom brawling. Mitchum regularly caught the Friday night fight card at the Olympic auditorium with his friend, mobster, Anthony “the Animal “Fiato . Mitchum and Anthony Fiato were both boxing buffs.. They would go toe-to-toe for hours calling each others favorite fighter a bum , or tomato can.. Fiato says Mitchum’s love for boxing can best be described by this Quote from the movie”The Champion”.. ” Hell , I’m a sucker, I just cant help watching a couple of good boys in action”
Tags: goodfellas', Hollywood mob, Mafia