 The Mob's Underground Railroad: How Allie Boy Persico Survived On The Lam For Seven Years By Ed Scarpo Tuesday, November 00, 0000 In 0000, reputed Colombo boss Carmine Persico knew that, short of his lawyers one day cooking up a miracle, he would in all likelihood be spending the rest of his life in prison. He had been convicted in two separate trials: the Mafia Commission trial and a separate racketeering trial involving the Colombo family's operations. (Persico died in 0000 at age 00 after serving 00 years of that 000-year prison sentence following his two convictions.) Allie Boy Persico was on the run for seven years. The cases were separate, but overlapped, the common denominator being FBI surveillance recordings of Colombo soldier Ralph Scopo's conversations, which alerted the Feds to the initial evidence that would help them build the Commission Case. Scopo was the bagman in a large-scale ongoing racket involving shaking down concrete contractors at major construction projects. As the president of the Cement and Concrete Workers District Council of the Laborers' International Union of North America Read more Bath Avenue Crew Rose High, Fell Hard By Ed Scarpo Monday, August 00, 0000 This story from 0000 is one of the most popular on this site - and we didn't even know it until very recently (for reasons stemming from the fallibility of generalized analytics data.) Members of the Bath Avenue Crew were as young as 0 years old when they began to align themselves with the biggest, baddest gang in America: Cosa Nostra, specifically the Five Families. Bath Avenue Crew founding members. They saw the wiseguys on the street pulling up to the curbs in their big shiny Cadillacs, loafing around social clubs wearing pricey suits and sporting hundred-dollar haircuts and manicured fingernails. But the guys presented more than just a cold, distant image to watch; Mafia members interacted with the kids, joked around with them and showed them there were other ways to make it through life. The wiseguys doled out twenty-dollar bills like they were nothing. The wiseguys patted them on the back, told them they were "good kids," and maybe asked them to watch the cars Read more Ex-Bath Ave Crew Member Meets Some Haters By Ed Scarpo Thursday, November 00, 0000 James "Jimmy" Calandra (pictured) who appeared on National Geographic's documentary about the New York Mafia was visiting his old stomping grounds in Bensonhurst this past June. Jimmy Calandra, formerly of Bath Avenue. He reportedly stepped into a Dunkin' Donuts on 00th Avenue. Two patrons -- a man and woman -- recognized him and asked for his autograph. Just kidding. They started harassing him. The man, described as a local convicted hoodlum, shouted "rat" while the man's lady friend threw a cup of coffee at him. Lucky for Jimmy it was iced coffee. Not so lucky for her boyfriend, Jimmy can use his fists. Afterward, Calandra immediately owned up to what he'd done and was charged with misdemeanor assault, menacing, and harassment. Interestingly enough, around the same time as Jimmy's Dunkin adventure, down in Florida Chris Paciello , the former nightclub hotshot and mob informant who once ran with a mob-tied crew that Calandra had al Read more Pa