George Anastasia

Although this is the story of the downfall of the Philadelphia mob in the 1990s, The Goodfella Tapes documents the larger unraveling of traditional organized crime through “its own indiscriminate use of violence and lack of self-discipline,” assisted by government investigations. George Anastasia, using mobster’s own words in hours of conversations surreptitiously recorded by the FBI, details how greed and the clashing values of the new and old tore apart the Philadelphia mob under the leadership of Joseph Stanfa.

The recordings did damage, informants finished the job. Omerta, “the Mafia’s time-honored code of silence and the concepts of honor and loyalty that supposedly went with it” was shattered. “Now the only people making offers that can’t be refused are the authorities who run the Witness Protection Program and the producers who run Hollywood.”… (altro)

I lived in Philadelphia at the time Previte was a corrupt cop there. I was 5'3", 99lb, blue-eyed dishwater blonde. One night my door was burst open and two huge Philadelpha cops hurtled into my apartment, "All right, Sonya, we got you now!" they announced. I nearly wet myself in terror and rushed to the bathroom. One of the enormous cops rushed in and watched as I sat on the toilet petrified and embarrassed. I was on my period and the soiled sanitary napkin dangled between my knees as the cop glowered over me. They ransacked my small apartment, then forced me into their car and took me to the police station. On the way I asked who they thought I was and they handed me a wanted poster for Sonya Perez, 5'9", 155lb, brown-eyes, and black hair wanted for writing bad checks. I asked the cops if they had noticed the discrepancy in the description. The fat pig in the passenger seat said, "Oh we know you got your ways, Sonya," and sneered over the seat at me. I spent several hours in a Philadelphia police station while they "checked my fingerprints" amid a roomful of desks where pigs sat and occassionally hollered, "Hey, Sonya!" to make me jump and then the whole room laughed--except me. Eventually, one of the pigs who'd broken into my apartment came out and said, "Well, the fingerprints didn't match," and I was free to go, in the middle of the night in a strange neighborhood.

I don't have much empathy for Ron Previte the corrupt Philadelphia cop.

This is supposed to be the story of the death of the American Mafia as told through the experiences of corrupt cop, made wiseguy and FBI informant, Ron Previte.

Anastasia presents his characters, especially Previte, as just regular working folk doing their job. Only in this case it's murder, drug dealing, stealing, gambling (legal and illegal), threatening violence and actual violence. And in Previte's previous work life, police corruption.

It follows the eight year investigation that leads to the trial of the then head of the Philadelphia mob, Skinny Joey Merlino and several of his associates.

It is somewhat difficult to keep all the names and players clear. The author often has to reference murders and crimes or gangsters who are dead or in jail before the events chronicled in this narrative. It includes a section of FBI surveillance photos which helps somewhat.

The author interviewed Previte during these years. Throughout the book, Anastasia belittles members of the Philadelphia mob and insists that their downfall meant the death of the entire mob.

In a passing reference to activities of the New York families in 1997, I think he elicited, rather than the death, the actual new direction of gangsterism in the new millenium, "In New York, wiseguys about the same age as Merlino were worming their way onto Wall Street, setting up 'pump-and-dump' stock schemes that generated tens of thousands of dollars per score."

The author subscribes to the myth of the Mafia "code of honor" and believes that if the Philadelphia mob had been run with the "old values", Previte would never have turned on them. "His mentality, his demeanor, and his attitude were more suited to the mob of the 1950s and 1960s, the glory days of the organization, when, he says, 'real gangsters' ran the families."

Meh...just another mafiosa glorification. Interesting for some of the gossip, but it seemed like an attempt to put the Philadelphia family on the map. Other books about major crime families in other cities suggest that they have always considered the Philadelphia mob more of a joke than actual mafia. I think Anastasia was trying to remedy that by giving the impression that Philadelphia had at one time been an organization with some clout, and their demise would have even a speck of effect on any of the other families. I think he's wrong, but it was a nice try.… (altro)