La Cosa Nostra

While John Gotti, the onetime boss of all bosses, was lying in a federal prison hospital yesterday suffering from head and neck cancer, his former lawyer, Bruce Cutler, was defending the consigliere of the Philadelphia crime family, George Borgesi. Like a Shakespearean actor evoking great emotion on stage, Cutler, in several theatrical moves, asked former Philadelphia mob boss Ralph Natale a series of questions about two documents during cross-examination, which ended yesterday.

The lead defendant in the case has been identified by investigators as the current underboss, or number-two man, in the Philadelphia-South Jersey mob. The gambling and loan-sharking operation that he and several codefendants allegedly ran has been described as a criminal enterprise linked to "La Cosa Nostra. " But a prominent criminal defense attorney wants a Superior Court judge to bar any references to the Mafia from the multicount indictment around which the case is built.

JOE STANFA doesn't want you to read this. He can't make you put down the newspaper or click on another website, but he's worried that continuing on could be bad for business, for his fresh start. "I don't want to scare people away," Stanfa said from behind the counter at Joey Giusepp's, his new pizzeria just off the Schuylkill Expressway, in Grays Ferry. Stanfa is perhaps the only proprietor in Philadelphia who doesn't want you to know about his pizza joint. He'd rather make you a hoagie than talk about the blood that was shed at the same address nearly 20 years ago, or the story behind the scar on his cheek.

Ronald "Cuddles" DiCaprio, a South Philadelphia man identified by prosecutors as a mob associate, was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison for violating federal racketeering law by participating in a 1983 murder and in a marijuana-selling scheme. "The overwhelming fact here is that this was a conscious, deliberate, premeditated act on your part," U.S. District Judge Joseph L. McGlynn Jr. said before imposing the maximum sentence permitted by law. "Your conduct was such that it was abhorrent to society.

They're calling it Mob Wives , although Mob Women might be a better name. The VH1 reality show, which will debut at 8 p.m. next Sunday, features the wives and daughters of wiseguys, including Karen Gravano, whose father, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, is one of the most infamous turncoats in underworld history. Ten episodes of the series, set in Staten Island, N.Y., are scheduled, and if the first is any indication, we're in for lots of shouting, cursing, and drama.

GEORGIE is not happy. Neither is his mother, Manny. Or his burly bro Anthony, who looks ready to throw down even on a good day. The whole Borgesi clan is irate - because George isn't coming home, as they'd expected. "F---in' punk," George Borgesi barked at Assistant U.S. Attorney John Han, who argued successfully on Wednesday to have the onetime mob consigliere kept in prison even though prosecutors failed to secure a single conviction against him following a trial that began in mid-October.

Bowed and bloodied by a series of successful prosecutions and a decade of internecine turmoil, the Philadelphia branch of La Cosa Nostra has been forced to reorganize and could emerge as the prototype American Mafia family of the 1990s, according to a Pennsylvania Crime Commission report made public today. And if it does, the report notes, it will probably have a strong Sicilian accent. "A reorganization and, perhaps, a return to tradition is taking place in the Philadelphia Family and others as well," the report says, adding that "La Cosa Nostra may emerge as far more powerful, effective and insulated.

The mob references go; the nicknames can stay. That's what a state Superior Court judge in Camden County ruled yesterday after hearing arguments about references to La Cosa Nostra and to defendants' so-called street names in a 14-count gambling-related racketeering case now pending before him. Judge Samuel D. Natal, accepting the arguments of defense lawyer Mike Pinsky, said references to the Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, and organized crime were...

In a dramatic turnabout, young associates of La Cosa Nostra are believed to be obtaining cocaine from the Junior Black Mafia, according to authorities. This would be the final break in the decades-old tradition of the South Philadelphia-based Italian Mafia controlling criminal rackets in most of the city's black neighborhoods. The Junior Black Mafia is a violent network of loosely affiliated black drug organizations that cooperate in buying and distributing up to 150 kilograms of cocaine and crack a week, some of it to the remnants of Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo's crime family.

Former mob boss Ralph Natale stepped down from the witness stand on Thursday after spending 14 days giving a federal jury a candid look at the inner workings of the Philadelphia mob. It wasn't a pretty picture. Already considered one of the most dysfunctional mob families in America, the criminal organization depicted by Natale was a picture of disorganized organized crime, a slap-dash outfit motivated by greed that failed at nearly every enterprise except murder. "La Cosa Nostra is a descent into hell," the nattily dressed and smooth-talking Natale said in one of his first and most dramatic remarks after taking the stand in the racketeering trial of his onetime underworld ally, Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, and six codefendants.