Surviving the Mob: A Street Soldier's Life Inside the Gambino Crime Family

Surviving the Mob: A Street Soldier's Life Inside the Gambino Crime Family

Surviving the Mob: A Street Soldier's Life Inside the Gambino Crime Family

Surviving the Mob: A Street Soldier's Life Inside the Gambino Crime Family

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Overview

What do you do when the law wants you behind bars and the New York crime families want you buried?

That was the life-and-death dilemma confronting Andrew DiDonato, who began his criminal career at age 14 under the watchful eyes of the local Mob.

By the time he was 17, the infamous Gambino family made DiDonato an associate of the Nicholas Corozzo crew. For the next 14 years, he was a loyal street soldier, immersed in dangerous and profitable criminal activities: burglary, forgery, extortion, loan sharking, car theft, bank robbery, counterfeiting, drug dealing, credit-card and insurance fraud, witness tampering, weapons possession, and attempted murder.

He was also involved in the underworld gambling operations, which took in millions dealing dice and cards, booking sports and horses, and running numbers. Between these pages you'll find the most in-depth look at Mob gambling ever.

At age 31, DiDonato ran afoul of both the law and his friends, turning him into a hunted man on two fronts. After 17 months on the run, the law caught him first.

Surviving the Mob is a cautionary tale of the harsh reality of a criminal, inmate, fugitive, and witness who—so far—has lived to tell the tale.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781935396383
Publisher: Huntington Press
Publication date: 12/01/2010
Pages: 280
Sales rank: 693,854
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range: 3 Months

About the Author

In 1994, Dennis N. Griffin retired after a 20-year career in investigations and law enforcement in New York and moved to Las Vegas. In 1996 he wrote his first novel, The Morgue, based on an actual case he investigated, and currently has six mystery thrillers in print in addition to four non-fiction titles for Huntington Press: Policing Las Vegas, The Battle for Las Vegas, Cullotta, and Surviving the Mob. He is an active member of the Mystery Writers of America, Las Vegas Valley Writers Group, Henderson Writers Group, and the Police Writers Association and is a consultant and frequent on-screen contributor to documentaries and films about the history of the Mob.

Growing up in Brooklyn, in a house wedged between two Mafia social clubs, Andrew DiDonato was pretty much destined to become a gangster. Barely a teenager when he started stealing car parts, selling marijuana, and shaking down competing dealers, DiDonato spent 15 years rising up through the ranks of the Gambino crime family. But at age 31, he robbed the wrong drug dealer and found himself running from both the cops and—far more dangerously—his former mob "family." So, for the sake of his actual family and his own life, DiDonato decided to turn snitch and spill the beans on one of the Cosa Nostra's most notorious organized-crime dynasties.

Table of Contents

Prologue xi

Introduction 1

1 A Near-Death Experience 3

2 Learning the Trade 5

3 Making Connections 9

4 Up and Coming 15

5 1984 23

6 1985 37

7 1986 45

8 Gambling and the New York Mob 53

9 1987 69

10 1988 81

11 Trial 95

12 and Tribulation 105

13 Back on the Street 121

14 Free Again 133

15 1995 137

16 Beginning of the End 145

17 Fugitive 157

18 Decision Time 185

19 Tremors 193

20 1999 209

21 2000 223

22 A New Beginning 231

23 A Court Date Nears 237

24 The Junior Gotti and Mike Yannotti Trial 243

25 Closing in on Nicky 251

26 Lessons 255

Index 261

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