PhillyMafiaHistory.com - Blood & Honor (first published in 1991; expanded in 2006)

“The Philadelphia Inquirer’s” reporter interviewed Nicholas “the Crow” Caramandi after he had done his part as a federal witness in the case against mob boss Nicodemo Scarfo and others. It is a report that can best be judged after reading lawyer Robert F. Simone’s The Last Mouthpiece as to the level of Caramandi’s believability as a con man for the mob, and as an insider to the Scarfo Family’s era of violence and mayhem. Joseph Salerno’s The Plumber first hit (excuse the pun) the bookshelves as a witness story, but Salerno did no make (or con?) the feds for the amount of money as Caramandi in exchange for his and his family’s lives.

But in judging this book on what Anastasia wrote as the mob’s roots in Philly is different than his reporting, or what he quotes from the Crow. One does not have to believe Caramandi (and many from South Philly don’t). But when Anastasia shifts to his presentation of facts from what comes from the mouth of Caramandi is where this news reporter is as shameless as his subject. Using the 1991 book, Anastasia leaped too far into fiction when he wrote that the 1957 Appalachian meeting caused Angelo Bruno to be boss. There were, in fact two bosses between Joe Ida, the Philly boss who was arrested at the 1957 meeting, and Bruno. Anastasia did not look into local history when he leaped again and said that “law enforcement … for the first time had definitive evidence of a national crime syndicate.” (p.42) This is so wrong. What is worse is that Anastasia, the Inquirer reporter has so many resources at hand to find the correct information: Like the Inquirer’s archives where all those headliners of the Kefauver hearings in the city in 1950, and the newspaper’s index that listed from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s the Mafia news. This type of information would have tempered Anastasia’s repeated mantra of “docile don” and “gentle don” that brainwashed the unknowing of the local mob’s violence that included Angelo Bruno. GSWs for the history in this book and GSWs for not having the know-how to research for the facts that are at the Inquirer and long preserved there.

	“The Philadelphia Inquirer’s” reporter interviewed Nicholas “the Crow” Caramandi after he had done his part as a federal witness in the case against mob boss Nicodemo Scarfo and others. It is a report that can best be judged after reading lawyer Robert F. Simone’s The Last Mouthpiece as to the level of Caramandi’s believability as a con man for the mob, and as an insider to the Scarfo Family’s era of violence and mayhem. Joseph Salerno’s The Plumber first hit (excuse the pun) the bookshelves as a witness story, but Salerno did no make (or con?) the feds for the amount of money as Caramandi in exchange for his and his family’s lives. But in judging this book on what Anastasia wrote as the mob’s roots in Philly is different than his reporting, or what he quotes from the Crow. One does not have to believe Caramandi (and many from South Philly don’t). But when Anastasia shifts to his presentation of facts from what comes from the mouth of Caramandi is where this news reporter is as shameless as his subject. Using the 1991 book, Anastasia leaped too far into fiction when he wrote that the 1957 Appalachian meeting caused Angelo Bruno to be boss. There were, in fact two bosses between Joe Ida, the Philly boss who was arrested at the 1957 meeting, and Bruno. Anastasia did not look into local history when he leaped again and said that “law enforcement … for the first time had definitive evidence of a national crime syndicate.” (p.42) This is so wrong. What is worse is that Anastasia, the Inquirer reporter has so many resources at hand to find the correct information: Like the Inquirer’s archives where all those headliners of the Kefauver hearings in the city in 1950, and the newspaper’s index that listed from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s the Mafia news. This type of information would have tempered Anastasia’s repeated mantra of “docile don” and “gentle don” that brainwashed the unknowing of the local mob’s violence that included Angelo Bruno. GSWs for the history in this book and GSWs for not having the know-how to research for the facts that are at the Inquirer and long preserved there.		Click Here to enlarge image







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