The Goodfella Tapes

by George Anastasia

As mob families go, the Philadelphia Mafia is the most dysfunctional family of all -- with brother turning against brother, sons turning on their fathers. In 1993 an embittered legacy of rivalry and hatred exploded in a brutal, bloody battle between old world mobster John Stanfa and the young, flamboyant Joey Merlino. However, this would be warfare different from any other. This time, the FBI had it all down on tape. Veteran true crimes journalist George Anastasia takes you inside the world of mobsters at war, and FBI agents so close on the heels that they even watched one hit unfold live through a surveillance camera. Drawing on the transcripts themselves, here are mobsters bragging, lamenting, and marking their comrades for death.
John Stanfa, the violent often irrationally paranoid old style mob don battling a new generation of savage young turks. Rosario Bellocchi, the young Sicilian-born hitman in love with his boss's lovely daughter who would do anything to get ahead -- even kill his best friend. John Veasey, the five foot six inch, two hundred pound mad dog hitman who once had to postpone a hit -- in order to visit his parole officer. After four years, two thousand conversations, and dozens of shoot outs -- some on crowded Philadelphia Streets -- the goodfella tapes made a perfect net to catch some of the most vicious mobsters in America.

Genres: True Crime, Crime, Nonfiction

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 1998

Reviews

[Robert Kearns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book. It was well written and a good insight to Philadelphia mob activity

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like George Anastasia. I have read a couple of his other books, and they are well written. He definitely does his homework, and I can see why he is considered a mob expert. I don't know a lot of names from the Philadelphia mob, so between this book and Google searching all the people mentioned, I learned quite a bit.

[Anthony Veros · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Goodfella Tapes” tells the true story of the Philadelphia Crime Family immediately after the ruthless Nicky Scarfo and many of his top allies were sent to prison on long term sentences. This caused a divide in the family and a power struggle commenced. John Stanfa, a Sicilian-born, old school gangster was the person to take the reins as he initially had the backing of the New York crime families. However, a much younger crew (headed by “Skinny” Joey Merlino) who were native to Philadelphia believed that they were the rightful successors to Scarfo, and that an outsider Sicilian had no business running an American mafia family. I was excited to read this book because I had already read “Mafia Prince” by Phil Leonetti, the former underboss of the family under Scarfo and also Scarfo’s nephew. After the two of them were convicted on racketeering chargers, Phil decided to become an informant and turn on his uncle and the crime family. His book was fascinating to me as we got an inside look on what the went on in the Philly mob for almost 20 years in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He did touch on the aftermath that happened between Stanfa and Merlino but he didn’t have anything to do with the events in the 90s because at this point, he was already a cooperator. Unfortunately “The Goodfella Tapes” just doesn’t quite do it for me. It was written by George Anastasia, who is the go to guy when it comes to the Philly mob as he was a newspaper reporter following the family for 20 years at the time this was written. Much of the book is conversations between mobsters that were recorded on numerous wiretaps. On the surface, it sounds intriguing getting to read the very words these guys spoke to each other. However, after a couple of transcripts, it’s gets incredibly mundane. John Stanfa speaks in broken English and many of his mobster friends always seem to cut each other off in these discussions. It’s honestly very hard to understand what they’re even talking about at times. I did enjoy some parts of the book, though. It shows the total incompetence of the Stanfa organization. It has quite a lot of shocking information. The Ciancaglini brothers being on opposite sides of the war had to be awkward for family events. The aftermath of the hit on Joey and Michael was unfortunately amusing to me. While this book was very boring at times, Anastasia does do a good job at painting a picture of what the early and mid-90s were like in the Philadelphia underworld.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first foray into the mafia and true crime. This work details the tumultuous period in South Philadelphia (1990-1994) between various mob factions headed by old-school don John Stanfa and Joey Merlino.

[Lee Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring, dull and waste of time

[Walt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of Anastasia's worst books. Like most books reporting audio tapes of Mafia wiretaps, the book suffers from sufficient correlating analysis. Anastasia goes away from his normal analysis to allowing the reader to make their own conclusions. However, it is nicely illustrated and quickly digested.

[Melissa McGhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book, I actually had Mr. Anastasia as a professor and he was amazing.

[Brian Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great book by George Anastasia..Even better if you read it after you read Blood and Honor

[Erika Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but not engrossing. Nice tough guy talk though.

[Tammy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting.