Dennis Griffin, true crime author who chronicled the Mob in Las Vegas and elsewhere, dies
If there was a hall of fame for true crime authors, Dennis Griffin would be in it. He was a talented and prolific contributor to the genre, especially in the subgenre devoted to Mob history. Griffin died of lung cancer Monday, June 21, 2021, in Verona, New York. He was 75 years old. Dennis co-authored four books with the late criminal-turned-government witness Frank Cullotta. Griffin also co-wrote four books with Frank Cullotta, the Chicago mobster who ran a notorious burglary racket, dubbed the Hole in the Wall Gang, in Las Vegas in the late 1970s and early ’80s. After the Hole in ...
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Wife of drug kingpin El Chapo pleads guilty to drug trafficking
Standing in a federal court dressed in a green prison jumpsuit and white face mask, the wife of imprisoned Mexican…
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Eighty-five years ago this week, Lucky Luciano convicted of pandering
A few years after the fall of Chicago’s Al Capone in 1931, a new recognizable face of organized crime emerged…
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Historians of the underworld
When media outlets need an expert to explain what might have happened to former labor leader Jimmy Hoffa’s remains, they…
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Former New York Mafioso shines light on syndicate ‘treachery’
When he was 20 years old, John Pennisi shot a man to death in a dispute over a girlfriend. “The…
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The 10-week-long Commission trial played to full courtrooms
Last of two parts. The Commission trial continued through November and into December of 1986. The eight men on trial…
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The Commission trial lifted the lid on the New York Mafia
First of two parts. In the annals of Mafia courtroom dramas, one case tends to stand above the rest, The…
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The afternoon that Joe Masseria dined on bullets
The tale of Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria’s assassination on April 15, 1931, is one of many gangland legends that…
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