Organized Crime

Dec. 18, 2009

Peter Rollack

Peter Rollack’s Sex, Money, Murder gang found its niche in running drugs from the projects of the Bronx to North Carolina in the early 1990s. By age 19, "Pistol Pete" was a millionaire and had thousands of "soldiers" in new chapters in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Patterson, Trenton and Philadelphia. He thought nothing of murdering slow payers or snitches, particularly snitches. Snitches would do him in at age 24.

by Randall Radic

Soundview is a low-income residential neighborhood located in the south central section of the borough of the Bronx in New York City. The low-income public housing development in Soundview is managed by the New York City Housing Authority. Soundview has a population of 80,000 people, primarily African-American and Hispanic. Most of these people live below the poverty line and receive public assistance, including AFDC, Home Relief, Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid.

In short, Soundview is hell on earth. Poverty, disease, drugs, and violence is a way of life. There’s no hope and only a few find a way out.

During the 1960s, youth gangs became part and parcel of the landscape. The first and most famous gang was The Black Spades, originating in the Bronxdale Houses. The Black Spades rapidly achieved renown and dominated the area, controlling every housing project in the neighborhood. Through sheer brutality, the Black Spades became the most feared gang in New York City.

Sex, Money, Murder (SMM) came on the scene in 1987. SMM was one of the sets (gangs) of the New York Gang Alliance. Because of an ongoing power struggle, where each gang wanted to be number one, SMM flipped. They left the NYG Alliance and became a sanctioned set of the Bloods. The various sets of the Bloods had decided it was in their interests to come together as the East Coast United Blood Nation (UBN). This was in 1993.

At this time, Peter Rollack was the unchallenged leader of Sex, Money, Murder. Because of his tendency to shoot first and ask questions later, Rollack was nicknamed Pistol Pete. And usually, Pistol Pete didn’t bother with the questions.

Nov. 30, 2009 Special to Crime Magazine

(This excerpt is from Ron Chepesiuk’s new book, Gangsters of Miami, True Tales of Mobsters, Gamblers, Hitmen, Con Men and Gang Bangers from the Magic City, which Barricade Books (Barricadebook.com) published in November 2009. Available on Amazon.com. All rights reserved.)

by Ron Chepesiuk

Frankie and the Boys 1976 - Left to right: Paul Castellano, Gregory DePalma, Sinatra, Tommy Marson, Carlo Gambino, Aladena Fratianno, Salvatore Spatola, Seated: Joseph Gambino, Richard Fusco

The recent release of Sinatra's extensive FBI file exposes his mob connections in voluminous detail, putting to lie Ol' Blue Eyes' most celebrated claim that he did it his way.

by J.D. Chandler

Rumors of mob connections hounded Frank Sinatra throughout his storied, tumultuous life. His denials were as ready on his lips as his trademark song ''My Way'' became in his waning years. J. Edgar Hoover didn't buy it. He thought Ol' Blue Eyes was a murderer and a Mafioso with a golden voice. Despite Hoover's FBI amassing the largest file on Sinatra of any entertainer in U.S. history, none of the damning information there ever made it to a grand jury. Numerous times the government got close to indicting Sinatra, but it never did. Sinatra had friends in the highest places, first President Kennedy and then President Nixon and finally President Reagan. Each, in different ways and to varying degrees, came to his aid when he most needed them, enabling him to front for the mob with impunity.

Recently the FBI released on its web site all 1,275 pages of Sinatra's FBI file. His file may be viewed at http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/sinatra.htm. Beginning more than a year ago, the FBI began posting files of scores of other deceased celebrities it had maintained files on to the bureau's web site. There one can read about Charles A. Lindbergh (1,368 pages), Robert Kennedy (1,263), Joseph Kennedy (1,011), President Kennedy (178), Henry Ford (376), Abbie Hoffman (13,262), Martin Luther King Jr. (16,659), Malcolm X (11,674), Nelson Rockefeller (1,472), Cardinal Francis Spellman (536), Marilyn Monroe (80), Jackie Robinson (131), and, of course, the Mafiosi: Al Capone (2,397), Sam Giancana (2,781), and Carlo Gambino (1,239) to name a few.

July 11, 2009 Updated Feb. 23, 2010

Frank Sinatra

Both Nixon and Sinatra had deep ties to the Mafia. It was only natural that after President John Kennedy dumped Sinatra that Ole Blue Eyes hooked up with the biggest politician in the Mob’s pocket. Sinatra hung around with Nixon and Vice President Agnew so much he even acquired a Secret Service code name, “Napoleon.”

by Don Fulsom

John Kennedy banished Frank Sinatra from Camelot when the singer’s Mafia ties clashed with the President’s crackdown on organized crime. But those well-documented ties didn’t keep President Richard Nixon—a big recipient of Mob payoffs—from wooing the popular crooner away from the Democratic Party.

The courtship actually started with Nixon’s unsavory vice president, Spiro Agnew—who first got together with Sinatra during the Thanksgiving holiday in 1970. They enjoyed each other’s company so much that Agnew became a regular houseguest at Frank’s (Palm Springs) place, and made 18 visits in the months that followed. 

 The two men played golf together, dined out, talked through the night in Frank’s den, and on one occasion watched the porn movie Deep Throat together.  Frank’s guest quarters, once remodeled for John F. Kennedy, were eventually renamed “Agnew House,” according to Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan in Sinatra:  The Life.