This mob rat isn’t breaking legs, but he’s busting chops.
Star wiseguy witness John Pennisi, who testified at three major trials last year, has launched a blog that pulls back the curtain on his Lucchese crime family “friends” — and has infuriated his federal handlers, Ganglandnews.com reports.
The 51-year-old Mob turncoat created Sitdownnews.com to give “readers education and insight into ‘the life’ from first-hand knowledge and experience.”
Pennisi is not shy about chronicling the hits — and misses — of made men.
In one entry, “A Mob Handbook,” clueless La Cosa Nostra candidate John (Butch) Arpino allegedly seeks advice from Pennisi on how one wiseguy should let another know that he too is a wiseguy.
When Pennisi repeats the curious inquiry to John (Johnny Sideburns) Cerrella, a then-acting Lucchese captain, the boss shakes his head and says, “It is truly unbelievable, a guy like that got no business [becoming a made man]. What’s it come to? They now gotta hand them a f–king handbook after they straighten them out!”
Oct. 16’s “The Gotti Chaperone Ended Up with a Broken Bone” documents a circa-2000 snafu involving the Gotti family. Peter Gotti accompanied his niece, Victoria, on a trip to see her father, Gambino godfather John Gotti, in the federal pen at Marion, Ill. After the visit, Uncle Pete ordered a longtime associate to chaperone his niece, who wanted to take in a movie.
“No harm done, just two adults enjoying a night at the movies,” Pennisi writes. However, days later, Victoria’s hotheaded Gambino capo husband, Carmine (Bull) Agnello, “got wind of the movie night.” He summoned the chaperone to his Jamaica junkyard and allegedly broke his arm with a baseball bat.
The revelatory blog by “a potential trial witness” doesn’t sit well with a “furious” U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI, who, according to Gang Land, “have pushed [Pennisi] to take it down.”
The Manhattan US Attorney’s Office has spent more than two years piecing together a blockbuster racketeering case against acting Lucchese boss Michael (Big Mike) DeSantis and underboss Patrick (Patty Red) Dellorusso, Gang Land reported. And it’s the singing goodfella Pennisi who “is expected to finger them from the witness stand.”
Pennisi has posted four times since the site went up Oct. 13.
“I consider writing the blog therapy while I await my sentencing and get on with my life as a law-abiding citizen instead of the mobster I once was,” a defiant Pennisi told Gang Land, noting his blog musings did not violate his cooperation agreement and he had a “First Amendment right to speak his mind.”
Pennisi, who was inducted into the Lucchese crime family in 2013, according to Gang Land, started cooperating with the FBI about two years ago after a series of incidents convinced him the Luccheses had him wrongly pegged as a stoolie and marked for death, he testified in federal court last year.
One day, Pennisi simply walked into the Manhattan headquarters of the FBI cold and said he needed protection and wanted to cooperate. He said he had spotted two guys parked on the street near his home in Levittown, The Post reported.
Pennisi has done time for manslaughter and weapon possession, according to state Corrections records.
Pennisi, thanks to some New Age guru, writes that he “presently spends his time as a Dad, helping people, practicing self-betterment, a blogger and living life to the fullest.”
But if anyone thinks the renegade mobster has gone all goombah-ya, he roars in bold print on the site, “The hunters will no longer be glorified when the lion becomes the author — John Pennisi.”
The blog is the latest sign that mobsters seek to be “connected” — to their fans. In August, The Post reported how infamous killer and mob rat Sammy (The Bull) Gravano was causing a stir on social media by teasing an upcoming podcast.
This article was originally posted here