Internet rumors cast leading New England gangster as a rat
Everybody else uses cyberspace to circulate false rumors about their rivals, so it was probably only a matter of time until the underworld discovered the infinite possibilities of the Internet.
A rumor went around this week that one of the leading gangsters in what’s left of organized crime in New England had flipped, become a rat. First it was just a whisper, but then it appeared on the Internet, posted by some guy with the moniker “vinniegorgeous,” after a New York gangster.
“Oh boy here we go again. Ladies and Gentlemen I am sorry to report that yet another Mafia informant has come out of the woodwork in New England, though it has not hit the newsstands yet.”
Nicely done. He’s giving you the scoop, and the fact that it hasn’t appeared in the papers yet doesn’t mean it’s not true, it means that you’re getting the news first, ahead of all the squares.
Is this true? I don’t know. I called a guy who’s close to the alleged rat and he says he saw him last weekend.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” my friend said.
Here’s the genesis of the rumor. The guy hasn’t been seen for a couple of weeks. Now, in the old days, everyone would have jumped to the same conclusion: Somebody whacked him. You’d ask around and some wiseguy would take the stogie out of his mouth, shake his head slowly and rasp, “He’s gone to California.”
Gone to California. Or, as they said in “The Godfather,” “He sleeps with the fishes.”
Nowadays, though, if you go MIA, the wiseguys jump to a completely different conclusion. They figure you flipped and have vanished into the Witness Protection Program. You’re now a hardware store owner in Iowa.
So “vinniegorgeous” says that this guy (who I’m not naming because I can’t nail down the story, if indeed there is a story) “will now testify against” another recently indicted mobster.
Saying things like that is a good way to get somebody shot.
Of course rumors didn’t start with the Internet. Remember Zip Connolly, the corrupt FBI agent now doing 40 years in Florida on a murder rap? He got Frank Salemme shot by (anonymously) predicting a gang war on the front page of this newspaper. Two days later, Salemme’s rivals struck first, gunning him down in the parking lot of the Saugus IHOP.
But planting a newspaper story requires a middleman — a reporter. With the Internet, vinniegorgeous can just sit at home in front of his screen and create just as much havoc without talking to a single soul.
These rumors affect stock prices all the time on Wall Street. It’s why doctors just sealed their Internet files. It’s why you hear new companies advertising on the radio, offering to clean up what’s said about businesses online.
“You heard it hear (sic) first,” vinniegorgeous wraps up. “Like dominoes, everyone’s going to fall, never to be brought back up again, unless a young prodigy can stabilize a Family that can’t stabilize itself.”
A young prodigy? A messiah. Like, maybe, vinniegorgeous? Probably not. I figure, this was written either by somebody who doesn’t like the guy he’s accusing of being a rat, or a cop.
I’d bet on the hood, but I could be wrong.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1366720&format=text
A rumor went around this week that one of the leading gangsters in what’s left of organized crime in New England had flipped, become a rat. First it was just a whisper, but then it appeared on the Internet, posted by some guy with the moniker “vinniegorgeous,” after a New York gangster.
“Oh boy here we go again. Ladies and Gentlemen I am sorry to report that yet another Mafia informant has come out of the woodwork in New England, though it has not hit the newsstands yet.”
Nicely done. He’s giving you the scoop, and the fact that it hasn’t appeared in the papers yet doesn’t mean it’s not true, it means that you’re getting the news first, ahead of all the squares.
Is this true? I don’t know. I called a guy who’s close to the alleged rat and he says he saw him last weekend.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” my friend said.
Here’s the genesis of the rumor. The guy hasn’t been seen for a couple of weeks. Now, in the old days, everyone would have jumped to the same conclusion: Somebody whacked him. You’d ask around and some wiseguy would take the stogie out of his mouth, shake his head slowly and rasp, “He’s gone to California.”
Gone to California. Or, as they said in “The Godfather,” “He sleeps with the fishes.”
Nowadays, though, if you go MIA, the wiseguys jump to a completely different conclusion. They figure you flipped and have vanished into the Witness Protection Program. You’re now a hardware store owner in Iowa.
So “vinniegorgeous” says that this guy (who I’m not naming because I can’t nail down the story, if indeed there is a story) “will now testify against” another recently indicted mobster.
Saying things like that is a good way to get somebody shot.
Of course rumors didn’t start with the Internet. Remember Zip Connolly, the corrupt FBI agent now doing 40 years in Florida on a murder rap? He got Frank Salemme shot by (anonymously) predicting a gang war on the front page of this newspaper. Two days later, Salemme’s rivals struck first, gunning him down in the parking lot of the Saugus IHOP.
But planting a newspaper story requires a middleman — a reporter. With the Internet, vinniegorgeous can just sit at home in front of his screen and create just as much havoc without talking to a single soul.
These rumors affect stock prices all the time on Wall Street. It’s why doctors just sealed their Internet files. It’s why you hear new companies advertising on the radio, offering to clean up what’s said about businesses online.
“You heard it hear (sic) first,” vinniegorgeous wraps up. “Like dominoes, everyone’s going to fall, never to be brought back up again, unless a young prodigy can stabilize a Family that can’t stabilize itself.”
A young prodigy? A messiah. Like, maybe, vinniegorgeous? Probably not. I figure, this was written either by somebody who doesn’t like the guy he’s accusing of being a rat, or a cop.
I’d bet on the hood, but I could be wrong.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1366720&format=text
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