Events

• As of 1989, only 60 of the 360 convicted defendants from the 1986 Maxi Trial
  Maxi Trial
  The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial that took place in Sicily during the mid-1980s that saw hundreds of defendants on trial convicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimony given in as evidence from a former boss turned informant...
  
   in Sicily remain imprisoned.
• Angelo "Quack Quack" Ruggiero
  Angelo Ruggiero
  Angelo Salvatore Ruggiero Sr. pronounced was a caporegime of the Gambino crime family and close friend of John Gotti.-Mob family roots:...
  
  , Gambino crime family
  Gambino crime family
  The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963...
  
   Captain and heroin dealer, dies of cancer. His Boss and former best friend John Gotti doesn't visit him before he dies, reportedly still harbouring ill feelings towards Ruggiero for the trouble he caused when his house was bugged.
• January -
• February - U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, recently appointed by President Ronald Reagan
  Ronald Reagan
  Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
  
  , officially merges the regional organized crime strike forces the office of the U.S. Attorney General.
• May 2 - Gerald Scarpelli
  Gerald Scarpelli
  Gerald Hector Scarpelli was a hitman for the Chicago Outfit criminal organization who later became a government witness.Born in Chicago, Scarpelli was the son of a baker on the Near West Side of the city. Scarpelli was arrested in 1960, the first of 18 arrests in his criminal record...
  
  , a former Chicago hitman turned FBI informant, commits suicide while held in the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center.
• May 2 - Russian mobster Michael Markowitz
  Michael Markowitz
  Michael Markowitz is a writer, producer, and actor who began his comedy career in The Mee-Ow Show, an improv group at Northwestern University. Some projects he has worked on include Duckman, Becker, and the films Horrible Bosses and . He has collaborated several times in the past with Jason...
  
   who operated a gasoline bootlegging business under the auspices of Colombo Family caporegime Michael Franzese
  Michael Franzese
  Michael Franzese , is a former New York mobster with the Colombo crime family who was heavily involved in the gasoline tax rackets in the 1980s...
  
   was shot to death while driving his Rolls-Royce in Brooklyn. After being convicted of taking part in the illegal business Markowitz became a government witness against Franzese and testified as to the roles of the Genovese
  Genovese crime family
  The Genovese crime family , is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The Genovese crime family has been nicknamed the "Ivy League" and "Rolls Royce" of organized crime...
  
   and Lucchese
  Lucchese crime family
  The Lucchese crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano "Tommy" Reina serving as boss up until his murder...
  
   Families in the lucrative business.
• June 6 – Anonymous letters signed by “il corvo” (literally “crow”, but meaning “provocateur”) begin to circulate accusing Giovanni Falcone
  Giovanni Falcone
  Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
  
   and police inspector Gianni De Gennaro of sending Contorno to Sicily to start a state sponsored vendetta against the Corleonesi
  Corleonesi
  The Corleonesi is the name given to a faction within the Sicilian Mafia that dominated Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was called the Corleonesi because its most important leaders came from the town of Corleone, first Luciano Leggio and later Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca...
  
  .
• June 17 - The body of William P. Grasso, former Underboss to the Patriarca crime family
  Patriarca crime family
  The Patriarca crime family, also known as the New England crime family and the Providence crime family, is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate based in New England, specifically Providence, Rhode Island and Boston, Massachusetts, and is part of the Italian-American Mafia or "La Cosa Nostra"...
  
  , is found after being dumped in the Connecticut River
  Connecticut River
  The Connecticut River is the largest and longest river in New England, and also an American Heritage River. It flows roughly south, starting from the Fourth Connecticut Lake in New Hampshire. After flowing through the remaining Connecticut Lakes and Lake Francis, it defines the border between the...
  
  .
• June 20 – A powerful bomb is discovered outside the summerhouse of Antimafia judge Giovanni Falcone
  Giovanni Falcone
  Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
  
   in Addaura as Falcone confers with Swiss magistraters Carla Del Ponte
  Carla Del Ponte
  Carla Del Ponte is a former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals. A former Swiss attorney general, she was appointed prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in August...
  
   and Claudio Lehman about money laundering by Cosa Nostra in Switzerland.
• August 9 - Richard Costello
  Richard Costello
  Captain Richard Barry Costello is a 34 year Philadelphia police veteran and the former President of the Philadelphia Lodge of the FOP. He is currently challenging incumbent John Perzel in Pennsylvania's 172nd Legislative District in Northeast Philadelphia.-Early years:Rich Costello was born in...
  
  , President of the International Longshoresman's Union Association Local 1964 and longtime associate of Gambino crime family
  Gambino crime family
  The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963...
  
   leaders Thomas Gambino
  Thomas Gambino
  Thomas "Tommy" Gambino is a New York mobster and a longtime Caporegime of the Gambino crime family who successfully controlled lucrative trucking rackets in the New York City Garment District.-Early life:...
  
   and Paul Castellano
  Paul Castellano
  Constantino Paul "Big Paul" Castellano , also known as "The Howard Hughes of the Mob" and "Big Paulie" , was an American Mafia boss in New York City. He succeeded Carlo Gambino as head of the Gambino crime family, at the time, the nation's largest Mafia family...
  
  , is killed.
• October 8 – Francesco Marino Mannoia
  Francesco Marino Mannoia
  Francesco Marino Mannoia is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who became a pentito in 1989. His nickname was Mozzarella. He is considered to be one of the most reliable government witnesses against the Mafia...
  
   starts to collaborate with Antimafia judge Giovanni Falcone
  Giovanni Falcone
  Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
  
  .
• October 31, Halloween
  Halloween
  Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
  
   - Nicodemo Scarfo, Jr.
  Nicodemo Scarfo, Jr.
  Nicodemo Salvatore "Nicky" Scarfo Jr. is the second son of convicted Philadelphia crime family boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, Sr. In his 20s, he was allegedly inducted into the Lucchese crime family sometime in the early 1990s....
  
   is attacked and almost killed at Dante and Luigi's http://dinesite.com/info/rstrnt-127317/??&t=0, an Italian restaurant in Philadelphia. http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=12330

Arts and literature

• A Better Tomorrow III (film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098691/
• Billy Bathgate
  Billy Bathgate
  Billy Bathgate is a 1989 novel by author E. L. Doctorow that won the 1989 National Book Critics Circle award for fiction for 1990 and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and was the runner up for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize...
  
  (novel)
• The Killer (film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097202/ starring Chow Yun-fat
  Chow Yun-Fat
  Chow Yun-fat, SBS is an actor from Hong Kong. He is best known in Asia for his collaboration with filmmaker John Woo in heroic bloodshed genre films A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard Boiled; and to the West for his role as Li Mu-bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon...
  
  , Danny Lee
  Danny Lee
  Danny Lee Sau-Yin is a Hong Kong actor, film producer, screenwriter, director, action director and presenter. He is best known for frequently portraying Hong Kong police officers in films such as Law With Two Phases, The Killer and The Untold Story.-Background:Lee did not do so well in school and...
  
   and Sally Yeh
  Sally Yeh
  Sally Yeh , sometimes written as Sally Yip or Yip Sin-Man, is a Cantopop singer in the Hong Kong music industry and an actress in the Hong Kong film industry.-Overview:...
  
  .
• Mob War (film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097898/ starring Jake LaMotta
  Jake LaMotta
  Giacobbe LaMotta , better known as Jake LaMotta, nicknamed "The Bronx Bull" and "The Raging Bull", is a former American world middleweight champion boxer...
  
  .

Deaths

• Anthony Loria Sr.
  Anthony Loria Sr.
  Anthony Loria, Sr., also known as "Tony Aboudamita", was a New York mobster who played a major role in the famous French Connection heroin scandal...
  
  , Luchesse crime family member, participant in the French Connection
  French Connection
  The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Turkey to France and then to the United States. The operation reached its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it provided the vast majority of the illicit heroin used in the United States...
  
   drug smuggling case
• Angelo Ruggiero
  Angelo Ruggiero
  Angelo Salvatore Ruggiero Sr. pronounced was a caporegime of the Gambino crime family and close friend of John Gotti.-Mob family roots:...
  
   "Fat Ange", Gambino crime family Capo and New York labor racketeer
• May 2 - Gerald Scarpelli
  Gerald Scarpelli
  Gerald Hector Scarpelli was a hitman for the Chicago Outfit criminal organization who later became a government witness.Born in Chicago, Scarpelli was the son of a baker on the Near West Side of the city. Scarpelli was arrested in 1960, the first of 18 arrests in his criminal record...
  
  , Chicago Outfit
  Chicago Outfit
  The Chicago Outfit, also known as the Chicago Syndicate or Chicago Mob and sometimes shortened to simply the Outfit, is a crime syndicate based in Chicago, Illinois, USA...
  
   member and FBI informant
• August 9 - Richard Costello
  Richard Costello
  Captain Richard Barry Costello is a 34 year Philadelphia police veteran and the former President of the Philadelphia Lodge of the FOP. He is currently challenging incumbent John Perzel in Pennsylvania's 172nd Legislative District in Northeast Philadelphia.-Early years:Rich Costello was born in...
  
  , President of the International Longshoresman's Union Association Local 1964
• November 17 - Costabile Farace
  Costabile Farace
  Costabile "Gus" Farace, Jr. was a low-level criminal with the Bonanno crime family who murdered a teenage male prostitute and a federal Drug Enforcement Agency agent in New York City.-Early years:Farace was born in 1960 in Bushwick to Costabile Farace Sr...
  
   "Gus", Bonanno crime family
  Bonanno crime family
  The Bonanno crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia ....
  
  associate