In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired intelligence detective Gary Jenkins exposes the brutal fall of one of the Mafia’s most calculating figures—Louis “Bobby” Manna, the Genovese consigliere who wielded silent power until a single wiretap changed everything. I have to credit Stephen Popkin for much of the research in this show, thanks, Stephen.

From the mobbed-up docks of Bayonne to the smoke-filled offices of Queens Borough Hall, we follow the story of Irwin “The Fat Man” Schiff, a civilian fixer with deep Mafia and political ties. Schiff played both sides—until the feds flipped him. And when Manna found out, it sealed Schiff’s fate.

Bobby Manna’s Rise: From the 1950s onward, Manna ran the Genovese family’s New Jersey rackets—extortion, labor corruption, and construction scams. He was quiet, feared, and always in the background—until FBI bugs in Casella’s Restaurant picked up murder plots against Irwin Schiff and even John Gotti.

Irwin Schiff’s Double Life: A Jewish outsider in an Italian world, Schiff was the ultimate connector—tying mobsters, politicians, and union bosses together in backroom deals and rigged bids. But when he became a government informant, he became a marked man.

The Hit: On August 28, 1987, Schiff was gunned down in a Manhattan restaurant. Three bullets in under ten seconds—“clean, no mistakes,” just like Manna ordered. The killing shocked the city and became the linchpin in a massive RICO case.

The Fall of Manna: In 1989, Manna was convicted and sentenced to 80 years in prison. He died a frail old man after being granted compassionate release in 2025—but his downfall was sealed decades earlier, the moment the FBI pressed “record.”

Highlights of the Episode:

0:06 Introduction to Bobby Manna

1:56 The Rise of a Crime Boss

7:06 The Role of Irwin Schiff

12:24 Corruption in Construction

15:42 Fallout from Political Scandals

19:23 Betrayal and Consequences

24:22 The End of an Era

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[0:00 ] Hey guys, welcome back to Gangland Wire. This is your host, Gary Jenkins,

[0:03 ] retired Kansas City Police Detective Intelligence Unit. And today we’re going to dive into a deadly game of wiretaps, whispers, and betrayals and murder. This is the story of Louis Bobby Manna and really what brought him down. He was the feared consigliere of the Genovese crime family. And the one that was going to bring him down was the murder of Irwin, the fat man Schiff. He was a civilian fixer whose mouth got him killed. Now, from the mobbed-up docks in Bayonne to the backroom deals in Queensborough Hall, we’ll trace how power was wielded in silence until the tapes started talking. And once they did, they were going to bring down one of the Mafia’s most secretive tacticians, that’s Bobby Manna. Bobby Manna once held one of the most powerful positions in the American Mafia in the 70s and 80s. He was the consigliere of the Genovese crime family when Gigante was in charge. He was the third in command. He also ran all the family’s New Jersey operations, I mean, with some brutal efficiency. And he knew all the underworld’s most feared players in the New York City area and that whole area.

[1:13 ] And his influence stretched not only from the piers of Bayonne and the docks and the shipping industry, but also the political corridors of New York’s construction rackets, which as you guys know, we all know the New York construction industry was the playpen of the mob. It was the bank of the mob. I mean, they made so much money. I think they made more money out of the construction business than they did out of gambling, which is, that’s hard to believe, but they really made a lot of money out of that construction off the labor unions and the contracts and kickbacks and the concrete club, and they got a piece of every window that was sold to the New York City housing projects.

[1:56 ] And, you know, Bobby Manna, by the time he turns 95, he’s in prison. He’s frail and riddled with disease. And he was finally granted compassionate release from the federal joint just a couple of months ago. He served 36 years of an 80-year sentence. And that 80-year sentence was for murder, conspiracy, and racketeering. Let’s go back a little bit on Bobby Manna. His criminal career stretched back to the 1950s where he started as a longshoreman, of course. and he and his associates were arrested for assaulting a man that was trying to recruit for a rival union. So union racketeering, you know, stealing from the docks, all that kind of stuff that a young mobster in the 50s, you know, this is on the waterfront for real here. I mean, his street violence was his entry in a Genovese family, and you know anything about the Genovese family, one of the most violent families, I think, of all the five families.

[2:48 ] They ruled a big chunk of New York and all of northern New Jersey there. Of course, he ascended through the ranks the usual ways and, you know, made his bones. And eventually he’ll become the consigliere. He oversaw, as I said before, all the Jersey wing’s activities, loan shark extortion, gambling, murder, theft from their docks. He was born and raised in Hoboken. He became a close associate with Vincent the Chin Gigante early in his mob career. He’ll rent an apartment in Greenwich Village just to be close to Gigante’s headquarters at the Triangle Social Club, and that’s where Gigante lived. That’s the streets that he walked around on acting like he was, you know, crazy. Surveillance reports noted that when Tony Salerno was supposedly the boss, he would be seen talking to Tony Salerno and Gigante together as they walked around the streets. He was a brother-in-law of a Genovese crime family mob associate, Gerald Durazzo.

[3:45 ] According to the New Jersey District Court, Bobby Manna’s crimes date back to 1952. He actually, he really ran his personal criminal operations out of an Italian restaurant in El Bucan called Casellas. It was at 615 First Street. He was kind of the lead man for the Genovese family. They had discussions with the Gambino crime family on how to divide that area equitably. And later on, you’ll see that he does not like the.

[4:17 ] Bobby Manna personally did not like the fact that John Gotti killed Paul Castellano without any approval by the commission. But also he’s going to be worried about Gotti and if Gotti’s going to try to move more into New Jersey and take something away from him after they had it all worked out between the Genovese’s and the Gambino’s. Now, one murder that he was responsible for kind of has a really long backstory to it. Gigante will assign this to him. It’ll come out that a guy named Erwin, the fat man Schiff, was probably an informant of the FBI, probably a top-ish line informant. He was a notorious political fixer. So let’s take a look at Schiff’s history with the New York mob and the construction industry all throughout the 50s and 60s and 70s. There’s an early surveillance memo with the NYPD Gambling Task Force.

[5:16 ] Subject Schiff, seen with known gambler Moe the Lip Seltzer and an Italian mail letter ID to Salvatore DiStefano. He was a Lucchese associate. Conversations indicate involvement in bookmaking, collection work, and payoff routes. Now, you got to see that Schiff, he’s connected to all the families in some manner over his lifespan. His real foothold from the mafia was not through any kind of violence, but through the construction and the garbage industry. because we know the mob also has their tentacles in the mob, I mean, in the garbage industry in New York City area. In the early 1960s, he began working with local trucking and sanitation firms that held contracts with the city and with those unions, and particularly the Teamsters Local 282. These firms were already under the influence of the Genovese-Lucchese families, and Schiff proved himself useful. He facilitated kickbacks. He helped rig bids. He bribe