9 Mob Bosses Who Turned Their Prison Cells Into Kitchens

Henry Hill's crew paid $500 a week in bribes to eat steak and drink anisette inside a federal penitentiary. That famous Goodfellas prison dinner was real. Everybody else in that prison got a tray. In this countdown, we go through nine things Italian mobsters actually ate behind bars, using memoirs, court and prison accounts, and news reports instead of movie legend. Al Capone's fried bologna on Alcatraz. The electric stove Lucky Luciano had in the prison they called Little Siberia. Angelo Lutz's microwave pizza, the orange that set John Gotti off in a jail cell, the food slot in Gotti's door at Marion, Joe Valachi's kitchenette in the Texas desert, Sonny Franzese's soup, and Johnny Dio's frying pan. Then number one, the $500-a-week dinner at Lewisburg, and the business that really paid for it. Wherever a detail only exists in a movie, we tell you. Sources referenced: Nicholas Pileggi, Wiseguy (1985), and his 1986 interview on NPR's Fresh Air. Sammy Gravano's account in Underboss. Selwyn Raab, Five Families. The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, as reported by NBC News. The New York Daily News and UPI (1996). The Associated Press. The Mob Museum. The National Park Service's Alcatraz collection. Our newly updated ebook: mulberrystreetmemo.com Subscribe for more Italian-American history: https://www.youtube.com/@MulberryStreetMemo