Gerald Capeci (pronounced[kaˈpetʃi]) is an American journalist and author who specializes in coverage of the Five Mafia crime families of New York City. Capeci has been described by news organizations, such as CNN and BBC, as an expert on the American Mafia.[1][2]
Career
Capeci was raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.[3] He worked as a truck driver and dock worker before becoming a copy boy with the New York Post in 1966. Capeci later became a police reporter for the newspaper.[4] In 1976, he covered the funeral of Carlo Gambino for the Post.[3] Capeci also wrote about Mafia figures for New York magazine.[4]
Shortly after the murder of Paul Castellano in 1985, Capeci was hired by the New York Daily News.[4] He wrote the "Gangland" column in the Daily News from 1989 until August 1995, when the column was discontinued by the newspaper. In February 1996, Capeci took the column online with his Gangland News website.[5] "Gangland" also ran in The New York Sun between 2002 and 2007 before Capeci quit the newspaper in a salary dispute. In 2008, Gangland News became a paid subscription site.[6]
Capeci has authored several books detailing the inner workings of the New York crime families. In 1988, he and fellow Daily News reporter Gene Mustain published a biography of John Gotti, Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti.[4] Capeci and Mustain co-authored two other books: Murder Machine (1992), an exposé of Roy DeMeo and his crew of mafia hit men, and Gotti: the Rise and Fall (1996). With Tom Robbins, he has written Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D’Arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia (2013). Capeci has also written The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia (2002) and Wiseguys Say the Darndest Things: The Quotable Mafia (2003). A compilation of columns was published in the 2003 book Jerry Capeci's Gang Land.
