Tuesday, October 08, 2002

By Torsten Ove, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Staff Writer

John Edward Scalzitti, a Westmoreland County mob associate once convicted in a drug conspiracy with the late underboss Louis Raucci, pleaded guilty this morning in U.S. District Court to running an $11 million drug distribution network from Florida to Pittsburgh.

Scalzitti, 62, of North Huntingdon, oversaw an organization that shipped 12,500 pounds of marijuana, more than 200 pounds of cocaine and 10 pounds of speed starting in 1996. The case against him was built on 13 tape-recorded conversations he had with Bill Faloona, former president of the Pagans motorcycle gang in Westmoreland County.

He faces at least 20 years in prison and could get life.

Scalzitti had ties to former La Cosa Nostra bosses Kelly Mannarino and Sebastian John LaRocca and is identified in old Pennsylvania Crime Commission reports as an associate of the Pittsburgh crime family.

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