Anthony M. DeStefano, a bestselling true crime author and national expert on the American Mafia, has been widely recognized for his work. His ten books on the subject, including recent bestsellers like The Deadly Don and Top Hoodlum, have garnered him a reputation for his in-depth knowledge and meticulous research. DeStefano’s expertise is not limited to writing about organized crime; he is also an award-winning journalist, covering legal affairs and law enforcement in New York for Newsday. His work has been honored with numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and an Emmy, in 2020, for a film on the tenth anniversary of the first Gilgo Beach body discoveries and the resulting investigation. This year he was a recipient with his fellow Newsday team members of the Deadline Club award for their continued coverage of the Gilgo case.
My latest book about the life and death of Vivian Gordon was released on June 25, 2024. Gordon was a lady racketeer who used sex extortion rackets to squeeze money out of wealthy men during prohibition in New York City. Her unsolved murder ignited public outrage, contributing to the resignation of Mayor Jimmy Walker.
From the Publisher
“The definitive, jaw-dropping account of the Jazz Age con woman, escort, speakeasy owner, and racketeer Vivian Gordon, whose sensational murder – and the damning list of powerful politicos, gangsters, and businessmen left behind in her diary – captivated Prohibition-era New York, obsessed its then-governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ensnared its mayor, and exposed the city’s dark underbelly of police corruption. From Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning mob historian Anthony M. Destefano.”
In Broadway Butterfly, Anthony DeStefano has exhumed the Jazz Age in New York City in the embodiment of a colorful one woman crime wave named Vivian Gordon, She cast a long dark shadow on the Great White Way from City Hall to Van Cortland Park in the Bronx where her murdered body led to an autopsy of climate of dirty cops, crooked pols, corrupt judges and the sex and blackmail rackets that forever changed the city. DeStefano’s remarkable research and lively prose details how Gordon’s murder shone a spotlight on the dark side of the dazzling Jazz Age and indirectly triggered the resignation of Mayor Jimmy Walker and the end of an era. I can’t wait for the movie.
– Denis Hamill, author of Long Time Gone, Sins of Two Fathers and Fork in the Road.
In Boadway Butterfly, mob expert Tony DeStefano tells the little-known story of Vivian Gordon, one of Prohibition’s most notorious racketeers, who along with the corrupt cops and politicians of her day, set New York on a crooked path that is often fllowed today.
– Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy and Casino.
Featured Books
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Witness to a Summer of Reckoning
It’s been a busy summer with the conviction and sentencing of Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann. After years of unanswered questions, stalled leads, and families waiting in quiet pain, the Gilgo Beach murders finally reached a conclusion in a Long Island courtroom. I was in court for both Heuermann’s guilty plea and, later, for…
The Untold Story of Jimmy Burke: The Lufthansa Heist Mastermind
My upcoming book about Jimmy “The Gent” Burke — the brilliant, brutal architect of the 1978 Lufthansa Heist — will be out later this year and is now available for preorder on Amazon. From an abandoned child who clawed his way up the streets to a feared underworld strategist, Burke became, as writer‑producer Nick Pileggi…
Eight-Five Years Ago: The Mysterious Murder of Vivian Gordon
Just eighty‑five years ago this month, New York woke to one of the most sensational crimes of the Jazz Age: the murder of Vivian Gordon, the so‑called lady gangster whose life and death exposed the city’s darkest undercurrents. Her body was discovered in Van Cortlandt Park on a frigid February morning in 1931, and within…
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Anthony M. DeStefano 