Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires (127 page)

1931—Gaetano Gagliano, Bronx gangster, becomes boss of one of five new families.

1951—Gagliano, fatally ill, turns over leadership to Gaetano “Tommy Three-Finger Brown” Lucchese and family adopts his name.

1967—Lucchese dies of cancer, creating brief leadership vacuum.

1970—Antonio “Ducks” Corallo is appointed boss.

1986—Corallo convicted in Commission case and sentenced to life.

1987—Vittorio “Little Vic” Amuso wins control of family with help of Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso. Amuso has title of boss but real power apparently wielded by underboss Casso.

1992—Amuso convicted of racketeering and gets life term.

1998—Casso sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty to racketeering and multiple murder charges.

2004—Acting Boss Louis “Louie Bagels” Daidone found guilty of murder. Possible successor: Steven “Stevie Wonder” Crea.

1931—Joseph Bonanno authorized by Lucky Luciano to head new family.

1964–1966—Bonanno vanishes after failed attempt to become supreme boss on the Commission. Reappears after two years, later claims he had been abducted by rival.

1966–1980—Power struggles roil family as factions form without a strong boss firmly in control.

1981—Philip “Rusty” Rastelli named boss.

1981–1991—Rastelli titular boss but real power is in hands of underboss Joseph Massino.

1991—Rastelli dies of cancer and Massino installed as boss.

1992–2002—Massino reinvigorates family, transforming it into the most powerful in the county, and changes its name to Massino Family.

2003–2004—Massino arrested and convicted of racketeering and murders on testimony by numerous defectors.

2004–2005: Massino becomes informer and leadership in flux.

1931—Vincent Mangano becomes first boss of new family.

1951—Mangano disappears, presumed to have been murdered by Albert “Lord High Executioner” Anastasia.

1951—Anastasia assumes title.

1957—Anastasia killed by gunmen in hotel barber shop.

1957—Carlo Gambino, underboss who plotted Anastasia’s murder, becomes godfather and family is named in his honor.

1976—Gambino, America’s most powerful Mafia leader, dies of natural causes.

1976—Paul “Big Paul” Castellano, Gambino’s brother-in-law is crowned boss.

1985—Castellano gunned down outside Manhattan restaurant in murder engineered by John Gotti.

1986—Gotti takes control without opposition.

1992—After three acquittals, Gotti is convicted of racketeering and sentenced to life in prison.

2002—Gotti, still boss, dies of cancer in prison.

2002—Gotti’s brother Peter succeeds him.

2003–2004—Peter Gotti convicted on racketeering charges.

2005—Acting boss Arnold Squitieri indicted. Possible successor: Nicholas “Nicky” Corozzo or Joseph “Joe Joe” Corozzo.

1931—Salvatore “Charlie Lucky” Luciano organizes family under his name as first boss.

1937—Luciano convicted of heading “compulsory prostitution” ring.

1937—Frank “Prime Minister” Costello replaces Luciano.

1957—Costello “retires” after assassination attempt.

1957—Vito Genovese takes control.

1959—Genovese convicted on drug trafficking charges.

1969—Genovese dies in prison with title of boss.

1970s—Philip “Benny Squint” Lombardo appointed boss after interregnum.

1980s—Lombardo retires and Vincent “Chin” Gigante becomes godfather.

1997–2004—Gigante convicted of racketeering and remains titular boss in prison.

Release date: 2012.

Possible successor: Liborio “Barney” Bellomo.

1931—Joseph “Olive Oil King” Profaci, named boss and Commission member.

1962—Profaci dies of cancer during civil war with Joseph “Crazy Joey” Gallo.

1964—Joseph Colombo, with support of Carlo Gambino, is appointed boss and family name changed to Colombo.

1971—Colombo shot and paralyzed at rally he organized for Italian-American civil rights.

1972–79—Carmine “The Snake” Persico’s forces take control of the family and he becomes full-fledged godfather after release from prison in 1979.

1986—Persico is convicted in two separate cases of racketeering and sentenced to life.

1986–2004—Persico attempts to run the family from prison until his son, Alphonse “Little Allie Boy” Persico, can assume title of boss. Gang war over leadership in early 1990s devastates the family and generates mass convictions, including Persico’s son.

2004—Joel “Joe Waverly” Cacace, acting boss, convicted of murder and racketeering.

Family leadership unsettled.

Details of Anthony Accetturo’s Mafia experiences are based on an interview with him and on his statements to investigators with the New Jersey Attorney General’s office. Additional information on Mafia induction ceremonies was obtained from trial testimony and FBI reports of debriefings of Alphonse D’Arco, a former Lucchese family acting boss and Frank Coppa and Frank Lino, Bonanno family capos. Other materials regarding Mafia practices and induction rites were obtained in interviews with Pellegrino Masselli, a Genovese family associate; reports by the New Jersey Attorney General’s office on interrogations of Thomas Ricciardi, a former Lucchese soldier; and a transcript of a Mafia induction ceremony held by the Patriarca family on October 29, 1989, in Medford, Massachusetts, and secretly recorded by the FBI

The criminal history of Anthony Accetturo was compiled through interviews with him and with Robert Buccino, former Deputy Director of New Jersey Attorney General’s Organized Crime Division, who knew Accetturo since they were boys. Additional background information was obtained from New Jersey State Police Intelligence Division files on Accetturo’s criminal activities; a pre-sentencing report on Accetturo by the Case Management Office for the New Jersey Superior Court; New Jersey Superior Court documents; reports by the New Jersey Attorney General’s
office on debriefings of Accetturo; and FBI reports of debriefings of Alphonse D’Arco concerning Lucchese family operations involving Accetturo.

The early history of Sicily is based on the works of numerous historians, scholars, and cultural writers, particularly Eric J. Hobsbawm, Luigi Barzini, and Alexander Stille. Additional information was obtained from a confidential monograph prepared in 1958 for FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on the history of Sicilian and American Mafia families. Details of the Mafia’s origins in New York and the career and murder of NYPD Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino were obtained from contemporaneous newspaper accounts and interviews with Ralph Salerno, a former NYPD detective sergeant, an expert and author on the Mafia in America, and consultant to congressional investigation committees, and Organized Crime (Fifth Edition) by Howard Abadinsky, a Mafia historian.

Accounts of Italian immigration and criminal activities in the early decades of the 20th Century were derived largely from census records and contemporaneous reporting in New York newspapers. Benito Mussolini’s campaign in Sicily was documented through numerous biographies of Mussolini; the FBI monograph in 1958; and
Man of Honor
, Joseph Bonanno’s autobiography of his Mafia experiences in Sicily and in America. Details of the Castellammarese War, the murders of gang leaders, and the formation of the Commission were obtained from contemporaneous newspaper accounts of crimes; interviews and writings by Ralph Salerno and Howard Abadinsky. Additional information on the Castellammarese War was compiled by Richard McDermott, an organized-crime researcher. Bonanno’s views on the Castellammarese War and the formation of the Commission were published in
Man of Honor
.

Information on the ventures, crimes, and customs of New York’s Mafia families and Jewish and Irish organized-crime gangsters in the early 1930s was compiled from contemporaneous reporting in New York newspapers; Thomas E. Dewey’s recorded memoirs for the Oral History Project at Columbia University; the FBI’s 1958 monograph on the Mafia;
Man of Honor
; NYPD records; trial testimony by Angelo Lonardo, the former underboss of the Cleveland Mafia family; and interviews with Salerno and Abadinsky.

The chronology of the Runaway Jury and the aftermath is based largely on contemporaneous accounts in New York newspapers; Dewey’s recorded memoirs for the Oral History Project at Columbia University;
Thomas E. Dewey and His Times
by Richard Norton Smith; NYPD files on Dutch Schultz; New York newspaper accounts of Dewey’s investigations and Schultz’s murder; the memoirs of J. Richard “Dixie” Davis, Schultz’s lawyer; and
Man of Honor
.

Lucky Luciano’s influence in Tammany Hall is based on interviews with Ralph Salerno and Norton Mockridge, former city editor of the
New York World-Telegram and Sun
, co-author of two books on Frank Costello;
Tigers of Tammany
, a history of Tammany Hall by Alfred Connable and Edward Silverfarb. Dewey’s investigation, arrest, and trial of Luciano is based on contemporaneous newspaper accounts; the biography,
Thomas E. Dewey and His Times
; Dewey’s recorded memoirs for the Columbia University Oral History Project; court records of Luciano’s trial; FBI and NYPD reports on Luciano’s background; and interviews with Salerno.

Costello’s background was obtained from NYPD records, interviews with Mock-ridge and Salerno;
Fiorello H. LaGuardia And the Making of Modern New York
, by Thomas Kessner; testimony, statements and reports from the U.S. Senate investigation of gambling and organized crime (The Kefauver Committee 1950–1951); and
Tigers of Tammany
. Vito Genovese’s criminal record and background were obtained from court and NYPD documents and reports by congressional investigation committees. Details of the disbarment hearing for New York Judge Thomas Aurelio were compiled from
Tigers of Tammany
and accounts in New York newspapers regarding Costello’s contacts with Aurelio. William O’Dwyer’s affiliations with Costello are based on testimony at the Kefauver Committee hearings, contemporaneous newspaper stories, and
Tigers of Tammany
.

Frank Costello’s relationship with Willie Moretti is based on NYPD intelligence files and interviews with Salerno. Lepke’s criminal and personal histories and information about Murder Inc. were derived from newspaper accounts in the 1930s and 1940s, and from Kings County (Brooklyn) District Attorney’s office records concerning the Murder Inc. investigations and trials that were obtained by Richard McDermott, an organized-crime researcher. Additional information on Lepke and his
attempt to escape the electric chair were based on newspaper accounts and references by Dewey in the Columbia University’s Oral History project. Details of Abraham Reles’s death were derived mainly from a report issued by a Brooklyn grand jury that reinvestigated the case in 1951; New York newspaper stories on Murder Inc.; and interviews with McDermott and Salerno.

Background materials concerning Carlo Gambino, his criminal roles and black market operations, were obtained from NYPD and FBI intelligence files; court documents; and testimony by Joseph Valachi, the first Mafia member to defect, before a Senate Investigation Committee in 1963. Additional information about Gambino was provided by Ralph Salerno and Paul Meskill, author of Don Carlo:
Boss of Bosses
. Details of Joseph “Socks” Lanza’s influence on the waterfront and Mafia background were derived from court documents, NYPD intelligence files, and interviews with former prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. The accounts of Luciano’s aid to the government in World War II and Governor Dewey’s granting him executive clemency were based mainly on a New York State Commission of Investigation report in 1954, and from interviews with former prosecutors in the Manhattan DA’s office. Dewey’s comments about Luciano’s sentence were noted in
Thomas E. Dewey and His Times
.