Keep in mind guys that the Gambino Family was divided into two factions at the time. And it seems like the two factions operated seperatly without the faction leaders interfering. Dellacroce had basically a free hand on running his faction. One example is when Dellacroce demoted Mike Caiazza, a captain in his faction, to the rank of a soldier without Castellano opposing. Gotti´s problem started with the death of Dellacroce. Up til then, Castellano could not demote Gotti because he belonged to Dellacroce´s faction. Normally, by LCN standards, a boss can make or break anybody within his Family. But this unusual set up between Castellano and Dellacroce, prevented Castellano to move on Gotti, at least while Dellacroce was still alive.
Good post HK. What was the genesis of the 2 factions? How did this come about and how were guys assigned or grouped into these factions?
I have read the 2 factions have been broadly described as (1) the blue collar / street faction (Dellacroce / Gotti) responsible for book making, loan sharking, extortion, drug dealing and murder; and (2) the white collar faction (Paul / Billotti / Jimmy Brown Faila etc) running wall street scams, controlling unions, bid rigging construction and more sophisticated crimes.
I think Dominick Montiglio talks about this some in the Capeci book, but I never understood the dynamics, other than Dellacroce was a stabilizing force and was ok sharing power with Paul.
These factions are confusing because it seems like there were guys in each faction that crossed over into the other faction. For example, Roy DeMeo was in the "white collar / Paul faction" but his crew was doing more drug dealing, auto theft and blue collar stuff.
