It is speculated that Galante had given the ok after Nick Rizzuto visited him in New York. Galante was practically in control of the Bonanno family at the time while the official boss, Rusty Rastelli, was in prison. It's more likely it came from Galante rather than Rastelli as Rastelli was known to be friendly with Violi. Violi represented Montreal when Rastelli was voted as boss and Rastelli had named Violi acting capo when Cotroni was temporarily send to prison in the mid 1970s. Galante however used to be close to Cotroni, who was the godfather of one of Galante's sons. Others who were named as participants of the hit on Violi were Domenico Manno, Paolo Renda, Agostino CUN-Trera and Giuseppe LoPresti.

Rizzuto was offered to be officially named caporegime of the Montreal crew by Sal Vitale when the latter visited Montreal in 2001. Rizzuto in turn suggested his father as he was not interested in the job himself. Rizzuto was already defacto in charge of the Montreal crew, but if he was officially named capo he would have been obligated to make regular trips to New York and carry out other responsibilities. Ofcourse, another reason was the disdain Rizzuto had towards the Massino regime ever since the murder of his friend and paesano Gerlando Sciascia. Starting in the 2000s Montreal functioned as an independent organization and was perhaps still a Bonanno crew in name only. If Rizzuto had accepted the position of capo he would have reaffirmed their allegiance to the Bonanno family.