The Rastelli thread gave me this idea.

Give your 2 cents! Here's my list. I'm more interested in New York but I'm including anyone I can think of today

Old
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Cola Schiro

Frank Desimone - FBI files say there was no racket activity while he was in charge. He let the borgata rot. Additionally, he was scared of his own shadow and terrified of Joe Bonanno. The only person who seemed to give him any respect was John Roselli

Tony Giordano - St Louis family head during the time all the other families were making money. St Louis is a very old family at this point and he let the rackets dry up too, refusing to make anyone but the three guys who were active. Many did not consider them a family. That being said he's super interesting. Google him

Jack Licavoli - Cleveland. What's a good way to keep a low profile? A bombing war against a single guy...lame. He had some rackets though.

Gaspare DiGregorio

New
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Patriarca Jr
Joe Massino for flipping
Persico arguably

What do you think?

You basically answered your own question

with ray jr there was alot of old timers around new england way more qualified but i think they seen what was going on in boston with gerry anguilo and his brothers. there was like 12 of them indicted for rico charges in 1983. i think some of the old timers said i dont want those problems. nick bianco was in jail or on house arrest for tax shit. i wonder why the commsission backed ray jr for the top spot. almost think no one wanted it.

In their defence these 2 were situated in cities with a very low Italian population.Even if they were successfull by now these families they would of been dead because of the decling Italian population

Scarfo, vic and gas

Was it really a case of these guys just letting their families die out, or were the rackets in their region being absorbed by bigger families, and the alternative was bloodshed? I think the writing was on the wall for the smaller families to cash out and try to legitimize.

You can read files on Desimone's tenure as boss. He refused to talk/meet with anyone but his underboss. The members would bring their idea/scam/racket(or whatever you wanna call it) to the underboss, he would take it to Desimone and he would shoot it down Everytime by saying things were 'too hot' right now. He basically wouldn't let his soldiers do anything.

While there were worse bosses, Vito Genovese and John Gotti were really instrumental in blowing the lid off organized crime and allowing law enforcement to build cases, hand out indictments and in the latter's case, use RICO convictions to dismantle rackets entirely. Both of their leaderships caused major blows to LCN and even if they weren't the worst (they're admittedly well known and fascinating to study), their successors should not look at their reigns as a net positive for the mob.

People say paul and angelo was bad bosses compared to nicky and gotti they was gods think about what paul had going on and coming in compared to john .

agreed. Both families went on a downward spiral when both died. Scarfo I guess was obviously a much better earner but was a psychopath. Gotti was just a moron

i cant believe they didnt get together and take him out.But im guessing the soldiers were doing drug deals without him knowing so it didnt matter much.Or he was giving the rackets to joe bonnano

I’m from NEPA and regardless of the family size William D’Elia destroyed what was left of Bufalino’s family. He had so much opportunity to prosper(casino license for Denaple’s, casino’s popping up all over the state) to broker deals with NY and NJ in order to make a few guys. He did nothing and now NEPA is a cesspool of junkies and NYC gangs.

This. Gotti was the worst, because he had something to lose. For the bosses out west the risk far outweighed the reward. The feds would have just loved to list people as "LCN" members and boost their morale by hitting them with RICO charges, all for some small time gambling operations? I'm sure some guys got involved with the cocaine trade that was in full swing by the 80s but that only brings on stiffer sentences. By the 70s it was time for the families out west to cash out. The blood offspring of a lot of these guys own legitimate businesses now and are doing well. Especially the San Jose and SF families.

John Stanfa look at the retard crew he assembled for himself.

Gotti...Sr. and Jr.

Ralph Natale
Joey Merlino
John Gotti Sr.
John Gotti jr.
Peter Gotti

yeah it's gotta be Stanfa.

di lorenzo i agree with you, gotti sr, gotti jr, morons.

This one is easy.

Joe Massino.


At the end of the day a boss needs to go down with the ship not rat everyone out to save himself. Massino did great earning wise but he ratted on his family while the boss. Worst official boss ever.

Joe Profaci because for his greed his family was hit by two internal wars with gallo crew;
Carmine Persico because refused to step down and the third colombo war the family between killing and rats lost half of his made men and now even if half recovered is the weakest NY family;
Carlos Marcello because refused to made new members and his crime family died after his dead;

For the whole Gotti’s era or Scarfo reign of terror, the families are still here and for te bufalinos I doubt that D'Elia had find many mobsters that want to be made in the 1990s that was the worst years for the mob.
The reasons why the big mob families stay in the east coast is because there are still large recruitment pool and mobsters with have the Brain or the ball for run big rackets. In the other part are just criminals with an italian surname.

I agree 100% Quck question about Trafficante, didn’t he do the same as Marcello and basically shut it down or was it NY that shut them down? Those Ybor city guys had a lot of clout in the old days and when the NY guys starting venturing down to Tampa they steered clear of the Ybor guys.

There are many reasons. 1. There were better opportunities for Italians growing up in the later years. 2. With the pool of recruits shrinking decade by decade, there was no need for big ceremonies just a guy or two here to make sure the money flow kept coming in. 3. With many bosses and administration members getting arrested and convicted in other families, they felt a small group would attract less attention and were not into many things so they could be in a loop of what activities they were doing and not being blindsided by what a soldier or capo was doing that tracked back to the boss only from collecting their cut. 4. Many of those mobsters had good sources of legitimate income and were getting up there in years, so they partaked little and little over time until they felt it was time for them to retire. An opening opens up but not really anyone who was qualified to be made, just low level idiots or knuckle heads. 5. Through family ties they had quality members who only served as associate who kept a minimal distance just in case a RICO charge came down, and thus would only he detained through suspected activity, but would not damage the crime families income from that valuable business.