Paul Castellano and Neil Dellacroce

A few questions:

1) Despite his end, was Paul a good boss? Was he following a path that would've made Carlo proud?
2) If Paul had attended Neil Dellacroce's funeral, or named John Gotti as Underboss instead of Bilotti, could it have saved him from assassination?
3) How do you guys think Neil Dellacroce would've done if he had been named as Boss by Carlo in 1976 rather than Paul?

1. He a good business man, but was too greedy. He upped his tribute from 10% to 15%. This angered all of the Family members.
Carlo proud?...who knows. He was respected by the Chin, that is one indicator that says he was a good boss. You could make a long list of reasons why he was a good boss, and why he was not a good boss.

2. Once Paul announced he was going to break up Gotti's crew for selling and getting busted for Heroin, his fate was sealed. In order to survive, Gotti felt he had to take out Paul before Paul took out Gotti.

3.Father Neil - awesome as a boss. But would have gone down on a RICO quick IMHO. The bug in his bedroom would have gotten him 103 years in the Comission case. Fo sho.

Castellano was not a good boss. In addition to being greedy, he seldom left his mansion to mingle with his guys. He got involved in minutia that was below his status. He made deals with other families that his people resented. He openly cavorted with his housekeeper under the same roof where his wife and daughter lived--a big Mob no-no. Even bigger no-no: he failed to go to Neil's wake or funeral. But his biggest sin was his greed--in the Mob, always follow the money.

He would never have made Gotti underboss--like oil and water. Gotti belonged to Neil and his "blue collar" faction--antithetical to Castellano's "white-collar" preference (Sammy Da Bull dismissed him as a mere "racketeer," while he and Gotti were "gangsters."

Mr. Neil wouldn't have lasted long as Don, even if he weren't terminally ill with brain cancer. He had plenty of force, and was highly respecsted among his own men and in other families. But he wasn't that smart. One of the reasons Gambino didn't name him as his successor was that Mr. Neil was in prison on a five-year tax evasion rap--he lost more than $100k in a Puerto Rican casino while declaring annual taxable income of only $10k. He was already too visible--and too vulernable--with a variety of law enforcement agencies.

Wasn't Sammy part of the Castellano faction--the white collar branch of the Family--before Gotti and his people wooed him over? I just found you saying Sammy dismissed Paul as being merely a racketeer interesting, because Sammy seemed to be less of a "gangster" than Gotti was.

I see Gotti, Ruggerio and that crew as being throwbacks to the earlier days of Albert Anastasia--Muscle, an enforcer, a "thug". A killer. Whereas I see Sammy, DeCiccio and that lot as being guys who were smarter, savvier, knew how to keep a lower profile, etc, and who were involved in white collar rackets. Guys who might've represented the future of the Mafia. Yes, you'd always need bread and butter guys like Gotti to run hijackings and narcotics and shylocking and whatnot, but it just seems like Carlo was taking the Gambinos in the direction of having it be 50% blue collar crime and 50% white collar crime.

Paul and Gotti were indeed oil and water. Paul took the "white collar, legitimate businessman" stuff to an extreme, which got him killed. Because he forgot the importance of the street guys and underappreciated them, besides being greedy. He was a gangster who wanted to pretend he wasn't a gangster, who looked down on his soldiers and blue collar crime crews--Guys who were lining his pockets with cash. A guy who would've made a great CEO of a legit company, or a great Capo of a white collar crime crew.

But Gotti on the other hand took being a "gangster" to the extreme and was arrogant and overly smug. He didn't seem to have the intelligence or foresight for any long term goals or planning and just seemed to be a glorified hood in his mindset and the way he ran the Family. A guy who'd have been great as a Capo or soldier, but not Boss material--Couldn't see past the streets. This is a guy who wore $2000 suits but claimed to be a plumber. And he never shut up and he got life in prison as a result.

Guys like Sammy, Frank DeCiccio and others seem to be to have been bridges between the two worlds--Guys who recognized the meat and potatoes of La Cosa Nostra was and would always be the blue collar rackets but at the same time recognized how "safe" and lucrative white collar crimes could be, guys who could deal in murder and truck hijackings if need be, but also had tons of legitimate companies to make them appear legitimate and who had all the union deals and whatnot backing the blue collar money up.

To put it in Godfather terms, when Carlo died, the Family needed a Michael Corleone. In Paul, they instead got a Barzini, and in John Gotti, a Frank Pentangelli or Joey Zasa.

crazy joe i think gotti was more part of the Dellacroce faction and was taking orders from him.

It looks like Dellacroce had power over three crews in the Gambino Family while being the underboss. These three crews (although based in Brooklyn) were the "Manhattan" faction of the Family.
Dellacroce had absolute power in making and breaking the captains within this faction. In 1985, Dellacroce demoted Mike Caiazza (who was one of the three captains) because Caiazza had appointed Joe "Buddy" LaForte Jr to briefly act for him while hospitalized. Caiazza had not consulted with Dellacroce, but rather with Castellano which infuriated him.

Only a Tom Hagen would pull of that kind of analogy:)

Does that mean that Peter Gotti is Fredo?

(I would probably compare John Gotti with Sonny though)

This is an interesting topic. there is no question Neil was a throwback gangsters a man who was both feared an respected on the street. neil would have been a great boss in the 50/60's but by the time Carlo died the blue collar crimes were starting to die down and the white collar crimes were the future. Now Neil would have been a good candidate but he was under investigation a lot. Carlo saw Paul as someone like he was in regards to white collar crimes. Also Paul wasn't under investigation like neil was. Now im not praising Paul because like others said he was greedy and reclusive. But Paul was a smart guy and i think he could have been a good boss if he kept a little closer eye to the streets maybe he would have been more respected

Paul made a colossal mistake in appointing Tommy Bilotti underboss!
I dont doubt Billoti was a tough SOB and in a road rage incident or a fight I would want Billoti at my side but to make him underboss was pretty much an insult!
Castellano hated Gotti and vice versa, Gotti only lasted in the family because Paul knew that whacking him would cause loads of Friction with Neil.
With Neil gone, Big Paul figured he could finally humiliate Gotti and bust him to soldier and take his crew off him.

Gotti was backed against a wall, he had no choice other than to order the Sparks Steak house hit.

It has been said that Big Paul lasted as boss because of two men.
Roy Demeo and Neil Dellacroce.
Demeos crew was feared by nearly everyone and was Pauls main piece of artillery in a fight.
The other was Neil Dellacroce, Neil was respected throughout Cosa nostra and had loads of power.
With both of those men out of the way, Gotti was free to act!

I always felt he should have named Frank decicco as underboss. Frankie was well respected and i doubt gotti would have made a move on him because sammy was close to frankie

both guys Neil and Paul I think lived by the old rules and stuck by them with some exceptions of course. But, like i think it was mentioned Paul was real money hungry and very greedy while i think Neil was just more about loyalty honor and respect.

DeCicco was a soldier at the time when Bilotti was made underboss. A promotion like that would have raised eyebrows among the capos close to Castellano. He looked for loyalty first and foremost in the new underboss. So he was definitely looking to dismantle the "Manhattan faction".
Gotti struck because he had to. He found himself in a vulnerable position. It was literally kill or be killed at that stage. And he had to seize power as well. There was no way he was willing to face repercussions from Castellano loyalists (not to mention Gigante) as a mere captain or even worse, as a mere soldier.

I'll say this much. For all his negative points, Paul was a far better boss than Gotti. Of course, that's not saying a lot.

haha i agree.

Da Bull could be considered part of the "white collar" faction because of his many "legitimate" interests in construction, drywall, etc. But with 19 murders under his belt, he could hardly be considered "white collar" all the way.
DiCicco was a captain under Castellano. In one account I read, Gotti orginally wanted DiCicco to be the new Don, but Frankie sensed that Gotti ultimately wouldn't accept that as a permanent arrangement. He became consigliere after the Castellano hit.
DiCicco planned the hit, and it was a brilliant plan. Using six guys, identically dressed, wearing identical Astrakhan hats, and using identical .380 auto pistols, would make it awfully hard for a witness to make a positive ID of anyone.

Yeah, the Castellano hit was probably the high-mark of Gotti's career and was pulled off almost flawlessly. In hindsight though, having so many guys involved was risky. 4 main shooters (Artuso, Carneglia, Lino, Scala), plus a backup shooter (Rampino), plus Ruggiero, Watts, and Pizzonia up and and down the streets; all in addition to Gotti and Gravano in the car nearby. More "moving parts" in the plan makes a greater chance for somebody screwing up or something going wrong. To say nothing of somebody talking about it later on.

sammy wanted Frankie to be the boss and i think he told him that when they were planning the Castellano hit. Frank said John'e ego was too big for him to be boss. They made a pact to kill gotti within a year if he wasnt doing well as boss

Gotti was a gangster and lived the life on his own terms regardless of what others thought. When people think of American LCN, guaranteed John Gotti is in the top 3 or 5 first names that come out of their mouths along with Capone, etc. For the regular Joe on the street, John Gotti is the only gangster they know. The papers still mention Gotti all the time (do a google news search for his name and you will see) till this day even though hes been dead for a number of years now. He and the NY Press ate up all the Dapper/Teflon Don hoopla.

True. But even though Capone is more famous, Accardo was a superior boss. Pablo Escobar is more famous, but the top Cali guys were better leaders.

No argument on that, I agree. I was just referring to most famous.

If Neil Dellacroche was not as mafia law abiding and obedient (for lack of a better word) as he was and decided to go to war with the Castellano faction for the top spot who do you think would come out on top? Or would it just be a bloody war of attrition with no real winner?

Good Question. Its tough to say because it depends of when neil would go to war because Neil was sick the last two years of his life

well lets say right after Carlo died. Before they had that meeting at ninos house to make Paul the boss.

This was posted earlier in the thread, and while I'd like to see a source for this information it means that Dellacroce would've been outnumbered. His crews might've been the more "blue collar" type, but we've already established that Big Paul had several crews who were capable of doing the "dirty work." I don't know what reputation Roy DiMeo had in 1976 though, which is the tim period were considering in a hypothetical Gambino Civil War.

I don´t think winning a war is dependent on the numbers. It´s about toughness, persistence, cunning, non swaying loyalty and quality of the individual soldiers and followers.

And yes, Dellacroce did run three crews within the Gambino Family.

"The government proposes to offer tapes of four conversations intercepted at Dellacroce's house in June 1985, after the filing of the indictment. According to the government all four conversations concern chiefly Dellacroce's expulsion of Michael Caiazza (not named as a defendant) from the Gambino Family. Caiazza had been named by Dellacroce some years earlier as the capo of a crew other than the two referred to in the indictment.

The chief participants in the first conversation, held on June 3, 1985, are Dellacroce, Ruggiero, and Caiazza. The transcript shows that Caiazza before going into the hospital for treatment had named as acting captain Joseph (Buddy) LaForte, Jr. (whose father, apparently not on good terms with his son, is also present at the conversation). Before doing this Caiazza had not checked with Dellacroce but had consulted directly with Paul Castellano."

Furthermore... "Paul Castellano is the "boss" of the Gambino Family and Aniello Dellacroce the "underboss" who supervised certain of the Gambino Family's "crews," each headed by a "capo" or "captain." The alleged "enterprise" is said to be a "segment" of the Gambino Family and to consist of Dellacroce as supervisor and two crews, one run by Charles Fatico and later defendant John Gotti, assisted by his "lieutenant" Angelo Ruggiero (not named as a defendant), the other run by defendants Leonard DiMaria and Nicholas Corozzo."

///Note that the text says "two crews" which i find hard to comprehend since the crews were headed by three captains; John Gotti, Mike Caiazza and Nick Corozzo/Lenny DiMaria.

Read more: http://www.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19861002_0000140.eny.htm/qx

The most famous boss, is the most media friendly = the most stupid boss.

The best boss is the one who stays in the shadows and hate the media.

Doesn't make you great at all being on the front page. It reveals your weakness.

agree.

Yes I agree. But then lucky Luciano was an awful boss...

Agree 100%. Any boss who makes the cover of Time Magazine should be hung. From a tree.

Yeah! Those bosses seems to have forgot/never learned what Cosa Nostra is/was all about!

Exactly Hairy. The ironic thing is that the two most famous gangsters from the 20th century, Capone and Gotti, are probably the two worst bosses their respective families ever saw.

You didn't see Luciano speaking to reporters, you saw him placing his hat in front of his face to cover it up.

Well, I'm sure he enjoyed the lime light, but he wasn't that exposed now was he? The founder of the modern day mafia, and a great boss in my opinion.

I figured that, LCN. But my response was meant to be ironic.
But yes, Lucky was extremely exposed during his day. And that led to his downfall.

Oh, my bad, HairyKnuckles. Him being deported and falsely prosecuted and convicted of "pimping" women, led by Dewey, caused his downfall. You can't effectively run the Genovese family from Italy without having problems.

He was basically screwed the day Dewey decided to go against him and use false testimony as evidence.

weird because Gotti and Corozzo were rivals

Well, they might have been rivals but they were still in the same "camp" so to speak.
As I noted in my Gambino Family chart of 1985, it does look like Gotti demoted Corozzo but promoted him back to a capo rank some years later. Because no chart shows Corozzo being a capo between 1986 and 1992.

that pic with neil and frank sinatra is so cool

I think that pretty much nails it my man..In my opinion gigante was the definition of what the mob was supposed to be and a great judge of talent, and he respected castelano, but not gotti..No matter what anybody says about castelano,the family was in far better shape with him as boss then it ever was with gotti!!

I agree. And the only reason Gotti lasted as long as he did was because Willie Boy was an informant for decades. That's why Gotti wasn't derailed by the feds in the 70s.

The Chicago outfit was at its most financially successful when Capone was the man, Gotti certainly made it easier for made men to earn a living as well in some respects-the notoriety got through the press surely increased the fear of the mafia amongst the businesses they screwed

Whilst you can blame gotti's antics for the downfall of the gambinos, theyve not fallen any further than the rest of the families as far as I can tell-oc in general is a harder business to be in these days!

Whilst there is 50' of whale shit then the Inbreeds(Gambino's) it is very difficult! However had the English not starved the Irish into coming to the States it would be easy having less Cops!

Whilst there is 50' of whale shit then the Inbreeds(Gambino's) it is very difficult! However had the English not starved the Irish into coming to the States it would be easy having less Cops to deal with!

I dont speak klingon!

[ However had the English not starved the Irish into coming to the States it would be easy having less Cops to deal with![/quote]

Hey those are my 'paisans' you're talking about

Hahaha! You're nuts bro. Hahaha!

Ok, many know this. Is there an argument with my post though?

Naw.

I don´t think winning a war is dependent on the numbers. It´s about toughness, persistence, cunning, non swaying loyalty and quality of the individual soldiers and followers.

Yes 100% agree with you.

believe it or not al capone was a gang leader

sam giancana was worse

atleast capone didn't take his underlings hard earned money and go spend it on hollywood actresses/singers. that shit is a slap in the face, that's why he got exiled and subsequently eliminated

Exactlt. And Giancana was pretty bad.

Capone could only dreamed the money that Giancana made.Sam even took money from the C.I.A. and took the Outfit overseas.So yes he fucked it all up with the high life,all the actresses,CIA and Mexico stuff but there was plenty for every1

Why did it never cross Castellano's mind to whack Dellacroce? It would have surely curtailed a lot of problems down the line. Dellacroce showed no deference or respect to Castellano. No other boss would have tolerated it.

Gotti and Ruggiero were following Castellano's lead too. The reason they were so volatile and confident in taking out Castellano is because they were following Dellacroce's lead.

And so what if Castellano was banging his maid. Gotti and Dellacroce had bigger skeletons in their domestic closets!

Castellano was a lot of things and made a lot of mistakes but he was old school cosa Nostra , it was prob out of respect to carlo and the fact that dellacroce accepted being passed over in good grace , he was rewarded and castellano had no idea wot would happen down the line

quote=Moe_Tilden]Why did it never cross Castellano's mind to whack Dellacroce? It would have surely curtailed a lot of problems down the line. Dellacroce showed no deference or respect to Castellano. No other boss would have tolerated it.

Gotti and Ruggiero were following Castellano's lead too. The reason they were so volatile and confident in taking out Castellano is because they were following Dellacroce's lead.

And so what if Castellano was banging his maid. Gotti and Dellacroce had bigger skeletons in their domestic closets! [/quote]

Moe,

I think falling in line with Carlo Gambinos wishes shows a lot of respect since Dellacroce was actually next in line. Dellacroce not killing Castellano showed a ton of respect IMO.

Dellacroce showed nothing but respect for Castellano. Dellacroce was following Carlo Gambino's wishes and remained loyal even though he was next in line to be boss. It's no coincidence that Gotti killed Castellano shortly after Dellacroce's death. Dellacroce never would of allowed it to happen while he was alive.

If Castellano clipped Dellacroce he would have been dead himself not long after that. He would have pissed off a lot of folks.

If I remember correctly, in Murder Machine Dom said that after Carlo Gambino passed away, the sit down was at Nino Gaggi's place. Dom was givin an AR, and instructed to sit by the window, and Nino gave instructions to kill everyone coming out the door, if such and such were to happen. Can't remember the exact details. But I was under the impression that if Dellacroce and his goon's had an objections about Gambino's wishes they would of been put down there.

Iggy alogna was a backup shooter aswel