Gambino Underboss - Thomas Bilotti

Thomas Bilotti was a New York mobster with the Gambino crime family who served as underboss for just two weeks. It was this promotion that helped trigger the 1985 assassination of Gambino boss Paul Castellano by John Gotti and Sammy "the Bull" Gravano.

http://youtu.be/TnzPS1ikBy8?list=PLQhDH_WZbs1N0jqZ9y9naMtgUfZ3VoVbo

Great job. That was a nice treat.

There is so much focus on the beef between Castellano and the Bergin crew concerning the tape recordings Paul wanted that little attention is given to the resentment likely generated by Bilotti's promotion.

There had to be resentment. Carlo had two underbosses (Paul and Neil) helping him run one family comprised of two wings. The blue collar wing was loyal to their underboss (Neil), and as sort of a separate family in their own right they probably had their own ideas about who amongst them should be Neil's successor. Whoever they had in mind as the heir apparent probably was not chosen by Paul Castellano.

My next question to this forum is...

Was Thomas Billoti originally a member of the white collar faction or the blue collar faction?


Edit: It looks like Bilotti was connected to the white collar wing which Castellano was Underboss over. Anyone feel free to correct if that is incorrect. If that's true, that was another mistake Castellano made. He should have chosen someone from the blue collar wing of the Gambinos to run that side of the family. Castellano probably should have chosen a successor for himself, a guy to run the white collar side. Big Paul had every right to have two underbosses just like Carlo did. Because he didn't, he lost control.

I had read somewhere that Bilotti wasn't very bright, so if true would he be capable of handling white collar crime ??

Good point. If Bilotti was hired from the white collar side and couldn't run it, that means he would have been the wrong choice for white collar underboss had Paul hired two underbosses to run each wing the way Carlo did.

alpha.. according to everything ive read, castellano just wasn't paying enough attention to the gotti faction. he took the money, but, he was in the dark about most of gottis operations.
he could never relate to " street guys" and his inattention to
the gotti crew was his undoing.

Two underbosses? How does that work? I think Neil was the underboss and Paul was his main capo, sort of... as well as his brother-in-law (and cousin) which gave him a of unique role... but Neil was always the underboss.
Two underbosses theoretically wouldn't really work that well I think especially if they're divided by blue/white collar rackets. There would be rivalry and the white-collar underboss would always bring in more cash.
Then when it comes time for a successor there would definitely be war.. and lets be honest, how many bosses have actually named their successors like Carlo did?

Once Dellacroce died, who SHOULD have been the rightful successor ?

I am sure that Gotti believed he should have been BUT, was proper protocol for all the capos to vote for the underboss OR the boss appoints them?

Clearly the Boss always picks his underboss traditionally, but it's always wise to consider the internal politics of a family before doing so.

Castellano would probably have been best advised to pick someone at least acceptable to the blue collar wing to avoid conflict.

In fact that's exactly why Gambino appointed Dellacroce when Biondo was removed.

In my opinion, the best guy to bridge that gap would have been Jimmy Brown. He was in his sixties at the time, so he was the right age. He had the paper association and the union. He had a brilliant business mind (contrary to popular opinion, there aren't too many dummies running large, successful carting companies). And he could be absolutely lethal when need be. He was the perfect balance between "blue collar" and "white collar." That's why I always believed that had Gigante succeeded in killing Gotti, he would have backed Jimmy for boss.

Look at how Carlo did it. He held court and had two Underbosses keeping an eye on everyone. So that is three people watching everyone. Paul was holed up in his mansion/bunker and lost touch. He probably didn't see the new alignments taking place. The Gambinos started to coalesce around the Gottis and Paul probably had no idea. At least Gotti held court out in the open with the troops, had his ear to the ground, and had all of his brothers and allies spying for him and reporting back.

Greetings Malandrino. From what I always understood, Carlo Gambino had two Underbosses working for him, Neil and Paul. That makes three "street bosses", two of whom who were very closely related by blood. When I say street boss, I mean a hands on boss, not a front boss.

The way to appease the blue collar wing would have been to pick the most popular blue collar capo as Underboss. That's what Paul did in having Neil as his underboss. But once Neil was out of the picture, Paul abandoned that formula for what I do not know. Paul could have called Gotti (or Jimmy Brown as PB suggested) aside and made a deal with him to make Gotti Underboss, and then promise Gotti no retaliation if he turned over the tapes. Then Gotti would've run the blue collars and Paul would've whacked Quack Quack.

I think Underboss is appointed while Consigliere is elected.

Underboss is appointed by the Boss of the family, Consigliere is elected by the Capos. This two underbosses gets confusing to a lot of people. Dellacroce was the official Underboss to the Gambinos. Castellano was the acting boss for the family due to Gambino being in poor health, and Neil was in prison at the time.

Paul was going to name Tommy Gambino boss of the family and Tommy Bilotti underboss for the family. Bilotti was not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was loyal to Castellano and Paul felt that Tommy needed the help from Bilotti who was a street guy growing up, while Gambino was more like Bill Bonanno, minus the arrogance

and Daniel Marino as underboss

No doubt.

Maybe you guys are right. I don't know. Maybe Carlo had only one Underboss and Paul was acting Boss. But having two Underbosses is not unheard of, according to the following conversation...

" I believe Dellacroce was the underboss to Gambino and then to
Castellano, and Castellano was a skipper who moved up to boss upon Gambino's death. Usually there is only one underboss at a time. In New York that's the case. One exception is during Vito Genovese's incarceration Tommy Eboli was the underboss for New York and Jerry Catena for New Jersey. The New Jersey crime family had a boss for New Jersey and another for Connecticut. New England had two underbosses too, one in Providence and the other in Boston (during the Patriarca period).

Rick"

From:

Two Underbosses in Cosa Nostra

This is the first I have ever heard of Tommy Gambino being groomed for boss position. He was not made under his father Carlo, but only later by Paul. Could you please elaborate? How could Tommy not be part of the family until relatively late in life, and yet at the same time be groomed to be boss?

I remember hearing that Bilotti made some guy suck him off because he owed him money or something. Does anybody know of this story and is it true?

Agreed, if Castellano had a little more political acumen he would have kept Gotti sweet and offered him a top spot, if only until he could have safely taken him out. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Always grudgingly admired the way that Profaci cleverly neutered the Gallo's by winning over their support base, such as the Persico's.

Or alternatively Castellano could have appointed James Failla as PB said.

GOTTI was not going be second to no one... paul knew john was a problem for years , most everyone knew john would be boss or try to be.. the surprise was john killed him knowing paul was going to prison.. deccio, john et. al. could have made a non violent coup after paul was convicted.. went to the commish, presented the captains case to them and paul would have been taken down, paul did not have the support of any of the worker crews in the family..he may have thought he did .paul was neutralized..fialla and marino were doing nothing if it went that way.. and forget this zip loyalty to paul..john gambino was a major drug dealer ,with gotti's crew already up to their necks in the drug biz..john gambino would have a permit.. johns ego needed to slaughter paul and tommy..make a huge historic splash..bigger that A.A. getting killed in a barber chair.. john never followed cosa nostra, he only talked it on tape. frank deccio made it all possible..without frank john can not get away with it without a war..frank knew he would die for it...and he did

Do you think that John would not let frank be bos after paul?how come nobody thought of Frank being boss?He had more power than John,no?

excellent post bronx

more respect as a logical street thinker, frank was a humble guy when he needed to be..less likely to kill, last resort punishment guy

thank you, it will come with controversy , which is what everyone is entitled to..i keep an open mind.

Joe N Gallo would've made for a good boss imo. He was a contender when Anastasia got hit.

most important frank knew he should be boss, he knew john was going to be a megalomaniac..guys in other families wanted frank not just the gambino guys. these things were not spoken aloud..does anyone here think john was really upset frank got killed??? worried about himself knowing he will be next, but look what happened, not one guy was killed for a vendetta..not one..john knew it was chin.....nobody else could pull it off..

what u think would happend if paul or somebody killed johne pre commision trials?

dellacroce was alive, he would have no choice to support angelo, genie et. al.. but who was going to kill him? billotti and his crew were the only ones paul could trust..

gallo was a brain in that life..you are correct.he wanted no part of it at that point in his life..his family comes from the same town as casio ferro. real school cosa nostra..

Yh didn't he have a heart attack not long after he was made Consig by Carlo?

after aniello death,he should worked out something with chin and killed john in late december.And gave that crew to lino or paradiso or somebody

IMO, I think Paul was too busy plugging his maid and that was very distracting and took him away from thinking a little better when it cam to running the family.

they both were very close to john...lino was not made and mickey boy was in the can

funny but true, just another distraction for paul..too busy telling her he is bigger than the president

not sure on that .i will defer to others

never really put it together that even though castellano was going to jail for sure gotti STILL killed him... gotti must have been a real asshole but he certainly had balls

Paul's maid was frigging tiny, I bet he crushed her.

yeah with that implanted chicken bone..he was really boning her!

I bet he did lmao.

there is a difference between balls and stupidity, he had both and it was a disaster..im just shocked frank d. and others could not talk him out of it.. this gets me all the time " we'll tell everyone who knows who killed paul" maybe the cops..HUH..saying that alone says i did it.. imagine telling that to chin ,ducks and the the other bosses and thinking they would believe it..thats stupidity..

I don't understand why Paul got a hard time for getting a penile implant. I mean if you couldn't get it up what would you do?

another topic, but ill throw this in .don't be fooled by small skinny women..i was with a girl like that , i fell in and needed a miners light and a rand mcnally map to get out

his position, "conservative values" he is held in a much higher standard than regular people in and out of the mob..people started to find out he was screwing the ugly maid in his house that nina lived in ..nina would go to connies place and paul would chase gloria with his frank perdue special select boning device

Don't forget about killing his daughter's boyfriends for minor infractions....Definitely sidetracked!

correct..his daughter is a real scumbag..she got the first guy killed and then did it again..she is a coconspirator....

You right pal his head was in the gutter, too bad looks good on him.

How come lino was so close to John,wasnt he a bensonhurst guy?

Is this book worth a read?

Boss of Bosses: The Fall of the Godfather- The FBI and Paul Castellano

Anyone read it?

H dealers with gene, sal r. birds of a feather

frank d. was a bath ave guy.was as close to gotti..joe watts.same

What was lino s crew before Gotti?Did Lino he had a club in bhurst?

All due respect but I disagree here.

John killed Paul because of the Ruggerio tapes about his crew dealing H.

NO other reason.

John had no choice but to hit Paul.

Once the tapes became public JG wouldve been hit, shelved or at best demoted and his crew disbanded.
He was therefor put in a position of 'kill or be killed'. Everything else is simply bullshit/smoke n mirrors or baseless speculation.

Lets remember no one had hit a boss since Anastasia FORTY years earlier. Not even Johns arrogance wouldve done that just out of ego. He did what he did because he was forced too. No other reason.



And regards Tommy Bilotti being 'underboss' he was never anything more than a messengaro for Castellano. 'Underboss' is a hugely overrated title in the case of Tommy Bilotti.

joe colombo? bonnano trying to kill carlo..? when was costello shot, i don't recall..sonny before there were any tapes gotti was moving to put himself in position to be boss..junk, tapes, paul not going to neils wake, paul may rat, banging the maid, lost touch with the family, on and on ..gotti was building a case vs paul.. he did have a choice..kill angelo..thats cosa nostra.. gotti was not cosa nostra. cosa all things gotti..i respect your opinion and imput..thats what this site is all about.. i don't know how close you were or are to this type of info..but the people who insiders know this to be true..john had one goal ...boss of bosses all five families..as crazy as that may sound ..but that was john

should have killed angelo probably would have worked out better for gotti

I am still learning and have never read the full transcript of the tapes but wasn't his brother Gene also implicated in those tapes?.....Meaning, if he was true LCN than he would have had to whack his brother also?

Not sure John would have choosen to whack his brother over Paul.
That mother on a deathbed stuff is BS when it comes down to the wire!

correct, good point, you trade off like any other biz.. angelo pays the price and its over..in pauls mind..not gottis.. govt does the same sacrificial lamb..everyone is happy

The irony there is that he ended up turning his back on Angelo, anyway. I hope no one believes that scene in the Armand Assante movie where he feeds him the cannoli. That bullshit never happened. Angelo died a man without a country.

i forgot that ! very true.. he got mad at jr for going to see him.. killing paul was a curse...everybody is dead or rotting in the can..can't think of one person involved that skated..Hmm.anybody come up with a person?

Vinny Artuso ended up in jail. But it had nothing to do with the Castellano hit.

any truth to vinny artuso freezing up and not being able to pull the trigger during the castellano hit? sorry if this has been discussed before

Who knows?

Vinny's no punk, though. I can assure you of that.

story is gun jammed..if he froze...hmmm could have been trouble for vinny

he took a hit in fla, i think 9 years

I read it and yes, as I recall it, it's worth a read.

Yeah, Johnny too. Johnny comes home next year, I think. But I think his father got an extra year or two.

I hope Vinny retires and Johnny sticks to real estate down there. He's pretty good at it. But I'm not holding my breath.

vinny may stay here .. whats left... cannoli's up there.. how much supv. release does he have? if you know..

No idea, but I'll bet it's a bunch. Tony Connecticut came home last week and his restrictions are going to be tight for years. The Feds claim that there's no Federal Parole System. But come on. These restrictions are just a fancy way of saying that if you fuck up you're going back inside.

Greetings Giacomo.

I think you meant Carlo when you said Paul above?

And when you said Gambino being like Bill Bonanno, you meant Paul Castellano?

I think also that it was probably Neil Dellacroce not being too bright that partly necessitated a white collar "Underboss" or acting Boss or what have you to help Carlo keep track of the more complicated rackets.

No disrespect to fans of Neil, but by looking at him he seemed primitive, impulsive, paranoid, and infantile. How can a killer crocodile or dinosaur sit down and do calculations?

So maybe it was the sheer size of the Gambinos along with complexity of white collar rackets that prompted Carlo to bring the more intelligent Paul Castellano in to help Carlo and Neil run the family. Carlo probably had the brains for white collar, but he needed an Underboss with those brains too and I don't think Neil was that man.

life on installment plan..

PB, how come Gotti was mad at Ruggiero?

didn't chin have a bomb planted in a car meant for gotti?
the wrong guy got blown up. why didn't chin keep trying to whack him? eventually he would have got him.
carlo Gambino appointed castellano boss because paul was his cousin. to carlo blood was higher than dellacroce.

He didn't stop. Bobby Manna got put away for life for conspiring to kill Gotti and by that time, Chin was already in legal problems of his own.

I would guess billotti was also a bk guy. He was loved by Paul. He becomes underboss his brother would probably get capo. Sammy the bull trashes everyone in his book but only says tommy wasn't the smartest bulb. Think he was under indictment with armone and hallo so he was going to jail to win he was killed. Or he might have been indicted with jimmy brown. Big Paul was already indicted in the commission case with all the other bosses in December 85 why would you want to be any boss that year everyone was going to jail.

That's true, Snakes. Chin finally took the plea and went inside in 1997, so people forget that his charges dated back to the late '80s. He was under constant surveillance those last few years, and it coincided with the complete gentrification of the West Village. Towards the end he couldn't walk Sullivan Street without a million eyes on him. And if he saw Sullivan and Houston today, he'd think that he honestly did go crazy. That's how different that corner is today.

He blamed Angelo for the tapes, which I guess was justified. But it was also a bit ironic (if not hypocritical). Because John left behind more recordings than Sinatra.

Was it also about his involvement with the drugs?

yeah john swore he would never get caught on tape like paul..

no ..just being so sloppy and stupid on the phones..who knows what angelo said to john alone..angelo might have let him have it.. he loved john but was not afraid of him..

Gotti new that crazy guy wore a wire in the begin club back in 84 85. I do remember reading he swore he would never hear his voice on tape in court again after he beat that case with nick corrozo and demaira carneglia ect 86? Think it was fixed. Vinny gorgeous never thought his boss would tape him 04. Death penalty was the biggest change in the american lcn. There talking about killing some bambino ass. Over a drug related killing 10 yes ago.unless the 5 families came up to new rules about killing and orders there just gonna keep getting weaker. Murder was there fear factor and it worked for 90+/years but they need to adapt or get forgotten.

I had a book off eBay couple bucks gotti files just a bunch of wire taps and Sammy's testimony. Gotti seen the writing on the wall but was stuck in his ways.

The Gotti Tapes?

That book came out the exact same day that they sent John to Marion in June of '92. It was a rush job. I don't think it was from a major publisher, but they were just looking to capitalize I guess.

Anyway, some nitwit was trying to sell them right outside Artuso's Pastry Shop in the neighborhood. They chased him all the way down to Southern Boulevard .

john loved to hear his own voice, and stories about himself.you didn't have to ask him, he would tell you,, the best " frank if you lived to be 5000 you'll never find a guy like me" frank got 5000 years listening to this lunatic..frank is the tough guy, he did nothing but listen. too bad he was a loyal guy... same with gas, how his guys didn't kill that nut.

wahoo probably took a book first..LOL..tough guy

True gangster. It came out of his fucking pores.

yeah Bronx, I hear you. if chin would have whacked gotti, a lot of guys would have been saved from doing time.

and gaspipe too, I guess his guys just let him drag them down with him, and what about scarfo in philly, if one of his guys got to him, the family might be doing well now.

everybody was afraid I guess.

if he asked me to kill fat petes sister a woman. or kill testa and blame the gambino guys just to motivate his crew, you had to know you may be next, this guy is just insane. if that was my life, he would have lost his ..

You remember his boy Jerry? Or Anthony?

Those guys ran a huge sports office. They were sharp baseball bettors themselves. They were betting into the islands years before anyone ever heard of the Internet. They should all be rich today. But shit happens.

his brother jerry, did not know his kids.. bettors that are rich..my dream..i should have booked my own plays..I'D be rich..LOL

No no. Anthony wasn't his son. I just meant like, his boy, like he loved him. Anthony had a piece of that place on the corner of Morris Park and Bronxdale. You remember that two story cafe? Back in the early '90s it was called Cafe Dion? The Albanians eventually grabbed it, just like everything else in that neighborhood.


Yeah, hindsight is 20/20 .

Yep gotti files or something like that paperback 7 bucks or more good read. Real rush job they probably made a nice profit back then. Hey they had all the info not the authors point of view just tapes. Now I wonder who had excess to all them tapes of gotti. I want Massimo court tapes. But some lucky guy with all them gotti tapes made a buck.

don't recall the cafe pizza, my luck, i bet the yanks the guy throws a no hitter and i lose.. got plenty of those..still shake my head ,if i remember andy hawkins..vs chisox. got to be 25 years ago.. 1990 lost 4 zero

I think the Columbo and Bonanno situations were different imo. But I do see what you're saying.



I dont doubt for a second JG was ambitious and wanted to be boss, as you say, probably even of the Commission, but my take is though as ambitious, arrogant and egomanical John was he wasnt stupid enough to think he could get away with it (which he wouldnt of) unless he was put into a position where he had no choice but to act (which he was).

And it wasnt just a case of whacking Gene and/or Angelo, he still wouldve lost his stripes, or worse.



But hey, who knows!

I never got an answer to this question. No great tragedy if I do not get an answer. But if somebody knows, please elaborate . . . .

The books being closed untill 1977 could have played a role about him getting made under Paul and the fact that Tommy as an associate couldn't become boss when Carlo passed away.

Thomas Bilotti: The Boss of all Bosses

Comparing Tommy to Bill Bonnanno is a diss.

Joe Butch also imo would have been a good choice , Frankie Daps was a Gambino capo who was a Westside guy from Prince street that no one ever seems to mention.

just thought of this but bilooti was underboss at the time. so gotti took out 1 and 2. not ust the boss. think that gets overlooked a lot. so capo in other families must have been thinking gotti got to go. casso especially fucked that last word up