[quote=JackieAprile]The last ten months of Big Paul’s life were centered around daily courthouse meetings
Old Man Neil was dying and becoming more and more frail by the day
Would it be unreasonable to say that Gotti effectively controlled if not the whole Family, a large portion of it (Dellacroce’s men) de facto, plus the Castellano people he had lured to his side - long before December 16th 1985?
Would it be unresonable to say that in their last months, Neil and Paul were figureheads and Gotti was to a large extent running things? Again, maybe not for the WHOLE family, but let’s say 80% of it?
Paul was a marked man, as soon as he passed over John to replace Neil. That showed he had other plans for John. Either dead or busted down to Soldier.
And I say he may have been a figurehead because
His Underboss who’d be running things day to day was dying and busy running defense for a Capo and his crew. Neil probably wasn’t very active day to day in his final months, so I have to think that even before Neil died, John was doing a lot of his duties. And a lot of guys reported directly to Neil. As Neil’s health faded, that meant they reported to John. So that’s a lot of power
His Consigliere was in on his murder and ends up serving the guy who ordered him clipped. So, what was Joe Gallo up to in those last six months of 1985? Consigliere is powerful, but how powerful a Consigliere was Joe? How ambitious was he?
Someone had to be handing things day to day on the streets. Paul could only be so many places at once. And he was trying hard not to risk being seen with gangsters. He’d receive you at the White House. How can we know guys weren’t holding back their cut? Or doing side deals? Cutting Paul out of the loop by this point. Who did he have that would inspire fear to have the fellas fall in line? DeMeo was long dead, that muscle was gone.
How much of Paul’s focus was on LCN? He’s in court every day. He met with John Riggi the day he died, but much was spent in the company of gangsters and how much with his lawyer in those last few months? We don’t know because we don’t have the tapes m
I think it has to be clear Paul was going away. So he was old news. Yes, he was still Boss day to day, but smart money probably said he’d be sent up for one of the two cases he was faxing. He was 70 in 1985 so any long sentence was essentially a life sentence
So you have a guy whose gonna be spending life in jail in maybe a year, whose focus is on his trials. Who are guys on the street looking more and more toward?
I say by autumn 85 you truly had two families. One run de facto by John Gotti. One run by Thomas Bilotti acting on Paul’s authority.