In the "smartest mob guy" topic someone suggested the opposite so here goes......

Angelo Ruggiero and his big mouth.

Also how about Frank Amato - if you are married to the daughter of the boss of the Gambino's you DONT beat her!!!!!
What did he think Big Paul was gonna do?

how bout Peter Gotti? that guy even looks dumb/stupid!

How about the dumbest boss ever....Joey Merlino has to be close. I know I will get ripped for this but come on the guy wasn't the smartest. He basically stole for a living. He didn't reinvent the wheel when he was boss. He just took what he wanted. And lets not forget that he made Ralph Natale and then makes him boss. Natale should have never been a boss. He wasn't even a made guy until Merlino. And then Natale helps bring Merlino down. I know he didn't get a lot of time and he kept is mouth shut and all. Thats all well and good but the man was basically a soldier at best as far as smarts go. He was around the life always. He knew what he needed to do to get by. I am not saying he is the dumbest gangster. Not by far! But dumbest boss...hes gotta be in the top 5...at least! He also just loved those cameras! Which is stupid in this life. I can see him in a reality show in 20 years. People feared him though in a lot of ways. I just think of him as not being the smartest man.

i think that merlino was smarter than what people gave him credit for. just like with casso he ran the family through natale just like casso did with vic. he knew what he wanted and let no one stand in his way. he did have the gotti agroance about him wich hurt him i do believe. he also beat those murder charges and got off easy on his rico case. i mean his lawyers had 90% to do with that but to overcome these obstacles i wouldn't go as far as to call the man dumb. not ripping on you spmob because you have some very valid points. he made poor decisions.

No I agree. Merlino was no dummy. I think people pay too much attention to the words of informants like Veasey and Pervite. You don't have to listen to them for a long time to see how bitter they are. I just think they need to get laid or something.

What I liked about Merlino was his BALLS. I like how he stood up to Stanfa. He was also a little bit of a cowboy and I like that to at times. But as far as him being smart...I just don't see it. I do understand what he was trying to do with Natale. I just think he should have known better. I think he overthough that one. Natale was in and out of jail and joey should have known that at Natales age he would end up being a rat because he was going to do serious time getting caught again. And he had to real ties with these guys so he saved his own ass. I just think the two of them were not very smart when it comes to being a boss. I guess I kind of started another thread here by saying the dumbest boss. Sorry guys!

I am kind of hoping I am wrong. I don't like hating on Philly! LOL. So I kind of want to know why people think Joey was smart? And if he isn't ONE OF the dumbest bosses ever, who is? Hes not the dumbest but he is up there as of right now to me.

Gotta be Junior Gotti (if, in fact, he was ever the "real" boss).

There have been some real idiots that got made.

My vote for dumbest mob guy has to be Lefty Guns Ruggiero. Have you read Donnie Brasco? He was in Milwaukee and thought Lake Michigan was the Atlantic Ocean. He was wise in the way of the streets, but completely lacking in general knowledge, a common thread among some of the old gangsters.

Valachi did not know where Omaha was (not that Omaha generally matters).

I need to think about some of the dumbest crimes committed. I know a few wiseguys shot themselves and did other stupid things.

I have a couple for Philly mobsters.

I forget which hit it was but it was during Scarfo's time. After the hit, the team that was dumping the body didn't have money on them to get over the bridge from Philly to jersey. They were dumping the body in jersey with the man in the trunk. I think thats how it went. I heard George Anastasia tell it with Nicholas the crow once.

Or how about Stanfa's knuckle heads during the Stanfa-Merlino war. Here is one I copied from an article. There were also botched bombs and crazy potential hit stories. Not enough time in the day to list them all.

PHILADELPHIA: The masked gunman ran into a swanky Italian restaurant and leveled a shotgun at the pizza maker.
"I put the shotgun in his face and I shoot," the gunman testified in federal court last month. "The shotgun didn't go off. I shoot again. Again nothing."
No wonder. Mob hit man Rosario Bellocchi said he had the wrong size shells on his mission to kill Biagio Adornetto, an out-of-favor gang soldier.
Tales told by inept former hit men who failed more often than they succeeded were a big part of a trial that ended last week with the conviction of mob boss John Stanfa and seven associates on racketeering charges.

Fat Pete Chiodo was a buffon. He was sent out on a hit, had the guy in a car, he pulls over on a desolte stretch of road to "take a leak," goes to the passenger side of the window pulls a gun to kill the guy, but the gun doesn't fire because he didn't have the clip in all the way. He did cover his ass well though by telling the guy it was a fake gun and a joke, either that or the guy was a moron beyond belief. He also had a few other screw ups that got him shelved.



http://www.thelaborers.net/court_cases/us_v_amuso-appeal-1994-04-20.htm

"Martinelli accepted the explanation". Oh man..that's fucking funny. Can you imagine Petey Chiodo going "Oh man I had you didn't I..I thought you were gonna shit. Let's get some pizza."

There was talk about homosexual in the "life" a week ago, here is another guy killed partly because he was a homosexual, Flounderhead Visconti. I remember reading about this killing in the "Brotherhood" coincidently or not Visconti was shot in the penis among other places. His brother was a Gambino associate who became an informer for the FBI and set up a huge swag operation that resulted in getting Nicky Corozzo pinched. Reading the case against Amuso, people say Casso was nuts, but Amuso wasn't shy when it came to having a guy killed.

John Stanfa...and most of his loyalist.

It proves that Sammy Gravano was right
ALWAYS use a revolver on a hit

I love the Fat Pete story, but that is actually pretty smart to play it off as a toy gun joke. Brilliant!

Another one of my favorites happened in Chicago, I think, when I guy blew a few fingers off while working on the detonator cap of a bomb.

Also, wasn't there a guy in NY who was burglarizing a jewelry store in the 50's that fell in through the hole he cut in the roof, fell to the floor, broke an arm, leg and some ribs, and waited until they opened in the morning to get to the hospital?

Dont forget Richie DiNome (Freddie's younger brother) who was ordered to fetch a silenced pistol so Roy DeMeo could clip the guy who got Nino Jailed.
Richie decided to try to attach the silencer with the gun loaded.........guess what happened next?

(shot himself in the hand)

Excellent reminder Gary - Murder Machine did a nice job of characterizing these guys are bumbling idiots.

yeah another great screw up from murder machine "vito goes in to WP. robs a 7-11 in texas. gets away with the money then turns around to go back in and get bruce springsten tapes. the clerk blasts and kills him"

I'd love to know the average IQ of these guys.

This is how I see it go down
The Genovese Avg. IQ: 90.
The Gambino Avg. IQ: 80.
The Lucchese Avg. IQ: 75.
The Bonanno Avg. IQ: 70.
The Colombo Avg. IQ: 25.

your being very generious with the colombos

Speaking of the DeMeo crew and their screwups, how about Roy killing the kid selling vacums because he thought the kid was a Cuban hit man. I wonder if Vito's lover boy Joey Lee still graces are earth....

That's called 'paranoia'.

Yep, I think I read in a book Roy was doing loads of coke around that time, I don't know how true it is, its believed he was a heavy closet drinker too. I think it was in Gravano's book, Roy was in a diner with Sammy and he casually says he could easily kill everyone in the diner with two 9mm's, or something similar, the man was a true loon.

we could have a great thread on just the absurdnes and brutalilty and lack of common decency of the demeo crew. truely fearless people. truely moraless people. i think that's why i find them so interesting. because there really hasn't been another crew like them. ever. judging on roy's actions i believe he was a coke head. he was around more than enough of it. pharamcetuicals as well. don't really see demeo as a pothead even though he sold that too. also judging by albert's claims that he never saw his father drunk except maybe at a 4th of july picnic is all the proof i need to damn roy as an alcoholic. thats one of the first things that children of alchie's do. they defend it.

Personally, I think Angelo was an amazing character, but with a nick name like "Quack-Quack", one would think/take for granted that he was running his mouth over the phone, shame on those who CALLED HIM!!!

C'mon, "Lefty" was 110% La Cosa Nosta. Forgetabout it, 26 hits under his belt, yet he was always broke and spending money that he didn't have!! I mean in the movie, "Donnie Brasco" it looked as if he was living in the projects??? WTF, c'mon Lefty
put the parking meters away and the hammer back in the tool box already,ha,ha,ha...great scene!!

Very Good Call, John Stanfa, the Sicilian who tried to take over Philly, a man without an army! He never stood a chance, he wasn't what was needed at that time. By the way, what's he up to, anyone know if he's still alive and where he's serving his time??

I'm gonna go old school now, Arthur Flegenheimer, a/k/a "the Dutchman", "Dutch Schultz"!!! Just look at the way he dressed!!
Millions were being made by his organization but he was so damn cheap that he still purchased his suits off the rack. I mean he wanted to clip Thomas Dewey, which would've sparked a powder keg of law enforcement on NYC and every member of organized crime, in fact no one knows what type of sh*t storm would have came down if Dutch accomplished his threat. I mean he told some powerful men to basically go f*ck themselves and that he would take care of it himself,REGARDLESS OF THE COMBINATION, AND THE RULE, THAT ONE MAN IS NOT BIGGER THAN THE GROUP!!! This man has my vote for the DUMBEST GANGSTER/MOB GUY EVER.

Getting back to the DeMeo crew, the highly intelligent person (sarcasm) known as Richie DiNome also managed to leave his wallet in the trunk of car that him and Vito had just abandoned with a body in the trunk.
They did manage to retrieve the wallet though.

i think that's why i find them so interesting. because there really hasn't been another crew like them. ever.

Snap thats why I find the DeMeo crew so intresting too


Does anyone happen to know what happened to Joey Lee (Vito's boyfriend)