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?

Definitely not. He was but one "skipper" of 24.

How much power did Joe “N” Gallo have?

You bring up a good point, it is worth thinking about. I would not say he was running things, but he definitely had a lot of other people like Gravano, DiCiccio, Locascio, and others starting to line up with him. The killing of Castellano did not come out of nowhere, the planning and talk of taking over must have started in or close to those last 10 months. His power was growing.

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.

It's an interesting theory...but I'm going to say its not likely true - at least not in as black and white terms as it appears to be laid out here. Certainly Gotti was forming a faction which would eventually bring everything to a head, but I doubt he was functioning as the recognized head of a faction preparing to make a claim to the throne. To do so would have been simply too dangerous.

As for Gotti consolidating power in the vacuum of Neil - I'm not buying that totally either. If Neil were more or less out of the picture, why then did Gotti wait until he was gone before making the move? This theory rests heavily on the assumption that Neil had taken a backseat...and I"m not sure what if anything substantiates that theory.

We're talking about the one mob figure who's life has been scrutinized and put under the microscope to be examined in the smallest detail to the point that if this were true, I'd think we would have known it by now. If this had been the case, why did Gravano not testify to that fact? Although he came later, same question for diLeonardo?

If it were a known fact on the street that Gotti was the go-to guy in that family, I think it would have been known by now. And had it been the case, I think Gotti would have been dead before Paul.

Definitely not. Gotti was technically only acting capo of his crew. He had total control over his crew but Paul I dint think ever gave him the official capo tittle which was another thing that pissed Gotti off about Paul

What about the idea of say in Autumn 85 as Gotti as a head of a faction? Composed of his crew, Dellacroce people. A Family within a Family that Paul didn’t really have much control over, and having less direct control over the rest of it. Like three or so families in one. Bilotti running things day to day for Paul and a faction, Gotti running things day to day for Neil, maybe Gallo doing his own thing in the vacuum

Sammy wouldn’t have known because he was part of the Castellano regime until very late in the game. So to him until whenever he “flipped” to Gotti, Paul was his Boss.

Truth is we don’t know how confusing things were in 85. The Boss was on trial. The Underboss was dying. Gotti was metaphorically on trial, possibly on the verge of being murdered or busted down to Soldier. Paul’s occupied day to day with fuckin court minutes. Who was occupied with running shit? I feel there was a few big vacuums. Just in autumn to winter 1985.