This is reported in a lot of the books from the 80s to early 90s. That the “other bosses” feared Paul might flip rather than give up his slippers, Gloria and his bath robe

Is this based in any real taps or whatever of the Bosses

Or was it just pro Gotti media bullshit?

He was indicted in the huge Commission case was facing life in prison..

No one in the mob thought so. It was put put by law enforcement and mob writers who wanted Castellano to sound like a coward to the public dumb enough to believe it. If Gigante had been killed, they would have said he was going to rat, same for Gotti, Salerno, and others. There is no indication that he was going to talk. None.

Other than unproven speculation,2nd hand "sources",etc. I haven't seen anything to support this rumor.
Even Gravano,who has never been one to pass up an opportunity to do yet another YouTube video,has ever given this any validity.
The same speculation was floated about Dellacroce being a snitch.
It seems like these are just amateurish attempts by Law Enforcement to plant gossip.

Frankly Big Paul has been done dirty by LE / the media and I wish someone could write a fairer view of his era.

It seems his reign was on track to be up there with the greats until the Maid and Frank Piccolo.

The guy was like a Roman Emperor though, he literally presided over an empire. The meeting with the Westies where he made then a de facto Gambino crew reminds me of Rome conquering a Barbarian tribe and making them pay tribute.

The Mob today has ironically gone in the direction he wished it would: utterly secretive, mostly legit, mostly white collar. In a sense, he was a decade or two ahead of the game in the way he ran things. His major flaw was not seeing Gotti for the threat he posed and allowing the Bergin crew too much leeway.

I feel like he is a guy primed for a renaissance of popular opinion or a resetting of mainstream thought with Gotti and his loyalists all gone.

A guy who mentored and brought along the fearless Nino Gaggi wasn’t purely some racketeer. The man in terms of blood ordered more murders than Gotti did during his era.

This was an idea put forward in the Kurins/O'Brien book,, "Boss of Bosses." As has been discussed in another thread, that book had a lot of bullshit in it.

I don't believe it for a minute. Gotti fanboys have villainized Castellano to justify what happened there, but the reality is that while heavy handed and too white collar for the street faction of the Gambino family, Castellano's reign was one of competent and prudent management - guys that were too much heat and trouble like DeMeo were dealt with and the family was as legitimate and nefarious as it had ever been - still in the mid 1980's with deep political and business connections throughout mainstream society.

Bands of street thugs don't get to have those privileges - those are the purview of clever and intelligent gangsters like Castellano. He was more like a modern day Frank Costello than anything else. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't remotely as powerful as Costello was, but relative to their eras I think the comparison is fair.

Castellano was LCN going back decades and was LCN to the core, even if he wasn't much of a street thug in his senior years. There is neither any good source material nor a logical reason to believe that he would have flipped to team USA any more than Tony Ducks would have.

This was almost 20 years before Big Joey (who was facing the death penalty) and I would say there would be no possibility of Big Paul flipping. That precedent was still so far away from being set that there's just no chance, in my opinion.

I truly don't believe Paul would've sang. I don't think anyone in the mob inner circles really thought he would either. Not only was he pure LCN blood who never gave up his associates when he was arrested in his younger years, he had so much money, power and influence that if anyone had a high chance at beating a case, it was Paul.

I have a newspaper clipping from the ensuing commission trial after Paul was killed where one juror said that Paul might have walked.

Castellano also had the respect of the Sicilians that's why Riina was upset with Gotti.

Regarding the juror I have seen that too. The case against him was the weakest, but due to it being a RICO case he may have been convicted anyway. I think the judge would have tried to sway the juror towards a a conviction. Regardless, no way he was going to cooperate.

Paul made some bad decisions; but no-way was he was going to “sing”- cooperate… with the feds….

Also I’m getting tired of people saying Neil Dellacroce would have been a better boss then Paul….

Paul was the perfect choice or maybe Jimmy Brown Failla…

Anyone agree??

I don't even wanna give oxygen to such a ridiculous proposition. Paul Castellano was many things, some good, some bad, but no way on God's green earth would he have ever turned informant. No way! No how!

Whatever else he might have been, Paul was Cosa Nostra to the core. His father, grandfather, and uncles before him were. And so was he! He came from a long line of proud mafiosi.

The Castellano hit was sensational and intrigues all of us because like Ceasars assassination, it involves more Machiavellian intrigue than the court of the Medici's. Like Cassius, Brutus and Cicero, Dellacroce, Gotti and DeCicco mislead then plotted their leaders demise while smiling to his face. Paul was married to Carlo Gambino's sister, he was clearly the lead choice for succession to the head of the family even if Dellacroce was more popular. I believe the talk about Paul possibly flipping was started as justification for whacking him, in reality he had a good chance of beating the Empire Boulevard Auto theft case. When Gaggi's crew was decimated after Roy DeMeo murder, that left only the Billotti crew as Paul's muscle, with Gotti, DeCicco and Sammy's crews against with the other capos standing idle, that left only The Commission to avenge another Bosses murder, which they promptly did by killing DeCicco, Bobby Boriello and Ed Lino with no retribution by Gotti. Bilotti never should have been driving Paul around, since when is the Underboss the Boss's driver, if Bilotti hadn't been in the car with Paul at Sparks there would have been war and if Nino Gaggi's crew was still functional, the conspirators would have had serious problems.

Capeci wrote today that the wake last month of Lastorino indicates that the bad blood that flowed over the unsanctioned assassination of Mafia boss Paul (Big Paul) Castellano orchestrated by the late John Gotti appears to be over.

Good insight guys

If the feud was ever there in the first place. Capeci called it a fearsome beating at a funeral, with bikers beating up mobsters. Now he says it is all forgotten.

I approve this message. Paul doesn't get credit for the gangster he really was.

. Intend to agree. Say what you want ant about Paul. He wasn’t your classic street guy and he proved to be greedy but I do think there is a misconception about him being just a business man who wouldn’t resort to violence. We know that’s not true. He ordered the murders of many people including Demeo, The Eppolitos, Johnny Keys Simone, and even two of his daughters boyfriends. He was definitely a stone cold mobster when he felt he had to be