What I don't understand is that, according to Sammy Gravano, Johnny Keys was at war and he was constantly surrounded by guys.
When you read Phil Leonetti's book, he barely mentions the situation and just say that Johnny Keys was opposing the new leadership and the Gambino wre going to kill him. It doesn't look like Testa and Scarfo felt they were at war with anybody. They made sure to eliminate the people behind Bruno's death and Keys was one of them but it was hardly a war.
So to me, when Johnny Keys said he was at war, he was mostly protecting himself from being targeted by the Family. I mean, on his part, he didnn't do anything against the new leadership; He didn't attack any of their members.
He was up in North Jersey and pretty sure the next show he will say he met with Phil and or Nick or similar to kill Keys unless that meeting took place before and Sammy fucked up the story but pretty sure there was a meeting : Nick went to Bobby Mana and Bobby went to Gambino’s and possibly others to make like it was a commission hit .... sure it was Nick - Westside - Gambinos getting Keys huge racket package for it to be done through the commission.... just like Sammy said . There was no way was Philly guys were doing that hit , he was ready for that . But he had to take a chance with the NY guys or flip .... he was dead because they would of started to kill him men and thats another reason the bosses got involved....they didn’t want 25 guys being clipped in there strong hold up there ..... would of brought major heat .
Serpiente - here’s the way I heard the story. How does line up with what you know?
I was told - Johnny Keys was not involved in the Bruno hit. He met with the guys that were right after to try and find out what was going on (Tony Bananas was also under Johnny Keys until Newark was given their own capo). Tony Bananas admitted to him that he was involved and got permission from the Westside. Johnny Keys was furious and he thought Phil Testa and Scarfo were also involved and he wouldn’t have his crew fall inline. He refused to come in and Scarfo put in a beef with Chin through Bobby Manna. While that was happening Johnny Keys was testing his support from Cleveland and the Gambinos (through Nicky Russo) to take over the family. Like you said he really didn’t have a choice. The Commission said he had to go because he wouldn’t come in. But really it was because the Westside wouldnt have complete control over him and the Gambinos would get a much larger piece of the Trenton area rackets with him gone. I’m sure there was more to it if that’s even correct but the way it was told to me sounded more like he got hit because he was a Bruno loyalist.
He probably had to take the chance meeting with Sammy but all this talk about him recently does make me wonder what would have happened if the Westside wasn’t so strong and Gambinos backed him and it all went down differently. Guys who were around Keys died of natural causes in Florida.
