Absolutely. I should have said, in this particular case, hatred of Gotti and his nonsense probably factored more in to it than whether or not stanfa was a sigi.
What's curious is that, if these were "men of honor" they would have not allowed Stanfa to become boss because of his "role" in the Bruno murder. But Along that thinking, Gotti would be done too. At least Manna tried to kill Gotti.
Bottom line, in looking at the arc of Joey Merlino and his ascension to the throne, it's highly dysfunctional, to say the least. Some may argue that it's a complete farce. It's fucking nonsense to be exact. There is zero argument that he woulda disappeared in NYC for his antics.
PB, I know that you always preface "I know little about Philly" but, in Merlinos case, you really don't need to know about who's who back there. You have been around guys your whole life, who handle themselves a certain way. If you woulda seen Philly in the 90s, especially after the stanfa war, it was definitely not hidden, secret, big rackets, etc. It was pure gang intimidation, right out in the open. Anyone who went to the bars/clubs had it thrown in their face
The Chin's panel (Manna) wanted Gotti gone. Gotti installed Stanfa. The Chin is gonna support the opposite. Stanfa was a Gambino puppet.
Genovese has zero choice but to support the opposite.
Of course. There was a lot of bad blood there at the time. But it would have fit well into their thinking anyway. Because like I said, the Genovese family (post Vito Genovese) doesn't favor Sicilian born members. And Gigante in particular was partial to American born Italians.
And like I also said, sure, there are some Sicilian born members, but they're few and far between. I don't even have to go into specifics. All you have to do is look at the membership charts for the past forty or so years.
And today? If anyone thinks that guys like QD, or Barney, or Ernie, or any of the other heavies in that family, would have anything to do with Joey Merlino and his love of the media, then there's a bridge I want to sell you. Because they hated Gotti for his love of the camera as much as for popping Big Paul
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