Chris Harvey was a wannabe. I would even go so far as to say that if he had been Italian like Senter or Testa, that Gaggi wouldn't have given him up to the Colombians. He was expendable.
I gotta disagree... somebody was going to go down for that. Chris was the perfect sacrificial lamb.. not only that but all that was mostly his fault. Even if he was 100% Italian he was going down, not even Gaggi could have protected him.
Very true Malandrino.Somebody was going down for that.They killed Danny Grillo a year before that,but thats another story.Had nothing to do with drugs.
I think being Italian really mattered in the mob at one time. And being Sicilian mattered even more and still matters somewhat. I can show circumstantial proof...
Notice how the best undercover agents always pretend to be Sicilians and not mainlanders? It is as if being Sicilian gave them a fast track to becoming a trusted insider. Portraying a Sicilian cover allowed them to become right hand men to the top people without even having to clip anyone to prove loyalty. Salvadore Vizzini and Joe Pistone were Sicilians pretending to be corrupt Sicilians. Joachim Garcia was a Cuban pretending to be a corrupt Sicilian, but always Sicilian was their cover.
Notice how Al Capone was sort of sent away to prison after the new Commission acknowledged him as a mafia father. He could never join before because he wasn't Sicilian. Then they let him in and he is sort of shelved into a prison supposedly to take the heat off the mafia in general, but I think it was also a move to appease the old time Sicilians that didn't approve of Capone being a Don.
Notice how many of the post 1931 bosses to fall in the classic age of gangsters were non Sicilian and/or non Italian? Dutch Schultz, Lepke, Siegel?
And then there are Gaggi's comments about how (at the time he said it) the Gambino family was a Sicilian establishment. I am certain Gaggi didn't approve of Gotti partially because Gotti was not Sicilian. Certain of it.
There are mob tales of sit downs over beefs that did not end in capital punishment but rather a payment of money as recompense. I am sure that if Chris Demeo was an insider Sicilian that someone could have gone to bat for him and make a show of force and even offer to pay his way out of the beef. At that time the mafia in America was a large army, and the Gambinos were feared. They could speak forcefully to the Colombians and give them an offer they couldn't refuse.
Maybe you guys are right. But I wonder how it would have went if "Chris Demeo" was not a wanna be Italian like he was, but was instead a real Sicilian with nepotistic connections in America and back in the old country. It would be a matter of pride for the Gambinos to kill a Sicilian Italian just because some Colombians demanded it.
