That's not really an excuse when you look at Paul Castellanos kids. Hell even Junior Gotti at one point went to visit his dying father and told him in a video recorded conversation that he was getting out. And I fucking hate Junior Gotti for being another pathological liar, but it is what it is. He had enough and faced his father and got out of the life.


Michael Franzese, faced his father, got out of the life, and took the consequences, which was his father having no association with him for a very long time. And at the behest of his father they rekindled their relationship later on down the line.

You have Nicky Jr. Whom followed his father into the life, but did things how he wanted to do them. By most accounts he never acted like the tough guy, he never threw his weight around, and he took a different path to earn. Did he follow his fathers orders? Yes, but he knew his place and he knew he was no killer.

You have stories of Leonetti showing up to high schools with a gun in his wasteband. Moe linked the 60 minutes interview and his attitude comes through on numerous occasions whenever hes asked something he doesnt want to be asked. The guy killed Falcone and then had a long relationship with Falcones former girlfriend and felt nothing over it. Falcone is another guy Leonetti calls a "friend" and who he once killed with. None of these guys should be excused, especially Phil Leonetti. He did nothing to stop Salvie Testas murder. NOTHING. You have two informants who've stated that he egged it on after a while when they couldn't get to him. He used the feds to steal close to a million dollars from his uncle, to fund his new life. THATS why he's stayed out of trouble, like I said before, most mob informants don't have the priviledge of having uncles who were mob bosses whom they were able to steal from while the latter sat in prison for the rest of his foreseeable life. And he simply put his uncles money into what he knew, construction and concrete and lives off that to this very day.

Phil Leonetti loved the mob life and everything that came with it, he loved the power, he loved the fear he put into people, he loved the feeling of invincibility. And he only gave it up because he couldn't deal with the fate of his life choice like the real gangsters and tough guys do. He turned rat. You can't blame his uncle for this, especially when it's probable he would've turned out like this either way, considering his father was also a low-ranking mobster. Even with his domineering uncle, the path Phil took was his and his alone and it was all his choice. That isn't defending Nicky Scarfo, that's the fact of the matter. Leonetti became just as much, if not more of a nutjob as Nicky Scarfo was. And he loved every second of it.