Was Tommy Gioeli originally under Scarpa? Wikipedia which is notoriously inaccurate says he flipped allegiances during the war. I've read a few books on Scarpa and never seen Gioeli's name mentioned. No one has mentioned the role Carmine Sessa played in the war, he basically kicked things off by running and telling the Persico side of the vote Orena intended on holding. Did Sessa testify against his brother who got life? Carmine they say flipped within minutes of getting arrested.
The Orena side seemed to have support of other families, no hands on help, but tacit approval to takeover. Joel Cacace was another guy from the Orena faction who had a crew of killers around him. It's amazing he survived the war, Scarpa really wanted him dead, they had a few shootouts. Cacace was supposedly vocal in labeling Scarpa a rat. It was a very interesting war with a lot of plots and subplots. I never had an interest in the Larry Mazza book, but I'm going take Nicky's recommendation and check it out.
Tommy Gioeli was always close to Scarpa and IIRC they were cousins although I could be wrong on that last part. Gioeli seems to have always been a staunch Persico loyalist and I haven’t seen anything indicating he switched sides. But I think the reason why he wasn’t linked to Scarpa much during the war is because Scarpa was a soldier in another crew (Scarpati crew) and Gioeli was a soldier in... I think it was the Russo Crew (JoJo and Chucky Russo). I am not at home so I cannot double check this in my notes. But IIRC, Gioeli was behind the Minerva/Imbergamo slayings on Long Island and the Russo cousins bragged about it to everyone on the Persico side (the Russo cousins were convicted of the LI slayings). So there’s that. Tommy Gioeli was inducted in 1987 but Scarpa wasn’t a capo so he was put in another crew and Gioeli had his own set of young hitters under him similar to Scarpa.
Carmine Sessa was the principle leader of the Persico faction when the war began, but his poor leadership meant guys like Joe Tomasello and Teddy Persico became the chief guys. Larry Mazza goes into detail about Sessa because Sessa was a young Scarpa associate like he was, and Sessa was a quiet, unassuming thief. Sessa was inducted in the late 80s IIRC and quickly rose to consigliere under Orena. Remember that consiglieres are supposed to hold the role for life, be well-respected, experienced, and intelligent. I don’t think Sessa ticked any of these boxes, and Mazza is vocal in his book about his opposition to Sessas promotion.
According to Mazza, Sessa was terrible at boasting morale at the dozens of Persico faction meetings he held, got flustered and stressed at bad news (guys like Joe Tomasello had to hold him out because he was always passing out upon hearing bad news).
When the indictments came down and all the top Persico guys went on the lam, Sessas wife negotiated a deal with the FBI. Sessa organised a secret meeting at a cathedral but never showed up. It was an FBI sting and all the top guys were arrested.
Sessa didn’t flip within minutes. He was on the lam for months.
