by Angelo Santino » Sun Feb 16, 2020 5:52 am
Ferrigno was living in the Bronx, but like Lupo, D'Aquila, and Carlo Gambino, he had ties to both the Bronx and Brooklyn. That lends itself to the idea that he was part of the future Gambino family, as the Mineo-Profaci side of things was focused in Brooklyn and there was little to no presence in the Bronx. But then his brother ends up in the Profaci family, so who knows for sure which way things flowed then.
That's a good point. But perhaps its possible he was "transferred" over, seems like Masseria had no issue with 'installing' bosses.
Another name to throw in there is the Palermitano Giuseppe Peraino. His role gets muddied up because he worked with Frankie Yale and anyone who ever looked Yale in the eyes got labeled in contemporary LE and media reports as a Yale subordinate without much substance to it. Peraino's sons would end up in the Profaci family, but beyond that, Peraino's closest associates were from Carini and fairly recently I found some threads that indicate his Carinesi associates were connected or even related to the influential Carini faction of the Profaci family. Peraino traveled to Sicily in the late 1920s, too, along with his wife and younger children, visiting a relative in Palermo Centro.
Yale worked with everybody, oddly he was called Lupo's lieutenant by Agent Palma
before Lupo was released from prison where he'd been for 10 years.
At the time of his death, Peraino is described by all sources as a leader of some kind and available info points toward him being with the Mineo-DiBella-Profaci family. Following Peraino's murder, his adult son and brother-in-law were also murdered. This all transpires toward the end of the confusing period in question, after Mineo jumps to the D'Aquila family, DiBella becomes boss, and Profaci attends the 1928 Cleveland assembly possibly as a ranking representative of that group. It's not unheard of for people to hold high-ranking positions briefly, especially during periods of conflict (think of Scalise being boss only briefly before Mangano), so I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Peraino had a high-ranking position in that family before his death.
It's confusing and interesting at the same time.
While I can't connect him personally to Carini aside from his closest associates being from there, the Carinesi appear to have been the most influential groups of compaesani in the Profaci family aside from the Villabatesi, producing multiple captains and consiglieri. While limited, there is reason to speculate that this group had its roots under Peraino. Peraino's ties to Palermo Centro could lend itself to a Mineo connection, too.
I found some earlier Carinesi in Brooklyn on the same street/area Mineo was on, I think I shared it with you, they in 1910 were connected with Palermitan in the same area, I believe some Carinesi even had relatives in Palermo as its very close.
The question is, why was Peraino killed? His murder doesn't get linked to the Castellammarese War or related conflicts and most contemporary reports don't seem reliable. The subsequent murder of his son and brother-in-law are another significant piece of the puzzle.
That's a good question. I don't know hardly anything about Peraino. I learned more just now from what you wrote about him. Thank you.
We do have a murky idea at least of where Mangano fit in with the Masseria-Mineo faction during the war, making it pretty clear he was one of the top loyalists to Mineo at the time. Whether that was just circumstantial and out of self-interest rather than a sign that he was personally close to Mineo is hard to say (as it often is in the mafia), but Maranzano continued to see Mangano as a major threat even after the war and had him at the top of his alleged hitlist along with the new leaders of Masseria's family. We know that Frank Scalise and Giuseppe Traina were not-so-secretly sympathetic to the Maranzano-Gagliano faction and in Scalise's case he was a full-blown spy for them, while Mangano is described as an unwavering loyalist on the Masseria-Mineo side.
Interesting.
Traina on the other hand appears to have kept a neutral stance on the surface, whatever position he continued to hold officially. The fact that he was not only selected by the assembly to form a "peace" commission in 1930 but also allowed to hand-pick all of the other commission members (who were mostly bosses) speaks volumes to me. Even though Traina was a D'Aquila man who seems to have been opposed to the Masseria-Mineo faction that killed his compare D'Aquila, he appears to have been seen as a trustworthy party to both sides of the war and long afterward.
That it does. I mean usually before a boss is killed it's the people around him who get hit first and Traina didn't.
Joe Bonanno talked about how Commission meetings would be attended by an aide in addition to the boss, and I'd have to check, but I thought he said the boss could consult this aide. There is precedent with Traina and Mangano attending the 1928 meeting together, when Traina probably outranked Mangano. Based on the 1940 Treasury report, it appears that after the war Mangano and Traina continued this relationship where Traina was invited to participate in high-level matters as an "aide" (maybe more like senior counsel).
Almost makes me want to break down these meetings and look at who attended more. I never looked into the 1928 meeting.
What's interesting is that there is evidence Traina was the national representative for the Philadelphia family under D'Aquila, Mangano, and Carlo Gambino, so beyond being a possible "aide" to Mangano on the Commission, he had a specific duty when it came to Philadelphia's affairs that did not change for at least 50 years (the first example is his involvement in Sabella's 1919 election, the last known example being the 1969 Philly induction that Traina approved). After Traina's death, we see John Gambino filling a similar role in the mid-late 1980s where he suggests Reds Pontani as Philly acting boss and might be responsible for pushing Stanfa as boss in 1990, too, then in 2010 he presides over the meeting with the Philly leadership.
Interesting. Sorry I don't really have anything to add, in fact I'm learning.
In Valachi's FBI interviews, when they asked him about the consigliere position he said that sometimes the consiglieri are members of the Commission. This is sort of backed up by the Commission case of the 1980s, where it's clear that non-bosses not only participated in the Commission but even took an active role. Tony Salerno was not the official boss yet handled the Genovese family's Commission activities and we know underbosses Neil Dellacroce and Tom Santoro participated in the Commission alongside their bosses. In the 1960s, there are multiple reports that describe how Bonanno's acting boss John Morale had attended Commission meetings on his behalf. So Valachi is right that non-bosses could actively participate in the Commission.
Valachi also said that in 1931 the NYC families formed a separate "commission" consisting only of the consiglieri of the five families for handling disputes. I'd be curious if anyone else has ever mentioned this "commission of consiglieri". As Antiliar has shared, there was also apparently a "numbers commission" where each family had a representative to administer the then-thriving numbers operations in NYC. We know from Gentile's info that even during the days of the "boss of bosses", national assemblies would form commissions for specific purposes (which show that the boss of bosses wasn't just a micromanaging despot), so the idea of a "consiglieri commission" and "numbers commission" aren't that crazy and could be examples of an ongoing trend in the mafia to use specific commissions, pre-1931 and post-1931. With that in mind, the idea of the national Commission formed in 1931 isn't that revolutionary and we know they tried to put in place the first time before Maranzano even became boss of bosses.
What do you make of these claims? I took it as Valachi being confused or incorrect.
In Valachi's initial FBI interviews he used the word "sottocapo" to describe underboss. In my thread about that, I asked the same thing -- at what point did members themselves start using the term "underboss"? In the same way that the mafia has evolved to include "street bosses" and "ruling panels" (even when the official boss is on the street), I suspect that the sottocapo may have developed later than some of the other positions.
As the mafia became more well-known and bosses had to become more conscious of their activities and relationships, it's possible the sottocapo was created. Of course we're still talking over 100 years ago and this is just speculation, but it might explain why some early sources either gloss over the position or don't include it at all. Could be wrong and maybe they've always had it in some capacity but there is no doubt bosses used to be more hands on, including a boss of bosses like Morello, and the function of a true "sottocapo" is no different than a so-called street boss.
I agree "sosituto" makes the most sense as a form of "acting boss". It is a substitute when the official leader is unavailable. We tend to think of "acting boss" or "acting captain" as positions that only exist when a leader is semi-retired, in prison, or otherwise has some issue preventing him from running things. However, there are reported instances where an acting captain is appointed simply when the official captain is on a short vacation or just can't attend a meeting. It sounds like a "sostituto" was used the same way.
In the modern Sicilian mafia, we have seen the term "regente" used for the acting boss when a boss if imprisoned, so "regente" may be the modern version of "sostituto". Not sure if "regente" is only used for capomandamento or capoprovincia, but I believe it is used for any acting boss. Whether it's the term Italian LE has used or an actual term used by the mafia, maybe someone else can tell us, but it seems to be more or less synonymous with "sosituto".
It's possible.
I wouldn't necessarily say that D'Arco claimed it was the DeCavalcantes -- he only said NJ and it would make more sense if he referred to the Newark family given he said the Lucchese family was at some point affiliated with the NJ group (though we don't truly know if the DeCavalcantes were separate from Newark then). Corleonese Newark boss Stefano Badami came to the US with Tom Gagliano's brother-in-law Salvatore Pennino, himself a Corleonese mafioso whose sons would join the mafia in Corleone, and Badami told immigration authorities his arrival contact was Tom Gagliano, who is believed to have been the Reina underboss at the time. Whatever D'Arco got confused, we can see that the Newark boss Badami was closely tied to the Reina-Gagliano leadership when he arrived. More on that here:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=4545
I never read the D'Arco book, so point take on NJ
I don't recall Gentile's exact words, but he implied he was assigned to be a mediator or authority over multiple Agrigentesi decine but didn't hold an official rank, not even capodecina. The question is, why would this particular group of paesani need to have their own defacto authority figure over the Sciacchitani/Agrigentesi crews? Along the lines of the claim that the US mafia had its roots in Agrigento, it makes me think of how the New Orleans family didn't have to answer to the Commission out of respect for being the first family, which shows that the US mafia did afford respect to certain groups for their historical significance. This is blind speculation, but maybe the Agrigentesi were more or less allowed to administer their own affairs in the Gambino family because of some similar historical significance? Maybe this is why the DeCavalcantes were also allowed to exist as a small, relatively independent group on the fringes of NYC?
Yeah, possible.
I wouldn't rule out the possibilty that the Agrigentesi had a larger role in early New Orleans either, and that could reconcile the ideas that both Agrigento and New Orleans played a role in the birth of the US mafia. I have seen that many early Agrigentesi mafia figures arrived to the US via New Orleans, but I don't know if they stayed or what's known as far as Agrigento-born members in New Orleans. Salvatore Falcone of Utica was from Sciacca and married a Provenzano from New Orleans, the Provenzanos being an early NO mafia name. What we do know is Agrigento played a significant role in other early southern mafia families, including Birmingham, Tampa, and while not southern (but close enough), St. Louis. That suggests to me there was a foundation of Agrigentesi in NO that fanned out to those other southern-ish cities.
Something similar sort of plays out in Sicily when it comes to Agrigento province. A Sicilian mafia expert could correct me, but from what I've seen Agrigento was not immune the larger political conflicts of the island, but they come across much more insular and consumed with their own affairs than some of the other provinces.
It's possible Agrigentesi were in NO that early on, but they were never larger or greater or more influential than the Palermitans. Unless a group of Maggiore-Amari-Caternicchios arrived in 1840 to St Phillips and Decatur it's hard to place them anywhere close to being founders. And problem with imm. that early on is we'll be lucky if we get "Sicily" on the manifest.
[quote]Ferrigno was living in the Bronx, but like Lupo, D'Aquila, and Carlo Gambino, he had ties to both the Bronx and Brooklyn. That lends itself to the idea that he was part of the future Gambino family, as the Mineo-Profaci side of things was focused in Brooklyn and there was little to no presence in the Bronx. But then his brother ends up in the Profaci family, so who knows for sure which way things flowed then.[/quote]
That's a good point. But perhaps its possible he was "transferred" over, seems like Masseria had no issue with 'installing' bosses.
[quote]Another name to throw in there is the Palermitano Giuseppe Peraino. His role gets muddied up because he worked with Frankie Yale and anyone who ever looked Yale in the eyes got labeled in contemporary LE and media reports as a Yale subordinate without much substance to it. Peraino's sons would end up in the Profaci family, but beyond that, Peraino's closest associates were from Carini and fairly recently I found some threads that indicate his Carinesi associates were connected or even related to the influential Carini faction of the Profaci family. Peraino traveled to Sicily in the late 1920s, too, along with his wife and younger children, visiting a relative in Palermo Centro.[/quote]
Yale worked with everybody, oddly he was called Lupo's lieutenant by Agent Palma [i]before [/i]Lupo was released from prison where he'd been for 10 years.
[quote]At the time of his death, Peraino is described by all sources as a leader of some kind and available info points toward him being with the Mineo-DiBella-Profaci family. Following Peraino's murder, his adult son and brother-in-law were also murdered. This all transpires toward the end of the confusing period in question, after Mineo jumps to the D'Aquila family, DiBella becomes boss, and Profaci attends the 1928 Cleveland assembly possibly as a ranking representative of that group. It's not unheard of for people to hold high-ranking positions briefly, especially during periods of conflict (think of Scalise being boss only briefly before Mangano), so I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Peraino had a high-ranking position in that family before his death.[/quote]
It's confusing and interesting at the same time.
[quote]While I can't connect him personally to Carini aside from his closest associates being from there, the Carinesi appear to have been the most influential groups of compaesani in the Profaci family aside from the Villabatesi, producing multiple captains and consiglieri. While limited, there is reason to speculate that this group had its roots under Peraino. Peraino's ties to Palermo Centro could lend itself to a Mineo connection, too.[/quote]
I found some earlier Carinesi in Brooklyn on the same street/area Mineo was on, I think I shared it with you, they in 1910 were connected with Palermitan in the same area, I believe some Carinesi even had relatives in Palermo as its very close.
[quote]The question is, why was Peraino killed? His murder doesn't get linked to the Castellammarese War or related conflicts and most contemporary reports don't seem reliable. The subsequent murder of his son and brother-in-law are another significant piece of the puzzle.[/quote]
That's a good question. I don't know hardly anything about Peraino. I learned more just now from what you wrote about him. Thank you.
[quote]We do have a murky idea at least of where Mangano fit in with the Masseria-Mineo faction during the war, making it pretty clear he was one of the top loyalists to Mineo at the time. Whether that was just circumstantial and out of self-interest rather than a sign that he was personally close to Mineo is hard to say (as it often is in the mafia), but Maranzano continued to see Mangano as a major threat even after the war and had him at the top of his alleged hitlist along with the new leaders of Masseria's family. We know that Frank Scalise and Giuseppe Traina were not-so-secretly sympathetic to the Maranzano-Gagliano faction and in Scalise's case he was a full-blown spy for them, while Mangano is described as an unwavering loyalist on the Masseria-Mineo side.[/quote]
Interesting.
[quote]Traina on the other hand appears to have kept a neutral stance on the surface, whatever position he continued to hold officially. The fact that he was not only selected by the assembly to form a "peace" commission in 1930 but also allowed to hand-pick all of the other commission members (who were mostly bosses) speaks volumes to me. Even though Traina was a D'Aquila man who seems to have been opposed to the Masseria-Mineo faction that killed his compare D'Aquila, he appears to have been seen as a trustworthy party to both sides of the war and long afterward.[/quote]
That it does. I mean usually before a boss is killed it's the people around him who get hit first and Traina didn't.
Joe Bonanno talked about how Commission meetings would be attended by an aide in addition to the boss, and I'd have to check, but I thought he said the boss could consult this aide. There is precedent with Traina and Mangano attending the 1928 meeting together, when Traina probably outranked Mangano. Based on the 1940 Treasury report, it appears that after the war Mangano and Traina continued this relationship where Traina was invited to participate in high-level matters as an "aide" (maybe more like senior counsel).
Almost makes me want to break down these meetings and look at who attended more. I never looked into the 1928 meeting.
[quote]What's interesting is that there is evidence Traina was the national representative for the Philadelphia family under D'Aquila, Mangano, and Carlo Gambino, so beyond being a possible "aide" to Mangano on the Commission, he had a specific duty when it came to Philadelphia's affairs that did not change for at least 50 years (the first example is his involvement in Sabella's 1919 election, the last known example being the 1969 Philly induction that Traina approved). After Traina's death, we see John Gambino filling a similar role in the mid-late 1980s where he suggests Reds Pontani as Philly acting boss and might be responsible for pushing Stanfa as boss in 1990, too, then in 2010 he presides over the meeting with the Philly leadership.[/quote]
Interesting. Sorry I don't really have anything to add, in fact I'm learning.
[quote]In Valachi's FBI interviews, when they asked him about the consigliere position he said that sometimes the consiglieri are members of the Commission. This is sort of backed up by the Commission case of the 1980s, where it's clear that non-bosses not only participated in the Commission but even took an active role. Tony Salerno was not the official boss yet handled the Genovese family's Commission activities and we know underbosses Neil Dellacroce and Tom Santoro participated in the Commission alongside their bosses. In the 1960s, there are multiple reports that describe how Bonanno's acting boss John Morale had attended Commission meetings on his behalf. So Valachi is right that non-bosses could actively participate in the Commission.
Valachi also said that in 1931 the NYC families formed a separate "commission" consisting only of the consiglieri of the five families for handling disputes. I'd be curious if anyone else has ever mentioned this "commission of consiglieri". As Antiliar has shared, there was also apparently a "numbers commission" where each family had a representative to administer the then-thriving numbers operations in NYC. We know from Gentile's info that even during the days of the "boss of bosses", national assemblies would form commissions for specific purposes (which show that the boss of bosses wasn't just a micromanaging despot), so the idea of a "consiglieri commission" and "numbers commission" aren't that crazy and could be examples of an ongoing trend in the mafia to use specific commissions, pre-1931 and post-1931. With that in mind, the idea of the national Commission formed in 1931 isn't that revolutionary and we know they tried to put in place the first time before Maranzano even became boss of bosses.[/quote]
What do you make of these claims? I took it as Valachi being confused or incorrect.
[quote]In Valachi's initial FBI interviews he used the word "sottocapo" to describe underboss. In my thread about that, I asked the same thing -- at what point did members themselves start using the term "underboss"? In the same way that the mafia has evolved to include "street bosses" and "ruling panels" (even when the official boss is on the street), I suspect that the sottocapo may have developed later than some of the other positions.
As the mafia became more well-known and bosses had to become more conscious of their activities and relationships, it's possible the sottocapo was created. Of course we're still talking over 100 years ago and this is just speculation, but it might explain why some early sources either gloss over the position or don't include it at all. Could be wrong and maybe they've always had it in some capacity but there is no doubt bosses used to be more hands on, including a boss of bosses like Morello, and the function of a true "sottocapo" is no different than a so-called street boss.
I agree "sosituto" makes the most sense as a form of "acting boss". It is a substitute when the official leader is unavailable. We tend to think of "acting boss" or "acting captain" as positions that only exist when a leader is semi-retired, in prison, or otherwise has some issue preventing him from running things. However, there are reported instances where an acting captain is appointed simply when the official captain is on a short vacation or just can't attend a meeting. It sounds like a "sostituto" was used the same way.
In the modern Sicilian mafia, we have seen the term "regente" used for the acting boss when a boss if imprisoned, so "regente" may be the modern version of "sostituto". Not sure if "regente" is only used for capomandamento or capoprovincia, but I believe it is used for any acting boss. Whether it's the term Italian LE has used or an actual term used by the mafia, maybe someone else can tell us, but it seems to be more or less synonymous with "sosituto".[/quote]
It's possible.
[quote]I wouldn't necessarily say that D'Arco claimed it was the DeCavalcantes -- he only said NJ and it would make more sense if he referred to the Newark family given he said the Lucchese family was at some point affiliated with the NJ group (though we don't truly know if the DeCavalcantes were separate from Newark then). Corleonese Newark boss Stefano Badami came to the US with Tom Gagliano's brother-in-law Salvatore Pennino, himself a Corleonese mafioso whose sons would join the mafia in Corleone, and Badami told immigration authorities his arrival contact was Tom Gagliano, who is believed to have been the Reina underboss at the time. Whatever D'Arco got confused, we can see that the Newark boss Badami was closely tied to the Reina-Gagliano leadership when he arrived. More on that here: http://theblackhand.club/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=4545
[/quote]
I never read the D'Arco book, so point take on NJ
[quote]I don't recall Gentile's exact words, but he implied he was assigned to be a mediator or authority over multiple Agrigentesi decine but didn't hold an official rank, not even capodecina. The question is, why would this particular group of paesani need to have their own defacto authority figure over the Sciacchitani/Agrigentesi crews? Along the lines of the claim that the US mafia had its roots in Agrigento, it makes me think of how the New Orleans family didn't have to answer to the Commission out of respect for being the first family, which shows that the US mafia did afford respect to certain groups for their historical significance. This is blind speculation, but maybe the Agrigentesi were more or less allowed to administer their own affairs in the Gambino family because of some similar historical significance? Maybe this is why the DeCavalcantes were also allowed to exist as a small, relatively independent group on the fringes of NYC? [/quote]
Yeah, possible.
[quote]I wouldn't rule out the possibilty that the Agrigentesi had a larger role in early New Orleans either, and that could reconcile the ideas that both Agrigento and New Orleans played a role in the birth of the US mafia. I have seen that many early Agrigentesi mafia figures arrived to the US via New Orleans, but I don't know if they stayed or what's known as far as Agrigento-born members in New Orleans. Salvatore Falcone of Utica was from Sciacca and married a Provenzano from New Orleans, the Provenzanos being an early NO mafia name. What we do know is Agrigento played a significant role in other early southern mafia families, including Birmingham, Tampa, and while not southern (but close enough), St. Louis. That suggests to me there was a foundation of Agrigentesi in NO that fanned out to those other southern-ish cities.
Something similar sort of plays out in Sicily when it comes to Agrigento province. A Sicilian mafia expert could correct me, but from what I've seen Agrigento was not immune the larger political conflicts of the island, but they come across much more insular and consumed with their own affairs than some of the other provinces.[/quote]
It's possible Agrigentesi were in NO that early on, but they were never larger or greater or more influential than the Palermitans. Unless a group of Maggiore-Amari-Caternicchios arrived in 1840 to St Phillips and Decatur it's hard to place them anywhere close to being founders. And problem with imm. that early on is we'll be lucky if we get "Sicily" on the manifest.