Great job analyzing the different sources, Chin.
I don't have time to go through the original sources and analyze them, but might also be worth looking into the aftermath of the hit in this thread, i.e. Robilotto + Rava murders, etc.
Situations before and after the Anastasia hit of interest to me:
"Dannarao" / Tommy Rava
- Magaddino says a guy called "Dannarao" (ph) was a Gambino capodecina in charge of roughly twelve other capodecinas following the Anastasia murder. "Dannarao" apparently killed his "underboss" without permission and was deceased by the mid-1960s. Dellacroce can be ruled out, as he was still alive then. That leaves Tommy Rava and Johnny Roberts Robilotto as the strongest candidates. "Dannarao" could easily translate phonetically to "Tommy Rava" or "Johnny Roberts" and they were leaders of their faction after the Anastasia murder.
- I lean toward Rava. Phonetically, D sounds like T and -rao is short like Rava. Rava also appears to have been the top authority over the Anastasia faction following the murder and there are reports that Robilotto was killed by Rava faction for going along with the new regime. Magaddino says the Gambino family was at risk of splitting into two families before Carlo Gambino became acting boss, so it's possible the Anastasia faction had declared a new admin with Rava as "boss" and Robilotto as "underboss", hence "Dannarao" killing his so-called "underboss". Not the first time we've seen a warring family with two opposing admins (Gagliano/Pinzolo, Maranzano/Parrino, Bonanno/DiGregorio, Magaddino/Fino, Persico/Orena)
- Another possibility with the underboss remark is that "Dannarao" was involved in the Frank Scalise murder. One of the controversies surrounding the Scalise murder is that Anastasia did not seek Commission approval for the murder. Apparently there was a rule that the Commission had to approve the murders of high-ranking members. This aspect of the Scalise murder is consistent with Magaddino's remark and Scalise is alleged by some sources to have been the underboss at the time of his murder, so that would also match.
- We also determined a while back that Rava lived for quite a while after his date of disappearance. There are two accounts of his murder, one that states Toddo Aurello shot him and another man to death in Florida, where his body was disposed of, and another that attributes Florida-based Gambino members with the entire murder and disposal. While the accounts differ when it comes to who specifically killed Rava and how he was killed, they both make it clear Rava was hiding in Florida for a period of time and Gambino members participated in his murder and the disposal of his body. Circumstantial evidence suggests Rava was alive through much of 1958 and possibly as late as early 1959.
Capodecina dei Capodecina
- Magaddino says "Dannarao" was a captain in charge of a large faction of other captains. On an earlier tape in his own office, Angelo Bruno refers to Neil Dellacroce as a "capodecina dei capodecina" circa early 1960s. Bruno was making a play on the term "capo dei capi", but he clearly implied that Dellacroce (who was then still a captain, not underboss) oversaw a faction of other captains. This is similar to how Magaddino described "Dannarao", but we know it's not Dellacroce, so we can deduce that the pro-Anastasia faction had a captain who served as the defacto leader over the other captains consistently from at least 1957, presumably under Rava, and that this continued under Dellacroce even before Dellacroce's promotion to underboss later in the 1960s.
- When Dellacroce became underboss, it makes more sense that he has captains reporting to him. We know all about the Dellacroce / "Manhattan" faction and how a chunk of the family's decinas reported almost exclusively to the underboss with little direct interaction with the Castellano / "Brooklyn" leadership through 1985. We knew the Dellacroce faction had its roots with Anastasia, but it is news to me that the same arrangement had been in place when Rava and Dellacroe were simply captains. This may have been like the "sostituto" arrangement mentioned by Gentile, where a chosen member is allowed to directly mediate issues specific to a certain faction of crews even though he technically doesn't outrank them.
Anastasia Admin Ranks
- Scalise is usually said to hold the underboss position at the time of his death, but there are also accounts of Scalise still having a decina under him that was split up after his death. It's possible for an underboss to have his own decina, or an admin member to retain influence over his old decina, but the underboss timeline is confusing with Chiri, Conte, and Scalise all alleged to have held the underboss position in some capacity during Anastasia's ~6 years as boss.
- Carlo Gambino used to be labeled Anastasia's underboss in books, documentaries, etc. but I think we can throw that out. It goes hand in hand with the idea that Carlo Gambino was the mastermind of the Anastasia hit, another idea that has been mostly disproven. Magaddino states definitively that Carlo Gambino was the family consigliere at the time of Anastasia's murder and this factored into him being selected acting boss. I defer to Magaddino when it comes to recent Commission matters he participated in. His recall from 40 years earlier is sharp, so five years is nothing.
- There is one FBI report where Tommy Rava is said to have been Anastasia's underboss. Aside from this one report, he's never mentioned along with the usual list of underbosses/admin members under Anastasia. If Rava is "Dannarao", Magaddino says Rava was still a captain during/after the Anastasia murder. However, given the references to a "capodecina dei capodecina" over the Anastasia faction, a position likely held by Rava before Dellacroce, it's possible someone mistook Rava for an admin member given his leadership over an entire faction. Still, I wouldn't rule out Rava holding the underboss position for a time given we don't know who (briefly) held the position right before Anastasia was killed. Acting admin positions double the number of possibilities.
- Bill Bonanno said Frank Scalise was consigliere in the early 1950s. Magaddino makes it clear Carlo Gambino was consigliere by 1957. Retracing steps further, Joe Biondo was elected consigliere in 1931 but I don't know when he's believed to have stepped down, only that he didn't hold the rank when he was promoted to underboss in 1957. Giuseppe Traina was likely the consigliere until 1931 and after "stepping down" to capodecina he continued to assist with top-level administrative matters for decades. If there was still a consiglio within each family, it's possible that accounts for some confusion.
- What stands out about the names alleged to hold admin ranks under Anastasia: Scalise, Gambino, Conte, and Chiri. These men are all Palermitani, most with Sicilian mafia ties and closely allied. It was a statistical probability at that time for a Palermitano to hold rank in the Gambino family, but it was likely a deliberate political choice, too, given Anastasia was a Calabrian.
- Albert Anastasia is impressive alone for being the first non-Palermitano boss of the Gambino family. It's crazy to look at actually:
Lupo - Palermo
D'Aquila - Palermo
Mineo - Palermo
Scalise - Palermo
Mangano - Palermo
Anastasia -
Calabria
Gambino - Palermo
Castellano - Palermo
Anastasia is like the Obama of the Gambino family.
Post-Anastasia Ranks
- Gambino is named acting boss for a provisional period before he becomes official and joins the Commission. Not sure if the underboss and consigliere were official right away or if there was a provisional period for them as well.
- Riccobono was not only forgiven for an unsanctioned boss murder, but elected consigliere, a position intended to mediate disputes among members. Riccobono was the leader of the anti-Anastasia faction that murdered a boss without sanction yet afterward he was elected to be an unbiased mediator who dictates policy.
- Joe Biondo's promotion to underboss is significant for the same reasons, in that he was one of the main Anastasia conspirators, but the difference is he is underboss, a position not intended to be as impartial as consigliere.
- Whether Gambino was a conspirator or not in the Anastasia murder, his initial administration was filled by men who killed Anastasia which speaks volumes about the message being sent.
- The pro-Anastasia faction having a "capodecina dei capodecina" serving as defacto leader could have been an arrangement based on the above. With no representation in the admin, they were given their own "sostituto", a defacto representative of the admin who can settle issues. There is precedent for this in the Gambino family, as Nick Gentile became the "sostituto" for the Sciacchitani, a faction that included multiple capodecinas. Gentile himself was only a soldier, but as "sostituto" he was a defacto leader/mediator over this group, not unlike the Rava/Dellacroce arrangement.
- Nino Conte died in 1958, so whatever role he would have held post-Anastasia was short-lived at best. Not sure what became of Salvatore Chiri.
Scalise Murder / Rumors
- Joe Riccobono was a relative of Frank Scalise. CC and Antiliar made a great chart in their article showing how the Scalise-Riccobono-Virzi clans are intertwined going back to the same neighborhood in Palermo. Anastasia's alleged plot to kill Riccobono may have stemmed from his relationship to Frank Scalise, and likewise Riccobono's plot to kill Anastasia must have been motivated partially by the murder of his cousins the Scalises.
- Valachi says he met with Frank Scalise not long before his murder and Scalise seemed to shrug off the situation he was in, though Valachi believed it was serious. Valachi was of the belief that Scalise was murdered for selling memberships.
- We hear variations of the story: Scalise was murdered for selling memberships behind Anastasia's back; Scalise and Anastasia were selling memberships together and Anastasia threw Scalise under the bus; Anastasia selling memberships on his own and killing Scalise for other reasons. What is clear is that there were persistent rumors that the family leaders were selling buttons. What isn't clear is exactly who was aware of it, who was actively doing it, and to what degree it factored into Anastasia's motivation for the Scalise murder.
- What makes mafia murders confusing is there are often multiple reasons for a murder. Members who get murdered in many cases have committed multiple infractions or there are several motivations for killing them. This makes it confusing when different sources / witnesses give different stories. Sometimes they are rumors or speculation, but other times they're all right, as multiple factors can contribute to a murder and usually do.
- Frank Scalise may have held every single rank available in the mafia. We have accounts of him briefly serving as boss, underboss, consigliere, captain, and he no doubt began as a soldier. He was also writing letters to mafia bosses in Palermo, exchanging code words about their organizations, in the years leading up to his murder (these letters were obtained by investigators and I've posted some of them). Scalise was arguably the most powerful leader within the Palermitani faction in NYC and he had influence in NJ and Connecticut. Whatever the true reason for the Scalise murder, Anastasia eliminated a significant rival. For all we know, the Palermitani reported to Scalise not unlike the way the Anastasia faction would report to Rava/Dellacroce. Maybe these sorts of arrangements are not new to the Gambino family.
- Felice posted that Pasquale Conte was rumored to be one of the members who purchased his membership. Many of us find this strange, as Conte's father was an underboss during the 1950s when members were being rapidly inducted. Many rumors circulated about members who bought membership and what would happen to their membership post-Apalachin, but Conte remained a member in good standing and was promoted to capodecina in the 1960s. It's easy to believe Conte's membership was due in part to his immense earning ability via Key (and heroin), but the idea of him outright purchasing his membership with a lump sum while his father sits at the highest levels of the family doesn't sit right. Not enough knowledge/opinion on the other names who allegedly paid -- does anyone know if any of them remained active in family affairs?
Squillante
- Do records back up Anastasia being Squillante's godfather? Anastasia was ~17 years older than Squillante, so may have been just old enough to have been godfather at Squillante's baptism or confirmation, but it would imply a close relationship between Anastasia and Squillante's parents. Or did Anastasia sponsor Squillante for mafia membership?
- Like every other murder mentioned here, the Squillante situation has its share of discrepancies. The pop narrative is that Squillante brutally killed Joe Scalise on Anastasia's orders after Anastasia promised to protect Scalise, which he broke. It's also been alleged that Squillante was involved with the Frank Scalise murder. Dominick Montiglio claimed Scalise's cousin Nino Gaggi killed Squillante in retaliation for the Scalise murders. Squillante died in 1960, nearly three years after Anastasia's death and even more since the Scalises were killed. I have a hard time believing Squillante was killed because of events in 1957.
- Valachi gave one account where Squillante was called before the Commission after Anastasia died and Squillante disparaged Anastasia which upset the Commission, as they felt it showed bad character for a loyal soldier to disparage his murdered boss. Basically it wasn't Squillante's loyalty to Anastasia that got him in troule, but his sudden disloyalty to Anastasia after the murder that made him look bad.
- Someone who provided info to the FBI hated Jimmy Squillante and that has colored some of our knowledge. A source referred to Squillante and his crew as wife-swapping degenerates and it may be the same source who claimed Squillante used the women in his house to clean up the blood from the gruesome Joe Scalise murder. Unless this was a close Squillante associate with personal knowledge, I'm hesitant to take it as is. Maybe there was an affair between Squillante and someone's wife and the rumor got exaggerated, entirely believable. Maybe Squillante did kill Joe Scalise in the dining room of his home and the wife knew about it. This is more believable than this idea of the Squillante crew as these heathen savages fucking everyone's wives and butchering bodies in front of women and children like a pagan ritual.
- All said and done, Squillante's a reasonable suspect in the Scalise murders. He was a Bronx Gambino member who interacted closely with them but allegedly had close loyalties to Anastasia. If the Joe Scalise murder story is true, Scalise still trusted Squillante after his brother's murder and was willing to enter his home without protection. This tells us Squillante was probably not seen as a total Anastasia fanatic and must have been pretty close to the Scalises.
Salvatore Chiri
- Magaddino spoke to ‘Toto’ and ‘Catone’ who consented [it is possible that one of these individuals is Antonio Conte]
- I'd guess he is referring to Salvatore "Toto" Chiri and Antonino Conte, who each allegedly held the position of underboss at some point under Anastasia. Given how wild some of the phonetic translations are, "Catone" could easily be "Conte". These were two family leaders who didn't retain their positions post-Anastasia, but it would make sense they would be consulted and asked to give consent to the regime change.
- Lucchese, Genovese, Riccobono, Biondo, Rava, Robilotto, Anthony Anastasio, Carmine Galante, ‘Charles Curry’ and others attended the meeting believed to be held at Boiardo’s farm
- "Charles Curry" is Salvatore Chiri. He went by Charles and Chiri is pronounced not too far from "Curry".
- There is still confusion about Chiri, as he gets catalogued as a Genovese soldier in many places. More reliable sources point to him as a longtime Gambino member who participated in the Castellammarese War and later became Anastasia's underboss.
- There is some confusion, as a couple of solid sources refer to him as Toto Chirico and some researchers have speculated that it's an entirely different guy. There is still room to discuss these discrepancies but I think circumstantial evidence suggests they're the same guy. Chiri's family came from a Palermo neighborhood right next to the Scalises and Riccobonos and Chiri had been a Bronx guy before moving to NJ, possibly keeping a residence in the Bronx area until his death.
- He's still something of a mystery despite being a high-ranking member in the 1950s. Given their background in the same Palermo neighborhoods and the Bronx connection, I'm curious what connection there was between Chiri and Scalise.
Antonino Conte / Scalise Connections
- The most mysterious Gambino leader in the 1950s is Conte. The Contes may have been in the Scalise crew earlier on. Not sure the source, but the NYC inductions thread on here says Nino Conte sponsored Frank Scalise's brother Jack for membership. Joseph and his son Louis DiBono would end up under Scalise's successor David Amodeo, then the DiBonos end up under Pasquale Conte, whose father as mentioned sponsored Jack Scalise. These are all Palermitani and it seems like they trace back to the Scalise crew or faction.
- Looks like the Scalise crew had a wide range of geography. Scalise and the core of his crew were based in the Bronx, but his relative Scarpulla ran butcher shops in Brooklyn. Montiglio says Nino Gaggi started out under Scalise when Gaggi was based in Manhattan and later Brooklyn. Scalise soldiers Anthony Carminati and Patty Delchop moved to New Jersey and operated there. Supposedly the Connecticut crew has its roots in Frank Scalise's group and this is supported to some degree by the Bronx crews periodically taking over operations in CT. One source even thought the Gambino Baltimore crew traces back to Scalise. Scalise had an uncle, possibly a mafioso, on Long Island. If the DiBonos and Contes were with him originally, that opens it up to practically all of NYC.
- Scalise didn't have just a crew, but a faction. By 1957, Scalise's cousin Joe Riccobono was a capodecina. The Gambino brothers started in the Bronx and served as spies for Scalise during the Castellammarese War, then Carlo became capodecina then consigliere. Carlo's cousins the Castellana/Castellanos had their own decina, no doubt aligned behind Scalise like the Gambinos. Then you throw in many other adjacent figures and crews. Scalise appears to have been at the top of a huge faction with constant representation at underboss/consigliere.
- Back to Nino Conte, his son Pasquale was said to be a heroin trafficker in addition to top businessman. Conte maintained close ties to Sicilians, attended the Bono wedding, and allegedly ordered the murder of a Sicilian "zip" during the Pizza Connection trial. Said to have supplied Castellano and Gotti with heroin profits. Produced some of the modern zips, like the Cefalus. You have to wonder how much of this traces back to Nino. Was Nino connected to the Sicilian mafia in Palermo and maintained ties to them? Was he involved in drug trafficking? Hard to believe Patsy Conte stumbled into all of that on his own.
Albert Expanding Away from Sicilians
- The FBI reported a rumor that Albert Anastasia wanted to change the rules so that 'ndrangheta members could be recognized as the same thing as the mafia and join his family. It was rejected and never happened. After this, Angelo Bruno was recorded talking about how his former boss and Anastasia's friend Joe Ida was living in Calabria trying to receive approval to induct some of the local Calabrian boys into Cosa Nostra so he could have a mafia decina in Calabria. This would be a decina of the Philly family based in Italy. Again, nothing came of it, but Vallelunga boss Calogero Sinatra was going to put Ida in touch with the Sicilian mafia for approval.
- Anastasia had close friendships with Calabrian members of the US mafia. In addition to Joe Ida, Anastasia was a friend of Joe Rugnetta, the Calabrese leader of Philly. Don't need to even mention Frank Costello. Calabrian Antonio Caponigro started under Anastasia before joining Philly. It's not far-fetched that Anastasia wanted to at least extend the reach/power of the Calabrian network within the US mafia.
- This would have happened just a few short years before the floodgates opened and Sicilian "zips" entered the US and joined Anastasia's Palermitani rivals. The Sicilian mafia allowed some members to transfer to the US while others (like Rosario Gambino) didn't join local families but still had their button recognized in the US as associates of the Gambino family. These "zips" were in some cases distant relatives of Gambino leaders and most of them were from the same neighborhoods many longtime Gambino members were from. This took a strong faction and gave it even more reach and muscle.
- I don't know if Albert Anastasia knew Frank Scalise was writing coded letters to Palermo mafia bosses or that Paolo Gambino was serving a major liaison between the Sicilian and US mafia, but he could clearly understand that this rival faction had resources not only in North America but also manpower from Sicily they could recruit. If it's true Anastasia wanted to recruit men from Calabria, he might well have wanted to counteract what the Sicilians were doing by bringing in men of his own heritage. Hard to know what Anastasia was seeing and thinking back then, but he may have seen the wealthy, well-connected Palermitani in his family and wanted to put a stop to it. Killing the Scalises and then their cousin Riccobono would have been as bold of a statement someone could make if they wanted to send the Palermitani a message.
- What's amazing is that half the family split off out of loyalty to Anastasia. For a Calabrian with a ruthless reputation, there sure were many Gambino members on his side even after death. A handful of crews continued to operate as their own faction up through the mid-1980s and they were remnant of a faction that could be traced nearly thirty years back to Anastasia. You didn't have guys saying, "We're the Vincent Mangano faction" in 1981, yet in 1985 there was still a group of guys with a portrait of Anastasia on their club wall who would tell you they trace back to Anastasia.
Great job analyzing the different sources, Chin.
I don't have time to go through the original sources and analyze them, but might also be worth looking into the aftermath of the hit in this thread, i.e. Robilotto + Rava murders, etc.
Situations before and after the Anastasia hit of interest to me:
[b]"Dannarao" / Tommy Rava[/b]
- Magaddino says a guy called "Dannarao" (ph) was a Gambino capodecina in charge of roughly twelve other capodecinas following the Anastasia murder. "Dannarao" apparently killed his "underboss" without permission and was deceased by the mid-1960s. Dellacroce can be ruled out, as he was still alive then. That leaves Tommy Rava and Johnny Roberts Robilotto as the strongest candidates. "Dannarao" could easily translate phonetically to "Tommy Rava" or "Johnny Roberts" and they were leaders of their faction after the Anastasia murder.
- I lean toward Rava. Phonetically, D sounds like T and -rao is short like Rava. Rava also appears to have been the top authority over the Anastasia faction following the murder and there are reports that Robilotto was killed by Rava faction for going along with the new regime. Magaddino says the Gambino family was at risk of splitting into two families before Carlo Gambino became acting boss, so it's possible the Anastasia faction had declared a new admin with Rava as "boss" and Robilotto as "underboss", hence "Dannarao" killing his so-called "underboss". Not the first time we've seen a warring family with two opposing admins (Gagliano/Pinzolo, Maranzano/Parrino, Bonanno/DiGregorio, Magaddino/Fino, Persico/Orena)
- Another possibility with the underboss remark is that "Dannarao" was involved in the Frank Scalise murder. One of the controversies surrounding the Scalise murder is that Anastasia did not seek Commission approval for the murder. Apparently there was a rule that the Commission had to approve the murders of high-ranking members. This aspect of the Scalise murder is consistent with Magaddino's remark and Scalise is alleged by some sources to have been the underboss at the time of his murder, so that would also match.
- We also determined a while back that Rava lived for quite a while after his date of disappearance. There are two accounts of his murder, one that states Toddo Aurello shot him and another man to death in Florida, where his body was disposed of, and another that attributes Florida-based Gambino members with the entire murder and disposal. While the accounts differ when it comes to who specifically killed Rava and how he was killed, they both make it clear Rava was hiding in Florida for a period of time and Gambino members participated in his murder and the disposal of his body. Circumstantial evidence suggests Rava was alive through much of 1958 and possibly as late as early 1959.
[b]Capodecina dei Capodecina[/b]
- Magaddino says "Dannarao" was a captain in charge of a large faction of other captains. On an earlier tape in his own office, Angelo Bruno refers to Neil Dellacroce as a "capodecina dei capodecina" circa early 1960s. Bruno was making a play on the term "capo dei capi", but he clearly implied that Dellacroce (who was then still a captain, not underboss) oversaw a faction of other captains. This is similar to how Magaddino described "Dannarao", but we know it's not Dellacroce, so we can deduce that the pro-Anastasia faction had a captain who served as the defacto leader over the other captains consistently from at least 1957, presumably under Rava, and that this continued under Dellacroce even before Dellacroce's promotion to underboss later in the 1960s.
- When Dellacroce became underboss, it makes more sense that he has captains reporting to him. We know all about the Dellacroce / "Manhattan" faction and how a chunk of the family's decinas reported almost exclusively to the underboss with little direct interaction with the Castellano / "Brooklyn" leadership through 1985. We knew the Dellacroce faction had its roots with Anastasia, but it is news to me that the same arrangement had been in place when Rava and Dellacroe were simply captains. This may have been like the "sostituto" arrangement mentioned by Gentile, where a chosen member is allowed to directly mediate issues specific to a certain faction of crews even though he technically doesn't outrank them.
[b]Anastasia Admin Ranks[/b]
- Scalise is usually said to hold the underboss position at the time of his death, but there are also accounts of Scalise still having a decina under him that was split up after his death. It's possible for an underboss to have his own decina, or an admin member to retain influence over his old decina, but the underboss timeline is confusing with Chiri, Conte, and Scalise all alleged to have held the underboss position in some capacity during Anastasia's ~6 years as boss.
- Carlo Gambino used to be labeled Anastasia's underboss in books, documentaries, etc. but I think we can throw that out. It goes hand in hand with the idea that Carlo Gambino was the mastermind of the Anastasia hit, another idea that has been mostly disproven. Magaddino states definitively that Carlo Gambino was the family consigliere at the time of Anastasia's murder and this factored into him being selected acting boss. I defer to Magaddino when it comes to recent Commission matters he participated in. His recall from 40 years earlier is sharp, so five years is nothing.
- There is one FBI report where Tommy Rava is said to have been Anastasia's underboss. Aside from this one report, he's never mentioned along with the usual list of underbosses/admin members under Anastasia. If Rava is "Dannarao", Magaddino says Rava was still a captain during/after the Anastasia murder. However, given the references to a "capodecina dei capodecina" over the Anastasia faction, a position likely held by Rava before Dellacroce, it's possible someone mistook Rava for an admin member given his leadership over an entire faction. Still, I wouldn't rule out Rava holding the underboss position for a time given we don't know who (briefly) held the position right before Anastasia was killed. Acting admin positions double the number of possibilities.
- Bill Bonanno said Frank Scalise was consigliere in the early 1950s. Magaddino makes it clear Carlo Gambino was consigliere by 1957. Retracing steps further, Joe Biondo was elected consigliere in 1931 but I don't know when he's believed to have stepped down, only that he didn't hold the rank when he was promoted to underboss in 1957. Giuseppe Traina was likely the consigliere until 1931 and after "stepping down" to capodecina he continued to assist with top-level administrative matters for decades. If there was still a consiglio within each family, it's possible that accounts for some confusion.
- What stands out about the names alleged to hold admin ranks under Anastasia: Scalise, Gambino, Conte, and Chiri. These men are all Palermitani, most with Sicilian mafia ties and closely allied. It was a statistical probability at that time for a Palermitano to hold rank in the Gambino family, but it was likely a deliberate political choice, too, given Anastasia was a Calabrian.
- Albert Anastasia is impressive alone for being the first non-Palermitano boss of the Gambino family. It's crazy to look at actually:
Lupo - Palermo
D'Aquila - Palermo
Mineo - Palermo
Scalise - Palermo
Mangano - Palermo
Anastasia - [b]Calabria[/b]
Gambino - Palermo
Castellano - Palermo
Anastasia is like the Obama of the Gambino family.
[b]Post-Anastasia Ranks[/b]
- Gambino is named acting boss for a provisional period before he becomes official and joins the Commission. Not sure if the underboss and consigliere were official right away or if there was a provisional period for them as well.
- Riccobono was not only forgiven for an unsanctioned boss murder, but elected consigliere, a position intended to mediate disputes among members. Riccobono was the leader of the anti-Anastasia faction that murdered a boss without sanction yet afterward he was elected to be an unbiased mediator who dictates policy.
- Joe Biondo's promotion to underboss is significant for the same reasons, in that he was one of the main Anastasia conspirators, but the difference is he is underboss, a position not intended to be as impartial as consigliere.
- Whether Gambino was a conspirator or not in the Anastasia murder, his initial administration was filled by men who killed Anastasia which speaks volumes about the message being sent.
- The pro-Anastasia faction having a "capodecina dei capodecina" serving as defacto leader could have been an arrangement based on the above. With no representation in the admin, they were given their own "sostituto", a defacto representative of the admin who can settle issues. There is precedent for this in the Gambino family, as Nick Gentile became the "sostituto" for the Sciacchitani, a faction that included multiple capodecinas. Gentile himself was only a soldier, but as "sostituto" he was a defacto leader/mediator over this group, not unlike the Rava/Dellacroce arrangement.
- Nino Conte died in 1958, so whatever role he would have held post-Anastasia was short-lived at best. Not sure what became of Salvatore Chiri.
[b]Scalise Murder / Rumors[/b]
- Joe Riccobono was a relative of Frank Scalise. CC and Antiliar made a great chart in their article showing how the Scalise-Riccobono-Virzi clans are intertwined going back to the same neighborhood in Palermo. Anastasia's alleged plot to kill Riccobono may have stemmed from his relationship to Frank Scalise, and likewise Riccobono's plot to kill Anastasia must have been motivated partially by the murder of his cousins the Scalises.
- Valachi says he met with Frank Scalise not long before his murder and Scalise seemed to shrug off the situation he was in, though Valachi believed it was serious. Valachi was of the belief that Scalise was murdered for selling memberships.
- We hear variations of the story: Scalise was murdered for selling memberships behind Anastasia's back; Scalise and Anastasia were selling memberships together and Anastasia threw Scalise under the bus; Anastasia selling memberships on his own and killing Scalise for other reasons. What is clear is that there were persistent rumors that the family leaders were selling buttons. What isn't clear is exactly who was aware of it, who was actively doing it, and to what degree it factored into Anastasia's motivation for the Scalise murder.
- What makes mafia murders confusing is there are often multiple reasons for a murder. Members who get murdered in many cases have committed multiple infractions or there are several motivations for killing them. This makes it confusing when different sources / witnesses give different stories. Sometimes they are rumors or speculation, but other times they're all right, as multiple factors can contribute to a murder and usually do.
- Frank Scalise may have held every single rank available in the mafia. We have accounts of him briefly serving as boss, underboss, consigliere, captain, and he no doubt began as a soldier. He was also writing letters to mafia bosses in Palermo, exchanging code words about their organizations, in the years leading up to his murder (these letters were obtained by investigators and I've posted some of them). Scalise was arguably the most powerful leader within the Palermitani faction in NYC and he had influence in NJ and Connecticut. Whatever the true reason for the Scalise murder, Anastasia eliminated a significant rival. For all we know, the Palermitani reported to Scalise not unlike the way the Anastasia faction would report to Rava/Dellacroce. Maybe these sorts of arrangements are not new to the Gambino family.
- Felice posted that Pasquale Conte was rumored to be one of the members who purchased his membership. Many of us find this strange, as Conte's father was an underboss during the 1950s when members were being rapidly inducted. Many rumors circulated about members who bought membership and what would happen to their membership post-Apalachin, but Conte remained a member in good standing and was promoted to capodecina in the 1960s. It's easy to believe Conte's membership was due in part to his immense earning ability via Key (and heroin), but the idea of him outright purchasing his membership with a lump sum while his father sits at the highest levels of the family doesn't sit right. Not enough knowledge/opinion on the other names who allegedly paid -- does anyone know if any of them remained active in family affairs?
[b]Squillante[/b]
- Do records back up Anastasia being Squillante's godfather? Anastasia was ~17 years older than Squillante, so may have been just old enough to have been godfather at Squillante's baptism or confirmation, but it would imply a close relationship between Anastasia and Squillante's parents. Or did Anastasia sponsor Squillante for mafia membership?
- Like every other murder mentioned here, the Squillante situation has its share of discrepancies. The pop narrative is that Squillante brutally killed Joe Scalise on Anastasia's orders after Anastasia promised to protect Scalise, which he broke. It's also been alleged that Squillante was involved with the Frank Scalise murder. Dominick Montiglio claimed Scalise's cousin Nino Gaggi killed Squillante in retaliation for the Scalise murders. Squillante died in 1960, nearly three years after Anastasia's death and even more since the Scalises were killed. I have a hard time believing Squillante was killed because of events in 1957.
- Valachi gave one account where Squillante was called before the Commission after Anastasia died and Squillante disparaged Anastasia which upset the Commission, as they felt it showed bad character for a loyal soldier to disparage his murdered boss. Basically it wasn't Squillante's loyalty to Anastasia that got him in troule, but his sudden disloyalty to Anastasia after the murder that made him look bad.
- Someone who provided info to the FBI hated Jimmy Squillante and that has colored some of our knowledge. A source referred to Squillante and his crew as wife-swapping degenerates and it may be the same source who claimed Squillante used the women in his house to clean up the blood from the gruesome Joe Scalise murder. Unless this was a close Squillante associate with personal knowledge, I'm hesitant to take it as is. Maybe there was an affair between Squillante and someone's wife and the rumor got exaggerated, entirely believable. Maybe Squillante did kill Joe Scalise in the dining room of his home and the wife knew about it. This is more believable than this idea of the Squillante crew as these heathen savages fucking everyone's wives and butchering bodies in front of women and children like a pagan ritual.
- All said and done, Squillante's a reasonable suspect in the Scalise murders. He was a Bronx Gambino member who interacted closely with them but allegedly had close loyalties to Anastasia. If the Joe Scalise murder story is true, Scalise still trusted Squillante after his brother's murder and was willing to enter his home without protection. This tells us Squillante was probably not seen as a total Anastasia fanatic and must have been pretty close to the Scalises.
[b]Salvatore Chiri[/b]
[quote]- Magaddino spoke to [b]‘Toto’ and ‘Catone’[/b] who [b]consented[/b] [it is possible that one of these individuals is Antonio Conte][/quote]
- I'd guess he is referring to Salvatore "Toto" Chiri and Antonino Conte, who each allegedly held the position of underboss at some point under Anastasia. Given how wild some of the phonetic translations are, "Catone" could easily be "Conte". These were two family leaders who didn't retain their positions post-Anastasia, but it would make sense they would be consulted and asked to give consent to the regime change.
[quote]- Lucchese, Genovese, Riccobono, Biondo, Rava, Robilotto, Anthony Anastasio, Carmine Galante, [b]‘Charles Curry’[/b] and others attended the meeting believed to be held at Boiardo’s farm[/quote]
- "Charles Curry" is Salvatore Chiri. He went by Charles and Chiri is pronounced not too far from "Curry".
- There is still confusion about Chiri, as he gets catalogued as a Genovese soldier in many places. More reliable sources point to him as a longtime Gambino member who participated in the Castellammarese War and later became Anastasia's underboss.
- There is some confusion, as a couple of solid sources refer to him as Toto Chirico and some researchers have speculated that it's an entirely different guy. There is still room to discuss these discrepancies but I think circumstantial evidence suggests they're the same guy. Chiri's family came from a Palermo neighborhood right next to the Scalises and Riccobonos and Chiri had been a Bronx guy before moving to NJ, possibly keeping a residence in the Bronx area until his death.
- He's still something of a mystery despite being a high-ranking member in the 1950s. Given their background in the same Palermo neighborhoods and the Bronx connection, I'm curious what connection there was between Chiri and Scalise.
[b]Antonino Conte / Scalise Connections[/b]
- The most mysterious Gambino leader in the 1950s is Conte. The Contes may have been in the Scalise crew earlier on. Not sure the source, but the NYC inductions thread on here says Nino Conte sponsored Frank Scalise's brother Jack for membership. Joseph and his son Louis DiBono would end up under Scalise's successor David Amodeo, then the DiBonos end up under Pasquale Conte, whose father as mentioned sponsored Jack Scalise. These are all Palermitani and it seems like they trace back to the Scalise crew or faction.
- Looks like the Scalise crew had a wide range of geography. Scalise and the core of his crew were based in the Bronx, but his relative Scarpulla ran butcher shops in Brooklyn. Montiglio says Nino Gaggi started out under Scalise when Gaggi was based in Manhattan and later Brooklyn. Scalise soldiers Anthony Carminati and Patty Delchop moved to New Jersey and operated there. Supposedly the Connecticut crew has its roots in Frank Scalise's group and this is supported to some degree by the Bronx crews periodically taking over operations in CT. One source even thought the Gambino Baltimore crew traces back to Scalise. Scalise had an uncle, possibly a mafioso, on Long Island. If the DiBonos and Contes were with him originally, that opens it up to practically all of NYC.
- Scalise didn't have just a crew, but a faction. By 1957, Scalise's cousin Joe Riccobono was a capodecina. The Gambino brothers started in the Bronx and served as spies for Scalise during the Castellammarese War, then Carlo became capodecina then consigliere. Carlo's cousins the Castellana/Castellanos had their own decina, no doubt aligned behind Scalise like the Gambinos. Then you throw in many other adjacent figures and crews. Scalise appears to have been at the top of a huge faction with constant representation at underboss/consigliere.
- Back to Nino Conte, his son Pasquale was said to be a heroin trafficker in addition to top businessman. Conte maintained close ties to Sicilians, attended the Bono wedding, and allegedly ordered the murder of a Sicilian "zip" during the Pizza Connection trial. Said to have supplied Castellano and Gotti with heroin profits. Produced some of the modern zips, like the Cefalus. You have to wonder how much of this traces back to Nino. Was Nino connected to the Sicilian mafia in Palermo and maintained ties to them? Was he involved in drug trafficking? Hard to believe Patsy Conte stumbled into all of that on his own.
[b]Albert Expanding Away from Sicilians[/b]
- The FBI reported a rumor that Albert Anastasia wanted to change the rules so that 'ndrangheta members could be recognized as the same thing as the mafia and join his family. It was rejected and never happened. After this, Angelo Bruno was recorded talking about how his former boss and Anastasia's friend Joe Ida was living in Calabria trying to receive approval to induct some of the local Calabrian boys into Cosa Nostra so he could have a mafia decina in Calabria. This would be a decina of the Philly family based in Italy. Again, nothing came of it, but Vallelunga boss Calogero Sinatra was going to put Ida in touch with the Sicilian mafia for approval.
- Anastasia had close friendships with Calabrian members of the US mafia. In addition to Joe Ida, Anastasia was a friend of Joe Rugnetta, the Calabrese leader of Philly. Don't need to even mention Frank Costello. Calabrian Antonio Caponigro started under Anastasia before joining Philly. It's not far-fetched that Anastasia wanted to at least extend the reach/power of the Calabrian network within the US mafia.
- This would have happened just a few short years before the floodgates opened and Sicilian "zips" entered the US and joined Anastasia's Palermitani rivals. The Sicilian mafia allowed some members to transfer to the US while others (like Rosario Gambino) didn't join local families but still had their button recognized in the US as associates of the Gambino family. These "zips" were in some cases distant relatives of Gambino leaders and most of them were from the same neighborhoods many longtime Gambino members were from. This took a strong faction and gave it even more reach and muscle.
- I don't know if Albert Anastasia knew Frank Scalise was writing coded letters to Palermo mafia bosses or that Paolo Gambino was serving a major liaison between the Sicilian and US mafia, but he could clearly understand that this rival faction had resources not only in North America but also manpower from Sicily they could recruit. If it's true Anastasia wanted to recruit men from Calabria, he might well have wanted to counteract what the Sicilians were doing by bringing in men of his own heritage. Hard to know what Anastasia was seeing and thinking back then, but he may have seen the wealthy, well-connected Palermitani in his family and wanted to put a stop to it. Killing the Scalises and then their cousin Riccobono would have been as bold of a statement someone could make if they wanted to send the Palermitani a message.
- What's amazing is that half the family split off out of loyalty to Anastasia. For a Calabrian with a ruthless reputation, there sure were many Gambino members on his side even after death. A handful of crews continued to operate as their own faction up through the mid-1980s and they were remnant of a faction that could be traced nearly thirty years back to Anastasia. You didn't have guys saying, "We're the Vincent Mangano faction" in 1981, yet in 1985 there was still a group of guys with a portrait of Anastasia on their club wall who would tell you they trace back to Anastasia.