Hired_Goonz wrote: ↑Sat Nov 18, 2023 9:29 am
I just finished this book. It was ok but not great. Maybe a better writer could have gotten more out of D'Elia or maybe not.
- Most interesting stuff is about Bufalino, most of the book is about him in fact. D'Elia says that the Hoffa murder was instigated by Provenzano and Salerno but they needed Bufalino's blessing to do it. Says that Bufalino repeatedly tried to talk Hoffa out of attempting to regain the Teamsters presidency. Says that Sheeran is full of crap and wasn't the shooter. In fact he says that Bufalino and "the two Tonys" called Sheeran to a meeting shortly after the murder to make sure he wouldn't try to seek revenge.
- says he was at the Copa the night of Joey Gallo's murder, said that he did witness Gallo disrespect Bufalini and then leave the club and they got word he was murdered at Umberto's half an hour later. Says Sheeran wasn't there and again is full of shit on that point. Bufalino never discussed Gallo's murder with him.
- he gets into some Forest Gump of the mob type of stuff at one point. Claims that he was supposed to hang out with Eddie Lino the night he was killed but it was election night so Eddie told him to come down the next night instead. "I was supposed to be in the car with him" yea ok Billy I don't know about this one. Wasn't there some report that Lino was on his way to a making ceremony that night? Or I might be mixing it up with something else.
- has a bizarre story about sending Joey Naples of Youngstown some jewelry worth over $400k for him to sell on D'elia's behalf, but Naples got murdered literally the next day and he never ended up getting his jewelry back. Says he went to Naples' wake to see if anyone was wearing it? It was a weird story.
- talks about doing deals with Trump in the 80s and seems to admire him as a ruthless businessman. "Yea, that's Roy Cohn's boy"
- confirms the old report about Stanfa asking him to head the Philly family when Stanfa would get pinched. Turned it down because he knew it wouldn't be accepted by Merlino and Natale. Talks about doing business with those two even after the FBI warned him they had Natale on tape talking about killing him.
- I didn't realize how involved D'Elia was in the entertainment business. He talks about being part of Michael Jackson's management team (his opinion is that MJ was definitely not a pedo), settling disputes for Fabio and even says he got a record deal for the rapper Kurupt.
- weirdest part of the book is the end where he talks about being in prison and getting tons of respect from Aryan Brotherhood guys and the Mexicans and even says that a Mongol biker he was friends with wanted to put a hit on DeNaples for saying that D'Elia was an FBI informant. Keep in mind that D'Elia had a reduced sentence for testifying against DeNaples. Whether or not he was a longtime informant, he still would be despised by hardcore convicts for testifying. I can't rule out the possibility of him being an informant because he never so much as got arrested until he had been in the life for like 40 years. Very suspect imo.
Overall an ok book with good stories about infamous mobsters but didn't really give much insight into the workings of the Bufalino family itself.