by Wiseguy » Thu Aug 02, 2018 12:39 pm
There didn't necessarily need to be an official boss named upon Chin's death. And Bellomo being the heir apparent doesn't mean he slid into that spot immediately.
When Chin died in December 2005, there continued to be a ruling panel in place, in one form or another, as there had been since 1997. Rotating, as it was, due to various factors like legal problems, health, etc. And it appears it was the panel that set overall policy and made major decisions. And different guys from the panel would be the acting boss one time or another. Their role being to run things day-to-day.
Obviously Leo was one of these. He had been on the panel before becoming acting boss in 2005. I don't recall the feds referring to him as the acting boss after he was incarcerated (unless it was in the past tense?), but technically speaking you can't have an acting boss behind bars. The whole point of being an acting boss is precisely because a guy is in a position to act, i.e. to run things directly on the street, either because the official boss is incapacitated or in a transition period. It's why acting boss and street boss are essentially the same thing and people shouldn't over-complicate it.
Going back to Bellomo, we can see from some articles that he was consulted on things while he was in prison. The Coppola issue, for example. Even the Rao's table nonsense, which he lectured them about. But, again, that doesn't mean he was the boss by that point or that everyone was deferring to him as the final word once Chin was gone. The info we have shows he continued to be consulted while in prison, was on the panel when he got out, and eventually was made the first official boss since Chin's death.
There didn't necessarily [i]need[/i] to be an official boss named upon Chin's death. And Bellomo being the heir apparent doesn't mean he slid into that spot immediately.
When Chin died in December 2005, there continued to be a ruling panel in place, in one form or another, as there had been since 1997. Rotating, as it was, due to various factors like legal problems, health, etc. And it appears it was [i]the panel[/i] that set overall policy and made major decisions. And different guys from the panel would be the acting boss one time or another. Their role being to run things day-to-day.
Obviously Leo was one of these. He had been on the panel before becoming acting boss in 2005. I don't recall the feds referring to him as the acting boss after he was incarcerated (unless it was in the past tense?), but technically speaking you can't have an acting boss behind bars. The whole point of being an acting boss is precisely because a guy is in a position to [i]act[/i], i.e. to run things directly on the street, either because the official boss is incapacitated or in a transition period. It's why acting boss and street boss are essentially the same thing and people shouldn't over-complicate it.
Going back to Bellomo, we can see from some articles that he was consulted on things while he was in prison. The Coppola issue, for example. Even the Rao's table nonsense, which he lectured them about. But, again, that doesn't mean he was the boss by that point or that everyone was deferring to him as the final word once Chin was gone. The info we have shows he continued to be consulted while in prison, was on the panel when he got out, and eventually was made the first official boss since Chin's death.