Genovese leadership and their control of Philly

[Wiseguy]

Yeah people use front for Natale and Salerno but 2 different cases. Salerno knew what was going on and was probably more than happy. Though he fell in the commission case he wasnt just a lightning rod by any case. Front-acting-under can all ne interchangable. What Salerno was is he was the guy who was up front, out on the front lines. Most big corporations do that and with the size ofbthe Genovese Family it makes sense. Im sure when Fat Tony called for you to come in they didnt sneak behind hos back and go to Chin but instead shook in their boots. And Im sure if anyone said anything bad about him in front of Chin their was hell to pay.

My only question is this,with all these insulations I always wondered how the administration whacked up the captains kicks and the administrations personal rackets? With the Genovese having 4 maybe 5 administration members at one time during this time period.

Yeah, you had Chin as the boss, Fat Tony as effectively acting boss, Benny Eggs as underboss, and Bobby Manna as consigliere.

Only thing that's been talked about is how, relatively speaking, Chin didn't require much tribute from his captains. He was already rich and didn't really need the money.

[InCamelot]

What was Benny Eggs, or Sammy Black's role, as underbosses? What do underbosses do exactly? Do the capos not report to the boss but to the underboss? Does the boss only speak to the admin? Why have an underboss?

[JeremyTheJew]

Yeah people use front for Natale and Salerno but 2 different cases. Salerno knew what was going on and was probably more than happy. Though he fell in the commission case he wasnt just a lightning rod by any case. Front-acting-under can all ne interchangable. What Salerno was is he was the guy who was up front, out on the front lines. Most big corporations do that and with the size ofbthe Genovese Family it makes sense. Im sure when Fat Tony called for you to come in they didnt sneak behind hos back and go to Chin but instead shook in their boots. And Im sure if anyone said anything bad about him in front of Chin their was hell to pay.

My only question is this,with all these insulations I always wondered how the administration whacked up the captains kicks and the administrations personal rackets? With the Genovese having 4 maybe 5 administration members at one time during this time period.

Yeah, you had Chin as the boss, Fat Tony as effectively acting boss, Benny Eggs as underboss, and Bobby Manna as consigliere.

Only thing that's been talked about is how, relatively speaking, Chin didn't require much tribute from his captains. He was already rich and didn't really need the money.

What about danny leo and dom cerillo

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[Wiseguy]

Yeah people use front for Natale and Salerno but 2 different cases. Salerno knew what was going on and was probably more than happy. Though he fell in the commission case he wasnt just a lightning rod by any case. Front-acting-under can all ne interchangable. What Salerno was is he was the guy who was up front, out on the front lines. Most big corporations do that and with the size ofbthe Genovese Family it makes sense. Im sure when Fat Tony called for you to come in they didnt sneak behind hos back and go to Chin but instead shook in their boots. And Im sure if anyone said anything bad about him in front of Chin their was hell to pay.

My only question is this,with all these insulations I always wondered how the administration whacked up the captains kicks and the administrations personal rackets? With the Genovese having 4 maybe 5 administration members at one time during this time period.

Yeah, you had Chin as the boss, Fat Tony as effectively acting boss, Benny Eggs as underboss, and Bobby Manna as consigliere.

Only thing that's been talked about is how, relatively speaking, Chin didn't require much tribute from his captains. He was already rich and didn't really need the money.

What about danny leo and dom cerillo

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Cirillo became the acting boss not long after Bellomo's indictment in 1996 but had to step down later on due to heart trouble. He later resumed the position but was indicted in 2005 and Leo took over as acting boss prior to his own indictment.

[JeremyTheJew]

The chins crew eventually took over the whole genovese hiearchy eventually: bellomo, nigro, cirillo, leo, etc etc

What about tony salerno and funzi tieri crews? And where was funzi based out of?

Tony salerno east harlem crew went to buckaloo fero its stated on the other topic

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[Wiseguy]

The chins crew eventually took over the whole genovese hiearchy eventually: bellomo, nigro, cirillo, leo, etc etc

What about tony salerno and funzi tieri crews? And where was funzi based out of?

Tony salerno east harlem crew went to buckaloo fero its stated on the other topic

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Chin was from the Greenwich Village crew, which Cirillo came from. Bellomo and Nigro were from Fat Tony's East Harlem/Bronx crew. Leo is still sort of a mystery but may have come from the Ardito crew.

See link below

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=807&hilit=Genovese+crew+succession

[InCamelot]

Anyone have any deeper info on Danny Leo? The wikipedia and general articles out there on him are particularly general/vague.

[HairyKnuckles]

The chins crew eventually took over the whole genovese hiearchy eventually: bellomo, nigro, cirillo, leo, etc etc

What about tony salerno and funzi tieri crews? And where was funzi based out of?

Tony salerno east harlem crew went to buckaloo fero its stated on the other topic

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Tieri was based out of Club Napoli at 6322 20th Avenue in Brooklyn. He had crew members scattered through Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. And when his crew was merged with Gyp DeCarlo´s in the early 1970s, he also had crew members in NJ. Tommy Lombardi took over his crew when Tieri was bumped to boss.

The "116th Street crew" was at this time Philip Lombardo´s. He spent a lot of time in Florida. That´s why his crew was occasionally overseen by Salerno, possibly Ferro and others on acting basis. By 1975, he suffered a major stroke which sidelined him for years. But the crew was still his. In the meantime, he pushed for Salerno up the ranks. So technically speaking, Salerno never had a crew. It was Lombardo´s. For some reason, people want to believe he was the Genovese boss. He was not, atleast not til he made a comeback in or around 1980. Tieri was the official boss from around 1973/1974 until he was taken down. In 1981 Lombardo was the boss briefly before he retired to Florida for good.

[willychichi]

Good stuff HK, thanks

[Wiseguy]

The "116th Street crew" was at this time Philip Lombardo´s. He spent a lot of time in Florida. That´s why his crew was occasionally overseen by Salerno, possibly Ferro and others on acting basis. By 1975, he suffered a major stroke which sidelined him for years. But the crew was still his. In the meantime, he pushed for Salerno up the ranks. So technically speaking, Salerno never had a crew. It was Lombardo´s. For some reason, people want to believe he was the Genovese boss. He was not, atleast not til he made a comeback in or around 1980. Tieri was the official boss from around 1973/1974 until he was taken down. In 1981 Lombardo was the boss briefly before he retired to Florida for good.

I realize this is one of the deadest of the dead horse topics, HK, but your post above could have been typed by Pic himself and we all know what a BS artist he turned out to be.

I just don't know why you go with that version of history when the feds, as well as OC journalists like Capeci and Raab, all believe Cafaro's testimony about Lombardo being the boss for years, Tieri the underboss/acting boss for a time, and Chin succeeding Lombardo in 1981.

Let's not forget Pic also claimed that Fat Tony was the real boss until his conviction in the Commission case and only after that did Chin take over. And we know that's nonsense.

[B.]

HK is second-to-none in my opinion and I respect his thoughts as much as anyone who has ever uttered the word "mafia". I will never feel completely sure about this particular topic, though. Too much misinformation, differing perspectives, etc. And a lot of it seems to be by design, which is why this group has been so successful.

What IS clear and is still clear today is that the Genovese family has long had a much wider division of power than the other families which is why it is harder to recognize the obvious pyramid structure you see in other families. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it's just that it is more trapezoid shaped. Captains are rulers of their own fiefdoms and they are held to a high standard by other family leaders as a result ("we don't break our captains, we kill 'em"). It seems there is a lot of consensus between the leaders of this family post-Vito; they make policy together and anyone who doesn't go along with that is out. Think of Jimmy Frattiano meeting with several of the leaders -- I believe it was Tieri, Salerno, and Gigante, but could be wrong -- where all three leaders decided on a murder by putting their thumbs down in a vote.

It helps that the leaders seem to be capable of generating their own income (even if it's through the family's collective influence on industry, certain rackets, etc.) and don't rely on the typical greedy hand-me-ups we associate with the mob. That isn't to say people don't kick up, only that the leaders seem to have been more concerned with stability and influence than quick cash grabs.

As far as the Philly family goes, Bobby Manna was a major powerbroker and the main liason to Philly beginning with Phil Testa's short reign and through the Scarfo years. One thing Cafaro says as well is that the consigliere is in his opinion the most important member of the family. While Manna wasn't "the boss", everything I've read about him has him as a peer of the other Genovese leaders and not a simple "number three" in the pecking order. Gigante and Salerno both seem to have held similar weight when they were consigliere.

My take on the post-Vito Genovese family:
Boss has final authority, but makes decisions in close collaboration with underboss, consigliere, and other members of a "ruling panel" (whether it is formally established or not, there are senior members in defacto leadership positions). Policy and major decisions are then passed to other captains through these defacto leaders, and the captains are expected to enforce and maintain the hierarchy's word within their fiefdom. In theory this is how any mafia family structure should work, but it seems the Genovese have a much more strict system in place that prevents disasters like we've seen in pretty much every other family.

[HairyKnuckles]

The "116th Street crew" was at this time Philip Lombardo´s. He spent a lot of time in Florida. That´s why his crew was occasionally overseen by Salerno, possibly Ferro and others on acting basis. By 1975, he suffered a major stroke which sidelined him for years. But the crew was still his. In the meantime, he pushed for Salerno up the ranks. So technically speaking, Salerno never had a crew. It was Lombardo´s. For some reason, people want to believe he was the Genovese boss. He was not, atleast not til he made a comeback in or around 1980. Tieri was the official boss from around 1973/1974 until he was taken down. In 1981 Lombardo was the boss briefly before he retired to Florida for good.

I realize this is one of the deadest of the dead horse topics, HK, but your post above could have been typed by Pic himself and we all know what a BS artist he turned out to be.

I just don't know why you go with that version of history when the feds, as well as OC journalists like Capeci and Raab, all believe Cafaro's testimony about Lombardo being the boss for years, Tieri the underboss/acting boss for a time, and Chin succeeding Lombardo in 1981.

Let's not forget Pic also claimed that Fat Tony was the real boss until his conviction in the Commission case and only after that did Chin take over. And we know that's nonsense.

I go with that because that´s what the feds said at the time. They had information from number of CI and yearly updated their charts. Tieri boss, Lombardo caporegime. Cafaro´s testimony is contradicting other Mob witnesses´ like Fratianno´s for example, who said Tieri was boss, not Lombardo. I don´t understand why you chose to believe Cafaro, whose information on a lot of stuff has been proven wrong, instead of going by what the feds and other LE agencies said back in the 1970s. Just because Capeci and Raab chose to believe Cafaro, doesn´t make it a fact. The evidence is overwhelming that Tieri was official boss. By 1975, Lombardo, due to the major stroke he suffered, was not capable to run his crew. All you´ve got is Cafaro´s testimony. But people do lie sometimes, even on the witness stand.

Salerno being the boss and not Gigante is pure nonsense though. I have never said that.

[HairyKnuckles]

What IS clear and is still clear today is that the Genovese family has long had a much wider division of power than the other families which is why it is harder to recognize the obvious pyramid structure you see in other families

B, in the 1970s, the Genoveses had a pyramid structure, just like any other Family. It´s documented in FBI documents. It´s not like the Genoveses had an elite that secretly ran the Family and nobody, accept of Cafaro, knew about them. The confusion lies with Cafaro´s testimony. His testimony has in turn created a myth out of this world and internet posters seems to be mesmerized by it to the degree they can´t see or think straight anymore in regards to the Genovese top structure. This myth needs to be buried with all the others like Luciano was the boss of bosses, the mafia was created in 1931 etc, etc.

Thanks for your kind words btw.

[B.]

What IS clear and is still clear today is that the Genovese family has long had a much wider division of power than the other families which is why it is harder to recognize the obvious pyramid structure you see in other families]

B, in the 1970s, the Genoveses had a pyramid structure, just like any other Family. It´s documented in FBI documents. It´s not like the Genoveses had an elite that secretly ran the Family and nobody, accept of Cafaro, knew about them. The confusion lies with Cafaro´s testimony. His testimony has in turn created a myth out of this world and internet posters seems to be mesmerized by it to the degree they can´t see or think straight anymore in regards to the Genovese top structure. This myth needs to be buried with all the others like Luciano was the boss of bosses, the mafia was created in 1931 etc, etc.

Thanks for your kind words btw.

My comment was more geared toward the time period of the Bruno hit, but I still think it stands that Tieri was not offering absolute rulings without the consensus of the other top figures. Even Gigante who doesn't seem to have had a formal position in the hierarchy yet has been grouped in with the administration to some degree by the late 1970s (one informant said he was in charge of rule enforcement -- namely with regards to narcotics).

[HairyKnuckles]

What IS clear and is still clear today is that the Genovese family has long had a much wider division of power than the other families which is why it is harder to recognize the obvious pyramid structure you see in other families]

B, in the 1970s, the Genoveses had a pyramid structure, just like any other Family. It´s documented in FBI documents. It´s not like the Genoveses had an elite that secretly ran the Family and nobody, accept of Cafaro, knew about them. The confusion lies with Cafaro´s testimony. His testimony has in turn created a myth out of this world and internet posters seems to be mesmerized by it to the degree they can´t see or think straight anymore in regards to the Genovese top structure. This myth needs to be buried with all the others like Luciano was the boss of bosses, the mafia was created in 1931 etc, etc.

Thanks for your kind words btw.

My comment was more geared toward the time period of the Bruno hit, but I still think it stands that Tieri was not offering absolute rulings without the consensus of the other top figures. Even Gigante who doesn't seem to have had a formal position in the hierarchy yet has been grouped in with the administration to some degree by the late 1970s (one informant said he was in charge of rule enforcement -- namely with regards to narcotics).

I see. But a boss consulting with his closests men during desicion making, is not a "Genovese thing". Not many bosses are/have been that despotic.

EDIT - Meant to say "a boss consulting..."