Family Councils / Consigli / Seggia / Elders / Inner Circle

[B.]

Bompensiero said Yonnie Licavoli was "LCN Boss" of Toledo before his imprisonment at which point Detroit took the area over. The FBI didn't ask him to clarify further and in my experience with Bompensiero's accounts, he is usually specific and consistent with his terminology as it pertains to ranks, i.e. he refers to Frank LaPorte as a Chicago capo/caporegime and doesn't generalize. It should also be said that Bompensiero was a close personal friend of Licavoli's cousin Leo Moceri and knew all of the Licavolis well, including Jack, who like Moceri lived in Toledo when Yonnie Licavoli was on the street.

Maybe it was an offhand comment, or maybe there was a small family there that was absorbed into Detroit. There is evidence of other small families being absorbed into larger territorial families, so it isn't out of the question.

Back to the consiglio -- I'm now seeing that Valachi's info indicates the consiglio consisted of members of different families, who would then be joined by a boss of one of the different families. His wording is confusing in a couple of places, so I'm still not 100% that we are interpreting him correctly. What stands out is that he uses the term consiglio and describes its function similarly to the consiglio used by these other groups. If he is in fact referring to a consiglio that consists of members of different families, it would be closer to the Grand Consiglio described by Morello and Gentile, except focused in the NYC/NJ area. Either way, a similar concept and a detail that has apparently been overlooked in most if not all discussions of mafia protocol and structure.

[chin_gigante]

Found this from Alfredo Santantonio while doing research for my Anastasia post. Perhaps another NY consiglio reference?

20201116_123836.png

[cavita]

It was already determined between Chris Christie and myself that the Rockford LCN was one of those families that had and utilized the Family Council, Seggia, etc. to settle matters. I found that old time Milwaukee LCN member and informant Augie Maniaci told the FBI that the Rockford LCN in the 1960s had an “inner circle” consisting of boss Joe Zammuto, underboss Frank Buscemi, consigliere Joe Zito, capo Lorenzo Buttice and Phil Caltagerone, who seemed to have no hierarchal position but was part of this inner circle. Maniaci did say that Caltagerone had been acting boss in 1931/1932 when then-boss Tony Musso was serving time in Leavenworth Prison.

Maniaci cryptically referred to another instance of the “Family Council” when in 1966 Rockford LCN member Sebastian Gulotta “had a niece who was working for a Doctor [BONA] in Rockford, Illinois, and who was making advances toward her. [DR. BONA] had told her if she resisted his advances he would fire her and black ball her in the other doctors offices in Rockford so she would not be able to obtain other employment.

The niece came to GULOTTA and GULOTTA went to [BONA] to “work it out.” [BONA] became insulting and GULOTTA called a council meeting at the Aragona Club in Rockford. He said JOE ZITO, as the Rockford Family Council Consigliere sat at the head of the council and LORENZO BUTTICE (deceased), as Capodecina was also in attendance. He said when GULOTTA told his story, ZITO attempted to pass it off lightly stating that [BONA] had meant no harm and because of his position in the community he was entitled to a certain degree of respect from GULOTTA. Source said BUTTICE took GULOTTA’s position and stated when [BONA] insulted GULOTTA he insulted you (meaning Zito), me (meaning BUTTICE), and every member of our “family.” Source said when BUTTICE made this statement ZITO was forced to agree that it was a correct statement of their code of honor and [BONA] who was visibly shaken by BUTTICE’s position, apologized to GULOTTA. Source said this ended the difficulty and no further action was taken.”

I think it’s very interesting that Rockford consigliere “sat at the head of the council” as Maniaci explained and that it was also extremely noteworthy that capo Lorenzo Buttice appeared to correct Zito and remind him of the family’s “code of honor” indicating that everyone at the council was considered an equal even though the consigliere position is higher than that of capo. Maniaci also seemed to indicate that the doctor was “visibly shaken by BUTTICE’s position” and “apologized to GULOTTA,” indicating that he was brought before the council.

Though the doctor’s name is redacted in the FBI files one can tell it is a very short name as the FBI referred to him by just his last name, in fact it’s just a few letters long. To me, this points directly to Dr. Joseph Bona. Though Dr. Bona was born in Pittston, Pennsylvania, he attended medical school in Palermo, Sicily, graduating in 1945 and then practiced medicine in Buffalo, New York before settling in Rockford in 1955. Dr. Bona died in Rockford on September 17, 2008 leaving many relatives in Italy.

[B.]

Do you have reason to suspect Dr. Bona was a made member in Rockford? Many doctors used to join the mafia and I wonder about this one because the doctor was brought directly into a meeting of the family Council and allowed to hear Buttice/Zito talk about their "code of honor" and other allusions to the mafia. Am I interpreting that right, that all of this was said in front of the doctor?

What you said, too, about them all having equal voices makes sense. One of the functions of the consiglio seems to have been to balance out power in a family. Those recordings of the seggia meetings after Frank Balistrieri became boss say it all, where the senior members offer him criticism and he can't handle it. To the old timers, offering criticism would have been a normal part of these meetings but a new generation of boss like Balistrieri doesn't appreciate it.

Great info as usual.

Found this from Alfredo Santantonio while doing research for my Anastasia post. Perhaps another NY consiglio reference?

20201116_123836.png

Could definitely be seen that way, especially with Valachi talking about a consiglio in NYC.

[cavita]

Do you have reason to suspect Dr. Bona was a made member in Rockford? Many doctors used to join the mafia and I wonder about this one because the doctor was brought directly into a meeting of the family Council and allowed to hear Buttice/Zito talk about their "code of honor" and other allusions to the mafia. Am I interpreting that right, that all of this was said in front of the doctor?

What you said, too, about them all having equal voices makes sense. One of the functions of the consiglio seems to have been to balance out power in a family. Those recordings of the seggia meetings after Frank Balistrieri became boss say it all, where the senior members offer him criticism and he can't handle it. To the old timers, offering criticism would have been a normal part of these meetings but a new generation of boss like Balistrieri doesn't appreciate it.

Great info as usual.

I don't knw if Bona was a member or not but I set the info down here as it appeared in the FBI file. It does seem to me that he was brought in front of the council meeting. Perhaps he was made elsewhere and transferred? His obituary stated that he had relatives surviving in Caltanisetta so perhaps that's where he was from.

[B.]

From Joe Valachi. As Chin Gigante pointed out, he called this the 'consiglio' in his testimony:



More references to Detroit's 'council':

[B.]

Here Ray Patriarca is talking to Jerry Angiulo about the size of Carlo Gambino's family and how Carlo is difficult to reach, forcing a member to deal with the 'council' for assistance:

[Hired_Goonz]

Didn't Gravano describe a situation sort of like that in his book? I think he had threatened Louie DiBono and DiBono made a beef, so they had to sit down and plead their cases in front of a table full of Gambino heavyweights. It's been a long time since I read it and maybe I'm misremembering but I don't think that Castellano was there, but Dellacroce was and he ended up siding with Sammy. Just kind of reminds me of the scenario that Patriarca is describing in that transcript.

[chin_gigante]

From Joe Valachi. As Chin Gigante pointed out, he called this the 'consiglio' in his testimony:

consiglio.jpg

Was doing some browsing through Mary Ferrell and got me thinking about this:

20201215_165602.png

Could this consiglio or "Council of Six" explain the conflict here? Perhaps the establishment of the New York shared consiglio (consisting of six members) was conflated with the establishment of the Commission.

[Antiliar]

I think what Valachi called the "Council of Six" were simply the consiglieri of the New York Families (plus one unmentioned Family). Both Rao and Biondo had been consiglieri. Valachi's understanding was probably confused. He was also aware of the Commission and was the first one to really explain it, so it wasn't that.

[B.]

Yeah, from what Chin posted:

Mr. ADLERMAN. The commission is the council of the bosses themselves over the whole United States or wherever the families are in the United States?
Mr. VALACHI. Right.
Mr. ADLERMAN. So the council you are discussing now, the consiglieri of six, only affects the New York families and the New Jersey family?
Mr. VALACHI. Right.

They make the distinction between the Commission and the consiglieri right there.

[B.]

Can't remember if I included this earlier, but Ray Patriarca seems to make reference to the consiglio. He is discussing Carlo Gambino, so he is either saying that the Gambino family had a consiglio that addressed issues prior to consulting the boss, or he is referring to the same multi-family consiglio referred to by Valachi.



It's also possible Patriarca is using the example of the Gambino family but making a general point about mafia protocol, that the council/consiglio is supposed to handle issues first and foremost and not the boss. He may not have had direct knowledge of the Gambino family's internal protocol and was simply using them as an example of how the system usually works within a mafia family.

Regardless, he is saying a member with an issue must report it to a council who then decide whether or not to involve the boss.

[B.]

From Michele Clemente's 1962 FBI bug, in this case during a meeting with Salvatore Profaci (son of Joe):



Clemente and Profaci were discussing the issues with contemporary members and Clemente brought that up. Sounds similar to Valachi's description of the NYC consiglio and this suggests it was no longer in use by the early 1960s, maybe earlier given Clemente says Profaci might not remember it.

"Geeps" is a term that was used to refer to Italian-born members, but is no doubt just a figure of speech for this role.

[PolackTony]

From Michele Clemente's 1962 FBI bug, in this case during a meeting with Salvatore Profaci (son of Joe):



Clemente and Profaci were discussing the issues with contemporary members and Clemente brought that up. Sounds similar to Valachi's description of the NYC consiglio and this suggests it was no longer in use by the early 1960s, maybe earlier given Clemente says Profaci might not remember it.

"Geeps" is a term that was used to refer to Italian-born members, but is no doubt just a figure of speech for this role.

I’ve assumed that “geep” was a variant of “zip”.

Clemente’s description does sound like Valachi’s consiglio. Odd though that Clemente only attributed three members. While these types of accounts are subject to all sorts of recall errors, three is not enough to even directly represent each family. I could see him confusing five and six members, but three?

[B.]

In a different transcript Clemente got the number of Commission members wrong but still explained Commission protocol perfectly, so exact numbers either weren't his thing or he didn't care about accuracy.

Because the transcript doesn't quote Clemente directly, we would need to see his exact words, but him saying the "three geeps" dealt with complaints "in any of the families" makes it sound like Valachi's multi-family consiglio. However, we know even a slight misinterpretation of his wording could have a completely different meeting -- he may have been referring to three men within each individual family, which would be like the consiglio we see in other US families and Sicily, but going off the FBI's interpretation it sounds more like Valachi's multi-family arrangement even though the number is off. We can't assume Valachi necessarily had it 100% right either.

--

Clemente's tapes are a great resource... he had a great deal of high-level knowledge and was close to several bosses in different families, including Joe Profaci and Albert Anastasia. In his conversation with Sal Profaci and "Bob" TNU (also a made member), Clemente tells them when he got out of prison in the late 1950s, Vito Genovese told him (Clemente) that he was no longer "with" Albert Anastasia and would report to Genovese. At face value it sounds like Clemente was saying he was with the Gambino family and was transferred to the Genovese family but I'm skeptical -- we know Clemente was close to Anastasia so maybe Genovese was reminding him that his loyalty was to Genovese.

Clemente was also of the opinion in 1962 that Anthony Anastasio was cooperating with LE, as LE cracked down on waterfront business that very few men knew about, including Anastasio. Didn't this end up being partially true?