I almost hate to say it....

[Charlie]

He could be referring to information he learned after the fact. Not necessarily something he learned in the mid-1970s.

Pogo

That's also what I thought Pogo, but when he says that Toddo Aurello told him Lombardo was the boss it indicates something he learned while on the streets at the time.

[HairyKnuckles]

Just done watching Gravano's latest video about what led to the Gerry Pappa hit.
Here's Gravano's take on Funzi Tieri and his position within the Genovese family at the time.

" The Genovese family titled him as a street boss. They did that the Genovese just to throw off the law, they put different titles on people's name so the government would not know who's who or what's going on. But he was a pretty powerful guy this guy Funzi or Funzuale"

"Chin wasn't the boss at that particular time. Fat Tony was the boss. Priori to Fat Tony being the boss the Genovese family there was another boss and they hid who the real boss was. When Fat Tony was called as the real boss, Funzual was a street boss but there was another boss who was there. Then Toddo had told me I forgot his name, never even saw him. When he passed away, just before he passed away, he called in Chin and he made him promise him that he was gonna make Fat Tony the boss and wanted Chin's word that he would not take him out and hurt him and respect him as the boss. Chin gave him his word and Fat Tony was the boss. So that family was a confusion all the time because of their tactics."

Now Gravano is jumping on the bandwagon. Funny and strange but it makes a good headline. There is absolutely no indications that Fat Tony was the boss while Tieri was on the streets. So he either misunderstood what Toddo told him, or got his facts wrong while doing research on Mafia Wiki (or whoever it was that did it for him).

He could be referring to information he learned after the fact. Not necessarily something he learned in the mid-1970s.

Pogo

That's also what I thought Pogo, but when he says that Toddo Aurello told him Lombardo was the boss it indicates something he learned while on the streets at the time.

He never mentions Lombardo in the video, does he?

[eboli]

The only reliable info the FBI had that Salerno was the boss of the family came in late 1980. After Tieri retired, Fat Tony was allegedly promoted to boss, but had a heart attack a couple of months later, and stepped down to recover. After Salerno, Lombardo took over for less than a year because he was infirm, then Chin took over. Meanwhile Salerno recovered and became Chin's acting boss.

[Charlie]

He never mentions Lombardo in the video, does he?

Maybe I jumped the gun but I'm assuming he's referring to Lombardo when he says there was a real boss the Genovese family was protecting by putting Funzi as a street boss.

[CornerBoy]

by the way how was deitche's book about New Jersey?

maybe a comparison to another book?

Thanks

[Wiseguy]

The only reliable info the FBI had that Salerno was the boss of the family came in late 1980. After Tieri retired, Fat Tony was allegedly promoted to boss, but had a heart attack a couple of months later, and stepped down to recover. After Salerno, Lombardo took over for less than a year because he was infirm, then Chin took over. Meanwhile Salerno recovered and became Chin's acting boss.

I have read that somewhere before, i.e. that Salerno was boss very briefly before Chin took over in 1981. I won't get into where Lombardo fit in.

[HairyKnuckles]

The only reliable info the FBI had that Salerno was the boss of the family came in late 1980. After Tieri retired, Fat Tony was allegedly promoted to boss, but had a heart attack a couple of months later, and stepped down to recover. After Salerno, Lombardo took over for less than a year because he was infirm, then Chin took over. Meanwhile Salerno recovered and became Chin's acting boss.

I have read that somewhere before, i.e. that Salerno was boss very briefly before Chin took over in 1981. I won't get into where Lombardo fit in.

Yes, it looks like Salerno was boss very briefly but he was never boss while Tieri was on the street like Gravano seems to allude to in the video.

[cesare borgia]

"Capeci, Raab etc based their belief on what Cafaro said. And on this particular topic, front boss and all that crap, Cafaro lied or twisted the truth to make FBI look good. And just like Lenehan, Cafaro may have been an East Harlem fan boy, proud of what mobsters that neighborhood had produced."

Seems highly unlikely ,Cafaro testified that Salerno(an East Harlem alumni) was a front for Gigante(a Greenwich based leader). Why would he hype up Lombardo but not Salerno.

[TonyBombassolo]

I thought Tieri being out was over his manipulation of the Tony Bananas/Angelo Bruno nonsense that brought all the heat on them over the public murder.

[TonyBombassolo]

Also, I think the fact that Chicago and the Genovese had a shared connection explains a lot of their similarities between "front" vs "street" boss. Both groups utilized this to confuse LE and others as to who was really in charge. I suspect Genovese had a similar setup. Squint was probably mostly retired but anything the others couldn't handle on their own, they'd go to Benny.

Per Ralph Pierce CI to Roemer -



After Paul Ricca died of natural causes in 1972, Pierce updated the FBI on the new Outfit hierarchy.

Prior to his death, Ricca had jointly shared final decision-making responsibilities with Accardo.

Accardo told Pierce that he was now sole leader of the Outfit and Ricca's position wasn't going to be replaced. To help him manage the Outfit, Accardo appointed Joseph Aiuppa to operate as something like a street boss with Gus Alex as his top advisor. The FBI called the new ruling panel the Triple A group.

Accardo told Pierce that he would set policy and make all the big decisions himself, but he would leave the day-to-day operations to Aiuppa and Alex. Accardo became the "Chairman of the Board," while Aiuppa was the "managing operator" of the Outfit. Aiuppa would be the face of the ruling panel and the point of contact for Outfit members.

[Frank]

Thats a nice piece of information and tells the Who's Who of the Outfit

[HairyKnuckles]

"Capeci, Raab etc based their belief on what Cafaro said. And on this particular topic, front boss and all that crap, Cafaro lied or twisted the truth to make FBI look good. And just like Lenehan, Cafaro may have been an East Harlem fan boy, proud of what mobsters that neighborhood had produced."

Seems highly unlikely ,Cafaro testified that Salerno(an East Harlem alumni) was a front for Gigante(a Greenwich based leader). Why would he hype up Lombardo but not Salerno.

Cafaro had a falling out with Salerno prior to his cooperation. It could be that he wanted to degrade, or possibly even humiliate him, by saying Salerno was just, what he called, a "front boss". However, his hyping up of Lombardo (who was no punk by any means, he clearly had power and influence), Ferro and other Genovese members with East Harlem origins was misleading. The quote above was written when Lenehan (Pic/Lucky7/whatever username he used on the Real Deal site) was being discussed (in other threads on here) and his claims that the most powerful Genovese members were actually the ones who were from the Newark area, Lenehan´s neigborhood.

[cesare borgia]

Yes, but Cafaro's assertion that Salerno was a front boss for Gigante is taken as fact ,so why is his statement that Lombardo was boss taken as East Harlem bias but his view of Salerno is considered accurate ? Did he
even know Lombardo personally?

Also why would Cafaro even need or want to hype up the East Harlem faction? Cafaro was never a capo (I don't believe) so how does making the faction look good reflect on him? Who was he trying to impress, the feds? The FBI were most likely aware of the power the faction allegedly possessed. Salerno had occupied all three admin positions at different times. Santora was underboss(allegedly), Buckaloo was consigliere(allegedly),Bellomo was the prodigy who was most likely to succeed Gigante. I'm sure the feds didn't need the "Lombardo was boss all along" to consider the faction heavy hitters.

[TonyBombassolo]

Yes, but Cafaro's assertion that Salerno was a front boss for Gigante is taken as fact, so why is his statement that Lombardo was boss taken as East Harlem bias but his view of Salerno is considered accurate? Did he even know Lombardo personally?

Huge fan of this question both specifically and in general. One of my biggest struggles with information about organized crime is how much of the information is uncorroborated. A lot of what is documented as fact may have come from one source which, as a history major, is hard to accept without an incredible amount of skepticism.

I'd love to offer my data analysis work to start a public database where we put a "Veracity %" on some of the claims out there. I certainly feel far more confident believing Tommaso Buscetta's testimony over Sammy Gravano or Anthony Casso's. People like Valachi and Scarpa make up a huge chunk of early information that the FBI (who we know are liars) pushed as irrefutable fact. At some point as a community, we ought to sit down and go over ALL of the testimony that's out there and put a community confidence number around some of those claims. It would be cool to be able to see actual testimony with community notes around that stuff, given history's ability to look back.

[eboli]

Yes, but Cafaro's assertion that Salerno was a front boss for Gigante is taken as fact ,so why is his statement that Lombardo was boss taken as East Harlem bias but his view of Salerno is considered accurate ?

Front boss = acting boss. It's a term Cafaro made up for some reason. Salerno was the family's acting boss. In such a capacity, he attended commission meetings. Cafaro's claim that Salerno acted for Gigante is a fact because other Genovese informants confirmed his info, while nobody confirmed it for Lombardo's alleged role as the boss in the 1970s. Quite the opposite - major informants like Angelo Lonardo dismissed Cafaro's info completely. At the time, Lonardo attended high-level Cosa Nostra meetings as Cleveland's underboss. He dealt with the Genovese top brass directly.

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