Visiting New Orleans

[B.]

1963 should be a different story for the chart, but the 1968 info informs it.

Here were the only confirmed members in 1968 based on the FBI's strict criteria:



Silvestro Carollo, Francesco Coppola, and Giuseppe Gagliano are questionable as far as formal affiliation due to deportations and senior Gagliano living in NYC. That leaves three definite confirmed New Orleans members.

Jimmy Campo and Joe Marcello were only identified by a non-member associate in NO and the FBI clarified that despite using his info as a speculative leadership chart they couldn't confirm them as members:



In contrast with the non-member's statement, Frank Bomp believed Tony Carollo was underboss circa La Stella 1966.

They def should have had more than 5 members in 1963 depending on who died. In 1968 though the FBI themselves didn't have evidence that significantly contrasts with Colombo/Scarpa.

[Angelo Santino]

I agree with motorfab. My impression is that Carlos Marcello shut out a lot of (or nearly all) of the old-timers, so whether they were technically shelved or not, they were de facto shelved. I'm certain that Nofio Pecora (Pecoraro) was made, but because he was out of the loop he wasn't listed among the five remaining members. Sylvester Carollo, BTW, illegally re-entered the U.S. and was fighting deportation when he died in 1970.

And according to this CI, "Mr. Luke" Trombatore was the boss before Marcello. The Bureau of Narcotics also had him as a boss.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... trombatore

What gives you that impression? With respect to Fosco's DiFront-Shelving-a-crew assertion, it's not typical protocol nor a boss' right to shelve those he doesn't like. We have almost no insider sources which allude to bosses doing this. There are members who lose office positions when a new boss is instituted but not mass-shelvings. Quite frankly, I don't see the incentive for shelving older members.

But what makeup/hierarchy would you have for 1963?

[Pogo The Clown]

Another thing I should point out is how young the family was in 1968. Marcello was only 58. His brother Joe was even younger I believe and Carollo and Frank Gagliano would have been in their 40s. If they were the only remaining members then NO would have one of if not the lowest average age of any family in the country. They also would have had the highest ratio of active members in the country since all of the remaining 5 were active in 1968.


How likely is that for a family that has been reduced to 5 members from attrition? In every other case where we have seen a family reduced to a handful of members the leftovers are all inactive geezers.


Pogo

[Angelo Santino]

Another thing I should point out is how young the family was in 1968. Marcello was only 58. His brother Joe was even younger I believe and Carollo and Frank Gagliano would have been in their 40s. If they were the only remaining members then NO would have one of if not the lowest average age of any family in the country. They also would have had the highest ratio of active members in the country since all of the remaining 5 were active in 1968.


How likely is that for a family that has been reduced to 5 members from attrition? In every other case where we have seen a family reduced to a handful of members the leftovers are all inactive geezers.


Pogo

That's a very good point, they were quite young.

As for the second paragraph, if they were down to five, we already know that they had a pool ("suspected members") so attrition i.e. "the reduction of strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure" would only be possible if a sizable portion of older members departed in the span of several years.

The other possibility is that New Orleans kept their numbers small and can't be viewed through the prism of a quintessential crime family with multiple decine. Outside of New York, Families can be small and it seems like it's by choice rather than a lack of recruitment, especially in the 1960's. Even today in some of these cities, there are pools for a theoretical family to recruit from, but some cities like San Francisco, Cleveland and St Louis, during this era had Representatives who made very few members despite very large pools to recruit from, which later attributed/accelerated their declines.

We can ask why bosses did this, but we can also rule out that these bosses, like the bosses today, are administering these groups with the drive to "increase" their crime family's size. I doubt there was any non-NY boss who looked at NY's sizes and then called in his Under and said, we have 25 members, lets make 75 more, if NY can do it so can we." This doesn't seem to have been a primary objective.

It is interesting to say the least.

[Moscone65]

Outside of New York, every city was pretty much single family so no need to make more members to compete with each other. If anything less made guys means a bigger share of the pie for those involved. In New York however, the sizes of the family had to be more equal in order to maintain equality in votes, status in the city ect. Plus New York is a megalopolis so naturally there would be more guys running around

[Antiliar]

I agree with motorfab. My impression is that Carlos Marcello shut out a lot of (or nearly all) of the old-timers, so whether they were technically shelved or not, they were de facto shelved. I'm certain that Nofio Pecora (Pecoraro) was made, but because he was out of the loop he wasn't listed among the five remaining members. Sylvester Carollo, BTW, illegally re-entered the U.S. and was fighting deportation when he died in 1970.

And according to this CI, "Mr. Luke" Trombatore was the boss before Marcello. The Bureau of Narcotics also had him as a boss.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... trombatore

What gives you that impression? With respect to Fosco's DiFront-Shelving-a-crew assertion, it's not typical protocol nor a boss' right to shelve those he doesn't like. We have almost no insider sources which allude to bosses doing this. There are members who lose office positions when a new boss is instituted but not mass-shelvings. Quite frankly, I don't see the incentive for shelving older members.

But what makeup/hierarchy would you have for 1963?

I have no idea what Joe Fosco's assertion has to do with this. If you want to compare it to another borgata, the Colombos under Persico would probably be the closest analogy. Under Persico he tried to fill all the prime spots with his relatives and close supporters. This is what happened in New Orleans going back to Carollo. His relative married a relative of Carlos Marcello and their goal was to basically keep it (meaning gambling operations and real estate investments) within the family. Those who weren't in the loop were shut out (not because Marcello made a deal with the FBI or officially shut down a crew). Like I wrote, it doesn't have to be an official shelving, but a de facto one. Some of this can be inferred from information that came from Pecora, and some from other sources. BTW, Nofio Pecora (born Onofrio Pecoraro) was involved with Nick Gentile and Charlie LaGaipa in drug trafficking in the mid-1930s, so his credentials go pretty far back. He also died in 1984, so that's one person not on the list of five people. Moreover, since Marcello just got the job in 1963/1964, the changes in numbers wouldn't have happened overnight.

Can I come up with a comprehensive list of names of made people to prove there were others? No, I can't because there weren't any made informants beside Pecora, and Pecora refused to say all that much. The FBN had a list, but it's a suspected Mafia members list that includes associates. If I can't rattle off a bunch of 100% verified for a fact members does it mean they didn't exist? That's an argument from silence. All I can prove with the evidence that I have is that for certain there was at least one member unaccounted for (Pecora) and possibly a second one (Carollo). I can think of other *possible* members who were alive, but since the FBI didn't investigate them I am unable to prove their membership.

What were the total numbers before Marcello? Again, we don't know. I suspect that the New Orleans Family was never large, but it probably was larger before the 1891 lynching. It had members in the 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, and I don't suspect that all the old-timers suddenly died when Leoluca Trombatore died in 1963 and only leaving Carlo Marcello with four members other than himself because to me that strains credulity (not to mention that the existence of Pecora proves it false).

So what list could I come up with for 1963? Hard to say. Would basically have to go through the suspect lists and see what's written on each one, then make an educated guess if they were made. Of course guesses could be way off. Who could have guessed that champion boxer Tony Canzoneri was a capodecina in the Bonanno Family? Who would have guessed that a Wyoming senator was a member of the Colorado brugad? The FBI had Rocco Infelise made in the 1960s when he wasn't made until 1983.

[B.]

Just to clarify, I'm not trying to shut down discussion on who might have been made -- I'm very interested in knowing who anyone thinks deserves consideration based on solid circumstantial evidence. I'm skeptical that Joe Marcello was already made for example and nobody confirmed him but he did attend the LaStella dinner. I don't know that the dinner portion of the meeting was members only, though.

Because CC is trying to make a sourced chart of 1963 members like the other charts, I'm sticking with those standards. We have a high-level source saying they had 5 members in 1968 and the FBI's intel closely matches those numbers, with some questions surrounding a few extra deported members. For a chart I think it would be a mistake to include unconfirmed names just because it seems like they should have had more members.

Nofio Pecora was a well-connected guy but did he imply he was made or did anyone else ever ID him as a member? He was close to LaGaipa who I would guess was made in NYC but CC has a Secret Service report where Clemente says LaGaipa wasn't a member and nobody else ID'd him as made later that I'm aware of. I agree Pecora seems like a made guy but if it was never confirmed he could be like LaGaipa. Guys can get knocked down from membership for various reasons or turn it down. If we didn't have explicit confirmation from Clemente about LaGaipa I 100% would have assumed he was a made Gambino member with the LoCicero crew but he apparently wasn't.

I'm open to non-member sources when we know who they are and if they have the right pedigree. LaTorre's sons in Pittston are a good example because they were getting info straight from their father, or Sal Avena's court testimony where he ID'd an obscure old Caccamese guy (Bruno's in-law) as a member. The LaTorres and Avena were well-positioned to know things others didn't.

[B.]

With the age thing, those guys could have been made 20+ years earlier. New Orleans was a Sicilian style Family and those groups tended to make people very young.

Dallas went almost 40 years without making anyone and were similarly about to die out before NYC approved them to make new members in the 1960s.

[Antiliar]

Clement reported that LaGaipa was not a member in 1923. He could have been made a member in 1924, 1925, 1926, etc. It doesn't make sense to assume that because he wasn't a member in July 1923 that he was never made a member. I believe he eventually was, but unfortunately because of the dearth of evidence we're limited to making educated guesses. So while I can't say with 100% certainty that LaGaipa was a made member as of the mid-1930s, I think his associations and his roles strongly suggest that he was.

If you want to hold to a certain level of standards, I get it. There's nothing wrong with being consistent. I disagree because when it comes to history that context also plays a role in determining the standards that we should use. We are simply not going to have the same amount and types of evidence for things in 2022 as we would for things that happened in 2022 BCE, or 5000 BCE. Apply this to organized crime, the FBI did not begin to list made members and list them until Greg Scarpa and Joe Valachi. Some areas such as New Orleans and Tampa didn't have the type of informants they had in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. Demanding statements from informants who don't exist just isn't reasonable. We have to accept that we have incomplete information and live with it.

So again, if CC wants to make a chart of only 5 guys in 1968, that's up to him. Based on the evidence I've seen I'll just know that it won't be comprehensive.

[B.]

I'm always willing to go off the deep end and speculate about members where we lack sources (just look at the Alabama stuff) but in this case we do have a high-level source who said the Family was tiny and the FBI was unable to collect any data that challenges that number. We accept that Joe Colombo was right about New Orleans being the first Family (which is supported by evidence). His statement about their size is more controversial but it isn't negated by available evidence and the lack of evidence on confirmed NO members could actually support the idea of them having few made members (i.e. the absence of evidence in this case lends itself to there being no further evidence to collect).

It's significant to me that despite how nationally connected New Orleans was, member sources from other cities weren't able to identify more than a small handful of NO members. Other Families who didn't have inside informants were able to get fleshed out a bit more via informants from other cities but for whatever reason the FBI was unable to get confirmation on NO members aside from the names posted in the report on the top of this page. This means either New Orleans truly was miniscule or they were incredibly secretive. My opinion is they were both.

Jimmy Campo is a good example in this. Older man from Siculiana who a non-member speculated could hold the rank of consigliere, but no confirmation from the FBI on him even being made. Campo was regarded as a powerful local figure in other reports. He seems to be at the top of the pack among the "suspecteds" but do you include him as a member on a chart? If we're going to include any unconfirmed members he should be one of them even if he's listed as "possible". However I don't think the FBI's blind speculation about all 33 suspected members deserves to be on the list.

I'm also curious what people think is a reasonable number for the New Orleans Family circa 1968 if the ~5 doesn't sit well with you. Is 10 a more realistic number and what's the basis? That would be a 100% margin of error on the part of Colombo/Scarpa but when we're talking about such small numbers I'm open to it if there's a convincing argument that certain names have been left off (i.e. Campo). If it were to turn out the NO Family had 7 or 8 members and not 5 at the time, I also don't think it would completely shatter the basic premise that New Orleans was a bare-bones organization in the "greaseball" style who needed to induct new members.

^^^ Are we talking about a discrepancy between 5 vs.10, or are we talking about 5 vs. 33? 5 vs. 50?

I like these arguments because they highlight some of our different views on what a mafia organization consists of. My opinion is the available evidence on NO in the 1960s matches the Sicilian mafia (hence their "greaseball" reputation in New Jersey) and the idea members themselves say that a "boss is a boss" no matter the size of his org. Carlos Marcello looks to have been rappresentante of the New Orleans jurisdiction much as Buscetta said Terrasini's two members represented their jurisdiction and were respected as such.

[Antiliar]

- For a guy like Jimmy Campo we have to ask when did the source say he wasn't made and how reliable and credible is the source. If he's a good candidate for being made in 1968, then maybe include him but note that he's unconfirmed.

- Regarding Colombo, if I recall correctly the information is actually Scarpa recalling what he said. It wasn't Colombo in court speaking under oath with cross-examination. Since it's 3rd-hand information (FBI agent summarizing what Scarpa reported that Colombo said), there could be missing context, nuance, and words.

- I'm also focusing on 1963, not 1968. By 1968, Marcello would have had more time to reorganize the borgata as he wanted it. I don't have an issue with there being only five de facto members at that time. I do believe the number was larger both de jure and de facto in 1963.

[B.]

No sources said Campo wasn't made, rather it was a non-member NO source who speculated he may have been consigliere. The FBI was never able to confirm he was a member let alone consig. Whether someone thinks the Family had 5 members or 50, he is a good "suspected" candidate since we only have the names of three definitive members circa 1968 who were actively living in NO without prior deporation and we need at least two more to even meet the number referenced by Scarpa/Colombo.

I bring him up because if you guys have other names we can evaluate them similarly, i.e. they were only suspected of membership but there were strong rumors of their organizational stature pre-1968 inductions. I think Pecora is a good name to evaluate but I'm not sure what sources actually said about his status beyond him being an active part of the NO Sicilian underworld.

If we can find the names of guys who died between 1963 and 1968 who similarly appear to have had stature that would be helpful.

Personally I don't think Marcello taking over would impact the membership count and we can use 1968 to evaluate 1963 even though they likely had at least a few more members in 63.

[Angelo Santino]

I have no idea what Joe Fosco's assertion has to do with this. If you want to compare it to another borgata, the Colombos under Persico would probably be the closest analogy. Under Persico he tried to fill all the prime spots with his relatives and close supporters. This is what happened in New Orleans going back to Carollo. His relative married a relative of Carlos Marcello and their goal was to basically keep it (meaning gambling operations and real estate investments) within the family. Those who weren't in the loop were shut out (not because Marcello made a deal with the FBI or officially shut down a crew). Like I wrote, it doesn't have to be an official shelving, but a de facto one.

You indicated that you believed that when Marcello became boss that he "shelved" the older members. I brought up Fosco's claim that DiFronzo "deactivated" a crew because that is the closest (and only) example of this happening. What happened in the Colombos (and most other groups) where a boss demotes captains and elevates loyalists in their place is quite common (and within the scope of the boss' authority to do). Demotions and Shelvings are very different things. Even if Marcello's aim was keep gambling proceeds to a select group of members, the members that didn't make the cut are still members, even if they don't have a racket they are still part of the organization.

Some of this can be inferred from information that came from Pecora, and some from other sources. BTW, Nofio Pecora (born Onofrio Pecoraro) was involved with Nick Gentile and Charlie LaGaipa in drug trafficking in the mid-1930s, so his credentials go pretty far back. He also died in 1984, so that's one person not on the list of five people. Moreover, since Marcello just got the job in 1963/1964, the changes in numbers wouldn't have happened overnight.

I agree, but five years later we have the Colombo wiretap saying they are down to five guys and was specific enough to say Boss, Under, Consig and two soldiers. So do we have any idea how many members died between 1963 and 1968? It's very possible there was a significant drop off. As Pogo pointed out, the confirmed membership that we have were not old men. I'm inclined to believe that membership was probably very limited, by choice.

Can I come up with a comprehensive list of names of made people to prove there were others? No, I can't because there weren't any made informants beside Pecora, and Pecora refused to say all that much. The FBN had a list, but it's a suspected Mafia members list that includes associates. If I can't rattle off a bunch of 100% verified for a fact members does it mean they didn't exist? That's an argument from silence. All I can prove with the evidence that I have is that for certain there was at least one member unaccounted for (Pecora) and possibly a second one (Carollo). I can think of other *possible* members who were alive, but since the FBI didn't investigate them I am unable to prove their membership.

What were the total numbers before Marcello? Again, we don't know. I suspect that the New Orleans Family was never large, but it probably was larger before the 1891 lynching. It had members in the 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, and I don't suspect that all the old-timers suddenly died when Leoluca Trombatore died in 1963 and only leaving Carlo Marcello with four members other than himself because to me that strains credulity (not to mention that the existence of Pecora proves it false).

So what list could I come up with for 1963? Hard to say. Would basically have to go through the suspect lists and see what's written on each one, then make an educated guess if they were made. Of course guesses could be way off. Who could have guessed that champion boxer Tony Canzoneri was a capodecina in the Bonanno Family? Who would have guessed that a Wyoming senator was a member of the Colorado brugad? The FBI had Rocco Infelise made in the 1960s when he wasn't made until 1983.

All good examples. We really need an insider for confirmation.

When it comes to this chart, I have no problem listing the suspected members that the FBI put out, but I would also include a note to what Colombo said in 1963. That way we're not saying for certain and leaving open possibilities since this is still a mystery.

Clement reported that LaGaipa was not a member in 1923. He could have been made a member in 1924, 1925, 1926, etc. It doesn't make sense to assume that because he wasn't a member in July 1923 that he was never made a member. I believe he eventually was, but unfortunately because of the dearth of evidence we're limited to making educated guesses. So while I can't say with 100% certainty that LaGaipa was a made member as of the mid-1930s, I think his associations and his roles strongly suggest that he was.

If you want to hold to a certain level of standards, I get it. There's nothing wrong with being consistent. I disagree because when it comes to history that context also plays a role in determining the standards that we should use. We are simply not going to have the same amount and types of evidence for things in 2022 as we would for things that happened in 2022 BCE, or 5000 BCE. Apply this to organized crime, the FBI did not begin to list made members and list them until Greg Scarpa and Joe Valachi. Some areas such as New Orleans and Tampa didn't have the type of informants they had in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. Demanding statements from informants who don't exist just isn't reasonable. We have to accept that we have incomplete information and live with it.

Well, I wouldn't feel comfortable listing LaGaipa as a "confirmed" Gambino member, I'll state that. "Suspected Member" I have no issue with. He was an affiliate and the story of the Gambinos in the 20's and 30's can't be told without his name and what he was involved in.

So again, if CC wants to make a chart of only 5 guys in 1968, that's up to him. Based on the evidence I've seen I'll just know that it won't be comprehensive.

No, I was thinking more along the lines of Confirmed Members and Suspected Members underneath them. Even if the 20 or so suspected members the FBI put out weren't members, their backgrounds provide more of a view as to the foundations.

Jimmy Campo is a good example in this. Older man from Siculiana who a non-member speculated could hold the rank of consigliere, but no confirmation from the FBI on him even being made. Campo was regarded as a powerful local figure in other reports. He seems to be at the top of the pack among the "suspecteds" but do you include him as a member on a chart? If we're going to include any unconfirmed members he should be one of them even if he's listed as "possible". However I don't think the FBI's blind speculation about all 33 suspected members deserves to be on the list.

I'm open to listings him as Suspected Consigliere but also open to listing the 33 FBI suspected members as such.

I guess the question is, do we know what 5 members, aside from Marcello, who Colombo was referencing? The two soldiers? Probably not. So do we have confirmed members? If so we list them as members, if not, the names go under suspected members. That allows us not to definitively identify someone as a member when we're guessing but also doesn't restrict the information out there on who was suspected. I think this is a good middle ground.

[B.]

My POV boils down to one thing: if there is reason to challenge Scarpa/Colombo on this, there needs to be tangible evidence that this Family wasn't incredibly small by the 1960s.

What is the evidence beyond there being some guys in New Orleans who otherwise "seem" like members?

Factors to consider:
- Were these men ever seen attending meetings attended exclusively by confirmed members? (i.e. Joe Marcello)
- Did non-member informants in NO perceive them to have higher status? (i.e. Campo)
- Did they die prior to 1968 when Colombo was allegedly told they were down to 5 members?

I think we've made our arguments so we can focus on candidates. I understand if there's some research you can't share publicly but in terms of a chart this is the only way to make an accurate stab at it.

---

Something to consider, re: the FBI's suspected member lists:

Take a guy in NYC like Gandolfo Sciandra. Family from Montedoro (a mafia stronghold), Carlo Gambino's driver and key aide, and his son became a captain. The FBI carried Gandolfo as a suspected member on their lists for obvious reasons.

Turns out he was never made. DiLeonardo confirmed this, said for whatever reason Gambino and Castellano didn't think the father was cut out for membership. Michael said his own father wasn't made for similar reasons despite being a well-connected associate from a lineage.

Doesn't mean all suspected members weren't made, but shows how deceiving things can be from the outside. How could Carlo Gambino have so much faith in a guy who wasn't cut out for membership? I guess they have their own reasons.

Sciandra is one of many suspected members who was never made. It stands out less in NYC because they did have hundreds of confirmed members so the erroneous speculation by the FBI is just a drop in a bucket. I understand Pogo's argument but it's clear the FBI was throwing darts in trying to understand New Orleans' membership given the lack of inside info they had in NO and the lack of info member sources from other cities had on NO.

[Antiliar]

I have no idea what Joe Fosco's assertion has to do with this. If you want to compare it to another borgata, the Colombos under Persico would probably be the closest analogy. Under Persico he tried to fill all the prime spots with his relatives and close supporters. This is what happened in New Orleans going back to Carollo. His relative married a relative of Carlos Marcello and their goal was to basically keep it (meaning gambling operations and real estate investments) within the family. Those who weren't in the loop were shut out (not because Marcello made a deal with the FBI or officially shut down a crew). Like I wrote, it doesn't have to be an official shelving, but a de facto one.

You indicated that you believed that when Marcello became boss that he "shelved" the older members. I brought up Fosco's claim that DiFronzo "deactivated" a crew because that is the closest (and only) example of this happening. What happened in the Colombos (and most other groups) where a boss demotes captains and elevates loyalists in their place is quite common (and within the scope of the boss' authority to do). Demotions and Shelvings are very different things. Even if Marcello's aim was keep gambling proceeds to a select group of members, the members that didn't make the cut are still members, even if they don't have a racket they are still part of the organization.

I was careful to qualify "shelved" with words such as "de facto." In other words, not officially shelved, but effectively. In Chicago the EP crew was allegedly "shut down," but the members of that crew weren't shelved. They were either on their own or could affiliate with another crew, or be direct to whoever's running the show. To reiterate, I was using the word figuratively, not literally.

Some of this can be inferred from information that came from Pecora, and some from other sources. BTW, Nofio Pecora (born Onofrio Pecoraro) was involved with Nick Gentile and Charlie LaGaipa in drug trafficking in the mid-1930s, so his credentials go pretty far back. He also died in 1984, so that's one person not on the list of five people. Moreover, since Marcello just got the job in 1963/1964, the changes in numbers wouldn't have happened overnight.

I agree, but five years later we have the Colombo wiretap saying they are down to five guys and was specific enough to say Boss, Under, Consig and two soldiers. So do we have any idea how many members died between 1963 and 1968? It's very possible there was a significant drop off. As Pogo pointed out, the confirmed membership that we have were not old men. I'm inclined to believe that membership was probably very limited, by choice.

It was a "member source" who reported that he attended a Christmas party on 12/4/1968, not a wiretap. So the FBI report is a summary of what the member source reported. The member source summarized what Colombo lectured the group, and the FBI summarized what the source told him. It's not an exact transcript.

Clement reported that LaGaipa was not a member in 1923. He could have been made a member in 1924, 1925, 1926, etc. It doesn't make sense to assume that because he wasn't a member in July 1923 that he was never made a member. I believe he eventually was, but unfortunately because of the dearth of evidence we're limited to making educated guesses. So while I can't say with 100% certainty that LaGaipa was a made member as of the mid-1930s, I think his associations and his roles strongly suggest that he was.

If you want to hold to a certain level of standards, I get it. There's nothing wrong with being consistent. I disagree because when it comes to history that context also plays a role in determining the standards that we should use. We are simply not going to have the same amount and types of evidence for things in 2022 as we would for things that happened in 2022 BCE, or 5000 BCE. Apply this to organized crime, the FBI did not begin to list made members and list them until Greg Scarpa and Joe Valachi. Some areas such as New Orleans and Tampa didn't have the type of informants they had in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. Demanding statements from informants who don't exist just isn't reasonable. We have to accept that we have incomplete information and live with it.

Well, I wouldn't feel comfortable listing LaGaipa as a "confirmed" Gambino member, I'll state that. "Suspected Member" I have no issue with. He was an affiliate and the story of the Gambinos in the 20's and 30's can't be told without his name and what he was involved in.

I wouldn't feel calling LaGaipa a confirmed member either. For me he's a suspected member, likely member, probably member, or even possible member.