Which rats told the truth?

[CornerBoy]

Which rats told the truth?

[Little Frankie]

I would say that the most believable IMO are probably Martorano, Cullotta and Caramandi

[DonPeppino386]

I would say that the most believable IMO are probably Martorano, Cullotta and Caramandi

Agreed. I would say Leonetti as well.

[thegunners]

Wasn`t Al DE Arco, at least by feds, thought of as quite trustworthy?

[Pmac2]

Little al. They all hold back no matter who. Maybe nick the crow. Martorano could have put alot of guys away he held back or lied

[PolackTony]

Nicky Calabrese. Completely flipped what people thought they knew about Chicago.

[UTC]

Nicky Calabrese. Completely flipped what people thought they knew about Chicago.

But do we know it all turned out to be accurate?

[SonnyBlackstein]

Gaspipe.

[Tonyd621]

Sammy the bull was honest about one thing I know about:
His last name

[Tonyd621]

Little al. They all hold back no matter who. Maybe nick the crow. Martorano could have put alot of guys away he held back or lied

Is holding back lying? In the feds eyes, yes. But if you only tell half of what you know but it's all accurate some would consider that truth

[PolackTony]

Nicky Calabrese. Completely flipped what people thought they knew about Chicago.

But do we know it all turned out to be accurate?

I don’t see any reason to think he was dishonest. We don’t have other insider accounts to compare to his, of course, so we can’t really comparatively triangulate his testimony in the same way that can sometimes be done for NYC cooperators. Always possible that he was a bit off on a couple of details, especially with older events, but that happens with any informant.

Other posters gave examples of guys that they thought were “believable”, and if that’s the metric we’re using, I think Calabrese was believable. CornerBoy initially asked who “told the truth”, which of course isn’t exactly the same question. But, we don’t get “the truth” from anyone in the sense of unmediated objective events, just better or worse approximations thereof from some given person’s perspective, filtered through inherently faulty processes of memory and retrieval.

[CornerBoy]

Thanks, guys!

[CornerBoy]

leonetti seemed truthful and so does calabrese and caramandi come to think of it but who knows?

[PolackTony]

leonetti seemed truthful and so does calabrese and caramandi come to think of it but who knows?

Yeah, we often aren’t in a position to have a clear factual record for much of what these guys claim. Another consideration is what is meant by “truthful”. Some guys are intentionally misleading and dishonest. Others are just mistaken, either in details or more substantive questions. Some guys are brighter than others and some have a better grasp of the events that unfolded during their tenure in the mob.

Valachi is a good example. While I don’t think that there’s reason to think he was manifestly dishonest in any significant way, he was objectively wrong about some things like Family affiliation for a number of guys. This speaks to his limited understanding — for example, he seemed to think every made guy in Jersey was with the Genovese. He also shows a relatively poor grasp of the history of the mafia and the political dynamics surrounding the Castellammarese War (as compared to other contemporaneous accounts like Gentile of Bonanno), but that comes from the fact that he was a recent recruit and was a Napolitan’ who didn’t come from a Sicilian mafia tradition. As with any of these guys, one has to put them in context in terms of what they would be in the position to know and what sorts of biases and misunderstandings that their individual perspective and history might lead them towards.

[davidf1989]

How about Sonny Mercurio from the Boston LCN? He gave up the Mafia induction ceremony in Medford and also provided information about the state of the Patriarca crime family according to this document below.

https://archive.org/details/366007-dc-1 ... ew=theater