Organization & Operation revisited

[Villain]

This thread went to shit.

Yes and im sorry regarding my part.

No you’re not. In your very next post you say he’s not a man and you called him a snitch also. I wonder if you’d have the balls to say these things in person? Probably not because online tough guys have no balls.

Lol belive me will do or come and try me lol

Damn man you used to send me pms on how you liked my work. Whats wrong now? I never had anything against you and i said sorry on my part. My beef with Angelo is completely another thing.

[Villain]

Ok, Angelo do you want to shake hands and respect each others evidences and talk like real mature researchers?

I dont want to start a war between members on the forum and so lets get it done. Ok?

(now dont act like a woman and answer quickly lol kidding)

[Villain]

Ok, so the offer goes down the hill and the conflict continues. By the way is this operational or organizational? Lol

Damn.

[Antiliar]

Villain, can you take your beef with Angelo to the Graveyard section? The main forum isn't the place for personal issues.

[Villain]

Villain, can you take your beef with Angelo to the Graveyard section? The main forum isn't the place for personal issues.

You are right and will do, Anti. Ladies go first so ill let him start the thread.

BUT if someone goes against my opinion or mention my name in this same thread, ill be back like the Terminator

[johnny_scootch]

Damn man you used to send me pms on how you liked my work.

This is an outright lie. Never once have I pmed you and I don’t like your work at all. You’re a bullshit artist.

[chin_gigante]

Another couple of good example of the organisational/ operational distinction from the Bonanno family in the early 2000s:

- When Joseph Massino was arrested in 2003, Anthony Urso is frequently identified as the acting boss of the family
- Urso was later indicted as the acting boss and was described as holding the position by Dominick Cicale
- While Urso was certainly the guy in charge of the family on the street at that time, it appears he never actually held the position of acting boss
- Massino was very adamant in his testimony that while he put Urso on the acting administration, he never made him acting boss
- When testifying about his induction ceremony, Cicale was asked who the highest-ranking member was and he stated clearly that was Joseph Cammarano Sr (acting underboss), and then the next highest-ranking was Urso
- During the first conversation recorded by James Tartaglione, introductions are made and Basciano specifically asks Tartaglione if Urso has been introduced to him as the acting consigliere (you'd think if Urso was the acting boss Basciano would introduce him as such)
- It seems clear therefore that while Urso was certainly the de facto acting boss of the family (and the one in control operationally), his formal rank was captain and acting consigliere (organisational)
- The same goes for Michael Mancuso
- Cicale initially described Mancuso as the acting boss of the Bonanno family following Vincent Basciano's arrest in November 2004
- Massino also testified that Basciano made Mancuso the acting boss but was a little unclear about things (mostly due to miscommunication) that were happening on the street
- However, when Cicale is pressed about it he provides clearer details about Mancuso's actual position
- Basciano upped Mancuso to acting underboss and left him with 'final say' on the street if a quick decision needed to be made
- Cicale also clarified nobody installed Mancuso as acting boss and Basciano retained the position after his arrest
- Operationally, Mancuso was certainly the de facto acting boss and had final say on the street, organisationally he was the acting underboss

[Wiseguy]

Guys, seriously, you know I like you both. We get the idea you have a disagrement and you will probably not spend your next vacations together.

Bury the war hatchet, and continue to debate about the initial topic if you want (you both have serious arguments IMO) but stop with the internal war, it's too bad and useless

Motor, this is business, and these guys are taking it very, very personal.

[Antiliar]

Just to add to the conversation, Michael DiLeonardo agrees with the organization/operation distinction. In my own experience the organizational aspect has always fascinated me a lot more than operations. I was - and still am - more interested in who had what rank, when they moved up, and what was their outcome. It's the skeleton that holds it all together. I also think that more people are interested in "who's da boss" than what the boss does. Part of it is human nature.

[gohnjotti]

Doesn't really matter as he is still a major RICO target named Persico who helped direct a mafia Family.

I don't have a precise answer for not making Persico either, but I'll offer some counterpoints.

Persico was a known participant in the Colombo War in regards to being a known liaison between the incarcerated Persicos and the rest of the family. Despite this, the media continued to dub him as the "legitimate" son of the Persicos all through the '90s. He was sought for comment by the Daily News in the same way Vincent Gigante's brother was. His status as associate rather than made almost certainly helped this perception. Although you could argue this is perception is due more to his success at avoiding prosecution.

[PolackTony]

Just to add to the conversation, Michael DiLeonardo agrees with the organization/operation distinction.

I mean the guy has lived it, arguably to an extent beyond even many other members given who his family (small f) was. Navigating that world, one has to be able to effectively grasp both dimensions of it, and part of that is the awareness that formal position and membership in the organization don’t always necessarily correspond in a one-to-one fashion with respect, influence, or control over particular racket operations or territory.

[stubbs]

This is such a great thread! I’ve learned quite a bit and it’s helped me understand and clear up a lot of things in my head.

Wiseguy's "viability" argument is an operational POV. He dismisses organizational intelligence because his idea of a mafia Family is tied entirely to their known operations. I understand this argument up to a point but he has a tendency to flat out reject or minimize intelligence about the org if he feels the group is limited operationally. This is particularly strange with Buffalo as evidence surfaced showing that the Family is alive and engaged in organized crime activity. The evidence we have is focused on Ontario but it doesn't matter where someone lives, a member still represents his Family whether he's in Canada, Florida, or Montana. They're part of Joe Todaro's Family and the Otremens investigation showed the members there are heavily focused on organizational details and protocol not only within their own Family but with regard to others too.

I think the problem is many people hear that a mafia family is active from an organizational perspective and automatically means they’re active operationally as well, or vice-versa. We know now that these concepts are similar but not equal: A family can be active organizationally but not operationally (my guess with Los Angeles today), or a family can be defunct organizationally yet some “remnants” of former lcn-related racket operations can remain active long after (which seems to be the case in places like Pittsburgh).

People hear about one of these and automatically assume the other is a given. i.e. hearing about a recent Pittsburgh gambling bust assuming that their lcn family is still formally active, or assuming because the LA family still has a few made members left that they’re still involved in criminal street rackets.

The way I view Wiseguy’s arguments are, not that Buffalo’s mafia organization doesn’t have X number of made members, but as discussing what it actually means operationally in terms of criminal rackets on the streets (which on the New York side of the border we don’t know much about).

We know that Todaro is formally the boss of the Buffalo organization, but we haven’t quite figured out if he’s involved in anything operationally. Todaro could be 100% legit and not involved in the operational stuff, for example not making money off of any rackets. His entire interaction with LCN could only be from the organizational prospective, such as setting family policy and making new members, handling promotions, etc.

The frustration, in my opinion, comes from a conflating of the Org/Ops and with people assuming that if one half of the equation exists, the other is always there.

Either way, this framework y’all have created should hopefully help us articulate our thoughts better in future discussions, and make our questions, opinions, and/or research more clear.

[PolackTony]

Just to add to the conversation, Michael DiLeonardo agrees with the organization/operation distinction.

I mean the guy has lived it, arguably to an extent beyond even many other members given who his family (small f) was. Navigating that world, one has to be able to effectively grasp both dimensions of it, and part of that is the awareness that formal position and membership in the organization don’t always necessarily correspond in a one-to-one fashion with respect, influence, or control over particular racket operations or territory.

Just an illustration. Michael, as a guy in that life, was well aware that a guy like Joe Watts was in the “inner circle” — responsible for relaying murder contracts from the boss here — of the Gambino admin in an informal sense while formally not a member of the organization. Rather, Watts had the respect and influence that he had (including “carte blanche” over construction, as Michael puts it) because of his own personal reputation and direct relationship as an associate to the boss. Watts had no actual position in the organization but a ton of clout and when he acted and spoke everyone knew that he did so with the authority of Gotti behind him. From the perspective of the organization, Watts could not be a member and was a formally affiliated associate of the Family. From the perspective of operations, he was basically the overseer for one of the primary and most lucrative income streams for the Family.

As a reminder, Michael was made by this point (Weiss murder in 1989).

[B.]

^ Not only was Michael made, but Jackie D'Amico was a captain. He described Watts as a "member of the inner circle" who passed a murder contract to a capodecina and made member. You can imagine how that would be distorted if it was a certain Midwestern city but either way nobody can dismiss Watts's role and influence.

[gohnjotti]

I see the same thing playing out in the Colombo family over recent years. While Andrew Russo was the official boss of the family, it's clear that Teddy Persico was the real power behind the scenes. The government gathered intelligence from recorded conversations of captains stating that Persico had 'final say' over issues and could overrule Benji Castellazzo, the official underboss. It would be accurate to refer to Persico therefore as the real de-facto boss of the family, but this was not his official rank. In organisational terms, he was a captain without a crew. That's how I look at it. If Persico was to be introduced to another member during that time, he'd be introduced as a captain, not as the boss of the family. That's organisational to me. Now, the third party may pull the other member aside and say, 'Look, Teddy's our guy', but that's operational. That's not to say the operational isn't important, it's hugely important. You can't get an accurate picture of the family during that period without looking at Persico's clout, but it's a different mode of authority.

That's why I say the organisational/ operational thing is the farthest thing from a guess. It's a useful term used for us to apply to a very real distinction we observe within cosa nostra.

To further complicate the situation, Teddy Persico Jr. also indicated in a tape-recording that he had a list of people he wanted to murder, but would need to get approval from Michael Persico. Furthermore, it was Michael Persico who was frequently deferred to on matters like territorial disputes and upcoming inductions, likely due to his direct connection with his incarcerated brother Allie, who still directed family affairs through 2009.

I got this conversation confused with another tape-recording from the same case where James Bombino said he was going to get a list of people he wanted to hit to present to Teddy Persico Jr. for permission, not Michael.

But I found the conversation I am thinking of where Teddy Persico Jr. states that he would need to seek permission from Michael Persico to commit acts of violence.
Jan. 23, 2009.
Participants; Teddy Persico Jr., James Bombino
T. Persico: Oh. You had it burned down?
P. Bombino: Not me. I don’t do things like that. I’m a law abiding citizen.
T. Persico: I do.
P. Bombino: (UI). (UI) a fat cat. His friend there, Uncle Frank’s friend. He’s fuckin’ next.
T. Persico: Good. I’m all for it. I’m, I’m for hittin’ people. I say, let’s go beat up (UI). They don’t want to beat him up. I’ll go beat him up. He won’t beat me, I’ll go beat him up. But I don’t know if they’re ready to deal with that.
P. Bombino: They’re not ready to deal with that. They’re a bunch of sissy Marys.
J. Bombino: They’ll never be ready to deal with that.
P. Bombino: Come on. Please.
J. Bombino: Uncle Frank’s an old man and his son’s half a woman.
T. Persico: I don’t know. I don’t really think that it’d be a problem. I’m gonna talk to my cousin Michael about it. If he says do it, I’m gonna do it. I wanna, I wanna hurt somebody badly. I really wanna hurt somebody.

This is how the judge in the case summarized that conversation;

So, here is Mr. Persico, Jr., planning or wanting to commit violent acts and he will do so but only if he receives permission from this defendant.