Family Councils / Consigli / Seggia / Elders / Inner Circle

[B.]

Possible he could have used "gira" but "giurare" matches his use closely as well.

[LarryC]

Oh ok, I thought I was reading you guys were saying torno was like saying giuri, in which case I was saying torno is more of gira.

[B.]

With the torneo meetings in Milwaukee, one of the major complaints about Balistrieri by the old faction was that he no longer held them. Similar to complaints in the Bay Area -- although sources there never used that term that we're aware of, one of the reasons members wanted to depose Cerrito and Lanza was that they wouldn't hold Family meetings.

Interestingly, in 1970 Balistrieri was asked what his plan was before he was taken off the street for a pending jail sentence and he said he was going to hold a torneo. Not sure if it happened.

[PolackTony]

With the torneo meetings in Milwaukee, one of the major complaints about Balistrieri by the old faction was that he no longer held them. Similar to complaints in the Bay Area -- although sources there never used that term that we're aware of, one of the reasons members wanted to depose Cerrito and Lanza was that they wouldn't hold Family meetings.

Interestingly, in 1970 Balistrieri was asked what his plan was before he was taken off the street for a pending jail sentence and he said he was going to hold a torneo. Not sure if it happened.

We discussed this recently, but don’t know that either of us posted about it. The FBI had a report in the 60s stating that Accardo attended Milwaukee’s “yearly meetings”. While not much more was said about this, possible that this went back to when Chicago put in Alioto as Milwaukee boss in 1952, while Accardo was still Chicago boss. We don’t know for a fact what Accardo’s formal position was in the early 60s (we have reason to believe that Ricca was segretario/chairman of the Consiglio; as they were later co-acting bosses together, it’s possible that they shared the chairman role prior to that), though it’s clear that as a former boss and member of the Consiglio, he had some level of admin responsibility. Haven’t seen any other account where a leader of an Avugad Family attended the Council meetings of a Family that they represented, though it would not at all surprise me if there turns out to be other examples.

[B.]

Only comparable situation I'm aware of is where Bonanno underboss Frank Garofalo attended an SF induction ceremony as a sort of guest of honor because he was visiting CA where he owned a business. As far as I know it was a one-off

[PolackTony]

Only comparable situation I'm aware of is where Bonanno underboss Frank Garofalo attended an SF induction ceremony as a sort of guest of honor because he was visiting CA where he owned a business. As far as I know it was a one-off

Yes, and the claim about Accardo was that it was an ongoing arrangement for him to attend the annual Milwaukee torneo. A guess on my part is that Milwaukee was in a sort of “receivership” situation, given that they had an internal leadership dispute in 1952 leading to Chicago appointing Alioto as boss to resolve the crisis, and then Alioto later appointing Balistrieri with Chicago’s approval, but apparently without an official vote from the Milwaukee membership. As Accardo was boss when Chicago had to step in and essentially take over Milwaukee’s leadership appointments, and was subsequently on Chicago’s Consiglio, he may have continued monitoring their affairs, as we also have intel from Maniaci that Balistrieri had to get Chicago’s approval for any major decisions.

[B.]

The Oblonica in 1800s Agrigento used the "turno" as a high court for mafia trials:

[B.]

Don't know how I missed this but in Bill Bonanno's last book he says his father opened the 1956 Commission meeting by saying "Attaccarmu tornu" and tying the circle.

[Don Mosseria]

Yeah - I did mention that somewhere in the thread above buried in amongst all the back and forth. He uses that term, and I think another similar one, a few times in the book. There are a lot of references to things relating to turning and circles in all these records in general. It’s interesting, because before we were analysing the term Torna in terms of “returning”, so it’s like everyone goes off their own lives, then there is “returning”, where everyone circles around and comes back to the clan. But in this case, Bill is using it in terms of the meeting itself being a circle of trusted friends, and they tie the circle. I think there might’ve been other variations on a circle theme here and there too - though maybe I am misremembering?