Vincent Generoso & the DiMino connections

[B.]

There were more Bonanno members from western Agrigento and the Sciacca area than what's currently known of the Genovese but there's also a huge knowledge gap on the latter's earlier membership. What Joel's found could suggest there was once a larger Sciacchitano element in the Genovese though it's pretty clear the Gambinos took in the majority and the Bonannos and Genovese took in a minority element. The Luccheses had a few guys from Joppolo / Siculiana in the Canarsie crew but barely enough to comment on and Agrigento seems to have been virtually absent from the Colombos.

This all brings to mind Mike Sabella, a Sciacchitano made in the Bonannos. There was a 1958 FBI source who identified a "Gus Sobella" [ph] as an old time member who had been "part of the original crew" with Charlie Luciano in Little Italy. In what I've seen, the source didn't link "Gus Sobella" to the Bonannos but the FBI subsequently carried him on a later Bonanno Family chart (though that chart has plenty of mistakes). They also suspected "Sobella's" actual name was "Gus Sabella" or "August Sabella" but the only guys they found were younger and not the figure in question.

Mike Sabella's father was an Accursio "Gus" Sabella, which the FBI didn't seem to have been aware of. I'm not sure what led the FBI to include "Gus Sobella" [ph] as a Bonanno but that, his age, and the Little Italy connection led me to suspect they were referring to Mike Sabella's father Accursio/August/Gus. But the source who mentioned "Sobella" linked him to "the original crew" with Luciano, which I initially took to be a generalization given how much cross-pollination there was in Little Italy -- now I'm wondering if a Gus Sabella was indeed affiliated with the Genovese Family in Little Italy. Mike Sabella's father or not, anyone named Gus Sabella would no doubt be a Sciacchitano.

Phil Albanese is another Genovese member with heritage in Agrigento (offhand, I recall it was Porto Empedocle) but I'm not aware of his involvement with the Generoso crew.

[PolackTony]

There were more Bonanno members from western Agrigento and the Sciacca area than what's currently known of the Genovese but there's also a huge knowledge gap on the latter's earlier membership. What Joel's found could suggest there was once a larger Sciacchitano element in the Genovese though it's pretty clear the Gambinos took in the majority and the Bonannos and Genovese took in a minority element. The Luccheses had a few guys from Joppolo / Siculiana in the Canarsie crew but barely enough to comment on and Agrigento seems to have been virtually absent from the Colombos.

This all brings to mind Mike Sabella, a Sciacchitano made in the Bonannos. There was a 1958 FBI source who identified a "Gus Sobella" [ph] as an old time member who had been "part of the original crew" with Charlie Luciano in Little Italy. In what I've seen, the source didn't link "Gus Sobella" to the Bonannos but the FBI subsequently carried him on a later Bonanno Family chart (though that chart has plenty of mistakes). They also suspected "Sobella's" actual name was "Gus Sabella" or "August Sabella" but the only guys they found were younger and not the figure in question.

Mike Sabella's father was an Accursio "Gus" Sabella, which the FBI didn't seem to have been aware of. I'm not sure what led the FBI to include "Gus Sobella" [ph] as a Bonanno but that, his age, and the Little Italy connection led me to suspect they were referring to Mike Sabella's father Accursio/August/Gus. But the source who mentioned "Sobella" linked him to "the original crew" with Luciano, which I initially took to be a generalization given how much cross-pollination there was in Little Italy -- now I'm wondering if a Gus Sabella was indeed affiliated with the Genovese Family in Little Italy. Mike Sabella's father or not, anyone named Gus Sabella would no doubt be a Sciacchitano.

Phil Albanese is another Genovese member with heritage in Agrigento (offhand, I recall it was Porto Empedocle) but I'm not aware of his involvement with the Generoso crew.

Good info on Sabella’s dad. I had meant to include the Bonannos above, meaning that the big wave of arrivals from Sciacca and neighboring comuni seemed to have joined the existing 3 Families that we know if in NYC circa 1900 rather than having formed their own Family (though again, maybe they did and it just didn’t persist as an independent Family for more than a short time, though this also doesn’t factor in whatever may have been happening with the “DeCavalcante” Family in this period either).

[JoelTurner]

Dimino has a falling out with D'Aquila and is killed in 1922 then Attardi says he himself is one of the men marked for death by Maranzano's faction during the Castellammarese War

Really interesting, I didn’t know that Maranzano had targeted “ordinary” members in addition to well-known names on his hit list.

Also, when framed this way, I wonder if Maranzano’s connections to the D’Aquila group caused this friction. They would have only been ~9 years removed from his murder and may not have appreciated him supporting this group

[B.]

Yeah I don't know that Maranzano would have specifically said "I'm adding Funzi Attardi to my hit list!", but Attardi's belief that he was marked for death tells us he was at least part of the Masseria-aligned group (the "Sciacchitani" as Gentile describes them) and therefore at risk. Based on Valachi's account it sounds like anyone on the opposing side was fair game by the time the war was peaking, hence him going after Paolo Gambino when he saw him (thinking it was Carlo, then just a soldier). Whether Attardi was singled out individually for violence or not, his and Gentile's accounts suggest the bulk of the Gambino Sciacchitani were probably pro-Masseria, himself a de facto Sciacchitan from Menfi (note that Menfi birth records are stored in Sciacca).

I doubt it's a coincidence that D'Aquila had Dimino killed and then 6 years later Dimino's friends like Joe Biondo and Alfonso Attardi are part of the Masseria-Mineo faction, essentially confirming they were accepting if not supportive of D'Aquila's murder.

Jimmy Dimino joining the Genovese could be similar to Bartolo Ferrigno joining the Colombos. The latter's brother was apparently the Gambino underboss but is murdered and his brother ends up with a different Family. Accursio Dimino is an important capodecina who is murdered and his brother too goes with a different Family.

[Harrism]

If the people from Sciacca were on Masseria's side and in opposition to D'Aquilla's, than why do they end up with the Parlermitan Gambino family?

[B.]

If the people from Sciacca were on Masseria's side and in opposition to D'Aquilla's, than why do they end up with the Parlermitan Gambino family?

Because they were already members of the Gambino Family and political alliances within the mafia cross Family lines.

[JoelTurner]

Even if the Sciacchitani were upset with D’Aquila from 1922-28, I don’t think that they were openly hostile. My read is that Masseria/Mineo probably got a “thumbs up” from them when it came to hitting D’Aquila.

In the mid ‘30s, Mangano gave a couple of Agrigento-Manhattan crews some functional autonomy, letting their paisan Nicola Gentile serve as an intermediary. This arrangement may not have been unique to him and could have been a remnant of an earlier deal.

One of those crews, Giuseppe Parlapiano’s, was on Elizabeth St; but I’m not sure if it was the same one as DiMino’s.

[B.]

I agree, very unlikely there was open hostility. There wasn't even open hostility between the former D'Aquila loyalists like Traina, Scalise, etc. and the pro-Masseria faction, they conspired with Maranzano very quietly and presented a neutral front during the height of the war. That's typically how it works, resentment below the surface that plays out politically.

Mangano was an unwavering supporter of Masseria (and presumably Mineo) so I've wondered if the autonomy he gave them after the war was in part because they'd been aligned during the war. It's also pretty typical of Agrigentini to operate semi-autonomously wherever they appear. The reason he gave for designating Nicola Gentile his "sostituto" (substitute, used in the old mafia as a synonym for acting boss) was both because he was busy in Brooklyn and because the Agrigentini were so insular. When we've discussed this before I floated Giuseppe Sanfilippo as a possible candidate for the same role Gentile played as a source described Sanfilippo as having once served as a "consigliere of judgment" and he doesn't otherwise fit into what's known of the official consigliere succession. Later on he's with the Traina crew, though.

The crew succession is hard to pin down since so little is known of these years and as we know crew succession is not always linear, groups being broken up, merged, and new decine often created (Michael DiLeonardo was told the Garofalo and Traina crews were the only remaining decine in his time that had existed continuously without being broken up). Vincenzo LoCicero is a capodecina until his death in the early 1920s and he's active around the Upper East Side. Trupia is the best fit for that crew if indeed someone took it over and he's captain by the early 1930s. The Arcuris were close to LoCicero and in the same area so it's likely their group has roots in his decina and maybe Trupia as well given where they operated and their heritage -- not only that, but Trupia was from Canicatti which is very close to Naro where Arcuri crew members the Francos and Marsala came from. But Pietro Stincone is later a contemporary captain of Arcuri who likely had roots under Trupia and there were other important Canicattese guys in the picture as well.

With Little Italy it's a bigger question mark since so many guys were swimming around there. I think it's most likely Parlapiano was running a decina with roots in DiMino's group but DiMino is very close to Joe Biondo and Umberto Valente so we can't be sure there wasn't crossover with the future Riccobono-Dongarra group, who did have Agrigentini like the Albertis with them. My assumption is Valente was a captain of his own decina and Biondo was likely a captain himself by 1930, maybe some continuation of Valente's group, but none of this is confirmed and all kinds of changes could have taken place between 1922 and the early 1930s.