Daniel Renaud's 2018 book on Vito Rizzuto

[dixiemafia]

As usual anti, I'm glad it drives you. Just imagine if we didn't have you, we would have a pretty tough time with Montreal. I'm beginning to wonder if those in the family know if they're kin to this person or another person with the way everyone is tied together.

[CabriniGreen]

Pretty good article...


https://books.google.com/books?id=y3bv3 ... ne&f=false

Lol, sorry guys, wrong fuckin article, I didnt check it before I posted it..... Here is the one I wanted to post....

Why the mob loves Canada--merged.zip

[B.]

This is direct contradiction to Bonnano acting Capo Dominick Cicale's testimony.

Cicale testified at several racketeering trials. In none of them did he testify about anything regarding Montreal.

The book that Ed Scarpo wrote with him does not contain or discuss any of Cicale's trial testimony.

I'll post some other excerpts from the book regarding the murder of Lo Presti and about Montreal's supposed cessation of tribute per what Vito Rizzuto and Sal Vitale told investigators. What is becoming more and more apparent to me after reading Renaud's latest book is that, when Sal Vitale, Joe Massino, and Vito Rizzuto were being questioned by investigators at various times over the years, the mobsters were not always truthful -- they intentionally lied about certain subjects for a number of reasons that are at least easy to guess at. Vitale and Rizzuto corroborate each other regarding the flow of tribute stopping as a result of Sciascia's murder, but the book reveals -- in my mind and in the minds of other readers as well -- that Vitale, after first providing the dominant, accepted account about Sciascia having killed or having arranged to kill Lo Presti, years later told investigators a different account. Hard to tell who is telling the truth about certain subjects.

Interesting as it more or less confirms the Rizzutos indeed went rogue.

But Cicale also stated that Montagna was acting as a messanger between New York and Montreal in the years that followed, which was corroborated by Renaud himself, so ties weren't severed entirely. So it is hard to believe who here is telling the truth.

Also bear in mind that Rizzuto had read The Sixth Family and likely all other reports about his "family" and relation (or no relation) with the Bonannos so he could have just told them what he thought they wanted to hear. In this case Sonny's argument stands, why would Rizzuto divulge sensative information and basically break Omertà? You have to consider his POV, what did he have to gain by doing so?

And the irony is that this information does strive with information earlier on in the same book, about the meetings with Vitale, when the Montreal mobsters expected a new successor to Sciascia being named until it apparantly became the elder Rizzuto.

The most likely scenario is that the Rizzutos started to act as their own family with the Bonannos, having their own problems in New York and not being able to do much about it at that time, accepting it for the time being.

It's difficult to know how to interpret Rizzuto's interview. On one hand, he willingly gave a candid interview with LE from both Canada and the US, and though he hadn't "flipped", his participation in a discussion of that nature is a violation of mafia rules and his comments were used by investigators and journalists/authors. Because he hadn't outright flipped, though, his word wouldn't be bound to any law, which does bring into question how truthful he was.

Much of the posted excerpts corroborate information that was public at the time from other sources, which could mean that Rizzuto wanted to give the investigators the illusion that he was cooperative by confirming that info, meanwhile he wasn't providing new or alternative information that they could potentially use against him or others. For example, if he claimed that he had not severed ties with the Bonannos and did continue to send tribute, as Cicale has said, that could potentially give investigators a new angle and bring more charges. Cicale also said that Rizzuto and Basciano continued to arrange drug deals, and it's not as if Rizzuto was going to tell his LE interviewers that he continued to send drugs into the US. We have enough issues with getting the full truth when a made member flips, so it's hard to know which facts we can pull from this conversation, as interesting and potentially informative as it is.

There is this idea that Vito Rizzuto was a die-hard mafioso from a traditional Sicilian mafia background, but let's take a look at what has surfaced about him:
- Inducted into a mafia family, but according to some theories severed ties when his friend was killed despite endless precedence of mafia members who stayed "loyal" to their organization after friends, relatives, and even fathers and brothers were killed. This is actually part of the traditional induction oath.
- A close non-Italian associate of Rizzuto claimed that Rizzuto himself inducted two non-Italians into his organization, which this associate bragged about in Sicily among mafia peers.
- Rizzuto gave a candid interview with LE where he discussed mafia organizations, high-level mafia meetings, mafia murders, and other details of mafia life that, while not used for criminal court proceedings, have clearly been used by LE and now published in a book.

If Rizzuto went "rogue", it doesn't seem to simply be from the Bonanno family, but from the entire mafia tradition.

Antimafia -- what did Vitale later say that contradicted previous info on the LoPresti murder? McDougall's theory would seem to fit in with the accepted idea of Sciascia (who was in NYC) arranging the murder without approval, likely through Rizzuto (and seemingly this West End Gang), then asking for permission later. Which part did Vitale contradict?

[CabriniGreen]

Actually @B.

I've consistently tried to point out just HOW different Vito was.... You guys consistently argue that he was absolutely bound by and abided by mafia tradition, in spite of everything we know and have seen.... His own words has him DISDAINING the Bonnanos, as a whole ...

He had a BLACK GANG LEADER as part of his inner circle?!!!!

You can check for yourself....

It was like 4 or 5 years ago now I think.... Someone on GBB asked if the Rizzutos were LCN...

I responded, yes, but structurally they are more similar to a drug cartel, or the clans from Italy.. and that their organizational and operational needs reflect this.....


There are more than a few authors that see them as narcotics based organization FIRST, like that's the priority of the organization...


When you say people mistake them for " die hard sicilians", I feel like you are misunderstanding, DEEPLY.....

They are- were originally, primarily concerned with narcotics. When I look at Vitos organization, it's like its organized in a way to facilitate this activity with efficiency, above all else.


(When the Rizzutos were coming to power, this was a time when drugs was of PARAMOUNT importance to the Sicilian mafia .... Old bridge showed, nothing much had changed either.....)

Otherwise their response to dealing with Bikers or street gang members should have been something like Arcadis response, or the Toronto Calabrians response to the Wolfpack...

On the Vitale thing.....

Mcdougall theory is almost the opposite of what was previously said... If I'm reading this right let me know If I'm off....

In Sixth family, we dont know why LoPresti was hit. The impression was that it was for reasons internal to Montreal, Since Sciascias reasons were " hes on drugs..".
Sciascia had him killed, THEN asked permission.....So he did it on his own...then sought permission RETROACTIVLY.... it was another indicator of his loyalty to Montreal.....


This guys theory is that the hit ORIGINATED with the Bonnano administration. That Vito kinda balked for awhile, but finally relented. If it was authorized, it cant really be a sneak hit, can it?

Also, we still have no real motive...

[CabriniGreen]

Also @B.

I've been meaning to ask..

The wiretaps on the sicilians, when Fernandez was there. I think they were caught saying something like, " Vito could run his family as he saw fit in Canada"... I'm paraphrasing, but what did you think of that?

[B.]

From the excerpt that was posted, I didn't see anything about the order for the LoPresti murder coming from the Bonanno administration, only an order being given to Rizzuto from a nonspecific source. That could be referring to Sciascia issuing the order to Rizzuto, given that he was the captain, living in New York, and said by Vitale to have been involved in the murder conspiracy. That excerpt also doesn't make it clear why the investigator thought Rizzuto contracted out the murder to another gang and we can't be sure if that's a fact, only that it's his theory. If I'm missing some information, let me know.

I'm not under the impression based on Vitale's info that Sciascia was purposely pulling off a "sneak hit" in the sense that the phrase is usually used. These guys don't typically take credit for a "sneak hit" and seek approval for it immediately after the fact. If it is true that Sciascia had LoPresti killed before seeking approval from the administration, we still don't know what the exact circumstance was that led them to carry out the murder with such urgency.

Most important to all of this -- we don't even know if Vitale was correct that LoPresti was killed before Sciascia sought approval. The way I've seen it described, Vitale and Anthony Spero had a feeling or hunch that LoPresti had already been murdered based on the way Sciascia spoke to them, but Vitale didn't seem to know the exact date Sciascia approached him so we can't map out an exact timeline and compare it to the date when LoPresti was actually murdered. It's possible Vitale's "feeling" was wrong and LoPresti was killed after Sciascia received approval.

[antimafia]

Massino and the admin., including Vitale, knew about Joe Renda having been made by at least the time of Sciascia’s funeral—made probably in New York but possibly in Montreal, given the New York–born Renda’s and his family’s ties to Montreal. All the New York Families, not just Massino’s, would have known about the Romeo Bucci proposed by Montreal in the late ‘90s (per former poster JD’s research). Humphreys and Lamothe knew about Renda’s made status, but I strongly doubt the authors knew of Bucci’s proposed membership.

Wasn't Bucci already a member in 1973 when he was said to have "cast" Montreal's vote in the Bonanno family boss election? If I remember right I thought he showed up in the deceased member column for an induction list in the 90s, not as a proposed member. Frank Cotroni also showed up on a Bonanno induction list in the deceased column in 2004. So we know the Bonannos at least kept track of Montreal members dying, but I'd be curious how they knew. It seems doubtful the Bonannos in NYC were checking Montreal papers for obituaries, so someone must have kept them in the loop.

This report from the 1960s might shed light on why NYC was "out of the loop":


So the "approximately 20" number goes back at least to 1964, and they were said to have been given a "free hand in the administration of its own group" by the post-Joe Bonanno regime. Whether this was meant to be temporary during the upheaval or permanent is hard to say, but it might explain why the NYC admin may not have known the full membership in later years since "free hand in the administration of its own group" could very well include maintaining the crew's membership. I do have to point out again that Montreal does seem to have followed the rules by not making members when the books were closed as of the 1970s, though Joe Bonanno was accused of inducting members when the books were closed in the early 60s.

Just to confuse matters more, I'm providing a link, below, to a page from a January 7, 1965 memo that appears on the Mary Ferrell site.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... members%22

TBHF post--MaryFerrell site--size of Montreal crew--screencap.JPG

The Romeo Bucci whose name was in the deceased column of that image that you originally posted ( (thread title: "Bonanno proposed induction list.") was probably related to the Romeo Bucci you mentioned above-- if posters want to see that image, go to http://www.theblackhand.club/forum/view ... 245#p48245 and look for HairyKnucles's post.

[B.]

Haha, well if we had trouble identifying all 20 members for any given period, our work will be cut out for us at 40. That is an interesting bit of info, though I think we can look at the late 90s period when they reportedly had 20 members (then 19 after Sciascia's murder) as some sort of corroboration for the 1960s report that claimed they had 20. Magaddino's comments, though not entirely clear, also seemed to point closer to that number.

Something to consider is whether NYC-based members of Sciascia crew counted toward the 20 (or 40, on the chance that's true). That would be Montagna and possibly Joe Renda, maybe the elder Arcuri in the NYC area.

[stubbs]

This is direct contradiction to Bonnano acting Capo Dominick Cicale's testimony.

Cicale testified at several racketeering trials. In none of them did he testify about anything regarding Montreal.

The book that Ed Scarpo wrote with him does not contain or discuss any of Cicale's trial testimony.

I'll post some other excerpts from the book regarding the murder of Lo Presti and about Montreal's supposed cessation of tribute per what Vito Rizzuto and Sal Vitale told investigators. What is becoming more and more apparent to me after reading Renaud's latest book is that, when Sal Vitale, Joe Massino, and Vito Rizzuto were being questioned by investigators at various times over the years, the mobsters were not always truthful -- they intentionally lied about certain subjects for a number of reasons that are at least easy to guess at. Vitale and Rizzuto corroborate each other regarding the flow of tribute stopping as a result of Sciascia's murder, but the book reveals -- in my mind and in the minds of other readers as well -- that Vitale, after first providing the dominant, accepted account about Sciascia having killed or having arranged to kill Lo Presti, years later told investigators a different account. Hard to tell who is telling the truth about certain subjects.

Interesting as it more or less confirms the Rizzutos indeed went rogue.

But Cicale also stated that Montagna was acting as a messanger between New York and Montreal in the years that followed, which was corroborated by Renaud himself, so ties weren't severed entirely. So it is hard to believe who here is telling the truth.

Also bear in mind that Rizzuto had read The Sixth Family and likely all other reports about his "family" and relation (or no relation) with the Bonannos so he could have just told them what he thought they wanted to hear. In this case Sonny's argument stands, why would Rizzuto divulge sensative information and basically break Omertà? You have to consider his POV, what did he have to gain by doing so?

And the irony is that this information does strive with information earlier on in the same book, about the meetings with Vitale, when the Montreal mobsters expected a new successor to Sciascia being named until it apparantly became the elder Rizzuto.

The most likely scenario is that the Rizzutos started to act as their own family with the Bonannos, having their own problems in New York and not being able to do much about it at that time, accepting it for the time being.

It's difficult to know how to interpret Rizzuto's interview. On one hand, he willingly gave a candid interview with LE from both Canada and the US, and though he hadn't "flipped", his participation in a discussion of that nature is a violation of mafia rules and his comments were used by investigators and journalists/authors. Because he hadn't outright flipped, though, his word wouldn't be bound to any law, which does bring into question how truthful he was.

Much of the posted excerpts corroborate information that was public at the time from other sources, which could mean that Rizzuto wanted to give the investigators the illusion that he was cooperative by confirming that info, meanwhile he wasn't providing new or alternative information that they could potentially use against him or others. For example, if he claimed that he had not severed ties with the Bonannos and did continue to send tribute, as Cicale has said, that could potentially give investigators a new angle and bring more charges. Cicale also said that Rizzuto and Basciano continued to arrange drug deals, and it's not as if Rizzuto was going to tell his LE interviewers that he continued to send drugs into the US. We have enough issues with getting the full truth when a made member flips, so it's hard to know which facts we can pull from this conversation, as interesting and potentially informative as it is.

There is this idea that Vito Rizzuto was a die-hard mafioso from a traditional Sicilian mafia background, but let's take a look at what has surfaced about him:
- Inducted into a mafia family, but according to some theories severed ties when his friend was killed despite endless precedence of mafia members who stayed "loyal" to their organization after friends, relatives, and even fathers and brothers were killed. This is actually part of the traditional induction oath.
- A close non-Italian associate of Rizzuto claimed that Rizzuto himself inducted two non-Italians into his organization, which this associate bragged about in Sicily among mafia peers.
- Rizzuto gave a candid interview with LE where he discussed mafia organizations, high-level mafia meetings, mafia murders, and other details of mafia life that, while not used for criminal court proceedings, have clearly been used by LE and now published in a book.

If Rizzuto went "rogue", it doesn't seem to simply be from the Bonanno family, but from the entire mafia tradition.

Antimafia -- what did Vitale later say that contradicted previous info on the LoPresti murder? McDougall's theory would seem to fit in with the accepted idea of Sciascia (who was in NYC) arranging the murder without approval, likely through Rizzuto (and seemingly this West End Gang), then asking for permission later. Which part did Vitale contradict?

If this is true that he went “rouge” against the old school mafia tradition, then it reminds me of Luciano. Lucky was sick of the old school minded Sicilians who were intensly tribal and only trusted those who were also Sicilians, not to mention the Sicilians being intensly tribal within thier own communities in Sicily (the Castellamarese all sticking together, etc.). Lucky didnt give a F. He just wanted to surround himself with the best people, period. Sicilian, Calabrian, Neopolitano, Jewish, Irish. None of that matters, just bring in the cash from bootlegging, etc.

Vito seems the same way... he felt he didnt need to fly the Bonanno banner after George from Canada got hit. He basically told them to go F themselves, he didnt need em.

Vito had a ton of powerful allies from different backgrounds, Joe Bravo the Spaniard, Raynald the Frenchman, Sicilians, Calabrians, Haitians, Irish West Enders, Bikers, etc. He worked with everybody! If they can move Vito’s dope and kick upstairs while staying in line, who cares where they’re from?

I think Cabrini is onto something about Montreal being like a cartel. I think Montreal was a lot less formally structured than we think. I think Montreal’s mafia has always been a consortium of different groups: Rizzutos, Cotroni holdovers, C.untreras, etc. and Vito just sort of held them all together. Once he was out of the picture and they had that huge bust Project Colisee, his son and Renda were seen as too weak to hold it all together and the ground started shifting and eventually war broke out between factions. Then it just snowballs downhill.

And I think that this was his downfall, because obviously the non-Italians like Raynald and Bravo arent going to follow the rules and protocol of LCN like people who are 100% Italian. Their loyalties are never going to be about putting this thing of ours above the self. And once Vito stopped flying the Bonanno flag it left his group exposed where people felt like they could move in. If the Rizzutos kept flying the Bonanno flag, I wonder if it wouldve kept people in line more while he was away. Oh well, I guess we’ll never know.

[Wiseguy]

I think Cabrini is onto something about Montreal being like a cartel. I think Montreal was a lot less formally structured than we think. I think Montreal’s mafia has always been a consortium of different groups: Rizzutos, Cotroni holdovers, C.untreras, etc. and Vito just sort of held them all together. Once he was out of the picture and they had that huge bust Project Colisee, his son and Renda were seen as too weak to hold it all together and the ground started shifting and eventually war broke out between factions. Then it just snowballs downhill.

This I absolutely agree with.

[CabriniGreen]

STOP THE PRESSES!! We Have Agreed On Something!!!

Lol, but in all seriousness @ Stubbs.. That's pretty much exactly as I have seen it.....

[CabriniGreen]

Had to this the hard way......

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[CabriniGreen]

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[CabriniGreen]

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[CabriniGreen]

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