General Mob Questions

[Camo]

Was Carmine Galante ever made Consigliere or did he remain Caporegime until he was promoted to acting boss later on? I ask because the claim that he was made Consigliere is pretty out there but yet this post doesn't list him as Consigliere viewtopic.php?t=9307

I might be wrong but i think that's just one of those wikipedia things. When they don't know a position they just fill it in with someone they've heard of. For instance for years Sal Profaci was listed as Consig of the Colombo's and Philip Mangano Consig of the Gambino's. I don't think any source actually made those claims people simply put them in those positions because they were known as the Bosses brothers.

Here actually from Philip Mangano's wiki page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Mangano

Philip Mangano (born Filippo Mangano, Italian: [fiˈlippo ˈmaŋɡano]; April 13, 1898 – April 19, 1951)[1] was an Italian-born caporegime[2] and second consigliere in what was then the Mangano crime family in New York City and reigned consigliere for 20 years between 1931 and 1951 when his brother, Vincent, was boss.

The actual Consig during those years was Joe Biondo i believe.

Thanks for the reply, you're right Galante is listed as a Consigliere on Wikipedia but I actually started questioning this claim after reading an article about Galante on Cosa Nostra News. I think people tend to list him as Consigliere due to him being a powerhouse captain and the man who went with Joe Bonnano to Palermo to talk with the Sicilians.

I don't think Galante ever had an Official Admin Position, he was "De Facto Boss" but i don't think he was Officially on the Admin at any time. John Tartamella was Consig during the years Galante was said to be Consig i believe? That's at least who is usually listed here.

[Reginald_III]

Was Carmine Galante ever made Consigliere or did he remain Caporegime until he was promoted to acting boss later on? I ask because the claim that he was made Consigliere is pretty out there but yet this post doesn't list him as Consigliere viewtopic.php?t=9307

I might be wrong but i think that's just one of those wikipedia things. When they don't know a position they just fill it in with someone they've heard of. For instance for years Sal Profaci was listed as Consig of the Colombo's and Philip Mangano Consig of the Gambino's. I don't think any source actually made those claims people simply put them in those positions because they were known as the Bosses brothers.

Here actually from Philip Mangano's wiki page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Mangano

Philip Mangano (born Filippo Mangano, Italian: [fiˈlippo ˈmaŋɡano]; April 13, 1898 – April 19, 1951)[1] was an Italian-born caporegime[2] and second consigliere in what was then the Mangano crime family in New York City and reigned consigliere for 20 years between 1931 and 1951 when his brother, Vincent, was boss.

The actual Consig during those years was Joe Biondo i believe.

Thanks for the reply, you're right Galante is listed as a Consigliere on Wikipedia but I actually started questioning this claim after reading an article about Galante on Cosa Nostra News. I think people tend to list him as Consigliere due to him being a powerhouse captain and the man who went with Joe Bonnano to Palermo to talk with the Sicilians.

I don't think Galante ever had an Official Admin Position, he was "De Facto Boss" but i don't think he was Officially on the Admin at any time. John Tartamella was Consig during the years Galante was said to be Consig i believe? That's at least who is usually listed here.

Galante had an official admin position and that he was the official acting boss when Rusty was in prison. Proof that he was the official acting boss is that he had the authority to make members in 76' when the books opened and the members made were still recognised as made men even after his death.

[Camo]

Was Carmine Galante ever made Consigliere or did he remain Caporegime until he was promoted to acting boss later on? I ask because the claim that he was made Consigliere is pretty out there but yet this post doesn't list him as Consigliere viewtopic.php?t=9307

I might be wrong but i think that's just one of those wikipedia things. When they don't know a position they just fill it in with someone they've heard of. For instance for years Sal Profaci was listed as Consig of the Colombo's and Philip Mangano Consig of the Gambino's. I don't think any source actually made those claims people simply put them in those positions because they were known as the Bosses brothers.

Here actually from Philip Mangano's wiki page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Mangano

Philip Mangano (born Filippo Mangano, Italian: [fiˈlippo ˈmaŋɡano]; April 13, 1898 – April 19, 1951)[1] was an Italian-born caporegime[2] and second consigliere in what was then the Mangano crime family in New York City and reigned consigliere for 20 years between 1931 and 1951 when his brother, Vincent, was boss.

The actual Consig during those years was Joe Biondo i believe.

Thanks for the reply, you're right Galante is listed as a Consigliere on Wikipedia but I actually started questioning this claim after reading an article about Galante on Cosa Nostra News. I think people tend to list him as Consigliere due to him being a powerhouse captain and the man who went with Joe Bonnano to Palermo to talk with the Sicilians.

I don't think Galante ever had an Official Admin Position, he was "De Facto Boss" but i don't think he was Officially on the Admin at any time. John Tartamella was Consig during the years Galante was said to be Consig i believe? That's at least who is usually listed here.

Galante had an official admin position and that he was the official acting boss when Rusty was in prison. Proof that he was the official acting boss is that he had the authority to make members in 76' when the books opened and the members made were still recognised as made men even after his death.

By Official i meant Boss, Underboss, Consig not an Acting position which is temporary to be clear. Poor wording i guess.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Is putting members on the shelf a recent phenom?

Was this ever done in the 30's/40's/50's? The 70's?
I know the shelving has replaced clipping, but Im wondering if it was still a thing back in the day as an intermediary step before clipping or an alternate for a popular member.

I guess I could ask the same as chasing. Were members ever chased back in the day?

Or are these actions only recent on the scene as hitting guys draws too much heat?

[JoePuzzles234]

Is putting members on the shelf a recent phenom?

Was this ever done in the 30's/40's/50's? The 70's?
I know the shelving has replaced clipping, but Im wondering if it was still a thing back in the day as an intermediary step before clipping or an alternate for a popular member.

I guess I could ask the same as chasing. Were members ever chased back in the day?

Or are these actions only recent on the scene as hitting guys draws too much heat?

It seems like it has always existed for the most part, not sure what the earliest known example would be though.

Joseph Aiello, a Chicago and later Madison member was shelved in the early 1940s before transferring families. I suspect Salvatore D'Anna in Colorado was also shelved prior to his murder in 1930. A bunch of Milwaukee members were on the shelf in the 1970s as well.

Chased seems to be more for associates, not for members. Confusion there is from people using the terms interchangeably - e.g., Anthony Arillotta says Al Bruno "shelved" him for dealing drugs but he was a non-member at the time so he would have actually been chased for a period.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Cheers Joe

[johnny_scootch]

Joe went 2-2 there. I don’t know the details of the Arillotta situation but if he was chased he would have had to literally move out of the area.
Nicky Corozzo chased someone very close to me many years back and the guy had to move to Long Island he wasn’t allowed to come back to Brooklyn for years. He’d have to sneak at night into the neighborhood to visit his parents and pray not to get spotted by the wrong person because if word got back to Nicky he would have had a real problem.

[B.]

Dominick Anzalone was shelved by Stefano Monastero (so 1929 or earlier) for similar reasons to Joe Pizza Aiello in Chicago in that he refused to kill his wife for cheating on him.

I'm not aware offhand of specific examples of members being shelved before the 1920s but the Sicilian mafia shelves people and calls it "posato" (posed, i.e. not moving) which indicates it was always part of the mafia process. We have every reason to believe the mafia, like any strict organization, has always had a way of punishing members by (often temporarily) freezing their membership status.

[B.]

Was Carmine Galante ever made Consigliere or did he remain Caporegime until he was promoted to acting boss later on? I ask because the claim that he was made Consigliere is pretty out there but yet this post doesn't list him as Consigliere viewtopic.php?t=9307

The Gay Talese book refers to Galante as consigliere and even though the book involved collaboration with Bill Bonanno I don't believe that info came from Bill. In one of his own books I believe Bill referred to Galante as a "group leader" (the Bonannos' translation of capodecina in their books). Personally I suspect Galante was the "senior / top captain" in the 1950s -- a source in the early 1970s said Marangello had the role of "senior captain" who was assisting the admin in running the Family and later Lefty Ruggiero told Pistone that Napolitano was the "top captain", which was a designated role helping direct the Family. Another source said Galante had once been on a panel in the late 1950s. Because this "top captain" role seems to have been ongoing in the 1970s and early 80s, I can see it going back further.

So between the above info and what we know of Galante's activities in the 1950s, I think he was something like a "street boss", which is not an official rank, but it would explain Galante's obvious importance at the time and some of the confusion over him being an underboss, consigliere, etc. Keep in mind too his decina was massive and included members in basically every NYC borough, New Jersey, Upstate NY, and Canada. Joe Bonanno also lived much of the year in Arizona and Garofalo and Tartamella were in the process of retiring so the Family delegated a lot of authority to top underlings like John Morale, John Bonventre, and Carmine Galante.

I have an FBI report from 1974, shortly before Galante's release from prison, where he was identified as a capodecina which is interesting as his crew was officially taken over by other captains and also split multiple ways in the years after he went to prison. If true, it would indicate he was promoted to captain again before his release, maybe to pacify him. One thing I've never been totally clear on is whether Rastelli named him acting boss, whether he was voted into the position (the Bonannos voted on the new acting boss in 1981), or just assumed the role and everyone was forced to accept it. He is identified as the acting boss in reports from the mid-1970s and by the end of the decade you start to see sources call him the official boss which makes sense as Massino said he was told by Galante at his 1977 induction that Rastelli had been boss until the previous week but Galante was now the official boss. This wasn't recognized by the Rastelli faction nor the Commission, so Galante was not the official boss, but we know from Ruggiero's conversations with Pistone, Frank Coppa, etc. that certain factions of the Family saw him as the boss.

[Camo]

Makes sense. No Organization has one kind of punishment for every kind of offence. Even in more kill happy times there was a variety of offences and there was also certain guys who were less hittable than others so there had to be punishments for those situations like shelving.

A Boss's son probably fucked another members wife back in 1858 and they all agreed it was best just to shelve him.

[B.]

Makes sense. No Organization has one kind of punishment for every kind of offence. Even in more kill happy times there was a variety of offences and there was also certain guys who were less hittable than others so there had to be punishments for those situations like shelving.

A Boss's son probably fucked another members wife back in 1858 and they all agreed it was best just to shelve him.

Women have played a big role in certain members being shelved. You have Aiello and Anzalone shelved for not killing wives who cheated, Pete Casella (cousin of the infamous one) shelved for talking too freely to his wife, even an unnamed member of the Catania Family who was shelved for telling his wife too much. In more recent years Anthony Graziano was shelved because of his daughters' TV show.

Screwing a member's wife or daughter is breaking a cardinal mafia rule and punishable by death (unless someone goes to bat for him, i.e. Lombardozzi) but it makes sense members were shelved for examples like those above, as in those cases the member didn't commit a real infraction himself but still being unable to control the women in his life or otherwise not maintaining omerta with regard to women deserves some kind of punishment.

[Camo]

Makes sense. No Organization has one kind of punishment for every kind of offence. Even in more kill happy times there was a variety of offences and there was also certain guys who were less hittable than others so there had to be punishments for those situations like shelving.

A Boss's son probably fucked another members wife back in 1858 and they all agreed it was best just to shelve him.

Women have played a big role in certain members being shelved. You have Aiello and Anzalone shelved for not killing wives who cheated, Pete Casella (cousin of the infamous one) shelved for talking too freely to his wife, even an unnamed member of the Catania Family who was shelved for telling his wife too much. In more recent years Anthony Graziano was shelved because of his daughters' TV show.

Screwing a member's wife or daughter is breaking a cardinal mafia rule and punishable by death (unless someone goes to bat for him, i.e. Lombardozzi) but it makes sense members were shelved for examples like those above, as in those cases the member didn't commit a real infraction himself but still being unable to control the women in his life or otherwise not maintaining omerta with regard to women deserves some kind of punishment.

Lombardozzi was who i was thinking of when i was thinking of earlier examples of alternate punsihments. Obviously not in the early days of the Mafia but still firmly within the "kill happy" days and i'm guessing it was because Carmine was a major earner as he's usually portrayed as. Even then he wasn't a forever Captain like Traina and was seemingly demoted his reputation likely factoring in, not sure.

[B.]

Lombardozzi was lucky in general. His informant status became known in the street in the 1970s and Gambino member Frank Gagliardi was actively warning people that Carmine and his brother were both informants, which in Carmine's case was absolutely true. Somehow nothing came of it and guys like Michael DiLeonardo who became active in the same neighborhood a few years later only knew Lombardozzi as a respected old timer and earner, never heard anything about the informant rumor and found it shocking.

[Camo]

Lombardozzi was lucky in general. His informant status became known in the street in the 1970s and Gambino member Frank Gagliardi was actively warning people that Carmine and his brother were both informants, which in Carmine's case was absolutely true. Somehow nothing came of it and guys like Michael DiLeonardo who became active in the same neighborhood a few years later only knew Lombardozzi as a respected old timer and earner, never heard anything about the informant rumor and found it shocking.

I'm trying not to develop a Conspiracy Theory that the Bosses allowed certain guys to give certain information as long as they made them a lot of money and it didn't directly affect them considering the multiple examples with the Persico's and Carmine's bizarre story.

One of the top gangsters in my City was universally accused of informing throughout his entire criminal career pretty much and is widely seen as the figure behind a major miscarriage of justice through his informing yet no one did anything to him. The opinion i've came to over the years is none of these guys or Pablo Escobar or El Chapo or whoever were special at crime they were just around corruptible systems to varying degrees, if it wasn't them it would've been someone else.

[Ivan]

The opinion i've came to over the years is none of these guys or Pablo Escobar or El Chapo or whoever were special at crime they were just around corruptible systems to varying degrees, if it wasn't them it would've been someone else.

Yah, and I've always thought that the idea that people like Luciano and Torrio were great industrialists in the vein of Carnegie or Rockefeller but they were just doing it as criminals was kind of dumb.