Joseph Campanella testimony notes - November 15th, 2004

[CornerBoy]

that kid on youtube? that is really fucking scummy. he makes his money by robbing information off this forum? fuck him. he should be reported to the mafia police!

[Tonyd621]

Who paid money to find this info on pacer? PM there info on venmo and I'll send them half.

[Little_Al1991]

Who paid money to find this info on pacer? PM there info on venmo and I'll send them half.

It was me but it’s okay. Thank you for the offer

[CornerBoy]

Yep, Rotondo testified about it and so did Michael DiLeonardo. Both of those guys are well-measured and intelligent sources. DiLeonardo has also told some stories in conversation with us.

Just as an example of Cutolo's Gotti syndrome, during the 90s guys were showing up to sitdowns dressed down in casual clothes but Cutolo would show up dressed like a pimp or old timey movie gangster wearing an all black suit and white tie. He was even called out for doing this at one sitdown and left so he could change his clothes.

It's similar to Massino's complaints about Vitale during the same period, that he caught the Gotti bug and was going around peacocking. Remember too Massino was told by Bellomo that Gotti was even trying to back Vitale to unseat or kill Massino so Vitale could take over. Sciascia tried to tell Massino about it much earlier on. Very similar to the Cutolo situation where Gotti propped up Orena (and Cutolo by default), hence the war, but this continued to some degree afterward as Peter Gotti (acting for his brother) still refused to recognize Persico as boss long after the war. A meeting was eventually held where Allie Persico directly asked Peter Gotti to recognize his father as boss and Gotti balked but DiLeonardo ultimately convinced him it was the right thing to do. You can see these were the politics that were enabling Cutolo in addition to his own behavior.

Speaking of Rotondo, he testified that something similar played out with John D'Amato. D'Amato had become very close to Gotti and was also parading around NYC. The popular story is "D'Amato da GAY mobster, da REAL LIFE Vito Spatafore" but Rotondo testified a big part of the murder conspiracy was D'Amato trying to usurp control of the Family and the gay rumor was basically a way to justify the murder, allowing the Jersey faction and D'Amato's rivals in the NY faction to do what they already wanted to do given D'Amato's conduct in Family politics.

the fag thing is probably bullshit and was used as an excuse as B. stated.
Was gotti friendly w billy?

[stubbs]

If you've followed this stuff long enough you see these narratives form. People are attracted to the idea of these "tragic heroes" who would have been such "great" bosses but the big, mean, and evil bad guy killed them out of jealousy, greed, or whatever.

Salvie Testa, the perfect and handsome young prince of the Philly mob heartlessly killed by the paranoid Little Nicky, aka Satan. Meanwhile it was Testa's peers who continually told Scarfo about problems with Testa and as Caramandi said, finally a meeting was held where Faffy Iannarella (Testa's close friend) convinced him Testa needed to be killed. Jealousy, greed, and paranoia are factors too but there is more to these stories.

Holy shit this is so true. People love latching on to those narratives and it’s hard to convince them otherwise.