New York's Commission voted for admitting new members in 1976

[thekiduknow]

The New York Times actually broke this story just a few weeks after it happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/03/21/arch ... Position=5

Tutti Franzese's FBI file mentions a Genovese soldier being inducted and their name is redacted. Turns out it was John Russo. Looks like Benny Eggs was made in the first wave too.

Interesting, seems like Joey Gallo went through a verbal ceremony only.

[B.]

Wouldn't surprise me if other families, not just the Bonannos and DeCavalcantes, did a verbal-only induction on occasion.

LCNBios covered a 1957 Colombo ceremony that was full-on traditional, so they were def doing the traditional ceremony up until the books closed, but it could be like the Bonannos who did both traditional and verbal-only inductions before the books closed in '57 with no real explanation why. A difference is the Bonannos would do verbal-only inductions exclusively after the books opened in 1976, while the Colombos only did traditional inductions post-1976 from what we know.

Did Scarpa ever break his ceremony down in any public files? He must have told the FBI those details at some point but aside from telling them he was made around 1951 I don't remember seeing anything. Would be interesting to know what his ceremony was like and who was there.

[thekiduknow]

I don’t remember offhand if Scarpa gave details about his ceremony. I feel like he did describe the ceremony in general terms but I could be wrong.

Has any member from other families gone through verbal ceremonies? If so, I wonder if it was up to the captain/admin member inducting the memebers, and some just did verbal oaths. And the Bonannos stuck with it when the books opened while other families kept it.

[Pmac2]

i figured benny eggs got in the 50tys maybe not. i wonder if galante did have anuff clout to get the books open. it was probaly every boss but gambino

[MightyDR]

Scarpa gave a full break down of the sponsorship and induction process for a typical member. Given the amount of detail he provided, I feel like he would have mentioned if they had started doing verbal only ceremonies.

[B.]

I agree, you'd think he might have heard something and reported it if it happened. If he wasn't in attendance at those inductions, he might not know, though. We know guys gossip about who got made and when, but not sure how much street gossip there is about the nuts and bolts procedure for a given ceremony. They talked about those things on the Stefanelli tapes at least, so it does come up.

The main thing is I can't imagine why Diapoulas would lie about a detail that's totally insigificant to his own story. He was Gallo's close friend and Gallo was a made member -- it makes no difference in Diapoulas' story whether or not Gallo got his finger pricked and burned a card. Maybe Gallo lied to him or Diapoulas misunderstood something. Could be that they did do an occasional verbal induction for whatever reason.

The thing about a verbal ceremony is it's in none of the attendees' interests to talk about it to other members who didn't attend. The person presiding over the induction is breaking a rule and so is the sponsor. The member doesn't want to talk about it as someone might call their membership illegitimate. We saw what happened when it leaked out about the DeCavalcante inductions, they had to redo them all. There's strong incentive for everyone at a "nontraditional" induction to keep the details quiet. Gallo telling Diapoulas would be a non-risk given he was a non-member and trusted friend.

We could take this as a sign that when the Gallo faction started "making" their own associates in the early 1960s they probably just did it verbally.