Appendix A goes through the family administration over time and starts with the following caution:
Unfortunately, Petepiece does not highlight which pieces of information are ‘guestimates’, leaving the reader unable to evaluate the accuracy of the histories he presents. Rather than presenting the, admittedly, contradicting information about the administration and discussing the validity of it based on an evaluation of the sources, he seems to just pick and choose what to include without any justification.Some of the following dates are guestimates since I do not have primary evidence to support them.
Looking at the list, it’s very clear that at least some of it is lifted directly from Wikipedia (or other similar user-generated websites), allowing incredibly dubious information to slip through the net. The most jarring example of this is when Petepiece gets to the family administration from 2005-2010:
This stuck out to me since I had never heard of ‘Paul DiMarco’ before and a quick Google search revealed nothing about him. The only thing I could find was an old forum discussion indicating that ‘Paul DiMarco’ doesn’t exist and was made up by a rogue Wikipedia editor.Acting Boss Committee
Paul DiMarco/ Liborio Bellomo/ Danny Leo
The fact that Petepiece would include someone on his book on the back of nothing but unsourced Wikipedia information indicates an incredibly shallow depth of research and lack of critical evaluation of sources. Frankly, it’s insulting to his readers.
There are several instances like that in this appendix that point towards poor quality research. He lists Eli Zeccardi twice as going missing in 1974 when it’s incredibly well-documented and easy to find out that he went missing in 1977. He erroneously lists Lucchese member Anthony Baratta as a Genovese captain in the 1980s. He describes Ernie Muscarella as the acting underboss from 1996 to 2002 when I haven't seen anything to substantiate that claim whatsoever. I could go on, but I fear it wouldn’t be a productive use of my time.
