Visiting New Orleans

[Angelo Santino]

Tampa and Kansas City are done.
The Gambinos, Genoveses, Philly, Bonanno and Detroit are works in progress.

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[Angelo Santino]

In 1969, Joe Colombo said in New York that Nola was down to 5 members- B, U, C and two soldiers.

Could 1963 have been
B - C Marcello
U - J Marcello
C - Campo
S1 - Tuminello (former B)
S2?

The top image reveals 5 members but this had to have come after 1972.

Also, it provides a list of suspect members but I'm inclined to defer to Joe Colombo who, despite not being Sicilian, really seems to know and understand the life and nuances of the politics given his statement that Nola, being the first family, wasn't bound by the commission. Still though, I'm curious about these non-members backgrounds to see the makeup, I'm not against putting them on the chart as non-members but I doubt we'll be able to find many photos.

[motorfab]

In 1969, Joe Colombo said in New York that Nola was down to 5 members- B, U, C and two soldiers.

Could 1963 have been
B - C Marcello
U - J Marcello
C - Campo
S1 - Tuminello (former B)
S2?

The top image reveals 5 members but this had to have come after 1972.

Also, it provides a list of suspect members but I'm inclined to defer to Joe Colombo who, despite not being Sicilian, really seems to know and understand the life and nuances of the politics given his statement that Nola, being the first family, wasn't bound by the commission. Still though, I'm curious about these non-members backgrounds to see the makeup, I'm not against putting them on the chart as non-members but I doubt we'll be able to find many photos.

Actually I have some photos of them, back in 2020 I help nash143 to make a chart here : viewtopic.php?f=32&t=3813

About the 5 remaining members, we have already talked about it in other topics (here for example viewtopic.php?f=29&t=6536), but I have big doubts about this number. I'm leaning on the theory that he's actually talking about 5 active members and the rest are aging/dead/or in jail.

In 1963 the following 5 names (+ Carlos) are given as members (I don't know who the source is) and they are also listed in 1967/1968 on the list you gave previously. I think there's a good chance that Jimmy Campo + Joe Gagliano & Tony Carolla were made in 1963. However I don't know Sam Tuminello, or at least I don't remember him


I don't have his date of death, but Gaetano Gagliano, Giuseppe's brother, was deported to Italy in 1953 & 1959 for drug trafficking & Sylvestro Carollo deported in 1947 and died in 1972.

I don't know if it's useful for your chart, but all that to say that I don't buy into the Colombo theory

[stubbs]

Joe Colombo, a sitting boss, was telling that info about the New Orleans family to Greg Scapa Sr, a captain, who then repeated it to the FBI. That’s about the best source as we’re going to get, short of a made member in New Orleans becoming an informant or giving an interview with the media.

By the 1980s, Carlos went to jail and the family seems to have been essentially a non-entity. If you read articles on the casino skim from the early nineties, FBI agents got wiretaps up on their phones and were surprised to hear the NOLA family essentially trying to reform/regenerate (ie start up again). So, further proof that even the feds thought the family was finished by the late 80s/early 90s.

The New Orleans family seems to be similar to many other small families across the US. They had few members and didn’t tend to make many new members. There also seems to be an overlap wih these smaller families not making many new members and the general closing of the books with the five families in the 50s. Even if NOLA didnt need permission from the commission, it seems as if they wanted to keep their organization small with only blood family members involved, to maintain power and avoid indictments.

While the five families could induct a bunch of new members when the books reopened in the 70s, many of the smaller families eventually died out during this time period due to attrition and FBI pressure.

I mentioned this in another thread, but New Orleans is also a very small city, with something like 400k citizens and only 1.5 million in the metro area. Brooklyn alone has like 2.5 million people. It’s a poor city in one of the poorest states, and not that big of an economy outside of tourism and casinos. New Orleans was an economic powerhouse well over a century ago, but that was when America relied mostly on shipping goods via boat, before trains (and eventually trucks and planes) took over a huge amount of the distribution of goods. There are a lot of people of Italian descent, but most seem to be 4th or 5th generation, long removed from the old country. The waves of Italian immigration were 3-4 generations ago at least.

If any of the excellent researchers here can uncover some info that proves me wrong, I’ll gladly admit my mistakes.

Also, it would be interesting to determine if Leoluca Trombatore, originally from Corleone, was ever the boss after Carollo was deported or not. Or if Marcello was indeed immediately made boss.

[Angelo Santino]

For the chart: We don't have to decide what's definitive. We can list what Colombo said with a source and date, we can also list the suspected members. Nola is still a very mysterious group and it needs to be treated with precision.

My thoughts: It's hard for me to overlook what Colombo said. Colombo was able to rise because he was likely a very good "politician" which make the best members and those likely to hold offices. But I do see at least two suspected/listed Nola members who were deported to Italy. I think we can write them off as former members. While I can't say for for certain, I would imagine these members transferred their membership to where they settled in Sicily. Thinking of the mafia as a system of representation, it would make more sense to have representation in Sicily rather than Marcello who I doubt would travel for a sitdown/mediation.

Opposing thoughts: I lean towards Colombo but that's one source and there's always the slight chance he could have mispoke or Greg misinterpreted. But when we go down that route and anything is possible.

[PolackTony]

I mentioned this in another thread, but New Orleans is also a very small city, with something like 400k citizens and only 1.5 million in the metro area. Brooklyn alone has like 2.5 million people. It’s a poor city in one of the poorest states, and not that big of an economy outside of tourism and casinos. New Orleans was an economic powerhouse well over a century ago, but that was when America relied mostly on shipping goods via boat, before trains (and eventually trucks and planes) took over a huge amount of the distribution of goods. There are a lot of people of Italian descent, but most seem to be 4th or 5th generation, long removed from the old country. The waves of Italian immigration were 3-4 generations ago at least.

[…]

Also, it would be interesting to determine if Leoluca Trombatore, originally from Corleone, was ever the boss after Carollo was deported or not. Or if Marcello was indeed immediately made boss.

These are important points about NOLA. Not only do we have to contextualize a particular family within a broader framework of the mafia as a general phenomenon, we also have to ground them and their evolution with respect to local conditions and factors. With NOLA, I don’t know anywhere near enough about the latter day dynamics of the Italian/Sicilian community there. Cities like NYC, Chicago, Boston, Philly, etc had large numbers of “second wave” Italian immigrants who arrived in the decades following WW2, typically arriving from comuni in Italy that had already founded communities in those cities in prior waves of immigration. These later migrants served to reinforce and renew the Italian character of Ital-American communities, opening Italian-oriented businesses and breathing new life and vitality into typically declining or moribund social/cultural institutions (e.g., paesani societè and religious festivals, Italian-language media). Some small portion of these second wave migrants also had links to Sicilian and Mainland mafia groups, of course. I’ve wondered in this light to what degree US cities with declining and moribund mafia families saw less of this second wave settlement — e.g., NOLA, KC, STL, Cleveland, Pittsburgh. I’ve hypothesized that this may have been one factor contributing to the decline of the mafia in these cities, but I really don’t know enough about the particularities of Italian community dynamics in these places to make any claim.

Chicago Corleonese immigrant Giacomo Ruggirello, who was murdered in 2012 and seems to likely have had links to the mafia in Corleone, spent several years in NOLA (I believe in the 80s) before returning permanently to Chicago. That fact caught my attention, as it made me wonder how and why he wound up in NOLA for a period. Chicago has a robust Corleonese paesani community, but given the history of the mafia in NOLA, this made me wonder if there were still some ties between Corleone and NOLA in later decades.

[Antiliar]

I agree with motorfab. My impression is that Carlos Marcello shut out a lot of (or nearly all) of the old-timers, so whether they were technically shelved or not, they were de facto shelved. I'm certain that Nofio Pecora (Pecoraro) was made, but because he was out of the loop he wasn't listed among the five remaining members. Sylvester Carollo, BTW, illegally re-entered the U.S. and was fighting deportation when he died in 1970.

And according to this CI, "Mr. Luke" Trombatore was the boss before Marcello. The Bureau of Narcotics also had him as a boss.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... trombatore

[B.]

Joe Colombo, a sitting boss, was telling that info about the New Orleans family to Greg Scapa Sr, a captain, who then repeated it to the FBI. That’s about the best source as we’re going to get, short of a made member in New Orleans becoming an informant or giving an interview with the media.

Excellent post, Stubbs. I agree with all of the points you made.

Pogo and I had a good debate about this a couple years ago. There were no member CIs in New Orleans and our only confirmed members come via members from elsewhere. If we're not going to defer to a sitting Commission member who had just met with New Orleans about this exact subject (New Orleans dwindling in size so they're going to make new people), I don't see how we can trust anyone barring some unknown member source who offers substantial counter-evidence. Scarpa's controversies aside, he was very accurate when relaying information from other members, especially his close friend Colombo.

I think part of the "dilemma" is we know Marcello to have been an influential national leader so the idea of only five New Orleans members goes against our assumptions about his org, especially knowing they were still alive in some capacity 30+ years after this. Ray DeCarlo was recorded saying that New Orleans was made up of "greaseballs" and greenhorns, something like that, indicating to me the Sicilian mafia mindset was strong there. In Sicily it's not uncommon for a Family to have ~10 members and to dwindle down to 7 (Trapani Family) or even 2 (Terrasini).

The thing about shelved members is they still count. Shelved or not, a member is a member and when discussing membership size a Family is not going to claim to have ~5 members just because others are shelved, inactive, or elderly. I'm open to info from members sources identifying others but they need to come from reputable member sources or wiretaps. I'm open to a small margin of error (i.e. Colombo said six, Scarpa remembered five) but we have reason to believe this Family was tiny by this time.

I'm curious if Giuseppe Gagliano still belonged to NO after his deportation and residence in NYC. He might have transferred membership. Same question about Sam Carollo.

I think including non-members is valid in this case to give the chart some substance. Some of them like Phil Rizzuto (later made) are interesting because he was a relative of Nicolo Schiro. His father Gioacchino Rizzuto was a NO mafioso whose brother was Antonino of the Bonannos.

[Chaps]

I really have no empirical proof of this but I find it hard to believe NOLA had only 5 members in 1963. In 1980's maybe but not in the 60's. We can only document what we know but I would say 15-20. And while we don't put these on a chart you have to understand the large number of associates they probably had at that time.

[Pogo The Clown]

The FBI had 33 members for 1968. We can assume that they were wrong on some of them but I find it every hard to believe that their info was so inaccurate as to be wrong on 28 out of 33. Especially considering how Marcello was such a big priority for them by this period.


Also keep in mind that Scarpa also reported that the Gambino had a 1,000 made members and the Profaci's had 400 members. So he was not immune from passing along incorrect information.


Pogo

[B.]

We went through these points in the older thread but Scarpa's estimates follow a different standard from what he was told. He was asked to blindly estimate the sizes of Families and got them very wrong, but when he was specifically told a number it tended to be accurate, i.e. the "census" Colombo took when he became boss closely matches other available info. This is similar, where Colombo told Scarpa a specific number for NO.

We established in the other thread that the 1968 33 members list was the same as their suspected members list. The page, year, and names you referenced showed it was the one with suspecteds, not confirmed.

I'm open to other evidence but the 1968 list was mostly suspected members and so far nothing has surfaced that significantly challenges what Colombo said barring a small margin of error (i.e. 6 members)

[Pogo The Clown]

My point still stands. An error rate of 28 out of 33 is almost impossible to believe. They could have probsbly gotten more right if they were just guessing.


Pogo

[B.]

The FBI was guessing who other members might be based on close association with the NO leaders. Like some researchers, they likely assumed the org was larger than it was. I would have assumed the same.

Including "suspecteds" as members based on feeling alone is like trusting fresh street talk that goes against stronger evidence.

I mean this sincerely, but what is it about this info that draws so much pushback? I respect your opinions so I'm curious why in this case there's a tendency to discount the only TE sources.

[Antiliar]

The top list is from 1972 or after. It doesn't apply to 1963, which is the year that many of the charts I've been focusing on. I've been studying NO for a long time and we can identify more than the small number given by Colombo who were still alive in 1963. I named Nofio Pecora as one of them, and Sylvester Carollo may also have been on the books since he frequently made illegal returns and spent time in Tijuana.

Plus 1963 is when Leoluca Trombatore died and Marcello replaced him soon after. I think the membership could have been as high as 20 at that time. Considering it's the first borgata it had to have its share of senior citizens members who could have easily been unknown to Colombo.

[Pogo The Clown]

As I said I find it almost impossible to believe that their info was so inaccurate as to be wrong on 28 of the 33 individuals they believed were made. By this point they had been investigating the family for a decade.


Besides as has been brought up on top we can name more than 5 living members in 1968. Also it would be very strange indeed that attrition wiped out all the soldiers but left the Boss, a former Boss and a former UnderBoss still alive. As we have seen with other families that have dwindled to a handful of members the Soldiers make up the majority who remain since they make up the majority of the membership to begin with and tend to be a lot younger on average than the top leaders.


Also if the youngest of the supposed 5 remaining members in 1968 was 44 or 46 years old we can infer that NO held a ceremony in the relatively recent past and it wasn't a Cleveland situation where no new members were inducted for 30 years.


Pogo