1. Betrayal Was and Remains Rife in the Mafia
Mafia boss Paul “Big Paulie” Castellano (1915 – 1985) was head of NYC’s Gambino crime family from 1976 until his passing. The son of a mobster in the Mangano family – forerunner of the Gambinos – who ran a numbers game, Castellano dropped out of school in eighth grade to become a hoodlum. By the 1950s, he had risen to become a capo. Although up to his neck in mob rackets, Castellano acted as if he was a legitimate businessman – an affectation that annoyed many of his hoodlum underlings, who had no delusions about their careers.
The disgruntled underlings of the Gambino boss included an ambitious capo named John Gotti. When Castellano failed to attend a prominent subordinate’s funeral in 1985, it offended many Gambinos, and disgruntlement soon grew into rebellion. On December 16th, Gotti organized a hit squad that waited for Castellano’s outside one of his favorite restaurants, Sparks Steak House, in midtown Manhattan. As Castellano exited his car, Gotti watched from across the street as the hitmen rushed the mob boss, and gunned him down.
Read More: John Gotti The Mafia Don Was Sentenced.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
Annals of Crime – The Real Father of Organized Crime in America
Behr, Edward – Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America (1996)
Burns, Eric – The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol (2003)
Burton, Turkus B., and Feder, Sid – Murder Inc.: The Story of the Syndicate (2003)
Capeci, Jerry – The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Mafia (2005)
Costanzo, Ezio – The Mafia and the Allies: Sicily, 1943, and the Return of the Mafia (2007)
Daily Beast – For 50 Years ‘The Godfather’ Has Sold Us a Beautiful Lie
Duggan, Christopher – Fascism and the Mafia (1989)
Encyclopedia Britannica – Anti-Saloon League
Gambino, Richard – Vendetta: The True Story of the Largest Lynching in US History (2000)
History Collection – What It’s Like Growing up in a Crime Family
History Network – The Grisly Story of America’s Largest Lynching
J Grit – Murder, Inc., The Syndicate’s Killing Team
Lupo, Salvatore – History of the Mafia (2009)
Mob Museum – Prohibition Profits Transformed the Mob
New Orleans Historical – Sicilian Lynching at the Old Parish Prison
NIH National Library of Medicine – Temperance and Prohibition in America: A Historical Overview
New York Times, November 14th, 1941 – Guards Demoted in Reles Escape
Orkent, Daniel – Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (2010)