His days on the street where numbered, it was quick, better then going away for 100 years, and it aint like Pauls family starved after he was gone.

who wouldn't love to be shot in the street?

U serious OP???

Even if he went jail he would still have some sort of existence & perhaps some influence via Bilotti & Tommy Twitch from jail.

His personal family will still take a bigger cut of all the rackets

Like Nino Gaggi used to say, it's an honor to die in the streets with a gun in your hand.. at least when you're in that life. What better death would you want?

What happened to Paul's blood family? Didn't have a couple sons and daughters? Were they involved in rackets or were they set up by the dad to be comfortable for a very long time?

There's many who believe Paul perhaps would've beaten the Commission trial. I don't know what they base this on, but I think it's possible. Had he went to prison, Gotti would be dead. He knew it, that was one of his main motives in moving against Castellano the way he did. He felt if he didn't act, Castellano would've had him whacked first, which may have indeed been the case since Castellano is mentioned as stating he'd breaking up the "Bergin Crew".

Living like a king till your 70, and his kids still rich as fuck, and legit, what else could somebody ask?

Castellano certainly wouldn't have believed that his days were numbered, even if they were. I'm sure his lawyers told him he could beat the Commission rap because RICO hadn't been tested on that scale previously. Ironically, one of the reasons that most of the other families didn't object to his assassination was that they feared he'd turn rat rather than go to prison and be away from Gloria Olarte, his beloved Colombian housekeeper.

With Neil Dellacroce, Gotti's protector, dead, Gotti's crew about to be disbanded, and Tommy Bilotti named underboss, Gotti had good reason to think that his days on the street were numbered. It was kill or be killed.

To die in a nice warm bed like Gambino instead of getting clipped on the street like Castellano??

As usual I agree with you Turnbull. Some in his own family thought there was a chance he would flip and there was no way he was beating that case. Many thought they had a shot vs. RICO but the government proved otherwise.

Big Paul had a lot to lose, he was used to the millionaire lifestyle and didn't want to give it up that easily. I think it was very possible he flips after the verdicts were read if he was still alive.

I dont want to sound like a tough guy but i would rather be dead than spend the rest of my life in prison.Life sucks as much as it does but imagine living in a place with only males and eating shitty food for the rest of your life

I agree mate.
Which is why I always believed Roy Demeo had the last laugh on Joey and Anthony - he escaped the indignity of a harsh jail.

As for Big Paul, he also escaped a life in jail which someone like him really would NOT adapt well to.

Ironic that Paul despised having to keep Neil Dellacroce as his number 2 all those years yet it was Neil's presence that kept Paul alive!!!

He still got stuffed in the back of a trunk though. Pretty harsh way to go for all of them.

I don't know why people have this opinion that Paul Castellano was just some yuppie, used to only the finer things in life and couldn't handle a jail sentence. The guy was a street guy majority of his criminal career, he did the blue collar rackets, he was in the streets.

Granted, if Angelo Lombardo can flip, anything's possible. But Paul was a gangster before he became a boss and a racketeer, I think he'd have better chances in prison, than most seem to believe.

And Roy DeMeo didn't get a last laugh at anything, he's dead. Murdered on his son's birthday, found in a trunk. There's nothing cool or prizeworthy about that.

I'm a little surprised at this widespread belief that Paul would flip. For all his faults I believe Paul was a stand up guy, and since he was boss of (arguably) the most powerful family at the time, he'd probably bite the bullet and die in jail, since it's unlikely he had more than a decade to live, at best.

Remember, this was 1986, not 2004 when Big Joey flipped. There wasn't even an underboss who had flipped back then, let alone the most powerful boss. I'm surprised at the very low opinion you have on Paul.. I'd bet that at the time of the Commission case he wouldn't flip.

The belief that Big Paul would flip gained a lot of traction within the Gambino family, as well as in other families. Logic may not have had anything to do with it. His affair with Gloria Olarte, his Colombian housemaid, was widely known and resented because he violated "Mafia protocol" by carrying on the affair inside his home, right under the noses of his wife and daughter. The other Dons resented him because government wiretap tapes, released after he was cited in the Commission case, recorded him making disparaging remarks against his fellow Dons. All of that added up to major lack of respect, which probably led to the view that a Don lacking in basic Mafia "values" could flip.

I thought Big Paul was pretty close with the Chin..

At the end of his life he was a yuppie. He wasn't a street guy anymore. The only time he played a street guy was when capos showed up at his house and even then they thought of him as a yuppie. Why else you think most thought Neil would be boss instead of him? Yes he was once a street guy when he was younger, but Carlo gave him the freedom to become a blue collar guy that he became and it cost him in the end.

Compare the guys who wanted Castellano to remain boss and the guys who wanted Dellacroce to succeed him.

Gravano & Ruggiero.... some of the most backdoor, backstabbing motherfuckers you could meet. Psychopaths like Carneglia.... And Gotti himself.... who only wanted Castellano whacked because, unlike Dellacroce, Castellano could lead with his head and not his heart, and could see that Gotti was a liability waiting to happen.

De Cicco? Who knows what his end game was. I think he could have went either way on it.

Then there are guys like Marino, Corrao, Failla, Gaggi.... these guys were a lot more stable and a lot less reckless than the guys Gotti ran with.

Who knows if Castellano would really have ratted? There is no basis for thinking he would have. Maybe he would have took a life sentence like all the other old timers. This image of him that has been portrayed has been cultivated by all these guys who had it out for him. It's self-serving. Castellano had been to jail before and had paid his dues on the street.

Did Neil keep Paul alive or did he keep Gotti alive? If not for the Commission Case, Gotti would have been found in a car trunk. Neil stayed alive long enough to give Gotti the chance to strike.

im inclined to agree with you, I think it was only a matter of time before castellano killed gotti, and, agreeing with you again, gotti just beat big paul to the punch.

and im not totally sure gotti was a looked upon by other bosses as a legitimate boss.

The only time he played a street guy was when capos showed up to his house? The guy oversaw extortion rackets, loansharking, hijacking, traditional blue collar LCN rackets. One usually has to be street smart and have a bit of an edge to successfully run those types of crimes. Him getting older and preferring to be more of a reserved, businessman, Detroit-like don doesn't change who he is, I don't think. He simply found a way to produce more money for his crime family, and preferred to be an enigma to LE. Most of the successful bosses took the same approach, but most weren't also farsighted enough to see that white collar crimes is were it's at. I think the possibility of him taking a life sentence and keeping his mouth shut is a lot more realistic than people think.

Gotti used to give a lot of blowjobs to castellano before their beef. Sometimes duel blowjobs with Gloria while Gotti sucked the balls.