You just posed a question thats been asked before but needs to be reevaluated. Was Angelo Bruno a Good Boss?

I've always been of the thought process that logically, if you get clipped or end up spending the rest of your life in the can, you were automatically not a great boss... I have in the past considered Bruno a good Boss but this is before certain information. I've gave him lots of credit in longevity and being considered a big earner in gambling before being Boss. But his leadership style was counter-productive.

Serp, with all due respect everyone associated with the old Ducktown neighborhood knows that Phil had "Plastic Surgery" to alter his appearance when he was really playing the FBI to look better and younger. I am really close with a relative of Phil's through marriage, she tells me Phil comes back to AC several times a year and told me about his new appearance. He really wont have any problems as long as he stays out of Margate in the summer and the AC casinos. I said this on the other board as well.

@Dob_Peppino

They definitely did make a example out Caponigro. Tieri screwed him over big time.... Poor guy got $20 doller bills stuck in his a** and was tortured.

Response to Castellano and Bruno relationship; Castellano could care less about Bruno. Castellano was greedy. He prolly had alot to gain by Bruno being dead. The Gambino's were walking all over Bruno and selling coke and heroin in South Jersey. The bars and pizza places. I'm pretty sure Castellano didnt care;, He did lose a vote by proxy on commission decisions though. Someone could prolly elaborate about that.

Bruno gets alot of leeway with being a good boss but was he really???? He seems greedy and cheap like Paul. Guys from different factions was plotting against him

Don’t know what happened above ^^^^^

Tony : that’s exactly how we were raised , many now will never understand.

Salvie knew when he first thought that it wasn’t going to work out him marrying Chuckies kid that it may cost him his life..... no doubt about it !!!

Salvie knew that he was in big trouble..... but he put all his trust in Nick and in that life you never do that . Salvie should of married her and sucked up his bad decision and did like thousands of mob guys did.

. I think Salvie did too. Obviously everybody knows about Maria Merlino but there was also Rosina Rucci who he was on/off with until he died. I also think there was another girl he was with too until he died

Really? If I was the first cop on the scene I would've taken that.

"It looks like something was put up his ass, but now it's gone. You wouldn't know about that, would you Moe?"

"...It was a canary. It flew away when I opened the trunk. Swear to god!"

Hey Serp. Did know about Phil's other nickname Jose for Merlino ? Lol

Frank is same as a boy ... that Michael he was much younger then us but a good kid always doing someone’s floor in there house .. and i think Frank just has a love affair for Ducktown....it’s never coming back.


Frank has the pictures of back then and back to the days when our families used animals horse and buggy type stuff.

I disagree for a couple of reasons.

I think if Testa seriously considered Scarfo a threat rather than an ally we would know about it already through Leonetti (either in his book, interviews or in the information he provided to reports from the NJ SCI). We haven't seen any information to lead us to believe that Testa and Scarfo's relationship was strained at this point and in fact, the evidence we do have points to the contrary.

I.e., Scarfo pushing for Testa to become boss in the mid-late 1970s; Testa wanting Scarfo to replace Joe Rugnetta as consigliere; Scarfo siding with Testa in his dispute with Bruno; Scarfo promoting Testa to take over following Bruno's murder; their joint involvement in killing threats to their new leadership (John Simone, Frank Sindone).

Regarding the Sicilian and Calabrian factions, Leonetti's claim is supported. From 1959 to 1981 you have an uninterrupted pattern when it comes to the top administration positions. Angelo Bruno and Phil Testa were Sicilians and they chose fellow Sicilians as their underbosses (Ignazio Denaro and Testa for Bruno; Casella for Testa). The consigliere on the other hand was always Calabrian (Rugnetta, Caponigro, Scarfo). In the case of the Philadelphia family, the position of consigliere in the 1960s and 1970s was viewed as not simply the number three man in the hierarchy but as the head of the Calabrian faction. When Joe Rugnetta died in 1977, the only serious* contenders to replace him were all Calabrians (Testa wanted Scarfo, others speculated that Nicholas Piccolo would get it and, finally, the Calabrian faction chose Caponigro for the position). One could make the argument that, while the consigliere is often generalised as the number three role in the family, the consigliere can hold more influence than the underboss at any time (e.g., Philip Rastelli considered Stefano Cannone, his consigliere, as his number two). The general consensus appears to be that Scarfo, as consigliere, carried more weight in the family than Casella did as underboss.

Casella also didn't come out of nowhere. His appointment was a surprise and, ultimately, a very bad decision but it wasn't without reason. Casella was a long-time member who had done considerable prison time for the family and he had also set up a couple of meetings for Testa in New York after Bruno was killed.



*while not seriously considered for the role, the Sicilian Antonio Pollina made it known he wanted to be consigliere after Rugnetta and was politely turned down by Bruno