Genovese Boss Tieri Organized Galante Hit?

Genovese boss Frank "Funzi" Tieri was powerful enough
to run the Commission during tumultuous times.


The historical problem with writing about the Mafia is the basic fact that, since it is a secret society, it doesn't keep records regarding quarterly revenues.

The CEO doesn't writer a letter to the board, informing them of any upcoming plans to "grow" the crime family, etc.

So where do facts used in a given work come from? What is the source of the source? Usually law enforcement documents, such as 302s; trial transcripts of testimony -- then there are congressional  committees; enterprising journalists/historians who find information no one else has either through contemporary sources or by digging through musty old files. Then there are memoirs, such as Joseph Bonanno's Man of Honor and the one written by Nicola Gentile.



Tommy Ryan Eboli; they let him visit
his mistress before gunning him down.


The "Mafia Encyclopedia," which offers no footnotes or notes on source material of any kind. However, the company that writes and publishes it (FactsonFile.com is its web address) is in the business of producing reference material. It has been revised and reissued a number of times. (Still I have found some mistakes in it regarding Eboli's murder. Tommy Ryan's FBI files are available and his murder is described in full, with evidence found. It doesn't jibe with what was written in the Mafia Encyclopedia, but then I may not have had the most updated version.

I had never heard of the Mafia Encyclopedia before writing this post, but I was able to directly quote from it as it is online and free access is available. I checked and it has turned up as source material in a lot of Mafia books.

Other sources support different parts of the story, the gist of which is: Funzi Tieri*, as Commission chief, managed the political side of the equation regarding the whacking of Carmine Galante; he built the consensus and sent emissaries -- which may have included Gambino underboss Neil Dellacroce  -- to Joe Bonanno in Arizona, where he'd been exiled the previous decade. Funzi, in addition to supposedly seeking Bonanno's council (are at least appearing to be, to flatter the man), also sent an implied threat that Bonanno should not get any funny notions.

The Snake didn't want Lilo hurt.

That the Commission was aware of the need to quickly remove Carmine "Lilo" Galante from the picture, I'll take as a given. 

During the last period of Galante's life, following his release from prison up through to his death, there were a series of murders committed within the mob that are believed to have been Galante's handiwork, to help position him to not only seize control of the Bonanno family, but the Commission as well. (I will go into detail, and sourcing, in another post.) Galante, in fact, committed as many as one hundred murders during his life, law enforcement believes -- and was never convicted of any of them. Who are all those people Lilo killed is a valid question.

Partly to pave the way for his successor, Carlo Gambino arranged for Funzi
Tieri to helm the Genovese clan after having Tommy Ryan Eboli whacked.

A bold and vicious man with a dead-eyed stare that scared law enforcement as well as other Mafia members, Galante believed the Bonanno family was his by right; he had served as Joe Bonanno's underboss and was entitled to the job.

But Galante faced an adversary every bit as bold and vicious in one Frank "Funzi" Tieri, who during this tumultuous period in Cosa Nosa history was at the helm of the Genovese family. This is widely believed to have resulted from the machinations of Carlo Gambino, who thought Funzi was user-friendly enough to replace the previous Genovese boss, Tommy Eboli, who was in big trouble when he failed to accept he owed Gambino and the other bosses some $4 million they had given him to fund a major drug deal with Louis Cirillo -- who was later busted and sent away for 25 years. The bosses lost their million, and Eboli wouldn't repay them or even acknowledge the debt.

Gambino had him whacked in 1972 -- but the shooters purposely waited until Eboli was leaving his mistress's house, as opposed to arriving, before opening fire on him. The thinking was: despite his being a shithead, "Tommy Ryan" was a boss... why not let him go with a smile on his face?

Gambino arranged for Funzi Tieri to take over the Genovese family. Carlo was thinking ahead; by arranging for Funzi to be boss, Gambino was also trying to establish a base of supporters for the man he had designated to be his heir, Paul Castellano. But Tieri was also boss material; he was able to control his temper, was willing to use violence when necessary and had the ability to generate revenue. One FBI agent even said Tieri was a "real money maker, one of the classiest gangsters in the New York City area."

Big Paul Castellano was often referred
to as Boss of Bosses, but only because
Funzi Tieri died four years before him.
Funzi turned into a stronger boss than Gambino had anticipated, and is believed to have been the most powerful boss on the Commission at the time of the Lilo crisis. (Funzi died in 1981, though, only a couple of years after the hit, which occurred in 1979.)

To decide Lilo's fate, the Commission met in Boca Raton, Florida. One report puts the meeting "at the... home of Gerardo "Jerry" Catena**, the retired Genovese family capo who was serving as underboss of the Genovese family at the time.

In attendance were, allegedly, Funzi Tieri, Gerry Catena, Paul Castellano, Florida boss Santo Trafficante and maybe Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo.

It was decided that Galante was a greedy threat and had to be taken out. Funzi even sent emissaries to Joe Bonanno himself. The exiled boss must have accepted the gambit, or at least understood the implied threat of Funzi's intended message: Peace in New York was why Galante was to be killed. So don't try to make a comeback, Joe, or we'll take you out, too.

One commentator has said he finds it unlikely that Funzi would tell Joe about the hit on Galante because the old Cosa Nostra chief may have telephoned Galante and warned him. I don't think "the life" works like an episode of the Fox network's old TV hit, 24.

First off, why would Joe take such a risk, one that could very well place him on the wrong side of history--again? Because Galante was, essentially, trying to do what Joe himself had attempted in the 1960s; Joe had failed and it was only by the grace of God that the progenitor of the Mafia family that still carries his name today was still breathing at the time in question.

And, what would Galante have done if he'd gotten such a warning from Joe? Run away? Hide? In terms of offense, what more could he possibly have done? He was allegedly already whacking Gambinos -- at least six -- as part of an effort to wrest control of Gambino's drug distribution business.

He went around with bodyguards... In fact, it was Lilo's trusted Sicilian bodyguards who had ultimately given the boss up; they allowed the hit. Galante's days were already numbered; the rest was just detail.

Other sources provide further details regarding the Commission reaching out to Bonanno about the Galante hit.

Another report notes that "It was even rumoured that Joseph Bonanno, the seventy-four year old, disposed former family boss, was contacted at his home in Arizona to put the final stamp of approval on the plan. It's possible that Aniello Dellacroce himself, traveled to Tucson, where the elder Bonanno lived, to confirm that the hit was going down and to ensure that Joe would not use the killing as an opportunity to re-ignite his interest in the families affairs."

A third source also notes that the meeting was held in Boca, and that Bonanno was told of the hit and gave his approval, though the writer does not designate any particular mob figure as in charge.

Dellacroce could possibly have been the emissary; sending a family underboss may have been meant to show Bonanno a level of respect he may not have deserved, considering how reviled he was and would become after the publication of his book, which fueled the launch of the Commission Case. Or maybe sending Dellacroce, the classic Mafia enforcer and a contemporary of Joe's, was an implied threat in and of itself.

Dellacroce, in his earlier years under Albert Anastasia, used to travel the country whacking people while dressed in the garb of a Catholic priest. He was said to have had the same dead-looking eyes as Galante himself. Many expected a major civil war inside the Gambino family when Neil learned the crown had gone to Castellano. But the old-school street boss, who really believed in that thing of theirs, didn't give in to the John Gotti's at his knees. He accepted the will of the boss. The boss is the boss is the boss. (He'd also been given nearly half of the family's rackets, the so-called blue collar wing, to help mollify him for his loyalty.)

It would've been an interesting conversation between those two. If it happened.

An interesting side note to Lilo's story is the widely reported detail that Colombo boss Carmine Persico had alone voted against whacking Galante.


* **: Philip "Benny Squint" Lombardo (October 6, 1908 in New York City – April 1987) is considered to have been the real boss of the Genovese crime family, from the late 1960s until the beginning of the 1980s, according to two specific sources.

In 1959, Vito Genovese went to prison, having first appointed a panel of bosses to run the family: Capo Michele Miranda, underboss Gerardo "Jerry" Catena, and acting boss Thomas "Tommy Ryan" Eboli. In 1962 Joseph Valachi stated before a US Senate subcommittee that Lombardo was also a part of this same panel. According to FBI informant Vincent Cafaro, Lombardo had been boss since 1969 and had been using Eboli and Tieri as decoys to insulate himself, coinciding his retirement with Tieri's death and naming Vincent Gigante as his successor while at the same making Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno the new front boss to disguise Gigante's transition into boss.

There is no definitive evidence for any of this, however; information on Benny Squint being the family's real power is derived solely from the testimonies of Valachi and Cafaro. (Informants, as noted above, one category of those "ultimate sources.")

There is little research on Benny Squint -- none that I could find. I know the Genovese "bosses" up until Tieri were weak and forgettable, the last one whacked under Carlo Gambino's orders. There is much research pointing to how strong a boss Tieri was, including how well-liked he had been by the rank and file members of the Genovese clan. Much like "Fat Tony" Salerno, Tieri certainly could have been boss.

Benny Squint wanted obscurity, let him have it, I say.