Posted on 07/30/2016 11:32:42 AM PDT by Cementjungle
A mobster known as the "Pittsburgh connection" for the real-life gangsters portrayed in the Oscar-winning movie "Goodfellas" died Thursday evening after he suffered a heart attack at an Ormond Beach bar.
Eugene "Nick the Blade" Gesuale, 73, was having his customary Pinot Grigio at Past Times Restaurant and Bar, when he suddenly fell over," said bar manager David Ruiz.
"He was on his cellphone and it looked as if he was having a seizure," Ruiz said Friday afternoon. "I called 9-1-1."
Ruiz said Gesuale, who was released from federal prison in October 2014 after serving 24 years for racketeering and drug trafficking, was a regular at the bar, which just opened in May at 709 S. Nova Road.
(Excerpt) Read more at news-journalonline.com ...
Waddy a mean funny?
He was a drug addicted psycho maniac who was a pretty big guy and died pretty young because he was too reckless for the mafia to handle.
Hell, I have a third cousin in prison for life, low level mobster.
He blew up part of the law firm that was representing his wife in their divorce. And that was the least of what he did.
Yeah, but he did kill a made guy, didn't he?
According to the Hill biography, everyone knows you can't do that, no exceptions.
I mean, maybe they recognized that he was bad news in the larger sense, but it wouldn't have mattered if he was totally buttoned down most of the time. You kill a made man, you're done. True?
You Know...
He is just Funny
You pull a made man off a girl he’s beating, you’re done.
Until Gotti changed all that by whacking a BOSS WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE OTHER BOSSES.
Can’t be more made than a boss. But in the interest of peace, and a complete lack of respect the families had for Castellano, nothing was done.
Castellano talking about erectile dysfunction with his maid didn’t exactly endear him to the other wiseguys.
They thought that was the ULTIMATE sign of weakness, crying to a woman about sexual problems.
Yeah, I guess that after Gotti, the rule had to be changed.
You can’t whack the boss without permission unless everybody also thinks he’s a POS.
Also, I read that Castellano was not considerate of the lower guys. He just wanted his cut, and he was a real prick about it. Also he was stupid enough to let himself get recorded by the FBI, and he talked about his E.D. problems on the tape.
And the maid wasn’t Italian!
That is one of the most chilling movie scenes ever filmed IMHO.
Nope, she was hispanic. I forget what country.
He was a greedy SOB AND he also found out Gotti’s crew was dealing H in NJ. THat’s a death sentence.
Gotti knew it would be him or Castellano in a grave. So he struck first.
The street hoodlums were thrilled but it did break an old and longstanding rule, and as with anything, once rules start going out the window, so does everything else.
He was also aloof, living on 4 acres surrounded by a Gate on Staten Island. Nice house. Seen it lots of times. And he didn’t like to be around the every day moneymakers. That made them hate him.
In the Godfather II, Michael was able to run NY from Nevada because it was widely known he killed at least two men, including a COP, and was sadistically strict, with brutal underlings keeping everyone in line.
They thought that was the ULTIMATE sign of weakness, crying to a woman about sexual problems.
= = = = = = = = = = =
OF course, Uncle Junior had a different taste he had to try and outlive.....
I remember a statement in my yute...go for the hole, go for the pole.
Of course it is not always true. I can attest to that.
LOL Great episode!!
He left her over that and she cried like a baby.
Tony teased him to no end.
That's the main lesson to be taken from the whole thing, and it's valid.
I suppose it could be argued that it was all over once the omerta got broken, and that happened in the '70s, with Joe Valachi. At least in hindsight, it seems pretty clear that once Valachi got away with it, the door was open. Especially since a movie was made about it.
It kind of demonstrates that an organization like the families is kind of "brittle," in that it has a weak spot, and the weak spot is secrecy. As long as everyone knows that talking is an absolute death sentence, and as long as they can enforce that death sentence no matter what, it can keep going.
Of course, the lesson of the Casino story is that the infiltration of drugs into the families screwed up discipline, screwed up character and a willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. I guess that's also the lesson of Goodfellas as well... once they started to get high on their own supply, discipline and self-control went out the window, and the law was able to move in.
Which demonstrates the wisdom of the Vito Corleone character in The Godfather. He knew that drugs would bring the whole family system down. Not immediately, but eventually.
It's interesting that two great Italian directors - Scorsese and Coppola - basically wrote the history of the fall of the Mafia on the movie screen.
And that another Italian - Rudy Giuliani - was able to take advantage of the decay and deal a deadly blow, starting with the Fulton Fish Market, but expanding to Gotti and other aspects of the organization.
There were other problems too.
Nicky Scarfo in Philly was a bad boss, as I understand it. He let things get out of control, he was paranoid, he had people whacked for dumb reasons, he had even his best friends afraid that they would get whacked for nothing.
It's like the larger problems of American society in the post-WWII years got into the Mafia too, and undermined its structure.
They should have listened to the "no drugs" rule.
But if they did, the Families would have lost power to other crime organizations as pot, coke, and crack moved into society.
Showed that Vito Corleone was very wise to say 'No' to Sollozzo, then Sonny had to screw everything up.
Most gangsters are jerks. That’s why they choose to be gangsters.
You’re a funny guy. :)
Great post.
The Godfather was right though, in the end.
Used to be a lot of the old time mafioso died of old age at home. Drugs put an end to that.
RICO put an end to everything!!
The Italians of my father’s generation were brutally tough. The ones that became mobsters made a lot of money and brought up softer kids. Violent, but still softer.
It’s not so hard going from ghetto-like conditions to prison. But going from Very Upper Middle Class diggings to prison, major difference.
A bunch of dopes out here (Staten Island) got arrested selling macines guns and narcotics out of a barbershop. I was in it two weeks before it was busted. All Italian kids.
I bet they were rolling on each other quicker than you can blink an eye.
But the mafia still has more than enough power. None of the local Indian run delis are OWNED by the delis, perhaps on paper, but not in reality. Not the 7/11ss, the local delis.
The pizzerias, the major produce stores, etc., still washing money, I’m sure.
A lot of Italians were brought in from the old world and the Mafia is keepig its head low but still making money.
They’re down, but far from out, unfortunately.
I know. That was pretty much the crux of the whole story, wasn't it?
Not just in the movie, but in the history of organized crime in the United States, at least in the post-WWII time period.
It's like Mario Puzo basically nailed the pivot point of the whole story. The Godfather saw it coming. He was a genius, he saw it all. He just couldn't control things after he died, even though he tried to set things up so carefully.
Ping Pow Boom Ping!
And Scarfo was a PSYCHO!! Ruined AC for everybody.
But Gotti Jr. managed to get, what was it, four mistrials?
My friend represented him.
He said the govt has Unlimited funds to throw at a case and it’s almost impossible to beat them.
I met him a few times at a friend’s pizzeria.
Wish I could remember where I saw it but a while back I read that he was a close friend and confidant of Breitbart..........Hmmmmmmmm.....
Excellent point! I never thought of that.
The families worked back in the old country because Sicily was poor and culturally not that well aligned with the rest of Italy. The reasons for that go back hundreds of years, right?
When the bosses tried to export the system to America, the concept worked, except America turned into the richest society in history. That made them fat, and soft.
Also, there's not that much reason for a Mafia in a rich country. Ordinary people can get ahead without a Mafia system to help them out.
Another factor might be that the prisons got a lot nastier, don't you think? I mean, getting sent up the river in 1930, or even in 1950, was a lot different than getting sent up in 1990.
I don't know for sure, of course, but I think life in prison got a lot rougher in the last forty years or so.
So you had softer young people coming in, and the downside looking a lot less pleasant too.
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