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.
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.