Mafia boss Big Paul went from butcher to butchery

There was blood in the streets of Manhattan in 1985 when up and coming mobster John Gotti made his move against Big Paul

US mafia boss Carlo Gambino in custody.

THERE was blood on the streets of Manhattan, that December night in 1985. Minutes before a tall, imposing, bespectacled man with a hawklike nose and “granite features” had emerged from a limousine near Sparks Steak House, intent on grabbing a cut of prime beef.

Crime boss “Big Paul” Castellano, head of the Gambino Family, had been a butcher as a young man, so he knew a good cut of steak, and Sparks had some of the best.

He was also scheduled to meet with a prominent gang member to discuss certain developments within the family. But standing there waiting were four men in trench coats and Russian hats, armed to kill. They opened fire on the 70-year-old mob leader and his driver Tommy Bilotti, leaving them both dead in the street. It was the biggest mob hit in years.

As the gunmen did their dirty work and disappeared into the night they were watched by an impeccably dressed man waiting in another car. It was John Gotti, and he had just cleared a major obstacle in his rise to head of the family. The murders would make Gotti’s the best known face in organised crime.

Paul Castellano, the Gambino family boss.

While Gotti revelled in the celebrity of being an underworld figure, Castellano had been a more restrained and private form of mob boss. Castellano ruled by sheer presence, commanding respect from his underlings, while Gotti was all swagger and bravado. Gotti embraced the drug trafficking that Big Paul had banned and it was Gotti and Castellano’s differences in style that led to the latter’s demise.

Born Constantino Paul Castellano on June 26, 1915 in Brooklyn, his father Giuseppe was a butcher involved in gambling rackets run by the Mangano crime family. Paul dropped out of school at 13 to learn butchering and work in the family shop. He also became involved with the mob.

In 1934 he robbed a haberdasher at gunpoint in Hartford, Connecticut. He and two companions only snatched $51 and Paul used his own car for the getaway, allowing a witness to jot down the numberplate leading to Castellano’s arrest. He steadfastly refused to rat out his two accomplices to get a lighter sentence, earning credibility and trust from the Manganos.

In 1940 he was officially made a member of the Mangano family, working closely with his cousin Carlo Gambino, who was married to Castellano’s sister Catherine. As Carlo rose in the ranks of the family he took Castellano with him. When Vincent Mangano was killed in 1952, Albert Anastasia became boss of the family, naming Gambino as his underboss. But Anastasia was killed in 1957, revenge for his part in Mangano’s death.

Gambino then became head of the family and Castellano was his most trusted underboss.

Castellano was careful to always appear like a legitimate businessman. It was in this direction, white collar crime, that Gambino wanted the family to move, so he anointed Castellano his successor.

Some factions within the family had expected Aniello “Neil” Dellacroce to be named as the new head of the family and Castellano’s rise caused family friction. Gambino died in 1976 and Castellano’s succession split the family. Gotti began to plot against Castellano.

He was given ammunition when Castellano ordered hits on drug-dealing family members (the killers disposed of bodies in a virtual abattoir set up in an apartment and dumped the remains in landfill).

The FBI broke into Castellano’s home and bugged it in 1983 leading to his arrest and that of several other gang members. Castellano was out on $3 million bail in 1985 when he gave what is seen as a grave insult to his mob brethren by refusing to attend the funeral of Dellacroce, who had died of lung cancer. It was all Gotti needed to make his final move.

Mobsters raided 

CASTELLANO and Gambino were two of the 61 mobsters arrested attending the infamous mafia summit held at the home of Joe Barbara in Apalachin New York in 1957.

The meeting was to discuss the division of territories and to head off war between the families, but it had been discovered when local police noticed the sudden influx of expensive cars from around the country to the tiny backwater of Apalachin.

Suspicious about the owners of the cars the police raided the Barbara’s home and netted some big fish in the crime world. For his refusal to answer questions about the meeting in front of a grand jury Castellano was convicted and sentenced to five years prison in 1960. The conviction was later overturned.

Originally published as Mafia boss Big Paul went from butcher to butchery