The Commission

This page collects records about the Commission as a body. The seats above stay empty. The Second Circuit’s account of who held which role in the families is on the opinion’s page and on the person pages, labelled as what the government established; it is not copied into these seats.

The Second Circuit, 1989

United States v. Salerno, 868 F.2d 524 is the appeal from the Commission trial. Its background section reads: “The RICO enterprise alleged in the indictment is an organization known as the ‘Commission’ of La Cosa Nostra, a nationwide criminal society which operates through local organizations known as ‘families.’ The indictment alleged, and substantial evidence at trial established, that the Commission has for some time acted as the ultimate ruling body over the five La Cosa Nostra families in New York City and affiliated families in other cities.”

On the body’s functions: “The general purpose of the Commission is to regulate and facilitate the relationships between and among the several La Cosa Nostra families, and more specifically to promote and coordinate joint ventures of a criminal nature involving the families, to resolve disputes among the families, to extend formal recognition to ‘bosses’ of the families and on occasion resolve leadership disputes within a family, to approve the initiation or ‘making’ of new members of the families, and to establish rules governing the families, officers and members of La Cosa Nostra.”

On its membership in that period: “Since the late 1970s, the Commission was controlled by the bosses of four of those families, often acting through their deputies.” And: “Due to internal instability, the Bonanno family was denied a seat on the Commission during this period.”

These are the court’s statements of what the indictment alleged and the evidence at trial established. The court affirmed, except that it reversed Indelicato’s conviction on the substantive RICO count.

The district docket

The appeal does not print the trial court’s docket number. A district court ruling in the Colombo family case does. In United States v. Persico, 621 F. Supp. 842 (S.D.N.Y. 1985), Judge Keenan wrote that three defendants moved for an order “severing a portion of the indictment and joining it for trial with the indictment in United States v. Salerno, S 85 Cr. 139 (RO). For the reasons stated below, these motions are denied.” The docket number is cited here from that opinion. It is not given as the docket of the appeal’s page.

Other records on the body

• A district court’s finding in 1996, in Gigante’s competency proceeding: “Controversies between Families are resolved by a Commission, consisting of, among others, the heads of the five Families, including the Boss of the Genovese Family.” Court finding (925 F. Supp. 967).
• Judge Weinstein in 1997, summarizing testimony about Castellano’s killing: “His murder had not been approved by the Commission made up of the leaders of each mafia family.” Testimony, as the court summarized it (982 F. Supp. 140).
• An FBI New York memorandum of January 3, 1984 describes an investigation of “the ‘commission’ as a criminal enterprise.” FBI memo (Furnari file).
• Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, September 25, 1963: “Cosa Nostra is run by a commission and that the leaders of Cosa Nostra in most major cities are responsible to the commission” (quoted with the text layer’s OCR errors corrected). Attorney General’s statement (1963 hearings).
• Committee counsel to Joseph Valachi, October 2, 1963: “The commission is the council of the bosses themselves over the whole United States or wherever the families are in the United States?” Valachi: “Right.” Testimony, confirming counsel’s question. In the same exchange counsel set it apart from the council of six that Valachi said Luciano had set up.

The defendants

The Second Circuit names these men in the Commission appeal. Each person page labels what it quotes.

• Anthony Salerno, Genovese family.
• Antonio Corallo, Salvatore Santoro and Christopher Furnari, Lucchese family.
• Carmine Persico and Gennaro Langella, Colombo family. Ralph Scopo, also a defendant, has no person page.
• Anthony Indelicato, Bonanno family.
• Paul Castellano, Gambino family: “named a defendant, but was murdered prior to trial.”
• Philip Rastelli, Bonanno family: “originally named a defendant, but was severed.”

What the seats still wait for

The five seats are for the families, not for individuals in a given year. The records above say that bosses sat on the Commission, often through deputies, and that the Bonanno family was excluded in the period of the case. None of them is yet a separate, cited decision to place a name in a seat on this page.