As clever and foresighted as Carlo Gambino was, he left his family divided and embittered when he died. The Gambinos had split into two camps: the Manhattan faction, which was loyal to Dellacroce, and the Brooklyn faction which sided with the new boss, Paul Castellano. "Big Paul" had thrown a bone to the Manhattan faction by keeping Dellacroce on as his underboss, but it wasn't enough to stop the backroom grumbling. The Manhattan faction believed that Castellano wasn't half the gangster that Dellacroce was and that Castellano had simply inherited the position instead of earning it.
The two factions had different philosophies regarding organized crime. The Dellacroce faction valued traditional mob rackets�gambling, street-level extortion, narcotics trafficking, prostitution, loan sharking, and hijacking�the so-called "blue collar crimes," while the Castellano faction favored "white collar crimes" such as high-level extortion, bribery, and theft in labor, construction, waste management, the garment industry, on the docks, and at JKF Airport. Castellano wanted to further Carlo Gambino's master plan of using ill-gotten gains to buy into legitimate businesses, but eventually the Manhattan faction began to feel that their profits were being funneled to a boss who wanted everything to be legit and cared little for the workhorse crews who did the dirty work. They feared that if all family operations eventually became legit, there would be no place for the hard-core criminals who took their cues from Dellacroce and revered the memory of Albert Anastasia.
Although Castellano adopted an executive style, he maintained a significant contingent of tough guys in his faction to keep Dellacroce's Manhattan faction in check. One of the premier crews in the Manhattan faction was Carmine "Wagon Wheels" Fatico's, which included an up-and-coming John Gotti. Fatico's crew was into bookmaking, loan-sharking, gambling, and hijacking, particularly at JFK Airport, and they had a reputation for using violence to get what they wanted when they wanted it. But the Brooklyn faction had a crew that was even more violent, some were certifiable psychopaths, led by capo Roy DeMeo. Working out of the Flatlands section of Brooklyn, DeMeo, who was a trained butcher by trade, had taught his young prot�g�s how to kill cleanly and efficiently. As described by Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci in Murder Machine, this crew specialized in draining the blood from bodies, cutting them up into small pieces, wrapping the pieces into small packages, and disposing of them so they wouldn't be found. The apartment at the rear of their regular hangout, the Gemini Lounge, was occupied by one of DeMeo's cousins, Joseph "Dracula" Guglielmo, and dozens of people were known to have met their end in that apartment. If anyone in the Manhattan faction entertained thoughts of challenging Paul Castellano, the idea of tangling with DeMeo's demented crew gave them pause�at least until DeMeo was found dead in the trunk of his Cadillac in 1983. He'd been shot five times behind both ears.
The rank and file's dissatisfaction with Castellano grew as the years passed. They resented his aloofness and apparent disdain for the foot soldiers in his family as exemplified by his remote mansion, which he called the "White House," in the Todt Hill section of Staten Island, the highest point in the five boroughs. They became outraged when rumors spread that the boss had been having an affair with Gloria Orlate, his Colombian maid, while his wife was still living in the house. These rumors were confirmed by FBI tapes obtained from a bug planted in a lamp on his kitchen table. The feds caught Big Paul discussing illegal deals with his underlings and whispering sweet nothings to Olarte. According to Joseph F. O'Brien and Andrew Kurins, two of the agents who planted the bug, in their book Boss of Bosses: The Fall of the Godfather� The FBI and Paul Castellano, the boss "doted on her... Like adolescents... the pair indulged in long sessions of kissing and petting, stroking and teasing without ever having actual intercourse." Castellano would later undergo surgery to regain his sexual prowess for her. To the men of honor in the Gambino family, this was no way for a boss to act.
It seemed that everything Castellano did rubbed the Manhattan faction the wrong way. He made a pact with Genovese family boss Vincent "Chin" Gigante to execute, without warning or appeal, any member caught dealing drugs. Many wiseguys in the Gambino family were heavily into the drug trade and depended on those profits, including several members of Carmine Fatico's crew.
By the early 1980s, Castellano faced RICO charges in two upcoming trials�the Commission case which sought to put away the heads of the five New York families and a case that targeted Roy DeMeo's stolen luxury car ring. Castellano decided to plan ahead in case he was convicted and had to serve time. He let it be known that Thomas Gambino, Carlo's son, would take over for him and Tommy Bilotti would serve as underboss. The Manhattan faction seethed. They considered Thomas Gambino even more white collar than Castellano and had little respect for Bilotti who, though a capo, served as Castellano's chauffeur and bodyguard.
In 1983, a federal indictment charged 13 members of the Gambino family with drug trafficking. This group included John Gotti's brother, Gene, and his best friend, Angelo "Quack Quack" Ruggiero, who got his nickname for his nonstop talking. Unbeknownst to him, the feds had been listening in on his home phone conversations since 1980, and they had the chatty Ruggiero on tape discussing family business, making drug deals, and expressing contempt for Castellano, calling him a "pansy" and a "milk drinker" among other things.
By law, when a person is charged with a crime based on evidence gathered from a wiretap, he's given transcripts of the taped material to aid in his defense.