What Happened To The Mafia? Rats, Revenge, and RICO: Ex-Mobsters Talk The Downfall Of An Empire

For much of the last century, the American mafia controlled industries, kept police, judges, and politicians on its payroll and literally got away with murder. But somewhere in between Don Corleone’s version of La Cosa Nostra and Tony Soprano’s, the once-powerful organized crime syndicate lost its grip on power. In a three-part investigation, The Daily Wire looks at what the mob once was, how it was brought down, and how it may soon be back on the rise.

It was Christmas time in New York City, but the crisp December air had just been shattered by the sound of bullets outside a midtown Manhattan steak house. Bystanders swarmed the area, craning their necks to stare aghast at a well-dressed man lying dead on the sidewalk.

The brazen public murder of 70-year-old Gambino boss Paul Castellano on that December evening in 1985 was shocking, but old-style executions of mob bosses were familiar to Americans.

This one would turn out to be the last.

The hit was orchestrated by the infamously flashy and charismatic John Gotti, who took over the Gambino family after Castellano’s death. Gotti watched the murder from a car across the street before driving off.

John Gotti leaves Manhattan Supreme Court (Robert Rosamilio/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

These days, some former made men blame Gotti’s ego and penchant for the spotlight for delivering one of the final blows to the glory days of the mafia, known as La Cosa Nostra in the U.S., which was already reeling from federal investigations and rats turning in their fellow wiseguys. The factors combined to largely end the mob’s decades-long rein of terror, a rubout commissioned by the feds and unwittingly aided by vain and volatile men unable to maintain the underworld life into which they were born. 

Bobby Luisi was a made man, a caporegime, in the Philadelphia mafia at the time of the hit on Castellano. He grew up in Boston’s Little Italy and was eventually tapped to lead the Boston crew of the City of Brotherly Love’s Bruno-Scarfo family. In 1999, Luisi was arrested and charged with cocaine distribution and served 14 years in federal prison. He has since renounced the life of a mobster.

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“Terrible, terrible, terrible. Nicky Scarfo, John Gotti, ‘Gaspipe,’ there’s a list of them that shouldn’t have been there,” Luisi told The Daily Wire. “John was that typical street tough guy, you know, good capo, but he should have never been a boss. … Look what John did. He wanted to be a celebrity.”

“I thought I was a good boss. I was fair with everybody. I did the right things. But I was a little flamboyant myself. I can’t lie about that,” Luisi said. “I had the nice house. I had the cars. You know, in our life we say, ‘Ah, we’re either going to be dead by 40 or doing life in prison. Let’s enjoy it now.’”

Michael Franzese was once a powerful capo in the Colombo family and knew Gotti in the 1970s. Franzese was a pre-med student but joined the mob in 1971, four years after his father was sentenced to 50 years in prison for bank robbery. Franzese became fluent in sophisticated fraud schemes and estimated he earned $8 million a week in his prime, before going to prison on conspiracy charges in 1986. He was released in 1994 and has renounced the mafia.

Young Michael Franzese (Courtesy of Michael Franzese)

Michael Franzese (Courtesy of Michael Franzese)

Franzese said that while Gotti may have “played for the camera a little bit,” the media “just didn’t let it go.”

“To an extent, I think John gets a bad rap,” Franzese told The Daily Wire. “They say that John Gotti is responsible for the downfall of the mafia in New York. That’s not true. It was the RICO Act that’s responsible for the downfall.”

Franzese was referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which was passed in 1970, back when Gotti was a low level soldier known as “Crazy Horse” and was serving a three- year stint in federal prison for hijacking goods from a Northwest Airlines flight into what is now JFK Airport.

John Gotti 1968 mugshot (Getty Images)

John Gotti 1990 mugshot (Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

One of the men who put Franzese behind bars was Edward McDonald, who led the Federal Organized Crime Strike Force in Brooklyn in the 1980s. McDonald investigated