Copyright 1986 The New York Times Company  
The New York Times
November 20, 1986, Thursday, Late City Final Edition
SECTION: Section B; Page 8, Column 1; Metropolitan Desk

LENGTH: 1415 words

HEADLINE: VERDICT IS TERMED A BLOW TO THE MAFIA

BYLINE: By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

BODY:
The guilty verdicts in the Mafia commission trial yesterday will not by themselves put the mob out of business, officials said yesterday.

But they hailed the convictions as certain to disrupt long-entrenched patterns of criminal activity and to make it easier for authorities to fight racketeering in a host of industries long prey to traditional organized crime.

''This will have a tremendous impact on the Mafia,'' predicted William Doran, chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's criminal division in New York. He said it would create a ''power vacuum'' that would cause turmoil in the ranks and facilitate future undercover operations.

The Government's victory in the commission case is part of a huge Federal assault on an organization F.B.I. officials long insisted did not exist. Since last year, prosecutors have brought major Mafia cases in Kansas City, Boston, New Jersey and Philadelphia, among other places.
 
New Alignments Emerge

If the past is any guide, officials said, some of the bosses convicted yesterday were already preparing to continue to exercise power from behind bars.

At the same time, however, experts were already reporting new alignments intended to provide continuity within the crime families and to shift responsibilities to lesser-known and presumably safer leadership.

Long before the commission case, city, state and Federal officials were tracking the careers of dozens of upwardly mobile mobsters.

These were described as mostly low-profile figures who lacked the training and contacts of their well-established predecessors and so might prove easier to thwart.
 
More Violence Expected

But officials also said that without the dispute-resolving mechanisms of the older mobsters, they might resort more to violence.

The list includes the oldest son of the late Mafia boss Carlo Gambino, and a man once charged with firing a shot at Frank Costello.

Some officials said that the Government's stepped-up war against the Mafia had made some would-be bosses think twice about entering the limelight. Instead, they said, potential successors to some of the convicted leaders are choosing safer positions of calculated obscurity.

''We have information from inside that a number of mobsters in a position to seek top roles are preferring to stay in the background,'' said Ron Goldstock, assistant attorney general in charge of the state's Organized Crime Task Force.

''They recognize,'' he said, ''that the new leadership will be immediately targeted as a prize by competing law-enforcement jurisdictions.''
 
'Inferior Leaders'

He cited the case of John Gotti, who had barely succeeded the slain Paul Castellano as head of the Gambino crime family before he, too, was in court with others facing Federal racketeering charges. The trial, in Brooklyn, is continuing.

John L. Hogan, head of the F.B.I.'s New York district office, called the new potential bosses ''inferior leaders'' who missed out on the mob's traditional ''career path'' and were therefore more likely to make mistakes.

He added, ''Our intelligence shows us who these people are and we will be targeting them next.''

''A lot of networks are going to crumble,'' said Thomas L. Sheer, director of the F.B.I.'s inspection division, who will take over as assistant director in charge of the New York office when Mr. Hogan retires next month.
 
'Don't Know Who's Trustworthy'

''Tony Salerno knows where to go if he wants to get something done,'' said Mr. Sheer, referring to the head of the Genovese family who was among those convicted yesterday. ''These new young Turks who are taking over can't go behind the scenes because they don't know who's trustworthy.''

Mr. Sheer said future efforts would be aimed at ''wresting back'' from mob control labor unions and the concrete and construction industries.

Even so, he and other officials expressed wariness about predicting the imminent demise of a criminal organization that has survived intermittent attempts to eradicate it for almost a century.

Lieut. Remo Franceschini, commander of the Queens District Attorney's detective squad and a former Police Department intelligence officer, said that he had been following the careers of a number of men moving into positions of authority in the families. He described them largely as ''old-style Moustache Pete's who shun publicity as taboo.''
 
A Failed Assassination

Lieutenant Franceschini said Mr. Salerno of the Genovese family had already been replaced by Vincent Gigante, a 58-year-old Greenwich Villager, ex-prizefighter and longtime associate of the late family boss Vito Genovese.

According to the Mafia turncoat Joseph Valachi, it was Mr. Gigante -nicknamed ''the chin'' - who bungled the shooting of the crime chief Frank Costello in his Central Park West apartment lobby on May. 2, 1957.

''This is for you, Frank,'' Costello heard a voice say before a bullet nicked his scalp. Mr. Gigante was later charged with the shooting but was acquitted after Mr. Costello testified, ''I never seen him before in my life.'' Mr. Costello subsequently retired from the mob.

Lieutenant Franceschini said that Mr. Gotti's most likely replacement, should he be convicted or otherwise removed, was Thomas Gambino of Lido Beach, L.I., a 57-year-old son of the late Carlo Gambino, who headed the family bearing his name until his death in 1976. Thomas Gambino is also the nephew of the late Mr. Castellano and is married to a daughter of the late crime boss Thomas Lucchese, Lieutenant Franceschini said.
 
Owns Dress Factory

''I feel he'll eventually be the boss like his father,'' he said. He said that Mr. Gambino had no Federal convictions but had been a target of several investigations, including a Federal grand jury inquiry in April with Joseph N. Gallo, the longtime consigliere, or counselor, of the Gambino family.

Mr. Gambino is said to own several businesses, including Consolidated Trucking and the Mary Fran Dress Corporation at 830 Westchester Avenue in the Bronx. In 1982 he and the dress company were cited for allegedly running an illegal sweatshop, a misdemeanor charge. The office of State Attorney General Robert Abrams, which brought the case, said it could not immediately find the disposition.

Another new rising power in the Gambino family, the lieutenant said, is Salvatore Gravano, a 41-year-old Staten Island contractor. A Federal grand jury recently indicted him on tax-evasion charges in connection with the $1 million sale of a Brooklyn discotheque, but he was acquitted at trial.

In the Lucchese family, the longtime boss, Anthony Corallo, who was also convicted yesterday, has already been replaced by Neil Migliore, 53, a former captain and owner of a Queens marble business, Lieutenant Franceschini said. He said Mr. Migliore also ran a gambling operation with Joe Lucchese, brother of the late family boss, Tommy Lucchese.
 
New Bonanno Leader

In the Bonanno family, where the titular boss, Philip Rastelli, remains hospitalized, leadership appeared to be shifting to the acting boss, Joseph Messina, 43, of Maspeth, Queens, who is out on bail, Lieutenant Franceschini said.

He said Mr. Messina operated a catering business and delicatessen in Howard Beach, Queens, and was a close and trusted associate of Mr. Gotti of the Gambino family, who also comes from Howard Beach.

The least known of the emerging new leaders is James Angellino, 50, of the Colombo family, which has suffered widespread disruption since the conviction in June of its boss, Carmine Persico, and eight other leaders.

Mr. Angellino was indicted last August with a reputed Colombo family captain on Federal charges of conspiring to receive hijacked goods. Both men pleaded not guilty.

Other recent mob trials around the country include these:

* In New York, the Government has completed its year-long ''pizza connection'' case against 20 alleged Sicilian and American mob figures accused of operating a billion-dollar heroin pipeline.

* In Kansas City, five accused underworld figures were convicted early this year of skimming profits of Las Vegas casinos that were purchased with money from the teamsters union.

* In New Jersey in August, 26 members of the Lucchese family were convicted on various charges. Also, in Trenton, 16 Philadelphians were indicted last month on racketeering charges.

* In Philadelphia, union locals were charged with extorting kickbacks and acting as collection agencies for organized crime.