On this day in 1936 we saw the birth of Arnold Squitieri who was a former acting boss and underboss of the Gambino Crime Family who was inducted into the family when John Gotti took the helm. In 2002 he became the acting boss of the family after Peter Gotti was arrested. He spent time in and out of prison, and was recently released in December 2012.

On this day, February 2nd, 1936, Arnold Squitieri was born, a man who would go on to become one of the more quietly powerful figures in the long and turbulent history of the Gambino Crime Family — one of New York's legendary Five Families whose roots stretch back to the foundational era of Lucky Luciano's national crime syndicate.

Squitieri rose through the ranks of the Gambino family during one of its most high-profile periods, being inducted into the organisation during the reign of the flamboyant John Gotti, the so-called "Dapper Don" who had seized control of the family following the 1985 murder of Paul Castellano outside Sparks Steak House in Midtown Manhattan. It was a volatile and heavily scrutinised time to be climbing the ladder, with federal law enforcement bearing down on organised crime with unprecedented intensity. That Squitieri managed to advance as far as he did spoke to both his loyalty and his operational shrewdness.

His most significant moment in the spotlight came in 2002 when he assumed the role of acting boss of the Gambino family following the arrest of Peter Gotti, brother of the imprisoned John Gotti, who had himself been serving as acting boss. It was a period of considerable instability for the family, which had never quite recovered the fearsome cohesion it had enjoyed during the elder Gotti's prime years. Squitieri stepped into the role at a time when the family was under relentless scrutiny from the FBI, and managing day-to-day operations whilst avoiding prosecution required considerable skill and discretion.

His tenure, however, was not without consequence. Squitieri found himself entangled in the justice system on more than one occasion, spending significant stretches behind bars as federal prosecutors continued their long campaign to dismantle the upper echelons of organised crime in New York. He was eventually released in December 2012, having served time on racketeering-related charges — the bread and butter of federal mob prosecutions throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

Squitieri's career represents a particular chapter in Gambino history — the slow, grinding decline of a once-dominant organisation struggling to maintain its structure under the weight of RICO prosecutions and internal fragmentation. His story serves as a testament to both the resilience and the ultimate vulnerability of the old mob hierarchies that once seemed untouchable.