Decline
Cutolo overplayed his hand in the Cirillo affair. His former political protectors turned and provided their support to his main rival Carmine Alfieri. When his main 'military' chief, Vincenzo Casillo was killed in January 1983 by the allies of Alfieri, it was clear Cutolo had lost the war. His power declined considerably. Not only Cutolo but many other Camorra gangs understood the shift in the balance of power caused by the death of Casillo. They abandoned the NCO and allied themselves with Alfieri. His sister who ran the business was arrested in 1993. He was moved to a prison on the island Asinara, far away from Naples and his ability to communicate with the outside was severely restricted when the harsh 41-bis prison regime was imposed upon him.
In 2005, he asked for clemency in a letter to the Italian President. “I am tired and ill. I want to spend my last years at home.” More than two decades after being jailed for life without the right to conjugal visits, Cutolo fathered a daughter. He married his wife, Immacolata, in jail in 1983. The couple never consummated their marriage. A six-year legal battle allowed Cutolo the right to father a child, Denise, through artificial insemination.
Cutolo had previously had a son, Roberto, from a previous marriage who was shot dead in Tradate on December 24, 1990, aged 28, in gang violence. His killers were later found dead themselves, their faces riddled with bullets. The murder had been ordered by Mario Fabbrocino, the boss of the Fabbrocino clan, as revenge for Cutolo ordering the death of his brother, Francesco, in the 1980s. Fabbrocino was eventually convicted of Roberto's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005.
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Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Considered physiologically, everything ugly weakens and saddens man. It reminds him of decay, danger, impotence; it actually reduces his strength. The effect of ugliness can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever anyone feels depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with ugliness, they rise with beauty.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)