[5] Cotroni grew up in a house at the junction of Ontario and St. Timotheé streets in Le Plateau-Mont-Royal (now in Montreal), a poor neighbourhood that more affluent Italian immigrants avoided because of its high crime rate.

[4] Members of the Cotroni family had moved to Montreal to take part in bootlegging and were repeatedly arrested during the Prohibition era for smuggling alcohol into the United States.

"[8][9] By the age of 20, Cotroni had accumulated a lengthy record of minor offences, including theft, possession of counterfeit money, and assault and battery,[8][10] as well as bootlegging with local bootlegger Armand Courville.

As an young man, Cotroni spent much of his time working as a guard and a bouncer in various gambling houses and bars, becoming involved in organized crime in the late 1920s.

[14] The Italian sociologist Pino Arlacchi wrote about the 'ndranghetista subculture, "Except among relatives, the two sexes represented qualities in constant antagonism: the uomo di rispetto ("man worthy of respect") had the task of demonstrating his virility at every opportunity, even if this meant committing violence against women or seizing them by force.

"[14] Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent of The Toronto Star, wrote that Cotroni was almost certainly guilty of raping Maria Bresciano, who had rejected his offer of marriage, which he took as a humiliation that questioned his sense of machismo, which in turn required an act of extreme violence to prove his virility and strength as a man.

[14] Likewise, Edwards wrote that it was the same need to dominate others that led Cotroni to work as a professional wrestler under the ring name of Vic Vincent, as he wanted to prove his machismo by demonstrating his strength and fierceness as a brawler who apparently won victories over other men in front of thousands of people.

[20] Au Faisan Doré was moreover the nightclub where numerous future French Canadian stars such as Roger Baulu, Raymond Lévesque, Denise Filiatrault, Fernand Gignac and Monique Leyrac began their careers.

Galante planned to make Montreal a pivotal location in the importation of heroin from overseas for distribution in New York City and across the United States in the French Connection.

[23] Edwards wrote that in the early 1950s Cotroni "...was a significant but not a dominant force in the Montreal underworld and an éminence grise of the arts scene who was credited with launching the careers of several Québécoise folk singers.

[26] Cotroni's nightclub, Au Faisan Doré, was listed as the mailing address for Antonio D'Agostino, a French Corsican gangster known as one of France's most powerful heroin smugglers.

[27] In the 1957 municipal election, the Cotroni family joined forces with the Union Nationale government of Premier Maurice Duplessis against Drapeau, who was running for reelection.

[30] As corruption boomed again in Montreal, the federal government deported Giglio after he was found with 240 Cuban cigars that he failed to declare at customs when he returned from a vacation in Cuba.

[37] Two thugs arrived at the office of the Italian language Montreal newspaper Cittandino Canadese to warn the editors that it was "not respectable" to publish stories about "Pep" Cotroni.

The house, built in 1959, featured marble floors, a large conference room, a walk-in industrial sized refrigerator, a built-in movie screen, six bathrooms, and crystal chandeliers.

[39] The conference hall had a huge window overlooking the St. Lawrence river and led out to a sundeck supported by a type of 24 inch steel beams normally used in bridge construction.

[43] A police wiretap at DeCavalcante's office in Kenilworth, New Jersey showed the latter talking on December 23, 1964 with Bonanno family member Joe Notaro at length about Cotroni.

[46] The Montreal police pulled over Bonanno's car and found three loaded handguns, leading him and the rest of his party to be deported to the United States for the illegal ownership of guns.

[50] Magaddino always saw Violi as his "beachhead" in Montreal who would ultimately allow him to add Quebec to his Canadian territories and in the process weaken his hated rivals, the Bonanno family.

[52] In the 1960s and 1970s, Cotroni used associate William "Obie" Obront to supervise a bookmaking network in the Ottawa-Hull area that handled around $50,000 in bets per day, with 25 per cent going to Paolo Violi.

[54] Starting in September 1969, Frank D'Asti of the Cotroni family contributed heavily to the leadership bid of Pierre Laporte to be the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party.

[63] The FLQ planned to force Laporte to write out a "confession" of his crimes, which would be a "Magna Carta of corruption" that was intended to discredit the Parti libéral du Québec.

[64] Acting on behalf of their boss, two of Cotroni's capos, Frank D'Asti and Nicolo di Iorio, approached Laporte's right-hand man, René Gagnon, with an offer of help.

[68] Continuing his argument against The Godfather, which he conflated with the Maclean's article, St. Marie stated: "Well, there was an old movie called King Kong, but that did not prove that gorillas were as tall as skyscrapers.

"[69] Campbell also brought up the time when Cotroni tried to bribe a Montreal police officer with an offer of $50,000 in cash in exchange for not mentioning he was with his French Canadian mistress, Ghislaien Turgeon.

"[81] Another mission, this time led by Giuseppe Settecase of New York, was not successful and so the Bonanno family found themselves pondering Violi's request to kill Rizzuto.

Later that year, Cotroni and Violi were overheard on a police wiretap threatening to kill Hamilton mobster Johnny Papalia and demanding $150,000 after he used their names in a $300,000 extortion plot without notifying or cutting them in on the score.

[98] Edwards wrote about Cotroni's role in the Violi murder that he "...gave his grudging approval, knowing a refusal might add his name to the assassins' hit list.

[103] The procession from the Church of the Madonna della Difesa to Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery was made up of some 45 vehicles, 23 of them laden with wreaths and floral tributes, a 17-piece brass band, and about 300 people, including members of his family and associates.

[2] Eggs are a symbol of life and renewal in Calabrian culture and one theory holds that his nickname referred to his power to decide who lived and who died in the Montreal underworld.