Editing Lo Monte Gang (section)

==Separate faction, 1912–1914==
Archival researchers reconstruct Fortunato as having been elected to lead the reduced Morello borgata around February 1912, after Morello's imprisonment made an early return unlikely. This is a later reconstruction from Secret Service intelligence, not a surviving election record or formal charter.<ref name="Informer">Richard Warner, Angelo Santino and Lennert Van't Reit, [https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/739915 “Early New York Mafia: An Alternative Theory”], ''Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement'', May 2014, pp. 52–61.</ref>

Secret Service informant Salvatore Clemente met Lo Monte and Terranova figures at a saloon at 227 East 107th Street, which agents called “Lomonte's saloon” or the “Lomonte brothers saloon.” A June 1912 report implicated Thomas Lo Monte and Nick Terranova in the killing of Rocco Cusano, while another report described Fortunato and the Terranovas planning a separate murder for gambler Giuseppe DeMarco.<ref name="GangRule" /> These were intelligence allegations and are not presented as convictions.

After Giuseppe Fontana was killed on November 4, 1913, the Secret Service was told that the killing had been carried out by Manfredi Mineo's Brooklyn group and members of the Harlem “Lamonti gang” associated with the Terranovas. The informant described four gangs: Mineo, Schiro and Lo Monte working together, with Salvatore D'Aquila's Harlem organization opposed to them.<ref name="GangRule" /><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=2eCPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA157 Critchley, ''Origin of Organized Crime'', pp. 154–157].</ref>

This supports treating the Lo Monte group as a separately visible faction. It does not prove a clean secession from a centralized Morello family, since the Lo Montes remained relatives, allies and operational partners of the Terranovas.