Massino was a protégé of boss Phillip Rastelli, who took control of the troubled Bonanno family after the assassination of rival boss Carmine Galante. Massino secured his own power after arranging two 1981 gang murders, first a trio of rebel captains, then his rival Dominick Napolitano. In 1991, while imprisioned for a 1986 labor racketeering conviction, Rastelli died and Massino succeeded him. Upon his release the following year he reorganized the Bonannos as one of the strongest of the New York families. Massino became known as "The Last Don" as the only New York boss of his time who was out of prison.