The guys in North Jersey were 20 mobsters associated with Anthony “Tumac” Accetturo and the New Jersey faction of the Lucchese crime family that he controlled. They had recently been found not guilty of all charges in a massive federal case that had lasted more than 21 months.
I figured if those guys could win, we could win. All of us felt confident going into the RICO case because two different juries had rejected the testimony of DelGiorno and Caramandi. This was it; this was the big one. If I won this, I was home free. My uncle had to do the 14 years on the Rouse case and him, Chuckie, the Narduccis, Faffy, Lawrence, the Milanos, and Joe Ligambi still had to go to trial for the Flowers murder, but I wasn’t in that one. So this was it for me.
The stage was set for jury selection on September 10, 1988, in United States v. Nicodemo D. Scarfo, Philip M. Leonetti, et al. This was for all the marbles.
The government’s team was led by veteran prosecutors Louis Pichini, Arnold Gordon, Joel Friedman, David Fritchey, Albert Wicks, and Joseph Peters, who were armed with a massive indictment that charged Scarfo, Leonetti, and 15 others with participating in 14 murders and attempted murders, and a slew of other RICO predicate offenses, including extortion, loan sharking, bookmaking, and the distribution of P2P.
The indictment charged the hierarchy of the crime family as follows:
• NICODEMO “Little Nicky” SCARFO, age 59, as being the boss of the crime family.
• PHILIP “Crazy Phil” LEONETTI, age 35, as being the underboss of the crime family.
• FRANCIS “Faffy” IANNARELLA, age 41, as being a caporegime/street boss of the crime family.
• JOSEPH “Chickie” CIANCAGLINI, age 53, as being a caporegime in the crime family.
• JOSEPH “Joe Punge” PUNGITORE, age 32, as being a solider in the crime family.
• NICHOLAS “Nick the Blade” VIRGILIO, age 61, as being a solider in the crime family.
• SALVATORE “Chuckie” MERLINO, age 49, as being the onetime underboss and later a solider in the crime family.
• LAWRENCE “Yogi” MERLINO, age 42, as being a former caporegime and later a solider in the crime family.
• CHARLES “Charlie White” IANNECE, age 53, as being a solider in the crime family.
• SALVATORE “Wayne” GRANDE, age 35, as being a solider in the crime family.
• JOSEPH “Joey” GRANDE, age 28, as being a solider in the crime family.
• FRANK “Frankie” NARDUCCI, age 35, as being a solider in the crime family.
• PHILIP NARDUCCI, age 27, as being a soldier in the crime family.
• SALVATORE “Tory” SCAFIDI, age 27, as being a solider in the crime family.
• EUGENE “Gino” MILANO, age 29, as being a solider in the crime family.
• RALPH “Junior” STAINO, age 56, as being a solider in the crime family.
• ANTHONY “Tony” PUNGITORE, age 35, as being a solider in the crime family.
In their opening statement, the government promised to give the jurors a window into the world of La Cosa Nostra, focusing on crimes committed between 1976 and 1987, the heyday of Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo and his nephew Philip “Crazy Phil” Leonetti.
The trial started at the end of September after a few weeks of jury selection and went all the way through October and into November.
Every day was the same routine. They would wake us up around 5:00 a.m. and transport us to court in a bus with tinted windows. We would be handcuffed and shackled on the bus, and they would lead us into the courthouse to a basement holding cell, where we would get dressed and would be in the courtroom by 9:00 a.m.
The trial was basically Tommy Del and the Crow and a bunch of FBI agents and cops who had followed us for years. They had some audiotapes and a ton of pictures. They even brought Joe Salerno in to testify against us and they had a bunch of bookmakers and drug dealers we had shaken down. The further the trial went, the more it became apparent that we were literally fighting for our lives and that the government was playing for keeps. They wanted us real bad. By the end of October, I think we were all worn down. We’d have some good days here and there, and then we would have some really bad days. The trial was definitely taking its toll on all of us.
What would happen next would bring Philip Leonetti to tears and further demonstrate the evil nature of his uncle, Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo.
So one day, while the Crow was on the stand, we took our regular afternoon break. We would all go back into a holding pen and there were these little conference rooms where we could meet with the lawyers when they came back. So Bobby comes back and calls me and my uncle into one of the conference rooms and says, “I got some bad news.” And you could just tell by looking at Bobby that it was bad—it was written all over his face. Then Bobby says, “Nick, you’re gonna wanna sit down for this one.” And my uncle said, “What is it, Bob?” And Bobby said, “Mark tried to kill himself this morning. They found him hanging in the bathroom of Scarf, Inc. They flew him from Atlantic City to Philadelphia on a helicopter, and he is in ICU at Hahnemann Hospital. It doesn’t look good.”
I remember welling up with tears and feeling nauseous, like I was gonna throw up. This kid was 17 years old and was a beautiful kid, well behaved, good looking, always respectful. He was my uncle’s youngest son, his baby, and as Bobby’s telling us this, Bobby’s choked up, I’ve got tears in my eyes, and my uncle—this no-good evil motherfucker—has absolutely no reaction, no emotion, nothing. He’s just standing there and he doesn’t say a word.
A few minutes later the judge brings us all back into court and announces that court is in recess for the day. You could see all the lawyers whispering to their clients, telling them what happened, and every one of them had the same reaction: they looked sick about it. Even the judge and the prosecutors, who hated my uncle, looked sick. How could you not be when a 17-year-old kid tries to kill himself? But my uncle, this cocksucker, he never flinched, never batted an eye.
So now we are all going back down to the holding pen in the basement and waiting for the bus to take us back to Holmesburg. No one is saying a word. Every day after court when we’re heading back, we’d always be breaking balls. You gotta remember, there was 17 of us and we’re all looking at spending the rest of our lives in prison, so we had to do something to lighten the mood. But on this day, no one said nothing. It was dead fucking silence, and then when we all got into the holding pen and sat on the benches waiting for the bus to come, out of nowhere, my uncle went nuts and he exploded on me.
His eyes got real big and he was pointing at me and said, “You know I blame this on you and your mother, the way she would scream and holler at Mark and that vein would come out of her throat. This is your fault. You and that witch sister of mine. You’re just like her.” And then he mumbled something to himself in Italian.
While this was going on, all the guys we were on trial with were all sitting on the benches that were up against the wall, staring straight at the floor. None of them made eye contact with either one of us and none of them said a word.
Here I am sitting there, absolutely disgusted. Not only was I disgusted over what had happened with Mark, I was also disgusted with myself. I’m 35 years old and I’m sitting in this holding cell, handcuffed and shackled, and I’m looking at spending the rest of my life in jail. I dedicated every waking moment of my adult life to my uncle and La Cosa Nostra, and this no-good, evil motherfucker is going to sit there and blame me for his son trying to kill himself. But the thing with me, the thing that always made me smarter than him, is the fact that no one, including him, ever knew what I was thinking or what I was feeling. I could read him like a book. I always knew what he was going to do before he even thought about doing it. He was predictable. Mentally, he played checkers with me, where I played chess with him.
At that moment, sitting in that cell listening to him blame me for Mark, I don’t know if I have ever felt such a combination of raw emotion and such rage, both at the same ti
me. I’m not the kind of guy who’s gonna get into a screaming match with anyone, let alone in front of 15 other guys, and let my opponent or adversary know what I was thinking. And at that very moment, he was no longer my uncle, he was no longer my boss. He was my adversary, my enemy.
I made up my mind right there in that split second that my life was going to go one of two ways. Number one, if I won the RICO case, I was going to take Maria, Little Philip, and my mother and we were out of here. No more Atlantic City, no more Philadelphia, no more mob, no more of my uncle, I was done with it all. Number two, if I lost the RICO case, I was going to cooperate with the feds; even if they still gave me 100 years, I didn’t care. This was about breaking with my uncle and La Cosa Nostra, it wasn’t about jail time. The time didn’t matter to me, it never did. If I never saw the light of day, so be it, but I was going to live the rest of my days for me, for Maria, for my son, for my mother, not for my fuckin’ uncle and not for his La Cosa Nostra.
As the RICO trial continued, with the unrelenting onslaught from the federal prosecutors and the overwhelming depth of the government’s case, Leonetti knew that his chances for an acquittal were slim at best.
On November 19, 1988, after two full days of deliberation, the jury convicted Nicodemo Scarfo, Philip Leonetti, and all 15 codefendants of every charge in the indictment.
In the end, there was too much for us to overcome. All the killings, all the violence, all the treachery—it was almost like we had made it easy for them to convict us. How could they not with everything they heard. I know this sounds crazy, but when they found us guilty, I felt a huge sense of relief. I knew we were finished, and I knew that this life, La Cosa Nostra, was over for me.
Nicky Scarfo Jr., who was running the day-to-day operation of the now decimated crime family with Anthony “Cousin Tony” Piccolo, Scarfo Sr.’s first cousin, came to visit both Scarfo and Leonetti behind bars a few days after the verdict.
Nicky Jr. comes in and he’s telling me and my uncle what is going on out in the street. He says, “Nobody’s paying; there’s no structure anymore; it’s every man for himself.” He says, “I went and saw Bobby the other day and I told him what was going on,” and my uncle says, “What did he say?” And Nicky says, “He said it was over and that you have no shot on appeal.” My uncle said, “Nothing is over as long as we’re still breathing,” and he points to me and him. “You tell that to Bobby and anyone else who thinks it’s over. As long as we’re around, it ain’t ever over.” And Nicky Jr. just nodded.
I said, “How’s Mark doing?” And Nicky Jr. said, “He’s still in a coma, but the doctors say he’s gonna make it and that maybe we can bring him home at some point.” My uncle says, “I can’t have him back to Georgia Avenue after what he’s done.”
I got up and left the visit without saying another word. I went back to the cellblock and I picked up the phone and I called the FBI.
Philip Leonetti—who as a teenager served as a mob messenger taking messages from his imprisoned uncle and the family’s boss Angelo Bruno to their soldiers on the street, became a mob associate in his early 20s, a mob killer at 23, a made man at 27, a caporegime at 28, an underboss at 33, and an acting boss at 34—had now taken steps, at the age of 35, to do the unthinkable: become an informant and cooperate with the government.
When I called the FBI, I get Jim Maher on the phone. He was one of the agents who worked organized crime. I said, “Do you know who this is?” And he said, “No, I don’t.” And I said, “I thought you were a voice expert.” He said, “I am, but I don’t know your voice.” I said, “This is Philip Leonetti,” and there was dead silence on the phone. I said, “Would you like to speak with me?” And Agent Maher said, “Yes, I would, but if we speak now I have to notify your attorney. If we speak after you are sentenced, then no one needs to know.”
Our sentencing had been scheduled for May, which was still six months away, and I said, “In May, after I get sentenced, I want you to come and see me so that we can talk.” And he said, “I absolutely will,” and that was the end of the call.
Leonetti would spend the next six months in Holmesburg with his uncle and the rest of the mob, waiting to get sentenced.
But Nicky Scarfo and several others still had one more case to go, a trial charging them with the murder of Frank “Frankie Flowers” D’Alfonso in 1985.
In that case, it was my uncle, Chuckie, Lawrence, Frankie Narducci, Philip Narducci, Faffy, Gino Milano, Nicky Whip, and Joe Ligambi. I wasn’t in that case. Now, Joe Ligambi only had a gambling charge in the RICO case, so he pled out and got three years, and the Whip took off and they didn’t catch him until after the RICO case. They caught him in Las Vegas with Spike, the guy who took care of my uncle’s home in Florida.
Now, right before the trial started in March of ’89, Gino Milano worked out a deal to cooperate and testify against everyone else, including his brother, the Whip.
On April 5, 1989, after deliberating for just over 90 minutes, the jury found Scarfo and his associates guilty of murdering Frankie Flowers.
At this point all I am focused on is lying low and making it to sentencing—which was about a month away—and then sitting down with the FBI. By this time I told Maria what I was going to do, and naturally she supported it, and I had spoken to my mother about it and she said, “Do it. Absolutely do it.”
As Scarfo, Leonetti, and the others counted down the days to their sentencing, the mood was nothing but doom and gloom. Whatever camaraderie had once existed was all but gone and replaced with jealousy and tension.
My uncle was still the boss and that’s how he continued to conduct himself. Nicky Jr. was coming a few times a week and letting him know what was going on, and he was meeting with Bobby and some other lawyers about filing an appeal. Most of the other guys were either keeping to themselves or fighting with each other. There was a lot of tension during those final weeks. I remember Junior Staino and Joe Punge got into it, and another time Junior got into it with Wayne Grande. I was just laying low, waiting for my sentencing date.
Over the course of several days in early May 1989, all of the defendants in the RICO case would be sentenced.
Anthony Punge got 30 years; Junior Staino got 33; Frankie Narducci got 35; Wayne Grande got 38; Joe Punge, Charlie White, Philip Narducci, the Blade, Joey Grande, and Tory Scafidi each got 40; Faffy, Ciancaglini, and Chuckie each got 45.
Nicodemo Scarfo would receive a 55-year sentence, which would run consecutive to the 14-year sentence he received for the Rouse extortion, plus whatever sentence would be imposed on him for the Frankie Flowers murder.
Little Nicky was likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Philip Leonetti would receive 45 years, but Crazy Phil proved not to be so crazy after all, and was scheduled to begin negotiations with the FBI for a reduced sentence in exchange for his defection from La Cosa Nostra and his anticipated cooperation with the government.
No one had any idea what I was doing, and the FBI wanted to keep it secret until we were all out of Holmesburg and started getting designated in whatever federal prisons we were going to be assigned to. They told me to just sit back and wait, and that’s exactly what I did.
One person who didn’t sit back and wait was Lawrence Merlino, who had once been one of Philip Leonetti’s closest friends in the mob.
In early May, the 42-year-old Merlino reached out to the FBI and struck a deal to cooperate, and then was whisked away by the US Marshals.
My uncle broke Lawrence’s balls so bad when we were in Holmesburg, it’s almost like he wanted him to cooperate. When my uncle found out about Lawrence, he said to me, “I told you he was no good. I shoulda killed him three years ago.”
I just walked away. I know Chuckie took it bad when Lawrence became a cooperator, but Lawrence had been distancing himself from us for the last couple of years, even before my uncle took him and Chuckie down. I always liked Lawrence; me and him were very, very close. But before we got arrested, Faffy came
down to Atlantic City and told me that he heard Lawrence tell someone, “Don’t say nothing in front of Philip unless you want him to go back to his uncle with it,” which was an absolute lie. That bothered me and I didn’t have too much to do with Lawrence after that.
Mob turncoat Tommy DelGiorno would receive a mere five years when he was sentenced in June 1989, and one month later Nick “the Crow” Caramandi would receive eight years.
In late July 1989, Nicky Scarfo, Chuckie Merlino, Faffy Iannarella, Frank Narducci Jr., Philip Narducci, Nicky “Whip” Milano, and Joe Ligambi would all receive consecutive sentences of life imprisonment without parole following their convictions in the Frankie Flowers murder case.
The federal government had finally succeeded in doing to Nicky Scarfo and his gang what they had done to so many during their reign of terror in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s on the streets of South Philadelphia and Atlantic City: they whacked them out.
It was all over.
ACT THREE
Good-Bye, Good Riddance
THE FEDERAL PRISON SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES IS RUN BY THE BUREAU OF PRISONS, A FEDERAL AGENCY MORE COMMONLY REFERRED TO AS THE BOP. ANY DEFENDANT WHO IS CONVICTED OF A FEDERAL CRIME AND SENTENCED TO A TERM OF IMPRISONMENT IS CLASSIFIED AS A HIGH-, MEDIUM-, OR LOW-SECURITY INMATE, AND THEN DESIGNATED BASED UPON THAT CLASSIFICATION TO SERVE THEIR SENTENCE AT A FACILITY THAT THE BOP DEEMS MOST APPROPRIATE.
Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Crime Family Page 25