Philip Leonetti Mafia Prince Part 3

the prelude to a war as far as appearances go Harry the hunchback Rico Benny could not have been less intimidating barely 5 feet tall with a squeaky voice a long bushy white beard and as you might expect from his nickname walking with a slump due to a curvature of the spine he had had since birth Rico Benny didn't look like much to contend with he was born in Sicily on July 27th 1909 Harry Rico Benny came to the United States with his family as a young boy settling in South Philadelphia and quickly gravitating to a life of crime law enforcement records indicate he was inducted into the mob by Prohibition era Don Salvatore ISA Bella when he was only 17 years old benefiting from the early experience of plying his trade in the underworld he became an expert and well-respected racketeer by the time he reached his 30s making money from a variety of illicit endeavors and keeping himself continually in the good graces of whoever was running the show in the Philly mob by always giving them a little taste of his action that was until Nicky Scarfo took over Scarfo wasn't satisfied with prior arrangements he wanted more than a little taste of the hunchbacks vast riches when he became boss in the spring of 1981 Little Nicky made it known - Rico Benny a one-time underworld ally that he expected a non-negotiable set percentage of his monthly cash intake to be collected as part of scarfo's aggressive underworld street tax despite the killings of John Calabrese and Stevie Boris and the violent beating of Frank Frankie flowers - Alfonso all of whom had balked at paying scarfo's street tax Rico Benny the seasoned old-school mob vet scoffed at scarfo's demand over the years Rico Benny had built up a strong power base he surrounded himself with a loyal and well-stocked crew of thugs thieves and fellow rocketeers who answered to him and to him only he in essence oversaw a family within a family this fact made him believe he could challenge Scarfo in a street war and that's exactly what he did we started having problems with the RICO Benny's in 1982 Harry refused to pay the street tax and he was thumbing his nose at my uncle this drove my uncle crazy he used to say this guy thinks he's gonna make a jerk-off out of me we'll see about that we tried everything to bring him in and get him on board but Harry was a stubborn old time siggy and he made it clear that he didn't acknowledge my uncle as his boss and he wasn't gonna pay us he left us no choice we had to kill him Scarfo decided to send his consigliere frank monta and the treacherous raymond long John Martorano to see Harry's younger brother Mario Sonny Rico Benny with an order from Scarfo that Sonny help in setting up his brother to be killed the move backfired instead of joining the assault against his brother Sonny Rico Benny went to his brother and warned him of the pending plot to kill him and who was involved the hunchbacks response was loud and left little doubt that he was more than willing to go toe-to-toe with Little Nicky a few weeks later on May 13th Frank Monti was gunned down while standing in front of his car at a South Philadelphia gas station by Joseph padula and Victor DeLuca two hitmen Enrico Benny's crew who had been lying in wait for the mob conciliate in a parking lot across the street from the gas station with a powerful scope fitted rifle Noriko Benny's had struck first Nicky Scarfo was incensed the war was on an old foe returns as if a street war with Harry Rico Benny in South Philadelphia wasn't enough Nicky Scarfo and Philip Leonetti soon became saddled with a new problem from an old foe in Atlantic City now right around the time we started beefing with Harry Frank Jarrett Shay gets word to us through Bobby loomio that he needs to see me in my uncle Frankie Roger was a bartender who we knew and we made him the president of local 54 which was the biggest union in Atlantic City representing the hotel and restaurant workers in the casinos at the time they had like 15,000 people in the Union and they were strong we made them even stronger Bobby loomio was a made guy who my uncle puts in a powerful position at local 54 he was the secretary treasurer and was on the Executive Board he also lived in one of our Apartments on Georgia Avenue at the time Bobby was dying he had real bad cancer and the doctors had only given him a few months to live Bobby tells me one day you got to get with Percy meaning Frank Jirachi he has a problem with Joe Salerno I say to Bobby Joe Salerno the plumber they got him in the witness protection program how's he making trouble for Frank Jirachi I'm thinking maybe his medicines got him loopy because Joe Salerno wasn't around anymore and I don't think he planned on coming back because he knew we would have killed him so Bobby's lying there in the bed and he says you got to get with Percy so the next day I send for Frank Jirachi and I have him meet me down in Margate near a place that I had on Adams Avenue when he gets there I tell him what Bobby had told me and he says it's true Phillip Joe Salerno is gonna testify against me at a hearing with the state they're trying to get me out of local 54 because they are saying I am with you and your uncle and Joe Salerno is their main witness I told Frank I would talk to my uncle and we would figure things out now this is bad we made a lot of money from local 54 we were getting 50 60 sometimes $100,000 a month all of it in cash if Frank Jirachi got bumped out it was gonna be a problem for our family I know my uncle was gonna go nuts when he found out winning the Falcone murder trial wasn't enough for him he wanted to kill Joe Salerno for testifying against us but we couldn't get to him because he was in the witness protection program every time we were around the Narducci brothers Frank and Phillip my uncle used to ask them you guys seen Salerno around because Joe salerno's family lived right near where the nardoo cheese lived when Frank or Phillip would say no my uncle would go into a tirade about Joe Salerno calling him a no-good rat [ __ ] or calling him a [ __ ] rat and he would tell them if that motherless [ __ ] ever shows his face it's this and he'd make the sign of the gun I don't care who he's with he could be with the Pope and it's this and make this sign of the gun so the next morning when I pick up my uncle I tell him about my conversation with Bobby loomio and Frank jirachi he went berserk about Joe Salerno he said this [ __ ] wants to keep trying to hurt us we're gonna hurt him we're gonna see how he likes it there's no good rat [ __ ] he was irate one because he was gonna testify against us again and two because this time it could cost us a lot of money he said today when we go see Bobby I want him to get to the bottom of this we were on our way to Philadelphia to see Bobby Simone who was representing my uncle on his appeal of the federal gun charge the whole ride up we're not talking because we never talked in the car or even near the car but every ten minutes or so my uncle would say this [ __ ] or muttered something to himself about Joe Salerno I'm riding next to him and he's talking to himself like a crazy person so we get to Bobby's office and he tells my uncle that if he doesn't win the appeal on the gun case that he was looking at two years in prison and he'd have to do about 18 months and was almost like my uncle didn't hear a word Bobby said he said look Bob I'm not worried about the gun case if I have to do the two years I'll do the two years I need you to look into this thing for me and he told him all about the thing with Joe Salerno and Frank jirachi Bobby said okay Nick and he started talking about the gun case again my uncle waved him off and said Bob we need to focus on this thing with Joe Salerno we can worry about the gun case later Bobby told us to give him a few days to see what was going on during this time Bobby loomio was in a real bad shape he was on his deathbed one of the last things he said was tell my friend I will miss him he was talking about my uncle this was on his deathbed so after Bobby dies my uncle hears what he had said and my uncle said I don't give a [ __ ] about him nobody's gonna miss him this was a guy who was with us a made guy who while he was dying was looking out for us by tipping us off about the thing with Joe Solano and Frank jirachi but now the Bobby was dead he couldn't do anything for my uncle that's how he thought that's how evil of a guy he was so about a week later Bobby Simone comes down to see us and we walk up to the boardwalk and he tells us that Joe Salerno is scheduled to testify before the state and if things go bad frank Jirachi is going to be removed as the president of local 54 and that there could be an indictment for labor racketeering charges my uncle looks at me and shakes his head and says these [ __ ] rats we got to do something here we can't just sit back and watch we gotta take action I didn't know what to say or what could I say Joe Salerno was in the witness protection program it's not like he was in Atlantic City or South Philadelphia and we could kill him we had no idea where he was a week later under the protection of the United States Marshals Service Joe Salerno would testify before the New Jersey State Casino Control Commission about local 54 and its connections to Nicky Scarfo Philip Leonetti and the mob his testimony touched on his relationship with Scarfo leonetti the Merlino brothers and mob killer Nicholas nicked the blade Virgilio in the late 1970s and each of their relationships with the Union and then went on to detail once again the night that Philip Leonetti murdered and Falcone as Salerno testified he wore a dark hood over his head with holes cut out around his eyes so that his identity could remain a secret they were more than a dozen armed u.s. marshals in and around the building where Salerno was testifying which was located at the corner of Tennessee and the boardwalk in Atlantic City less than two miles from scarfo's Georgia Avenue headquarters salerno's testimony included a story about an incident in which Nicky Scarfo lost his temper at Bobby loomio a high-ranking official of local 54 after loomio made a joke that Scarfo didn't find funny according to salerno's testimony scarfo's said to loomio let me tell you something I got you your job and they got the other big fat jerk off downstairs his job and don't you ever [ __ ] forget it based in large part on the testimony of Joe Salerno Frank Jirachi was disqualified from having any further association with local 54 as were several of his top associates which meant that Nicky Scarfo and Philip Leonetti no longer controlled the Union through Jirachi so after we get the news that Frank Jirachi is out my uncle is furious he was so full of venom against Joe Salerno he said do you believe this [ __ ] can you believe what he did to us we can't let this stand he was enraged the summer of 82 Nicky Scarfo was a volatile homicidal maniac on a good day but the climate around him in the summer months of 1982 made him an untamed beast whose pensions for blood and violence had reached an all-time high as if the murder of his trusted aide Frank Monti and the war with Harry Rico Benny weren't enough Scarfo had just lost control of the biggest union in Atlantic City and the riches that came with it which amounted to almost a million per year in tax-free cash and the unbridled power that came from controlling a union with thousands of men add to that the two-year federal prison sentence that was hanging over his head on the 1979 weapon charge and Little Nicky wasn't exactly in what you'd call a good place plus his allergies were bothering him my uncle's allergies were real bad and when they were bothering him forget about it he was the most miserable human being on the planet everybody would stay away that's how bad he was now around this time we had our hands full and my uncle was unbearable the worst I'd ever seen him one day my uncle says to me let's take a walk and we start walking up Georgia Avenue towards the boardwalk we were gonna meet Salvi and Phillip Narducci in front of convention hall as we're walking my uncle starts telling me a story about the blade getting drunk in the casino and starting a fight and causing this big scene I figure he's gonna tell me to go to the casino and straighten it out he says this [ __ ] guy is an embarrassment the way he conducts himself with the drinking and all this nonsense I've had it up to here with him and I am done with his shenanigans I want you to take him for a walk down the alleys behind the house and I want you to kill him right there in the alley leave him in the gutter where he belongs with all his drinking I'm thinking to myself Jesus Christ with everything we got going on now we're gonna start killing our own guys what are we doing after flippantly ordering the murder of Nicholas Nick the blade Virgilio one of his oldest friends Nicky Scarfo was about to cross an even more sinister line with his next murder plot so now we're on the boardwalk and Salvi and Phillip were there waiting for us like clockwork my uncle says to Phillip you've seen that [ __ ] Joe Salerno around and Phillip says not the kid but I see his old man all the time he owns a motel down in Wildwood it was almost like I could see the light bulb go off in my uncle's head I could read him like a book I knew what was coming next without hesitation my uncle says to Phillip I want you to go see the old man and when you do it's this and he makes the sign of the gun gonna teach these animals a lesson Philip says okay Nick and Salvi shoots me a look like what the [ __ ] is this this was against the rules and what we were supposed to stand for Joe salerno's father was a civilian he wasn't involved with us or this thing and now we're gonna kill him because of something his son did I knew this was a big big mistake but with my uncle there was no questioning him my uncle then turned to Salvi and said everybody connected to our friend the dwarf meaning Harry Rico Benny it's this and he makes the sign of the gun all of them his whole regime you're in charge get it done in a span of about 15 minutes Nicodemo Little Nicky Scarfo had ordered the murders of Nicholas Nick the blade Virgilio Joe Salerno senior Harry the hunchback Rico Benny and everyone connected to Rico Benny's crew my head was spinning it was like he wanted to kill everyone and everything around him it was a never-ending cycle with him wasting no time carrying out scarfo's orders salvie testa drafted a list of everyone connected to the Rico Benny faction and ordered that they be killed on sight within days Salvatore Wayne grand an ambitious Scarfo assassin and trusted member of salvie testa's young executioner's crew caught the Hunchback all by himself in a South Philadelphia street corner standing in a phone booth The Hunchback was a sitting duck wayne grande ambushed Rico Benny blasting him with five shots from a revolver at close range but miraculously the 73 year-old hunchback was able to wrestle the gun away from the 28 world grand before he could finish the job when Philadelphia police arrived moments later they found Rico Benny leaning against the phone booth bleeding and holding his assassins gun when he was asked how he was able to wrestle the gun from his would-be killer The Hunchback responded he was done with it so I took it Rico Benny would later tell associates knew that the weapon was a six-shot revolver and had counted the five shots that had hit him knowing that there was one bullet left rico Benny stated he took the gun and attempted to shoot his assailant with the sixth bullet but the gun was empty so far Harry the hunchback was winning the war and he was about to return fire with a strike of his own while scarfo's gunmen were out looking to kill everyone who is part of the Rico benefaction the rico Benny's were out looking to kill them in aligned with Scarfo in late July Josef Padula and fellow Rico Benny loyalist Victor DeLuca found salvie testa eating clams while sitting on a wooden crate in the middle of the famous 9th Street Italian market and hit him with multiple shotgun blasts fired from their passing car the hit team of Pedulla and De Luca had previously killed scarfo's consigliere Frank Monti and now had wounded his Street boss the spry and vibrant testa had half of his left shoulder blown off but like the hunchback he survived the attack and after some time in the hospital he was back on the street leading little Nicky's assault on Rico Benny and his renegades shortly after the shooting of salvie testa in the Italian market Joey grand a Scarfo hitman and the brother of Wayne grant fired multiple shots at Rico Benny as he sat behind the wheel of his Mercedes on a South Philadelphia Street corner however once again the old man survived failing to take a single bullet things were at a standstill tensions were increasing and the local press was having a field day as the streets of Philadelphia were engulfed in an all-out mob war but killing Harry Rico Benny wasn't the only thing on nicky scarfo's mind a few weeks later on August 9th 1982 Joseph Salerno senior was in the office of the motel he owned in Wildwood Crest which was a short distance from the beach and the famous Wildwood boardwalk which was one of the most popular destinations at the Jersey Shore the no vacancy sign was lit yet a young man was pacing outside the office door wearing a jogging suit and a hooded sweatshirt he was 19 year old Philip Narducci the son of the late Frank chickie Narducci when Joe Salerno senior opened the door Narducci took a handgun out of his pocket and fired two shots at him one of which struck him in the neck Salerno senior was not only alive but he was able to talk to the paramedics who arrived on the scene and took him to the hospital while Philip Narducci the young would-be mob assassin had failed to kill Joe Salerno senior nicky scarfo's message had been delivered if you betray me I will find you and kill you and if I cannot find you I will kill your family this ominous message still haunts many today including Philip Leonetti more than two decades after the shooting of Joe Salerno senior the shooting of Salerno senior made front page news in Philadelphia and all throughout South Jersey and the headlines were the kind that little Nikki loved the day after the shooting there were more cops following us than ever they were everywhere my uncle said to me look at all these [ __ ] watching us they got nothing better to do I knew we had made a big mistake when my uncle ordered the hit on Joe salerno's father and I think my uncle did too but he would never say it if Scarfo didn't know that trying to kill the father of a federally protected witness was likely to draw the ire of law enforcement he would get the message loud and clear less than a week later when the FBI arrested him on Georgia Avenue and whisked him away we were standing in front of the office when all the sudden here comes the cops up the street it was a one-way and they were coming in both directions like five or six cars it was just me and my uncle there's like 20 guys they all got guns my uncle says what the [ __ ] is all this and they moved in and grabbed him handcuffed him and threw him in the back of one of the cars they grabbed me but they let me go once he was in the car they were only there for him before they pulled off I heard him say call Bobby and that was it they were gone it was the FBI I knew he was in trouble the US Attorney's Office in Camden had filed a motion to revoke scarfo's bail pending appeal because they claimed to have evidence that he had violated the conditions of his bail by associating with convicted felons the judge took the unusual step of issuing a body warrant for Scarfo in lieu of scheduling a hearing first Scarfo was taken directly to the Camden County Jail and placed in solitary confinement to await his hearing the next day I went to Philadelphia to see Bobby Simone and mommy told me this is because of what happened down in Wildwood there's too much heat I told Bobby you gotta get me in to see my uncle I need to talk to him two days later Bobby arranged for me to visit my uncle inside the jail it had been almost 10 years since I had visited my uncle in jail when he was in yard Ville and I found myself thinking of how much had happened over those 10 years how many guys had been killed all the stuff we had done and how things seem to be spiraling out of control then my uncle suddenly appeared on the other side of the glass and picked up the phone I could tell right away he was agitated he started complaining right away he said tell Bobby to get me out of this place right away this place is a [ __ ] toilet and I cannot stay here tell him I don't give a [ __ ] where they send me they can send me to Russia I don't give a [ __ ] but I cannot stay here I said ok I'll go see him my uncle takes his finger and points at me and says on this side and the guy over the bridge on that side got it and I nodded my head yes he was saying he wanted me to run everything on this side of the bridge meaning New Jersey while he was gone and he wanted Chuckie to run everything on the other side of the bridge meaning Philadelphia he then took his hand and held it out like he was trying to demonstrate someone's height he made the height very low and I knew immediately that he was talking about Harry Rico Benny he said tell your friend over there that I said him and his friends need to start acting right and stop playing games he's looking at me through the glass and his eyes are really big as he is saying it meaning for me to tell Salvi that him and his crew need to start killing the rico Bennie's and to stop watching the hits my uncle always talked in circles but i know what he was saying because i knew what he was thinking then he said Bobby says I'm looking at a year and a half and he shrugged his shoulders like he didn't give a [ __ ] but I know he did my uncle hated jail all he ever did was [ __ ] and complain when he was locked up now he's going on about the food the guards the noise the black kids with their boom boxes the dust and all I'm thinking is how great it is gonna be to not have to deal with him for the next 18 months I couldn't wait for them to ship him the [ __ ] out I was hoping they'd send him to Alaska two days later Nico demos scarfo's bail was revoked and he was immediately driven to the Philadelphia International Airport where he boarded a plane with two US Marshals and was flown directly to El Paso Texas and sent to the Latina Federal Correctional Center to serve his sentence little Nikki was a long way from Atlantic City and would stay there for the rest of 1982 for all of 1983 and into 1984 in his absence the murder and mayhem would continue but for his nephew Philip Leonetti life was about to change taking a break the day after they shipped my uncle to Texas I remember waking up and I couldn't have been happier I felt free for the first time in my life I can't even describe the feeling It was as if I had beaten cancer and had a new lease on life I remember going up to the boardwalk and walking all the way from Georgia Avenue down to the end of the boardwalk in ventnor as if I didn't have a care in the world I was just walking and staring out at the ocean at that moment I didn't give a [ __ ] about my Uncle Harry Rico bene the mob none of it it was like I was living a different life that night I took my girl out for a nice dinner at the knife and fork which was one of the best restaurants in Atlantic City I was constantly running around day and night with my uncle 24/7 he never shut down so I never shut down and now here I was relaxing having a night out I couldn't remember the last time I had been out with her where I wasn't worried about what time I had to get home or what time I had to meet someone for my uncle my girl told me that I was smiling the whole night Philip leonetti's girlfriend was accustomed to his daily routine as she lived directly across the street from the Scarfo compound on Georgia Avenue she was also somewhat familiar with the life of a mobster as she had once dated Vincent Falcone and was dating him when Philip killed him in December 1979 she was the one who came by the office and asked if I knew where Vince was right after I killed him Maria me and her started dating a few months after I killed Vince and at the time she had no idea that I had killed him we never talked about him It was as if he had never existed in addition to having a steady girlfriend for more than a year Philip Leonetti had something else in his personal life an eight-year-old son Phillip jr. was born in March 1974 right before my 21st birthday I wasn't much of a father in the beginning because I had put la cosa nostra first which is what you are supposed to do when you take your oath this thing is supposed to come before everything even your family and your own kids and for me it did but now I was starting to have second thoughts about this life mainly because I was so sick of being around my uncle and just the way that he was all the killings all of the treachery Maria and I started taking little Philip places like the movies the Ocean City Boardwalk the Philadelphia Zoo things I would never do when my uncle was around he'd go crazy if he found out I took my kid to the zoo he would have said what are you a jerk-off going there looking at animals but I was having the time of my life with Maria and Philip I never felt so alive in all of my life just as Philip Leonetti was starting to get accustomed to life without his uncle a phone call from an angry and agitated Nicky Scarfo from a Texas prison would snap him back to reality I was in my grandmother's apartment with my mother and little Philip and the phone rings and my grandmother asked me to pick it up and it says you have a collect call from Nik I almost got sick to my stomach hearing his voice I accepted the charges and before he was connected the apparatus said this call is from an inmate at a federal institution and it will be monitored and recorded and the next thing I hear is him screaming into the phone where the [ __ ] have you been I've been trying to get you for two [ __ ] weeks and you are nowhere to be found did you go to Philadelphia did you do what I asked I'm sitting down here like a jerk-off while you're out gallivanting I cut him right off and said I've been busy with scarf Inc I've got a couple new jobs and he says [ __ ] scarf Inc and [ __ ] those jobs he is still hollering into the phone then I hand the phone to my grandmother and say here you talk to him and I left the house when I got outside I knew my uncle was steaming I had never talked to him like that or even talked back to him but I was sick and tired of all of his ranting and raving while I'm standing outside the office who comes walking up the street but the blade now according to my uncle I'm supposed to kill him I say hey Nick want to grab something to eat and he says sure Phillip and we walked his caesars me and him and been there a few times and we were there together on the night that I and she'd gotten killed while we're eating the blade says I know your uncle's mad at me I say Nick my uncle's mad at everybody he's mad at me too and we both started laughing and he said I know Phillip it's just hard for me sometimes you see the blade had a young son who had drowned and died and the blade used to carry a picture of him around and he would get fall down drunk and talk about what had happened with his son and then after a while he'd start trouble and get into a fight i underst dude why he was the way he was it wasn't his fault Philip Leonetti was no longer his uncle's robot he started thinking for himself and making his own decisions and killing Nick the blade wasn't going to happen a few days later Chucky drives down from Philadelphia and me him and Lawrence go to Angelo knees for dinner he says Bobby Simone came to see me he talked to your uncle and your uncle wants you and Bobby to go down to Texas to see him I said to Chucky hey Chuck you want to come down with us we'll have a good time and Chucky said he didn't ask for me just you and Bobby and we both laughed if anyone knew my uncle besides me it was Chucky he and Chucky had been hanging since the 50s Chucky knew my uncle like the back of his hand I think like me Chucky was enjoying not having my uncle around so the next day I'm in the office and the phone rings and it's my uncle it's the same routine with the collect call only this time when he gets on he's not screaming he says I'm glad I got you how are things going how is scarf Inc now I know he could care less about scarf Inc but this is his way of breaking the ice a little bit I say scarf Inc is good everything is good he says good I'm glad to hear it he says I want you and Bobby to come down and see me you'll like it down here it's right on the border of Mexico the Rio Grande is right there I say oh yeah and he says yeah I tell him we will set it up and get down there before Christmas and my uncle seemed happy with that I'm thinking to myself now we're making small talk I think my uncle knew I was getting sick of all the [ __ ] then I told him I had dinner with Chucky and Lawrence and he asked how they were doing again more small talk and then I couldn't help myself I said guess who else I had dinner with and he said who and I said the blade he said you had dinner with him I said yeah we went to Caesars he apologized for all of that trouble and he's trying to clean his act up now am I saying this I am telling my uncle that I am NOT going to kill the black surprisingly my uncle says good-good tell him I said hello and tell him I said to knock it off with the drinking and a start coming around more while Nicky Scarfo seemed to be somewhat humbled by being away from his gang Philip Leonetti knew that it like his little break wouldn't last long I knew it was only a matter of time before he was screaming and yelling again that's just how he was in the meantime it was back to work for me business as usual with Nicky Scarfo tucked away in a dusty federal prison over 2,000 miles away in El Paso Texas his longtime friend and underboss Salvatore and Chuckie Merlino was calling the shots on the streets in South Philadelphia while his 29 year old nephew Philip Leonetti was overseeing the family's New Jersey operation on most days I was in the office or I was taking meetings with guys in restaurants I'd usually have either Lawrence a Saul Kane with me and sometimes the blade Blackie Napoli was coming down from Newark twice a month to bring my uncle's money and the guys from Trenton were coming down once or twice a month I was meeting with the two cheddar brothers who were with to Mecca Toro and the North Jersey branch of the Lucchese crime family and I was seeing a lot of Sammy the bull Gravano who was with the Gambino's me and Sammy started getting real close he'd always stop by the office if he came to Atlantic City and me and him would go out to dinner when all of these guys would come down to Atlantic City out of respect they would check in with my uncle now with him gone they were checking in with me we'd go out to dinner we talked about who was doing what who was making moves most of the time I'd get an envelope with cash usually a few thousand dollars as tribute money for my uncle even with Little Nicky behind bars the Scarfo mob continued to earn and earn big Leonetti estimates that he collected almost three million dollars in cash for his uncle during the 17 months that he was behind bars the street tax money coming down every month from Philadelphia could range from 50,000 to $100,000 it depended on what was going on don't forget he still had our bookmaking and loan-sharking operations and we were involved in a million other deals making money wasn't a problem for us I'd always pick the money up directly from Chuckie and I'd bring it home and I would count it out with Nicky jr. without fail no matter what the amount was it would always be light a few hundred dollars I knew Chuckie wasn't skimming three or four hundred dollars he was making tens of thousands of dollars himself I believed it was his son Joey who was robbing the money Joey Merlino was always a no-good kid he was a punk even as a teenager 18 and 19 years old he was constantly starting trouble in Atlantic City and my uncle would always make me straighten it out he would bet with bookmakers who were with us and not pay them when he lost and he would lie and say that it wasn't him on top of that I believe he was robbing the money that was coming down from Philadelphia to Atlantic City from me and my uncle around that time I wanted to kill him but he was Chucky's son and I know there was no way my uncle would sanction it at that time my uncle liked this kid very much because the two of them were very much alike and Joey was always respectful around my uncle plus Chuckie was my uncle's best friend and he was the underboss and Joey and Nicky jr. were also the best of friends I thought he was no good and if I could have I would have killed him while Philip Leonetti was busy in Atlantic City salvie testa and his young executioner's crew were still on the front lines of the Scarfo mobs war with the rico benefaction a couple times a week my uncle would call and say things like did sally clean that boat yet tell him to get the boat clean which was his way of saying tell Salvi and his guys to get the rico Bennie's he would say tell him the whole boat top to bottom clean the whole thing which meant he wanted everyone dead Harry and his whole crew in December 1982 Harry the hunchback riccobene was jailed on a parole violation for possession of a handgun during a traffic stop already convicted on a slew of federal racketeering charges the hunchback was out on an appeal bond when he violated Rico Binet was immediately whisked away to jail and like his arch nemesis Nicky Scarfo the hunchback was forced to command his assault effort from behind bars right before Christmas me and Bobbie Simone flew down to Texas to see my uncle like I had promised him he seemed to be in good spirits because he knew we were making a lot of money but he was still hell-bent on killing all of Harry's guys even with Harry in jail when we got down to Texas and went to the jail they would only let Bobbie in and told me I was prohibited from having any unsupervised contact with my uncle I said no problem and I told Bobby to meet me back at the hotel when he was done truth be told I was okay not seeing him I actually preferred it I was enjoying my time away from him especially my time with Maria a little Phillip I decided to drive around a little bit then boy was I out of place it was all Cowboys and Mexicans down there I felt like I was on another planet I knew my uncle couldn't have been happy in there and now I knew what he meant when he said that the other prisoners in latona were not our kind of people my uncle had told me that the whole place was full of Mexican guys and black guys he said there's not two white guys in this whole [ __ ] place the Mexican Mafia was very big down there and there were a lot of fights in that jail a lot of stabbings my uncle kept to himself while he was in there but he had two Mexican guys who were with him the whole time he was there he called them his Pistoleros and they served as his bodyguards he'd have me send money to put on their books or do things for their families these guys were dirt poor but they were loyal and like my uncle they were stone killers my uncle told me he got out he said I wish I had ten more guys just like him so I'm back at the hotel and I'm in the lobby having a drink and in comes Bobby back from the prison and seeing my uncle I say hey Bob how did it go and he says you know how he is and we both smiled he said let me go upstairs and freshen up a bit and I'll be right down Bobby and I was staying in the best suite in the hotel but remember we were in El Paso not Beverly Hills five minutes later Bobby pages me and he's out of breath and I can barely make out what he's saying he tells me that when he put the key in the room he sees two guys in the room dressed like maintenance workers and that they seemed startled to see him and hurried out of the room once he arrived now my mind is racing I'm thinking is this a hit was someone there to kill me there was no reason to kill Bobby he was our lawyer no one wanted to kill him except maybe the prosecutors and judges he dealt with but I was a captain in La Cosa Nostra and my uncle was the boss and Here I am 2,000 miles away from Atlantic City like Harry Rico Benny and that phone booth I realized that was essentially a sitting duck two minutes later Bobby's down in the lobby and I tell him we're out of here we need to pack our bags and go back home and Bobby agrees we were supposed to be there all weekend and Bobby was supposed to go see my uncle the next morning we went to the room and packed our stuff and drove right to the airport and got on the first plane back to Philadelphia on the plane I tell Bobby that was either a hit or the FBI trying to bug our room either way I don't like it and Bobby agreed when he arrived in Philadelphia Leonetti rounded up Chuckie Merlino and salvie testa and told them what had happened in El Paso we all agreed that we needed to be on guard to make sure everybody in the family was on point the next day my uncle called and wanted to know what happened with the second visit and he was stunned when I told him what had happened in the room I could hear it in his voice he said Jesus Krait did you get a look at them and I told him no only Bobby saw he said you made the right move leaving make sure everyone back home tightens their belts I don't like what I'm hearing here it was never determined if this was a botched hit attempt on Philip Leonetti or the FBI attempting to plant a bug in his hotel suite but it was determined that the two men inside the hotel room were not maintenance workers we checked it out at the hotel and they told us there was no work being done in any of the rooms and Bobby contacted a lawyer down there to look into it and the lawyer told him the same thing life in the mob was certainly unpredictable cleaning the boat from behind bars Nicky Scarfo was sending messages to his nephew Philip Leonetti and to his street boss salvie testa to clean the boat and to make sure they cleaned the whole boat top to bottom Scarfo wasn't referring to the boat that testa kept in a Ventnor marina nor was he talking about the cabin cruiser he and Leonetti had knocked out by Harrah's Casino in Atlantic City he was cryptically instructing testa and his young executioner's crew to finish the Rico been a war by killing anyone and everyone connected to rival hairy The Hunchback Rico many who liked Scarfo was behind bars as 1983 got underway the Scarfo mob was back to doing what it did best killing people on January 27th the body of Robert horn achill a low-level South Philadelphia drug dealer who had run afoul of scarfo's Street tax was found in the trunk of his car with Harry the hunchback Rico Benny locked up his brother Mario sunny Rico Benny was running the gang this made him salvie testa's number-one target as the Scarfo mob hitmen escalated their murderous efforts to appease their jailed boss Pat's burrito was one of the guys in shank Elena's crew I never liked him I thought he was a crybaby and didn't think he was much of a gangster but he was a decent Turner and he led one of the crews that was out collecting the street tax Salvy gave pat and his crew the Sonny Rico Benny contract at the time Pat had Nicky crow Charlie white then jr. stain oh and his crew and they all reported to chunk aleni that was about to change we were getting reports that Pat and his guys were dogging it not doing what they were ordered to do none of them guys in that crew were killers except for Charlie white Pat the crow jr. they were all neighborhood guys knock around guys they weren't gangsters so one day I'm with Chuckie Salvi and chunk aleni and we decided that pet spirito needs to go that we need to kill him to send a message to everyone in our family that we mean business and then an order is an order I know my uncle wanted to kill Pat since the day he made him after he got made Pat came up to my uncle and said you know Nick you should think about making patty specs a captain and my uncle just stared at him like he couldn't believe this guy who just got made was telling him how to run the family when he walked away my uncle said do you believe the balls on this [ __ ] guy and Chucky said Nick maybe we should get one of them suggestion boxes and let the guys give us ideas on how to run things like they do at restaurants me and Chucky were laughing and my uncle said where do these [ __ ] guys come from so Chuck he ordered the crow and Charlie white to kill Pat a few weeks later on April 29th Charles Charlie White's Yanni Chee who was armed with a 38 shacked Pasquale Pat the cat's burrito in the back of the head as he sat in a parked car in South Philadelphia with Nicholas Nick de crow' caramandi as the war with the Ricoh Benny's continued it became obvious that the rico benning's were losing their momentum Harry the hunchback was in jail as were his top two soldiers Josef Padula and Victor DeLuca both of whom were locked up for the attempted murder of salvie testa botched or aborted hits from both sides ensued for the next several months until a Scarfo hip team supervised by testa pumped multiple gunshots into Rico Benny Soldier Frank Martinez as he got behind the wheel of his truck to drive to work on a foggy October morning in 1983 two of the shooters on the hit team that got Martinez were the Narducci brothers chickies sons Frank jr. and Phillip Frank jr. had helped salvie testa's set up and kill Rocco Marunouchi in retaliation for Marunouchi 's involvement in the bombing that killed his father Phillip chicken man testa Frank Narducci jr. gladly assisted testa despite knowing that testa had personally murdered his father Frank senior for the exact same reason that Marunouchi had been killed because the elder Narducci had also been involved in the murder of Philip testa Phillip Narducci was the gunman who shot Joe Salerno senior in Wildwood Crest on direct orders from Nicky Scarfo himself despite the fact it was Scarfo who had ordered his father killed only six months earlier in a piece of twisted blood-soaked underworld irony Joe Salerno senior had been one of the first neighbors to find chicken or doochie as he lay dying in the gutter and the elder Salerno even went and got a neighborhood priest to come and read nardoo cheese last rites now the Narducci brothers were two of scarfo's go-to soldiers members of salvie testa's young executioner's crew they were two of Salvi's top guys and my uncle had told them both before he went to jail that he wasn't going to hold them responsible for what their father had done so despite the fact that we killed their father they were with us the reality is they didn't have a choice years later a witness who would testify against Scarfo leonetti and the Narducci brothers would tell FBI agents that he was baffled as to how the nardoo cheese could swear blood allegiance to the man who had killed their father never in a million [ __ ] years will I understand that one the witness would say in one of his debriefing sessions Frank Martinez would survive the October 1983 ambush but the incident served to break the street war why open in favor of Scarfo and would foreshadow similar events with different outcomes over the next two months on November 3rd Philip Narducci and another member of salvie testa's young executioner's crew Nicholas Nicky whip Milano the younger brother of testa's close friend Eugene Geno Milano shot and killed Sammy tambourine Oh Oh Rico Benny loyalist who had previously been aligned with Scarfo tambourine Oh was killed in a Southwest Philadelphia arcade that served as his headquarters and the killing took place in front of his mother who stood and watched in horror when tambourine Oh decided to shift his allegiance from Scarfo to rico Benny he did so in an effort to make more money by filling the void that was left when the hunchback Joseph Padula and Victor DeLuca went to jail Tim Marino had become close with Sonny Rico Benny and he and Frank Martinez stood to inherit what remained of the lucrative Rico Benny crew if Sonny Rico Benny were to join his brother Harry behind bars Mario Sonny Rico Benny had been arrested and charged in a massive 1980 federal racketeering case Rico Benny's co-defendants included Angelo Bruno Philip testa chicky Narducci and Pat spirito all of whom were killed either before the trial or prior to sentencing Sonny Rico Benny's brother Harry the hunchback was also convicted the bail he put up while his appeal was pending got revoked when Philadelphia police discovered a gun in his car during a routine traffic stop only Sonny Rico Benny and Scarfo capo Joseph chicky Chun Collini remained free on bail pending appeal but both knew their days as free men were numbered a month later scarfo's men would finally hit the jackpot finding and killing one of the hunchbacks own flesh and blood his brother Robert Bobby Rico Benny after stalking him the entire day of December 6th a Scarfo death squad made up of Charles Charlie white Gianni Chi Joseph Joey puns Punja Torrey and Francis yan'er ella caught bobby exiting his car in the presence of his elderly mother similar to the tambourine Oh hit little Nikki's men disregarded the callousness of rubbing out someone in front of his mother and attacked their prey on sight armed with a shotgun yanarella a young street savvy second-generation South Philadelphia gangster approached Rico Benny and his mother when Rico been a spotted yanarella he took off jumping a nearby fence in an attempt to escape the onslaught his efforts would prove futile taking aim and his fleeing target the former US soldier who had been decorated for his service in Vietnam before enlisting in nicky scarfo's la cosa nostra army Fafi yah mirela blasted rico Benny to oblivion with a shot to the back of the head dropping body of nickel Benny as he was trying to climb the fence as yanarella retreated to the waiting getaway car he was confronted by Rico Benny's mother who tried to wrestle the shotgun from him the scene was eerily reminiscent of the time her son Harry had wrestled a handgun from his assailant in a phone booth following an attempt on his life the amarela would take the butt of his shotgun and strike Rico Benny's elderly mother in the face sending the hysterically crying woman crashing to the ground in a sick and perverted way the murders of Bobby Rico Benny and Sammy Tay Moreno in front of their mothers like the shooting of Joe Salerno senior highlighted what had become the Scarfo family's specialty raw vicious visceral in your face wanton violence honor and respect seemed to be a thing of the past I wasn't happy when I found out that these two guys had been killed in front of their mothers and I didn't agree with the shooting of Joe salerno's father but you have to understand the Rico Benny guys were trying to kill us so it was kill or be killed this was a war in every sense of the word just like my uncle was ordering us to kill them from his jail cell the Hunchback was doing the same from his everyone knew the stakes were life or death Scarfo on the other hand was ecstatic following the two high profile mob murders he would get the Philadelphia Enquirer in the mail but it was always a few days behind we couldn't talk on the phone and say hey we killed Bobby Rico Benny today so he'd make a comment and say how about the Eagles they are playing terrific aren't they that's what he would say if he was happy with what we were doing if he wasn't happy it would be now about these [ __ ] Eagles the whole team is lousy from top to bottom they need to get rid of everybody and start over that meant he was disgusted that we weren't doing our jobs following the shooting of Frank Martinez and the murders of Bobby Rico Benny and Sammy Tim Marino the RICO benefaction seemed to be on its last leg but a wounded animal is a dangerous animal and Harry's gang wasn't done yet a few days after Bobby Rico Benny's murder salvie testa was driving through South Philadelphia with members of his young executioner's crew Joseph Joey punch punjah Torre and the Milano brothers Gino and Nicky whip their car became boxed in by another car that was loaded with for Rico many soldiers who jumped out of their car and opened fire in broad daylight luckily for testa and his men nobody was hit in the fusillade of bullets and it proved to be one of the last assaults in the carnage filled conflict that had rocked the underworld in South Philadelphia there would be however one more casualty in the Rico been a war a few days after Harry's guys tried to kill Salvi and Joe punch I drove up to Philly with Lawrence to go see a jeweler I did business with on jewelers row there was a few weeks before Christmas and I was going to pick up a watch for Maria me and Lawrence met Salvi at virgilius and we went and saw the jeweler I think we may have had Fatih with us as we were leaving we passed by a jewelry shop that was owned by Sonny Rico Benny's son and Rico Sally said let's go in there and see what's on this kid's brain meaning to see what he was thinking I knocked on the window and I saw Sonny's son coming towards the door and then he froze when he saw who it was I said come on we just want to talk to you and I saw him retreat to the back of the store with these jewelry stores you had to be buzzed in you couldn't just walk in the store a few seconds later a guy who worked there came to the window and said if you don't leave we're calling the police so we left moments later and Rico Rico Benny walked into his office at the rear of the store and put a pistol to the side of his head and pulled the trigger he was so frightened by the sight to Philip Leonetti and salvie testa that he killed himself he was 27 years old salvie testa was now bragging we don't have to kill these guys anymore they do it themselves when the news of his nephews suicide reached him in prison Harry the hunchbacks heart and will were shattered things had gone too far both his brother and now his young nephew were dead he was ready to give in and wave the white flag during the first week of 1984 the hunchback sent word to what remained of his crew that the war was over Nicodemo Little Nicky Scarfo had won the war the victory entitled Scarfo to everything that belonged to the rico Benes a treasure trove of illegal operations that he and his men would devour and add to their already overflowing stable of cash-cow rackets but all was not well in the ranks of the tumultuous Scarfo mob despite the fact that he had won the Rico been a war and that little Nicky was set to be released from prison in a matter of weeks those in scarfo's inner circle didn't know it yet but the plots would soon thicken and was about to get even more treacherous than it already was falling apart my genuine in 1984 Nicky Scarfo had been the boss of the Philadelphia Atlantic City mob for approximately thirty four months and spent 17 of those months or half of his tenure to that point behind bars in a federal prison in El Paso Texas the crime family he had left was not necessarily the crime family he was returning to at the end of his prison sentence simply put the Scarfo mob was in tatters with many of scarfo's top guys facing legal problems of their own some of the charges stemming from incidents that occurred while scarfo's men would drunk for starters scarfo's longtime friend and underboss Salvatore Chuckie Merlino had been arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in Margate and during the course of his arrest the drunken mob underboss had offered the arresting officer a bribe in the form of his expensive gold watch as the entire episode was captured on videotape Merlino was booked on attempted bribery and DWI charges and faced as many as 10 years in state prison Merlin owes brother Lawrence had been arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after he got drunk at a wedding and then made terroristic threats to a Philadelphia police officer like his brother Chucky Lawrence was also facing state prison time despite promising to clean up his act Nicholas nicked the blade Virgilio was back in trouble after a drunken incident at an Atlantic City casino where during a fight he threatened to kill a man the twice convicted murderer was sent to state prison for three years as a result scarfo's own son Nicky jr. was facing an underage drinking rap following an arrest in Atlantic City Scarfo capo Joseph chicky Chong Collini had lost his appeal on federal racketeering charges and was hauled off to federal prison as was his co-defendant Mario Sonny Rico Benny who had what was left of the Rico been a gang both Raymond Long John Martorano and his son cowboy were facing federal drug charges and rumors were around that long John would soon face charges for his role in the murder of union boss John McCullough after it was reported that the triggerman Willard jr. Moran was cooperating with the Philadelphia district attorney's office Saul Kane was also under investigation on federal drug charges Frank Jirachi was facing charges that he had embezzled Union funds when he was the head of local 54 and allegedly funneled those funds to Scarfo and Leonetti even scarfo's attorney Bobby Simone was facing a federal prison sentence after getting indicted for income tax evasion but the worst news Scarfo was to hear dealt with his own nephew Philip Leonetti who had been indicted on extortion charges stemming from his involvement in a corrupt land deal with the mayor of Atlantic City now while all of this stuff with the RICO Bennie's was going on in Philadelphia I started getting involved with some new things for our family in Atlantic City a few years earlier I had been approached by a guy named Franklin tino who had been a teamster and then was with us in local 54 about getting involved with a local politician named Mike Matthews who wanted to become the mayor of Atlantic City Mike Matthews sent word through Franklin T know that he wanted our help in getting him elected we had given him almost two hundred thousand dollars for his campaign and had helped him win by getting all of the union's to support him one of the first things he did from me was to make a guy who we were close with the Chief of Police his name was Joe Pasquale and he and my uncle both knew him and liked him we trusted him and he always looked out for us now when I was meeting with Mike Matthews one of the trade-offs for our support was that we would get a piece of what they called the H tract which was a 78 acre parcel of land that the city was going to sell to a casino developer for millions of dollars it had been a landfill the site of the city dump but this was going to be a major score for all of us me and my uncle as well as Matthews and Franklin Tino who had set the whole thing up everything seemed great but it wasn't the casino developer who had promised to pay Matthews and LAN T know the kickback money that would be used to pay Scarfo and leonetti turned out to be an undercover FBI agent before long Leonetti plantino and matthews were all indicted and looking at lengthy federal prison sentences Nicodemo Scarfo would be named as an unindicted co-conspirator it seemed that the only high-ranking member of the Scarfo mob that didn't have legal problems was salvie testa scarfo's street boss and the leader of the young executioner's crew but salvie testa had other problems following the shooting incident in the Italian market the handsome young mob captains started dating the beautiful dark-haired daughter of family underboss Salvatore Chucky Marley know pretty soon the two lovebirds were engaged and a wedding date was set the underworld was abuzz at the thought of the Merlino and testa families both mob royalty being aligned through marriage everyone seemed to be happy for them well almost everybody one day my uncle called the office from jail and I told him that Salvi had gotten engaged to Chucky's daughter when I said it it was dead silence on his end of the receiver I knew that he wasn't happy about it I knew that his paranoia would start and he would go through every possible scenario of what could happen if Salvi married Chucky's daughter would they form an alliance and try to overthrow him would they try to kill him could he ever fully trust that they weren't plotting against him these are all of the thoughts that went through his head in the 15 seconds of silence on the phone that is how his sick mind worked but scarfo's worries were for not as salvie testa would soon break off the engagement leaving both Chucky Merlino and his daughter embarrassed and furious the once solid relationship between nicky scarfo's underboss and his street boss was now irrevocably shattered and Little Nicky couldn't have been happier back in business my uncle was set to be released from prison right around New Year's Day in 1984 but the feds didn't let him out Bobbie Simone and Nicky jr. flew down to Texas to see what the issue was after a few days Bobby's sorted everything out and my uncle's release was back down and scheduled for January 20th a bunch of us flew down to El Paso to be there when he got out it was me Chucky Lawrence Sally Bobby Simone Nicky jr. Harold Garber Chucky's son Joey Tori Scaffidi and a few others we took several suites at the Marriott and we have one giant party in that hotel we must have spent 20 grand on food and liquor that weekend I remember having mixed feelings about my uncle coming home I knew it meant that my life was going back to the way it was before he went to jail running around all day all of the chaos but that was the life I had chosen or I guess had been chosen for me I didn't have the option of saying hey I want to go to college or I want to be a doctor this was the path that I was put on as a young boy there was no way to change that I was born and raised in this thing in La Cosa Nostra so the day he gets out of jail we take a limousine to the prison it was me Lawrence Nicky jr. and Bobby Simone my uncle comes out and he's wearing a red windbreaker and a pair of sunglasses and he has a box containing his belongings the first thing he says is let's get the [ __ ] out of here and we start heading towards the car the news media the FBI and even the Texas Rangers were there and everyone was taking pictures and the baseball team the cops they were wearing the 10-gallon hats and had the stars on their chest the whole nine yards as we're walking my uncle nods in their direction and says get a load of these jerk-offs and the cowboy hats I knew from my uncle's demeanor that he had not changed one bit during his 17 months in El Paso he looked very fit and had a deep tan back at the hotel everyone made a deal when he got there and we had a good time he seemed like he was in a good mood he pulled me aside at one point and asked me about the money I had collected while he was away I told him it was just under three million and he was happy he then pulled me away even further and said what's going on with Salvi and Chucky I told him Chucky wasn't happy that Salvi broke off the engagement but that Chucky hadn't said too much about it he said we got to keep our antennas up on this one I don't like this situation I knew right there that my uncle was spooked about the possibility of Salvi marrying Chucky's daughter and then with the engagement being broken off it seemed like he was even more spooked I can't explain it but he was always thinking like that nothing was simple everything had a subplot and the subplots had subplots it would make you dizzy listening to him meanwhile ten feet away Chucky Merlino salvie testa and the rest of those gathered to celebrate nicky scarfo's release from prison were having a great time and oblivious to what was going on in scarfo's head to the others this was just a party but with Nicky Scarfo nothing was ever what it seemed he was a seen fit for a king news cameras were everywhere photographers snapped shots of his every move Nicole demos scarfo's long-awaited homecoming at the Philadelphia International Airport caused the level of commotion usually reserved for the arrival of a head of state or an a-list celebrity and in a lot of ways it was appropriate Scarfo had become both he was the undisputed head of the Philadelphia Atlantic City La Cosa Nostra and his notoriety had made him one of the nation's foremost celebrity gangsters always impeccably dressed and groomed the 55 year old Scarfo had become a media sensation a precursor to the flamboyant John Gotti who was then still a lowly soldier in New York's Gambino family as the cameras flashed and reporters followed his entourage Little Nicky was carrying himself with a swashbuckling swagger and regal flare not typical of someone who had just been released from prison I think in many ways my uncle had become even more self-centered and more self-absorbed during the 17 months that he was away his Eagle was a thousand times worse than it was before flanking Scarfo as he walked from the airport terminal to a waiting fleet of white limousines or his top two lieutenants Philip Leonetti who was thirty years old and Salvatore testa who was 27 when Scarfo was away in El Paso Leonetti and testa worked together to look after his empire with ruthless efficiency proving their merit as future leaders in La Cosa Nostra and as possible heirs to scarfo's throne but therein was a problem beneath the surface and all of the smiles back slaps and kisses on the cheek Scarfo was an evil and vindictive despot who maintained an unquenchable thirst for blood as a means of both obtaining and keeping power while Scarfo loved every minute of it leonetti was growing tired of it there was a time in my life when all I wanted was to be with my uncle and to be with La Cosa Nostra and live that life 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year just like my uncle it's all that I knew but when he went away and I started living my own life waking up every day and making my own decisions and I started to resent both my uncle and what being involved in La Cosa Nostra was doing to my life I felt like I had no life being in the mob no identity I realized that I was a lot happier doing things with Maria we're doing things with Philip jr. than I was doing things with my uncle but I was trapped once you are in this life there's only two ways out jail or death there was no retiring or quitting I felt stuck and then there was the pure sport of it La Cosa Nostra was my uncle's whole life he lived for this thing every day was just like the day before it where are we getting money how much are we getting who's making what moves who do we have to watch who do we have to kill that was our routine day after day after day if you made a big score and made him a lot of money the second he was done counting the money he would say to me this guy thinks he's a big shot now all the sudden he's JT Rockefeller or we gotta watch him so he doesn't get too big for his britches the guy just hands you a bag with $200,000 in it and ten minutes later you're burying the guy it didn't make sense but that's how he was if he ordered you to kill someone and you did it perfectly and you got the guy just like he asked he said to me now this guy thinks he's Al Capone because he killed a guy as quickly as he would build somebody up he'd already be bringing them down nowhere would this be more evident than with the next mobster who found himself in nicky scarfo's crosshairs so when we get back to Atlantic City my uncle stayed in for a day or two just to get his bearings straight on the third or fourth day he had me set up a full day of meetings at skinny Kiyo's so he could talk to everyone and see what was going on he told me to bring down Chucky and Bobby Simone and he wanted to see Blackie Napoli from North Jersey he was gonna meet with everyone separately and he wanted an hour or two block down for each meeting I said do you want me to bring Salvi down and he said I don't think we need to now this gets my antenna up because the whole time my uncle is gone it was mainly Sally and his guys who were out there shooting it out with the reco Benny's and Salvi was also heavily involved in the street tax collections I found it strange that my uncle wasn't bringing him down to meet with him - he tells me I want you in on these meetings which means I gotta sit there all day the first guy down was Blackie Napoli when my uncle was away I was meeting with Blackie once or twice a month and he was bringing my uncle's tribute money down now black he was getting up there in age and he wasn't as sharp as he used to be but him and my uncle went way back even before they were in yard ville together my uncle wastes no time in telling him these envelopes you sent down while I was away they were light what are you guys doing up there did you forget how to make money or are you guys just giving it away when my uncle became boss remember it was him and Blackie who first went to see Bobby manna the day after Phil tests his wake my uncle always knew that black he was letting Bobby manna and the Genovese take more than they should in North Jersey but my uncle felt like Blackie had given away the store up there when he was in jail then my uncle told Blackie we're gonna tighten our belts up there no more free lunches for anyone I don't care who they're with and Blackie left I could tell he was disappointed because he thought he had done a good job while my uncle was gone when he left my uncle said I'm taking him down he's getting too old he's losing his fastball I'm gonna keep him up there but I'm putting Patty's specs in charge up there bring him down tomorrow and tell him I want to see him patty specs was a guy named Pasquale Martorano who had been with the North Jersey branch of our family dating back to the days when Ange was boss the next one in was Bobby Simone my uncle seemed very concerned about Bobby's tax case and Bobby talked about it a little bit my uncle then went through the litany of criminal charges that everyone in the family was facing from Chucky's bribery case - my thing with the mayor and asked Bobby to explain every possible scenario of everyone's individual cases this went on for like two hours my uncle was just asking hypotheticals towards the end he said I can't depend on anybody in this entire Borgata everybody's drunk stupid or incompetent I should go get six black guys from North Philly and stun a new gang they'd be better than what I got right now now I can't say anything but what I'm thinking is you just came home from jail you got three million dollars sitting in a safe everybody you wanted us to kill is dead and you're still complaining so after Bobby leaves Chuckie comes in Chuck telling him everything that had been going on in Philly while he was away he says to my uncle we never filled Frank's spot after he got killed meaning the conciliator position and with Chong Collini in jail we are down a couple my uncle says I'm gonna put my uncle Nick in his consigliere meaning his mother's brother Nicky buck piccolo now me and Chucky both know how bad my uncle hates his uncle Nick he hated him and his brothers his whole life he used to say they were no good that they mistreated him and always tried to hold him back now he's gonna make him the conciliar a the position of conciliator is very important in La Cosa Nostra the conciliar II is the counselor someone to settle disputes in the family and someone who can advise the boss the consid is the third most powerful position in the family behind the boss and underboss Bobby manna was the Qin's conciliar II and Bobby was the Chin's eyes and ears my uncle is gonna make his uncle the conciliar II a guy he hated his whole life it didn't make any sense it's almost like he was saying I don't need a conciliator cuz I ain't asking nobody their opinion or had a settle disputes my uncle settled almost every dispute with a gun but that wasn't what La Cosa Nostra was about when my uncle got out of La Tuna this thing started to become my thing with him then he says and as for chickies crew let's leave things the way they are for now too many chiefs and not enough Indians which was his way of saying he wanted more soldiers and less captains he wanted to keep all the power for himself then he says to Chucky what about Salvi it was like he said it in slow motion like a movie I couldn't believe it I immediately felt sick I knew at that very second that my uncle had decided that he was going to turn on Salvi and was now going to make a case for killing him leonetti's intuitions would prove to be spot-on dead man walking only days out of jail Nicky Scarfo was already plotting his next kill and this time instead of salvie testa doing the killing he would be the one getting killed prior to this Philip Leonetti had been nicky scarfo's prized pupil and had never seriously questioned his uncle's leadership he was in many respects the perfect soldier the perfect Protege but by putting a hit out on salvie testa Little Nicky had gone too far even for crazy phil nicky scarfo's increasingly erratic behavior had shaken Philips faith in his uncle and his blind allegiance to La Cosa Nostra to the core turning his world upside down for the first time in his life Philip was seriously reconsidering his path in life being his uncle's protege had worn him down both physically and emotionally and he didn't know how much more he could take my uncle went crazy with the power when he became the boss it was like he got drunk off of it he became so full of jealousy and hatred that he had turned into something out of a horror movie this wasn't a thing of honor or respect anymore it wasn't even about the money it was all about the power bodies were falling everywhere he wanted to murder everyone and everything around him it wasn't enough for us to kill our enemies we were now going to start killing our friends he used to say the only way to hold on to the power is to kill anyone who stands in your way that's the kind of mentality he had on everything he was just looking for excuses to kill guys and the more power he got the crazier and more paranoid he became my mother used to call him Adolf behind his back that's how bad it was he would get angry and tell a whole group of guys don't [ __ ] test me cuz I'll bring in a squad of guys from New York and wipe everybody in this room right off the [ __ ] map I won't leave none of you guys standing he's talking about killing our whole family and these guys knew he'd do it and guess what he would have I didn't understand it before we were only killing bad people now we're killing everybody it didn't make sense now we're gonna kill Salvi he was one of us he loved my uncle he believed in this thing La Cosa Nostra he killed for it and he almost died for it Salvy looked up to my uncle as almost a second father right before Phil testa died we were having dinner and he turned to my uncle I'll never forget it he said Nick if God forbid something were to happen to me please be sure and always take care of Salvi and my uncle said god forbid that would happen I would treat him as one of my own that kept replaying over and over in my head when he said that he would treat Salvi as one of his own and now he's gonna have him killed who was gonna be next me several factors contributed to the animosity that Nicky Scarfo felt towards salvie testa in those early months of 1984 salvie testa had ruffled scarfo's feathers when he became engaged to Chuckie Marino's daughter despite the fact that both testa and merely known were like family to him the increasingly paranoid mom dictator saw it as a power play by either testa or Melina or perhaps both and became obsessed with stopping the marriage salvie testa's stock had been on the rise in the underworld since he personally avenged the death of his father by murdering two of the men responsible in such sensational fashion testa was in a lot of ways like a younger version of Scarfo himself he had developed a loyal crew of killers with the young executioner's and he enjoyed an almost rabid rock star type following among many in the Philly underworld all of this made Scarfo see testa as a potential threat to his power and this paranoia would ultimately lead to test his brutal downfall the tipping point in scarfo's betrayal of salvie testa came in April 1984 after an article in The Wall Street Journal referred to the ruggedly handsome and charismatic testa as the fastest rising mobster in the United States when testa got cold feet and broke the engagement to merely knows daughter the always plotting Scarfo saw an opportunity to manipulate the situation and turn his inner circle and ultimately the rest of the family against testa for disrespecting the daughter of the underboss both Chucky and salfi loved my uncle they were both loyal they would have never gone against him but he had it in his head that Salvi marrying Chucky's daughter meant they were teaming up to eventually challenge him so when things started to go south with Salvy and Chucky's daughter my uncle used it to play both sides against each other and turn Chucky against Salvi which she can then use to get Chuckie to back his plan and help him kill Salvi what a lot of people didn't know is that right before Salvi broke off the engagement Salvy talked to my uncle on the phone when he was in prison and he basically asked my uncle for permission to end it with Chucky's daughter Salvy was trying to do the right thing he wasn't trying to disrespect Chucky or his daughter they were both young it didn't work out that's all it was now my uncle's telling him from jail you don't gonna marry her you should do what you want spread yourself around don't worry when I come home I'll talk to Chuckie he'll understand at the same time he's in Chucky's ear telling him what sally was doing and dishonored his daughter was a slap in his face and that he shouldn't stand for that kind of disrespect to his daughter at his family this [ __ ] was stirring the pot he wanted Sally to think he was okay with it meanwhile he was getting Chuckie all worked up about it my uncle started to say things about Sally like this kid is getting too big for his britches or his kids acting like he wants to be the boss we'll see about that or he would say this kid is full of treason or this kids fooling with drugs or at least ciggies her oh he's up to something and all of it was nonsense I remember that whole summer Sally was on edge he knew that something was up he just didn't know what it was and Here I am one of his best friends and there was nothing I could do to help him I wish I could have saved him but I couldn't by the summer of 1984 nicky scarfo's plan had worked not only was Chuckie Merlino backing his play he was supervising the plot at one point Nicky Crowe and Charlie White had the contract but they couldn't get it done then Fafi and tommy delgiorno had it but they couldn't get it done either Sally's antenna was up and even though he was a lot younger than all of those guys he knew the street 100 times better he wasn't gonna be an easy mark killing the leader of the young executioner's crew wouldn't be easy attempted hits were set up to kill testa at various locations including a South Philadelphia Health Club where he worked out a beauty salon he owned mobster Faviana Ellis house where a baby shower had been scheduled a mob gathering at tommy delgiorno zkn dominium on the Ocean City Boardwalk aboard salvie's boat which was docked in ventnor and an exit ramp in Northfield coming off of the Garden State Parkway but all of the plans failed the setting of the next plot to kill salvie testa showed just how far the Scarfo mob had deteriorated Joe punch was Salvi's best friend Joe punch had a brother Anthony who was with us they were part of Salvi's crew their father old man Punja Torrey who we called the blonde babe was a made guy and had been around since Anne's was boss the blonde babes sister died Joe punches aunt and the whole family was going to the wake which was in South Philadelphia to pay their respects my uncle was very big on this nobody ever missed a wake Chucky had gotten involved in the planning of Salvi's murder and decided he wanted to bang him right there in the funeral parlor at the wake and then he wanted Torrey Scaffidi who hung around his son Joey to do the shooting and guess what my uncle loves the idea this is how crazy we had gotten we're gonna shoot a guy inside a funeral parlor during a wake for an old lady are you kidding me that's honorable that's respectful so what happens is the night before he got into a fight at a bar and he got pinched when my uncle finds out about it he went nuts he said these [ __ ] kids you can't count on him for nothing but as in the Hollywood gangster film life that life in the Scarfo mob had come to resemble the show must go on so Chuckie assigns the killing to Charlie White and he tells Charlie wife to bring a 38 to the funeral parlor but she did the plan was to shoot Sally inside the bower area this funeral parlor had a little lounge and there was a small bar that was separate from the room where the body was but when we were there the place was packed you couldn't even move we are all at the bar me my uncle Chuckie Laurence Sally was 10 feet away from us my uncle told Chuckie called off this place is no good and Chuckie made eye contact with Charlie White who was across the room waiting for the signal and Chuckie shook his head no and Charlie white just disappeared into the crowd so now it's time to leave and they have a receiving line outside from the Punja Tory family and we all go through it together one at a time the whole mob as we are going through the line the guys are gathering near our car so that they can greet my uncle and Chucky the boss and the underboss as a sign of respect me my uncle Chucky and Laurence were the last four guys in the line it was Lawrence Chucky then my uncle then me I was always in front of next to or behind my uncle we never deviated from that I was his eyes making sure no one was sneaking up on him so we are going through the line of our guys and everyone is there lined up the whole mob Fafi Tommy Dell then I do Chi Brothers Nikki Crowe Charlie White then Olano Brothers the grand brothers Jolla Gumby even the Punja Tori's left their receiving line to come over and pay their respects all the other guys were there and all the way at the end of this line was Salvi he was standing right next to the limousine we drove up in so we are going through the line and we are hugging and kissing everyone and we are now coming up to Sal V and when Chuckie go to kiss him he grabs both of Salvi's cheeks and kisses him square on the lips for like ten seconds and then pulls away and it's looking at him with a crazy look in his eye Sally looked stunned and all the guys around their mouths were hanging wide open it was the kiss of death Salvy knew after that my uncle was going to kill him there was no more doubt about it Scarfo decided it was time to up the ante and he called for another meeting with tommy delgiorno to discuss a revised plan to murder salvie testa my uncle tells tommy give the

Channel: The Real Gambino Family

Views: 440,227

Rating: 4.3543115 out of 5

Keywords: Vlad Tv, Philip Leonetti, Nicky Scarfo, Salvi Testa, Joe Pungitore, Gully Tv, Alpo, Alpo Martinez, Rich Porter, Jay-Z, Nas, John Gotti, 50 Cent, Flip Da Script, Lou Simms, Washington DC, Philiadelphia, Marvel, Mafia, Sammy Gravano, Sammy The Bull

Id: Xsef7qyNMrQ

Length: 89min 41sec (5381 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 07 2019