Philadelphia Inquirer 04 Oct 2000
Another Merlino Associate Cooperates Gaetano Scafidi Jr. Pleaded Guilty To Taking Part IN A Mob Hit. He Will Testify Against His Boyhood Friend
Joseph A. Slobodzian
Philadelphia Daily News 03 Apr 2001Scafidi's guilty plea provided the first public explanation of the alleged players and background of the DiAddorio murder and the attempted hit on Joseph Ciancaglini Jr.
Scafidi's plea documents alleged that on May 29, 1992, he was with Borgesi, Lancelotti and Angelina in a South Philadelphia auto-body shop, where they met Merlino.
According to the document, Merlino suggested a plan in which Scafidi would drive a car immediately behind a car driven by Borgesi and containing Lancelotti and Angelina. Scafidi was to block any attempt by police to follow the Borgesi vehicle.
Scafidi alleges that he followed Borgesi for several blocks through South Philadelphia before the first car stopped briefly, allowing the two passengers to jump out and walk off in different directions.
Later that day, the document continues, Scafidi heard news of the murder of James "Jimmy Brooms" DiAddorio, a former Delaware River Port Authority police chief who authorities said was a "mob wannabe" with a reputation for causing problems in South Philadelphia bars by boasting of his links to Stanfa and other mobsters.
Authorities said DiAddorio was killed when two men in ski masks entered the Vulpine Athletic Club at 12th and Federal Streets and shot him six times as he spoke on the phone at the end of the bar.
The plea document alleges that Merlino told Scafidi that he assigned him to be a "blocker" on the DiAddorio hit because Michael Ciancaglini, a top ally of Merlino's, "regarded Scafidi as too reluctant to engage in murders."
Merlino trial hears details of mob hit
Kitty Caparella
Philadelphia Daily News 04 Apr 2001Natale called Merlino, Mazzone and others on the phone. They sent him money for his commissary and phone calls. He introduced them to jailed members of the New York Lucchese and Genovese crime families, and other imprisoned mobsters who supported their takeover from Stanfa.
In fact, Natale said he was sending Steve Mazzola, "who was a shooter for the Lucchese family," to help them, as he was remarrying and moving to Philadelphia.
Another mobster, Joseph Gatto, was supposed to "politic for us in New York," Natale said. But Gatto backed out.
"No one wants to help, they're all bulls-------," Merlino told Natale.
Natale testified he met brothers Michael and John Ciancaglini, but never met their brother, Joseph. They were the sons of an old friend of his, Joseph "Chickie" Ciancaglini, who was imprisoned for 45 years on racketeering charges as part of the Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo mob.
Natale said Merlino told him that Joe Jr. was Stanfa's underboss and that "Michael was at odds with him and his father."
Natale Fingers Hitman
Kitty Caparella
Philadelphia Daily News 05 Apr 2001Yesterday, Natale fingered the hit man who in 1993 shot the son of mob boss John Stanfa in a rush hour hit in Schuylkill Expressway traffic.
Natale identified reputed mobster Gaeton Lucibello, 46, as the shooter who critically wounded Joseph Stanfa.
The government star witness claimed defendant Steve Mazzone, now reputed underboss, told him about Lucibello during a 1993 prison visit.
[…]
Natale learned behind-the-scenes details of the botched attempt when Mazzone, soldiers Martin Angelina and Michael "Mikey Lance" Lancelotti, visited him on Sept. 17, 1993, at federal prison at Allenwood Low in White Deer, Pa. On Aug. 31, 1993, a van pulled alongside Stanfa's 1993 Cadillac Seville on the expressway near Grays Ferry Avenue.
A gunman fired a rifle through the side of the van, missing Stanfa in the front passenger seat, but critically wounding his son, seated in the back, in the right side of the face.
Natale asked Mazzone about "the fiasco" outside the prison visiting room, he said.
Mazzone blamed Merlino and Angelina, whom Natale has admitted coaching to gun down the Stanfa mob.
Using walkie talkies, the pair were supposed to warn the van when Stanfa's car approached. But the car sped by their lookout site too fast, and the warning came too late, Mazzone told Natale.
Also, the stolen van was specially prepared for the hit. Garage owner Ron Galati cut a hole in its side to allow the gunman to shoot through. But, Mazzone told Natale: "The hole was not big enough."
Natale said Mazzone's account was corroborated by mobster Ronald Turchi, Merlino and Mazzone in more detail in 1994 after Natale was released from prison.
There was one exception.
Natale asked Mazzone who drove the van.
The answer: mobster Gaeton "Horsehead" Scafidi. Once a Merlino ally, Scafidi switched to Stanfa during the mob war.
Natale testified he found out after leaving prison that Scafidi did not drive the van. But he didn't say who did.
"That's the first time we've heard that, as far as I can tell," said Mazzone's attorney, Steve Patrizio. "It's totally orchestrated."
The expressway hit came 24 days after Stanfa's henchmen killed rival leader Michael Ciancaglini, 30, and wounded Merlino, 31, in his buttocks and leg, near their 6th and Catharine Streets clubhouse.
Merlino gave no hint of his alleged role in the botched shooting during 14 tape-recorded telephone calls played yesterday between Natale and Merlino.
The day before the shooting, Merlino told Natale he was still home recuperating from his wounds.
He confided to Natale that he had diarrhea, complained of his failure to hit the state lottery and wanted his girlfriend to buy him a 40-gallon fish tank.
Two days after the attack, Merlino complained of news coverage blaming him for the shooting, citing a Daily News front page headline, "Slugfest."
"Right on the front cover again. Yeah, 'Slugfest. Stanfa and Merlino, mob watchers say it's kill or be killed,' got our pictures," complained Merlino.
Mazzone also reported to Natale that Stanfa ally Leon "Yonnie" Lanzilotta was shot on Sept. 15, 1993, only two days before the prison visit, Natale testified.
Mazzone claimed Lanzilotta was watching the clubhouse and notified others that Merlino and Ciancaglini were walking up the street, Natale said. Mazzone and Lancelotti jumped Lanzilotta while he walked with Michael Forte, said Natale. Mazzone shot him.
Natale’s odyssey in getting ‘made’
Kitty Caparella
Philadelphia Daily News 06 Apr 2001By 1994, the underworld had changed. And Natale, whose old-world charisma was like a mother hen clucking over her chicks, was inducted with Frank Gambino, a onetime mob gofer three years his senior.
The two gents were twice the age of the "young Turks" who did the heavy lifting in taking back the crime family from Sicilian-born John Stanfa, who had a four-year reign followed by five life sentences.
"I became the boss of the family. [Merlino] became the underboss," said Natale.
Asked how a "made" member could immediately catapult to boss, Natale replied: "I was more experienced. I knew more [mob] people throughout the country. . .We had a bond, Joey and I."
In a turnabout, the "made" members present at his induction - George Borgesi, Steve Mazzone, Martin Angelina, and Michael "Mickey Lance" Lancelotti - turned to imprisoned Natale as a mentor during the 1993 mob war.
[…]
With his induction, Natale used Mazzone as "my right arm," entrusting him with his "most sacred secret messages." He was prohibited from associating with him or risk a parole violation.
Mazzone performed the same task when the two mob leaders were jailed at Allenwood, in different buildings. Mazzone visited Natale sometimes as many as four times a month.
Natale promoted Mazzone to consigliere from capo, after then-mob underboss Ronald Turchi "proved to be an unfaithful man, playing both sides of the street," Natale said. "He was a little with Stanfa and a little with us."
Turchi was demoted to soldier after he tried to buy the job of mob boss for $10,000, Natale said. Turchi was later killed.
Cross-Examination To Begin
Kitty Caparella
Philadelphia Daily News 13 Apr 2001The Veasey hit was approved for the fall, after Labor Day.
Natale testified he entrusted Merlino with the details. Merlino assigned Borgesi to secure walkie-talkies and crash cars. And mobsters Michael Lancelotti and Martin Angelina were assigned as backup shooters, Natale said.
A day or so before the execution, Borgesi advised Natale, he said, that everyone was prepared.
Natale first heard of the mob hit on KYW radio (1060-AM). Billy Veasey was killed on Oct. 5, 1995, shortly before his brother was to testify in federal court.
About 4 p.m. the same day, Natale met Mazzone and Angelina at Garden State Park race track, which Natale called his "office." Borgesi called him on the phone and said he'd be right over.
"Everything went perfectly," reported Borgesi, according to Natale. "All the fellas did what they had to do."
Natale: My Wife, 2 Kids Threatened
Kitty Caparella
Philadelphia Daily News 28 Apr 2001Former mob boss Ralph Natale testified yesterday that his family's lives have been threatened and two adult children are living in seclusion. Natale's confirmation of death threats came two days after the Daily News identified three would-be assassins in a plot to kill Natale family members, according to a March 28 FBI memo.
The memo, sent to Philadelphia police districts, identified reputed "made" member Michael "Mikey Lance" Lancelotti and mob associates Michael "Mikey Penknife" Virgilio and Joseph Curro, said a source familiar with the memo.
Mob defense: Who shot who?
Kitty Caparella
Philadelphia Daily News 08 Jun 2001Scafidi claimed that Michael Ciancaglini threatened to kill him if he didn't shoot Ciancaglini's brother, Joseph. Merlino's attorney, Edwin Jacobs, mocked how Scafidi couldn't stomach killing Ciancaglini's brother, yet he was willing to kill others.
"If Joey Merlino would have asked me, that wouldn't have been so bad. But Michael was asking me to kill his brother," said Scafidi.
"Michael told me 'You're going to kill that greaseball [Stanfa] and my brother, and you're going to pull the trigger,'" he added.
"Michael hated his brother and he hated his father," said Scafidi, referring to mobster Joseph "Chickie" Ciancaglini, now serving 45 years in federal prison.
"If he would have talked to his brother, if he would've talked to his father. . ." the shooting would never have happened, he added.
[…]
Scafidi said Joseph Ciancaglini was shot on March 2, 1993, in retaliation for the Michael Ciancaglini shooting a year earlier in brother vs. brother attacks.
"Michael told me that his brother [Joseph] and Gaeton [Lucibello] shot through his window," said Scafidi. (Lucibello has denied the shooting.)
The defense cited a 1994 FBI tape-recorded conversation between Scafidi and Philip Colletti, a Stanfa ally-turned-government- witness.
On the tape, Colletti claimed that Battaglia had told him that he and Herbert Keller shot up Michael Ciancaglini's home in 1992.
In response, Scafidi offered the defense a suggestion: "If you want a correct answer, subpoena Sergio and Colletti. All I know is what Michael told me. . .."
Turncoat plotted mob takeover
Kitty Caparella
Philadelphia Inquirer 11 Nov 2003Caprio said two gangsters from the Philadelphia and Genovese families wanted to go into business together, operating video poker machines and numbers in the region.
The entrepreneurs were Caprio's associate, Daniel Dambrosia, who operated a lucrative gambling business in Philadelphia, and his partner, Vito Alberti, a made member in the Genovese family, which OK'd the joint venture. "We were going to make lots of money," said Caprio.
The only "problem" was Ligambi, who they believed "would not go along with it," Caprio said. And if Ligambi was killed, then, his nephew, Borgesi, and Mazzone also would have to be killed.
The three ranking Philly mobsters had not been approved by the crime families.
"They wouldn't recognize them, but they would recognize me as head of the family," said Caprio.
By then, Merlino lost LCN respect for failing to give "an end" or proceeds from video poker business to his jailed boss, Ralph Natale, who had been arrested on parole violations on June 12, 1998.
Natale lost respect when he decided to cooperate with authorities in August 1999, said Caprio.
The Genovese family had endorsed Natale as Philadelphia boss. "They put him there and he embarrassed them," said Caprio. "I would have killed him."
In the fall of 1999, Ligambi asked Caprio to introduce him to LCN leaders in New York, as he had done for his predecessors, Caprio said. Ligambi couldn't conduct LCN business without a proper introduction as acting boss. Under the guise of meeting LCN members, Caprio said he planned to invite Ligambi, Mazzone and Borgesi to Newark.
Meanwhile, Vincent "Beeps" Centorino, a soldier in Caprio's crew, was looking for a warehouse to meet. Another crew member, Raymond "Frenchy" Lepore, was looking for a construction site to bury them, Caprio said.
Caprio and Dambrosia planned to shoot the trio, while Gambino soldier Anthony "Tony Pro" Proto and Alberti would "lug out the bodies" for burial, he said. "That's how the mob works."
After the hit, Caprio said, he'd become mob boss and promote soldier Martin Angelina, a defendant, to consigliere. Angelina operated the Philadelphia video poker business, he said.
Dambrosia would be "made" a soldier, then elevated to underboss, he added.
The headquarters of the crime family would be moved from Philadelphia to Newark, he said. And mobsters would be required to bring him money.
The last time Caprio saw Ligambi and Mazzone was in the fall of 1999, when Ligambi asked for the introductions. At the time, Ligambi told him, "We banged Ronnie [Turchi] out to teach Ralph [Natale] and the rest of them," Caprio said. Turchi, who had been demoted from mob underboss to soldier, was killed Oct. 22, 1999.
Merlino extorted from clubs on waterfront, witness says
George Anastasia
Philadelphia Daily News 07 Apr 2004Vella alleges that he and Borgesi shot Mazzuca after Vella lured Mazzuca to a meeting at his home on Tree Street in South Philadelphia.
Vella named six other mob figures as involved in either planning the hit or helping dispose of Mazzuca’s body.
[…]
Merlino also ordered the murder of Turchi, Vella said, because he and others feared the mobster would cooperate with authorities and corroborate information then being provided by mob boss Ralph Natale.
Turchi's bullet-riddled body was found in the trunk of a car parked on a South Philadelphia street in October 1999, about two months after Natale began cooperating. While not providing specific details about the shooting, Vella has linked Borgesi, Ligambi, reputed crime family underboss Joseph Massimino, and jailed mobsters Steven Mazzone and Frank Gambino to the Turchi murder.
Vella said Ligambi told him Turchi "had been murdered and placed in the trunk of his car because that's the way [former mob boss] Nicky Scarfo used to do it."
Vella said that the mob had been plotting the Turchi murder for months and that he had been involved in trying to set Turchi up.
Vella said he was surprised when Turchi showed up at a mob party while those he was partying with were plotting to kill him.
Vella has also provided some personal details about his former associates.
He has claimed that Michael Lancelotti boasted about carrying out mob hits, telling Vella "there's nothing like shooting a guy, with the sound of the gun going off and the guy screaming." He said Lancelotti also bragged about how he "kept a spade shovel in the trunk of his car, to bury bodies."
[…]
Finally, in one of the more bizarre twists in more than a dozen debriefing memos, Vella claimed that he was formally initiated into the mob by Ligambi during a secret meeting at the Trump Marina Hotel Casino in Atlantic City.
Vella, according to a memo dated July 7, 2003, claimed the ceremony took place in July 2000.
Two days later, on July 9, 2003, Vella changed his story, saying that he had been exaggerating, and that while he should have been made, he was not.
Deaths, jail thin mob ranks; Boss facing tough decision
Kitty Caparella
Philadelphia Inquirer 20 Jun 2005Likely candidates for the underboss and consigliere spots are former bartender and top aide Anthony Staino and reputed capos Gaeton Lucibello and Michael “Mikey Lance” Lancelotti, according to law enforcement sources.
Whether or not Ligambi has inducted Staino as a member may not matter, said one law enforcement source.
“Things are not what they used to be. They’re not as stringent as they once were,” the source said. “Ralph [Natale] was made and became boss” immediately after getting out of prison. “We just have to watch who’s around who.”
[…]
Today, Ligambi may pay his respects to consigliere Joseph "Joe Crutch" Curro, who died Saturday because of declining health due to diabetes.
Curro, 60, the adviser on parole for life, had been "low-key," since his release in 1994 from a New Jersey state prison, according to law enforcement sources. "He was not the most robust guy out there."
He served 16 years of a sentence that included life plus three to five years for the March 1978 fatal shooting of Robert Cariola, 39, who dated Curro's estranged wife, Bernadette.
Mob case spotlights an intriguing insider
George Anastasia
[Steven] Carnivale said Altimari had introduced him to Lucibello at Michael's Diner in Bensalem in March 2002. Altimari vouched for him, he said, telling Lucibello that he was a "good earner."
During that meeting, Carnivale said, Lucibello complained that jailed mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino had "screwed up" the organization's lucrative bookmaking business "by not paying when individuals won their bets."
Also at that meeting, he said, he was introduced to Trenton mob associate Anthony "Tony Gags" Gagliardi.
Carnivale said he had been assigned to assist Gagliardi in "shakedowns" in Lower Bucks County - attempts by the mob to grab cash from individuals involved in bookmaking or poker machines.
Later, he said, they were ordered to plot the hit of a poker-machine distributor who was refusing to pay.
Carnivale said he was told that South Philadelphia mobster Raymond "Long John" Martorano had been killed for the same reason. He also claimed a Lucibello associate had bragged to him about being the getaway driver the day of the Martorano hit.