Fifteen Philadelphia Family Members and Associates Indicted

[dack2001]

I'd bet they're waiting to see if Joey gets swept up. If he isn't, than Jacobs will jump in for Dom or someone else. Since Jacobs is Joey's lawyer, I'm sure its Joey's call. Now that's assuming Dom can put together the scratch to pay for a RICO trial with Jacobs. Has to put down $250,000 and another $250,000 before trial at least. He wouldn't be the first guy to pick a cheaper lawyer. What's potentially several years or more of freedom worth?

[NJShore4Life]

For a State Felony trial Jacobs was going to charge me North of 160K IICRC and that was on top of the good money he was already charging me to deal with the Detectives who were hounding me on my behalf.

As soon as I retained Jacobs they backed off me and you could sense a general fear of Eddie, they immediately stopped harassing me and go “Wait, you really hired Eddie Jacobs?!!” With a sense of fear in their voices.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he charges these guys for major Federal RICO cases. It’s gotta be close to half a million dollars if I had to guess.

Thank God in the end I didn’t end up getting indicted as I was completely 100% innocent.

Dante

[HoagieNose]

For a State Felony trial Jacobs was going to charge me North of 160K IICRC and that was on top of the good money he was already charging me to deal with the Detectives who were hounding me on my behalf.

As soon as I retained Jacobs they backed off me and you could sense a general fear of Eddie, they immediately stopped harassing me and go “Wait, you really hired Eddie Jacobs?!!” With a sense of fear in their voices.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he charges these guys for major Federal RICO cases. It’s gotta be close to half a million dollars if I had to guess.

Thank God in the end I didn’t end up getting indicted as I was completely 100% innocent.

Dante

that’s interesting , he must be no joke . What were the detectives doing to you ?

[Stroccos]

For a State Felony trial Jacobs was going to charge me North of 160K IICRC and that was on top of the good money he was already charging me to deal with the Detectives who were hounding me on my behalf.

As soon as I retained Jacobs they backed off me and you could sense a general fear of Eddie, they immediately stopped harassing me and go “Wait, you really hired Eddie Jacobs?!!” With a sense of fear in their voices.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he charges these guys for major Federal RICO cases. It’s gotta be close to half a million dollars if I had to guess.

Thank God in the end I didn’t end up getting indicted as I was completely 100% innocent.

Dante

As they say you get that you pay for

Didn’t Jacobs do Ligambi retrial as basically a public defender pay rate

[dack2001]

He was appointed at a public defender rate to do the second trial. There is no way he received any other consideration for accepting that agreement.

[dack2001]

On a side note, it made sense for the court to do it that way. Government and Joe/George wanted a quick re-trial. Government because they wanted George held without bail. For spite. If joe got a new lawyer, it might take 6 months to prepare for such a re-trial. George and Joe had much better chance at making bail with a long interlude between first and second trial. Another issue, Jacobs had just done the previous trial. He didn't need extreme prep, which would be billed to the government i.e. federal public defenders office. Jacobs was willing to do it at a defender rate, which is what they would have appointed anyway but with much, much less prep being billed. There are probably only 5 defense lawyers anyway on the list in federal court close to qualified to handle that RICO re-trial.

[givememysocks]

I thought the Gov picked up the tab in that situation

[chin_gigante]

Currently listening to the new Philly Prime podcast and got this: the murder conspiracy in the 2018 Servidio indictment is different from the kidnapping/ murder conspiracy in this case.

GA talks about this from the Servidio case and says Individual 3 that Servidio and Chianese were planning to kill was Kenny Arabia:

On July 6, 2017, CS-1 conducted a consensually recorded meeting with JOSEPH SERVIDIO. During the meeting SERVIDIO stated that he and CARL CHIANESE intended to shoot a Philadelphia LCN drug trafficking associate (Individual 3) whom SERVIDIO suspected of talking openly and disparagingly about SERVIDIO’s criminal activity. After informing CS-1 that he and CHIANESE had at one point waited outside the intended victim’s residence for three hours, and that his intention had been to conduct the shooting inside the residence when the victim was alone, SERVIDIO said, “…Me and Carl got two phones, just (exclusively) for this, you know… the thing is everything is away, I’ve been leaving my phones (SERVIDIO PHONE 2 and SERVIDIO PHONE 3) home, I made him (CHIANESE) leave his EZPass home, we paid cash, you know.” […] Your Affiant believes that SERVIDIO was informing CS-1 that by leaving his other cellular telephones (which are subscribed in SERVIDIO’s true name) home, and by using cash instead of EZPass, law enforcement could not use electronic surveillance to track their location or to place those devices in the area of the residence of the intended victim.

Elsewhere that indictment, Individual 3 is identified as being 'with' Persiano, so that would confirm that Arabia is just an associate.

[Cheech]

Would be great of chin and chris made a chart of this bust.

[Amershire_Ed]

When Schratweiser wrote about this earlier in the week, he said his sources indicated more arrests were likely. Just now listening to him on Philly Prime, that seems to be more of an educated guess based on “the lack of meat on the bone” (his words) on this indictment. Both he and Anastasia agreed that without the drug angle, this indictment would’ve never been brought.

Also, Schratweiser says Grande has Brian McMonagle working the case for him. He said the only way he could see Jacobs doing a Fed RICO case again was if it involved Joey.

[VanCity]

What does this mean for Philly? Only handful are made out of this list. Surely wouldn't take them close to extinction would it?

[TommyNoto]

I’m not a Philly person but they still have legit bookmarking and loansharking activity . How many crews can it support ?, probably only a handful but there’s a good chance that biz will never go away, it’s just built into society.

I’m still waiting to see how NJ handles the off shore books, so far they have been hands off, maybe pandemic related, but from my understanding the off shore guys are still very active in the area. Credit and no Tax are huge advantages it seems , plus DL from wifey. The legal books seems to be a lot of new bees which is interesting

[dack2001]

McMonagle was Nicodemo's lawyer and did a great job in his case. He has a ton of federal experience and he's a bulldog. Good call by Dom.

[chin_gigante]

This indictment got me thinking about hierarchy again so here are some thoughts:

During the period covered in the indictment, the hierarchy positions we can now chart with some confidence and accuracy are Merlino (Boss), Lancellotti (Street Boss), Mazzone (Underboss), Ligambi (Consigliere), Grande (Captain) and Licata (Captain/ North Jersey)

Other information we have that supports that/ is now supported by that:

- Merlino took Lancellotti and Grande to the December 2014 gathering at Pasquale Parrello's restaurant
- In February 2015, George Anastasia reported that Ligambi had switched to consigliere following his release from prison
- In June 2015, Scott Burnstein reported that Lancellotti had stepped up to help run the family following his recovery from his bout with cancer
- In January 2016, Dave Schratwieser reported that Mazzone was the underboss
- In June 2018, Anastasia and Schratwieser reported that Lancellotti was the street boss and Ligambi was in consigliere-mode

Other pieces of information that are not supported by the indictment:

- In November 2014, Burnstein reported that John Ciancaglini was the underboss
- In February 2015, Burnstein reported that Joseph Ciancaglini had assumed the titular role of underboss while John was acting underboss
- In February 2015, Anastasia and Schratwieser reported that the family was being run by a committee consisting of Mazzone, Ciancaglini and Phillip Narducci (Burnstein reported this information came from state police and the power-sharing dynamic was informal, and that rather than a committee being created Narducci was simply being allowed to do his own thing)
- In December 2015, Anastasia reported that Mazzone and Ciancaglini were street bosses while Ligambi and Joseph Ciancaglini were dual consiglieri (Burnstein reported that while Ligambi and Ciancaglini both served as advisers, Ligambi was the consigliere while Ciancaglini was the underboss)
- In January 2016, Anastasia and Schratwieser reported that federal investigators had identified Ligambi as the acting boss again (Burnstein then reported that Ligambi became acting boss in mid-2015, with Mazzone becoming underboss and Joseph Ciancaglini becoming consigliere)

What the consensus points to as I see it:

- Merlino promoted Mazzone to street boss following Ligambi's arrest
- John Ciancaglini, as a captain, helped Mazzone run things (John Rubeo has also said that Ciancaglini would pass messages to Merlino in Florida)
- Lancellotti became street boss in time for the December 2014 party in New York
- Most likely scenario seems like Mazzone switched to underboss and Ligambi to consigliere sometime in 2014 after Ligambi beat the case and got out
- The earliest reference to Grande being a captain in the indictment is November 2015 when he instructs his crew to shake down AC bookmakers and loan sharks
- Based on his presence at the Christmas party though (and if the rest of the reshuffle took place in 2014) perhaps Grande got upped earlier, especially if he was promoted to take over Lancellotti's crew

Questions about other captains:

John Ciancaglini

- Ciancaglini was a captain by 2014, and Anastasia was still referring to him as a player by February 2016
- Law enforcement sources had Ciancaglini controlling Delco gambling and loan sharking rackets in 2014
- In mid-2018 though, Anastasia had Ciancaglini and Mazzone as taking a step back
- Schratwieser was still referring to Ciancaglini as a captain in 2019

Martin Angelina

- Identified as a captain in a DOJ press release in 2012
- Described by Anastasia and Schratwieser as a soldier following his release from prison in 2015
- Schratwieser started referring to him as a captain again when he was subpoeanaed in 2019

George Borgesi

- Referred to consistently by Anastasia as a 'one-time capo' in the mid-2010s
- Got off supervised release July 2015
- Identified as still being involved in Delco
- In September 2015, Schratwieser reported that a sitdown had recently taken place involving Borgesi and Angelina
- Borgesi was all over Schratwieser's 2016 coverage of the mob 'resurgence'
- Burnstein reported that Borgesi was promoted to captain in 2016
- A few months prior to the August 2016 East Coast LCN case, Pasquale Parrello travelled to Philly and met with Borgesi to discuss a dispute between The Safety Group Ltd and the Philadelphia LCN
- In June 2018, Anastasia and Schratwieser were reporting that Borgesi was 'off the totem-pole' and legit
- This year, Schratwieser has quite explicitly referred to Borgesi as a 'current' captain
- Anastasia and Schratwieser have recently said Borgesi looks like the one running things on the street

[JohnnyS]

Great work Chin. I agree with you on Grande, I think he was bumped up to captain when Lancellotti became street boss sometime in 2014.