Where is nicodemo scarfo

But less than a year later, in , Scarfo would get the life sentence. When he and 16 others in the Scarfo gang were convicted in November in a racketeering conspiracy involving 13 murders, jurors found Scarfo guilty of directly participating in eight of the slayings, as well as loansharking, bookmaking, drug dealing and 17 cases of extortion.

Scarfo grew up in South Philadelphia, working as a newsboy at a train station and later, though small in stature 5 feet 5, hence his nickname , trained as an amateur boxer.

He had a violent temper. While making book for the Philadelphia-South Jersey family in , he stabbed a longshoreman to death in a South Philadelphia diner in an argument over a booth to sit in.

Scarfo was convicted and served time. Scarfo bided his time in the crime family throughout the s. One was his underboss, Peter Casella, an expert in bomb making who felt unappreciated. Once again, the Genovese stepped in to crown the new boss, and selected Testa lieutenant Scarfo.

The trick-or-treater pulled a machine pistol out of his bag and opened fire. Nicky Jr. The elder Scarfo was trying to run his crime family from prison by using his son as a proxy. Shortly after the shooting Nicky Jr. The man tapped to keep watch over him was the late George Fresolone, a crime family soldier heavily involved in gambling and loansharking.

He wore a body wire to record conversations and his phones were tapped. Only the shotgun slaying of mob boss Angelo Bruno outside his Snyder Avenue row home in and the ambush of mob boss John Stanfa in the middle of rush hour traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway in compare.

But Fresolone as well as several other cooperators and many law enforcement sources point to Joey Merlino as the gunman that night. Merlino has repeatedly denied the allegation. He said he was on strict, supervised release at the time awaiting sentencing for an armed truck robbery and was not allowed out after 7 pm. This led to another bizarre, dark comedic twist to the Scarfo-Merlino saga.

But by , the friendship had soured. The Merlino brothers were demoted, taken down to the rank of soldier and Scarfo was threatening to kill them and their families. Fortunately for the Merlinos, Scarfo was the focus of intense law enforcement attention at the time. His eventual arrest and conviction along with the Merlino brothers and more than a dozen other members of his organization short-circuited his blood lust.

But that left his son out of the streets to deal with a crime family decimated by the violence and mismanagement of Little Nicky. Nearly 20 more were indicted and sentenced to prison. My uncle got him involved with trying to keep control of La Cosa Nostra…and almost got Nicky killed.

Thirty-two years ago, this month, Nicky Scarfo Jr. Scarfo assumed the top spot in the organization, and with Testa's young and charismatic son, Salvatore, as his top gunman, proceeded to avenge the Testa murder and solidify his hold on the organization. Ten prominent South Philadelphia mob figures were killed in the two years following Testa's death as a faction of the organization loyal to Scarfo did battle with a rival group headed by old-time mob leader Harry Riccobene.

Scarfo managed to sit out most of the Riccobene War, as it came to be called, in a federal prison in Texas where he served 17 months on a gun law violation. From his prison cell, authorities later charged, he continued to run the organization and to issue murder contracts on his rivals. Released in January , he returned to Philadelphia as the undisputed boss of the crime family and the kingpin of an ever-growing and prosperous mob syndicate. Teams of Scarfo henchmen had instituted a "street tax" in the underworld.

This was a weekly or monthly extortion payment demanded of bookmakers, loan sharks, and drug dealers. At its peak, the tax brought in thousands of dollars per week to the Scarfo organization.

While the systematic extortion made Scarfo a wealthy man, it served to destabilize the underworld and set the stage for the mob's eventual downfall. Murder had been the negotiating tool of last resort during the Bruno era. It became the calling card for the Scarfo organization. Bruno had emphasized loyalty and respect, albeit among criminals.

Scarfo ruled through fear and intimidation. Any real or imagined slight could set off the volatile little mob despot, former gang members later told authorities. Paranoia and treachery were rampant within the crime family.

It was all over for you. You might as well go to China. In , in an act of treachery that came to symbolize the era, Scarfo turned on Salvatore Testa and ordered him killed.

After six months of plotting and several botched opportunities, the murder was carried out in September of that year. Testa was gunned down in a candy store on East Passyunk Avenue and his body later dumped on the side of a dirt road in Gloucester Township, N. Scarfo ordered Testa killed, mob informants later told authorities, because he had offended mob underboss Salvatore "Chuckie" Merlino by breaking off his engagement to Merlino's daughter, Maria, just two months before they were to be married.

But others within both law enforcement and the mob believe Scarfo's real motive was fear that the young and charismatic Testa would eventually become a rival for power within the organization. Testa's father, Philip, had shepherded Scarfo through the dangerous and often fatal internal politics of the mob. Scarfo repaid the favor, law enforcement officials said disdainfully, by ordering Testa's son killed. DelGiorno and Caramandi had served as Scarfo hitmen during the mids.

But in , both found themselves out of favor with the mob boss. DelGiorno, who had risen to the rank of capo, was the central figure in a major New Jersey State Police gambling investigation. Both came to believe they were marked for death by Scarfo and both decided their only chance for survival was to cooperate with authorities.

Together the two mobsters testified before dozens of grand juries and at nearly as many trials. From the witness stand, they painted a picture of the Scarfo crime family and the murderous mob boss who ran it. Their testimony led to the convictions that brought Scarfo and his organization down. Lauderdale residence. The mob boss, handcuffed and led out of the airport terminal to a waiting FBI car, would never spend another day as a free man.

Over the next two years, he was shuttled between his prison cell and a series of court appearances. In , following three convictions and related sentencings, he was shipped to the federal penitentiary at Marion, Ill. The rise and fall of Little Nicky Scarfo took on the elements of a tragic Italian opera as it was played out in front page headlines and on television and radio news reports. In , in the midst of the highly publicized RICO trial, Scarfo's youngest son, Mark, then 17, attempted to commit suicide.

He was found by his mother hanging from a noose rigged in the bathroom of a mob construction company office on North Georgia Avenue next to the apartment building where his family lived in Atlantic City. Rushed to the hospital, Mark Scarfo survived, but never regained consciousness. He died in In , shortly after being sentenced to 45 years in prison on racketeering charges, Scarfo's nephew and mob family underboss, Philip Leonetti, cut a deal and began cooperating with authorities.

Of all the mobsters who "flipped" during the s, Leonetti's defection was the most embarrassing for Scarfo. Leonetti, nicknamed "Crazy Phil," subsequently admitted to participating in 10 murders while rising through the ranks of the Mafia. As underboss, he was privy to the inner circle of the organization and accompanied his uncle to several meetings with high-ranking members of the New York crime families.

His role as a government informant and witness, particularly against the bosses of other organizations, made him a valuable and nationally significant mob turncoat. In the underworld where Scarfo had built his reputation, this was anathema. In a comment to a private investigator in , Scarfo caustically referred to Leonetti as "my former nephew. Leonetti's defection came at about the same time Scarfo's oldest son, Christopher, had his name legally changed.

Chris Scarfo, an Atlantic City real estate broker, wanted no part of his father's "business," according to law enforcement and mob sources alike.