Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia
Original release date:Â October 22, 2025 (Netflix)
Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia is a three-part Netflix docuseries that chronicles the brutal 1990s power struggle within the Philadelphia crime family. The documentary details the bloody conflict between two factions: the old-school boss John Stanfa and a younger, ambitious mobster named Joey Merlino. The docuseries premiered on Netflix on October 22, 2025.
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Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia – Episode 1 | Transcript
[tense music playing]
[man] We just drove every day looking to kill people. That’s all I did.
Every single day, I got in a car, looking to find somebody on the other side just to kill them.
The sound of gunfire on the streets of Philadelphia, as organized crime factions have declared all-out war.
[ominous music playing]
[man] There was no plan.
We just shot every bullet we had.
It was just kill.
Just… just kill. Just… just kill.
[music swells]
And… that’s what I did.
[ominous music continues]
[siren wailing]
Every time you turned around, there was another killing.
[reporter] It’s just more evidence that a full-scale mob war is underway.
The shooting started happening everywhere.
It’s one hit after the other, more and more audacious.
[rapid gunfire]
These guys are out of their fucking minds.
[tires screech] It’s like something out of The Godfather.
[siren wailing]
We had to cut off the head of the snake.
[dramatic music playing]
[woman] It was a huge operation.
Failure wasn’t an option.
[dramatic music swells]
[man 1]
[man 2]
[man 1]
[man 2]
[man 1]
[screaming] [gunfire]
[man 2]
[tense music swells]
[sirens wailing] [indistinct radio chatter]
[hip-hop playing]
[man] When people think of the Mafia, they think of New York.
[gunshot]
[man] But Philadelphia in the ’90s was 100 times more brutal.
It’s a show.
It’s a show where they kill somebody.
It’s the affiliation.
[man] I grew up around the Gambino family, one of the five crime families in New York.
But I’d try to find excuses to come down here to Philadelphia.
It was just a ton of money, a lot of fun, a lot of adrenaline.
Prostitution, loan sharking, drugs, and it was 247.
But the biggest thing for Mob guys isn’t just the money.
[funky music playing]
It’s the life itself.
Philadelphia guys are like the Little Rascals.
They’re a wild bunch of guys.
Shooting shots all day.
Stay out all night.
They all grew up on the same block in South Philly.
These guys are tightknit.
[Ruthann] In the Philly Mob, everybody knows everybody somehow.
Everybody is just one way or another connected.
And it was fun, honestly, back then.
If you were associated with the Mob, you could do whatever you want.
You pull up in a brand-new Cadillac.
You wanna go into a club, you go in the front.
It was really fun.
[Johnny] Guys in New York would badmouth the Philadelphia Mob.
They’d say, “I can send down two killers and finish them off.”
And I’d laugh. I’d say, “Listen, you guys don’t know these guys, and they’re dangerous.”
[chilling music playing]
[reporter] Frankie “Stale” Stillitano found stuffed in a car trunk.
Mob murders are becoming almost routine.
[man] Philly guys held up their own against anybody, any crew.
New York, Chicago, you name it.
If they had to go up to bat, they’d bat.
They hit the ball.
[laughs]
[determined music playing]
But what makes Philadelphia different than New York is Atlantic City.
Atlantic City was always Philly’s territory.
And when casinos came, we started to see dollar signs.
[Johnny] All the hotels, the gambling, the construction.
It was a ton of money for the Mob.
And at the time, the boss of Philadelphia and Atlantic City was Nicky Scarfo.
[dramatic sting]
Nicky Scarfo was a psychopath.
[menacing music playing]
I put 40 years in law enforcement, and he’s the most vicious person I’ve experienced in my life.
But I’ll give you an example.
He killed a man with a butter knife.
It’s a butter knife, and you know the kind of force you have to use to penetrate the human body with a butter knife?
[reporter] How you doing?
Nothing to say.
I’m innocent. That’s all.
There was a lot of violence going on in South Philly when Nicky was in charge.
It was basically like the Wild Wild West.
Bang ’em up, shoot ’em up.
Bodies were flying everywhere.
[siren wailing] [menacing music continues] He was ruthless. He was paranoid.
Every time you turned around, another killing.
Nicky Scarfo, he was the most paranoid Mob boss, cokehead, that I could fucking think of.
The guys are found in cars and dumpsters and on the sidewalk.
Come on. You know, you don’t do that.
You don’t want the bodies found, because once the public turns against you, then that’s when the FBI get involved.
And then after that, it’s over.
[reporter] Indicted today, 38 alleged key Mob figures, among them Nicodemo Scarfo.
[man] What do you do for a living?
I invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution and decline to answer the question.
Nicky Scarfo is currently serving a 55year sentence in federal prison.
[reporter] The demise of the Scarfo crime family has now opened up the Philadelphia Atlantic City underworlds to the expanding interest of New York and Sicilian Mafia kingpins.
So who is controlling the Philadelphia Atlantic City Mob?
Who, if anyone, is operating for La Cosa Nostra?
[eerie sting]
[tense electronic music playing]
In 1991, I was appointed the supervisor for the organized crime program in Philadelphia.
There had never been a woman in the field as an organized-crime supervisor.
When I arrived, Scarfo was gone.
And with Scarfo in jail, there was a power vacuum.
So my job was to find out who was going to be the new boss.
But where do you begin?
[Stephen] I’ve been in this business a long time.
When it comes to taking down the Mob, nothing beats gumshoe.
[anxious music playing]
You’ve got to get out on the street, make informants, and get the information you need.
We didn’t have much in the way of informants at that particular point, and you can’t work organized crime without informants.
[siren wails]
But then, one day, the Philadelphia Police Department arrested, like, a low-level criminal associated with the Mob.
It was street shakedowns, extorting businesses, nothing real sophisticated.
[tense music playing]
This guy was a soldier in the Philly Mob.
So he knew who’s in charge now.
When you get them cornered, they’re gonna talk.
They wanna make a deal.
These are big, tough guys, crying to give you information.
They don’t wanna go to jail.
So when they talk about this honor and loyalty and all this omertà , it’s a bunch of tripe.
They’re all quote-unquote “rats.”
[man speaking softly on recording]
[Stephen] According to this informant, there was a power vacuum, but that vacuum was filled pretty quick… by a guy called John Stanfa.
But who is John Stanfa?
[menacing music playing]
When John Stanfa’s name surfaces, he’s probably in his early fifties somewhere.
You know, he’s from Sicily, a made guy.
And he was getting the backing of the five families in New York.
[Stephen] John Stanfa was old-school.
And the old-school Mafia was make money, not headlines.
And the five families trusted John Stanfa to try to calm down the violence seen under Nicky Scarfo and bring back order to the Philadelphia family.
[Charlotte] If he’s the boss of the family, he’s got to be directing criminal activities.
And we didn’t know what they were because he was just a guy who was going to work every day.
[suspicious music playing]
He lived in a very nice house over in New Jersey.
He was picked up by his chauffeur in the morning.
And he had a business called Continental Foods.
But we didn’t have any sort of crime to attach to him.
So that made my job harder.
We started looking at the guys that might be working for him.
Loan sharks, petty thieves, bookmakers.
Basically low-level soldiers bringing in the money and kicking it up to the boss.
That’s when we found the bookmaker.
Through our sources, we picked up information that this guy was gonna be meeting Stanfa…
[menacing music playing]
…at Salvatore Avena’s office.
Avena was a longstanding Mob lawyer.
We set up, uh, a camera on the front so that we could tape what was going on every day in front of that law office.
Sal was wellknown. Philly, South Jersey, everybody knew who he was.
He handled a lot of highprofile Mob cases.
And he would have a lot of guys coming in all the time.
[suspicious music playing]
And eventually, Stanfa shows up in that office.
[tape rewinding]
My gut was telling me Stanfa’s using that office for criminal activities.
[suspenseful music playing]
You just knew something was going on.
[Johnny] He started having his meetings thinking it’s a safe haven legally under clientattorney privilege.
[chilling music playing]
[Charlotte] But you know what? If you’re using a law office to commit crime, you lose that privilege.
[dramatic music playing]
[man] I was working as a federal prosecutor.
The FBI came to me and said, “If you have the guts, we think we have enough to bug Sal Avena’s office.”
And I said, “You’re asking a judge to authorize a surreptitious entry into a respected criminal defense lawyer’s office to put microphones in that office.”
“So you’re really asking that judge to go out on a limb.”
“Okay.” [chuckles] “This is…”
“Yes, I guess I have to have the guts.”
[mysterious music playing]
[Charlotte] I thought we had a really good case.
And as it turned out, the judge agreed with me.
[dramatic sting]
Once you get that affidavit approved, you want to get up and running really, really fast.
You don’t want to miss anything.
[tense electronic music playing]
And so the pressure is on the tech guys.
[man] People don’t realize, you just don’t wake up one day and say, “Hey, go bug Sal Avena’s office.
Here’s a microphone.”
And you walk in and do it.
It takes a lot.
Getting prepared, watching, making sure the comings and goings for a week or two before.
It was a big operation.
[Charlotte] The night of the job, I was incredibly anxious because if the bugging operation failed, it’s like, what is your alternative?
I mean, we would be back to square one.
[Gerry] We were dropped off at the building after midnight.
[tense music playing]
Within a few seconds, we were inside.
And laser focused on our job.
Sal Avena’s offices were on the second floor.
[anxious music playing]
There was a door with an alarm panel.
[beeps]
The lock and alarm guys were able to bypass the alarm.
And they’re in.
[anxious music continues]
We had to determine where can we place this microphone where it has airspace so that it can pick up conversations but it can’t be easily found?
I was in the basement connecting wires.
We were almost done.
And all of a sudden…
[static crackling]
[indistinct radio chatter]
I got word that someone was coming into the building.
[highpitched ringing]
[tense droning]
[unsettling music playing]
We realized one of the lock and alarm guys had dropped their bags in the vestibule of the building.
[tense music playing]
Is this guy gonna look in these bags and find tools and equipment and then come down and find us?
[eerie, suspenseful music playing]
[man breathing heavily]
[suspenseful music intensifies]
[highpitched ringing]
[man continues breathing heavily]
[music subsides]
Finally, they stepped back over the bags and left.
[ominous sting]
Why he didn’t look at the bags or say something, we’ll never know.
Our luck was good that day.
[tense, mysterious music playing]
[phone ringing]
[Charlotte] When they finally called me, I was having my second glass of wine. [laughing] And then it’s like, “Yes! Yes.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“Okay, we’re gonna be up and running.
Everybody’s fine.”
[ominous music playing]
[static crackling]
[man speaking indistinctly on recording]
[Charlotte] Once we were listening, we only have 30 days to prove that they’re involved in crimes.
Otherwise, you have to shut everything down.
[tense music playing]
[Barry] Now you have to intercept criminal conversations to justify to the judge that the surveillance, uh, should continue.
And I had agents sitting in the squad area with reeltoreels listening to tapes all the time.
[man speaking indistinctly on recording]
[indistinct chatter on recording continues]
We were working around the clock.
[tense music continues]
Taking handwritten notes.
[indistinct chatter on recording continues]
If you have two or three people talking at the same time, that can be very difficult.
[man 1] Yeah. Kill them.
You being serious?
[man 2] Kill them…
[Charlotte] We weren’t picking up that much, and what we were picking up wasn’t sufficient.
[man 1 laughing on recording]
[man 2] What’s going on? How’s everything?
Good. You sound bad.
[man 3] Yeah.
[man 4] What are you, nasally or what?
They were just, like, shooting the breeze, and no business was being transacted.
[Barry] A lot of work went into this.
Months of investigation.
And if it turns out no one’s going in there to talk, well, that’s all wasted.
[static crackling]
[Charlotte] So the frustration was building.
We had six days left.
And we didn’t have anything.
If we didn’t come up with something during that sixday period, we were gonna have to shut the operation down.
All that work, all that effort, and it’s like, we gotta get lucky here or something.
[tense music playing]
[Barry] And then, on December 3rd, 1991, the surveillance cameras showed John Stanfa going into Sal Avena’s office.
[static crackling]
[tense music continues]
[indistinct chatter on recording]
[phone rings]
[Charlotte] The case agent called me and said, “I think we’ve got something.”
And I read the transcript.
Stanfa, “We don’t want quantity.
We want quality.”
“Just because a guy, maybe he is a good earner, or this or that, I can’t go for that.
You know what I mean?”
“I don’t go for no money.”
“I no hungry for money because Cosa Nostra, it’s not for money.”
“Cosa Nostra.”
Key word.
My reaction was, “Oh my God, this evidence is amazing.”
Finally, finally, we got what we need.
[tense music continues]
[Barry] Here you have, one of the first times ever, some Mob guy was actually saying that term on tape.
[Charlotte] The thing that you have to realize is any Mob guy that was arrested, the defense was, “There’s no such thing as La Cosa Nostra.
There’s no Mob.”
“This is just a social club with, you know, older Italians playing cards.”
The defense was to deny that this organization existed.
Well, now you have the boss of the family talking about, “This isn’t Cosa Nostra.
We want quality, not quantity.”
He’s laying it out.
“This is what I want.”
“And I’m not getting it.”
And so, he’s confirming that he’s the one in charge.
So we went from zero to, “Wow, we might have a case here.”
[dramatic string music playing]
We thought that the Avena office was gonna be our gold mine.
And I just really felt, “We have a chance here to have another major takedown of the Philadelphia, uh, Mob.”
[indistinct chatter on recording]
[Charlotte] Everyone was working hard.
And we were getting such good intelligence on Stanfa.
But also, we got information that was really shocking.
[static crackling]
[man speaking on recording]
[Charlotte] It seemed like Stanfa had enemies.
Not everyone was happy that he was the boss of the family.
Stanfa was intercepted saying, “These guys, they basically have no respect.”
“They call us greaseballs.”
[Stephen] According to word on the street, the younger guys in Philadelphia, they didn’t respect John Stanfa.
He was an outsider.
And that created a lot of conflict.
[funky music playing]
[Charlotte] When I opened the case, we codenamed it “Young Guns.”
During the course of our investigation, we determined that this group was being led by Joey Merlino.
Joey’s father and his uncle were organized crime.
Joey was pedigree.
He associated himself with Michael Ciancaglini.
You did not want to cross paths with Michael Ciancaglini.
Uh, tough kid.
Joey and Michael Ciancaglini, they were best friends, and they created their own little army.
Joey Merlino and his crew were GQ.
Wearing Gucci, Prada. [chuckles] And they’re flamboyant. They throw it out.
The oldtime guys didn’t care about that.
That’s exactly the opposite that organized crime used to stand for.
[Angelo] Everybody liked Joey because Joey was a personable guy.
Dressed well. He drove nice cars.
You know, he was a handsome guy.
We went to school together.
He used to rob the lunch money and stuff like that.
Joey was wild.
Good guy. Just crazy.
We grew up together.
That’s what made us unique.
We were all friends, whether it was at the highest level, “supposedly,” or just measly bookmakers like myself.
You know, we all trusted each other.
[Johnny] Joey could pickpocket you, and you would say, “Thank you.”
[chuckles] You know, it was just his personality.
You know, he had a way about himself.
[Ruthann] Joey’s character to me, and I’ll put it this way, his own guys shouldn’t fall asleep near him.
He would go in their pockets and steal their money while they’re whacked out sleeping.
So when they woke up the next day and they’re hungover from hell, they don’t know where their money went.
Joey’s like, “You spent it.
You were buying everybody drinks.”
[Johnny] You’re not gonna get young guys listen to a guy that’s come in from Sicily into the States telling the guys in Philadelphia, “You’re gonna listen to me now.”
[tense electronic music playing]
[Angelo] To me, Stanfa was a zip.
That’s the term that most highend Americans use for people that are born across in Italy.
They’re zips.
Stanfa could have Sicilian mentality and old school and everything, but it doesn’t work here in America.
His old school don’t work here in America.
His Sicilian mentality don’t work here in America.
The Young Turks, they were, you know, roughandtumble street kids.
Very immature, prone to violence, extorting businesses and drug dealers.
And they’re gonna make a name for themselves.
They wanted to be famous.
[Barry] And a number of their fathers had been highlevel people in the Scarfo organization and were gonna be in jail the rest of their lives.
They felt their fathers had paid their dues, and now it was their time, and this was their birthright.
John Stanfa terribly misunderstood this situation.
He didn’t understand the thirst that Joey Merlino and his crew had to get control of Philadelphia.
[tense electronic music continues]
[Johnny] Joey was very capable of going and putting a gun in his pants by himself, get in the car, and go take care of business.
So I respect him for it.
You know, you’re a gangster who’s really a gangster.
John Stanfa was never gonna tell Joey what to do.
John Stanfa made a big mistake coming to Philly.
[tense music grows to crescendo]
[gunshot]
[siren wailing]
[reporter] 72yearold Felix Bocchino was found this morning at the wheel of his car on the 1,200 block of Mifflin Street.
He’d been shot three times.
The police say it has all the signs of a classic Mob hit.
It happened very quickly.
A person, or persons, came up to the car.
It was, uh, close range, and they fled immediately afterwards.
[tense droning]
[man] We hadn’t had a Mob hit in seven years, and now here’s a Mob hit in the morning, broad daylight, South Philadelphia.
[tense, eerie music playing]
Felix Bocchino was an oldtime bookmaker, and part of the Stanfa organization.
It’s a gangland hit, clearly.
He still had money in his pocket.
[keyboard clacking]
As a former Mob reporter, this is the way hits go down.
You hate to say it was very efficient and smooth, but it was.
It was a very efficient and smooth hit.
[reporter] Organizedcrime watchers say it at least signals a turning point as the Philadelphia Mob enters a new era.
[Stephen] In my opinion, it was a statement by Joey Merlino that we are not gonna follow you, John Stanfa.
It was a coup d’état.
John Stanfa just did not know how to handle that.
But he wanted to get retaliation.
There’s no question about that.
[siren wails]
[reporter] Last night, police say two gunmen pumped five shotgun rounds into the house, narrowly missing 29yearold Michael Ciancaglini, his wife, and two children.
[George] Michael’s Joey Merlino’s top lieutenant.
This was a message from Stanfa.
I mean, you’re firing shotguns in the neighborhood.
There are people all around.
What are you doing?
[tense music playing]
This was unprecedented, and it was shocking.
Traditionally, Cosa Nostra in the United States would not attack family.
It showed that whoever did it had no regard for what had been the socalled rules, if there’s rules about killing people.
It was just craziness.
And it had to be stopped.
That’s your worst nightmare because they do this on the streets, so it’s like the public can be in danger.
How do we contain this so that we don’t have more violence?
[indistinct chatter on recording]
[Barry] The whole time we’re investigating, and we have a wiretap up.
The agents and everybody was trying to figure out what was gonna go on.
Then we get this interception December 1st, 1992.
[dramatic sting]
[ominous music playing]
[Charlotte] Stanfa says, “We’re going to start the war.”
Oh my God.
[ominous music continues]
[Barry] You have two sides actively trying to kill each other.
As dangerous as Scarfo was, that’s even more dangerous because Scarfo, you just had this homicidal maniac.
Now, if you double that, you have a real problem.
[Charlotte] I had to get Stanfa and his crew off the street without more people getting hurt.
So we need more intelligence on them.
[Stephen] My division was working hard to develop information on Stanfa, and we would share it with the FBI.
[dramatic music playing]
Street word was John Stanfa made Joey Ciancaglini his underboss.
[Charlotte] Joey Ciancaglini, he’s the brother of Michael Ciancaglini, who John Stanfa tried to murder.
It is the City of Brotherly Love, and you have two brothers who are on the opposite sides trying to kill one another.
[Stephen] Stanfa owned a restaurant called the Warfield Diner.
And his underboss, Joey Ciancaglini, was the manager.
[Charlotte] We set up a camera on the front so that we could watch him 24 hours a day.
[reflective music playing]
Stanfa was spending quite a bit of time at the diner.
[Barry] Then we got authorization to put a microphone inside.
[Gerry] The Warfield Diner opened early in the morning.
And so we figured we’d have a window of maybe… maybe three hours to do the work in there.
So we would get our equipment prepared, and we figured four o’clock would be the latest to get out of there.
[reflective music continues]
I was incredibly anxious because this team is going to do something where their lives could be in danger.
Whenever you do any of these operations, and this one specifically, you’re… you know, you’re geared up for it.
You’re, uh…
You’re on edge. You’re a little nervous.
You’re hoping that everything goes well and nobody sees you.
It was a Mob hangout, so they’re probably armed.
And of course we’re armed.
And we don’t want this to turn into an ugly situation.
[tense, pulsing music playing]
[Gerry] We put in the microphones.
Everything’s working fine.
And once we’re done, we started tidying up.
[Charlotte] My whole group, it’s like, “Okay, we’re ready to go.”
“We’re ready to monitor this thing.”
[tense music playing]
[Barry] That first morning, one of the agents was in the listening post.
All of a sudden, he hears…
[woman screaming]
[gunshots] [indistinct yelling]
[tense music continues]
[phone rings]
[Charlotte] The phone went off next to my bed.
I looked at the time, and it was, like, 6:00 a.m.
And then I thought, “Oh no.”
“Are you telling me that one of the tech guys is hurt?”
The overnight operator said, “I don’t know, but the agent who was working the wire, he’s gonna call you.”
You feel like you’re gonna have a stroke.
At least that’s the way I felt.
[phone rings]
Finally, I got the call, and I was told that it was Joey Ciancaglini that was shot.
[reporter]
It didn’t take police long to realize that they had another Mob hit on their hands.
This time, it was inside this luncheonette in Grays Ferry.
[somber music playing]
[Gerry] I turned the TV on, and I thought I was dreaming because the local news stations all had cameras focused on this luncheonette.
And they were talking about this Mob hit that had just occurred within an hour or two after we had left that place that night.
Cherry Hill resident Joseph Ciancaglini was shot five times.
Police say that he works for Philadelphia Mob boss John Stanfa.
Joseph Ciancaglini is grievously injured and gets taken to the hospital.
I remember the paramedic saying that Joey wanted to blow his nose, but they did not allow him because they were afraid he was going to blow literally parts of his brains out of his nostrils.
[woman screaming]
[gunshots]
[indistinct yelling]
[Charlotte] I remember hearing the screams of the waitress.
You know, it was just… awful.
[tense music playing]
[Barry] Here was this absolutely horrific act.
It clearly did not appear to be a robbery.
Nothing was taken.
So we needed to examine the tape from the diner.
[ominous music playing]
[woman screaming]
[gunshots]
[music intensifies]
[Barry] We saw a car with three people jumping out, and we saw a car behind it, which was, like, definitely, like, a protection car.
It just takes a number of seconds.
It can’t be more than ten seconds.
They run in, they shoot, and they run out.
[ominous music continues]
[Charlotte] We figured one of the shooters was part of the Young Turks, but it was just a dark, grainy video.
There’s no way you could identify who the gunmen were.
It was very frustrating because here we had everything.
We had a wiretap. We had a camera.
We had, the first time ever, a filmed attempted Mob hit.
And we just couldn’t prove who did it.
[rhythmic music playing]
[Charlotte] Stanfa, he had come to the point where he was gonna have to do something about that younger faction.
I mean, to go into Stanfa’s diner like that and to pull off a hit so brazen, you know it’s really escalating at that point.
But at least we could monitor most of what Stanfa was saying.
[tense music playing]
[Barry] One day, we saw Stanfa going into Sal Avena’s office with Sergio Battaglia, who was an associate.
Then there was this wiretap interception, which was… astounding.
[Barry] You can hear John Stanfa and Sergio Battaglia planning the murder of Michael Ciancaglini and Joey Merlino.
[Sergio Battaglia speaking]
To hear a Mob boss so angry that he would describe in detail how he would kill somebody, I’ve never heard of… of that before.
It’s always done in code.
“You take care of that matter.”
You know, “Don’t bother me with the details.”
[Barry] They were talking about getting rid of the bodies and putting it in some type of readymade concrete, which would harden right away.
If that wasn’t astounding enough, Stanfa said…
[recording stops]
[Barry] It was chilling.
We were all shocked.
Shocked beyond belief.
What’s going to happen next?
Are things out of control here?
[tense, brooding music playing]
[Johnny] Now it was war.
John Stanfa’s desperate.
He needs to kill Joey Merlino.
But he makes a major mistake.
He goes outside of the Mob and gets someone crazy, uncontrollable… and very dangerous.
[man] I mean, I’ve burned people.
I drilled them.
I will say this, I had no morals.
It was just kill.
Just… just kill. Just… just kill.
And that’s what I did.
[music swells]
[music fades]
[tense music playing]
* * *
Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia – Episode 2 | Transcript
[tense music playing]
[man] I’ve made a lot of bad decisions in my life.
But the worst decision I made was joining the Mafia.
[door slams]
That’s how bad my life must’ve been that I didn’t even contemplate that reality of what was gonna happen.
I put my gun out the window, and we just shot the two people.
Just shot every bullet we had.
[mysterious music playing]
I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
I first started off in the projects and then, uh, spent some time in juvenile hall and boys’ homes.
I don’t know my dad. Never met him.
My mom died in 1983. She was 41 years old.
I would’ve been 16, I think.
And from there, everything just fell apart.
Well, I mean, I was already robbing people, but, I mean, I started really robbing people at that point.
I mean, I think I got 60 arrests or something like that.
So I got out of prison on March 10th, 1993.
[reporter 1] There is a bloody war going on in Philadelphia for control of organized crime.
When I got out, there was already a full-fledged war.
[reporter 2] Authorities say it is the bad blood between Merlino and John Stanfa that has led to bloodshed.
[reporter 3] In a Philadelphia mob war that is a throwback to Chicago of the 1930s.
[man] My parole officer found me a job with a construction company, which was owned by John Stanfa.
I didn’t know that at the time.
My parole officer obviously didn’t know.
And one day, Frank Martines approached me.
Martines was John Stanfa’s underboss.
He came up and said, “You know Joey Merlino?”
I says, “I know him from the neighborhood.
I don’t know him.”
He said, “You kill him?” “Sure.”
“How much?” He said, “Ten grand.”
I said, “Just get me the gun.”
[tense music swells]
[music fades]
[distant siren wailing]
[Charlotte] We had information that Stanfa was the boss of the family.
But he kept a very low profile.
He didn’t want any attention directed toward him being, you know, the old-world Italian that he was.
[tense music playing]
But the wiretap at Sal Avena’s office shows he’s not the gentle don that we thought he was before that.
I mean, he’s capable of doing just about anything.
[Barry] Everybody was concerned that this war between Italy and the old ways and these young guys from South Philadelphia was gonna be even more in the open, and that children, people walking on the street, people driving to work, were going to get killed.
[Charlotte] We had such good intelligence on Stanfa between the wire and a couple informants.
But we knew we had to find out what the Merlino faction were up to.
[Barry] Joseph Merlino had a hangout at 6th and Catharine in South Philadelphia.
Ironically, it had been the headquarters of Greenpeace.
[static crackles]
[Charlotte] We set up a camera on the front…
[static crackles]
…after the violence escalated.
It was just a matter of, “Okay, who’s gonna be next?”
“Somebody’s gonna get hit.”
[tense droning]
[Barry] Joey Merlino and Michael Ciancaglini, they were very, very close.
Like brothers, really.
Mikey Chang I went to grade school with.
Tough kid. Tough kid.
I remember one time, I saw him knock a kid out.
We were in, like, seventh grade.
I mean, he was brutal.
Good guy, family guy, nice guy.
[dramatic music playing]
[man] We would drive every day around South Philadelphia looking to kill Joey Merlino.
And I knew the area.
I guess that’s where my benefit to John was.
They put me with Phil Colletti.
He worked for John Stanfa.
[dramatic music continues]
[music intensifies]
[music subsides]
I used to just go to the hangout after I closed my catering place.
It’s like a little social club.
You know, coffee, soda.
You want an ice cream, it’s in the freezer.
That type of stuff.
They had a little kitchen in the back of the hangout.
So Joey says, “I wanna eat today.”
I said, “What do youse want?”
He says, “Make the pork chops with the cherry peppers.”
We call them “Pork Chops Joey.”
Basically what it is, you fry it, then you take cherry peppers out of the jar, you put the cherry peppers in there, cover it, bake them in the oven.
My God, forget about it.
So, you know me, I said, “Well, I ain’t got no money.”
So he gives me the $200.
I get in the car, and I go.
I go to the ACME.
[suspenseful music playing]
We drove past 6th and Catharine…
[horn honks]
…coming from 5th Street, which is east of that.
We came down the street. Michael and Joey was on the corner talking.
They proceeded to go across 6th and Catharine.
I said, “Just pull up.”
And that’s what we did.
Phil put his gun out the window.
I put mine out the window.
When we shot him, I’ll never forget, there was a lady unloading groceries in the middle of the street.
And we couldn’t move.
We had to move. I told the lady, “Get the fucking car and move the car.”
At that point, we got out of there.
[music subsides]
[siren wailing]
[Angelo] I’m gone about 45 minutes to an hour.
I come back. I see all these ambulances.
I see all these cars.
I see all these cops.
And I walk up to the door, and the door’s locked.
I can’t get into the hangout.
There’s cops everywhere.
I got two bags of food, like, you know, from the ACME.
So across the street is a knockaround guy.
He played cards. He sold Cadillacs.
I said, “What’s going on?”
He says, “Michael and Joey got shot.”
[tense sting]
“Michael’s dead.”
And I said, “Jesus Christ.”
I was like… I’d just lost everything.
Like, everything just stripped down, like, through my body.
I didn’t know what to do.
[tense droning]
[music intensifies]
[man] All we heard was, “Pop, pop. Pop, pop, pop.”
Like a… like a box of firecrackers going off.
[reporter] Merlino and Michael “Chickie” Ciancaglini were ambushed outside their Greenpeace social club.
Merlino was wounded. Ciancaglini died.
That was a major, major attack, if you look at it in terms of, uh, mob warfare.
That’s… that’s the leadership of that organization.
[Angelo] He’s okay.
[woman speaking indistinctly] [Angelo] I went to the hospital.
I remember as soon as Joey’s wife got out of the car, the cameras swarmed her and all.
I’m hollering, “Get out of the way, you vultures.”
Come on. Have a heart, you vultures!
[Angelo] Joey’s at the hospital.
And he says to me, “Where’s the 200 for the pork chops?”
[laughs]
Joey was Joey.
It just, you know, didn’t matter.
[tense music playing]
[Johnny] When Joey got shot and Michael dies, Joey took it in stride.
You get shot, you get shot.
We all got shot. We all got stabbed.
I mean, the guys that are actively out there.
When you put yourself on the line, these things are gonna happen.
But I will tell you this.
When I killed Michael, I didn’t feel anything.
And that part of me to the day, oh, it’s who I am, I guess.
I guess that’s who I am.
[Barry] After the hit, we checked the surveillance camera outside the clubhouse.
[tense music continues]
The video showed a white Taurus that had been in the vicinity and had gone past this clubhouse a number of times.
The gas pedal was really down at the Philadelphia Police Department to find that particular car.
But they couldn’t make out the tag on the, uh, vehicle.
We went to Philip Colletti’s house.
And I said, “Phil, we gotta get rid of this car.”
I said, “We’re gonna burn that fucking car.”
I filled the car with gasoline.
I remember there was change in the car from going back and forth over the bridge.
I said to Phil, “I gotta get the change,” ’cause there was one detective magazine that I read in jail that they got a fingerprint off the change.
When I went to get the change, I kid you not, I can still… I can see it.
Like, I can relive this with you a thousand times.
I see that match in slow motion just coming.
[music swells]
[dramatic sting]
And my hand was soaked in the gas, unbeknown to me.
So my hand went on fire.
[anxious music playing]
My hand went on fire, I wrapped it in my shirt to put it out, and my shirt went on fire.
So this is where I…
I don’t wanna laugh ’cause it’s not funny, somebody died, but it was kind of funny because now my shirt’s on fire.
Trying to put myself out.
[music fades]
It was not good.
[reporter] Within an hour, police got a call of a white sedan on fire in the 2800 block of 19th Street.
When they arrived, they found this Ford Taurus engulfed in flames.
[Barry] The Philadelphia Police Department was all over this, as was the FBI.
They traced that back to a car dealership, Battaglia Ford, which was owned by Sergio Battaglia and his two older brothers.
The same Sergio Battaglia who was picked up plotting with John Stanfa to murder Michael Ciancaglini, Joey Merlino.
[Sergio Battaglia on recording]
[eerie music playing]
[Barry] The agents go to Battaglia Ford, look at the paperwork, and discover that that car was leased to Philip Colletti.
[mysterious music]
And the agents knew that Colletti was an associate of John Stanfa.
It was utter, utter stupidity.
I mean, number one, you don’t do a hit in a car leased in your own name.
You don’t do that.
And then to simply set the car on fire…
You… you take it somewhere where they… they grind it up and bury it.
[Charlotte] That was pretty stupid.
They used a car that could be traced back to them.
I mean, listen, I never said I was the smartest criminal in the world.
I’ve never once tried to even portray myself as a good criminal.
[Barry] We’re putting together the pieces here.
We have the burned car, which was used in the murder, tying back to Sergio Battaglia from the tape, leased by Philip Colletti.
The detectives and the FBI agents go and see Philip Colletti and his wife, Brenda.
And she comes up with the excuse, “Oh, the car was stolen,” which was not believed by anyone.
[John Veasey] My hand was getting more and more painful.
I don’t know if you’ve seen third-degree burns, but the skin was peeled off.
It was gone.
It was just hanging.
Now, I know I’m smart enough to know not to go to the hospital after a murder, but my hand was turning black.
Well, at the point, I didn’t have no choice but to come up with something.
So I came up with the fact that I would burn my hand on a barbecue.
[tense sting]
Because I wanted to have the neighbor witness so I had an alibi.
So I threw lighter fluid inside the grill and, uh, lit it back on fire.
[anxious music playing]
And the damn neighbor didn’t come out right away, so it was burning for a minute.
I’m like, “Aah!”
[anxious music continues]
[music fades]
[Charlotte] One of the detectives on my squad came up to me, and he, “I’m going over to the hospital.”
“I’m gonna see if anybody had come in with some sort of a burn on their hands from torching that car.”
And the detective discovered that this guy had come in with a burn on his hands, and his name was John Veasey.
They run his name and see that he has an extensive criminal record.
[somber music playing]
When the cops came, I didn’t know they were FBI.
I never dealt with the Feds.
I’ve always dealt with local police.
I was never, like, a major criminal, right?
Just… just robbed drug dealers.
[Charlotte] When we interviewed him, what he said was, “Hey, you can talk to my neighbors.”
They saw my hand on fire when I was trying to light the barbecue.”
They were like, “What kind of barbecue?”
And I said, “My electric grill.”
The guy said, “Electric grill?”
I said, “Yes.”
“You put fluid in it?”
and I’m like, “Yeah,” so…
I never had a barbecue, so… I guess that wasn’t a good alibi.
That story didn’t add up.
And so we start investigating John Veasey.
[camera clicks]
But at this point, we don’t have enough evidence to arrest him.
[Mozart’s “Lacrimosa” playing]
[reporter] Thirty-year-old Michael Ciancaglini leaves behind three young children and a grieving wife.
He was shot in the heart last week during a mob hit.
[George] Then you have the funeral.
Watching Joey, he was on the church steps, and he looks ashen.
He looks tired.
And you don’t know if that’s because of… he’s burying his best friend, or because he’s recovering from being shot.
[reporter] Listen to his response when we asked him to comment on the shooting.
Go fuck yourself!
At that point, the Stanfa side clearly had much more strength on the street than Merlino.
Especially after Michael Ciancaglini had been murdered because Michael was viewed as the real muscle on the street.
[George] Stanfa was the Sicilian mob boss.
He had the old-timers around him.
He had the backing of the Gambino family in New York.
Who are these kids?
Looking at Joey Merlino, I thought, “Stanfa has won.”
That’s what everybody assumed.
[“Lacrimosa” continues]
I was hoping that this would cool everything down.
But that’s not what happened.
[TV theme music plays]
[weather reporter]
Yeah, showers today, high 60s, and clouds tonight with a low of 53.
[theme music continues]
[ominous music playing]
[Barry] It’s the morning of August 31st, 1993.
A few weeks after the Ciancaglini murder.
The FBI tells us that something serious had happened on the Schuylkill Expressway.
[horns honking]
[ominous music continues]
[George] I was having coffee with a police inspector.
And he’s talking on the phone, and then he comes back to the table.
And he says, “I’ve gotta go right now.
Stanfa and his son have been shot up.”
John Stanfa followed basically the same routine every morning.
This particular morning, he and his son are in the car.
And they drive from Medford, New Jersey, over the Walt Whitman Bridge into Philadelphia, and right onto the Schuylkill Expressway.
Now at some point, a van is waiting at the other side of the bridge.
And they pick up Stanfa ’cause they know it was routine.
[ominous music continues]
And they pull up side by side.
And they open fire.
[rapid gunfire]
[glass breaking]
[gunfire continues]
[George] Stanfa’s car was shot up.
The back wheel was blown out.
They struck his son, Joseph, right under the eye, and he was seriously injured.
[tense music playing]
And they rush him to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.
[horn honks]
[reporter] Mr. Stanfa, have anything to say about your son?
John Stanfa, reputed boss of the Philadelphia Mafia, wasn’t in the mood to answer questions today.
He narrowly escaped an assassin’s gunfire on the Schuylkill Expressway this morning.
This happened in the middle of rush-hour traffic on the busiest roadway in Philadelphia.
This was more shocking than anything that had happened before.
[reporter] This morning’s shooting is just one more piece of evidence that a full-scale mob war is underway.
[tense music continues]
[George] When Joey Merlino and Mickey Chang got shot, most people in law enforcement thought, “Well, now the question is, are they gonna shoot back?”
This is that response to that shooting.
I remember thinking, “This shooting is more Sicilian than South Philadelphia.”
“This is the way in Sicily.”
But it’s not the Sicilian mob boss who’s doing this.
This was the Merlino faction going after the Sicilian.
They’re turning the tables on him.
It was mindboggling, the audacity of it all.
It was that streetcorner bravado that was so much a part of this group.
Nobody’s gonna get over on them.
Nobody’s gonna have the last word.
And, “If you kill one of our guys, we’re coming right back at you.”
And it’s sad to say, but I mean, from a writer’s perspective, this story is phenomenal.
The van was abandoned and was recovered later.
Found to be stolen.
And two portholes had been carved in the side of the van.
[Charlotte] They cut out holes so they could stick their guns out and shoot Stanfa.
But they didn’t have peepholes to be looking at, so they’re just kinda shooting wildly.
[Barry] There were houses along that part of the road, and they actually pulled bullets out of the walls of someone’s house.
[Charlotte] When that shooting occurred, that was really the trigger that kinda got the press and the media worked up.
The sound of gunfire on the streets of Philadelphia, as organized crime factions have declared all-out war.
[Barry] There was outrage.
It was becoming like the Wild West, shootouts in the middle of the expressway.
It’s scary, especially when you have a baby, you know?
I don’t want to walk out the street and have my child see that.
[George] They’re running wild on the streets, and everyone is at risk.
Civilians, people who have nothing to do with this, are gonna find themselves in the line of fire.
You know, are… are we in Beirut or are we in Philadelphia?
So there was a lot of pressure on law enforcement.
[Charlotte] The head of the Philadelphia division, he was my boss.
He was adamant he wanted an indictment, and he wanted it, like, within two days.
“Let’s get this over with.”
“You guys have to have enough evidence to arrest these people.”
And I was caught in the middle because I was aligned with Barry Gross and the prosecutors.
And the prosecutors were saying, “No, no, no, we need more.”
[Barry] But if you’re gonna bring a case, you wanna make sure you have enough evidence for a conviction.
We have great surveillance.
We have incredible interceptions over 23 months from the wiretap.
But we didn’t have enough to charge anybody.
We needed a witness to tie it together.
It was very frustrating.
[tense music playing]
[Stephen] John Stanfa was furious after his son got shot.
And I think he was so furious that he didn’t have a stable mind.
It overwhelmed him.
He’s a totally changed guy.
He’s not worried about the organization.
He’s worried about retaliation for his son.
That’s what I picked up from the street.
We had a big meeting right after that where it was anybody that was involved with Joey Merlino’s side was to be killed.
Didn’t matter who, when, where, how.
I mean, when I say he said, “Kill anyone,” I mean anyone. Kids…
I’m like, “I’m not gonna kill no kids.”
But I would never tell John I’m not killing a kid ’cause I woulda got killed.
[tense, pensive music playing]
About four or five days after the expressway shooting, the FBI came to warn me that I was on the hit list.
They said, “We’ve received information that there’s a contract on your life.”
It was a very harrowing time.
I hated John Stanfa.
Here’s a guy that wants to kill me.
I don’t even know him, and you want to kill me.
I was nobody. Why you gonna kill me?
I’m just a cook, not a crook.
[unsettling music playing]
I was home.
And my mother goes shopping, and my father, and they come home, and they got bags to take in.
So I’m helping my mother, and all of a sudden, there’s a car beeping right outside, double-parked.
And it’s beeping, “Beep, beep, beep,” and I look, here it is, it’s John Veasey.
[unsettling music intensifies]
And he’s going, “Hey, I’ll be seeing you,” and he’s going like this.
I’m pushing my mother down, a little four-foot-nine, Italian heavyset woman, pushing her down.
I said, “Get in there! Get in there!”
And I’m pushing her as best I could.
Actually, I went over her.
I got over her at one point ’cause I didn’t know if this guy was shooting or not.
I mean, I thought I was gonna die right there if it was a gun.
[unsettling music continues]
[John Veasey] We would drive every night around South Philadelphia looking to find anybody that was involved with Joey Merlino’s side, and if we seen ’em, it didn’t matter who they were.
It was… we were… kill ’em.
I mean, plain and simple. Just killl ’em.
[tense music playing]
[weather reporter] Tonight, rain is making driving treacherous in the Philadelphia area.
Police have shut down Roosevelt Boulevard between 5th Street and 9th.
[thunder crashes]
[Angelo] I was driving around that night.
[thunder crashes]
Well, it’s thunder, it’s lightning.
There’s rain coming down.
Ain’t nobody hanging on a corner.
Perfect night to kill somebody.
[thunder crashes]
[mysterious music playing]
[John Veasey] Frank Baldino.
Just by chance, we was at a red light while he was coming out of a restaurant.
When you grow up in South Philadelphia, you just about know everybody, and Frank Baldino crossed my path more than once.
He wasn’t a guy that wanted to be an organized-crime guy.
He was just a hangeron with Joey Merlino and that crew.
We used to call him Arrowhead because of the way his hair… the way he pushed it back like an arrow.
This guy was a gem. He was a doll.
I mean, Frankie Baldino was such a good guy.
I mean, all he was was a bartender, and he ran a hangout.
[mysterious music continues]
[thunder rumbles]
I ran up to his window and shot him, I think, five times in the head.
[chilling music playing]
Baldino wasn’t a bad guy.
But it is what it is. He’s dead.
So I gotta live with it.
Stanfa was so desperate that if he couldn’t find Joey or whoever, he was gonna kill anybody.
And that’s the most ridiculous, shameful horror story, that guy getting killed.
[tense music playing]
[Johnny] As an Italian from Sicily, John Stanfa thought he could intimidate Joey Merlino with these murders.
That’s the Sicilian thinking.
But he should know better.
He should’ve calmed down and kept it quiet for a year.
That would’ve been the smart move to do.
But his ego got the better of him.
[Angelo] You know the old saying, “Never hate your enemy.”
Well, he hated his enemy so bad, he made bad decisions.
[Johnny] But at that point, law enforcement said, “We gotta get the guns off the street.
This is crazy. This is nuts.”
[reporter] Philadelphia police say, until they get the kingpins, all they can do is make life miserable for the mobsters.
That includes pulling them over to spot-check their cars and cracking down on things like sports betting.
The Philadelphia Police Department had a full-court press on these wise guys.
They put out every man that they could spare to stop these people.
If they sneezed, they would get a ticket.
And that helped to a degree.
But we had to take Merlino off the streets because this was gonna continue.
[tense music continues]
You could just tell they were becoming more and more brazen.
[tense sting]
Joey Merlino was still on parole from an earlier conviction involving theft from an armored car.
He was arrested in violation of that parole and was sent back to jail.
[reporter] Prosecutors say they nabbed Joey Merlino on a probation violation.
The 31yearold was required to stay away from known criminals.
[Charlotte] We knew he wouldn’t be serving a lot of time, but we figured it would stop the violence on the street for a period of time.
The perspective from the underworld and from law enforcement at that point is Mikey Chang is dead, Joey is away in federal prison, and Stanfa is still sitting on top of the crime family.
Stanfa has won. It’s over.
[rhythmic music playing]
John Stanfa threw this big birthday party.
And basically, it was a celebration that they’re in control now.
There was a gathering of John Stanfa and a lot of members of this organization, and the FBI were going to surveil it.
[camera clicking]
The surveillance agents must’ve been sitting in this van all day, and then, literally, who drives up, like, right in the spot behind him?
And we have this great photo of John Veasey.
Here he is right next to John Stanfa.
Linking Stanfa and John Veasey was just a great piece of evidence.
[music fades]
[tense music playing]
[John Veasey] It wasn’t long after that that my brother Billy, who was at a gym when he called me…
I was close to my brother.
The only person I was close to really.
He had raised me after my mom died.
My brother said there was a contract out on me.
And he tells me that John Stanfa wanted me dead because they thought the FBI were trying to get me to flip.
He said that Stanfa was gonna kill me.
I said, “What do you want me to do, Bill?”
He said, “I’m gonna call a lawyer.”
[tense music continues]
[Barry] It’s December 30th, 1993.
Very few people are in the office.
It’s the day before New Year’s Eve.
I get a phone call.
It’s a lawyer who I know saying, “Barry, Billy Veasey wants to speak with you.”
Introduces himself.
“I’m Billy Veasey.
You know my brother John Veasey.”
“You know what he’s done.”
“He’s not gonna do it anymore.”
“We wanna come in to see you.”
“When can we see you?”
And I said, “Right now.”
And he said, “Okay, we’ll be there in 15 minutes.”
We all waited in the conference room.
John comes in.
He had a watch cap down over his ears.
He was unshaven.
And he said he had to go to the bathroom, so I said, “I’ll take you there.”
He was tall.
He was tall. He was in the big-boy urinal.
I was in a little-boy urinal.
I know that. [exhales] And he looks at me, and he said…
I said, “I don’t feel like I’m doing the right thing.”
And I said, “Yes, you’re doing the right thing, John.”
He said, “Everything’s gonna be fine.”
I’d never been in a government building in my life.
All I know, there was a lot of people there.
There was somebody else in the room that said, “Well, how do we know you know anything?”
And I said, “Well, you’re investigating two murders, and I did ’em both, so I… I think I know.”
[pensive music playing]
[Barry] We had all been working so hard for years.
We needed this one break.
We had the murders and the extortions.
We had all this corroborative evidence.
We had the wiretaps.
But we needed a witness to tie it together, and here comes John Veasey and just lays it all out.
[John Veasey speaking on recording]
He told us about all the people he extorted on behalf and at the direction of John Stanfa.
[John Veasey speaking on recording]
[Barry] There was no polish.
He was a guy who drilled, as part of an extortion, drilled a guy, and when the drill bit broke in his head, brought it back to Sears Roebuck and told the guy and got a new bit.
What made him so believable is he didn’t say, “I did this, but…”
I mean, he didn’t try to clean himself up.
He was who he was.
I felt confident because we had our witness.
We had the person who did two of the murders.
We had the person who had done a lot of the extortions.
But being a cooperating witness is a very risky business.
[tense music playing]
[John Veasey] After I left the Feds, I went to a restaurant with Frank Martines and Al Pajamas.
The reason they called him Al Pajamas was ’cause he was known to put people to sleep.
They said, uh, “We got this guy stealing money, and we want you to handle it.”
I said, “Okay.”
So they took me to a butcher shop.
We get upstairs and Al starts writing down these numbers.
Like five over one.
I don’t know anything about numbers.
I never made a bet in my life.
I’m down like this, trying to see this little-ass writing, like microscopic writing.
Frankie came out.
Bam! He just shot me three times.
He’s like, “Bye, JohnJohn.”
I put my hand on my head. I’m like, “Did you hit me with a hammer?”
He’s like, “You’re dead.” “Dead?”
I looked at my hand.
It was kind of stuck to my head for a little bit ’cause of the blood.
I looked, and I’m like, “You shot me?”
And as I turned around, he shot me again.
[gunshot] In the chest this time.
So at that point, I rushed him because I needed to get that gun.
[frantic music playing]
Then the motherfucker pulled a knife out.
Like, I’m like, “Goddamn!”
I’m like, “This is not going good.”
And he’s like, “Cut his throat! Cut his throat!”
As we’re wrestling, the knife falls on the floor.
I grabbed the knife, and I just reached up and stabbed him.
I guess it went in the side of his head.
I don’t know where I stabbed him at, but I stabbed him pretty good.
So I got out of there, and I ran.
[tense music playing]
[Barry] It was Friday night, I guess after ten o’clock.
We were in the den, my wife and I and our very young son.
[phone rings]
I get a phone call.
“John Veasey has just been shot in the head.”
“He’s on the way to the hospital.”
[Charlotte] The detective said, “From talking to the two doctors that I talked to, they think he’s gonna make it.”
I said, “Are you kidding me?”
“Shot two times in the head and once in the chest, and he’s gonna make it?”
[Stephen] John Veasey was probably the toughest individual I ever met.
He was a legitimate tough guy.
[laughs] They shot him.
The bullet bounced off of his head.
They stabbed him.
He took the knife out of hisself and assaulted the two people that were trying to kill him.
[tense music continues]
While I was at the hospital, John sent a hit squad to the hospital to get me.
The FBI caught one of them, and then after that, they shut the hospital down.
They moved every patient.
Like, I was… I was the only one there.
When I woke up, my brother came.
He said, “This is all my fault.”
“I should never have made you do this.”
I said, “Listen, I did it.”
“You didn’t do what I did.”
“I committed the crime, but I did it. That’s it.”
“Don’t feel bad. I mean, I’m alive.”” But they weren’t sure that I was gonna be okay.
Some people will say I’m not okay.
My brain’s messed up.
[Barry] We were very fortunate.
John was very fortunate that he lived.
[tense, pulsing music playing]
[George] It’s John Stanfa’s worst nightmare.
Not only do these guys not kill Veasey, Veasey lived to tell the story, and now he’s gonna tell it to the whole world.
[Barry] We had the John Veasey testimony, but we also had the interceptions where Stanfa was talking about killing Michael Ciancaglini, who John Veasey eventually killed.
[Sergio Battaglia speaking on recording]
[John Stanfa speaking on recording]
[John Veasey speaking on recording]
[Barry] We had a photograph with him and John Stanfa…
[camera clicks]
…that precludes the defense from saying, “Who is this John Veasey?
He’s just making this up.”
[tense music continues]
[Charlotte]
When the indictments came down, I can remember we were gonna do this massive arrest of 20something people.
And I had sleepless nights thinking, “Oh, what if something goes wrong?”
[George] I had gotten a call from a high-ranking Philadelphia police official, who said to me, “You might want to be outside Stanfa’s house tomorrow morning, early.”
And I was there, and a TV camera guy who also got tipped.
And then the FBI guys pull up.
I think there were four of them.
Then they went in, and then a couple minutes later, Stanfa’s dressed, comes out.
[dramatic music playing]
[reporter 1] Mr. Stanfa, you have anything to say about your arrest this morning?
You joke.
[reporter 1] What’s that?
That’s what I got to say. You joke.
[reporter 1] “You joke?”
What’s that mean, sir?
[reporter 2] It was 5:30 this morning when FBI agents came calling at the brick fortress John Stanfa calls home.
Stanfa faces life in prison on ten counts, including murder, kidnapping, and extortion.
[George] I went from there to Philadelphia, where they announced the massive indictment and arrest of Stanfa and 23 other guys.
And that’s when it all blew up.
[reporter] This morning it looked like a who’s who of the Stanfa family.
Agents brought them in one after another.
Vincent Filipelli, Stanfa’s soldier and bodyguard.
Salvatore “Shotsie” Sparacio, capo in the family.
Salvatore Brunetti, an accused associate.
It was a good morning for investigators, who have been working on this case for two and a half years.
[dramatic music continues]
It was a long, old road to get to that particular, uh, point.
[Barry] We had all been working so hard, the attorneys, the agents, the police officers, the troopers.
I didn’t take a day off for two years.
So I was very happy.
The arrest really changed the whole atmosphere in the city.
[music fades]
But now, we needed to get convictions on at least some of the people.
[tense, mysterious music playing]
[siren whoops]
[reporter] Federal prosecutors walked into court today, anxious to put on their case against former mob boss John Stanfa and seven mob associates.
Courtney told the jurors they’ll hear dozens of secretly recorded tapes of Stanfa and the others planning mob hits and talking about mob activities.
You know, right off the bat, this is gonna be three or four months, this trial, because you realize the width and breadth of the wiretaps, the video, the witnesses, the crimes that were charged, the violence, the murders.
You know this is gonna be a big trial.
[tense music continues]
[Barry] I was driving to court.
It was about probably 7:30, eight o’clock in the morning.
I had KYW news radio on.
[reporter 1] It didn’t take police long to realize that they had another mob hit on their hands.
News flash, Billy Veasey has just been murdered.
[reporter 2] Billy Veasey was shot to death on the morning his brother, John Veasey, was to take the stand in another mob trial.
[Dave] Billy Veasey left his house that morning, drove down the block, got to the corner at Oregon Avenue, and two gunmen stepped out from each side of the car and blasted away into his car.
Billy Veasey was shot and killed right there.
It’s the first time a family member of a witness was ever murdered by the La Cosa Nostra here in Philadelphia.
When they told me they killed my brother, I was in the federal building, downtown Philadelphia.
And I collapsed.
[woman screaming]
My sister’s a widow at 29, and it’s fucked up!
[woman yells indistinctly]
[Barry] It was devastating.
Billy Veasey is dead, which never woulda happened if he hadn’t brought his brother in.
I was thinking, like, “That’s our job.
That’s our job to protect him.”
I mean, we’re in the United States of America, and he’s dead.
[reporter] As John Veasey was preparing to walk into federal court and finger the mob, his brother was gunned down on a South Philadelphia street.
The judge adjourned court early.
John clearly couldn’t go on.
He was devastated.
I mean, Billy was the person he was closest to in the whole world.
He felt enormous guilt.
Everybody thought this was John Stanfa sending a message to John Veasey.
“Don’t get up there and testify against me.”
We didn’t know if JohnJohn was gonna get on the stand or not.
[somber music playing]
Well, I’ll tell you, whoever killed my brother, that made me who I was.
I wasn’t sure what kind of witness I was gonna be, and neither was the government.
But at that point, I was all in.
[somber music continues]
People were like, “Holy shit. He’s gonna get up there.”
“He’s gonna get up and testify.”
There he is right there, looking like, “Oh, you think you got to me?”
“You think you killed my brother and I’m not gonna get up here and do this?”
[Barry] Remember, John was dressed in a suit, probably the first time in his life, and he had a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
And John was being cross-examined by maybe the best crossexaminer I’ve ever seen.
[John Veasey] And the lawyer said to me, “I notice you look all preppy.”
“Did you wear glasses the night you killed Michael Ciancaglini?”
I said, “No.” “Did you wear glasses the night you shot Baldino?”
I said, “No.” They said, “Well, you’re wearing glasses now.”
“Is that the look for the jury?”
I said, “No, your client shot me in the head three times, and my vision’s off a little bit.”
“That’s why I’m wearing glasses, now you ask.”
[dramatic music]
[Barry] The jury was out for a number of days, and they were sequestered in a hotel.
All the years and years of work came down to this.
Three, two, one.
John Stanfa’s reign as the boss of the Philadelphia mob came to an end with a big thud today.
A jury of eight women and four men delivered the final blow, finding the 54yearold mobster guilty of murder, conspiracy, extortion, and racketeering.
[Dave] It was a slam dunk.
John Veasey had buried John Stanfa, and everybody was gonna go to jail.
We have engaged La Cosa Nostra in combat, and we’ve been victorious.
It’s a proud day for law enforcement.
[pensive music playing]
[Charlotte] When they put Stanfa in jail, I thought to myself, “This is such a relief.”
“Okay, it’s like I can breathe again.”
[Barry] We felt a sense of accomplishment that we had done what we had sought to do, which was to bring down and convict and stop the Stanfa or Cosa Nostra family.
This was no game.
There was four people killed, dozens of people extorted and threatened.
I mean, families torn apart by their loss.
But there was also sadness because Billy Veasey was murdered.
[John Veasey] The truth of the matter is my brother is dead ’cause of me.
So I put it on my shoulders, and I gotta deal with that.
Today, I am successful.
Today, I don’t fight. Today, I don’t rob.
Today, I don’t steal or whatever you wanna call it.
I go to work every day, and I try to honor my brother.
I mean, I look…
Every day, I take a shower.
I get in the mirror and brush my teeth, I see my brother’s name… right on my stomach.
“In loving memory of Billy.”
It used to say “Bill,” but I got fat, so it says “Billy.”
If I keep going, it’s gonna say “William.”
[chuckles]
Uh…
Yeah, you know… [exhales]
[ominous music playing]
[Dave] Everybody thought, initially, the people who killed Billy Veasey came from the Stanfa crew.
It ended up they didn’t.
[reporter] Once inside his mother’s house in South Philadelphia, Joseph Merlino did not emerge again on this, his first night home from prison.
[Dave] In November of 1994, Joey Merlino came home from federal prison.
[George] And then, words started to filter up that the murder of Billy Veasey wasn’t about John Veasey testifying.
It was revenge for the Mikey Chang murder.
Joey Merlino’s top lieutenant.
Because Veasey had been identified as one of the shooters.
[dramatic sting]
[Charlotte] The whole focus was on Stanfa for so long.
I think we probably ignored Joey Merlino.
The Stanfa faction has been decimated by the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office.
So now, Joey Merlino is basically the victor in the mob war.
His group is in charge of South Philadelphia.
They’re the guys.
It’s their birthright. Now they have it.
[George] Still doing what you always do?
I’m here, ain’t I?
Joey Merlino is the guy who got under the skin of law enforcement.
[ominous music playing]
Police say the 33yearold mobster is ruthlessly consolidating his power, and he’s not alone.
[reporter] What do you think about this kind of publicity?
It’s all lies. It’s all…
It sells newspapers.
He’s a crafty guy.
He was always a step ahead of us.
[camera clicking]
[man 1] He now had the streets of Philadelphia all to himself.
[camera clicks]
So we needed to stop him before anyone else was killed.
[tense music playing]
[man 2] The FBI took the whole operation to the next level.
When you go into an undercover operation, you’re on a tightrope, and there’s no safety net.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
[siren wailing] [cameras clicking]
[music swells]
[music fades]
[tense music playing]
* * *
Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia – Episode 3 | Transcript
Am I to turn at all, or I’m good?
[Dave] I start as the Mob reporter at Fox 29 in 1994, and I spend a lot of time covering Joey Merlino.
Merlino’s parole may be over, but his days in the spotlight certainly aren’t.
A member of the Merlino Mob got his hands on a stolen Lamborghini.
Merli… There’s a truck. Hold it.
Joey Merlino gets a lot of headlines ’cause he’s a young swashbuckler.
[tense music playing]
He dresses well. He carries himself well.
He’s cocky.
[Dave] Joe, how you feeling about parole being over?
Good. We’re going to Disney World.
[Dave] You’re going to Disney World?
When he walked in a room, he took the room.
When he went to a nightclub, the lines parted, the velvet ropes opened, and in went Joey Merlino.
Joey became something of a celebrity.
Joey was not afraid of a camera, wasn’t afraid of a reporter.
In any give-and-take conversation, he could get the last word.
One time, I said, “Joe, we’re hearing that there’s a hit on your head.”
[Dave] The number we’re hearing is half a million dollars.
And he paused for a second, and he’s like…
Half a million dollars, I’d kill myself.
[chuckles]
[dramatic music playing]
I mean, it’s classic.
He knows how to manipulate the streets, the media, and he’s just a bright guy when it comes to being a gangster.
Ten years ago, if anybody had predicted you were going to stand on lot the day before Thanksgiving and give away 500 turkeys, would you have believed them?
Yeah.
[laughter] The media, they love the idea of the don in the neighborhood who’s taking care of the locals.
It makes a great story that sells newspapers.
But to the FBI, he was a mobster, not a philanthropist.
[tense music playing]
And he had to be stopped.
[Joey] For homeless kids, you know, they have nothing.
I always give to people.
Don’t make me a bad guy, does it?
[laughter]
[sirens wailing] [music fades]
[pensive music playing]
[John Terry] I started off as a uniformed police officer with a canine partner.
It was fun, quite frankly, being out on the street, chasing down bad guys.
But I joined the FBI because I wanted to investigate organized crime.
[beeps]
After Stanfa went to jail, there was a tremendous amount of concern about Merlino and the young guns still being on the street.
Illegal bookmaking, illegal loansharking, drug dealing, murders.
And it was down to me and my team to make arrests and get them off the streets.
We had assets that were following Joey continuously.
[camera clicking] [stealthy music playing]
[camera clicks]
Trying to get information about where Joey was going, who he was hanging out with, and if they could, what he was doing.
[camera clicking]
The issue was that Joey Merlino doesn’t wanna go back to jail.
Nobody does.
So he’s very difficult to surveil.
[woman over radio] 957.
They live with the mirrors.
Always in a back mirror, always in a side mirror.
[woman speaking indistinctly over radio]
[Stephen] He’s driving his car, making a radical turn.
[tires screech]
And if you make that turn, he knows that you’re on him.
[horn honks]
Joey became very hard to catch, hard to outsmart.
Joey’s always ten steps ahead of all these guys.
A lot of it’s intelligence, a lot of it’s luck.
But a mixture of both makes you very dangerous.
[John Terry] My team, we are putting together a RICO case.
We believe Merlino is involved in a racketeering-influenced corrupt organization.
First, we have to show there’s an organization.
We then prove it’s corrupt because of criminal activity.
There wasn’t much headway in terms of getting inside information.
The decision was made to capture on video who was coming and going from Avenue Café.
The Avenue Café was Joey’s place, his little hangout, where he sold cigars and stuff like that.
We used to play cards or dice in the back room.
It’s a place where guys break balls, tease each other.
That’s what it’s about.
Just because it’s a hangout doesn’t mean there’s nefarious activity going on there.
[John Terry] Joey and his associates were in and out of there every day.
Angelo Lutz, Danny D’Ambrosia, Stevie Mazzone, George Borgesi.
The list goes on and on.
The camera at the Avenue Café helped us understand who Joey was associating with and how frequently.
For a RICO prosecution, we have to establish there’s an organization.
And showing that he’s the boss and enough people recognize and respect that was the singular most important piece of evidence.
But we weren’t getting evidence of crimes.
It was very challenging.
[Angelo] You got a bunch of guys that grew up together, got punished together, went to school together, went to dances together.
Their families had deaths in the families, and they went through all that together.
That bond was like this.
The government could never break that.
[pensive music playing]
[John Terry] Joey Merlino and his crew… they knew what had led to other members and family members before them going to jail.
And they learned from that.
They were very safe in how they discussed their business and who they would talk to.
The FBI became enamored with the idea of a cooperating witness, a mobster they were able to flip.
And I think at that point, the FBI tries to approach Ron Previte.
[dramatic sting]
[pensive music continues]
[John Terry] Previte had worked at the casinos in Atlantic City as a security officer.
[camera clicks] Eventually, he got fired for stealing.
He ultimately was arrested for shaking someone down by the New Jersey State Police.
[man] You’ve described yourself as a general practitioner of crime.
Uh, what did you mean by that?
Well, I never specialize in anything, but there wasn’t much that I haven’t done.
[John Terry] We decided to try and make him a cooperating witness.
Working for the US Attorney’s Office, I had no illusions about Ron Previte.
He was a flat-out criminal.
But we could use him to help get evidence against Joey Merlino.
[John Terry] I went to meet with Previte just outside Hammonton in South Jersey.
And I just remember thinking, when he walked in, that he was a very large man.
[stealthy music playing]
Previte was rough around the edges.
He was a little tough.
He was a street guy.
He was what a wise guy should be.
We decided to offer him a contract that we thought was fair, $2,000 every week in exchange for him wearing a wire, gathering evidence at our direction of the different activities of the Philadelphia Mob.
His life would be in danger.
He knew that. We knew that.
[suspenseful music plays]
[music swells]
[music subsides]
But ultimately, he agreed to do it.
[stealthy music playing]
Why?
Because he didn’t wanna go to jail, and he was all about the cash.
But the problem was that Previte and Merlino, they just weren’t that close.
[camera clicks]
Merlino was a little cautious about Previte.
There were obstacles that we had to overcome.
Joey never trusted Ron Previte.
No one trusted Ron Previte.
If you ever saw a guy that you just don’t trust, that’s him.
[funky music playing]
But people did business with Ron Previte because they saw a way to earn.
[Johnny] Ron Previte, he’s a hustler, he’s a maneuverer.
And for Joey Merlino, everything’s about the dollar bill.
[John Terry] The goal was to get Previte to have access to Merlino, to win Merlino’s trust through tribute and respect.
That’s all that was important to Joey, was money and “They think I’m somebody.”
We gave Ron a Rolex Submariner watch with diamonds encrusted around the face to give to Merlino as a gift, as a show of respect.
Joey fell for the bait hook, line, and sinker.
[funky music continues]
Merlino invited Previte to talk about doing business.
It felt like, finally, we were on the right track.
[music ends]
And that prompted the FBI to expand the team.
[pensive music playing]
[Jim] I showed up in Philadelphia, and they assigned me to the Organized Crime Squad.
I was 27 years old, my first day in the FBI, and it felt like I’d walked into a movie.
One of the agents says to me, “We’re gonna go meet Previte.”
“He’s meeting Joe Merlino.
Let’s get Ron wired up.”
[John Terry] Titcombe was brand new.
I thought wiring Ron Previte was a great opportunity for Titcombe to see that this isn’t book learning down at the Academy.
This is what we do every day.
So I walk into his bedroom, and he’s wearing a bathrobe and boxer shorts.
And he’s got a jockstrap on.
Ron was about six foot, he was about 320 pounds, bald head.
He’s standing there like this, his bathrobe open, and he said, “Who’s this kid?”
I put tape from his navel to his chest, put the recorder in the jockstrap, and I’m looking around like, “Is this for real?
“Is this how this works?
Am I being punked?” [chuckles] I guess this is the FBI.
[suspicious music playing]
[beeping]
[John Terry] Ron goes to meet with Merlino at the Avenue Café.
And they start talking business.
And whatever distrust Merlino may have had of Previte was coming down.
Previte’s sitting in the meeting.
He’s got his feet up on a desk.
He looks down.
And he sees a piece from the recording device dangling out of the bottom of his jeans, where anyone who wanted to could see it.
[Jim] This is incredibly risky because if they find out that he’s cooperating, certainly they would try to kill him.
[tense music playing]
[John Terry] Without missing a beat, he just crossed his legs, put his feet down on the floor, concealing it completely.
[music fades] It takes nerves of steel to do something like that.
At the end of the meeting, Merlino tells him that they’ve come into a load of stolen bicycles and baby formula and asks Previte if he thinks he can move them.
[Jim] They had people who were breaking into the rail yard down in South Philadelphia and stealing conex boxes.
[pensive music playing]
They didn’t know what was in the conex boxes.
They’d just hook a trailer up, drive it out.
The deal happened.
Previte goes back to Merlino with an envelope and says, “This is your cut.”
Now you’ve established we can do business together.
It’s now Merlino directing Previte to buy stolen goods.
It’s a checkmark that goes towards convicting Merlino and others of being involved in a racketeer-influenced corrupt organization.
[dramatic sting]
[pensive music continues]
It was a great result.
Previte was becoming more trusted by Merlino.
We thought it was only a matter of time until Merlino brought something more serious to Previte.
Ron meets with Joey Merlino one day.
He comes back after the meeting, and he tells us that Joey introduced him to “his guy” in Boston.
[camera clicks] Bobby Luisi.
Bobby’s one of the major players in the Mob.
Bobby’s got a history of narcotics.
[John Terry] Bobby Luisi was well-known for selling drugs.
And we believed he was still selling drugs.
Why does Merlino want Previte to deal with Luisi?
‘Cause he knows Luisi can move cocaine.
Why is that important?
Because Merlino’s gonna profit from it.
When Joey makes that introduction, Previte, in a strategic stroke of genius, responds to Joey, “Well, that’s great.
I’ve got a guy in Boston too.”
Thinking that that was an opportunity for us to introduce an undercover agent.
[stealthy music playing]
[Mike] John Terry called me.
He said, “We have this golden opportunity.”
“We got a chance to make a case against Luisi in Boston and Merlino in Philadelphia.”
Right away, those are two magic names to the FBI.
That adrenaline kicked in, and I was like, “Yeah.”
“Where do I sign up?”
The idea is Luisi sells cocaine to Mike McGowan, and Luisi would give the portion of the proceeds to Merlino.
So it links Merlino to the drug sale to McGowan.
[distant siren wailing]
The cover story was that Mike’s an import-export guy, which is code for, “I can do drugs. I can do stolen stuff.”
It’s tailormade for anything you want it to be.
[tense music playing]
[Mike] I have a business out at Logan Airport.
The Irish International Office.
And because I’m supposed to be involved in Irish goods, it was packed with Irish flags, dolls, leprechauns.
I got so sick of Irish stuff.
[clock ticking]
When we were preparing for the first meeting, the technical squad had come into my office and wired it for audio and video, and the camera had been placed behind the desk inside a clock.
[clock ticking]
[tense music swells]
[tense music continues]
We can capture video looking directly at the wise guys.
Very clear and easy to identify who they are.
And the audio, you just don’t get opportunities like this very often.
[Mike] The first meeting, that was a big day because I was basically auditioning in front of them.
And if I had flunked the audition, we were done in Boston in one day.
[John Terry] If the initial meeting is not successful, not only is the undercover operation dead, but there’s a significant risk to Previte and Mike McGowan of being hurt or killed.
[Ron laughs]
[Ron] Yeah.
You’re on a tightrope, and there’s no safety net.
[menacing music playing]
One slip, you can get killed.
[menacing music continues]
[clock continues ticking]
[Mike] I’m trying to convince them that I worked well with Previte, made him a lot of money in Philadelphia.
I can do the same in Boston.
[Mike] At that point, Luisi and Previte had asked me to leave the room so they could talk privately.
Yeah.
[Mike] I was very nervous.
There are thousands of thoughts going through your mind.
[ominous music swells]
[clock continues ticking]
[unsettling music playing]
[clock continues ticking]
They talked for about five minutes, and then I came back in.
[unsettling music continues]
And then he says…
[Mike] …”You’re with us.”
[tense music playing]
In the Mafia, “You’re with us” is a very important statement.
He’s saying, “You will work for me under my protection.”
[clock continues ticking]
Inside, I was like, “Boom.”
We couldn’t have had a better result.
Now it’s time to turn it on and set up some deals.
[music swells]
[music fades]
[clock continues ticking]
Mike was now on the inside, and we were making significant headway.
[Bobby] Eh…
We can now move to the next phase, which is to introduce the cocaine deal.
[pensive music playing]
I told Luisi the person who had given me the diamonds wanted to exchange it not in cash but in cocaine.
[Mike speaking]
[Mike] He wants to swap.
[Bobby] He wants to swap.
He wants three bricks for the diamonds.
Three bricks are street slang for three kilograms of cocaine.
[tense droning]
[tense music playing]
We were in trouble.
[tense music continues]
I followed him outside down into a stairwell.
That meeting is critical, and if it doesn’t work, there’s a lot at stake.
[Bobby] Yeah.
[brooding music playing]
[Mike] That was a bad day.
The deal didn’t come together.
We’re working hard to make this happen, but if I can’t do my job, we’re done.
[Jim] The cocaine deal, it’s not happening.
It’s a big black hole in the operation.
[Mike] That’s when Previte set up a three-way call between Luisi in Boston and Merlino in Philadelphia to try to get the deal back on track.
[tense music playing]
All the chips were pushed into the center of the table on that one meeting.
[man clears throat on recording]
[rewinding]
“That guy, do what you got to do for him.”
“That guy” is our undercover agent, Mike McGowan.
Joey Merlino, by asking that question, just gave approval for the drug deal to happen.
[dramatic string music playing]
[Mike] In very coded language, but very clear language to FBI agents and mobsters, Merlino gave the green light for the drug deal.
Joey, in his own words, is now involved.
[dramatic music continues]
[Mike] We have that phone call on the 28th.
And on April 30th, I’m literally sitting in my office, and there’s a knock on the door.
[tense music playing]
And there’s a stranger there.
And he says he was sent by Luisi.
[man] Hey, traffic was brutal.
I’ll tell ya. Oof.
[Mike] When he introduced himself, he introduced himself as Bobby Carrozza.
And I immediately recognized the name because of his father, who was also in the Mob.
[woman] Okay.
[Mike] Okay?
[woman] Bye.
[Bobby] Okay, bye.
All right.
[door closes]
[Mike] He makes a comment about the window.
He’s being careful.
And he puts the briefcase on my desk and opens it up.
There’s two packages in there, two kilos of cocaine.
[Mike] They both have 215 written on them.
215 is the area code for Philadelphia.
As far as I’m concerned, as an FBI agent, that’s just like putting Joey Merlino’s signature on those kilos.
[Mike] Worked out well.
[dramatic ticking] [intense music playing] [Jim] It’s all on video.
Cocaine exchanged, deal done, deal consummated.
[music fades]
But, on its own, it wasn’t gonna be sufficient.
[pensive music playing]
[Barry] That surveillance video had the potential to be very damning evidence.
But Luisi did not handle the drugs or the money.
So there was still not enough to connect the dots.
[John Terry] In Philadelphia, there were unsolved serious crimes that we were trying to get information about…
[tense music playing]
…to see if Joey Merlino had any connection to them.
We were receiving information about his longtime Mob associate Ralph Natale…
[camera clicks]
…who was out of jail after serving 15 years on a drug conviction.
Natale and Merlino were housed together in jail.
They hatched a plan that they were gonna ultimately take over the Philadelphia Mafia.
[tense music swells]
[Stephen] Joey Merlino was actually under Ralph Natale.
Ralph Natale got the kiss from the five families to take over after Stanfa.
But Joey Merlino was the real power.
[Dave] How about Joe?
Can I ask you about him?
Joe is a good, solid young man.
That’s all I can say.
I know if I was in trouble, or in a foxhole, I’d like to be with Joe Merlino.
Ralph Natale is the boss, and Joey Merlino is the underboss.
But like any other puppet, you know, Joey’s pulling the strings behind Ralph’s back.
[music fades] And he had no loyalty to Joey.
While we’re still keeping track of Merlino, I authored 18 consecutive wiretap affidavits to bug Ralph Natale.
[tense music playing]
[crackling]
[Gerry] As a tech agent, you’re a legalized burglar.
So if someone happens to walk in, you never know what can happen.
[tense music continues]
The Ralph Natale apartment, it was a highrise building.
He was on the top floor.
They called it the penthouse.
Ralph was down in Atlantic City, and they expected him to be there all night.
Our job was to do a surreptitious entry to put microphones into his living room area.
[dramatic music playing]
The lock guys, they were able to open the door.
And a cat made a beeline for the door.
[paws patting]
[suspenseful music playing]
At the last second, one of the lock guys was able to block the cat.
[cat meows]
[dramatic music plays]
Or we would’ve been chasing him all over the building.
That wouldn’t have been good.
[suspenseful music playing]
We’re in there placing the microphones.
And the surveillance agent lets us know…
[faint chattering in earphone]
…”Gotta get outta here.
“Natale’s heading back.”
[frantic music playing]
We don’t have much time.
[suspenseful music builds]
Everybody stopped and started tidying up.
[music swells]
[music subsides]
Getting out of there before he made it home.
[footsteps depart]
[John Terry] We picked up some snippets of conversation on the wiretaps.
We found out that Natale and his son-in-law were making and selling methamphetamine.
The audio didn’t implicate Merlino, but it was a significant development.
[pensive music]
We made a decision to arrest Natale at that point in time.
[reporter] Today, the FBI announced the arrest of Philadelphia, South Jersey, La Cosa Nostra boss, Ralph Natale, this time for a methamphetamine sales conspiracy involving five other reputed local gangsters.
Ralph’s involvement in the methamphetamine is a death sentence for him.
He’s a convicted drug dealer.
He’s going to jail longer than he’ll live.
So it was a strategic decision on our part to make sure that we plant the seeds, that he knew if he decided he wanted to talk about any possible cooperation, we were receptive to that.
But he had given his life to the Mafia, and he wasn’t gonna talk.
So the pressure to get to Merlino just got ratcheted up.
We felt like we wanted more, and we needed more.
So now it was all up to Mike McGowan.
[music fades]
[pensive music playing]
The US Attorney’s Office weren’t satisfied that we had tied Luisi to the cocaine deal, even though he set it up, even though we had the phone call two days earlier.
But I also had to tell them there was no way that Luisi was gonna physically touch the cocaine.
That’s how these bosses think, that if they don’t touch it, they’re okay.
And the plan at that point was if we were able to get more cocaine, that I would try to pay Luisi directly.
[pensive music continues]
[clock ticking]
[sighs]
[sighs]
[sneezes]
That day I was in my office, and just like Carrozza in April, there’s a knock on my door.
It’s Tommy Wilson, a member of Luisi’s crew.
[chuckles]
[Mike] Yeah?
[tense music playing]
[dramatic ticking]
[Mike] Wilson had a paper bag with him, and inside, there was another kilo of cocaine.
[indistinct chatter]
[tense music continues]
[dramatic ticking]
[Jim] He comes into the office, takes a kilo of cocaine out of his bag, and then he puts it in the bag that Mike gave him.
That is beyond a reasonable doubt.
We wanted to make sure that Luisi was directly tied to that delivery.
So when Luisi calls, I told him I didn’t trust Wilson with the cash.
He would have to come meet me outside of my office.
[Robert] Special Agent Robert Callen.
We are in the vicinity of 171 Milk Street, approximately 2:05 p.m., videotaping an undercover agent at the intersection of Milk and India Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
[stealthy music playing]
[John Terry] Mike would get there early as the undercover agent.
He wants to make sure that he’s comfortable.
This is an ideal location.
There’s people walking around.
Where no one’s gonna see us.
[Mike] Within the hour, Luisi came strutting down the street.
This is our one shot to get Luisi taking drug money.
[tense music playing]
Just as I went to hand him the 24,000, a van blocked the surveillance post.
So I pull the money back.
Once the van cleared, I paid him.
And it’s crystal clear.
[dramatic music playing]
[Robert] Approximately 2:10 p.m., Bobby Luisi departs after making pickup from undercover agent in a Dodge pickup truck.
Doesn’t get any better than that.
That’s a home run.
We had him.
[distant siren wails]
[Barry] We now had Luisi on tape taking cocaine money.
[Barry] The US Attorney’s Office decided that there was enough evidence to go forward.
[tense music playing]
[John Terry] We had evidence of serious crimes, racketeering, drug trafficking, and now, finally, it’s time to arrest Joey Merlino.
[siren wailing]
[tense music continues]
[reporter] At seven o’clock this morning, FBI agents went to a second-floor apartment and arrested 37yearold Joey Merlino.
Why don’t you put in your newspaper they gave me a warrant with nothing on it?
[reporter] Are you related?
I’m the mother.
[reporter] You’re the mother?
Get out.
[prosecutor speaking indistinctly]
[John Terry] He was off the street, as were several of his associates and members that made up the hierarchy of the Philadelphia Mob.
[man] We’re here today to announce the arrest of 11 individuals, including Joseph Merlino, following long-term intensive investigations of La Cosa Nostra activity.
It is alleged that Merlino and three others conspired to distribute cocaine, and the cocaine was distributed to an individual who was, in fact, an FBI undercover agent.
[dramatic sting]
The shadow of the Mob had been hanging over Philadelphia for a long, long time.
Maybe it was time to see the light.
It was a big deal.
Merlino was finally going to face justice.
[dramatic music playing]
After Merlino’s arrest, I was told to be over to the Camden County courthouse.
[suspenseful music playing]
Ralph Natale was brought up into one of the witness rooms.
He said to me that he wanted to cooperate.
It was just an incredible moment.
Ralph Natale was the first sitting Mob boss in the history of the American Mafia to come in to cooperate.
And we accepted his cooperation.
[camera clicks]
Ralph Natale realized that if he was convicted on this drug case, that he would get a sentence which would make it very difficult for him to ever get out of jail.
[Dave] The fact that Natale is cooperating may be the worst-kept secret in the world.
Law-enforcement sources indicate that Natale is saying plenty.
He’s talking about Mob murders and about other Mob activity.
[Angelo] Ralph, the rat, traitor.
It was sickening.
Thank God he wasn’t involved over there with Vietnam.
He’d have gave up the whole United States, this guy.
It’s beyond me.
I mean, I did 32plus years.
It never entered my mind to be a rat.
Uh, and I can’t stand ’em.
I can’t stand ’em.
So many rats now, they all have podcasts.
[laughs]
[dramatic music playing]
[John Terry] Flipping Ralph helped us to add murder and attempted murder to the charges against Merlino and his crew.
Now we have to prove what we allege they did in front of a jury of 12 people who have no idea about any of this.
[tense music playing]
[reporters clamoring]
[man] Don’t trip.
[Dave] Joey, how you doing?
As big as the Stanfa trial was, this was even bigger.
Lots of media.
How are you doing today?
[reporter] Do you have anything to say?
[Joey] No.
[Dave] It was tough to get a seat.
Because Mob boss Ralph Natale was gonna testify against Joey Merlino and his crew.
[tense music continues]
[John Terry] Ralph was brought up on the witness stand.
[Barry] Now the challenge was to tape his testimony so the jury would believe him.
[Barry] Were you a member of a criminal organization?
[Ralph] Yes, I was.
[Barry] What was the name?
[Ralph] La Cosa Nostra.
[Barry] And what is La Cosa Nostra?
[Ralph] La Cosa Nostra is a descent into hell.
[woman screams]
[gunshots]
[indistinct yelling]
[Ralph] And whether it was an extortion, whether it was a beating or a murder, when you rise to the position of the boss, you rule over everybody and everything.
[dramatic music playing]
That would be Joey Merlino.
[dramatic sting]
[Dave] The 65yearold Natale admitted shooting two men to death.
He says he conspired with fellow mobsters to kill six others.
Natale even detailed his own Mob initiation ceremony.
He says it was none other than Joey Merlino who administered the Mafia’s secret oath.
[dramatic sting]
[John Terry] Ralph Natale was one piece of a puzzle.
But you need the entire picture to convict.
[dramatic sting]
With Mike’s videotape and Previte’s wire, we felt we had enough.
Now we have to wait until the jury comes back with a verdict.
[pensive music playing]
[dramatic sting]
[Dave] It was a four-month trial, and when the jury came back with the verdict, I would call it surprising.
[pensive music]
Joey Merlino, the hard-charging young Mob boss, is headed to prison tonight but not for life.
In a stunning decision, the jury rejected murder and drugd-ealing charges and convicted Merlino and his colleagues of racketeering.
Joey got convicted of the extortion, the loansharking, the gambling, but not of the murders, attempted murders, or drugs.
The drug dealing they lost because Joey was, on tape, very vague.
[Joey] Do what you gotta do for him?
You didn’t know what Joey was talking about.
Where on the tape was he talking about cocaine?
Joey was able to walk away from the drug case even though his guys in Boston were convicted.
[Dave] Jurors rejected the testimony of Mob boss-turned-informant Ralph Natale when they acquitted Merlino and his six codefendants of 11 Mob hits or attempted murders.
[George] Ralph was tainted by his criminal past.
He was looking at life in prison, and I think the jury felt he would say anything to avoid that.
The verdict was indicative of that.
[John Terry] We were disappointed not to get the murder and drug charges.
But Joey Merlino and others received jail sentences up to 14 years in federal prison.
And the city was definitely safer with Merlino behind bars.
Every boss is dead or in jail.
It’s as simple as that, and I’m sure that will continue.
We will continue to investigate organized crime, and we will continue to successfully prosecute.
[George] What the feds accomplished through that period of time, it’s one after the other, a victory for law enforcement against organized crime.
And each conviction diminishes the crime family.
[hopeful music playing]
[Dave] Does the Mob still exist to this day? Yes, it does.
Does it have the same clout?
Does it make the same money?
Do they commit the same violence and murders that they used to?
No, they do not.
[John Terry] In the 1990s, the FBI took out the leadership of the Philadelphia Mob as well as several made members and associates.
The Philadelphia Mafia was decimated and has never been the same.
[music swells]
[music fades]
[pensive music playing]
[tense music playing]
