No More Little Nicky

The old school Mafia guys are starting to drop fast in 2017.  Nicodemo Scarfo Sr. aka “Little Nicky,” the ruthless boss of the Philadelphia family, has died and it may have been on Friday the 13 or early on the 14th.  It would seem more fitting for Little Nicky to die on Friday the 13th.

Born in 1929 in Brooklyn New York, his family moved to New Jersey where he would grow up.  He was always trouble and soon followed his uncle Nicholas Piccolo, a made member of the Philadelphia family, into organized crime. Piccolo aka “Nicky Buck” became a capo under long time boss Angelo Bruno.  Little Nicky proved himself capable after a stint as a boxer and a part time gig tending bar.  He went out on hits for the family and was soon proposed for membership in 1954 and was inducted into the family along with two of his uncles.

Little Nicky was always a hot head.  In 1963 he stabbed a man to death outside a restaurant in Philadelphia.  The boss Angelo Bruno did not like what he had done and contemplated killing him but instead he banished Little Nicky to Atlantic City.  Atlantic City at the time was a former resort town that had become nothing but a shell.

Fortune seemed to smile on Little Nicky in 1976, when the state of New Jersey legalized gambling in Atlantic City.  He had struggled to make ends meet with a small bookmaking and loansharking operation.  In 1976 that all changed and he changed his direction. He went into the cement business with his Nephew Philip Leonetti aka “Crazy Phil.”  

They infiltrated unions and other crime family members had a rebar company.  When the building boom started, the cash flowed in and the cement company, Scarf Inc., was able to cash in on it.

In 1979 an Atlantic City contractor named Vincent Falcone insulted Little Nicky.  As a result, he was lured to a house where Crazy Phil shot him while the others watched. A plumber named Joseph Salerno Jr. was also present during the murder, but afterwards he went to the FBI.  They arrested Little Nicky and the others but they were all later acquitted by a jury.  They did find a gun in Little Nicky's home so he was sentenced to two years in prison.

In 1980 Angelo Bruno, the boss, was shotgunned to death in front of his home. The next boss, Philip Testa, aka “Chicken Man” lasted a year before he was blown up by a bomb planted on his front porch.  It was then that Little Nicky stepped up and took power in Philadelphia.

He immediately started ordering murders, including Salvatore Testa’s - the son of the former boss.

He was able to consolidate power in the city, and he started imposing a street tax on illegal activity.  He had many people murdered and he would leave them in public to instill fear.

The money began to pour into the family and he became the New Jersey version of John Gotti or Al Capone.  He had a nice house in Fort Lauderdale, Florida along with a boat named CASABLANCA The Usual Suspects.

In 1987 the Feds started catching up to the family and Little Nicky was convicted in the extortion of a builder.  He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.  In 1988 a massive RICO case was brought against him and 16 others.  He was found guilty on 33 counts, which included 8 murders, and he was given another 55 years in prison.  

Little Nicky was convicted the next year of another murder and given a life sentence, which meant he would die in prison.  He did manage to get acquitted in a retrial for that murder, but he still had to do the other sentences.

He tried to run the family from prison but it fell into civil war and even his son Nicky Jr. was shot.  Nicky Jr. would be inducted into the Lucchese family where he would become a capo.  Nicky Jr. is currently serving a 33 year sentence for various crimes. Crazy Phil, his nephew and former underboss, would flip and tell the FBI everything.

So the violent little man Scarfo is now gone. I am sure somebody will miss him, but Philadelphia and all of his victim’s families can breath a sigh of relief.

DiNunzio Brothers

The brothers DiNunzio have had a long history around the Mafia going back decades. Last week I wrote about the Boston Mafia or the Patriarca Family based in Providence, Rhode Island.

Carmen has long been thought to be the Underboss of the family, handling business out of his Cheese Shop in the North End.  Anthony DiNunzio is his younger brother who was the acting boss of the family until he became the sixth boss to be taken down in a very short time.

Carmen DiNunzio came out to Los Angeles when he was on the lam from things in Boston.  

He met a former Boston transplant Anthony Fiato in Los Angeles where he had done well in Organized Crime circles.  Anthony Fiato had hooked back up with Los Angeles Capo Mike Rizzi and they had gone to New York and met with the Administration of the Gambino Family.  They wanted to do their own thing in Los Angeles, start their own family.  Pete Milano the boss of Los Angeles would eventually bring Anthony into the family.  He was made and then he did his own thing.  Anthony would have over a million dollars in shylock loans on the street when Carmen hit town.  Anthony did not want to take Carmen in so he brought him to his old friend Joe Sica.

Joe Sica and his brothers were long time players in Organized Crime on the West Coast. That is why I find it very amusing when Hollywood makes movies about Mickey Cohen the so-called “Boss of Los Angeles.”  One of the guys that was close to Joe was Chris Petti who would end up in San Diego. Chris was close to Tony Spilatro and others in the Chicago Outfit.  Chris came up with a plan to get in on the ground floor of the Rincon Indian Casino. The Rincon Tribe was looking for groups to bid on, build and ultimately run a Casino on their reservation.  Chris had the perfect backers… The Outfit, and they had a long history of getting inside Casinos and skimming them.  

They had an inside man in the tribe, but the Outfit told Chris to find other investors because they had another casino that was losing money.  That is where the FBI came in with an Undercover Agent posing as a Colombian dealer looking to launder cash.  They would end up taking down Chris, the administration of the Outfit, Carmen DiNunzio and his brother Anthony.

Luigi Manocchio became the boss of the Boston Family in 1996 after many years of fighting inside the family.  In 2004 he made Carmen his underboss.  Anthony was a Capo in Boston using the Gemini Social Club as his base.

Carmen was soon involved in a scheme to sell the Massachusetts Highway Department 300,000 cubic yards of loam soil from a company he had an interest.  He then decided to bribe a man he thought was an agent of the Highway Department (who was actually an FBI Agent). The FBI had flipped the middle man in the deal and he set up Carmen.  Carmen gave the informant $10,000 to give to the agent and then he gave him another $5,000 in cash at another meeting.  Then they provided the agent with a sample of the loam that they would supply.  It would have been a great score getting a contract to supply loam to the Big Dig but the FBI took him down.

Manocchio was a greedy boss and his men did not like him and there started to be decent, so he would step aside for Peter Limone.  Peter Limone had been locked up for 33 years for a murder that the FBI and their informant Joseph Barboza set him up.  He was released after the FBI found “real” evidence and it only took 33 years. He was released and won a 26 million dollar settlement from the FBI.  He then got right back into the family and busted again.

In steps Anthony DiNunzio as acting boss of the family and what he finds makes him very unhappy.  He went right to work in Rhode Island to beef up their rackets and one of them was

the adult sex industry business (strippers, escorts, porn). The family had made big money from these businesses and Anthony wanted to bring that back to profitability. He had a Eddie Lato a Capo in the family start picking up from the businesses in Rhode Island.  Then he had sitdowns with senior members of the Gambino Family to let them know they would be hitting up a guy who ran stripclubs and adult Bookstores in Rhode Island.  They contacted the Gambinos because the guy was friends with some soldiers in the family.  In the 1980’s the guy was close to Chris Richichi a Capo in the family based in Las Vegas. The Gambinos gave Anthony the green light to shake the guy down.

The crew would meet at a Chinese restaurant in Boston Billy Tse’s until they found out the whole place was wired up and the Feds had taped them.  The FBI then grabbed some of them after a meet and found cash from the stripclubs on them.  

Anthony was caught on tape speaking about his leadership of the family.  He said when he took over he changed everything and that anyone who did not toe the line was shelved (meaning they were no longer active members of the family) Then he told the guy that anyone who did not follow his rules would be buried alive until they died.  He also claimed that even if he was locked up he was still the boss.   He would continue to dig a deeper hole for himself when he was a senior Gambino guy he spoke about sponsoring a guy to be made and then afterward the guy telling him he is 100% with him.  

Anthony would end up pleading guilty and taking a 6 year sentence on November 14, 2012.  His brother Carmen took a 6 year plea deal in 2009 so they are for now off the streets.