Philly Daily
ran my Crime Beat column on the 1993-1995 mob war in Philadelphia.
You can read the column
via the link below or the text below:
A look back at Philadelphia’s 1993-95 mob war - Philly Daily
Last month’s Netflix docuseries
Mob War: Philadelphia vs the Mafia portrayed the internecine Cosa
Nostra mob war in Philadelphia in the early 1990s between the South
Philadelphia “Young Turks,” reportedly led by Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, and
John Stanfa, the Sicilian-born boss of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra Organized
Crime Family.
The young mobsters, the
sons and nephews of the previous generation’s Cosa Nostra mobsters under
then-Philadelphia mob boss Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo, were South Philly
“corner boys” who bristled under the strict leadership of a Sicilian boss to
whom they felt no loyalty.
At the time I covered
the gang war as a crime
reporter and columnist for the South Philadelphia weekly newspapers.
I spoke to several mob guys on both sides, some of whom I’ve known
since childhood. They told me what was happening, but I could not use their
names as it would surely lead to them being murdered. (I was later able to
interview Philadelphia Cosa Nostra underboss Philip Leonetti and
Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Ralph Natale after they became cooperating
government witnesses).
I also knew and interviewed many of the people who were featured
in the Netflix docuseries.
One of the principal
people featured in the Netflix docuseries was Charlotte Lang (seen in the above photo on the left and I on the right), the former FBI organized crime squad leader
in Philadelphia. She was my quest when I was an on-air host and producer of Inside Government, a
public affairs radio program that aired on WPEN AM and WMGK FM on Sunday
mornings in the Philadelphia area,
Lang,
who then looked more like a blonde mid-western schoolteacher than a
racket-busting fed, noted that the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra members were
not as sophisticated as the New York City mobsters she previously investigated
during the famous Rudy Gulliani-led Cosa Nostra “Five Families Commission”
case.
“The South
Philly gangsters deal in traditional Cosa Nostra money-making crimes,
such as loan sharking, illegal gambling, extortion and drug trafficking, but
they are not involved with the type of high-level corruption and complicated
criminal schemes that we see New York gangsters engaged in,” Lang said.
George Anastasia (seen in the above photo), the
author and former crime reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, also appeared prominently
in the Netflix documentary.
I’ve interviewed George Anastasia several times
over the years, and I’ve reviewed his fine books about organized crime for the Philadelphia
Inquirer and the Washington Times.
I first encountered
him back in 1998 when
I went to hear him speak about his then just published book, The Goodfella
Tapes: The True Story of How the FBI Recorded a Mob War and Brought
Down a Mafia Don.
The book is about how the FBI secretly
recorded the mobsters during an internecine mob war, and brought down the local
crime boss, John Stanfa.
George Anastasia made an appearance at Borders
bookstore in Center City Philadelphia. He read passages from his book and
fielded questions from the crowd of about 30 people.
Like his two previous outstanding books on the
Philly mob, Blood and Honor and Mobfather, South
Philadelphia is featured so prominently in The Goodfella Tapes that
it’s practically a character.
“The Philadelphia mob is probably the most
dysfunctional crime family in America,” I recall Anastasia saying. “It’s kind
of The Simpsons of the underworld.”
How it got that way, he said, is what the book
is all about.
Anastasia talked about the 1993-1995 mob war in
and around South Philadelphia, noting that one failed hit man used the wrong
size shells in a shotgun (which was right out of Jimmy Breslin’s great comic
novel The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight) and how another mob
guy called off a hit because he had to report to his parole officer.
Anastasia explained that one side was old
world Sicilian and the other side was born and bred South Philadelphians, the
offspring of the previous mob leadership.
And the Feds got it all down on tape.
A minor gambling investigation led to the
bugging of a law office in New Jersey, where the mob guys met secretly (and
they thought safely) to discuss mob gossip, philosophy and tactics. Over the
course of two years, the FBI recorded 2,000 conversations.
“Goodfellas don’t sue goodfellas," one
mob philosopher advised a mob associate and potential litigant as the FBI
listened in. "Goodfellas kill goodfellas.”
The book offers a good number of other
insightful comments as well.
Anastasia said he became interested in organized
crime having been born in South Philly and the fact that his grandfather came
from Sicily. “I was fascinated because it’s the dark side of the Italian
American experience,” Anastasia said.
He began covering crime when he was assigned by
the Philadelphia Inquirer to cover Atlantic City at the
time of the gambling referendum in 1976. There was much talk about keeping the
mob out, but as Anastasia noted, they were already there. He later covered more
and more mob-related stories.
As I’m half-Italian and grew up and still live
in South Philly’s “Little Italy,” I asked him how he responded to criticism
from Italians that his extensive coverage of the “dark side” as he put it,
offered a negative image of Italians, the vast majority of whom were not
criminals.
“These guys are taking the positive values of
the Italian American experience; honor, family and loyalty and bastardizing
them for their own end. I think you should shine a light on that,” he said.
On the other hand, Anastasia said he took great
pride in the positive contributions that Italians have made to America and to
the world.
The
docuseries is still streaming on Netflix, and I recommend that anyone
interested in Cosa Nostra organized crime history watch it.
Paul Davis’s Crime Beat column appears here weekly. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment