Did a Trump Supporting Mob Boss in Philadelphia Rig the Election for Biden? Despite the Lack of Evidence, Some Say Hell Yes

No, the Philadelphia mob did not stuff the ballot box for Joe Biden.

"Never, never," the city's former Mob boss, Ralph Natale told Fox News. "They were told if you do one thing it will be the end of us for all time. This is their chance to become human beings."

Natale, born and raised in the South Philadelphia neighborhood that is the city's mafia home base, ruled the Philadelphia mob in the late 1990s. He flipped and testified for the government against his reputed successor, Joe "Skinny Joey" Merlino in 2000, after pleading guilty to racketeering, murder, and drug conspiracy charges. He also admitted to eight gangland murders. He says organized crime may resort to almost every crime imaginable but putting the fix in for Biden is not one of them.

"The Dems won the election fair and square," he said.

The prospect that the mafia interfered in the election to tip it to the President-Elect in the key state of Pennsylvania, was first raised on the internet by a Buffalo, N.Y. website and then amplified by several of President Trump's supporters. Jordan Sekulow, the son of top Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow, retweeted the claim that Merlino helped fake 300,000 illegal ballots for Biden, at $10 each, for a $3 million underworld score that handed the state to the Democratic nominee.

Besides Natale, authorities and Merlino's lawyer say the story is not true.  "This claim published by a disreputable website has been thoroughly debunked," Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner spokesperson Jane Roh told Fox News.

"Joey is a Trumper and any allegation of fixing this is just completely fiction. Maybe they should write a movie script, this is not reality," Merlino's attorney John Meringolo told Fox News. He says his client supports President Trump because "he is against cooperating witnesses and against making uncorroborated deals with snitches, which is what the president is against."

President Trump's personal lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who is also heading the campaign legal efforts, was asked about the possibility of mob election interference during an interview on the Fox Business Network. He said that "although there is an allegation of a mobster involved, but I think it's a far-fetched one."

South Philadelphia is largely composed of seven Wards, and the president won only one of them: Ward 26, with 54.9% to Biden's 44.3%. In all, the neighborhood went for Biden by a margin of about 76.49% to the president's 22.53%.

One source close to the Philadelphia mobsters told Fox News that the unusual voting block overwhelmingly backs the president because "he is a no-nonsense type of guy."

Natale has another view, noting that Biden, who was born in the state, has long been a strong union supporter. "Biden, Biden is a beautiful man. Quiet, he's nice. He has had suffering in his life, and he is not a braggart,” he said.

In fact, Natale gives the president-elect the highest compliment a made guy can give another one: "he's a man's man."

Natale was not only a member of the Angelo Bruno Philadelphia crime family for decades, but was also the head Bartenders Union Local 170, and says he helped the mob-run the Atlantic City casinos starting when gambling was first legalized in 1976. As a top union official...and mobster, he says he routinely dealt with elected officials and politicians. He was instrumental in helping federal prosecutors nail Camden New Jersey Mayor Milton Milan in 2001 on charges of taking mob payoffs, laundering drug money, and stealing campaign funds.

"They are so easy to bribe they will take an Indian penny. That's why they become politicians."

Natale detailed his life in his recent book, "Last Don Standing: The Secret Life of Mob Boss Ralph Natale."

Natale is now working with producer Dan Pearson of Dan4Entertainment (D4E) on telling the story of his mob days for Hollywood, who says "when you peel back the onion, politics and the mob are one in the same."

As someone who has been on both sides of the law, Natale predicts that President Trump will end up being indicted for what some have alleged could be business fraud charges by New York State prosecutors when he leaves office. "He's almost really broke, you'll see what is going to happen within six months," Natale says. "I think he is afraid that he will get arrested when is not president anymore. He is what he is. He has conned people...he is just a big liar."

President Trump and his campaign have continued to push unsubstantiated and false claims about the election in Philadelphia, which have caused Natale to pine for days gone by. "I remember when I was a little boy, every Italian home in South Philly had a picture of FDR, in a frame, and they put it in the dining room. They loved Franklin Delano Roosevelt, you know why? He called it as it was. He saved this country's life."

Thanks to Bradford Betz and Eric Shawn.

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Robert DeLuca Expected to Testify Against Whitey Bulger

In a Mafia induction ceremony in 1989, Robert Deluca drew blood from his trigger finger as fellow alleged mobsters burned a Madonna prayer card and vowed to never betray the mob’s code of silence.

“As burn this Saint, so will burn my soul. I enter into this organization alive, and I will have to get out dead,’’ Deluca recited in Italian as he became a “made man” in the mob at the Medford initiation that was secretly bugged by the FBI.

Newscenter 5 has learned that Deluca, who is a reputed capo in the New England crime family, has betrayed the blood oath. He has agreed to cooperate with the FBI and act as a star witness in the James “Whitey” Bulger case, several sources said.

In 1995, DeLuca was indicted along with Bulger, Steven “The Rifleman” Flemmi, James “Jimmy the Bear” Martorano and Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme in a plethora of racketeering charges. But, by the time Deluca and his codefendants were arrested, Whitey Bulger was gone. He was tipped off to the pending indictment and went on the lam until his arrest in Santa Monica this June.

While Whitey Bulger was on the run, Deluca pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy, racketeering and interference with commerce by threats of violence charges and served 34 months in a federal prison, according to court documents.

By the time Bulger – who topped the FBI’s Most Wanted List – was captured, law enforcement sources said Deluca was losing his Rhode Island power base as the Mafia’s leadership roles shifted back to Boston.

In recent months, Deluca vanished from his base on Federal Hill and has not been seen in the North End. His North Providence home has been sold. His wife and two kids have vanished. “We saw the moving truck there and they were gone,’’ said Grace Olsen, Deluca’s next-door neighbor.

Deluca is one of several mob bosses to “flip” in recent years. In New York, Bonanno crime family boss Joseph “Big Joey” Messina cooperated with the government to avoid a death sentence. The Philadelphia Mafia’s boss, Ralph Natale, also made a deal.

“Historically it was very rare,’’ retired Massachusetts State Police Det. Lt. Bob Long said of Mafia leaders becoming cooperators. “Now rumors are that Deluca is doing the same thing…

“It appears that the old days of following the code of silence, the omerta, of this thing of ours is crumbled. It’s like a bygone era,” said Long.

Deluca’s neighbor said living next to a mob boss had its benefits. “We were very sad to see him go,’’ Olsen said.

When asked if she knew about his cooperation agreement, she nodded. “Knowing him and having broken bread with him,’’ she said, “I think that he did what he had to do to protect his young family.”

Thanks to Michele McPhee

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Mobsters Heading to The Shore for Traditional Summer Vacations

It's going to be a real mob scene at the Shore again this summer. And police up and down the coast are getting ready.

That's mob as in M-O-B.

Wiseguys.

Goodfellas.

From Seaside Heights to Sea Isle City, law enforcement agencies are gearing up for a special group of sun-seekers who trade the sidewalks of South Philadelphia, Newark, and New York for the beaches, bars, and boardwalks of the Jersey coast.

It's part of a summer tradition.

"They go there to unwind," said Ron Rozwadowski, an investigator with the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice and former member of the State Police organized-crime squad that helped dismantle Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo's crime family back in the 1980s.

Rozwadowski, in fact, did a study on wiseguys summering at the Jersey Shore. Twenty years later, he says, little has changed. "It's easy to blend in," the veteran investigator said. "You have towns where the population quadruples. If there's 20 cars parked in front of a house, it's no big deal."

Crowded bars and restaurants offer easily accessible meeting places. A noisy boardwalk is the perfect barrier to audio surveillance. And the hyperkinetic action at the casinos provides another layer of cover.

That's not to say that all mobsters end their stints at the Shore tanned and rested.

Philadelphia mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino was taken into custody by the FBI at his rented condo in Margate in the summer of 1999, the start of what became a 14-year prison sentence built around a racketeering case.

The Scarfo crime family came undone in 1986 when the State Police bugged a condo on the Boardwalk in Ocean City where mobster Thomas "Tommy Del" DelGiorno was spending the summer with his family. And one of the most damaging pieces of video surveillance played at Scarfo's racketeering trial in 1988 was a shot of him meeting with mob informant Nicholas "Nicky Crow" Caramandi on the Boardwalk outside the Resorts International Casino-Hotel. The tape was used to independently support Caramandi's account of that meeting.

Ralph Natale, another former mob boss, enjoyed spending time in Sea Isle City, where one of his daughters had a home.

His successor, reputed Philadelphia mob leader Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, has spent several recent summers in Margate, just south of Atlantic City, where a proliferation of upscale restaurants and bars has turned the once-frat-party-like bar scene into a more sophisticated night out.

The presence of Ligambi and other reputed mobsters has not gone unnoticed.

"We just keep our eyes and ears open for the state and federal agencies," said Margate Police Chief David Wolfson, who heads a 33-member department. "We beef up patrols, we do different things," Wolfson said of the department's approach to the influx of tourists and summer visitors. "Our investigative unit goes 24 hours a day. They're always on call."

But reputed mobsters, he said, are treated no differently than anyone else. "If they break the law, they're arrested," he said. "But dealing with them specifically, no, we don't do anything differently."

Low-key and taciturn, Ligambi has spent big chunks of June, July, and August in Margate each summer since his release from prison in 1997 after his mob-murder conviction was overturned. A creature of habit, Philadelphia police sources say, Ligambi last summer routinely headed for his rented Shore home on Thursday or Friday and returned to South Philadelphia on Monday or Tuesday. This year, they say, he has been spotted at his brother's home in nearby Longport, a posh Shore community nestled between Margate and Ocean City.

Barring any unexpected developments - Ligambi is the target of an ongoing FBI racketeering investigation, and the feds have a habit of making their arrests in the summer - the reputed crime kingpin could be celebrating his 70th birthday in August at the beach.

Younger members of the organization are usually part of the weekend crowd at Shore towns up and down the coast. Law enforcement sources say many will end up at Memories in Margate on Saturday nights. The popular bar, owned by Philadelphia's iconic disc jockey Jerry Blavat, draws a young, hip crowd, a mix of movers-and-shakers, wiseguys, and wannabes.

Rozwadowski said the Shore has always been "neutral" territory. He recalled that, during his State Police days, a surveillance in Seaside Heights turned up members of the Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese, and DeCavalcante crime families getting together.

Even before legalized casinos, Atlantic City was a magnet for mobsters. One of the most famous organized-crime confabs in history occurred in 1929 at the old President Hotel on the Boardwalk.

Among those attending was Al Capone, whose trip home to Chicago was short-circuited when he was arrested on a gun charge during a train stop in Philadelphia. He ended up spending about a year in the old Eastern State Penitentiary. His former cell is now a set piece of the prison museum on that site. And while Ligambi might cringe at the ostentation, not every mobster has taken a low-key approach at the Shore.

Scarfo, in the early days of casino gambling, was often spotted ringside at prize fights in the casino-hotels. Other mobsters, before being placed on the casino-exclusion list, would belly up to the craps and blackjack tables.

For younger mobsters and their associates, the game of choice now appears to be poker, and law enforcement authorities keeping tabs on the mob at the Shore regularly check the posh poker lounges in the casino-hotels.

Merlino, even before his arrest on racketeering charges, was a lightning rod for law enforcement. He was cited for gambling in a casino despite the fact that he was on the state's exclusion list, and on Labor Day 1998, he was given a series of citations for public drinking, resisting arrest, and littering. The littering charge came after he took the citation for public drinking, balled it up, and threw it on the ground in front of the police officer who issued it.

He paid a fine to settle his criminal problems, but not before he and others suggested they had been "targeted" because of their alleged underworld affiliations. Not so, said the police.

Wolfson, Margate's chief, said he has taken a very basic approach to the presence of reputed mob figures in his town. "They get treated the same way as everybody else," he said. "If they're not going to drive me crazy, I'm not going to drive them crazy."

Thanks to George Anastasia

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Merging of Federal Organized Crime Strike Force Into Narcotics Unit Questioned by Former Prosecutors

The Organized Crime Strike Force, a prosecuting unit within the U.S. Attorney's Office that has a 20-year record of success in making cases against the Philadelphia mob, is being folded into a larger unit that will also focus on drug dealing and gang violence.

The changes are expected to take place in about a month, according to Laurie Magid, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Linda Hoffa, head of the office's Criminal Division. Both said the move would enhance the unit's ability to make cases.

Critics, including former prosecutors and FBI agents, said the consolidation could hinder the development of intelligence-based investigations and marginalize the fight against organized crime.

Magid said she wanted the same expertise that has been used against organized crime employed in cases against major drug gangs.

"Our commitment to fighting organized crime is in no way diminished," she said yesterday shortly after announcing the changes at a regularly scheduled staff meeting.

Magid, the former first assistant U.S. attorney, was named interim head of the office in July when Patrick Meehan, her boss, resigned.

"The strike force is not being disbanded," added Hoffa. "Far from it. We're putting together a stronger and larger team."

Nine federal prosecutors who work in the strike force unit are being transferred to new offices and will report to Thomas Perricone, currently the supervisor of the narcotics and dangerous drugs section. Perricone, who joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in 1994 from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, will head a newly formed narcotics and organized crime section.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Troyer, who was the supervisor of the strike force, will return to prosecuting cases under Perricone and will hold one of two senior litigation counsel posts created under the new structure. Troyer declined to comment last week.

Two former prosecutors who worked some of the biggest mob cases in Philadelphia history questioned the move, as did James Maher, a retired FBI agent who supervised an organized crime squad that in the 1980s and 1990s worked with the strike force to decimate one of the most violent Mafia families in America.

"That wasn't by chance, it was because of the commitment," said Barry Gross, a former federal prosecutor who worked dozens of mob cases during a career that spanned three decades.

A member of the prosecuting teams that convicted mob bosses Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, John Stanfa, Ralph Natale and Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, Gross said he was "surprised and disappointed" by the change.

Louis Pichini, a former strike force prosecutor who directed the 1988 racketeering prosecution of Scarfo and 16 of his top associates - a case that gutted the local mob family - said "the acid test will be in the implementation" of the proposed changes.

Pichini, who also headed the criminal division before leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office, said it was important for "the unit to maintain an identity and expertise" and to be given the time to develop long-term cases.

If not, he said, prosecutors working there would be interchangeable with prosecutors from any other section, and the expertise and mandate of the strike force would be lost.

Strike forces were set up in the 1970s to develop broad-based cases and intelligence in the fight against traditional organized crime groups like La Cosa Nostra and the Sicilian Mafia. Over the years, their targets have been expanded to include Russian and Eastern European crime cartels, Asian criminal organizations, and ethnic gangs like the Latin Kings.

In the Eastern District, the strike force left its biggest mark attacking the South Philadelphia-based mob that once dominated the local underworld.

Perricone said yesterday that he had "tremendous respect" for those accomplishments.

"Having grown up in South Philadelphia and seeing what the mob can do, I can tell you that not on my watch will I allow resources to be taken away," he said. But critics question whether what is being called an expansion is in fact a dilution of a unit that had a clear agenda and a defined focus.

One current federal prosecutor, who asked not to be identified, said that without a supervisor to advocate and promote strike force cases, investigations could get bogged down or marginalized in the internal politics and bureaucracy of the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Sources in both the U.S. Attorneys Office and the FBI have said that an ongoing investigation into reputed mob boss Joseph Ligambi and his top associates had gone "off track" twice because of bureaucratic squabbling.

Maher, who headed the FBI's organized crime squad in Philadelphia for nearly two decades, called the strike force "one of the most important weapons" in the war against organized crime. "Agents working the cases had attorneys who spoke the same language," Maher said in an e-mail response to questions about the consolidation.

He pointed out that the local mob family is built around "people who have grown up with one another in evolving relationships. ... To combat those relationships, you need agents and attorneys who don't need to learn them all over again when a case starts to develop."

Strike forces were once separate entities from U.S. Attorney's Offices. They were consolidated into those offices but remained separate units. Now they may be the victims of their own successes as well as the changing priorities of the Justice Department.

Traditional organized crime has taken a series of prosecutorial hits in most major cities and experts say that the American Mafia in 2008 is an organizational shell of what it was just 30 years ago.

In addition, the emergence of violent ethnic drug gangs, the proliferation of illegal weapons, and the need to focus on terrorism and its related threats have led federal prosecutors in other cities to reassign assets and resources, and consolidate strike force operations.

Thanks to George Anastasia

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A Look Back at the Philly Mob

Pop culture is riddled with more mob movies and TV shows than an unlucky gangster's body is with bullets. Americans are fascinated with the dark side and have made “The Sopranos” the poster children for the Mafia and Victoria Gotti, daughter of John “The Dapper Don” Gotti, and her spoiled-rotten offspring its royal family with the reality show “Growing Up Gotti.”

But contrary to what pop culture loves to portray, the mob is far from glamorous and exciting. Just take a look at where Cosa Nostra — Sicilian for “our thing” — landed South Philly's own tough guys, all of whom made headlines at one point or another: Angelo “The Gentle Don” Bruno, Phil “Chicken Man” Testa and his son Salvatore Testa got whacked, while Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo, John Stanfa, Ralph Natale, “Skinny” Joey Merlino and Ron Previte are all in prison for racketeering and murder among other offenses,

George Anastasia, who has written extensively about the mob for The Philadelphia Inquirer since the late 1970s and authored four bookson the subject, noted, “If you look at the list, you see where these guys have ended up,” Anastasia, a native of the 1700 block of Watkins Street who now lives in South Jersey, told the Review.

Bruno was the longest running crime boss and perhaps one of the most respected for the low-key approach that earned him his nickname.

Bruno ruled from '59 to March 21, 1980, when he was shot to death in his car with driver John Stanfa in front of Bruno's home at 934 Snyder Ave. Under the Sicilian immigrant's tenure, “he did everything low-key — he didn't do any public shootings in restaurants or in the street” unlike how later-day mobsters such as the ruthless Scarfo conducted business, Capt. Charles Bloom of the police department's Central Intelligence Bureau said. “If you had to describe Bruno, you could say, ‘make money, don't make headlines,'” Bloom said.

His attitude in life did not mark his death. His violent end received press from outlets such as The New York Times, which covered the fallout from Stanfa's trial for perjury in connection to the killing to FBI testimony in '81 that Scarfo was the new head of the family.

Stanfa suffered a graze wound in the Bruno ambush, Anastasia said, adding, “To this day there's conflicting reports. Some people believe Stanfa was part of the plot and he knew what was going to happen and others say he didn't. I tend to believe the former.”

Under Bruno's reign, the Philadelphia crime family was among the most powerful in the United States, trailing closely being New York and Chicago. The Gentle Don carved out a close relationship with Carlo Gambino, leader of New York's family — a friendship that saved Bruno when short-lived Philly boss Antonio Pollina wanted him killed in '59.

As the story goes, Bruno pledged his loyalty to Pollina despite being passed over for the job, but the new boss still felt threatened. When Pollina ordered a hit, Gambino intervened by not only halting the slaying, but putting his new friend in charge of the Philadelphia crime family. The first notch in Bruno's belt of civility was sparing Pollina.

According to Bloom, the Philly mob, which controlled this city and South Jersey including Atlantic City, has always been in New York's shadow and the former often cannot operate without the latter's blessing.

Bruno's death at 69 paved the way for a slew of flamboyant, young wiseguys to take the helm. “That totally destabilized the organization and it's been destabilized since then. It's been disorganized organized crime,” Anastasia said.

The new guns included Bruno underling Testa, who was blown up March 15, 1981, on his front porch on the 2100 block of Porter Street in Girard Estate by a nail bomb and later immortalized in Bruce Springsteen's song “Atlantic City,” whose lyrics say, “Well they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night/Now they blew up his house too.” The song, featured on the Boss' “Nebraska” album, which made it to No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Pop Album charts, brought the scene to the attention of countless music fans worldwide.

More than 20 years later, Testa's fatal bombing is still making news. An Oct. 7 Time article cited the killing in its piece “The Sicilian Connection,” which explores the U.S. Cosa Nostra's alleged link to the Sicilian Mafia.

Months after the Chicken Man's demise, Scarfo had Frank Narducci and Rocco Marinucci whacked for the unauthorized hit of his mentor, according to Anastasia.

Long before he ascended to power, Scarfo was banished to AC by Bruno in the '60s after the young hothead knifed a man inside Oregon Diner, 302 W. Oregon Ave, the writer said. Scarfo stayed in AC — a wasteland at the time — but hung around long enough to benefit from gambling when the casinos hit town.

With Testa gone, Scarfo took over in '81 and made Testa's son Salvatore a capo. That same year, Testa and two others survived an ambush outside the Italian Market, but three years later, the capo wasn't as lucky when Scarfo had the young man killed Sept. 14, 1984. So much for loyalty to his mentor — he had his son killed, Anastasia said, adding, “That's the way he was.”

Testa was lured to a now-gone candy store on Passyunk for a meeting, where a Scarfo hit man shot him, wrapped his body in a rug and dumped it by a dirt road in Gloucester County, N.J., the writer said. Scarfo told his organization he had Testa killed because he broke off an engagement with Salvatore Merlino's daughter, Maria, but according to Anastasia, Scarfo saw Testa as a possible threat. “He used the broken engagement as an excuse,” the author said. In years to come, Merlino's son Joey would become a reputed mob boss.

Scarfo held control for six years until his arrest and conviction for a racketeering case that included counts of murder, Anastasia said. Little Nicky got 55 years and remains in the Big House. But his impression was indelible. In a '91 Time interview with former soldier-turned-informer Nicholas “The Crow” Caramandi, interviewer Richard Behar refers to Scarfo as the “most vicious Mob boss of his generation” and proceeds to ask Caramandi about working under him, as well as the killing of Salvatore Testa.

In '89, Bruno's former driver Stanfa, who grew up on Passyunk Avenue near the Melrose Diner and later moved to Jersey, became boss. In '95, he got five life terms for racketeering and murder.

That opened the way for Natale. After serving 15 years for drug dealing and arson, Natale was released in '95 and became boss in an alliance with Merlino, who was his underling, Anastasia said. Merlino associate Previte helped build a case against Natale by wearing a wire for the feds. The tapes resulted in the then-69-year-old Natale and then-37-year-old Merlino arrested on drug charges in '99 with Natale tied to a major South Jersey meth ring and Merlino to a Boston cocaine ring. Natale became the first mobster to cooperate with the feds and, as a result, got a 13-year sentence, which he's serving in a protected witness wing, Anastasia said.

That leaves Merlino, who by all appearances may be one of Philadelphia Cosa Nostra's last bad boys.

Despite the feds pursuing him aggressively for years, the style-conscious young turk with the striking wife did not shy away from the media, becoming a magnet for his organized softball league and Christmas parties for the poor. In typical Merlino fashion, his 2001 trial on murder and racketeering charges was a press event. And, he may have beaten the rap for Joseph Sodano's '96 murder in Philadelphia court, but a federal judge in New Jersey upheld charges in the same case against the reputed mob boss in October 2001. The New York Times, among other national and international papers, covered the trial.

Merlino and seven codefendants — including Previte — were convicted of bookmaking, racketeering and extortion. These days, “Skinny Joey” is serving a 14-year sentence, set to be released in '11, Anastasia said.

The reigning alleged crime boss has been identified as 68-year-old Joe Ligambi, who was with the Stanfa organization. In '89, Ligambi was sent away for 10 years after being convicted of murder, which was overturned on appeal. Ligambi came back to South Philly in '99 and, when Merlino went to jail, became acting boss, Anastasia said. According to the author, “he's kind of gone back to the Bruno model of low-key, not flashy.”

Bloom contends Cosa Nostra is still very much alive and well. “It's not as powerful as it was 20 years ago but it's still there. They haven't gone away. They took a lot of hits from law enforcement pressure and each other, but they didn't throw in the towel,” the captain said.

Thanks to Lorraine Gennaro

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