Joey Merlino

• 1. Introduction

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  Joseph Salvatore Merlino, known as Skinny Joey, was born on the 13th of March 1962 and rose to become the reputed boss of the Philadelphia crime family. His reign ran from the 1990s until 2024.

  Once, a television reporter asked him about a rumored bounty of $500,000 on his life. Merlino answered with a line the cameras loved: "Give me the half million dollars and I'll shoot myself."

  Traditional mob bosses shunned the limelight. Merlino courted it, chatting with reporters and appearing in the places where Philadelphia gathered.

  That choice shapes the questions this documentary follows. How did a young man from South Philadelphia seize an entire crime family? Why did so many people want him dead? How did a man suspected in several killings avoid a murder conviction? And what finally ended his time as boss, when prison and gunfire had not?

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• 2. The Merlino Name

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  Salvatore "Chuckie" Merlino and Rita Giordano were Italian-American parents, and their son Joey grew up between South Philadelphia and Ventnor City, New Jersey. Crime ran through the family. His uncle, Lawrence "Yogi" Merlino, was a Philadelphia mobster who later became a government witness. His sister Maria was briefly engaged to Salvatore Testa.

  At St. Thomas Aquinas grade school, in the Point Breeze neighborhood, Joey befriended Michael "Mikey Chang" Ciancaglini and his brother Joseph "Joey Chang" Ciancaglini Jr. Michael would grow up to become a made man in the Philadelphia crime family.

  Chuckie Merlino owned and ran the 9M Bar in Southwark. Nicky Scarfo used it as his headquarters while trying to establish himself as the family's new boss. Scarfo later demoted Chuckie from underboss to soldier because of his drinking. The New Jersey Casino Control Commission banned Chuckie on the 23rd of May 1984. In 1988 he received a 45-year federal sentence for two counts of racketeering and drug trafficking.

  The son was already building a record of his own. In August 1982, at the age of 20, Joey and Salvatore Scafidi, son of the bookmaker Gaetano Scafidi Sr., beat and stabbed two men at the Lido Restaurant in Atlantic City. In 1984 Joey was found guilty of two counts of aggravated assault and one count of possessing a weapon for an unlawful purpose. That August, the same commission barred him from New Jersey casinos.

  "Joey was a party guy," said Ron Previte, a police officer turned gangster turned government witness. "He liked to go out. He liked to gamble. He liked the high life." Merlino and his longtime buddies were known to rob people, beat people up and start fights in clubs.

  In August 1989 he was charged over a 1987 robbery of a Federal Armored Express truck, which had cost its owners $352,000. In January 1990 he was convicted of planning the heist and sentenced to three years.

  Between the charge and the verdict came a shooting. On the 31st of October 1989, Nicky Scarfo Jr., son of the imprisoned boss, was hit eight times by a MAC-10 in an Italian restaurant in Bella Vista. No vital organ was struck, and he left the hospital in under two weeks. Nobody was ever charged. The FBI and local police believe Merlino pulled the trigger to settle a score between the Scarfos and the Merlinos. Merlino denied it and claimed he was under house arrest that night.

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• 3. The Young Turks

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  At the Federal Correctional Institution, McKean, in 1990, Merlino met Ralph Natale, a veteran mobster serving 15 years for arson and drug trafficking. According to Natale, the two men began plotting a takeover of the Philadelphia crime family right there. Natale named five key conspirators: Michael Ciancaglini, Steven Mazzone, George Borgesi, Gaetano "Tommy Horsehead" Scafidi and Martin Angelina.

  All five were longtime friends of Merlino, and they began muscling into Philadelphia's criminal rackets. When John Stanfa emerged as the family's new leader in 1991, the group openly rebelled. The press would eventually label them the "Young Turks." They struck first on the 29th of January 1992, with the killing of Felix Bocchino. Merlino was released from prison that April.

  Stanfa tried diplomacy. In the late summer of 1992 he formally inducted Merlino and his best friend, Michael Ciancaglini, into the family. His hope was to keep watch on the crew and make killing them easier if it came to that. The peace was short. By 1993 Stanfa and Merlino were in an all-out war.

  On the 5th of August 1993, two Stanfa gunmen attacked Merlino in a drive-by shooting. He took four bullets in the leg and buttocks. Ciancaglini was hit in the chest and died.

  Retaliation followed on the 31st of August 1993. Gunmen opened fire on Stanfa and his son as they drove along the Schuylkill Expressway. Stanfa was unhurt, and his son survived a bullet to the jaw. Investigators suspect Merlino was the shooter. On the 17th of September, Stanfa gunmen killed a friend of Merlino's.

  Stanfa gunman Philip Colletti later testified in court that he had planted a remote control bomb under Merlino's car several times. It never went off. In November 1993 the FBI arrested Merlino for violating his supervised release and sent him back to prison.

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• 4. Gotti of Passyunk Avenue

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  In March 1994, federal prosecutors arrested Stanfa under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. He was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to life in 1996. Most of his supporters were also arrested and convicted. Merlino was released in November 1994 and found the war won. He named Ralph Natale the new boss and took the underboss role himself. Merlino was the real power, while Natale's title drew law enforcement attention away from him.

  Reporters nicknamed him the John Gotti of Passyunk Avenue, after a street in South Philadelphia. He was candid in front of news cameras and often partied with a large entourage. He invited the press to his Christmas parties for the homeless and handed out turkeys at Thanksgiving in housing projects.

  The swagger had a cost. His young faction was arrogant and aggressive, and many criminals no longer wanted to work with the family. Merlino often placed large bets with bookies and then refused to pay when he lost. The practice is known as guzzling, and he used it on independent and mob-run bookies alike. Meanwhile he and Natale oversaw the family's gambling, loan sharking, extortion and stolen goods rackets.

  In 1995, men loyal to Merlino severely beat Louis Turra, leader of the drug gang known as the 10th & Oregon Crew. The alleged reason was an unpaid Mafia street tax on the gang's illegal earnings. Turra wanted revenge. His father Anthony hosted a meeting at his home where Anthony, Louis and the gang discussed killing Merlino.

  In January 1998, Louis Turra apparently hanged himself in a New York City jail while awaiting trial. That March, Anthony Turra was on trial for plotting to kill Merlino. A gunman in a black ski mask shot him twice outside his home as he left for the federal courthouse. "We consider this an organized crime assassination, a mob hit," said Police Inspector Jerrold Kane. Three years later Merlino stood trial for helping orchestrate the murder, and was acquitted.

  By the late 1990s Merlino had survived more than two dozen attempts on his life. He kept allies of his own. Steve "Gorilla" Mondevergine, president of the Pagan's Motorcycle Club, was a friend, and Merlino sometimes used the Pagans to settle underworld disputes. He also aligned himself with members of the Junior Black Mafia. After Natale was arrested for a parole violation in 1999, Merlino took over the family officially and cut Natale out.

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• 5. Turncoats and Verdicts

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  On the 28th of June 1999, Merlino was indicted and held without bail. The first charges were conspiracy to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine and unlawful use of a communication facility in a drug trafficking offense. Prosecutors later added racketeering and ordering or approving three murders and two attempted murders. Six other men went on trial with him.

  Former cohorts supplied the government's case. Natale agreed to cooperate in 1999 to escape drug trafficking charges. Gaetano "Tommy Horsehead" Scafidi, nearing the end of a prison sentence in 2000, cooperated because he feared Merlino's crew would murder him. Peter "the Crumb" Caprio joined them in 2000 after being charged with two murders. Ron Previte testified after serving several years as an undercover informant. Together they said Natale and Merlino had started a mob war to take over the family and that Merlino committed many crimes in the 1990s.

  The jury returned a mixed verdict on the 20th of July 2001. Merlino was acquitted of all three murder counts and both attempted murder counts. He was found guilty of racketeering offenses including extortion, bookmaking and receiving stolen property. Six others were convicted of various racketeering-related charges.

  On the 3rd of December 2001, Judge Herbert J. Hutton sentenced Merlino to 14 years. "Ain't bad," Merlino said. "Better than the death penalty."

  He has never been convicted of murder. Authorities nonetheless believe he took part in the killings of Jimmy DiAddorio in May 1992, Michael Brennan in December 1994 and Michael Avicolli in April 1996. They also suspect he was the shooter in the March 1993 attempt on Joseph Ciancaglini Jr.

  A month after the verdict, prosecutors indicted him again, this time for the December 1996 murder of Joseph Sodano. The earlier jury had found that murder charge "not proven" as a racketeering act. In March 2004 Merlino was acquitted of Sodano's murder as a violent crime in aid of racketeering. He served his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana.

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• 6. Florida Exile

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  On the 15th of March 2011, Merlino walked out of the Terre Haute prison after serving almost 12 years. He spent six months in a Florida halfway house and then lived under supervised release until 2015. He settled in Boca Raton.

  The FBI and organized crime reporters believed he still ran the Philadelphia-South Jersey Mafia. Merlino insisted he had retired. In a 2013 interview with the reporter George Anastasia, he said he wanted "no part of that" and complained of "too many rats." By 2015 he was dividing his time between South Florida and Philadelphia.

  Judge Richard Barclay Surrick tested that claim on the 4th of January 2015, just before the parole restrictions were due to expire. He sentenced Merlino to four months for violating his supervised release by meeting organized crime figures in Florida. Merlino appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and won. On the 24th of April 2015 he left the Federal Detention Center in Miami, ten days early, with his sentence vacated and no post-release restrictions.

  In November 2014 he had opened a restaurant in Boca Raton called Merlino's, which served his mother's recipes. A group of investors owned it, because his criminal record forbade him from owning an establishment that served alcohol. Merlino worked there officially as the maître d' until it closed in 2016.

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• 7. The 2016 Indictment

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  At dawn on the 4th of August 2016, agents arrested Merlino at his Florida home. He was one of 46 people seized up and down the East Coast in a single RICO indictment, and he was put on trial in New York City.

  Prosecutors charged him with one count of racketeering, one of fraud and two of illegal gambling. They accused him of illegal business arrangements with New York criminals in the Genovese crime family. They also accused him of joining a large medical fraud scheme in Florida. Doctors allegedly prescribed unnecessary and ineffective medical products and billed patients' insurance companies. On the 12th of August he was released on a $5 million bond. On the 7th of September the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board banned him from all casinos in the state.

  The other 45 defendants accepted favorable plea bargains and pleaded guilty to reduced charges. Merlino refused every offer. His trial began on the 30th of January 2018 and lasted two weeks of testimony. On the 20th of February, Judge Richard J. Sullivan declared a mistrial because the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

  Merlino chose to avoid a retrial. On the 27th of April he agreed to plead guilty to one charge of facilitating illegal gambling transactions through an electronic device. Prosecutors dropped the remaining charges and recommended a sentence of 10 to 16 months. On the 17th of October, the judge gave him the maximum of two years instead. In October 2019 he received an early release, moved to a halfway house, and then served supervised release in South Florida.

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• 8. Banished

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  In January 2023, a photograph appeared of Merlino and then former U.S. president Donald Trump at a Trump-owned golf club. Both men were giving a thumbs up.

  That September, Merlino launched a sports betting podcast called "The Skinny with Joey Merlino," where he gives football picks every week.

  His new life as a social media personality came at a price. In 2024 the Philadelphia family reportedly demoted him and excommunicated him, and George Borgesi replaced him as boss. Borgesi was one of the friends Ralph Natale had named as a co-conspirator decades earlier. The expulsion, which made Merlino persona non grata among Cosa Nostra, was reportedly the first time an East Coast Mafia boss had been banished without breaking the oath of omertà.

  Merlino planned a cheesesteak business in South Philadelphia, to be called Skinny Joey's Cheesesteaks, for late 2024. On the 23rd of May 2024 the restaurant suffered minor damage from a firebombing, and police found several Molotov cocktails at the scene. Skinny Joey's Cheesesteaks opened for business in March 2025.

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