Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Crime Family (45 page)

             
Every morning, I am up at 5:00 a.m. and sit outside on our back patio, which has the most amazing view, and I watch the sun come up. It is so peaceful out there at that time of day. I drink a cup of coffee with Maria, and I go on my iPad and I read the morning news.

             
Around 6:30 a.m. or so, I head to the gym and I run five miles and do my workout, and then I sit in the sauna or the steam room for 15 or 20 minutes, just relaxing. I take a shower and then I head home around 8:00 or so, and on most days I’m at work by 9:00.

             
As I got older, I got away from the contracting business, and I got myself involved in a totally different field. I work outside, and my new career keeps me fit. I love what I’m doing. Physically I feel like I’m 35 years old. Maria and I have a nice group of friends, but nobody we know, know who we really are. They don’t know us as Philip and Maria, and they have no idea where we come from.

             
This is my life now, and I’ve never been happier.

             
This is it, this is where we lived.

             
That’s where my uncle lived.

             
That’s where my grandmother lived.

             
That window right there that sticks out, that was Lawrence’s dining room.

             
Being back here brings back a lot of memories, some good, but more bad than good.

             
This is where my uncle wanted me to kill the Blade. The Blade lived right around the corner, not even a block from here.

             
This was our table, right here. Me, my uncle, Chuckie, Lawrence, the Blade, Saul Kane, Salvie, Bobby Simone—this is where we always sat. We lived in this place. The whole mob would be in here. My God, it seems like a lifetime ago, and looking back, it was. I was just a kid when we got started, and I was only 34 when we went to jail. God willing, I’ll be 59 next month.

             
New York mob boss John Gotti would die in the same facility of throat cancer in June 2002 at the age of 62, and his nemesis Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, the man Leonetti called “the last of the dons,” died in the same hospital in 2005 at the age of 77 after suffering from chronic heart disease, the same illness that took the life of Leonetti’s old pal Saul Kane, who died in 2000 at the age of 65 in a prison hospital outside of Lexington, Kentucky.

             
Saul Kane was one of the best guys I ever knew. He was my very dear friend, and he and I had a lot of fun together. Saul knew how to make me laugh, which, if you knew me in the ’80s, wasn’t an easy thing to do. One day when I was in FCI Phoenix, I got a letter from Saul who was in another prison doing his 95-year sentence. I have no idea how he found me or how he got me the letter, but that was Saul. I wrote him back and we exchanged a couple of letters back and forth. Even being locked up all those years and knowing he was never getting out, Saul still had his sense of humor. When he died he listed me as his nephew in his obituary and referred to me as Philip “Flip” Kane. In the letters he wrote me he also called me “Flip,” which was a play on my first name and the fact that I went with the government and flipped. I miss Saul.

             
Some of the other guys I miss are guys like Vince Sausto, Spike, and Teddy Khoury, all of whom have since died. You couldn’t find a more entertaining group then these guys. They weren’t mob guys, but they were always around. I stayed close to both Vince and Teddy and was able to reconnect with both of them when I got out of jail and I spent time with them both. Vince had a house not too far from where I was living in Florida and that summer of 1996 when I was back in Atlantic City, I had quite a few dinners and a lot of laughs with Teddy. The last I heard of Spike was that he left Florida and moved to Las Vegas and wound up back in Florida and ended up dying down there.

             
The Blade always reminded me of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One second he was the nicest guy in the world, and the next second he’d be drunk and he would turn into a stone-cold, heartless killer. I always liked the Blade, and he was always good to me, even when he was drunk. When I think of the Blade, I think back to what he did when those guys were robbing Bidda-Beep at the card game, how he protected him from those guys—which is what
this thing
is supposed to be about: honor and respect—or how superstitious he was when we saw that black cat on the night Ange died and how happy he was after he killed Judge Helfant. He said to me, “Philip, this guy was a crook and I’m not a crook,” and he mimicked Richard Nixon’s voice. This was a few hours after he killed him. He thought it was funny, and so did I. But that was the Blade.

             
Lawrence died of cancer in 2001. He was 55. The last I heard
he was living out west somewhere and he got sick, and then he died. He had only been out of prison for a couple of years before he got sick. He died of cancer. I always liked Lawrence. We were always very close. We would go out drinking together or go out to dinner. Lawrence loved to have a good time. When I think of Lawrence, I think of his eyebrow catching on fire when I shot Vince Falcone and of Lawrence tackling that kid in the dinosaur suit at Little Philip’s 10th birthday party. I got a chance to talk to him one time on the telephone when I was in FCI Phoenix and he was in FCI Sandstone in Minnesota, and I knew that he was bitter with the way things turned out, with the way my uncle treated him and his brother towards the end, and I don’t blame him. Chuckie and Lawrence were always loyal to my uncle, but the way my uncle was towards the end, loyalty meant absolutely nothing. Look at the thing with Salvie.

             
Salvie was one of the most loyal guys and one of the sharpest guys that my uncle had in our family. He and I were very close and very much alike—both being raised in
La Cosa Nostra—me
with my uncle and him with his father. My best memories with Salvie were playing racquetball with him, or when he and his girlfriend took me and Maria out to a Broadway show when my uncle was in La Tuna. To this day, every time I go to see a show with Maria, I think of Salvie and I smile.

             
When Phil Testa got killed, Salvie went out and avenged his father’s death, like a man, killing Chickie Narducci and Rocco Marinucci to honor his father’s memory. Salvie knew all the rules and all the moves and eventually my uncle became jealous of him, paranoid that one day he would turn on him, which would have never happened. Salvie looked at my uncle like he was his own father and Salvie was 100 percent loyal to my uncle and 100 percent committed to
La Cosa Nostra.
He would have never gone against my uncle, not in a million years. Neither would Chuckie.

             
Chuckie’s been in jail since 1986. He was 46 years old when he got locked up and today he is almost 73. If he lives long enough, he is supposed to get out in 2016 when he is 77 years old. He’s rotting in a federal prison down in Texas. Chuckie was always a great guy and a lot of fun to be around. Other than me, there was no one who knew my uncle as well as Chuckie did. Chuckie could read my uncle like
a book. I know that he was very disappointed when Lawrence went bad, but, in a way, I think he always knew that Lawrence wasn’t as committed to
La Cosa Nostra
as he was. When I think of Chuckie, I think back to all of the fun we had when I would go see him in Philadelphia when my uncle was in Yardville. He and I would go to the Saloon. When I went in there for a drink after I saw the attorney James Leonard in Atlantic City in 2010, I had a drink for Chuckie. I hope when he gets out of jail, he has his health and enjoys his grandchildren.

             
Bobby Simone died in 2007; he was 73 years old. Bobby lived hard, played hard, and worked hard. He was the best attorney I ever saw, and I saw them all. Testifying against him in 1992 was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Me and my uncle loved Bobby and I know he felt the same way about us. I know Bobby wrote a book towards the end of his life and—from what I can tell in reading those letters my uncle wrote to my grandmother—I know my uncle wasn’t happy that he wrote the book. But you know what, my uncle wasn’t happy about anything. Bobby should be remembered as the best criminal defense attorney to ever step foot inside a Philadelphia courtroom.

             
Faffy’s still in jail and so is Ciancaglini. Faffy’s 64 years old and will be 68 when he gets out, and Chickie is 77 and will be 80 when he gets out. Faffy was a good guy, a good solider. Towards the end, Faffy was the street boss in South Philadelphia. My uncle always liked him and so did I. He and I were cellmates together for a little while in Holmesburg, and he used to tell me stories about when he was in Vietnam. Faffy had a lot of balls.

             
Ciancaglini was a gentleman, but also a real gangster. I remember after Tommy Del flipped, Ciancaglini told me and my uncle in jail that he felt responsible for bringing him around because Tommy was part of Ciancaglini’s crew. My uncle said, “Chick, it’s not your fault,” and Ciancaglini said, “Nick, I could go to the government and tell them I want to cooperate, but that I want to see Tommy first, and when they bring him in I will give him a hug and hold him tight, and then I will jump out the window with him and he’ll be dead.”My uncle looked at him and said, “But you’d die, too,” and Ciancaglini said, “Nick, after what this guy did to us, so be it.” I know that Chickie had to be devastated after what
happened with his sons in the early ’90s—them on opposite sides trying to kill each other when Stanfa was the boss, with one of them dying and the other one becoming disabled.

             
All the other guys we went to jail with are out. Joe Punge is living down in South Florida, and so is Tory Scafidi.

             
I know that the Pungitores are doing well and that their father, the Blonde Babe, set them up in businesses and in real estate. The Babe was always a moneymaker, and all three of his sons were gentlemen, just like he was. I read in one of the Philly papers that the Babe just died. Joe Punge and I were close because we both had a strong relationship with Salvie, and I know that after Salvie died, Joe Punge seemed less interested in
La Cosa Nostra.
I mean, Christ, I was 31 when Salvie got killed and him and Salvie were both 27 and 28. We were all just kids. I think Joe Punge will be successful in whatever he does, and it won’t have anything to do with the mob.

             
Tory Scafidi was always a good kid and he was with me when I got arrested in April of ’87 outside Rittenhouse Square, and he had my back in Holmesburg when I got into that fight with the drug kingpin. Tory was a tough kid. I hope he stays down in Florida and leaves Philadelphia and
La Cosa Nostra
behind. He’s gotta be 51 or 52 years old by now and he got locked up when he was 26. His younger brother, Tommy Horsehead, ended up cooperating with the government in the ’90s and testified against Joey Merlino.

             
Everybody else is out and back in South Philadelphia. Junior Staino is 80, and Charlie White is 77. Junior is a character, always breaking balls and starting some kind of trouble. I remember at least two fights he started in jail, one with Wayne Grande and another with Joe Punge, and he had almost 30 years on each one of those guys, but Junior always had something fresh to say. Charlie White and I were cellmates for a while in Otisville, and Charlie was always a good guy and I liked him. I remember one time he was telling me that his family was having money problems and I had Nicky Jr. give his son $10,000. My uncle went nuts when he found I had told Nicky to give him the money; he said, “What’s the matter with you, are you nuts giving this guy $10,000?” and I said, “The guy just stood up for our family and got 40 years,” and my uncle said, “I don’t give a fuck what he did.” That’s an example of how loyal my uncle was to the guys in our family. He didn’t give a fuck about nobody but himself.

             
Frankie Narducci is only a couple of months younger than me, so he is 59 and his brother Philip is 50. I think Frankie Narducci was pretty much along for the ride, but his brother Philip was a gangster, and just as shrewd as his father was.

             
One time after my uncle become the boss, the Chin sent word through Bobby Manna that he wanted my uncle to send two shooters to New York to whack some guy out. My uncle said to me, “I want you to be one of them,” and he asked me who I wanted to use as the second shooter, and I told him, “Philip Narducci.” This was after Salvie had died, and both me and my uncle thought Philip Narducci was very capable. The hit got called off. My advice to whoever is running what’s left of that organization in Philadelphia is to stay out of Philip’s way.

             
Joey Grande is 52 now. His father was a made guy under Ange and, like the Narduccis, he knows the rules of
La Cosa Nostra
and all of the moves, but he’s a troublemaker. I remember him coming to me one time and whispering stuff to me in front of Joe Punge, to make it look like we were talking about him, which we weren’t. Joe Punge picked right up on it and said to me afterwards, “I got a hard-on for this kid. You have no idea all the bullshit him and his brother are doing.” I heard that his brother Wayne went bad in the ’90s and ended up getting involved in a drug deal while he was in prison, and then cooperated against one of my cousins. Wayne was married to my cousin Rita.

             
After we beat the Salvie Testa murder and it looked like we were going to make bail, my uncle told me that if I got out, he wanted me to kill three people: his wife Mimi, and then the two Grande brothers, Joey and Wayne. We never made bail, but even if we did I wasn’t going to kill any of them. First of all, as much as I couldn’t stand my uncle’s wife, there was no fuckin’ chance I would ever kill a woman ever, and I wasn’t going to kill the Grandes because, by this point, I was done taking orders from my uncle. I know from reading those letters he was sending to my grandmother that him and Joey Grande stayed in touch during the ’90s, and my grandmother used to tell me that Joey Grande would call her and write her letters from time to time.

             
I recently read in one of the papers that Gino Milano is going to be a witness in an upcoming mob trial in Philadelphia. Gino is now
53 and, the last I heard, he was living somewhere in the Midwest and working as a car salesman and was living in the Witness Protection Program. His brother Nicky Whip is 51 and may be living at the Jersey Shore. From what I heard, he has nothing to do with
La Cosa Nostra
and may be working in construction.

             
My old friend Sammy the Bull is back in jail, rotting away in the same Florence ADX that my uncle once called “a dog kennel” in those letters to my grandmother. Sammy got involved in drugs when he got of jail and got locked up out in Arizona back in 2000. He eventually got sentenced to 19 years and could be out a few years from now when he is in his early 70s, if he stays healthy. I recently read that he is sick and I wish nothing but the best for him with his health, but I am disappointed to hear that Sammy got involved with drugs and wound up back in jail. Sammy was very loyal to
La Cosa Nostra,
like I was, but just like me, he lost faith in his boss. He told me that one of his biggest regrets was not killing John Gotti so that Frankie DeCicco could be the boss instead. “We fucked up on that one, Bo,” is what he would say. Sammy used to call everyone “Bo.” I get a kick out of seeing his daughter Karen on the TV show
Mob Wives.

             
My father died in 1983, and my mother and my grandmother are both dead and they are buried in the family plot with my grandfather at a cemetery just outside of Atlantic City. Ironically, two plots down stands the mausoleum of Felix “Skinny Razor” DiTullio, my uncle’s first mob mentor. I don’t know if he and my uncle bought the plots together when Skinny Razor was alive, so they could be buried next to one another, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Those two were very close.