My Washington Times On Crime Column On 'Little Vic And The Great Mafia War'

 The Washington Times ran my On Crime column on Larry McShane’s Little Vic and the Great Mafia War. 

You can read the column via the link below or the text below:

A look back at the Colombo 1990s gang war - Washington Times 

In 2013, I interviewed former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra underboss and cooperating government witness Philip “Crazy Phil” Leonetti.

 

He explained mobsters’ rationale for killing one another during mob wars.

“All the crimes I committed, like the murders I was involved in, were all against bad people, guys that were involved in our life, so I didn’t think anything of it,” Mr. Leonetti told me. “They were looking to kill us, and we were looking to kill them. We weren’t looking to kill no legitimate people.”

 

In Larry McShane’s “Little Vic and the Great Mafia War,” the author looks back at the New York Colombo Cosa Nostra organized crime family’s internecine war in the 1990s between the imprisoned Colombo boss, Carmine “the Snake” Persico and Victor “Little Vic” Orena, the acting Colombo boss.

 

I contacted Mr. McShane (seen in the bottom photo) and asked him why he wrote the book.

 

“Two things: It was the last of New York’s major mob wars, following the federal government’s takedown of the Five Families during the 1980s, particularly with the Commission trial (where Carmine Persico represented himself and wound up with a 100-year sentence),” Mr. MacShane replied. “And second, it was ultimately a war about nothing, two sides fighting for control of an enterprise on its last legs, a self-destructive conflict destined to end with no winners on either side. I found the pointlessness of the whole thing oddly compelling, akin to the last days of a dynasty.

 

How would you describe Vic Orena and Carmine Persico, and why did they go to war against each other?

 

“Both Orena and Persico were Colombo family veterans, with Little Vic a more low-key earner living in suburban Long Island and Persico a fearsome boss from Brooklyn who took the top seat two years after the infamous hit on his predecessor Joe Colombo in 1971. Oddly enough, the Orena and Colombo families were like family apart from the crime family, with two generations described by Vic’s son Andrew Orena as “as close as you can be in the life.” Michael Persico, son of Carmine, stood as godfather for John Orena’s son and was his partner in a legitimate business outside the mob. The interfamily dynamic was something I found compelling.”

 

How would you describe Gregory Scarpa, a hit man and an FBI informant, and how he was involved in the internecine conflict?

 

“One of a kind in the annals of organized crime. Greg Scarpa, aka “The Grim Reaper,” emerged as the deadliest fighter in the war, responsible with his crew for multiple murders. Colleagues recalled Scarpa as a cold-blooded figure who took great pleasure in his lethal work during the conflict. His support of the Persico side was a game-changer. Scarpa was a fearsome presence with a long history inside the Colombo family and was famously exposed as working for the FBI after the murders of three Civil Rights activists in 1964.”

 

Who also stood out to you as a combatant in the bloody Columbo war?

“Wild Bill” Cutolo was one of Vic Orena’s top guns and his most ardent backer. His failed hit on the Persico team’s deadliest acolyte kicked the war between the two sides into high gear. Cutolo, in the years after the war, eventually mended fences within the crime family  — and was killed on orders of Persico’s son Little Allie Boy.”

 

How many people were arrested during the conflict, and what was the death toll?

 

“On the Orena side, 61 arrests. On the Persico side, 60 arrests. The death toll was 12.”

Who came out on top in the conflict?

 

“This was absolutely a war with no winners. Vic Orena (still alive and behind bars) was locked up before the shooting ended. His sons Vic Jr. and John were both convicted and spent time in prison, with both now free and back in the legitimate world. Carmine Persico died in prison back in 2019; his successor son Allie Boy remains imprisoned for the murder of Cutolo.”

 

How were you able to secure interviews with two of Orena’s sons? And who else did you interview?

 

“I’d also covered New York City organized back in that era (I was on scene after the Paul Castellano hit outside Sparks Steakhouse) and then into the 1990s. The Orenas were introduced to me by a mutual friend, and they were incredibly helpful in revisiting the war. We would meet for coffee, and the brothers’ insights and accounts of the war were invaluable. No questions were out of bounds. Other interviews included Sammy Gravano, Michael Franzese, FBI agent Lin DeVecchio, former FBI Gambino Squad head Bruce Mouw, ex-federal prosecutor John Gleeson.”

 

• Paul Davis’ “On Crime” column covers true crime, crime fiction and thrillers.

• • •

Little Vic and the Great Mafia War
Larry McShane
Citadel, $29.00, 224 pages

A Look Back At The Infamous Boston Criminal Whitey Bulger: My Crime Beat Column On 'Whitey: The Life Of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss'

Back in 2013 I reviewed a good book on the notorious Boston criminal Whitey Bulger for the Washington Times, and I later interviewed one of the authors in my Crime Beat column. 

You can read the Crime Beat column and link to the Washington Times review below: 

As I wrote in my Washington Times review of Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss (Crown), there have been many books written about James “Whitey’ Bulger, the Boston Irish mob boss currently on trial in Boston for 19 murders and other crimes, and up to now Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill was the best of the bunch.

But with Whitey, Lehr and O’Neill have surpassed themselves.

Dick Lehr (seen in the below photo) is a professor of journalism at Boston University and a former Boston Globe reporter. He is the co-author of Black Mass and The Underboss, along with Gerald O’Neill.

I contacted Dick Lehr and my interview with him is below: 

DAVIS: I worked for a Defense Department command in Philadelphia and for a time Boston was our regional headquarters. During those years I was a frequent visitor to Boston, and I grew fond of the city.           

LEHR: There is a small-big city feel, or a big-small city feel. 

DAVIS: I liked the bars as well. 

LEHR: Then we have something else in common.

DAVIS:  I enjoyed your previous books, such as Black Mass and I enjoyed Whitey. Whitey Bulger is an interesting guy, although he is a God-awful criminal. I’ve covered organized crime for a good number of years now and I most recently interviewed Philip Leonetti, the former underboss of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family in Philadelphia and South Jersey. He said that he killed “bad guys.” They were trying to kill him, so he killed them. He said he never killed innocent people. Whitey Bulger, on the other hand, not only killed rival criminals, he reportedly strangled and murdered two innocent women. 

LEHR: His first known murder was a mistake. He intended to kill a competing gang member, but he ended up killing the guy’s brother. He just shrugged it off.  

DAVIS: That’s a bad start. So it seems Bulger is in a class by himself, would you agree? 

LEHR: Yes, I think it shows the extreme depravity and viciousness that you referred to when you said he was God-awful. In the last month or so, through his attorney, he is putting out a new line - it sounds like Leonetti – that the people he killed deserved to be killed and he never killed those girls. It’s just Whitey being Whitey.        

DAVIS:  That’s been a mob thing for years, saying we only kill each other.       

LEHR: Whitey is trying to take back those murders, saying that I didn’t kill those girls. I wouldn’t do that. He is trying to get himself back to being what is more gangster-respectable. His problem is that the evidence seems overwhelming against him in connection to those two murders and already federal court judges have ruled that he killed them.      

DAVIS:  His partner-in-crime, Steven “the Rifleman” Flemmi, testified that Bulger killed the girls, right?

LEHR:  Yes, and Kevin Weeks. 

DAVIS:  Philip Leonetti recently wrote a piece in the Huffington Post. He wrote that when he was the Philadelphia underboss and Nicodemo Scarfo, his uncle and the Philadelphia boss, was in prison, he met with the New England Cosa Nostra guys and they were complaining about Bulger. Leonetti said they had described him disdainfully as a drug dealer and not a mob guy or true gangster. Do you think that is an accurate view of him by the Boston mob? 

LEHR: I think that is a true view of how someone in their shoes would look at someone like Whitey Bulger. He was a drug dealer in the 80’s and he made a ton of money off of cocaine. I think they underestimated him if they considered him just a nasty little drug dealer. They are underestimating or under-evaluating his position and his standing in the underworld. He was “it” in the 1980’s. So whether you are from New England or Leonetti from Philadelphia, that is a snapshot that does not capture the scope of this man’s power at the time, partly rooted from the power of the FBI watching his back. 

DAVIS: Bulger is unique in the annuals of crime in that sense as well.

LEHR: Totally, totally. 

DAVIS:  Being an informant to gain police protection is not uncommon in crime and organized crime, but in that Bulger was able to manipulate the FBI agents and have them protect him so well over the years is unique, I think, in crime history. 

LEHR: I think so. We say in the book that is why history will view him as one of the more significant crime figures in America. You can’t mention him without saying in the same breath, corrupt FBI. 

DAVIS: How big was his crime empire? In terms of dollars and business, was he a rival and competitor to Cosa Nostra?     

LEHR: Well, certainly in the Boston branch, which reported to Providence, yes, I think so. This was unique too, in the sense that it was a cult of personality – Whitey’s. We describe it in the book as a closely-held corporation, where he surrounded himself with an immediate circle of unbelievably ruthless killers - Martorano, Weeks, and Flemmi – who were loyal and trusting. Just like his own physique, he kept it lean. He didn’t bother with some kind of extended organization. 

DAVIS: Yes, it was small in numbers compared to other organized crime outfits. 

LEHR:  Yes, and yet he controlled plenty because he was feared and powerful and vicious. There were all these sort of affiliates. All of these drug dealers in “Southie” were under his thumb. He had a drug operation, but they rarely saw him. There was all this insulation in between. So he ran an organization and then beyond the organization he accomplished and had the knack to intimidate major New England drug traffickers. They paid him a tax in order for them to do business. There are estimates of $10 million to $50 million, but who knows? 

DAVIS:  And where is that money today?

LEHR: Exactly. That is the big final question. But he would get a half of million dollar cut out of some major pot load moving through Boston heading up to New England. So that speaks to his presence in a big way, even though he had no extensive organization and no lines of succession like the mafia. It was a cult of personality.      

DAVIS: All based on his reputation that he can and will kill you and kill you viciously. Those stories of him torturing people before he killed them.     

LEHR: Yeah, and this all reinforced the myth of Whitey being the ultimate “stand-up guy,” which was his reputation.  

DAVIS: The Robin Hood of Boston.

LEHR: He despised and hated informers. Psychologically, he was projecting. He was known for that viciousness and torturing. When he was killing an informant, a rat, he brought a special viciousness to bear. That helped feed the notion that Whitey absolutely can’t stand a rat. It was such an anathema to him, such a horror – in part because he hates himself.      

DAVIS: Where did the phrase “Whitey is a good bad guy” come from? 

LEHR: The first time I heard that was from the mouth of FBI agent John Connelly back in 80’s. Isn’t that funny?  We heard that before we knew what we know today. Connelly was simply an FBI agent who was describing this kind of Robin Hood mythic Whitey Bulger crime boss.  

DAVIS: Connelly was saying this to reporters like you? 

LEHR: Yes. Looking back in hindsight, John Connelly was one of Whitey’s best marketers and PR agents. He was spinning the myth of Robin Hood. Sure, he’s a bad guy, but he’s does nice things for people. And we show in the biography, it is an extension of what Whitey has always tried to project all of his life. When he went away to prison, he was trying to say I don’t belong here. It jumps off the page, some of these assessments from Alcatraz. How Whitey was complaining about the vulgarity of his cell mates. Give me a break!      

DAVIS: I read Black Mass when it came out years ago and I thought it was outstanding. It was a comprehensive look at Whitey Bulger’s criminal career and his FBI connection. So why did you and your co-author decide to write a biography of Whitey Bulger? And how does the biography differ from Black Mass?

LEHR: That’s a good question. And the answer is the bulk, and the focus of Black Mass is the Whitey Bulger/FBI years, basically two decades from 1975 to 1995. It has been called the “Unholy Alliance,” and the “the Devil’s Deal.” So when Whitey was captured, we realized that this guy actually now warrants a biography. Part of it was realizing that in 1975 when he cut his deal with the Boston FBI, he was already 48. He lived half a life that we barely scratched in Black Mass and no one else has. There was this whole life that had not been explored and the sense that we talked about – he’s unique now. He has a place as a significant crime figure in American history. We wanted to put the Black Mass years in a larger context of his life story, of a biography, in which we try to not just tell this dramatic and horrific story but get more into the why and how in the making of this monster. I think the challenge of any biographer, regarding any subject, is to go behind the “he did this, and he did that” and try to reveal some insight and meaning.              

DAVIS: I thought Whitey was outstanding. The prison years and the LSD tests were particularly interesting. How were you able to get Bulger’s prison records?   

LEHR: That was a huge breakthrough. In the original outline, we had one chapter for his nine years in prison. Two months later we got hold of his prison file because it has become a public record and one chapter became four, four and a half. It is fascinating.   

DAVIS: I knew he was connected to his Boston politician brother, but from your book I learned that the U.S. Speaker of the House was writing letters for Bulger as well.    

LEHR: Around here we knew that the family had a connection to House Speaker John McCormack, but that’s all we knew. But from the prison file, and also the McCormack papers at Boston University where I teach, we suddenly have all this meat and muscle to put on that skeletal fact. Whitey had a benefit in prison that no other inmate did, which is access to power like that.     

DAVIS: You’ve been covering Whitey Bulger since you were a Boston Globe reporter. How long has it been? 

LEHR: Go back to the late 80’s, that’s when we started and broke the story about some kind of special thing going on between Whitey and John Connelly and the Boston FBI. 

DAVIS: That was your first story? 

LEHR: That was it. It was historic in the sense that it was the beginning of the end. It is another reminder of how journalism can play a role in history.  

DAVIS: Have you met Whitey Bulger?

LEHR: No. I was in court when he came back to Boston, and I’ve written to him at least five times since he’s been back about the biography. Boy, did I want a meeting for the biography, but he refused. He wants everything on his terms. He writes letters to a friend of his, a guy we mention in the book named Richard Sunday and then Sunday gives the letters to the Globe. It’s news in the sense that it is Whitey’s letters, but it is the world according to Whitey. It’s like he has open mike time. It’s not a question of anyone challenging him in any way. That’s where he puts out things like I don’t kill girls and things like that.            

DAVIS: Do you think he is going to write a book or have someone ghost a book for him? 

LEHR: He was writing one while he was in Santa Monica, which I think he had stopped. I hope that it gets released because it will be fascinating to read, although not so much for its truth. I think he got almost a hundred pages out, but the government has it. He needs to find someone who will close their eyes and hold their nose.          

DAVIS: And cash the check. Are you covering the trial? 

LEHR: I’ll be there, and we’ll probably write a new chapter about the trial for the paperback.  

DAVIS: Do you plan on writing another Bulger book? 

LEHR: I don’t think so. But I think one can get a book out of a trial that goes for three months.  

DAVIS: The trial is already making headlines. 

LEHR: Oh, sure. It is a big story. I’ll be there and maybe do some commentary and maybe some op-ed stuff. I’ve already written one op-ed piece.    

DAVIS: I read that director Barry Levinson is going to film Black Mass. Are you involved in the film production?     

LEHR: Yes, in a consulting way. We have heard quite regularly from Barry and his people. They finished the script, and they are polishing it now. They are asking all kinds of interesting questions.

DAVIS: I heard there is also another Whitey Bulger film in the works with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.  

LEHR: We hear that it is a back burner project now.   

DAVIS: You write in Whitey that Bulger is an avid reader. Do you think he read Black Mass and Whitey?   

LEHR: We’ve been told that he had just about all of the books written about him when they raided his apartment, they discovered nearly all of the books written about him in his library.

DAVIS: That's not real smart. I guess he figured that no one would raid his apartment. I read somewhere that you consider Whitey to be the third part of a trilogy with Black Mass and The Underboss, your book on the Boston Cosa Nostra. I read The Underboss a couple of weeks ago and I was curious to find that John Connelly was featured in the book in a much better light than he was in Black Mass and Whitey. Did you meet him when you were researching The Underboss?

LEHR: Yes, that was when we met all of these guys. We wrote the FBI's bugging operation of the Boston mob underboss in a series in the Globe and then expanded it into the first book. That was a "high five" moment for the FBI. The framework of The Underboss is a dramatic reconstruction of the bugging operation.  

DAVIS: At that time you had no idea that the Boston FBI was shielding Bulger.

LEHR: No. The Boston FBI cooperated with that project so they would look good. Journalistically, we interviewed the entire organized crime squad extensively, taping interviews in order to get all the details to do the drama. So we met all of these guys and fast forward a year and a half and we are going down the Whitey/FBI road. We knew all of these players and it’s no secret now, one in particular, became our source. The history-making stuff might not have happened had we not done that first story. There were unforeseen collateral benefits.  

DAVIS: Was Connelly a source?            

LEHR: He was a source for a lot of reporters for what was going on in law enforcement and the Boston underworld. In Black Mass we identify the two FBI sources that confirmed our story so we could publish that special relationship fact. One was John Morris and one was a retired supervisor named Robert Patrick, who also has a book out. We could not have written that breakthrough story in 1988 without confirmation inside the FBI. Our editors wouldn’t have let us. 

DAVIS: What do you think of John Connelly? 

LEHR: He still has quite a following of “free John Connelly” type of supporters. These are people who have their heads in the sand. They are in denial. In my view, he desires to be in prison. He is just corrupt as they come. 

DAVIS: Well, it is not just a case of taking money, he was also convicted of setting up murders, am I right? 

LEHR: Yes. He’s taken money and he’s got blood on his hands. That’s what the Miami jury verdict was all about. He was, as the government proved in that Miami case, a member of the Bulger gang. But that said, it is doing an injustice to Connelly and to the story to say only Connelly and John Morris were the problem. We’re talking about a lawlessness that permeated at least the Boston office of the FBI for years. Too many other agents and supervisors, maybe all the way to Washington, have skated on this scandal. 

DAVIS: I know a good number of detectives and federal agents and all of them have informants and all them protect their informants as best as they can. Most criminals become informant to receive that protection, I’ve been told. What was different with Connelly and Bulger?

LEHR: I think that the detectives and agents you know would look at this relationship and they would see that the power dynamic was all off. They would never let their informants call the shots. At that is what’s become clear in the history of the Connelly/Whitey thing – Whitey was in charge. 

DAVIS: I also enjoyed reading about the history of Boston you included in Whitey. It was interesting how you included the Bulger family within that history. 

LEHR: The idea was to give the readers some context.

DAVIS: Was Whitey Bulger a unique Boston story? Do you think he could have achieved the same success in Philadelphia or New York?

LEHR: I don’t know. There was, to use a cliché, a perfect storm of events in Boston in the mid-70’s. You may have had in New York or Chicago a crime boss who has an agent from the neighborhood. I think it is possible. But it did require an unusual and unique set of factors that blended together. 

DAVIS: New York had the Westies. I can picture Bulger as a member of the Westies.

LEHR: New York is big and has five mafia crime families. There is something focused about Boston, where you have one mafia family and one unique and powerful Irish crime guy. 

DAVIS: How do you think the Bulger trial will end?

LEHR: I don’t think he’ll ever see the light of day. He’s stuck behind bars for however much time he has remaining. I can’t imagine a jury, despite the best and very creative efforts of a very able defense attorney, coming up with any other verdict other than guilty. 

DAVIS: Thank you for talking to us and good luck with Whitey and the upcoming film. 

Note: Bulger was murdered in prison in 2018.

You can read my Washington Times review of Whitey (Crown) via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/13/whitey-bulgers-horrific-crime-span/?page=all#pagebreak

And you can read my interview with Philip Leonetti via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/01/crime-beat-column-mafia-prince-q-with.html

The above photos were provided by Dick Lehr and Crown Publishing.

A Look Back At A Mafia Prince: My Q&A With Former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra Crime Family Underboss Philip Leonetti

Back in 2013, the Washington Times published my review of Philip Leonetti's book Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Crime Family and the Bloody Fall of La Cosa Nostra. 

I interviewed the former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family underboss who became a government witness for both the Washington Times piece and for my Crime Beat column. 

You can read the 2013 column below:

In my review, I wrote that Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, the boss of the Philadelphia-South Jersey Cosa Nostra crime family in the 1980s, has been described by law enforcement officers and former criminal associates as ruthless, homicidal, greedy and paranoid - even by organized crime standards.

Today, Scarfo, 83, sits in federal prison in large part because of Philip "Crazy Phil" Leonetti, his close nephew and criminal underboss, who became a witness against him.

In the book Leonetti tells the inside story of the dark and deadly life in organized crime. 

As I noted in my review, being half-Italian and raised in South Philadelphia - the hub of the Philadelphia-South Jersey Cosa Nostra organized crime family - I was aware of Cosa Nostra culture at an early age. I know or knew of many of the people in this book. I've also interviewed Philadelphia cops and FBI agents from that era, and I found Leonetti's descriptions of events, people and places to be frank and accurate.

Philip Leonetti called me from an undisclosed location, as Scarfo has placed a $500,000 contract on his life, and I interviewed him over the phone.

Below is my Q&A with Philip Leonetti:

Davis: Why did you write this book?

Leonetti: First, I thought it was a great story. I have a son and I really didn’t have much time for him when he was growing up. But by writing this book he now knows what I was going through when he was a little kid and he now realizes my situation. Of course, I never really talked to him. I never went into any details about my life. He knew what type of guy I was and all, but I never explained anything to him. Now he understands a lot better.

Davis: Have you adapted well after a life in organized crime?

Leonetti: Yeah, it’s great. To be honest with you, the way I’m living now is how I wanted to live my whole life. I was doing my duty by the way I was raised, wanting to do the right thing by them, but this is really what I enjoy.

Davis: Many organized crime guys don’t adapt well after they testify, like Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, who went right back into a life of crime. I suppose they like the excitement, the action. You don’t miss that?

Leonetti: I miss the money. But no, it’s too cutthroat. Nobody is your friend. They’re scared of you, that’s why. What I found out afterwards was everyone hated my uncle, and me, because I was with him all of the time. They hated us because of the way we treated everybody. So, no, I don’t miss anything about that life. I make a good living this way.

Davis: In your book you paint a truly chilling portrait of your uncle. How would you describe him?

Leonetti: Psychopathic. You know, you watch The Boardwalk Empire, that guy Rosetti? He’s crazy. My uncle’s like him a little bit. I see my uncle in that guy. But my uncle didn’t go as far as putting a general’s hat on like Rosetti. That guy was really out of his mind.

Davis: The Rosetti character was a psychopath.

Leonetti: Yeah, but my uncle was more devious. He was a lot smarter than this guy on TV. He was the same way, but in a smart way. He was calculating.

Davis:  You were born to a life in Cosa Nostra. What did your uncle teach you about the life?

Leonetti: From when I was little he would tell me we don’t talk about our life to anybody. We’re different. We don’t live by the same rules that everybody else does. Like the laws they have in this country. If somebody bothers us we’ll kill the guy ourselves. We don’t go rat to the police. This is the environment I grew up in.

Davis: Do you have any regrets about your past life, or any regrets about becoming a witness?

Leonetti: Becoming a witness is not a nice thing. You go up on the stand and testify against people that you know. I didn’t enjoy that at all. But I made an agreement with the government and I testified truthfully about everything.

Davis: Was testifying about your crimes cathartic in any way? Do you regret any of the crimes you committed?

Leonetti: I try to weigh things in my mind. All the crimes I committed, like the murders I was involved with, were all against bad people, guys that were involved in our life. So I really didn’t think anything of it. They were looking to kill us and we were looking to kill them. We weren’t looking to kill no legitimate people.

Davis: You admittedly met and committed crimes with some major crime figures, such as your uncle of course, and Meyer Lansky and others. Can you give a brief impression of Lansky?

Leonetti: He was a little old man when I met him, walking this little white dog. He would meet us at the Eden Roc Hotel. We would go there and meet him, Nig Rosen and a couple of other fellas hanging around. We would sit around and have lunch with him. They were characters these guys, especially Meyer. He told stories about his buddy, Ben Siegel, who robbed the money and how he couldn’t save him. He felt bad about him. It was just talk, generally. It was like an honor just to be sitting there.

Davis: From a crime historical point of view, you don’t get much bigger than Meyer Lansky.

Leonetti: No, you don't.

Davis: You also met John Gotti. What was your impression of him?

Leonetti: John Gotti was a gangster. He was a real tough guy. He acted like a tough guy and he didn’t put up with any bullshit. He got along with us and he liked my uncle and he liked me. We met him a few times in New York and he just wanted to be friendly with us. He wanted to have us as his friends.

Davis: He was looking for an ally on the commission, right?

Leonetti: Yeah. We were friends with him because of Sammy - Sammy “the Bull” Gravano - I was real close to Sammy, but we were aligned with the Genovese family.

Davis: What was your impression of Sammy Gravano?

Leonetti: The same type of guy as John Gotti. These guys were all treacherous. Frank DeCiccio and Sammy the Bull were buddies. When John Gotti approached them to kill Gambino boss Paul Castellano, Sammy and Frank DeCiccio talked it over, you know, after John left, and said look, let’s do this because Paul’s not a bargain. So we’ll kill him now and if John does not work out, we’ll kill him too, that’s all. That’s the type of guys these are. They are all stone killers. This is what you get with the mob. That’s why I don’t miss that life.

Davis: What was your impression of Vincent “the Chin” Gigante?

Leonetti: I was never in his company. I dealt with Bobby Manna (the Genovese consigliere).

Davis: You mentioned that these guys were “real gangsters” and you write in your book that your uncle differentiated between a “racketeer” and a “gangster,” and your uncle was proud of being a gangster. What is the difference between the two?

Leonetti: Gangsters are guys like John Gotti, Vincent the Chin and my uncle, and the racketeers are guys like Paul Castellano and Angelo Bruno. They are business-like guys. They were guys who were more involved in business, they weren’t like street guys.

Davis: Who stands out in your mind from the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family during your day? 

Leonetti: When I was around there were guys like me and Chuckie (Merlino) and Salvie (Testa) and Lawrence (Merlino). We were like a close-knit family. When Phil Testa was alive we were with him. These were the guys I was really friendly with.

Davis: You guys were bringing in a lot on money. Do you blame your uncle for spoiling a good thing with his violent leadership of the Philadelphia-South Jersey crime family? There are those who say that his viciousness and murderous ways pushed guys into witness protection.

Leonetti: That’s the life. He couldn’t handle the job. He talked about everybody else going power-crazy, but he went power-crazy. He wanted to kill everybody.

Davis: I lived around the corner from Angelo Bruno when I was a kid and the general impression of him was that he was involved in gambling, but not drugs and murder. In your book you offer a different portrait. You write that he was involved in drugs and he did in fact order murders.

Leonetti: He was the boss of the Philadelphia family. He ordered murders. Before I was made I did beatings for him that he ordered. But let me tell you something, Angelo Bruno was the biggest drug dealer in Philadelphia. He was smart. He was low-key. He was a real businessman. He didn’t want anybody knowing anything. Long John (Martorano) dealt all the drugs for Angelo Bruno, the P2P, with all the motorcycle gangs and the different connections he had.

Davis: Now ongoing is the big federal mob racketeering trial with Joseph Ligambi and others. How do you think it will turn out? And do you think Joe Ligambi is like Angelo Bruno, a low-key businessman type?

Leonetti: Joe Ligambi has more balls than Angelo Bruno. Ang never killed anybody, Joe did.

Davis: I thought that was a requirement.

Leonetti: That was a requirement, yeah, but he got in because he did things for certain guys and they made him.

Davis: Do you think Joe Ligambi and his crew are going to prison?

Leonetti: I was would say yes if it was not for Eddie Jacobs. He is a good lawyer.

Davis: I interviewed Joe Pistone, the FBI Special Agent who went undercover with the Bonanno crime family for six years. He debunked the idea of glamour and honor in Cosa Nostra. He saw mob guys constantly scheming, scamming to make money and worrying about arrested or killed. In your book you recount the high life of organized crime, but you also note the apprehension and fear that goes along with the criminal life. Do you agree with Joe Pistone’s view?

Leonetti: Yeah, we always watched ourselves. We had to be careful with everybody we dealt with. Once you become the boss someone is always looking to get close to you, make a move on you, or something. We were pretty strong. We had everything covered since that was our thing. It would be pretty tough to trick us.

Davis: But even at your leadership level, you lived in fear of your uncle, at least in the later years, didn’t you?

Leonetti: In my later years, yeah. Eventually I knew he would have killed me. He was getting sicker in his mind, thinking that I might make a move against him, which I thought of, but I just couldn’t do it. You know, I killed a lot of people, but I’m just not a killer. I’m not like him in that way.

Davis: From what you wrote and from others I heard that your uncle enjoyed killing.

Leonetti: Yeah, that was his thing.

Davis: But you would not say that about yourself?

Leonetti: No. I tried to do my best to be a good soldier for him with the killing - and I was good at it - but no, that’s not my thing.

Davis: And that is the difference between the two of you?

Leonetti: Yes. He enjoyed it.

Davis: You wrote approvingly of the FBI Special Agents you dealt with when you became a witness. Did that surprise you that they were good guys?

Leonetti: Well, I take everybody as I meet them. I met bad people and these fellas I met happened to be good guys. There was one other guy in the FBI office that didn’t live up to things that he told me, but Jim Maher and Gary Langan took care of me and whatever they said to me they did. They really helped me out after this transition, when I got out of jail and all.

Davis: I interviewed former FBI Special Agent Bud Warner a while back. He was an aggressive street agent in Philadelphia. You didn’t mention him in the book, but I was wondering what you thought of him?

Leonetti: I remember him. I never really dealt with him, but I know my uncle hated him.

Davis: You mentioned Boardwalk Empire, do you watch mob movies like the Godfather and Goodfellas?

Leonetti: Yeah, I do. I liked Goodfellas. It seemed real. The Godfather was a good movie. 

Davis: You mentioned that the reason you wrote the book was for your son, but is there a message for the general reader? 

Leonetti: Well, yes. Don’t get involved with the mob. It looks good from the outside. Everybody thinks you get the best seats in any restaurant and all the money. But it is a different story from the inside. Depending on your personality, you don’t know how long you’re going to live. 

Davis: Do you think your uncle will read your book in prison? And if so, what will he think of it?

Leonetti: Definitely, he'll read it. I think he’ll curse me; he’ll curse the book and say it stinks. He’ll say it’s all a lie. I wish I could listen to him talk on the phones from prison after he reads the book.

Note: The above photos of Philip Leonetti and Nicodemo Scarfo in prison appear curtesy of Philip Leonetti. Scarfo died in prison in 2017. 

You can read my Washington Times review of Mafia Prince via below:

By Paul Davis - Special to The Washington Times - - Friday, January 4, 2013

MAFIA PRINCE: INSIDE AMERICA’S MOST VIOLENT CRIME FAMILY AND THE BLOODY FALL OF LA COSA NOSTRA
By Philip Leonaetti with Scott Burnstein and Christopher Graziano
Running Press, $24, 320 pages 

Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, the boss of the Philadelphia-South Jersey La Cosa Nostra crime family in the 1980s, has been described by law enforcement officers and former criminal associates as ruthless, homicidal, greedy and paranoid — even by organized-crime standards.

Today, Scarfo, 83, sits in federal prison in large part because of Philip “Crazy Phil” Leonetti, his close nephew and criminal underboss, who became a witness against him.

Scarfo will not be happy with this book.

In “Mafia Prince,” Leonetti tells the inside story of his uncle’s rise to the leadership of the crime family and his violent seven-year reign. Leonetti also writes about his own criminal acts, which include 10 murders. 

Leonetti tells of being born into La Cosa Nostra. In the absence of Leonetti's father, Scarfo became a surrogate father, raising Leonetti from childhood in their way of life.

Leonetti committed his first murder when he was 23, and he went on to commit countless other murders and criminal acts at his uncle’s side. Between 1976 and 1987, Scarfo and Leonetti made millions of dollars through illegal gambling, loan sharking, extortion and skimming from the Atlantic City casinos.

The two were feared and respected by those in the underworld. A radio DJ called Leonetti “Crazy Phil,” and the nickname stuck. Leonetti said he hated the moniker, but his uncle said most mob guys would love to have a nickname like that.

In “Mafia Prince” Leonetti offers a history of the Philadelphia mob, including the murder of longtime mob boss Angelo Bruno in 1980 and how Scarfo became the boss after Bruno’s successor, Philip “Chicken Man” Testa, was murdered a year later by a powerful nail bomb on his front porch in South Philly. 

Scarfo became the boss in 1981 and began an internecine mob war, leaving bodies on the streets of South Philly. He shook down drug dealers and gamblers and beat or murdered anyone who did not show him the proper “respect.”

Leonetti also writes about accompanying his uncle to meetings with notorious gangsters including Meyer Lansky in Miami and John Gotti and Sammy “the Bull” Gravano in New York.

When Scarfo and Leonetti finally were convicted and received long sentences in prison, Leonetti made a deal with the feds and testified against his uncle and other organized-crime figures.

Being half-Italian and raised in South Philadelphia — the hub of the Philadelphia-South Jersey La Cosa Nostra organized-crime family — I was aware of La Cosa Nostra culture at an early age. I know or knew of many of the people in this book.

I was in my late 20s and early 30s living in South Philly during Scarfo's reign, and I recall vividly the mob war and the many murders that occurred in South Philadelphia and Atlantic City. I’ve also interviewed Philadelphia cops and FBI agents from that era, and I found Leonetti's descriptions of events, people and places to be frank and accurate.

I spoke recently to Philip Leonetti, who called me from an undisclosed location, as his uncle has placed a $500,000 contract on his life. Leonetti told me he wrote the book because, first, it is a great story. Second, he wrote the book so his son will understand his life in organized crime and how he was schooled in La Cosa Nostra from an early age by his uncle.

“From when I was little he would tell me we don’t talk about our life to anybody,” Leonetti told me. “We’re different; we don’t live by the same rules like everybody else. If somebody bothers us, we’ll kill the guy ourselves. We don’t rat to the police. This is the environment I grew up in.”

He described his uncle as smart, devious, calculating and psychopathic. Leonetti admitted to committing murders and said he tried to be a good soldier for his uncle by killing — and he was good at it — but he didn’t enjoy the act like his uncle did.

“All the crimes I committed, like the murders I was involved in, were all against bad people, guys that were involved in our life, so I didn’t think anything of it,” Leonetti explained. “They were looking to kill us, and we were looking to kill them. We weren’t looking to kill no legitimate people.”

Leonetti said he is happy in his new straight life, and he wishes he had lived this way all his life. He said he did not miss the treachery and killing from his past life in La Cosa Nostra, but he admitted, “I miss the money.”

“Mafia Prince” offers an insider’s history of the dark, violent world of Cosa Nostra.

• Paul Davis is a writer who covers crime, espionage and terrorism. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime@aol.com.