The New York Daily News reports
on the racketeering trial of reputed Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime boss Joseph
Merlino.
Joseph “Skinny Joey”
Merlino’s courtroom claim that he gave up his role as Philly’s leading mob boss
didn’t carry much weight with Wednesday’s witness.
John Rubeo, an admitted
gangster who worked with the Genovese family, testified in Manhattan Federal
Court that Merlino was always a major underworld player — despite his
attorneys’ claims he’d left the game for good.
Federal authorities say that
Merlino, 55, helped orchestrate a criminal enterprise that ran from
Springfield, Mass. to South Florida.
The crime boss was arrested
in August 2016 in a sweep that nabbed some four dozen alleged mobsters.
Merlino’s lawyers have sought
to paint the reputed gangster as a man with a serious gambling problem who was
only talking to Rubeo about borrowing cash.
After Merlino got out of
federal lock up in 2011 — when he did time on different charges — he decamped to
South Florida rather than return to Philadelphia, his lawyers said.
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