How old is nicky scarfo

He had a violent temper. While making book for the Philadelphia-South Jersey family in , he stabbed a longshoreman to death in a South Philadelphia diner in an argument over a booth to sit in. Scarfo was convicted and served time. Scarfo bided his time in the crime family throughout the s. One was his underboss, Peter Casella, an expert in bomb making who felt unappreciated. Once again, the Genovese stepped in to crown the new boss, and selected Testa lieutenant Scarfo.

Amid the blood already shed by , Scarfo encouraged his soldiers to take part in still more murders to maintain his standing. Philadelphia had never experienced this kind of carnage before with the underworld — an average of six deaths per year from to A Scarfo hitman shot and nearly killed Riccobene. Some of the shootings in the Scarfo-Riccobene gang war were carried out brazenly on the streets of South Philly in broad daylight, shocking the public.

Philadelphia police and FBI agents formed a task force to investigate gang murders and set about the tricky job of identifying the killers and their accomplices. Witnesses to the slayings were afraid to talk, fearing retribution. The feds hailed Scarfo as the first La Cosa Nostra boss to be convicted of first-degree murder. Scarfo's penchant for violence and hair-trigger temper were legendary both in the underworld and in law enforcement circles and they ultimately led to his downfall and the destruction of his organization.

Scarfo was described by former associates as a man who enjoyed his notoriety. He often described himself as a "gangster" and relished his image as a tough guy, fashioning his lifestyle after that of the infamous Chicago mob boss Al Capone and the cinematic characters portrayed by one of his favorite actors, Humphrey Bogart.

Scarfo named his waterfront home in Florida "Casablanca South" and christened a foot cabin cruiser he kept docked behind the property "Casablanca Usual Suspects," both references to the classic Bogart film that he loved. In addition to Bogart films, one of his favorites was Viva Zapata!

He was also an avid boxing fan and chess player, having learned to play chess during an early stint in prison. Well-groomed and always meticulously dressed, Scarfo relished his role as a Mafia don. It was more than just the power and wealth, associates said. After years as a lowly soldier in the Philadelphia mob, he took great satisfaction in the notoriety and celebrity that came with the top spot in the organization.

And he took pride in the fact that he had had to climb over the blood-splattered bodies of former associates to get there. Scarfo frequently boasted to associates about the murders he committed and about his guile and cunning in the underworld. And for years, law enforcement officials concede, he got away with murder.

Scarfo was tried and acquitted twice for gangland slayings and was a suspect in several others. Only after two high-ranking members of his organization began cooperating with authorities in , however, were law enforcement investigators able to gather enough evidence to bring him down. Between and , Scarfo was convicted three times - for conspiracy, racketeering, and first-degree murder - and was sentenced to consecutive terms of 14 years, 55 years and life, although the life sentence was later overturned.

He and seven associates had been convicted in Common Pleas Court of plotting the murder of well-known South Philadelphia gambler and mob associate Frank "Frankie Flowers" D'Alfonso, but they later won a new trial and were acquitted. The racketeering charge stemmed from a federal trial in which Scarfo and 16 associates were charged under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations RICO Act with murder, extortion, loan-sharking, gambling and drug dealing.

Among other counts, the jury found Scarfo guilty of ordering nine murders and of four attempted murders. His victims included an Atlantic County municipal court judge, an Atlantic City cement contractor, a Philadelphia drug dealer, several mob associates and the son of one of his oldest and most influential mob mentors. Nicodemo Scarfo is a "remorseless and profoundly evil man," federal prosecutors told a judge at the time of his sentencing for that racketeering conviction.

Mob watchers who followed the rise and fall of Little Nicky said he epitomized organized crime in the s. They said he was the underworld's reflection of the pinstriped outlaws who during that same time period were ravaging Wall Street and gutting the nation's savings and loan associations.

The same philosophy seemed to be at work in the nation's financial circles and in the underworld: greed and the raw exercise of power were good; playing by the rules was for suckers. All of that ended after his arrest in His last years were as a federal prisoner, number No stranger to life behind bars, Scarfo had been jailed on three other occasions during his storied criminal career, in , following his conviction on manslaughter charges in Philadelphia; in , after being cited with contempt for refusing to testify before the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation; and in , following his conviction on a gun law violation.

None of those prison terms, however, lasted more than two years. Scarfo was born in Brooklyn but grew up in South Philadelphia, where his family had moved when he was His parents were Italian immigrants who hailed from Calabria, a dirt-poor region in southern Italy.

Scarfo graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School, fought as an amateur boxer and worked for a time as a distribution supervisor for newsboys at Philadelphia's 30th Street train station. According to most law enforcement accounts, he was introduced to the ways of the Mafia by his uncles, Nicholas, Joseph and Michael Piccolo, who were made members of the Philadelphia mob.

Scarfo began as a bookmaker. The Piccolo brothers ran Piccolo's , a restaurant at 11th and Christian Streets in South Philadelphia that for years was a well-known mob hangout.

Nicholas "Nicky Buck" Piccolo rose to the rank of capo, or captain, under Philadelphia mob boss Angelo Bruno, who reigned as Mafia kingpin between and His volatile temper and violent outbursts ran counter to the style and philosophy of Bruno and several other top mob figures, including Joseph "Mr.

Joe" Rugnetta, the longtime consigliere - or counselor - of the Bruno crime family. In fact, according to several mob informants, Rugnetta had recommended several times that Scarfo be killed because of the problems and unwanted publicity he created for the otherwise low-key Bruno organization.

Bruno, ever the diplomat and master of compromise, opted instead to banish Scarfo from the city. This came in , after Scarfo completed a one-year sentence following his conviction of manslaughter.

The charge stemmed from a fight in the Oregon Diner in which Scarfo stabbed a longshoreman, William Dugan, during a dispute over a booth in the popular South Philadelphia restaurant.

In , Scarfo moved to Atlantic City, where his mother, Catherine, owned and operated a boarding home on North Georgia Avenue in the predominantly Italian American Ducktown section of the resort.

Scarfo lived with his second wife, Mimi, and three sons one from an earlier marriage in an apartment in his mother's building. Years later, after earning millions as a Mafia boss and maintaining a lavish waterfront home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. And at one point told probation authorities that he worked as a maintenance man for his mother. Scarfo struggled during his early years in Atlantic City.

He was the mob's caretaker in a resort that was clearly on the skids. According to law enforcement accounts, he worked as a bartender and scrambled to make ends meet by engaging in some bookmaking and loansharking. For a time he also held an interest in an adult bookstore. It was during this period that he was sentenced to a year in prison for refusing to testify before the SCI.

He was one of nearly a dozen mob figures, including Angelo Bruno, jailed for contempt at that time. In , New Jersey voters gave Atlantic City the chance at a new life and, inadvertently, paved the way for Scarfo's rise to power. Voters approved legalized casino gambling for the city and opened the door to massive redevelopment.

Scarfo became the mob's man on the scene and reaped the benefits. Both his financial situation and his standing within the organization improved as a result. Two mob-linked construction companies controlled by Scarfo associates did several million dollars in subcontracting work on casino and public works projects spawned by the development boom. Labor racketeering and political corruption brought even more money the mob's way.

Two successive presidents of Local 54 were forced to step down because of their alleged ties to Scarfo and, in , following an out-of-court settlement of a civil racketeering suit brought by the U. Attorney's Office in New Jersey, a federal monitor was appointed to run Local 54 and rid it of mob control. Scarfo's expanding wealth and power during the early days of casino gambling in Atlantic City coincided with a bloody, internecine struggle for control of the Bruno crime family in Philadelphia.

The first shots in that battle were fired on March 21, , when Angelo Bruno was gunned down outside his home in the block of Snyder Avenue in South Philadelphia. While most law enforcement officials believe Scarfo had nothing to do with that murder or a series of retribution killings that followed, he clearly was the mobster who benefited from the turmoil that rocked the underworld and left a generation of potential leaders dead.

Testa elevated the Atlantic City mob soldier to the rank of family consigliere and together, Testa and Scarfo established a reign of terror in the underworld. Bruno had operated for years in the shadows, depending on negotiation and compromise to keep his organization running smoothly and out of the limelight. Testa and Scarfo brought blazing guns, public executions, and flash and glitter to the Philadelphia mob. This new style was epitomized by the brutal Christmas-time slaying of Philadelphia Roofers Union boss John McCullough, who was gunned down in the kitchen of his Bustleton home by a poinsettia carrying deliveryman.

McCullough was killed, law enforcement authorities later learned, because he had tried to wrest control of a part of the Atlantic City bartenders union from Scarfo. Violence continued to rock the Philadelphia underworld for the next five years. Philip Testa was blasted out of power by a bomb his rivals planted under the porch of his South Philadelphia home.

Scarfo assumed the top spot in the organization, and with Testa's young and charismatic son, Salvatore, as his top gunman, proceeded to avenge the Testa murder and solidify his hold on the organization. Ten prominent South Philadelphia mob figures were killed in the two years following Testa's death as a faction of the organization loyal to Scarfo did battle with a rival group headed by old-time mob leader Harry Riccobene.

Scarfo managed to sit out most of the Riccobene War, as it came to be called, in a federal prison in Texas where he served 17 months on a gun law violation. From his prison cell, authorities later charged, he continued to run the organization and to issue murder contracts on his rivals. Released in January , he returned to Philadelphia as the undisputed boss of the crime family and the kingpin of an ever-growing and prosperous mob syndicate.

Teams of Scarfo henchmen had instituted a "street tax" in the underworld.