Ranking the Top 10 Philadelphia Mob Bosses of All Time (Bruno-Scarfo Crime Family)

追加: 2026-05-13

[00:00:01]Original Gangsters News with Scott Bernstein.

[00:00:05]>> Welcome to the Original Gangsters News Network and podcast. We're going to go out to South Philly. We're going to talk about the history of mob bosses, the broadstreet bullies of LOSA, Nostra, the Philadelphia Bruno Scarflow crime family. Uh we're going to rank the top 10 bosses in the modern era. So, we're going to go uh from Angelo Bruno all the way through today. There's been 10 bosses slashacting bosses, and we're going to break it down one through 10.

[00:00:39]Uh, and this is going to be the definitive list of who the best, most powerful, most uh impactful mafia dons in the history of South Philly. And some guys that I I'm expecting people to think should be at the top of the list might not be. Uh, and some guys that you think should be at the bottom of the list might be at the top of the list.

[00:01:02]You know, there's a lot of different um factors at play here. And I think that once again, like we've we've done a couple of these now. And I want to lay out some of the uh you know, the parameters or or uh you know, deciding factors on how I determine the rankings.

[00:01:20]and you know, uh, bosses that lose control of their crime family, no matter how big their legacy is, uh, are going to be doc points. [snorts] Um, and we're going to, you know, like with everything we do, we call balls and strikes and, um, even if somebody might have a legacy as a good boss, if we think they were a bad boss, we're going to say it and rank them accordingly. So, we're going to start uh, we're going to go 10 to one.

[00:01:46]So, we'll name our our top Philadelphia mafy down at the end of this, but uh we're going to start with a couple guys that were just not good bosses, bad bosses. Then we're going to go to a couple guys that were basically placeholders.

[00:02:02]Um and they weren't really good or bad.

[00:02:05]Uh probably one lean more good and one lean more bad. uh and then we're going to get into some of the bigger names and uh legacy holders that uh make up the final six.

[00:02:19]So, let's start off with number 10. John Stana was just a bad boss. Um wasn't boss material, never had control of the crime family, never won the hearts and minds, could never get the uh Merino faction into the mix the way he wanted to. uh just it seemed like every tactical decision he made backfired.

[00:02:46]He wasn't much of a diplomat. Uh you know, he had a violent streak and and wasn't somebody that shied away from violence, but to what end? I mean, other than killing or having Mikey Chang killed, um, it it didn't affect anything. And even, you know, all due respect to Mikey Chang and and the Chang family, and things could be totally different right now if if Mikey Chang uh hadn't have gotten killed in August of 93, and we could have a whole, you know, series of episodes about that, but it didn't have any effect. the the Merino faction, the young Turks, the the guys that were the upandcomers at that point still won the war and Stan still uh ended up doing life in prison and uh and there was this like belief at the time and it's interesting to see how like perspectives change and narratives shift but at the time that the the way it was being sold and let's also just say he wasn't voted in as a member of the Philadelphia New Jersey organization. You know, he was placed in power to fill a vacuum by the guys in New York, by the Gambinos who wanted their own guy in there. And you know, Stanley had been a part of Angelo Angelo Bruno's inner circle at the end of Angelo Bruno's life and then set Angelo Bruno up to be killed. Um, I don't think he ever was somebody that was, you know, very trusted. Had been placed with Angelo Bruno by the Gambinos in the mid early to mid70s. Um, disappeared for a while, went on the run, did some jail time, came out, and Philadelphia needed a boss and John Stanford got the nod really circumstantial and help from the Gambinos. wasn't really anything where the people in Philly and New York really wanted him, but he had this, you know, the perception was that he was an old school Dom that was going to do things, you know, in an old school way.

[00:05:00]And he he had all this bluster and uh so much faith in these zips that he was bringing uh across the ocean and and installing them into not necessarily like big positions of power but you know having them be his muscle or his inner circle and these guy it's those guys were a clown show u Baglia Baloio um and these guys all and by the way they all flipped so they weren't really loyal to him either and it it just uh it never worked with John Stan never clicked. He was the boss for about four years. He's doing life in prison right now. He was definitely a gangster. Um definitely a bonafide gangster, [snorts] a bonafide mobster.

[00:05:57]Uh there's no doubt. But he wasn't a wannabe.

[00:06:02]But uh some people just aren't made for leadership roles. And in my opinion, John Stanford was was far from somebody that should have been a leader. And when he got the opportunity to be a leader, he failed miserably. And the crime family became very destabilized.

[00:06:21]And a lot of guys that he brought in to the fold were just again, they were tactical errors. I mean, just look at the John John VC thing. I mean, John John VC was working on a construction site with uh Spanish Frank Martinez and Martinez was like, "Hey, you want to be in the mob?" And the next thing you know, he's meeting with Stan and carrying out hits and at one point even I think became like an acting skipper.

[00:06:52]So, the whole uh reign and regime was was uh dysfunctional and backwards. So, that's why he's number 10. Uh number nine, Ralph in the tally. And you know what's [sighs] Ralph was very controversial.

[00:07:09]Um became boss in a very unique way. Uh uh unconventional, [clears throat] some people might say blasphemous, but nonetheless, he did uh politic his way into power.

[00:07:25]At the end of the day, he was more of a front boss than anything. But I'll say this about Ralph.

[00:07:32]Uh Ralph at one point in time was a good boss. Uh Ralph started off on a a positive trajectory. He was somebody that did win hearts and minds.

[00:07:47]Uh he did have that whole family behind him very tight. and after a a period of extreme instability, you know, w with him playing a factor in it from behind bars and stoking the flames with Merino and Mikey Chang and those guys. Um, but [snorts] he was positioned to have a really good run and when he started he had the full support of everybody and he talked a great game and a lot of the stuff he said was true. A lot of the other stuff he said was [ __ ] and he couldn't follow through on it and he couldn't deliver on promises and it it wasn't sustainable and his true colors eventually reared their head uh a couple years into his reign. I would say about three years in it started to wear thin and he started to lose the support of his troops. Um the thing with Ruthie was really the the final straw. Uh, and you can really go to one specific incident that happened, I believe, in the [snorts] um either it was either late 97 or early 98 where she slapped him in front of everybody uh at the saloon and he didn't do anything. And I'm not somebody that, you know, supports violence or supports misogyny or violence against women, but in order for him to have saved his reputation with those guys, he needed to have killed her for that transgression. Um, and that was never even in the cards. I mean, he he was uh head over heels for Ruthie and let Ruthie kind of lead him around by the nose, which was one of the reasons he lost the respect of his troops because Ruthie was, you know, grew up with Merino's guys on the on the on the corners of South Philly and, you know, they went from her being a contemporary to her being, you know, the Queen of England, at least according to Ralph and Ruthie, uh, in South Philly. And it just it didn't uh it didn't play well. And Ralph ended up becoming way more boastful and braggadocious than he was in terms of really getting stuff done and making people loyal to him. He was somebody that got frankly he got played.

[00:10:40]Um, that's a lot of his legacy that Joey and Ruthie and um, a lot of other people played played Ralph and Ralph ended up really getting the the short ends of the stick even after his cooperation. You know, I'm dinging him for the fact that he cuts this cooperation deal to try to put Marino and his guys away and he ends up doing more time than Joey Marino, the guy that he testified against. and nothing that he testified to in that big raketeering trial in the summer of of of 01. Uh he wasn't a successful witness. The only time he was successful as a witness was against the mayor uh Milton Milin [clears throat] uh out in New Jersey.

[00:11:26]But you know, Ralph Natali was a very out of the ordinary boss in and how he came into power in how he led the family when he was in power and then how he uh lost power and then eventually cooperated and became the first city in mob boss in American history to cut a cooperation deal. Maybe maybe he should be number 10. Uh and Stanford should be nine. But I gave Ralph the nod over Stanford because I think Ralph, like I said, was a good boss at one point.

[00:11:58]Things started off well. It's like the the um I can make a sports analogy. It's like the uh the rookie that comes up all highly touted from the miners and then uh in baseball. in April, May, and June, he's shredding and and spraying with his bat and balls are going out of the park and he's hitting 400 or 300 and looks great right before the All-Star break and then from the All-Star break to the end of the year, he fades and and never becomes the star that a lot of people thought he was going to be. But it but uh at the beginning, it looked different. And with Ralph, I'll give him credit. Uh what Ralph did to take power took talent. I mean to be able to look at a situation you've been you've been locked up for 15 years and you're not a made guy and you don't even know the guys really that are are are fighting on the street or the guys that you get to fight on the street for you. you you endear yourself to them while you're locked up and you and you were uh you know cellmates with Marino and you meet all the guys through Joey and you provide Joey the legitimacy from an old-timer uh cuz all of his guys at that point were in the early 30s. Ralph was in the 60s and had connections in New York because of uh his time in prison and stuff he used to do for Angelo Bruno. But he comes out, he's not a made guy. Again, [clears throat] everybody knows this, but just to, you know, get it on the record, Joy Marino, who's only a mob soldier at that point, makes Natali in a ceremony out by the vet veteran stadium and then declares him the boss or Ralph declares himself the boss and names Joey his underboss. It was all very very out of the ordinary, unconventional, and uh it the end it didn't work. But it wor I guess it worked for Joan's guys because they played him like a fiddle and uh didn't really let him know anything that was going on in his own crime family. They were running a shadow government. Um and they got the last laugh. You know, they're still active wise guys and running a loan organization. you know, [snorts] minus Joey in his his podcast and we'll get to that momentarily or later in the list and how that plays, but you know, he didn't really impede any of uh their their trajectory. He wasn't impeded at all. His trajectory was impeded and he died and I I got to know Ralph at the end. Um he died very bitter and, you know, longing for the life that he left behind despite whatever he said.

[00:14:39]Uh so all right, let's go on to a couple guys that uh we're not going to talk a ton about uh because they were just acting bosses and didn't really move the needle one way or the other. So number uh uh number eight, Anthony Piccolo, Tony Buck, uh was the boss for about three years acting boss between when Nikki Scarflow went to prison in ' 87 and when John Stanley came in as boss in 90. So about three years uh he was you know related to Nikki Scaro. Eventually he dropped down uh when Stanford came in he he went from acting boss to consiliary. He was a bad consiliary cuz all the advice he gave to uh Stanford was um you know didn't didn't bode well. Uh it was it was bad advice. Uh did not counsel him the way that uh maybe somebody should have. uh his council was uh to basically be a yes man for John Stana and Stan's you know that whole entire four years of Stana he was flailing and Tony Buck didn't really help the situation and then we know I think Tony Buck uh held I shouldn't say I think I know held a ceremony and uh one or two ceremonies and they were invalidated so you know he gets uh the number eight slot number handsome Stevie Mazone. Everybody thinks of him as uh the longtime under boss, but he was acting boss for a short period of time in the late two uh I'd say early late 2000s, early 2010s until uh Uncle Joe beat his case. Him and Georgie beat the case in 2013 and 14, that racketeering light case. Um, and for a couple years there, Stevie was holding the fort down for everybody.

[00:16:33]As I said, with the two guys that were placeholders, one kind of I would say leans bad, and that's Piccolo, and the other one leans good, and that's Stevie. Uh, you know, there's nothing negative to say about Stevie Mazone. The guy does everything the right way since day one. Uh, he's all about the life. He's all about the code.

[00:16:56]He's well respected and uh very popular across the country, not just in South Philly. Um he's while still in that mold of Philly guys that like to uh pin and peacock. uh he's he's one of the uh uh lower profile guys in the sense that you you know he's not uh doing interviews or uh voluntarily jumping in front of the camera but uh Stevie was boss for a for a couple years and kept everything copathetic. Uh but he's, you know, one of the best under bosses that the the crime family's ever had and a lot more of uh Steviey's career to see. You know, he's uh probably got another 10 to 20 years in the life and uh you know, everything with Stevie is everything you would want in in a wise [clears throat] guy. So, as a boss, even though he was an acting boss and a and a placeholder, uh we think he did a pretty good job. So, that he's at number seven.

[00:18:01]Okay. Now, we're going to get into our final six guys. And this these are the big names. These are the marquee names.

[00:18:10]Um, and we there might be some some surprises here, but I'm going to tell you what the uh logic was, what the what the thinking was, and and uh you guys can be the judge for whether you think uh this ranking is done properly. And please, you know, hit the comments and and tell me what you think uh uh your ranking would look like and, you know, give some constructive criticism. Um, please. So, uh, number six, Little Nikki Scaro. Nicodemos Scarflow. Little Nikki um, doesn't make the top five and just like Ralph Natali but at a much larger scale and scope.

[00:18:50]He started off very strongly and I would say Nikki Scarfla was a good boss for the first three, four years and then he got drunk with power. Uh he became paranoid and he alienated himself from everybody.

[00:19:08]And if Nikki Scaro doesn't get picked off the streets in early '87, I'm really confident that he wouldn't have survived the summer of 87. Um, his own troops would have killed him and taken the crime family themselves and gone to New York and figured it out. But uh Nikki was totally off the reservation really from the time he decided to kill Salvi Testa until uh 87 when he's indicted.

[00:19:41]He wanted to kill everybody. And you just can't operate a organization like that. Even an organization that's built on blood or uh people are kept in check by murders or the possibility of murders. it it can't be just a way to solve anything and everything. And that's what happened with Nikki Scarflow. Uh you he would he would brag about it. He would tell people at these big dinners he would hold um cuz he loved, you know, rolling deep. You know, Nikki loved having 30 guys with him. Um that would be at his back and call and and jump when he snapped his fingers. Uh and that really started to go to his head and he used to, you know, tell people, I'm going to I'm going to bring in hitters from New York. I'm going to kill everybody and start from scratch. I mean, that that was literally what he would say. So, Nikki Scaro at the end of the day was a bad boss. Um, but he has a legacy and his name is still on the crime family. So, uh, he's not in the, uh, you know, at the bottom of the list like like Stan or Ralph, but he's not at the top of the list either. Uh, he did a lot of damage and really, even though him and Joey Merino buted heads a lot and were very oppositional to each other and Nikki wanted to kill Joey at some time at one point and chased his dad and demoted his dad and then Joey and his guys tried to kill Nikki's son and all of that. Uh but you know they were in some ways that you know the similarities between Joey and Nikki uh exceed the differences and and Joey has a lot more um pluses than Nikki ever had. And Joey's reign is five times the length of uh of of Nikki's. I don't know the exact number but you know Joey's been you know was boss for 30 years.

[00:21:40]Nikki was boss for seven um at least or six at least on the street. So, but what I'll say is, you know, Joey and his guys were, you know, JB Mob guys in the 80s. All their dads and uncles were Nikki Scarfro's organization. And, you know, they they learned from them, not necessarily all the good things. And uh you know just like a a kid you know they they see model modeled behavior from their parents and then often times they'll repeat that behavior. A lot of the insanity that was breaking out in the '9s was because of like kind of precedent and foundation that had been laid in the 80s with Scaro. Um and this kind of model behavior to Joey and his guys where um if you don't like somebody just whack them. So, uh, that's that's why, uh, Nikki Scarf is not higher on this list. Okay, number five. Uh, there could be some recency biasy, uh, recency bias here, but, uh, I'm putting Georgie Borghazi, Georgie Boy at number five, and I'll say number five with a bullet because in the next couple years, he could climb, uh, even higher.

[00:22:59]He's been the official boss only for about three years, but unofficially, uh, or I should say an acting boss. uh for years before that. So if you cons if you count his acting boss era with his boss era, you're talking at this point seven years. Became acting boss in the summer of 2019 and then took the official reigns in the fall of 2023. And I've said a number of times um on here on this pod on on OG News Network that I don't envy Georgie Borghazi. This is a very difficult time to be the boss of the Philly mob, the Bruno Scarfl crime family. It's a real highwire act. Um, it's a powder keg dealing with the Marino podcasting fallout and all of the opinions and feelings that uh have made their way into that. And we'll always say, you know, let people know doesn't affect Joey. It really doesn't. Joey doesn't care. Joey does whatever the [ __ ] Joey wants to do. And that's the uh that's the beauty, I guess, of Joey. But there's a lot of people there that have to pick up the mess that is made in the wake of the Joey hurricane that has been, you know, coming on the shore in South Philly and parts of New Jersey for four 30 35 years now. Um and and and Joey very often doesn't really have to deal with the ramifications of of his actions. His his people are uh kind of forced to pick up the pieces and and do it for him. So George Borgghazi did not have an easy task. And I think knowing everything we know what's happened in the last 3 years, the fact that the the Philly family is still uh stable, functional, making money, um a and has been able to not 100% but for the most part smooth things over with New York. And that's all been the the diplomacy of Georgie Borghazi. Uh, and it's a it's a it's a a feat that deserves um it's an achievement that deserves in terms of if you're rating analyzing crime lords, it it's uh it's something that's important to to to notice and acknowledge. Um, I don't think just anybody from that Merino faction could have stepped in and done the juggling act, balancing act that that has to be done right now to keep everybody happy.

[00:25:45]And we're not going to go back into where the family stands right now. It's more divided than it has been, but it's still still functional and stable. There might be divisions or divisions in every crime family. Some are more pronounced than others. This is right now a little bit more pronounced than it has been in the past, but you know, we've said this before. These are guys that have been best friends um 50, 60 years. These are guys that are in their 60s now, have been best friends since the sandbox. And you know, in lifelong friendships and business relationships, you know, there are es and flows and sometimes people are mad at each other and but if you're, you know, if you're true lifelong friends and [snorts] uh uh you know, we've said it, we always say it because it's always true. The oath that these guys have is to each other. It's not Too Nostra.

[00:26:37]These guys, the oath is in South Philly on the street corner. um more so than any other uh crime group or or crime faction in in the mafia we've ever seen.

[00:26:48]These guys are are loyal to each other.

[00:26:49]And they might be bickering now, but uh Philadelphia is a unicorn. Joy Marino is a unicorn. Things that uh you know, conventional wisdom in other groups, other cities doesn't really affect doesn't really apply to Philly. And so, but but Georgie, I think, uh, has really shown that he is boss material.

[00:27:12]And I think Georgie is somebody that, uh, has always wanted this, uh, even though he knew that that Joey was was top dog and, uh, was going to be the boss as long as he wanted to be the boss. But Georgie was always ready if Judy called. And now Georgie is stri, you know, he's thriving. Really is.

[00:27:34]um he's he's uh keeping everybody in check and making sure that the envelopes are still flowing. And he's somebody is a student of history. So, he's studied other mob bosses. He's been around a lot of mob bosses. He's learned from some really top-notch guys. Joey being one of them, his uncle being another one. So, uh hats off to George Base for making the top five here. And uh let's move on to number four. Number four, Angelo Bruno. Um the name on the the you know really the first name on the marquee at least in terms of the modern era. Uh Angelo Bruno led the crime family for roughly 20 years. But his ending in some ways defined his legacy uh assassinated by his own guys uh March of 1980 and foreshadowed a decade of a lot of bloodshed and instability in that crime family. But uh he's still in the top five just because of the legacy he has.

[00:28:40]He was when he was at his peak he was a great mob boss. when he was at his peak, you know, he is a Mount Rushmore guy, but you gota just like with and I'm making the the analogies to, you know, athletes or musicians or actors. It's like you can't just look at somebody when they were at their best. Um, [clears throat] you know, the the whole, you know, the whole picture needs to be uh absorbed, observed, analyzed. You can't just look at uh you know a basketball player that uh for a couple years in a row or was scoring 30 a night but got kicked out of the league because of uh drugs or at the end of his career uh couldn't shoot anymore and was was averaging eight points a game. for that couple years, he was one of the best um you know, like musicians or or uh or rock acts or you know, a lot of the legacy um musical acts, you know, they might have had a a tremendous apex, but they don't necessarily they can sustain in their niche, but outside of their niche, they're they're just that one era, that one time period.

[00:29:56]and Angelo Bruno in the 60s and early 70s I think uh was a great mafia don but by the u mid to late 70s a lot of tactical errors a lot of um hubris kind of just like with with Nikki Scaro where you kind of think you're >> [clears throat] >> um you know you overestimate yourself and maybe underestimate the people around you was not the docselon That was a a moniker that was put on him by the press. And you talk to people that that uh you know worked with him or knew him and and were privy to what his real temperament was and how he really went about things.

[00:30:43]He he was not somebody that was sparing lives all the time or uh looking to for peaceful resolutions over uh violent resolutions. He was somebody that if violence needed to be done, he was very in favor of it. Um the whole thing with how he became boss and Mr. Migs and uh you know that part entrenched that reputation because he spared some people's lives um when they tried to kill him or unseat him or prevent him from taking power. So he got that reputation, but in reality uh you know he he killed a lot of people. And what I think is most notable about the downfall is that it it's perceived in the history books as this was Tony Capgro, Tony Bananas and his guys angry at Angelo Bruno and uh making a move on him while he had all this support from the rest of the family. And that just wasn't true. Phil Tesa, which who was his under boss, uh really despised Angelo Bruno. Um and Phil Tesa was a guy that believed in the rules and he wasn't going to kill a boss, but he was not somebody that was a fan of of being a number two to Angelo Bruno. And uh his time as under boss was really frustrating for him. Never felt like he was empowered.

[00:32:24]um didn't feel like Angela listened to him and and in fact I know from people that were with Phil Tesa um on the night that that Angelo was killed and there's the famous photo with his mouth that got after getting his head blown off and Phil Tesa said to everybody um this is appropriate look his mouth's open like he is whenever he's around us trying to eat off other people's plates So, he should have died with his mouth open because he was greedy. So, this is coming from his under boss. So, that's why Angelo Bruno doesn't make it into the top um three. So, let's go to number three. Phil the chicken mana. a very short reign, only a year, but I think um he's one of these guys that uh was tailor made for the job and things would have been totally different throughout the 1980s and 90s if if Phil Testa hadn't have been unceremoniously assassinated in a very illconceived palace coup uh by uh the Cassella Cassella group uh Chicky Narduchi.

[00:33:38]it just uh it it was there was just no need for it and it just was pure greed and it like they didn't even tell you.

[00:33:49]It wasn't it wasn't anything personal. I mean, um, they just saw a way to, [snorts] you know, push their way into power by nailbombing Phil Ta and blaming the roofers union or the Irish guys. Uh, it wasn't anything where they had a lot of personal animosity towards Phil Ta. They just wanted his job. And at the end of the day, um, you know, everybody that killed Bruno and or mostly everybody that had a played a role in killing Bruno and mostly everybody that played a role in in killing Phil Testa uh were murdered as, you know, as retribution.

[00:34:34]So, it didn't work out very well at all.

[00:34:37]It had the opposite effect with these guys. But Phil Ta really was um, you know, everything that Lakosa Nostra is about. He was, you know, understated, but still, you know, had the one of these guys that didn't have to say a lot of didn't have to say a lot.

[00:34:57]Didn't have to puff their chest out much. Uh people just knew whether it be a nod of the head or a hand gesture or a wink of an eye what he wanted done and things got done. Uh he was very wellconed in New York. He was somebody that uh everybody in Philadelphia uh they liked him. They uh respected his ability to make money. He was he was somebody that obviously uh his son Salvi was like the prince. And I I think if things have gone differently, you know, him and and Salvi are probably leading that family uh to much greener pastures than what happened with Nikki Scarflow after the fact. So, I think Phil Tesa uh doesn't get the due because of the short time that he was boss, but he was a really good boss and would have been a great boss if he had been allowed to flourish in the in the position. So, he goes in at number three. Um, final two and I'm putting that number two, Skinny Joey Merino. He's still the skinny one. He's still arguably either the most or in this case the second most um influential boss in I should say he whether he's the best boss or not, he is the most impactful boss in Philadelphia mafia history. He's made the most history in the history of the Philadelphia mob. Uh he is a force of nature. He is a unicorn. Um he is somebody that I keep on I say it and I people sometimes bust my balls for some of my axioms but you know he defies gravity. He he he defies all conventional wisdom and there's some beauty in that and there's some real skill in that and that's why he'll be remembered. He's the most consequential mafia figure of this era and not just in Philadelphia uh nationwide.

[00:37:12]You know, he is a John Gotti or an Al Capone in regards to the way he's going to be remembered. So, I don't know if that's a good thing necessarily. Uh but, you know, Joey is unapologetic.

[00:37:27]Joey did something that in the modern era really had never been done and that is as a you know 30 31 32 year old guy led an insurrection um won a mob war took power held power for 30 years and he wasn't uh I might have put him lower on this list if he had been forced out of power but He really wasn't. He stepped down wanting to start a podcasting career for himself. Um there's some conflation in what happened with him in 23 and early 24. Uh voluntarily stepped down, but I think he was involuntarily shelved. So, I know, you know, for some people it's just splitting hairs, but I think it I think it's important to um to note the fact that he did not get forced out of power. He left cuz he wanted to go in the podcasting, social media influencing direction and he has the right to do it. You know, he has something to sell. He's got the swagger and the uh you know, he's an icon.

[00:38:43]He's he's, you know, everybody's favorite crime figure. Uh whether you're in South Philly or uh you know, Center City, Packer Park, they they everybody uh loves Joey. He's he's Philadelphia's favorite son in the same way that uh Rocky Balboa or Alan Iverson or Dr. J or Mike Schmidt, Pete Rose, Joey's in that that iconic class that that uh that same conversation. He is embedded in the culture forever. Embedded in the culture of of uh of Philadelphia and is just he's a folk hero.

[00:39:23]Um and what he did, like I said, it had never been really done in the modern era. It hasn't been done since.

[00:39:30]He willed his way into power at a very young age. Kept power through a decade plus prison sentence. Did everything on his own terms. went to Florida, continue to run in the family from, you know, from afar.

[00:39:46]Uh, we can sit here and debate whether or not he's really even retired now. I think you can make arguments on both sides of it. I will definitely say that I don't think we've seen the end of Joey Molino and Lose Nostra. Uh, he is resilient.

[00:40:00]You know, by definition, he's the most one of the most resilient mob figures ever. uh has dodged countless assassination attempts, uh efforts by the government to put him in prison for the rest of his life, and he he always comes out the other side of it smelling like roses and uh uh with that trademark smile and quip and just keeps on keeping on. I mean, Joey is uh a franchise and and that's what he's doing right now with the cheese stakes and the social media and we wish him the best. We think he's uh doing a great job with that.

[00:40:35]whatever he thinks about us. We know that there's been some uh animosity over the last couple years. He doesn't like us reporting on what's been going on uh with the the blowback from some of his uh going straight or podcasting. The fact that people in New York and some people uh associated with his own group don't really love it and it's it's caused some ruffling of the feathers, but for the most part uh he really hasn't been nicked or dinged by this. Uh Joey is still Joey and one day I believe Joey will probably once again will be boss or be some in some type of a administrative role in the Philadelphia Mafia um before it's all said and done. It's in Joey's DNA and uh I I believe there are a lot more chapters to write in the Joy Molino story. But you know if if he had not have if he had not have tapped out uh three years ago, he'd probably be number one on this list. But uh he did and um but he's number two. Number one on the list, Uncle Joe Le Gambi, the most underrated mafia leader in American history over the last 40 to 50 years. He is a true gem when it comes to the life.

[00:41:53]He's somebody that does everything the right way. He's somebody that is, you know, the [snorts] epitome of what it means to be a statesman, what it means to be a survivor, what it means to be a tactician, uh what it means to uh be smart and tough at the same time. You know, I I I've heard stories from some of the scarful guys that uh you the general public, I think, was a little bit surprised that Leami rose to boss so quickly after he got out on the Frankie Flowers murder appeal and retrial.

[00:42:26]He wasn't a a big name when he got locked up in the 80s. He got made a little bit late because of his connection to Chucky Merino. Um they wanted to wait a little bit for for the Merino Scaro. uh few to to settle down.

[00:42:42]So he got made kind of at the end of the scarflow regime, but he was known as a master book maker and handicapper from the days he was a bartender. And everybody knew that this guy had a head for numbers like very few people >> [clears throat] >> um in Lakosa Nostra and just you know it was a science. It was an art. And there were people that have told me that from very early on the public might not have viewed Joel Leambi as a as a big deal or as a future leader. But you know, Phil Leonetti told me that people like him and Nikki Scarflow were saying before Joe Leambi ever got made that this is a guy that could be a boss in the future. And when just like with Georgie Borghazi, his nephew, when opportunity called, when Joey and his guys get locked up in the in the 01 Rico, and when they're fighting that case from, let's say, 99 to01, Leambi slides into the acting boss, make sure that nothing misses a beat. Uh, gets everybody uh on the same page, gets everybody in New York pretty much in support of what's going on. survives an assassination effort by his people in in Jersey with uh Pete the Crumb. Another scenario where it wasn't personal where Pete the Crumb just wanted to kill Marino's guys and take power himself and it it was foiled because he got [snorts] uh locked up. But for a lot of um you know a lot of Uncle Joe's legacy is going to be how he smooth smoothed things out and took a family that was incredibly unstable and dysfunctional for about 20 years and made them functional and stable and respectable.

[00:44:38]um did a lot of cleanup for the Molino guys who again for better or worse.

[00:44:45]They're like, you know, bulls in the china shop. Uh they are disruptors. And Mc Gambi is just uh he's old school.

[00:44:54]He's quiet. He knows what needs to be done. He he picks the right people to get it done. Um, and and he really is so overlooked and undervalued when people are talking about mafiodons. I think I guess with Marino, he's so charismatic and he's so larger than life that, you know, he sucks a lot of oxygen out of the room. And by that, I guess Leambi can be easily overlooked. But if for for people that are paying attention, Joe Leambi is a great mafia don. I know he's been retired now um uh for a little bit and he had to kind of jump in and out of acting boss spots and in and out of consiliary spots uh because of you know just certain things happen and and you have to react accordingly. And he was always there to answer the call of duty.

[00:45:53]now. Uh he's kind of into retirement trying to live his his best life at the at the end and enjoy his kids and his grandkids. Um but Uncle Joe is in my opinion without question the number one mafia don in Philadelphia modern day history. And uh uh he he kind of wins the race uh running away. Uh at the end it wasn't really that close. He um he gets the nod because he did the job and he did it with excellence and he did it with class and he did it with um a gravitas and a self-awareness that sometimes I think other people in that family missed the mark occasionally. Uh, and Jolami will be remembered for what he did because it was so exceptional because things were so wild and crazy in the 80s and 90s and and the family was, you know, you could have argued the family was almost, you know, careening out of control even after things died down in the war. But with with Joey and his guys all going to prison, there was a lot of a lot of questions and a lot of um you know, a lot of things to figure out.

[00:47:18]When when Joe and his guys went away and and Joe stepped in, Uncle Joe stepped in and just made everything right. And he continued to be able to make everything right. Whenever things went wrong, Joe could fix it. Uncle Joe could fix it.

[00:47:30]And he kept on doing it until the uh until the very end. And right now he's in retirement and maybe he'll come back, maybe he won't. He's 86, 87 years old. I I don't think he wants the hassle of this uh day-to-day headache because whether you're the most functional family or the most dysfunctional family, there's always going to be headaches and running an organization like that. But, uh, Joe, Uncle Joe Le Gambi, uh, is the gold standard and will be remembered as the best Don the Philly Mafia ever had, uh, in the, uh, Bruno and post Bruno era. So, that's our uh, our ranking. Tell tell uh, hit the comments and tell me what you guys think. Um, please like, share, and subscribe. Original Gangsters News Network. We're here and podcast. We're here uh 365 247 giving you the latest breaking news uh in organized crime affairs in North America, the most exclusive access, most elite analysis. Uh we're always going to be in front of the mainstream media because we've got the best sources. We got moles spread out all across North America giving us information on a almost minute-by-minute basis. and then we vet it and bring it to you guys. I hope you guys are enjoying it. Uh we are always here to give you your true crime fix. We like doing these rankings. We might do uh some more as the spring and summer uh goes on and uh kind of jump from city to city and and tell you uh kind of the same things we just did with Philadelphia. But we had to start in Philadelphia because uh or we went to New York first, then had to go to Philadelphia because it's it's you know my heart's in South Philly. It really is. It's where all my love for this started. All my um interest in this all started in South Philly and uh George Anastasia and being able to meet him and have him mentor me and uh get close to uh guys like uh Schweiser and all the great reporters out there and have them teach me and uh got to write Phil Leonetti's book and that kind of punched my ticket to be able to report on Philadelphia and It's just it's really been a lot of fun and I really enjoy it and uh I just love reporting on on what goes on goes on in Philly. I know that I'm a bit of a acquired taste or a lightning rod in those parts of the world, but uh I got a lot of love for South Philly. So, please everybody like, share, and subscribe. Uh Original Gangsters News Network uncovering the underworld, one city, one region, one country at a time. Wap.