In late July/early August 1989, we all got transferred out of Holmesburg and moved to the federal prison in Otisville, New York, which is upstate. Me, my uncle, and Chuckie had all been designated as high-security inmates because of our leadership positions in La Cosa Nostra. At the time, Otisville was a federal transfer center where all inmates going into the federal prison system had to pass through before they got to their designation. It is where you got classified by the BOP. The place was like a big warehouse full of guys who had been sentenced and were on their way to federal prison.
One of the first guys I bumped into in Otisville was Bobby Manna, who was the Chin’s consigliere and helped my uncle become boss. He had just been sentenced to 80 years and was waiting to get classified and shipped out. He said to me, “Your uncle made the right choice in picking you as his underboss,” and I thanked him and we talked for a little while.
Bobby was a good guy, a stand-up guy. Being the Chin’s consigliere, he had seen it all. What happened was, Bobby and some of the North Jersey Genovese got convicted of racketeering and trying to kill John Gotti and his brother Gene. Bobby told me that Gotti and the Gambinos were trying to move in on the North Jersey gambling–loan-sharking operation that the Genovese took from “Tony Bananas” Caponigro after they killed him.
Me and my uncle weren’t on the same cellblock, but I would see him sometimes in the yard or if we had visits on the same day. I’d see some of the other guys—like Faffy, Joe Punge, Philip Narducci, and Chuckie—the same way, but we were all on different cellblocks. Joe Massino, the boss of the Bonnano crime family, was on my block, and he and I became friendly.
Now this whole time I’m in Otisville, I’m calling home and I’m speaking to Maria, to Little Philip, but mostly to my mother, who was communicating with the FBI for me. She would mention things in code about what they were telling her and I knew that in a matter of weeks I would be out of Otisville and shipped off to a Wit Sec prison for those in Witness Protection. Both my mother and grandmother were just like me and my uncle in that they were very good at speaking in code. My mother was telling me what the FBI was telling her, but was saying it in a way that no one would know what she was talking about. As days went by, I began to hear through the grapevine where the other guys had gotten designated and who was going where.
One day, I’m down in the visiting area to see Nicky Jr. This is late August 1989. He was still running the operation on the street for his father, but he was telling me that things weren’t good out there. He was telling me that Chuckie’s son Joey and Chickie Ciancaglini’s son Michael were very aggressively trying to muscle in on what had been our operation in South Philadelphia. He said, “They’ve got guys who should be paying my father, paying them because they got six or seven guys and I got me and Cousin Tony.” I told him, I said, “Nick, why don’t you get out of that and go do something else? What do you wanna do—end up in here or get killed?” And he said, “You’re right, Philip.”
Now, Nicky Jr. is my cousin. We grew up together on Georgia Avenue. I was 12 years older than him, so he looked up to me like a big brother. I looked him dead in his eye and said, “You’re going to end up getting killed; leave that life alone,” and he just nodded. I knew sitting there that I would likely never see him again and if he didn’t take my advice that he would end up either dead or in jail.
Toward the end of our visit, I asked him how our Mom-Mom was doing and he told me some story about her chasing some reporter off the steps of our apartment building, and we both laughed, and then I asked him about Mark. He just shook his head and said, “He just lays there. It’s like he’s dead, but he’s still alive. . . .” And his voice trailed off. We sat there in silence for a minute or two, both of us thinking about how my uncle, his father, had fucked up our family.
I stood up and hugged him and kissed him, I had my hands on his face and I told him that I loved him and I said, “Nicky, remember what I told you, this life is no good, it’s not for you. Go do something else,” and he didn’t say anything and we hugged and kissed again. I told him, “Tell Mom-Mom I love her,” and as I was walking away I remember getting a little teary-eyed knowing I was never going to see him again, and that if he had any problems, I couldn’t do anything to help him.
Now Nicky Jr.’s visit was divided between me and my uncle. They brought me down first, and then when my visit was done, they would bring my uncle out. So when I’m done the visit they put me in a cell and I am waiting for someone to strip-search me, and then for an escort to take me back to my cellblock, when all the sudden my uncle comes walking in with his escort. They put him in the cell directly across from me and they have to strip-search him before they let him go out for the visit. Everything in federal prison is regimented like this. Me and him are five feet away from each other.
Now I hadn’t seen my uncle in maybe a week or two, and in all likelihood this is the last time I am ever going to see him, and the first thing he says to me is, “Did you handle that thing I asked you
to do?”
I knew by his tone that he was annoyed that I hadn’t done whatever it was, and I said, “What thing?” and he said, “The thing for Joe Black,” and I said, “I looked into it, but I couldn’t get an answer one way or the other,” which was bullshit. My uncle says, “I’ll look into it, and I’ll get the answer,” and I could tell by his tone that he was worked up about something. Then he says, “I heard you and Bobby were talking,” meaning Bobby Manna, so I said, “I bumped into him, so what?” And he said, “You weren’t going to tell me,” and I said, “You wanna know everybody I bump into in here; there’s a thousand guys in here,” and then I could hear the guards coming. He says, “Did Nicky Jr. tell ya where I’m goin’, where these motherfuckers are sendin’ me?” And I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head no. He said, “Marion, Illinois.” I said, “Jesus Christ, that place is the worst.”
Right then a guard came and yelled, “Scarfo!” and they led my uncle into another room to search him. As they were walking him out, my uncle said, “Fuck Marion, these cocksuckers ain’t never gonna break me,” and then he starts giving me instructions on what to do when I get to whatever prison I get designated to. He says, “Call Bobby Simone and have him tell Nicky Jr. so he can let me know where you are and who you are with,” and with that they open the big steel door and I know that in about 20 seconds, when that door shuts behind him, that I may never see him again or have to hear that fuckin’ voice of his barking out orders at me.
As the guard yells “Gate!” the door is electronically going to close and my uncle is still talking. He says, “Did Nicky tell ya what those two fuckin’ snake kids are doing downtown?”, which was a reference to Joey Merlino and Michael Ciancaglini in South Philadelphia. And with that the door shut and it was quiet. He was gone.
That would be the last time Philip Leonetti would ever see his uncle, Nicodemo Scarfo, as Scarfo would be shipped the next day from the federal transfer center in Otisville to the nation’s toughest and highest-security federal prison, the one in Marion, Illinois.
Inmates at Marion typically spend 23 hours a day inside their 8 x 10 concrete cells, and did not eat, exercise, or attend religious services with other inmates. They would get 30 minutes out of their cells to exercise alone in a small fenced-in area that resembled a dog kennel, with high barbed-wire fences that were enclosed on all sides, including the roof.
They would shower alone three times per week and would receive 300 minutes each month in which they could make telephone calls, which were recorded and monitored by the Bureau of Prisons.
The party was over for Little Nicky, who had spent his 58th, 59th, and 60th birthdays birthdays behind bars, and would now spend the rest of his life inside a cage.
A few days after Scarfo’s transfer out of Otisville, the US Marshals came for Leonetti.
They called me down, but I had no idea where I was going. The marshals took me and turned me over to the FBI, to special agents Jim Maher and Gary Langan. They drove me from Oti
sville to an office somewhere in New Jersey, maybe in the Cherry Hill area, which was outside of Philadelphia. We talked the whole ride down, trying to get to know one another. They seemed like decent guys and all they kept saying was, “If you tell us the truth, we can help you; if you lie to us, there is nothing we can do to help you or your family,” and I told them that I understood.
When we got to the office, there were a few more FBI guys and one of the US attorneys. The US attorney told me, “If I find your cooperation to be 100-percent truthful, I will recommend to the judge that he consider giving you a lower sentence. You have to understand, the judge is not bound by my recommendation and that, in fact, even if you do cooperate, you may still have to serve your entire 45-year sentence. Do you understand?” And I said, “Yes, I do.”
Philip Leonetti would spend the next several days being debriefed by the same FBI agents and US attorneys who had brought the Scarfo mob to its knees.
They put me in protective custody in a county jail in South Jersey, either Salem or Gloucester County, under an assumed name, and every morning they would come and pick me up and take me to the same office and they would ask me a series of questions about everything you could imagine about La Cosa Nostra, historical stuff. They asked about Ange, Phil Testa, my uncle, the Riccobenes, Salvie, you name it. They were very, very thorough, and they treated me well. They were always respectful. They knew everything, even stuff from the early ’70s when we first got started. All them years we thought we had them outsmarted, they had us down pat.
After a week of intensive debriefings, the FBI agents surprised Leonetti by bringing his mother, Maria, and Little Philip to the office one day.
I hadn’t seen them in a few months—this was now late September 1989. Jim Maher and Gary Langan had brought them up, and I was very happy to see them. We had a nice lunch together, and the mood was light, and then Jim Maher told us, “Tomorrow morning, while it’s still dark out, two things are going to happen. The first thing is Philip is going to be picked up by the marshals and put on a plane and taken to a federal prison. We won’t know which one until he gets there. They are going to put him in a top secret witness security unit and no one will know who he is or where he is, including you guys,” and they were talking to my mother, Maria, and Little Philip, who was now 16 years old, and then Gary Langan said, “But don’t worry about him; he will be safe.”
Then I jumped in and said, “What about my family?” And Jim Maher said, “The other thing that is going to happen tomorrow morning while it is still dark out is we are going to send a moving van down to Georgia Avenue and your family needs to leave there before the sun comes up. They need to bring only what is essential and they cannot say good-bye to anyone or tell anyone that they are leaving. This has to all happen before sunrise tomorrow.” I said, “Where are you taking them?” And Jim Maher said, “We can’t tell you that,” and Gary Langan said, “But don’t worry about them; they will be safe.”
I said, “Listen, this is very serious and we have to do what they tell us. Nobody can know what we are doing, not even Mom-Mom. We can’t take the chance that she says anything to Nicky Jr. or his father. You guys need to stick together, lay low, and only concern yourselves with your safety. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself wherever they put me.”
We all told each other we loved each other, and we said our good-byes. It was very emotional and very scary. We were all taking a very big risk. Once my uncle learned what I was doing, I knew for certain that he would try and kill all of us—me, my mother, Maria, and even my son, Philip. That’s how dangerous this situation was, and we all knew the stakes.
The next morning, at approximately 4:00 a.m., a team of heavily armed US Marshals picked up Philip Leonetti from the county jail where he was staying and took him to the Philadelphia International Airport, where they bordered a chartered flight and flew him under an assumed name to El Paso, Texas.
I didn’t ask where they were taking me, because I knew they wouldn’t tell me. But when we got to El Paso, I knew they were taking me to La Tuna, the same place my uncle had been in 1982 and ’83 during the war with the Riccobenes. I remembered flying to El Paso with Bobby Simone on that trip that got cut short when Bobby saw the two guys in our room, and then flying down to pick my uncle up when he got out in January 1984. On one of those trips, Bobby had told me that La Tuna is where Joe Valachi was kept when he became the first member of La Cosa Nostra to become a government witness in the early ’60s. Bobby said, “They even built this cocksucker his own cell. They called it the Valachi Suite.”
Sure enough, when I get to intake in La Tuna, one of the guys processing me says, “You ever heard of Joe Valachi and the Valachi Suite?” And I knew that’s where they would be putting me.
As Philip Leonetti was on a plane heading to Texas, his mother, Maria, and Little Philip had quietly loaded their belongings into a moving van with the assistance of a handful of heavily armed FBI agents, under the direct supervision of special agents Jim Maher and Gary Langan. They were then whisked away from the Scarfo compound on Georgia Avenue in Atlantic City and taken to an FBI safe house deep in the Pocono Mountains, almost three hours away.
The operation was successful. The Leonettis were safe and sound.
For now.
The End of an Era
Once I got settled at La Tuna, I was placed in the Valachi Suite, which was separate from all the other prisoners, even the other guys who were in Wit Sec. I was all by myself, except for a guard who stayed with me in the suite 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They had like three or four guys who would rotate in and out, and these guys weren’t regular COs (corrections officers)—they were part of a special unit. We’d watch TV together, play cards, but for the most part I kept to myself.
As far as being in prison, they called the place a suite because it was like a little condominium that was connected but separate from the rest of the jail. I had a living room with a TV, a kitchen with a big dining room table, I had a treadmill in there, a nice-size bathroom, and then in the back was a cell where I would sleep at night, but on a regular bed, not the normal cot the other prisoners slept on. During the day, I had access to the roof of the suite, which was like a concrete patio where I could exercise and get some sun. I’d sit up there and read, and let me tell you, that sun was fuckin’ hot down there. I could see the Rio Grande from one of the windows in the suite, that’s how close to Mexico I was. Up on the roof, it had a big black tarp, so that the other prisoners couldn’t see me from their cells or when they were in the yard. They had no idea who was in there, only that it was someone important or significant. Even the guards in the rest of the prison had no idea I was there, because the crew that guarded me had no contact with them and didn’t work at La Tuna.
I had been in La Tuna for maybe a week or so, and Jim Maher and Gary Langan flew down to see me. This is late September/early October 1989. They came right to the Valachi Suite, and we all sat together at the dining room table. The first thing Gary Langan said was, “Your family is safe, and they are in a great place.” I told him, “Great, I am very happy to hear that,” and then Jim Maher said, “We received some information that your uncle found out that you are with us now. I don’t know the specifics just yet; we are waiting for the BOP to send us recordings of his phone calls, but we think it came from either Bobby Simone or Nicky Jr.” I said, “It makes sense with my family disappearing from Georgia Avenue,” and Jim Maher is looking at me like he didn’t finish his sentence, and he says, “And from what we know, your uncle isn’t too happy.”
I said, “Not too happy? My uncle’s not happy on Christmas? He’s gonna go fuckin’ nuts and try and have all of us killed. Me, my mother, my girl, and my son.”
Gary Langan said, “I will personally assure you that you and your family will remain safe—that is my guarantee to you, Philip.”
I grew to like all of the agents I dealt with, especially Jim Maher, Jim Darcy, Klaus Rhor, and Gary Langan, and found the
se to be honorable men and 100 percent straight shooters. With these guys, there was no bullshit, especially Gary. Me and him became very close. If they said they were gonna do something, they did it. They always kept their word.
They told me that they were coming back down in a month or so with some agents from New York to do some more debriefings. They said the agents they were coming with were involved in ongoing investigations into John Gotti and the Chin and La Cosa Nostra in New York.
I said, “I’ll be here; I ain’t going anywhere, except maybe up on the roof,” and we all laughed. Jim Maher then told me that Nicky Jr. was having major problems out on the street. He said, “He’s getting a lot of resistance in South Philly, and from what we are hearing, New York is moving in up in North Jersey and taking a lot of what you guys had up there. The only place he seems to be keeping under control is Atlantic City.”
At that time, it was Nicky Jr., Cousin Anthony, and a few little guys that they were using to try and keep control of the family for my uncle. Patty Specs, who was the capo in charge of North Jersey, had fled to Italy and some of the other capos loyal to my uncle, like Santo Idone, were locked up with their own cases. According to Jim Maher, the only guys on the street with any muscle was the crew that was led by Chuckie’s son Joey and Chickie’s son Michael.
I told Jim Maher and Gary Langan, “Listen to me when I say this, my uncle’s gonna get my cousin killed. Chuckie’s son is no fuckin’ good and one of those guys downtown is gonna make a move against my cousin and kill him. I told that kid to get out of that life, but he didn’t listen. Whatever happens to him, it’s because of his father.”
Philip Leonetti spent the rest of October 1989 settling into the Valachi Suite in the La Tuna federal prison in Anthony, Texas, while his mother, girlfriend, and 16-year-old son were adjusting to a new life under assumed names in a small, rural Pennsylvania town in the Pocono Mountain region.
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