Nicodemo Scarfo, the mob boss who ruled the Philadelphia crime family for a decade, was known in his earlier years as a small, aggressive amateur boxer who fought in club venues throughout the city. Despite failing to build a career in the ring, he became one of the most feared and violent organized crime figures in American history, a reputation he carried from the streets of South Philadelphia to the top of the city’s Mafia hierarchy. Born in Brooklyn on March 8, 1929, to Italian immigrants, Scarfo moved with his family to South Philadelphia at age 12. After graduating from Benjamin Franklin High School in 1947, he worked as a day laborer before turning to boxing.
When that path didn’t lead to success, he joined his uncle Nicky Buck, a mob soldier, in illegal activities and worked as a bartender at a club owned by his uncle. In 1954, Scarfo was proposed for membership in the Philadelphia crime family and was inducted as a full-fledged soldier alongside two of his uncles at a ceremony in New Jersey. He was described as arrogant and stubborn, and reportedly caused brief family strife when he refused to marry the daughter of Consigliere Joe Rugnetta, leaving the official embarrassed and disrespected. Scarfo’s violent tendencies surfaced early.
In 1963, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter after fatally stabbing a longshoreman and spent about six months in prison. After his release, then-boss Angelo Bruno assigned him to oversee operations in Atlantic City, New Jersey, a city that was then considered a backwater. Between 1971 and 1973, Scarfo was imprisoned for nearly two years for refusing to testify before the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, where he developed a close relationship with Genovese crime family members Gerardo Catena and Louie Manah. When Atlantic City legalized gambling in 1976, Scarfo’s fortunes changed dramatically.
As the city grew into a gambling destination, his cement contracting business, Scarf Incorporated, which he co-owned with his nephew, received contracts by intimidating other businesses into buying from his company. In 1978, Scarfo and his associate Nicholas “Nick the Blade” Virgilio shot and killed Judge Edwin Helfant, who had refused to work with them. The judge was dining with his wife in a restaurant when Virgilio fired numerous rounds into him. Scarfo served as the getaway driver during the public execution.
At the time, Virgilio was facing murder charges and had sought Helfant’s help in receiving a lesser sentence in exchange for $12,500. The following year, Scarfo ordered the murder of Vincent Falcone, a criminal associate and contractor, after Falcone made disparaging remarks about business and about Scarfo. His nephew Phil Leonetti carried out the killing, shooting Falcone twice. In 1980, longtime boss Angelo Bruno was assassinated.
His consigliere, Antonio Caponigro, had planned the murder, but killing a boss without the American Mafia Commission’s consent brought severe consequences. Weeks later, Caponigro was found dead in a car trunk, shot multiple times, with $300 in bills shoved into his mouth and anus as a symbol of his greed. Phil Testa became the new boss and named Scarfo as his consigliere, but Testa’s reign was short. In 1981, he was killed by a nail bomb planted under his porch, on the orders of underboss Peter Casella and capo Frank Narducci Sr.
This led to Narducci’s murder and Casella’s expulsion from the mob. War sparked within the family after Testa’s murder, and Scarfo rose to the top spot, appointing Frank Monte as consigliere and Salvatore Merlino as underboss. Between August 1982 and January 1984, Scarfo served time at the Federal Correctional Institution in La Tuna, Texas, for possessing a gun. He always had two bodyguards with him, associates of the Mexican Mafia whom he called his “pistoleros.
” During this period, aging capo Harry Riccobene formed a faction that opposed Scarfo for control of the family’s operations in Atlantic City. Frank Monte, the consigliere, told his crew he planned to kill Riccobene and take over his illegal gambling and loan sharking businesses. Monte approached Riccobene’s half-brother Mario and demanded that he arrange for Riccobene to be killed. Instead, Mario betrayed the scheme to Riccobene.
Furious, Riccobene ordered Mario and hitmen Joseph Pedulla and Victor DeLuca to kill Monte first. “Get them before they get us,” Riccobene said. The men set up in a van near Monte’s parked Cadillac. When Monte came out and began getting into his car, Pedulla fired three shots, killing him.
The crew later made an unsuccessful attempt to kill Phil Testa’s son Salvatore Testa, but police apprehended them, and Mario turned government informant. Riccobene was indicted on first-degree murder charges and sentenced to life in prison. In 1985, Scarfo plotted to extort $1 million from major commercial developer Willard Rouse, enlisting his soldier Nicholas Caramandi and another associate. Rouse refused and immediately called the FBI.
The bureau launched an investigation, sending an undercover agent to pose as Rouse’s representative. Caramandi, a well-known and feared hitman, eventually agreed to cooperate and testify against the organization. Scarfo was convicted three times between 1987 and 1989 for conspiracy, racketeering, and first-degree murder, receiving sentences of 14 years, 55 years, and life in prison, though the life sentence was later overturned. His nephew Phil Leonetti, whom he had promoted to underboss in 1986, also turned state’s evidence after a RICO conviction in 1989.
During the trials, Scarfo’s 17-year-old son, Mark, attempted suicide on November 1, 1988. He had been taunted for years by classmates about his father’s criminal activities. He hanged himself in the office of his father’s concrete supply company in Atlantic City. His mother found him, and paramedics resuscitated him, but he suffered cardiac arrest, starved of oxygen, and entered a coma.
He died in April 2014. Scarfo began his sentence at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta and was later transferred to the federal medical center in Butner, North Carolina. He died there on January 13, 2017, of natural causes, remembered as one of the most vicious and ruthless mobsters in the history of organized crime in the United States.