@nobody did joey's wife really mess around with billy riddick the drug dealer

Debbie Did Who?
Joey Merlino’s wife showed up at a mob party and was the center of attention.

by M. Novak

Reputed mob boss "Uncle Joe" Ligambi threw a party last Sunday night at Colleen’s Restaurant on the Ben Franklin Parkway. "It was a mob scene," one partygoer told City Paper. "A lot of reputed and alleged types. But the talk of the party was Deborah Merlino and the raid on her house last week."

Last week, three days after Joey Merlino was sentenced to 14 years in prison, agents from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office searched several locations in South Philadelphia, including Joey Merlino’s house. The agents also handed out subpoenas to a grand jury hearing scheduled for next month in Harrisburg. Deborah Merlino got one. And the man police found hiding under a bed in her house also got another. His name is William "Billy" Rinick, a wealthy South Philadelphia resident involved in real estate and, according to police sources, the boss of a large drug-trafficking organization. Law enforcement sources allege that Rinick’s organization is moving 30 kilograms of cocaine a week. Police sources claim that a grand jury is investigating Rinick’s drug organization as well as the homicide of one-time Rinick associate, Adam Finelli, who was found shot to death behind the wheel of his Cadillac on Halloween.

Rinick’s lawyer Eddie Jacobs did not return a call for comment.

Finelli was a South Philadelphia Jewish kid originally named Silver who had his name changed to fit in with his Italian-American friends. At the time of his murder, Finelli was running Nick’s Charcoal Pit restaurant on the 1200 block of Snyder and had recently moved back to the neighborhood after living in Northeast Philly for awhile.

Rinick, who lost a leg several years ago in an accident, wears a prosthetic. Police sources claim that Rinick’s fake leg was lying on the ground when they arrived and that they found Rinick hiding under a bed.

One law enforcement source claims that police staged this early morning search/raid and tipped off the news media to cover it to embarrass Deborah Merlino and publicly expose an alleged relationship between the two. "Rinick is between a rock and a hard place now," one cop said. "That’s where we want him. Either he cooperates and gives up his suppliers, or the mob kills him for fooling around with Merlino’s wife." The police source also says that Rinick will be charged within two weeks in the homicide of Adam FInelli.

Friends of Deborah Merlino have denied any improper relationship and told City Paper, "Billy is a close friend of the family, and he is Deborah’s bodyguard."

According to a person who attended Ligambi’s party last Sunday, everyone was surprised that Deborah Merlino showed up. "There’s two different groups of people now," the partygoer told City Paper. "Those that say they believe Billy was just Deborah’s bodyguard, and those that think there’s something more going on between them. Either way, everybody thinks its pretty embarrassing. Why was the one-legged bodyguard hiding under the bed? Why was he involving Joey’s wife in anything that would bring the cops to her house? He has a lot of questions to answer, and nobody really believes him."

Another mob source said, "Deborah has always been a little bit of a princess. She was kind of a little apart from everybody else, and it’s surprising that she would be friends with a guy like Billy Rinick. Rinick is not a very classy guy."

According to police sources, Rinick, who was convicted of having sex with two underage girls, often videotaped his sexual encounters, and some very embarrassing "sex tapes" are said to exist that document Rinick’s most recent encounters.

Merlino’s friends are united in their support of Joey Merlino, but divided in what they believe about Deborah’s situation.

One longtime Merlino pal said, "This has got to be killing Joey. He is all about reputation and appearance. Whether she was fooling around with Billy or not, the appearance is so bad. And that guy Billy, he’s already dead. He just doesn’t know it yet."

@ Gerry Lang

When Rinick was in court talking about Deborah he blurted out that Deborah was going with a football player in New York knocked her up and said that she went to an abortion clinic in New Jersey. Don't know if he really meant what he said probably just trying to show off.

Joey was a  bad kid. Constantly in trouble and usually whoever was around him went down too. He didn't rat, they were just that stupid to get caught and he isn't the sharpest pencil if you know what I mean. So not smart = getting caught. He would come up with interesting ways to get around the system but that was usually what got them caught. To his credit he was young and everyone he hung around tended not to be on the bright side. I think Canz was the only one that graduated from high school.

Rita and Sonny were not divorced when he was a kid. Later, after Joey was grown, I believe they were divorced. By that time Sonny was in jail for quite a while already. Honestly though that was one faithful woman. Never would have thought she would have divorced him. There was a brief time when Sonny wanted to leave but Rita had a talk with Mr. Joe (I think that was who she spoke to) and suddenly Sonny had a change of heart. Rita was/is a tough lady to argue with. She would beat the hell outta Joey when he would act up but she loves him more then anyone ever will. She is a great lady and puts up with no shit! Not from Maria or Nat Nat when they were younger and certainly not from Joey. From what I remember Rita went off when he was kicked out of school. 

Yes, he dated a gorgeous black girl. Can't remember her name but I think they met down at Rock Lobster ( Taxin's place on the river). 

No, you wouldn't have wanted to hang out with him when he was younger. He was a prick. A REAL Prick!  Started fights but rarely fought in them. Everybody else beat the hell out of whoever was fucked with that night. I don't think he wanted to mess up his manicure. More power to him for making other people fight the battle but an asshole for starting the whole fight to begin with.

Hated to pay a bill and when he did throw cash around he was usually too drunk to know he did it then would get pissed the next day when he thought somebody took his money. 

He embarrassed (fucked with) people just because he could and as soon as something was said back he would go off. Usually this was handled by Canz, Tori, Mikey Chang, Marty & any number of others. 

 Innocent people have been hurt just to entertain him.  Anyway, a kid bartending at Scruples was running a tab for Joey. It was in the thousands by the end of the night. Joey put a wad of cash on the bar, the kid thought it was to pay the bill, took the cash. When Joey yelled at him he was shaking, apologizing and crying. He handed the money right back. Canz, Chang and about 3 other guys jump over the bar and throw the kid over. They dragged him into the bathroom and beat the hell out of him. Then they proceeded to flush his head down the toilet repeatedly. The whole time Joey was laughing his head off saying don't ever touch my money. He walked out and didn't pay a dime. That's a prick move.

He wasn't a total asshole at all times. He actually had a good side too. Like Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless, he would do good things for people when he was younger too. Not to that extreme but still nice gestures now and then.  When things went good for him he was fun to be around (sometimes). He made my growing up kinda fun and saved my ass on a few occasions. As I got older I realized Joey  likes people but he LOVED being the center of attention more. Which is what I think helped motivate some of those good deeds. 

One of the things that helped me realize this is when he was going to be on the news he would call and ask me to tape it for him. Then call 10 other people and ask them to do the same. Then watch himself over and over.  Even when he was young he was like that. Watch his smile on camera and notice that goofy look he gives. He's thinking at that moment who he has to call to tape the news that night & can he make it somewhere that he can watch it by 11 or how many copies of the paper he has to buy.

He also almost got me shot though. He pretended to pass out in his car and I was dumb enough to fall for it. Climbed thru the sun roof and draged him out, put him to bed and went to park the car. Before parking I decided to drive around a bit. Couldn't find parking anyway. Sure enough a van pulls in front of me on Broad street and stops suddenly. A guy in a ski mask  jumped out of the back and thank God  he realized I wasn't him, he recognized me I guess. I was just a kid, not even old enough to be driving really.  I'm sure if he wasn't wearing a mask I would have seen a stunned look on his face.  He jumped back in, then they sped away. Nothing was ever said about it and I sure the hell wasn't going to tell Joey I took his car for a joyride.

Turns out this is when Nicky was trying to kill Joey. Not a lot of people knew he wanted him dead. But  I guess that not so smart Joey isn't all stupid cause I swear he knew he was being tracked that night and pretended to pass out to get away. He use to pass out in the car all the time but for some reason that night seemed different. No one was with him for one and usually somebody else would drive him. at that time somebody always drove when he would get too drunk to stand and two he didn't get the least bit pissed the next day when I told him I had to climb up/ walk on the back and roof of his brand new car &crawl in thru  the sunroof let alone me drive his car and park it! 

I did my share of crap to people he knew and with his word I am able to still be walking around today. For that I am grateful but that doesn't make him any less of an asshole at other times.

Anyway, you wanted to know what he was like as a kid not all this crap. 

This should sum up the kind of kid he was --- he would be the kid at the zoo who would pick up rock after rock and throw it at a tiger to see it react. Increasing the size of the rock until the tiger got hurt and got pissed. Then have genuine remorse for hurting the tiger but none for the kid that got mauled cause his dumb ass kept throwing fucking rocks! 

It seems like he smartened up since then. Let's hope so for his sake. And yes, he was a pissant, but he was young and Scarfo was one paranoid wack job!