Avena and reputed mobster Luigi ``Gino'' Tripodi were awaiting retrial on conspiracy and obstruction charges that were contained in the same 13-count indictment that brought down Stanfa and two dozen other mob figures.

In one of the few government setbacks in the case, a jury could not decide on the charges against Avena and Tripodi following a 10-week trial that ended in May. Prosecutors said they still intended to retry Tripodi, a 57-year-old Bensalem restaurateur and alleged mob capo, or captain."

Anyone ever heard of this Tripodi guy? Never heard his name mentioned before but Anastasia says he was a Capo?

Anyone know about his Bensalem restaurants? I'm from Bensalem so I'd love to know what places he had an interest in? Never know there was a capo stationed here...I recall Gary Battaglini being listed as a Bucks county Associate operating in Bensalem or Trevose I believe...Ever been any Doylestown wiseguys? thats where I grew up just curious...any info would be much appreciated fellas, thanks.

@KING6: I agree with your assessment on Stanfa. I think he actually would've had a decent run had he actually had the chance. If he didn't have all the Merlino business then he wouldn't be having all those war meetings at Avena's offices and thus all those tapes wouldn't exist that took him down. However, you could also argue that he was quick to kill anyone for things as small as not paying on time, refusing street tax, or even being George Anastasia. He event had a few murders unrelated to the Merlino war before '93 war broke out so who knows maybe his Sicilian roots would've been too violent for over here and the Feds would've nailed him on those anyways. I'd also add that Stanfa as a boss should have known that he shouldn't be "in the huddle" with his soldiers planning all these hits out with them. He's a boss. Give the hit list to your #2 guy and it does down the ladder. Insulate yourself that's one of the reasons there's a structure for god's sake. Instead he's out there in the street and on these wiretaps talking about cutting tongues and dumping bodies in cement... stupid. Carlo Gambino was never once caught on wiretap in his entire criminal career just to show the polar opposite side. Also KING6, minor detail, but Frank Martines was actually part of Riccobene's crew, which while it was not part of the Scarfo faction, doesn't necessarily mean he was a scrub. Everything I know about, which is not too much, indicates to me that he was pretty solid LCN as were all those Riccobene guys for the most part. They were just part of another crew/faction, but that's something for another conversation (SERP knows what I'm talking about).

If you took the Feds out of the picture and it was a true 1 vs 1, Merlino vs Stanfa, then I think Stanfa would have won. Merlino and those guys didn't have any successful hits besides Felix Bocchino, and that was a blindsided out of nowhere hit so all things considered not that difficult to pull off. They took Joey Chang out of the game, but didn't kill him and the rest were pulled off but no kills. Stanfa got Mikey Chang which was a huge blow to the Merlino faction and a lot of people speculated that it would end the war. Anyways, Merlino got lucky might have even got hit had he not gotten picked up by the Feds and furthermore, lucked out by getting out when he did right after Stanfa and his faction got indicted and picked up on their RICO case.

Finally, you can't compare Detroit to Philly especially today... Sorry.
And GangsterReport, are you really not Scott Burnstein? I'm not asking this to be malicious, I just find it ironic that Scott's old tag name stopped posting and then you immediately popped and and seem to be all about Detroit. Just kind of funny, don't really care, just curious...

You think any publishing company would give him an advance to write a book when he has the grammar of a 12 year old with ADHD?

Just breaking balls Gangstereport.

But seriously, they are not the same two people.

Scott still posts, he posted like last week.

Thought

Tripodi is originally from Sicily like Stanfa, lived in South Philly, don't know if he still does, his sons though do, and have businesses. One has a business on Oregon Ave. On the wiretaps Stanfa was always complaining Tripodi had no balls, that was always making excuses when it came to doing hits, and basically didn't have the stomach for the life.

Said Tripodi always had an excuse involving his heart or some shit. Lol.

Yeah, guys heart wasn't in it, he seems like a nice guy, family man.

Read up about Tripodi here. Stanfa's two brothers are/were inducted in Italy. You often hear about the Stanfa cousin, Antonino Giuffre, but not them. Didn't know Tripodi was consigliere..

http://articles.philly.com/1993-09-03/news/25985195_1_john-stanfa-sicilians-philadelphia-mob-boss

Right on PHL MOB it was a perfect storm for Skinny,Stanfa and NY we all know most of the killers were away with Nick .

New York even though they were behind Stanfa they were going through a shit storm of indictments and were not about to throw soldiers in a strange city that was not a huge money maker at the time.(westside got that)

The feds had killer surveillance that was known but new to the mob and they were using it in vengeance on the mob.

Stanfa if he just would have sat back a little while and waited to gather stand up guys he may have pulled it off.

The older cats in and out of the joint were behind him and wanted structure and stability.

But what went down was a local gang with a lot of locals with balls no brains...and pedigree and knew NY would not come and take them all out.

But it worked in the fact that Skinny wound up standing .

Now these guys took 30 years to recover and start making organized money(I know they did shit) but not right, and to be able to build a family off of.

What gets me to this day is Skinny's luck and how no one has hit the spot yet....Above all is he is still around ,granted behind bars for much of it .

But it is getting to the point where it is Cosa Nostra again now we get to see where it goes from here..

Skinny gets credit on this board often for being a "survivor" and some people even look at him as being some kind of mob war genius.

The guy was lucky the bullets missed him. It's that simple. He deserves credit and he is what he is -- a stand up guy willing to fight for what he thinks he is. But let's not make him into some kind of Italian American deity, a mafia Rocky.

Plus the guy suffered the ignominy of getting shot in the ass.

Rather be embarrassed by getting shot in the ass than be dead. That bullet is a foot higher and all of the "survivor" bullshit goes right out the window.

Like I said on the last page, he deserves credit for being extremely lucky and still being around. Most guys in his position would've gotten spooked and quit the life all together, but the guy has balls along with his luck, you gotta give him that. But like I also said, he escaped that Stanfa war by the skin of his teeth.

They say,"I'd rather be lucky than good".Merlino is a throwback gangster that shot his way to the top.And he is a "gangster" without a doubt.He didn't fear prison.He didn't fear death.He was robbing Leonetti and Scarfo as an 18 year old.Like Serp says he has the pedigree.He earned his respect on the streets by going out on these hits himself and doing the work.He wanted to be the shooter with Scarfo Jr.So he got respect and loyalty.He never got tripped up on wiretaps like some of the mobsters that were supposed to be "smart".Nah,he learned from dad and uncle and others and he was a true gangster and both lucky and good.From Tony Ducks to Castellano they were tripped up on those wiretaps.Now,I aint saying Merlino is comparible to these guys but the Feds sure went after his ass just as bad and never got his ass on those wiretaps.If he don't spend the rest of his life in prison he is a success story as far as that life goes.

Merlino isn't my cup of tea with the way he's handled himself in the past. You can't deny he's a tough SOB, loyal, and smarter then a lot of people give him credit for. His inner circle love him and seem to be loyal to the death. If he can stay away from anymore long prison stints, he will have done real well for himself.

Merlino has been recorded on wiretap many of times. It's just the fact that he barely says anything and is vague with his comments. He knows better. Even Ron Previte, who managed to get Merlino convicted for dealing in swag based off of Merlino's words during wiretapped conversations, says the guy is very wary of surveillance. But he's been recorded on wiretap before, and it has hurt him in the past.

Thank you,Sinatra.I had never heard his voice on tapes but I stand corrected.I don't think they ever got Scarfo on tapes.Leonetti,in his book said that Scarfo would never discuss anything in Scarf.Inc or even a car.I have heard Angelo Brunos voice but I never heard him discuss any illegal activity on the tapes I had heard.And I have never heard Merlinos tapes.That family has seem to have bosses that are very wary of wiretaps.But then you look at Stanfa and this guy was talking about chopping up Merlino,I belive and sending his tongue or head in the mail on those tapes.Stanfa also ofcourse had Veasey and Previte.He seems like maybe he wasn't boss material.I think Merlino,in my opinion was better qualified than stanfa

merlino was not better qualified he went around in front of the press got heat on the family he was betitng into bookies including johnny changs book.....
i mean this is a boss of a family could not run a bookmaking operation him and ralphie head went bust

he was cheating everyone out of money


a boss of a family plotting to sell baby food

a boss of a family who was planning to sell watches he himself as going to go around selling them swag watches to jewlers and friends ron previtit was going to supply him


a boss of the family who the turras tried to kill....

a boss of a family who inducted bobby lusi and used him in boston i mean all he was a failure at moving anything only money he made was selling cocaine to a undercover agent




stanfa was alot more qualified than merlino and his gang that is the truth but merlino ended up on top because stanfa went to prison he would have never won that war if it was not for previte tipping the feds of about murders and the indictments coming down


scarfo was caught on tape i think in the crows book there is a transipit of scarfo riccobone narducii and testa i think when the consglierie cant remember his name died in the late 70s thats what they were discussing

Stanfa was definitely boss material, just he had no idea that his lawyers office was tapped. And he wasn't talking about Merlino in that recording of him telling Sergio Battaglia that he wanted to cut the tongue and put it in an envelope and mail it to his wife. Stanfa was talking about Gaetano Lucibello.

The consigliere u speak of is joe rugnetta & yes there is a small snippet of that conversation, but phil testa does most of the speaking (about how many times he saved scarfo's ass).

I think that's his biggest advantage: he knows who to trust. His inner circle are loyal to each other in a way that extends beyond omerta, I think. All of them being childhood friends has a lot to do with it, I'm sure. Borgesi, Johnny Chang, Mazzone, Agelina and Nicodemo were all young guys facing life sentences and none of them rolled on each other.

Yes, they are very loyal to each other. I've talked to people who know Merlino and they all got good things to say about him.

Johnny Chang is much older than Skinny Joey. Johnny Chang was not in their "boyhood inner circle" coming up. Most people make this mistake and associate Johnny Chang as in their boyhood inner circle coming up with the rest of them-Mazzone, Angelina, Borgesi, etc. However, Johnny's younger brother who is dead was in their boyhood inner circle.

Yup, Johnny Chang came up under the wing of his father and the other Scarfo guys.

They weren't boyhood chums, but they knew each other pretty well from an early age. Weren't Merlino and Joe Chang, Jr. made at the same ceremony? Plus they're only like 7 years apart. Not that big a differece.

Merlino came up under theScarfo guys too. Look who his father was.

It's obvious who his father was, but according to Leonetti and guys like Nicky The Crow & Tommy Del, Merlino did minor scale things, like robbing legitimate people, and guys got on him for it. They never used him for anything of substance, he was a driver to guys like Tommy Del. Of course you have to get your start somewhere, but Johnny Chang was actually called upon a few times for some real heavy shit. Merlino was never used in that capacity. His attitude was partly why. Not to mention Scarfo wanted to kill him, long before the Nicky Jr. situation.

Merlino & Johnny Chang weren't made in the same ceremony. I could be wrong but Johnny Chang got his button via Scarfo. When he got out and was on the street in '96, Ralph Natale made him the official consigliere. You're right that Merlino & Joey Jr. was, but Joey Jr is also Johnny Changs "little" brother. There's really not much out there supports Merlino & Johnny Chang having a close relationship prior to Ralph Natale. But I'm sure they knew each other.

Skinny was a teen , he was just a kid .... But the kind of kid that many would have hit if his dad was not a made guy let alone later in his 20's his dad skipper and a UB . Most were on to him skimming or stealing or what have you . But he was a kid then , and if adults that robbed and killed for a living wanted him dead as a teen can you imagine how horrible this guy was. Then his dad moved up and he was in his 20's and the rest is known what he was doing.

In that article he was messing with other families money and he still walks around...

antatsia and previte seemed to have the impression that johnny chang was not a big fan of merlino but he sort of went along with it because when he got out merlino and his guys had won the war. Remember merlino was betting into johnny changs book aswell. I think people make them seem closer than they are johnny chang and merlino dont get me wrong they are prob get on but they are not exactly close pals if you get what i am saying. According to antasia ligambi when he went away wanted johnny chang as his acting boss but merlino wanted steve mazzone

i think it is quite likely if he had been on the streets there would have been no war johnny chang would have settled thinsg