Scarfo's son nestles in at the Shore

He's back. And he's in business.

Nicodemo S. Scarfo, the son of jailed Philadelphia mob boss Nicodemo D. "Little Nicky" Scarfo, has returned to the Atlantic City area - a move that has raised eyebrows in both law-enforcement and underworld circles.

Although his lawyer says he's simply working for a cement contractor in Atlantic County, some law-enforcement sources believe that the younger Scarfo could be making a move to take control of the crime family that his father ruled through fear, intimidation and violence in the 1980s.

"He is trying to make a life with a legitimate business and avoid all illegal contacts," said lawyer Donald Manno, who declined to identify the contractor because of the notoriety surrounding his client.

Scarfo, 42, is "not interested in getting involved with organized crime in Philadelphia or anywhere else," said the lawyer.

He returned to the area with his wife and young child, Manno said, in order to be close to his mother and invalid younger brother, who live in Ventnor.

The FBI, the New Jersey State Police, and organized-crime investigators with the Philadelphia Police Department have been tracking Scarfo's presence since he relocated to South Jersey about five months ago.

Scarfo had been living in North Jersey after finishing a 33-month federal prison sentence for a 2002 gambling conviction.

Several law-enforcement sources, who would speak only anonymously, said federal authorities had received reports that the younger Scarfo had the "backing" of the New York crime families and that his father, from prison, was also supporting his move to take over the local organization.

The Philadelphia crime family is now reputedly headed by Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, a longtime member of the Scarfo mob. Ligambi was convicted with Scarfo and several others of the notorious 1985 gangland murder of Frank "Frankie Flowers" D'Alfonso. He served nearly 10 years in prison before that conviction was overturned and a second trial ended in a not-guilty verdict.

Whether Ligambi would step aside for the younger Scarfo is a question law-enforcement authorities say they cannot answer.

Some investigators believe Ligambi, who turns 68 Thursday, would be happy to "retire" to Florida. Others say a long-rumored federal indictment, with Ligambi as the lead defendant, could make any argument about his stepping aside moot.

Another key question is whether South Philadelphia wiseguys still loyal to jailed mob leader Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino would oppose a move by Scarfo to take control.

Bad blood between the Merlino and Scarfo families is no secret.

Merlino, 45, who is serving a 14-year sentence for a 2001 racketeering conviction, has long been the suspect in a brazen 1989 Halloween night murder attempt on the younger Scarfo.

Scarfo was gunned down as he sat eating a plate of clams and spaghetti with friends in Dante & Luigi's, a popular South Philadelphia restaurant.

The gunman arrived at the restaurant wearing a mask and carrying a trick-or-treat bag. Inside the bag was a machine pistol that he used to spray Scarfo's table. Miraculously, Scarfo survived the hit, leaving the hospital just a few days after being rushed there with multiple gunshot wounds of the torso and arms.

New Jersey State Police investigators subsequently picked up wiretap conversations in which Scarfo and his father, from prison, discussed the murder attempt, identified Merlino as the gunman, and plotted to kill him in revenge.

"Little Nicky" Scarfo, now 78, is serving a 55-year sentence on federal racketeering-murder charges. It is unlikely that he will ever be paroled.

In an attempt to protect his son after the Dante & Luigi's shooting, the elder Scarfo reportedly formed an alliance with Victor Amuso, boss of New York's Lucchese crime family and an inmate in the same federal prison in Atlanta.

The younger Scarfo, while living in North Jersey before his arrest on gambling charges in 2002, was aligned with a New Jersey faction of the Lucchese organization, according to Robert Buccino, an organized-crime expert and chief of investigations for the Union County Prosecutor's Office.

"He's been associated with the New Jersey factions of the Lucchese and Gambino families," said Buccino. He said authorities believe the younger Scarfo was formally initiated into the Lucchese organization and is the "skipper" of a crew now operating in the Atlantic City area.

According to an organized-crime source in South Jersey, the younger Scarfo's name surfaced in a gambling and labor-racketeering case that targeted members of the Gambino and Lucchese families in North Jersey back in May.

Wiretaps established an association, the source said, but did not provide enough information to warrant a criminal charge.

Although Manno insists that his client has been spending his time helping to build up a cement-contracting business, other sources say that he and a group of associates have begun to flex their underworld muscles at local clubs, strip joints and bars in the Atlantic City area.

Scarfo's father was notorious for shaking down quasi-legitimate business operators, demanding a "street tax" from bar owners, restaurateurs, bookmakers and drug dealers who were not directly affiliated with the organization. Labor racketeering and extortion were big money-makers for the organization while he was in charge.

The elder Scarfo was also in the cement business.

He and his nephew, Philip "Crazy Phil" Leonetti, headed Scarf Inc., an Atlantic City cement-contracting company that did work on at least six casino-hotel projects in the early days of casino gambling at the Jersey Shore.

Leonetti, who was Scarfo's underboss, later became a government witness. He testified at more than a dozen trials and is considered one of the most devastating Mafia informants ever to take the stand.

In a telephone interview several years ago, Leonetti, who has established a new life with a new identity supplied by federal authorities, lamented the fact that his cousin, the younger Scarfo, had not broken with his father and the mob.

"My uncle is going to get my cousin killed," Leonetti said at the time.

Buccino said that although there is a danger that the younger Scarfo could "end up in a box," there is precedent in the American mob for sons to be handed leadership positions almost as a birthright.

John Gotti's young and inexperienced son, John A. Gotti, rose to power in New York's powerful Gambino crime family after his father was jailed. The Taccetta brothers, leaders of a North Jersey faction of the Lucchese organization, handed their positions to their sons, Buccino said.

"Unfortunately, these guys let their kids get into the business," Buccino said. "In the end, they all end up in jail."