Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Merlino's prison workout plan: "Get my sixpack back"

A judge is sending former Philly mob boss Joey Merlino back to prison for four months. He laughed it off with a joke.

Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino , dapper as always, leaves the federal courthouse for lunch. He has 30 days to surrender at a designated federal prison.
Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino , dapper as always, leaves the federal courthouse for lunch. He has 30 days to surrender at a designated federal prison.Read moreALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer

JOEY MERLINO is headed back to prison again - this time for four months - after a judge ruled yesterday that he violated the terms of his probation from a 2001 racketeering conviction by hanging out with a mob pal at a Florida cigar bar in June.

The former Philadelphia mob boss did not seem particularly troubled by that development.

Maybe it's because he's already spent nearly a third of his life in prison. Four months is practically a weekend getaway.

"I could use a good four months. Get back in shape. Get my sixpack back," Merlino said, patting his abs over a sharp gray suit and purplish tie as he exited the federal courthouse.

Hey, when life gives you tomatoes, make a nice marinara sauce. Which is exactly what the 52-year-old Merlino says he plans to do - if the feds ever get off his back.

Florida businessman Stanley Stein told U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick yesterday that he had offered Merlino a full-time position as a "maitre d' or host" at a new restaurant he's opening in Boca Raton early next month. It's called Merlino's, obviously.

"We're gonna have the best Italian food in South Florida," Merlino said after the hearing. "All my mother's recipes."

Pressed for details about the menu, Merlino clammed up.

"I can't give you the recipes," he said.

Apparently, some people still believe in omerta.

Merlino's mother, Rita, was equally reticent when it came to her signature dishes. But she had a lot to say about the federal government that seems hell-bent on keeping her son in prison.

"I'm tired of this country," she said, echoing a frequent refrain of local mob families, who say the FBI should be chasing terrorists, not South Philly wiseguys.

In court yesterday, Surrick ruled that Merlino had violated the terms of his supervised release by associating with reputed mob captain John "Johnny Chang" Ciancaglini at the Havana Nights Cigar Bar & Lounge. At a prior hearing on the same matter two weeks ago, Ciancaglini was spotted sitting outside the courthouse, reading the Daily News.

But the most intriguing testimony came from a Florida detective on the FBI's Organized Crime Task Force who testified that he has been assisting with surveillance on Merlino and others as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. When defense lawyer Edwin Jacobs Jr. asked what crime Merlino might have committed, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Troyer jumped in to stop the line of questioning.

Jacobs later accused prosecutors of pursuing a vendetta against Merlino, who has beaten other cases over the years.

"When the cases don't turn out the way they want, I think they follow you to your grave," Jacobs said.

Troyer, however, said Merlino's recent activity shows that he hasn't turned his life around. He argued that the probation violation should be punished with a prison sentence of up to one year and another subsequent year of supervised release to prevent Merlino from fully re-establishing himself in the criminal underworld - either here or in Florida.

"It's really a matter of defiance," Troyer said. "Mr. Merlino knows what he's not allowed to do, but he does it anyhow."

Troyer also dismissed testimony about Merlino's reported good deeds since he was released from prison in 2011 after about 12 years in prison. Stein - who, curiously, has flown Merlino around in a private jet, paid for a limo and put him up at the Four Seasons - said Merlino got a priest to say a Mass for him when he was diagnosed with cancer and considers him "like a son."

"Even Pablo Escobar handed out turkeys at Christmastime," Troyer said, causing Merlino's family to groan in disgust.

Merlino must report to prison in 30 days. After serving four months, he will be a free man, with no period of supervised release. Jacobs said the restaurant plan remains intact, only slightly delayed.

"Hopefully," Surrick said, "the criminal-justice system will not see him in the future."