As a lifelong gaming enthusiast, I’m used to imaginary worlds filled with thrill-seeking danger around every corner. But the cold-blooded horrors once lurking in Philadelphia’s real-life underworld made even Grand Theft Auto look tame.
“It was like living in an abnormal world with psychopaths,” admits former Philly mob underboss Phil Leonetti today. As second-in-command and nephew to Angelo “Nicky Scarfo” Leonetti, Phil had a front-row seat to the coke-fueled killing spree that left at least 30 dead in the City of Brotherly Love.
“I saw things that nobody should ever see,” Leonetti recalls now from hiding. Driven by cash, madness and a lust for power, my uncle Nicky Scarfo forged a crew of stone-cold murderers that put other American mafia families to shame.
As a gamer who‘s idolized Tony Soprano and Niko Bellic‘s fictional crime worlds in the past, I never fathomed just how depraved the life of a real-world wiseguy could get. But 30 years after the bloody downfall of the Scarfo regime, haunting secrets are now coming to light.
The Violent Rise of “Little Nicky” Scarfo
Angelo Bruno had ruled over Philadelphia for 20 peaceful years when he was blown apart by a shotgun blast in 1980. Even President Jimmy Carter marked Bruno’s death, giving the mafia don full state funeral honors for keeping organized crime quiet in Philly.
But while others valued stability, the young Nicky Scarfo saw Bruno’s murder as a golden opportunity.
“Nicky took over the family by violence,” Leonetti confirms. The power-hungry mobster had already built a frightening rep for brutality since joining the mafia as a teenager.
“By the time he was 18 years old, he had killed five or six people,” Leonetti reveals. And as underboss, Phil himself would soon be complicit as his uncle’s killing tally grew.
Scarfo’s first target was boss Phil Testa, killed in 1981 by a nail bomb hidden under his porch.
“When that bomb went off, it blew his body up to the roof across the street,” Leonetti recalls. ”I saw what was left of his torso impaled on a piece of wood.”
Rather than scatter in fear, Scarfo saw the hit as an ideal chance to seize control of the family. “When you take over a family by violence and everybody’s in shock, they fall in line,” he reasoned.
And with Phil Leonetti now serving as his young underboss, Scarfo had a partner more than willing to spill blood alongside him in the name of ambition and power. “I was 23 years old and I was in the middle of it with my uncle Nick,” he reflects.
Life Under Mob Rule – A City Living in Fear
Movies and video games often glamorize the power and status that Mafia figures enjoy. But few portrayals reveal the oppressive climate of fear mob regimes create – both on the streets and within their own ranks.
“Everybody was petrified, nobody wanted to be home,” Leonetti says of the dark days under Scarfo. Public assassination attempts had a chilling effect across Philly.
“Everybody would know in the neighborhood that somebody was going to get killed – they just wouldn‘t know who,” he adds.
Inside the family itself, Scarfo ruled by institutionalizing fear. At weekly meetings, members who slighted the boss always paid with broken bones or worse.
“He could kill a guy for not listening to him,” Leonetti warns. Absolute power corrupted Scarfo‘s mind absolutely, feeding his paranoia and leaving underlings constantly looking over their shoulders.
“In our world, if the boss tells you you’re going to be killed, 99% chance it’s going to happen,” Leonetti reveals.
But even as lives hung by a thread each day, few challenged Scarfo thanks to the immense profits his regime generated. “As long as the money keeps rolling in, nobody cares about anything,” Leonetti cynically reflects.
At its mid-1980s peak, the Philadelphia mob netted an astounding $200-500 million per year from rackets ranging from drug trafficking and loan sharking to pilfering entire labor unions. Numbers that staggering buy a lot of loyalty – however temporarily.
“He Really Enjoyed It” – Sadistic Murder as a Way of Life
You’d think that kind of success would be enough for any ambitious crime lord. But for Nicky Scarfo, the millions in annual tribute earnings mattered far less than having an iron grip on the city through brutal violence.
“He really enjoyed having the reputation of being a stone-cold killer. He loved it,” Leonetti bluntly states.
Scarfo remained forever obsessed with the act of murder itself – both as a display of raw dominance as well as a sick thrill ride.
“He enjoyed killing people, it excited him. He got pleasure out of it,” his nephew and underboss reflects.
Victims faced barbaric ends at the hands of Scarfo’s ruthless crew of hitmen. When middle-manager Harry Riccobene merely chuckled at Scarfo’s height behind his back, Scarfo flew into a rage.
“Harry Riccobene was killed over laughing,” Leonetti reveals. Following Scarfo’s orders, Riccobene was shotgunned down with part of his head blown off in broad daylight.
Worse fates awaited those who dared steal from the regime’s coffers. When 50-year capo Frankie Flowers help back $3,000 in tribute payments, Scarfo unleashed his pyschotic enforcer Salvatore Merlino, AKA “Skinny Razor.”
True to his nickname, Razor sliced off Frankie Flowers’ testicles as a brutal form of torture. “He stuffed his balls in his mouth,” Leonetti reveals, disgusted. An icepick driven through Flower’s ear finished the job as Razor laughed maniacally.
Leonetti himself racked up direct kills in the double digits – including the point blank shotgun execution of family member Pasquale “Pat the Cat” Spirito on Scarfo’s orders.
“I aimed the shotgun at his heart and pulled the trigger,” Leonetti casually relates. “Then Nicky had a big party to celebrate Pat Spirito’s death.”
Scarfo‘s intoxication with homicide trickled down through the ranks, stripping away the humanity of all near him.
“When you’re exposed to violence over long periods of time, you become numb to it,” Leonetti admits.
The Law Closes In – The Death Knell for La Cosa Nostra?
Like something out of The Sopranos, the unraveling of Nicky Scarfo’s empire began from within. After 10 years together at the top, Underboss Phil Leonetti ultimately decided to betray his uncle rather than spend his entire life looking over his shoulder.
“The guy was a sick, demented, murderous psychopath,” Leonetti concludes. “It was either I kill him or I go to jail for the rest of my life.”
Instead, he chose to violate La Cosa Nostra’s sacred Omertà code of silence in 1989, agreeing to testify against the entire Scarfo family. His evidence proved devastating, earning convictions for Nicky and 16 high-level mobsters on charges from murder to organized crime racketeering.
“The whole Philadelphia family pled guilty,” Leonetti says, still stunned at how quickly the mighty empire collapsed. Rival factions had already begun partitioning the lucrative Philly drug trade among themselves assuming Scarfo wouldn‘t return.
In one fell swoop, a crime dynasty 30 years in the making crumbled thanks to secrets spilled from Leonetti’s own lips on the witness stand. Both his testimony and wiretaps captured depraved secrets once thought unthinkable to expose.
“I was an anomaly – nobody in the history of La Cosa Nostra ever heard a boss‘s nephew testify about the interworkings,” says Leonetti, whose example arguably did more damage to the mob’s sacred code of Omertà than any other turncoat in history.
Scarfo died in prison last year at age 87, unrepentant to the bloody end. Leonetti remains exiled today with both the mafia and his own family wanting him dead for shattering the organization‘s veil of secrecy forever.
The fate of Philadelphia’s mafia remains in flux ever since. New iterations like alleged boss Joey Merlino’s crew still engage in classic mob rackets from sports betting to bank fraud.
But unlike cities like New York and Chicago whose families have rebuilt, Philly’s mob lacks the trusted hierarchy and muscle to fully recover what Scarfo lost. Law enforcement officials now even debate whether independent black street gangs haven’t replaced La Cosa Nostra completely as the city’s dominant criminal faction.
Either way, the damage Leonetti‘s testimony did 30 years ago continues reverberating through the ranks today. Omertà now lies shattered, organized crime‘s code of secrecy forever weakened.
“The Mafia back in the day, if you violated Omertà you were dead,” Leonetti concludes. “Nobody thought anybody would ever talk about it.”
Cashing In His Chips – No More Living Life in the Fast Lane
As for the reformed mob underboss himself, Leonetti maintains few regrets over his betrayal beyond pain over devastating his own family.
“I betrayed them for power and greed,” he admits. “I regret being in the Mafia – if I could take it all back I would.”
After 16 years imprisoned himself, Leonetti now passes his days in obscurity, no longer haunted by the “abnormal world” he left behind. His YouTube confessions remain his attempt to make good on 30 years of guilt from profiting off Philadelphia’s suffering.
“I’m at the end of the road,” he shrugs. “It’s at the point now where if someone finds me and kills me, oh well.”
After the cocaine-fueled rollercoaster of violence his youth entailed, Leonetti seems almost grateful to live out a mundane middle-age.
My own days of playing Grand Theft Auto into the night are likely behind me too. But I know now the blood money reality of organized crime makes pixels on a screen look innocent by comparison. For all its appeal, running with wiseguys often ends with dying young rather than in suburban anonymity.
I’ll happily take my chances with the latter – leaves more years for gaming anyway. Nicky Scarfo never learned to tell the difference between fantasy and reality until it was too late.