The lawyer, the mob probe, and the D.A. race

This is a story about politics and strange bedfellows, South Philly-style.

It revolves around a young lawyer, Gregory Quigley, snared in a Delaware County mob investigation.

And it's causing agita in the campaign of district attorney candidate Seth Williams, a bit player in the drama whose opponents are attempting to smear him and introduce the specter of organized crime, sotto voce, in the D.A.'s race by twisting facts like a soft pretzel.

It all began with a $5,000 contribution Quigley made to Williams' campaign back in 2007, long before Quigley's legal problems began. Williams has since returned the donation.

Now, an inquisitive group of federal and state investigators wants to know more about why Quigley made the contribution on behalf of a now-defunct South Philadelphia social club once owned by the biggest illegal poker-machine distributor in the city, a guy who nearly got whacked in an organized-crime "business dispute."

"We're certainly curious about whose money it was," said a state police source familiar with the gambling investigation to which Quigley was tied.

That same source said there was no indication the Williams camp had done anything improper.

Bedfellows or goodfellas?

That's the question swirling around the twisted tale of the campaign contribution issued in the name of the Italian American Benevolence Society by Quigley, who was sentenced to five years' probation earlier this month after admitting that he coached a witness to lie to a grand jury investigating a Delaware County organized-crime gambling ring.

"Once they give you immunity, then you can commit perjury," Quigley told the witness in a conversation that was secretly recorded.

It was not the best legal advice - and became the basis for the charges against him.

Now Quigley isn't talking.

In an e-mail response to a series of questions, the 37-year-old South Philadelphian said that on the advice of two attorneys, "at this point I have no comment."

He added, however, that speculation that he was somehow tied to the mob "is patently and absolutely false."

What Quigley is tied to is the Italian American Legion Beneficial Society, the proper name of the organization that made a $5,000 contribution to Williams in May 2007.

At that point, Williams' campaign manager Dan Fee is quick to point out, there was no hint of the investigation that would tie Quigley to mob-linked gamblers. In fact, the crime to which Quigley pleaded guilty did not occur until January 2008.

And it wasn't until July that Quigley and 16 others were publicly charged and arrested.

Bristling at what he said was an attempt by opponents to smear his candidate, Fee said the Williams campaign had done nothing improper.

"We returned the money," said Fee. "At the time the donation was made, Seth thought it was from a political action committee. When we found out it wasn't, we sent the money back."

Mob ties, real or imagined, had nothing to do with the decision, he said. But Fee says he is frustrated by the political gamesmanship of Williams' opponents, who have been providing information about the contribution to the media and then, through innuendo, linking it to an organized-crime investigation.

Fee said Williams knew Quigley casually. He first met him when he was an assistant district attorney and Quigley, fresh out of Widener Law School, was clerking for Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony DeFino seven years ago.

DeFino's son Vincent is Williams' campaign treasurer.

Why Quigley chose to make the donation in the name of a now-shuttered social club is one of the unanswered questions that has attracted the attention of both the Pennsylvania State Police, which handled the Delaware County investigation, and the FBI.

Another is whether the contribution was Quigley's or was being made on behalf of someone else.

City campaign-finance law caps individual contributions at $2,600 per year. Political committees can contribute up to $10,600 annually.

The Italian American society that made the $5,000 contribution to Williams' campaign listed 1822 S. Broad St. - Quigley's law office - as its address, according to a Williams campaign-filing report.

The Committee to Elect Seth Williams sent a $5,000 check back to the society at that address on Jan. 30.

Quigley, according to Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board records, is the lawyer for the Italian American Legion Beneficial Society, a social club chartered in 1938 and that for years was located at 1236-38 Reed St.

One former resident of the area remembered parades sponsored by the society in Columbus Square Park.

For years the club was owned by the late Anthony "Tony Machines" Milicia, who was big in illegal poker machines and who was shot in 1996 after ignoring a business proposition from then-mob boss Ralph Natale.

Natale, who later became a government witness, said that he ordered the hit and that after the shooting - Milicia survived - Milicia agreed to give the mob a piece of his poker machine and numbers-writing businesses.

The social club morphed into Club Noche shortly after Quigley and some associates took it over about six years ago. It was shuttered in 2004 after an LCB raid that was part of a citywide crackdown on so-called nuisance bars.

Quigley, whose law clients have included go-go bar owners and beer distributorships, became the focus of a state police investigation in 2008 after mob associates Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello and Frank "Frankie the Fixer" DiGiacomo came to him for legal advice.

DiGiacomo had been subpoenaed by a grand jury investigating a gambling ring tied to Monacello and jailed mobster George Borgesi.

Monacello and Quigley were later charged with coaching DiGiacomo on how to lie to the grand jury.

Neither was aware that DiGiacomo was already cooperating with the state police and wore a body wire to two meetings at the lawyer's Broad Street office.

Quigley pleaded guilty March 9 in Delaware County Court to a charge of conspiracy to commit perjury. He was sentenced to five years' probation and fined $5,000. His felony conviction has also put his law license in jeopardy. He is awaiting action by the disciplinary board of the state Supreme Court, which could bar him from practicing law.

Monacello is scheduled for trial next month.

Quigley is also a friend of Anthony Borgesi, who was spotted working at a computer in the lawyer's office one day earlier this month. Borgesi is the brother of jailed mob figure George Borgesi, and the nephew of reputed mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi.

Those associations and the unanswered questions about the campaign contribution have piqued the interest of law-enforcement investigators. But sources say the focus is on Quigley and has nothing to do with the Williams campaign.

The Club Noche and the Italian American Legion Beneficial Society, meanwhile, are little more than memories.

The property at 1236 Reed St. was sold to a South Jersey developer in 2004 for $100,000. The club's after-hours liquor license expired in 2006.

A black awning with the inscription Club Noche marks the entrance to the once-notorious neighborhood spot. But the brick-and-stucco building appears empty and abandoned. A wrought-iron gate secured with a padlocked chain bars access to a small courtyard littered with plastic trash bags and debris.

The front door is unhinged and open, offering a partial view of a bathroom where a broken sink bowl sits in the middle of the floor.

"It used to be an after-hours club for wiseguys," said a man walking by the club yesterday morning. "Now it's nothing."