Almost seven years after taking the stand in a federal racketeering trial that decimated the Philadelphia mob, "Big Ron" Previte was back in court last week testifying about life in the underworld.
Previte, 64, spent part of Monday and Tuesday on the stand in Boston in the federal drug-dealing retrial of mob associate Robert Luisi, a North End wiseguy who bought his way into the Philadelphia crime family in the late 1990s.
And on Friday Previte was "on standby" in Camden as a possible witness at the sentencing hearing of mob enforcer Vincent "Big Vince" Filipelli, who had pleaded guilty to a bookmaking-extortion charge in U.S. District Court.
Both cases were faint echoes of a not-too-distant past when the Philadelphia mob was a bumbling, dysfunctional crime family, more Simpsons than Sopranos.
Previte was a major reason for that dysfunction.
For most of the 1990s, he played the roles of mob enforcer and confidential informant, first in the camp of mob boss John Stanfa and then with Stanfa's rivals Ralph Natale and Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino.
While working as an FBI informant from 1997 to 1999, the Philadelphia cop-turned-wiseguy wore a body wire and recorded hundreds of conversations. He then testified at a series of trials, including a racketeering case that ended in July 2001 with the convictions of Merlino and six associates.
Luisi was a minor player in that drama, but his role on the fringe of the Philadelphia crime family underscored the nature of the organization.
Subsequent testimony has indicated that while Luisi did not have enough street status to earn a spot in the New England branch of La Cosa Nostra, he convinced Merlino and Merlino's top associate, George Borgesi, that he should be a man of honor with the Philadelphia crime family they were running.
The Boston-based wiseguy did this, authorities now say, by sending an envelope containing $10,000 in cash each month to his Philadelphia mentors.
Caught in a cocaine deal that was in fact an FBI sting, Luisi and three of his underlings were arrested in 1999 at the same time Merlino was nabbed in Philadelphia.
Previte taped several conversations with the Boston wiseguy and introduced him to an FBI agent posing as a corrupt businessman. Cocaine deals - drug deliveries in exchange for cash - were recorded on audiotape and videotape.
In 2003, Luisi was convicted of cocaine trafficking and sentenced to 235 months in prison. That conviction was overturned on appeal.
The jury in his retrial began deliberating Thursday. On Friday afternoon, it reconvicted Luisi on all three drug-dealing counts.
In Camden, meanwhile, the Filipelli sentencing hearing capped a joint FBI and New Jersey State Police investigation in which the body-building mob enforcer was caught in yet another sting.
Filipelli, 54, who has two previous extortion convictions, was arrested for threatening a deadbeat gambler who owed a mob bookmaker several thousand dollars.
The "gambler" turned out to be an undercover New Jersey State Police investigator wearing a body wire. During a meeting in the parking lot of an upscale South Philadelphia strip club on May 25, 2006, Filipelli was recorded threatening to send the gambler "to the hospital" if he didn't come up with the $13,000 he owed.
"I been around a long time," Filipelli said as the tape rolled. "You respect me, I'll respect you. You owe the debt, you pay it. . . . I go by my word."
Later, Filipelli boasted that he was a "made" member of the mob and acknowledged that when he was sent to collect a debt, "it's not like an ordinary guy going up to 'em."
Filipelli pleaded guilty to the extortion charge in April. He is expected to be sentenced next week after a lengthy sentencing hearing Friday. Previte was not called as a witness.
Neither the Luisi retrial nor the Filipelli sentencing has caused much of a stir in the local underworld, where reputed South Philadelphia mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi has taken the organization back into the shadows.
Content to make money rather than headlines, Ligambi, law enforcement investigators say, has been low-key since assuming the top spot seven years ago.
Like Ligambi, Previte has maintained a relatively low profile since he helped the FBI nab Natale, Merlino, Borgesi, Luisi, and more than a dozen other members and associates of the organization.
The 6-foot, 300-pound mob informant was given a new identity and relocated from his home in Hammonton, Atlantic County, after the 2001 racketeering trial.
Once a freewheeling, larger-than-life underworld figure who adeptly worked both sides of the street, Previte is no longer a player. But his testimony in Boston and his presence in Camden last week were reminders of the way things used to be.
So, too, was a comment Filipelli used three times during his highly incriminating conversation in the parking lot of the South Philadelphia strip club.
"This ain't
The Sopranos
," Big Vince said to the undercover investigator. "This is real f-in' life."