Phila. mob figure sent back to jail

Senior-citizen wiseguy Frank Gambino was ordered back to prison for six months after a federal judge found him guilty yesterday of violating the terms of his parole in a racketeering case by associating with convicted felons.

Gambino, 76, said he thought his three years of supervised release had expired when, in April, he began hanging at a South Philadelphia coffee shop/clubhouse and playing cards with former criminal associates.

"I was under the assumption I was off parole," Gambino said during a brief hearing before U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick.

Surrick said he did not find that argument credible.

Gambino's parole officer, Carmen Vazquez-Ongay, testified that she had warned Gambino repeatedly about associating with criminals and said he had been ordered back to a halfway house for three months in September for the same type of violation.

Philadelphia Police Officers Christopher Isern and Cynthia Felicetti, both with the criminal intelligence unit, testified that they had seen Gambino in the presence of known felons at Miller's High Life, a club on South 13th Street, three times in April.

They identified Gambino's associates as Robert Miller Sr., Ralph Abruzzi and Gaeton Lucibello. The violation report described Lucibello as a "made" member of the Philadelphia crime family.

Miller and Abruzzi were convicted several years ago for their roles in a mob-linked stolen-property ring in which Gambino was also involved.

Gambino, who has spent about half his adult life in prison, was philosophical after Surrick imposed sentence, thanking the judge for not adding another period of supervised release after the six months.

"I'm glad what you said," Gambino told Surrick, who ordered him to report to prison in 30 days. "I'm terminated after six months. Thank God."

His hair gray and thinning, his shoulders slightly stooped, Gambino quipped that a return to jail would give him a chance to "get back in shape." As he left the 14th-floor courtroom, he nodded to a reporter and said, "Give me a good write-up."

Gambino was convicted in 2001 with mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino and five others in a high-profile racketeering case. He was sentenced to 71 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

He was charged with being part of a stolen-property ring that took tractor-trailer loads of goods from the terminals along Delaware Avenue. The goods included televisions, bicycles, sweat suits and baby formula.

According to testimony, the mob abandoned the trailer-load of baby formula at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike after trying for several weeks to find a buyer.