A mob witness it's hard to get a fix on

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

There are a lot of people down in South Philadelphia looking for Frankie the Fixer.

And not all of them are suspected wiseguys arrested in the organized-crime case in which he is a witness.

A plumber by trade, The Fixer was also a gambler and a wannabe underworld tough guy.

Now he's the latest in a long line of mobsters and mob associates who have cut deals with investigators, strapped on body wires, and testified before grand juries.

A key informant in a Delaware County investigation, "Operation Delco Nostra," the burly 44-year-old hasn't been seen around the neighborhood in a month.

Most believe he's in protective custody, beyond the reach of bookmakers, loansharks, and angry customers who want their plumbing work done.

"People are coming in here all the time asking for him," said Joe DeSimone, one of the owners of Grumpy's Tavern in the 1500 block of South Ninth Street, where The Fixer - real name Frank DiGiacomo - used to hang out.

"Either he owes them money or they gave him a down payment on a job and he ran out on them."

The story of Frankie the Fixer is a contemporary chapter in the saga of the Philadelphia mob, which has proved again and again to be one of the most dysfunctional crime families in America.

According to authorities in the pending criminal case, DiGiacomo was a sometime enforcer who leaned on gambling customers when they were late with their payments.

That he had problems keeping up with his own loans and gambling debts adds a bit of underworld irony to the tale.

Late last year, when he was a target of an investigation, DiGiacomo began cooperating with state police.

He recorded dozens of conversations, including one in which his reputed boss, Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello, plotted to kill a ranking South Philadelphia mob figure, and another in which Monacello and a lawyer coached him on how to lie to a grand jury.

DiGiacomo, who in the 1990s hung at a Passyunk Avenue coffee shop/clubhouse run by mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, reported to Monacello, a South Philadelphia mob associate, authorities say.

Monacello, in turn, answers to jailed mob leader George Borgesi, a close Merlino ally.

Those connections make investigators more than a little interested in a flap between Monacello and Marty Angelina, a "made" member of the organization and the mobster Monacello allegedly threatened to kill.

DiGiacomo has provided most of the details, including some tape recordings.

First, authorities allege, Monacello said he wanted Angelina dead, but later decided he just wanted him "beaten so badly that he would have to be hospitalized."

Not surprisingly, the allegations and recorded comments have created criminal problems for Bent Finger Lou.

What is unclear is whether his ranting has had any repercussions in the underworld.

In theory at least, a mob associate cannot threaten a made - formally initiated - member of a crime family. In the 1980s underworld of Philadelphia mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, that kind of behavior could have resulted in someone's getting whacked.

But today's mob, decimated by two decades of turncoat testimony and a staggering series of high-level convictions, seldom goes by the rules.

The threats, the shakedowns, the gambling, and the obstruction-of-justice allegations linked to DiGiacomo were detailed in grand-jury presentments last month.

Seventeen defendants have been charged, including Monacello, 41, and two major underworld moneymakers, reputed Delaware County bookmaker Nicholas "Nicky the Hat" Cimino, 49, and alleged South Philadelphia bookmaker Vincent Manzo, 47.

One of the presentments alleges that Cimino - who kept a photo of himself and reputed mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi hanging on his wall - ran a casino in the basement of a business on McDade Boulevard in Folsom.

There were card games and betting on horse races and boxing matches.

During one match, "Cimino provided women from a local gentlemen's club to act as ring girls and cocktail waitresses," according to information provided by DiGiacomo, who also alleged that the women had provided "sexual services to patrons for money."

That's just one of many inside stories DiGiacomo has provided investigators. But none shed any light on why he agreed to cooperate.

What is clear from the documents is that he began wearing a wire in December and was still recording in June.

A month later, when the arrests came, he was gone.

Left behind are an estranged wife, who did not respond to requests for comment; customers who paid for plumbing work that will never get done; and loansharks The Fixer owes cash.

Monacello, for example, was still collecting vig - interest - on $25,000 DiGiacomo owed him when he was arrested, authorities say.

Ligambi and Borgesi, who is the reputed mob boss' nephew, are mentioned prominently in one of the presentments, but are not charged.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Erik Olsen, who is coordinating the case, declined to comment last week.

Other law enforcement sources said the FBI hoped to add some of the evidence gathered in the Delco Nostra probe to a federal racketeering investigation.

Monacello, according to the presentments, is the link to Borgesi and Ligambi. Investigators allege that he routinely visited Borgesi at a federal prison in West Virginia, and gave some of the cash from the gambling operation to Borgesi's wife.

What, if anything, DiGiacomo could add to the federal probe is another unanswered question.

Investigators say that while his reputation and character might be suspect, the tapes that he made speak for themselves.

Still, in South Philadelphia there are those who have a problem reconciling Frankie the Fixer with the reputed "enforcer" described in the presentments.

"Look, maybe in Delaware County they thought he was a tough guy from Downtown," said one source who asked not to be named. "But Downtown we knew who Frankie was. He was nobody."

At Grumpy's Tavern, the assessment is not as harsh.

"I liked the guy," DeSimone said as he sat at a table in his bar one afternoon last week. "He was funny. If you sat here talking with him, you'd be laughing. But you could never believe anything he told you."

DeSimone said he knew nothing about the investigation but described DiGiacomo as someone who had always played fast and loose with his business and gambling debts.

"I think in four years he changed the name of his company six times," DeSimone said. "He owed a lot of people money."

If nothing else, then, DiGiacomo's law-enforcement-assisted disappearance may have solved some of his financial problems.

Tony Tran, the owner of T&T Hairstyling at Eighth and Moore, is one of the customers The Fixer left hanging.

Tran said he had paid DiGiacomo $1,500 this summer to repair the air-conditioning in his shop. When DiGiacomo failed to show up to do the work, Tran began to complain and threatened to go to the police.

Last month - apparently a few days before the Delco Nostra arrests - DiGiacomo showed up at Tran's shop to return the money, giving him $500 in cash and a check for the remaining $1,000, Tran said.

"He told me not to cash it for a week," Tran said. "I waited a couple of days, then went to the bank. They told me there was no money in the account."