To 'other' Merlino, it's not who you know

ATLANTIC CITY - Joseph N. Merlino - the "other Joey Merlino" - tried to make a point last week as he testified before a Casino Control Commission hearing examiner.

The New Jersey examiner is being asked to determine whether Merlino and his construction company are, in gangland parlance, "mobbed up."

"Everybody in South Philadelphia knows everybody," said Merlino, 43, who is sometimes called "Fat Joey" to distinguish him from mob kingpin Joseph S. "Skinny Joey" Merlino, his cousin.

But knowing a wiseguy, he argued, even a relative, doesn't make you a wiseguy.

That's a pivotal issue in the debate over whether Merlino and the company he and his mother own, Bayshore Rebar of Pleasantville, should be granted a casino service industry license.

The state Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) has opposed the request, citing the same suspected mob ties that led to Bayshore's being denied a license twice in the past.

Merlino is due back on the stand when the hearing resumes tomorrow.

Testimony and evidence have turned the protracted legal proceeding into an underworld nostalgia trip built around a gangland version of a question once posed by Shakespeare: "What's in a name?"

Merlino contends that he and his company have been denied the license because his late father, Lawrence, and "Skinny Joey" were well-known mobsters.

"We've never done anything wrong," Merlino testified Tuesday. "We go to work every day."

He and his mother have insisted that any ties they and their company had to the mob were familial, not criminal, and were severed years ago.

It will be up to William T. Sommeling, the casino commissioner who is sitting as the hearing examiner, to sort through the arguments. The hearing, which began Aug. 25 and has included sessions once or twice a week, is expected to conclude by the end of the month.

Deputy Attorney General Wendy Way and Assistant Attorney General Anthony Zarrillo have built the DGE's case in part around dozens of surveillance reports - most more than 10 years old - compiled by the Philadelphia Police Department.

These include detailed accounts of surveillance at christenings, weddings, wakes, and funerals.

The prosecutors used the information to establish associations that they say tie Joseph N. Merlino to the mob.

They also allege that those associations continue, pointing to Anthony Giraldi, a South Philadelphia plumber who has been a friend of Joseph N. Merlino's since 2001.

The DGE alleges that Giraldi is a mob associate, although even one of its witnesses, a Philadelphia Police Department intelligence unit supervisor, said neither he nor the department had any direct knowledge of Giraldi's being tied to the mob.

A retired FBI agent, called as a witness for Bayshore, has said Giraldi is a "neighborhood plumber."

The ex-agent, James Darcy, spent three days on the stand during the first two weeks of the hearing, mostly under grueling cross-examination by Zarrillo.

Using surveillance reports, the assistant attorney general took Darcy through nearly two years of intelligence-gathering that, among other things, underscored how dramatically the face of the Philadelphia mob has changed over the last decade.

Typical was a report from May 1997.

Philadelphia police were on hand to record the names of those showing up at the Airport Ramada Inn, where mobster Steven Mazzone was hosting a christening party for his daughter.

The list of guests was a who's who of mobsters and mob associates and included then-mob boss Ralph Natale, "Skinny Joey" Merlino, Martin Angelina, George Borgesi, Gaeton Lucibello, Anthony Accardo, Daniel Daidone, Damion Canalichio, Ronald Turchi, Roger Vella, and Ron Previte.

Giraldi also was there.

Darcy and John Donnelly, Merlino's lawyer, pointed out that many other people attended that party and the wakes and funerals that ended up in surveillance reports. Attendance at an event does not, in itself, connote a mob affiliation, they argued.

The list of attendees at the christening party also demonstrated how things have changed in the underworld in the 12 years since.

"Skinny Joey" Merlino, Mazzone, Borgesi, Angelina, Accardo, and about a dozen other mobsters have been jailed for racketeering, and Merlino and Borgesi are still in prison.

Although it was not known at the time, Previte was cooperating with the FBI when the party took place and, in all probability, was wearing a body wire.

Natale, charged with drug dealing as a result of Previte's cooperation, later became a government witness. So did Vella after he was tied to a murder and a drug case.

Turchi, a Natale loyalist, was killed after Natale began cooperating in 1999.

While Zarrillo has argued that the surveillance reports and other evidence support the DGE's allegations of mob ties, Donnelly has said none of the historic data have any relevance in 2009.

Bayshore Rebar was first denied licensure in 1989, when the Casino Control Commission found that the then-four-year-old company was a front for another rebar company, Nat-Nat, owned by Lawrence "Yogi" Merlino and Salvatore "Chuckie" Merlino.

The brothers, ranking members of the Scarfo crime family at the time, were convicted of racketeering in 1988.

Lawrence Merlino became a cooperating witness. He died in 2001 while in the witness protection program.

Salvatore Merlino is serving a 45-year sentence.

The Merlino brothers each named their first-born son after their father. "Skinny Joey" is Salvatore's son.

In 1996, the Casino Control Commission turned down a second Bayshore application, citing associations with "Skinny Joey" Merlino, who, like his father, had become a high-profile mob figure.

Joseph N. Merlino, his lawyer has argued, took a different path.

Testifying last week, the "other Joey Merlino" did not deny that he knew many of the mob figures on the surveillance reports.

He also acknowledged that he and his mother had attended funerals, christenings, and other social events where mobsters were present.

But mother and son say that what the DGE sees as potentially nefarious connections are common South Philadelphia neighborhood and family ties.

"Many of these people I know from growing up as a kid in South Philadelphia," Merlino said from the stand last week. "We don't label anybody."

But, he said, "we're being labeled right here."