Former mob boss Nicodemo 'Little Nicky' Scarfo dead at 87


An FBI photograph of Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, center, walking with associates.

(FBI file photo)

A former mafia kingpin, who served as a Philadelphia mob boss while sitting atop his perch in Atlantic City, died Friday in federal prison at the age of 87, a person close to the family said on Sunday.

Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo was serving out a 55-year sentence on racketeering and murder charges at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., when he died, Michael E. Riley, a Mt. Holly based attorney for Scarfo's son, Nicodemo S. "Nicky" Scarfo, told NJ Advance Media on Sunday afternoon.

"He had been ill for a while," Riley said by phone. "He had some health difficulties."

Riley stopped short of saying exactly what those difficulties were. An attorney representing the elder Scarfo, Norris E. Gelman, told that he died of cancer. Riley could not confirm that report.

Born in Brooklyn and raised in South Philadelphia, Scarfo was introduced to organized crime by three of his uncles. Scarfo started as a bookmaker but climbed the ranks of the Philly mob to serve as a boss during the bloody 1980s. He took over after a mob war that followed the 1980 assassination of longtime boss Angelo Bruno.

Scarfo ran the Philadelphia-South Jersey mob from Atlantic City and benefitted greatly when voters approved casino gambling in the seaside destination in 1976. He had a lucrative stake in the real estate expansion there through construction companies he and his associates ran. Scarfo also seized control of the city's largest labor union of hotel and restaurant employees.

Scarfo's reign of terror in Philadelphia came to a screeching halt in 1987 when he was arrested at the Atlantic City airport. Scarfo was sentenced to life in prison in 1989.

Scarfo was sentenced to life in prison in 1989, though it was later overturned.

But Scarfo's name popped up in federal documents as recent as 2011 when he was among 13 people named in an indictment charging him in connection with the alleged extortionate takeover of a Texas-based financial group. Also named in the indictment was the younger Scarfo, who authorities say had been admitted into the Lucchese crime family as a favor to his father.

Though the tenor of alleged mob activities had changed by the 2000s, a statement from the FBI assured the community organized crime was still alive and well.

"The demise of Organized Crime has been greatly exaggerated," Michael B. Ward, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Newark Field Office, said in a November 2011 statement announcing the indictment. "Criminal activities have evolved from the back alleys to the board rooms, but the same use of physical threats and intimidation to gain leverage and loot lucrative businesses for personal gain continues to this day. In response, the charges being brought against Nicky Scarfo Jr., Sal Pelullo and others represent law enforcement's commitment to aggressively target the illegal activity of Organized Crime in any commercial business or venue."

The younger Scarfo was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2015.
