May 3–10, 2001

news

A Horsehead of a Different Color

Tommy "Horsehead" Scafidi has wiped the smiles off some Merlino defense attorneys.

by Jim Barry

Just horsing around: Tommy "Horsehead" Scafidi talks to former mob boss John Stanfa in an FBI surveillance photo introduced during the Merlino Trial.

For months before the start of the Federal racketeering trial of Joey Merlino and six others, the rumors in Philadelphia’s gangland were that Ralph Natale and Tommy "Horsehead" Scafidi, the government’s star witnesses against the mob, would be terrible for the prosecution. Natale because the former mob boss was really a front man who wasn’t kept in the loop by his own men and therefore knew none of the day to day details of the crimes, including murder, committed by his crime family. Scafidi because he just didn’t really know that much.

When members and associates of the Philadelphia Mafia talked about Scafidi before the trial, they were surprised and disappointed that he had become a government witness but not particularly disturbed. "What can he tell them?" one mob associate told City Paper before the start of the trial. "He doesn’t know much and he’s a moron. He’s so slow he’s borderline retarded."

And when Ralph Natale finished testifying against Merlino and company two weeks ago, the defense attorneys were jubilant. On cross-examination the attorneys shredded Natale’s credibility and it seemed to members of the press covering the trial that many on the jury had already dismissed Natale. It was beginning to look like the defendants would be acquitted of many of the charges against them.

But then Gaetano "Tommy" Scafidi took the stand. Scafidi came across like the stereotypical Mafioso. And the jury bought it. Last week, when Scafidi finished testifying on direct examination a reporter wandered into the prosecutors’ conference room adjourning the court, and discovered assistant U.S. attorneys and FBI agents high-fiving one another. They were thrilled with Scafidi’s testimony and in a celebratory mood.

"Yea, Scafidi hurt us," one defense attorney agreed. Another lawyer who has represented reputed mobsters in the Delaware Valley for two generations — and knows Scafidi — told City Paper in an interview last week that "Scafidi is very crafty. He isn’t as dumb as he looks but he plays it off very well. He knows how to talk like a hoodlum and he’s playing that up for the jury. His act is right out of the Sopranos. But, hey, that’s the TV show all the jurors watch too, so it’s effective."

A mob associate told City Paper, "he’s a fuckin’ liar, but he’s good. I probably met the guy twice in my life but the defense attorneys are showing me 302s [FBI memos] where he’s telling the Feds he and I hijacked this, I asked him to sell drugs, we ran this and that together. I mean the guy is just making this shit up and the government is buying it."

And in court Scafidi has given a different version of a mob shooting than was previously testified to by another mob soldier-turned-government-witness during the trial of mob boss John Stanfa. Scafidi claimed that government witness lied, which is a problem for the government. And Scafidi contradicted the testimony of Ralph Natale in this trial.

These contradictions don’t seem to bother the jury. Coincidentally, most people who know Scafidi personally don’t seem that bothered by the fact that he is now a government witness. It seems most people, gangsters and neighborhood friends alike, didn’t seem to like Tommy Scafidi very much even when he was on their side.

"When I knew Scafidi he was fat and had the worst breath," a mobster’s girlfriend told City Paper this week. "He loved hanging around with ‘the boys’ but he was always in his brother’s shadow."

L ike almost everyone associated with Merlino and Natale, Tommy Scafidi is from South Philadelphia. His childhood friends gave him the nickname Horsehead because in profile his face resembled the long snout of a horse. Like his older brother, Salvatore "Tori" Scafidi, Tommy was always around the guys in the Cosa Nostra.

Beginning in high school, Scafidi worked for various bookmakers including Scarfo soldier Tommy Del Giorno as a runner, someone who would pick up betting slips or drop off money to the winners. Tommy’s older brother also worked for Del Giorno. At the time, Del Giorno had five different gambling operations going and was booking anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 in bets.

In 1986 crime boss Nicky Scarfo formally initiated Tori Scafidi into the crime family. Little brother Tommy wanted to be a made man, too. Tommy Scafidi was hanging around with Nicky Scarfo’s son, Nicky Jr., and every week he was transporting thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars from South Philadelphia to Atlantic City. The money, from gambling operations and a street tax the mob charged other criminals to operate, was given to Tommy to take to Scarfo Sr. in Atlantic City. Sometimes Scarfo would order Scafidi to launder the money in the casinos.

After Scafidi’s brother Tori was convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 40 years, Tommy and Nicky Scarfo Jr. began collecting the street tax for Nicky Scarfo Sr. — who was still was running the crime family from jail. One of the men Scafidi collected street tax from was an old Jewish bookmaker who lived at Sixth and Pine streets. The bookmaker had one of the largest gambling operations in the city — he had black numbers writers in North and South and Southwest Philadelphia and major black and Hispanic bookmakers laid off their bets to him.

When John Stanfa became boss of the Philly Mafia, Scafidi, along with Ralph Natale and Joey Merlino, went to war against the old Sicilian crime leader. But Scafidi claimed he was cheated out of thousands of dollars by Merlino and friends so he switched sides. After vowing to gun down his former friends, he was formally initiated into the Cosa Nostra by John Stanfa.

Scafidi didn’t get to enjoy his new status for long. Like a lot of Stanfa loyalists, Scafidi soon found himself behind bars. Scafidi claims he decided to cooperate with the government because he believed that Merlino would kill him when he was released from jail and because he was going to be indicted and tried for more crimes anyway.