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Joey Merlino returned to prison.
"Skinny Joey," the former boss of the Philadelphia Mafia, was sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal prison for a gambling-related charge for which he pleaded guilty in April.
This sentence, pronounced by a federal judge in Manhattan, marks the latest incarceration of a celebrity gangster who survived assassination attempts, was charged with murder and spent at least a decade in jail for prior convictions for racketeering, conspiracy, assault or related offenses.
This was the harshest possible sentence for Merlino, who had chosen to plead guilty under one count instead of going to a new trial for a litany of other charges. And even though US District Judge Richard Sullivan said he did not believe that Merlino was still the head of La Cosa Nostra in Philadelphia, he insisted that Merlino had to stop his apparent inclination for conduct criminal.
"Mr. Merlino, enough," said Sullivan, "let's go in."
Merlino, for one, later said that he was considering using the time spent behind bars to get in shape. And, apparently alluding to witnesses who cooperated with the government against him, he joked, "President Trump is right: they must ban the fins."
Sullivan granted Merlino 45 days to self-serve in a federal prison that would be determined later.
Merlino, 56, has long insisted that he had left his criminal background behind him – settling in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2011 and performing the duties of hotel master in an eponymous restaurant that there was open. But his most recent law violation resulted from his indictment in 2016 as part of a widespread crackdown against the mob on the east coast.
Manhattan-based prosecutors have accused Merlino and 45 other alleged criminals of exploiting illegal gambling networks and corrupting doctors for writing unnecessary prescriptions for topical creams for the first time. skin, among other alleged ploys.
Almost all of the defendants pleaded guilty before the trial, but Merlino chose to plead his case before a jury – even if he was facing a long prison sentence when he was found guilty. Earlier this year, Sullivan declared a trial error after the jurors declared themselves to be in an absolute stalemate.
Barely two months later, Merlino decided to plead guilty to one account, instead of facing a new trial. It was the first time that the reckless gangster had admitted his criminal conduct in court.
Edwin J. Jacobs Jr., Merlino's attorney, said in April that the plea was cautious, as Merlino – a long-time drug addict at gambling – would be subject to a much-needed jail sentence. Longer was he found guilty at the end of a new trial.
Nevertheless, after Wednesday's hearing, Jacobs said he felt the sentence was too severe. The guidelines suggested a sentence of 10 to 16 months in prison, and Jacobs argued in court documents for a sentence involving at least one component of house arrest.
He also demanded that any jail sentence be reduced by four months to reflect the time spent by Merlino behind bars in 2014, when a federal judge in Philadelphia ordered that Merlino be jailed for having violated his probation by attending a so-called gang mate in a cigar bar in Boca Raton. . A court of appeal finally overturned this decision, releasing Merlino only 10 days before the end of his prison term.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, had asked Sullivan to impose on Merlino the sentence of two years' imprisonment, citing his numerous criminal background and what they saw as persistent indifference to the law. respect for the law. In sentencing notes, they wrote that "the experience of two lawsuits for murder had not sufficiently deterred him from engaging in illegal activities".
Sullivan finally stated that he felt that two years of imprisonment was a good deal for Merlino, given the evidence presented at trial and the likelihood that his criminal conduct went well beyond the single head. charge for which he agreed to plead guilty.
The judge implored Merlino to learn from this case and take a decisive turn in his life after his release.
"You can not go back to that," he says. "You can not return to this life, or even a shadow of this life."
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2018 The Philadelphia Inquirer
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