During that time, Friedman's office targeted four mob bosses and brought down their organizations. Two notorious dons, Nicodemo ``Little Nicky'' Scarfo and John Stanfa, will probably spend the rest of their lives in prison as a result. Two others, Angelo Bruno and Philip Testa, might have ended in similar straits had they not been killed at the start of what proved to be a bloody power struggle in the 1980s.
But while successes are easily measured in indictments and convictions, the usually taciturn Friedman said he was equally proud to have played a role in changing the public perception of the mob.
``When I arrived here, I think the atmosphere was that organized crime was invincible, that people would have to be crazy to testify against organized crime,'' he said. ``It's been a great pleasure to witness the change over the years.''
The Philadelphia prosecutions over the last 15 years have set the tone for mob-busting efforts across the country. In no other city have federal authorities been as successful in turning mobsters into informants or in using secretly recorded conversations to get convictions.
Nearly a dozen ``made,'' or formally initiated, members of La Cosa Nostra became government witnesses during Friedman's tenure. Omerta, the mob's once-sacrosanct code of silence, was shattered repeatedly from the witness stand in federal court.
Friedman pointed to the prosecution of the Scarfo organization in the mid-1980s as perhaps the most significant. But he said that building a long-term strategy and program for attacking organized crime was the accomplishment of which he was most proud.
``It's the overall program,'' he said. ``It's putting egos aside for the common good.''
