That lifestyle included a $700,000 home in Wyckoff, a "summer home" in Toms River, luxury cars - Perna drove an Infiniti M35X - and lots of disposable cash.
Perna and 31 codefendants, including his wife, his father, and his two younger brothers, were arraigned last Monday in Superior Court in Morris County.
Other defendants include two reputed bosses of the Lucchese crime family in New York and Nicodemo S. Scarfo, son of jailed Philadelphia mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo.
Dubbed "Operation Heat," the investigation by the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice has provided a look into the inner workings of a crime family, detailing its alleged involvement in a $2.2 billion Internet sports-betting operation. Other charges in the 34-count indictment include money laundering, extortion, drug dealing, aggravated assault, and tax evasion.
The case also highlights the wheeling and dealing of the Pernas: Joseph; his father, Ralph V., 64; and his brothers, Ralph M., 38, and John, 32.
Longtime players in the New Jersey underworld, the Pernas emerge as a crime family within a crime family.
"They've always been into bookmaking," said Robert Buccino, head of investigations for the Union County Prosecutor's Office and a former organized-crime investigator with the Division of Criminal Justice.
Buccino can trace three generations of underworld figures named Perna, beginning with the late Joseph Perna, a mob loan shark and enforcer from the Newark, N.J., area in the 1960s and 1970s.
"The old man was a real tough guy," said Buccino.
Joe Perna's sons, Michael and Ralph V., followed him into the Lucchese organization, Buccino said. Michael Perna, 68, is serving a 15-year sentence on federal racketeering charges.
