John Stanfa

In the end, even his lawyer conceded that Tommy Horsehead talked too much. Unfortunately for the South Philadelphia mob figure, when he did talk, someone was usually nearby wearing a body wire and getting it all down on tape. Gaetano "Tommy Horsehead" Scafidi, described as an "arrogant" street tough with a "lack of respect for the law and a misguided feeling of invincibility" by a federal prosecutor yesterday, was sentenced to 82 months in prison by Judge Ronald Buckwalter after a hearing in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.

Convicted Philadelphia mob hit man John Veasey claims in a CBS News 60 Minutes report to be aired Sunday evening that he's a changed man, driving a church school bus and regularly attending worship services as a born-again Christian in a middle-class suburb. Yet the program observes Veasey, who has married and works as a successful salesman of luxury cars in an undisclosed location in the Midwest, is still exhibiting some of his former underworld bravado. He explains in the program how he instigated a barroom fight that resulted in his guilty plea for misdemeanor battery.

Peace has broken out in the Middle East, the Phillies remain in first place, and Letterman is still beating up on Leno. But the big news today is that Philadelphia mob boss John Stanfa finally has a nickname. The calls have been counted, and the cards mailed to the Daily News "Name the Don" contest have been reviewed. Now for the envelope, please. In sickness and in health, for better or worse, the closed-mouth mob chieftain who used to drive Angelo Bruno's car will be known as "Tightlips.

It was a standoff that lasted more than four hours. On a hot, sweaty day, at least a dozen police officers had staked out a warehouse in Grays Ferry owned by John Stanfa, the reclusive godfather of Philadelphia. And inside the dark building, guarded by a black and white pit bull, the occupants had refused to come out. Then a stocky man in a baggy suit strolled down the street, said a cheerful hello to a man he knew, and ducked inside a nearby pizza shop. Salvatore Avena, John Stanfa's lawyer, asked to borrow a phone.

Gang figure Joseph Ciancaglini, member of a family prominent in Philadelphia mob circles for years, was shot down this morning in his restaurant in the Grays Ferry section of South Philadelphia. Ciancaglini, whose age was given variously as 31 or 34, survived a hail of bullets despite being wounded at least four times. He was in critical condition in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in Cherry Hill. The shooting took place in the Warfield Breakfast and Lunch Express, a small restaurant on Warfield Street near Reed, just west of 34th Street.

About 20 years ago, the story goes, John Stanfa, newly arrived from Sicily and struggling to start a construction company, was doing some renovation work for a South Philadelphia businessman. "He was quiet, a good worker, very polite," recalled the businessman's brother. "He used to call my brother 'Mister Frank.' " About a year ago the businessman died. And Stanfa came to the funeral. "He was a lot different," said the brother, a former South Philadelphia resident.

There was the bomb that failed to detonate after being planted under a car. The shotgun that misfired from point-blank range. And the ambush that was called off because the hit man had to report to his parole officer. Those were some of the misadventures in a saga of alleged mob hits and misses laid out for a U.S. District Court jury yesterday during opening arguments in the racketeering trial of reputed Philadelphia mob boss John Stanfa and seven associates. The trial, which will include testimony from five former mobsters who have turned government informant and tapes of more than 100 secretly recorded conversations, is scheduled to resume this morning before Judge Ronald Buckwalter.

It worked for Ollie North. Will it work for John Stanfa? The jailed mob boss was back in federal court yesterday, looking on as his lawyer tried to persuade a judge to reverse his racketeering conviction. Lawyer Thomas Carroll offered the same argument that prompted a judge to throw out all the charges against North in the Iran-Contra case. North, a National Security Council aide in the Reagan White House, was convicted in 1989 of three felony charges stemming from the administration's clandestine campaign to arm the Nicaraguan contras.

Another reputed organized-crime associate has been caught up in the Philadelphia Police Department's mob dragnet. Raymond Esposito, 51, described by law-enforcement authorities as an associate and sometime driver for reputed mob boss John Stanfa, was charged Thursday afternoon with a weapons offense after police stopped a car in which he was riding and found that he was carrying a loaded .38-caliber handgun. Esposito, of Gibbstown, was released yesterday on $5,000 bail pending a hearing Oct. 19. "This is the fourth gun we've removed from the streets," said Police Inspector Richard Zappile.

Mob hitman Philip Colletti yesterday pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges, admitting his involvement in the Aug. 5 gangland murder of rival mobster Michael Ciancaglini and the attempted murders of Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino and Steven Mazzone. Colletti, a key government witness in the pending trial of reputed mob boss John Stanfa and some 20 other underworld figures, entered his guilty plea during a brief hearing before U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter. Colletti quietly told Buckwalter that he understood the nature of the charges against him and the implications of his plea.

Convicted Philadelphia mob hit man John Veasey claims in a CBS News 60 Minutes report to be aired Sunday evening that he's a changed man, driving a church school bus and regularly attending worship services as a born-again Christian in a middle-class suburb. Yet the program observes Veasey, who has married and works as a successful salesman of luxury cars in an undisclosed location in the Midwest, is still exhibiting some of his former underworld bravado. He explains in the program how he instigated a barroom fight that resulted in his guilty plea for misdemeanor battery.

A 50-year-old man was gunned down on a South Philadelphia street Tuesday afternoon in what police characterized as a mob-related killing. At 2:55, police were called to the 2800 block of South Iseminger Street, where they found Gino DiPietro with multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at Hahnemann University Hospital at 3:21. Witnesses reported that a black Honda SUV fled the scene, police sources said. Police soon found a 2011 Honda Pilot several blocks away, in the 3200 block of South 17th Street.

SAY WHAT you want about the Philadelphia Mafia, but they have a helluva health-care plan. Mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, for example, had a gold-plated benefits package that came with his no-show position at Top Job Disposal, a South Philly trash company where he "performed no work or productive services," according to a superseding indictment unsealed Thursday. LigambiCare also extended to his relatives, federal prosecutors say. Because what's the point of leading an organized-crime family if you can't spread the wealth around?

Hit man-turned-government informant John Veasey, whose testimony helped bring down mob boss John Stanfa and a dozen of his top associates in the 1990s, says he's on the road to redemption. And he wants everyone to know it. "I never respected the Mafia or what it stood for," Veasey said in an interview with Philly.com last week. "My only regret was being dumb enough to join . . . I always said they either rat or kill each other. " Veasey has done both. But now, he says, he's a changed man. The outspoken and opinionated former South Philadelphia triggerman popped up on several local radio and television shows last week to talk about The Hit Man: A True Story of Murder, Redemption and the Melrose Diner , an e-book written by former Inquirer reporter Ralph Cipriano and Fox 29's Dave Schratwieser.

JOE STANFA doesn't want you to read this. He can't make you put down the newspaper or click on another website, but he's worried that continuing on could be bad for business, for his fresh start. "I don't want to scare people away," Stanfa said from behind the counter at Joey Giusepp's, his new pizzeria just off the Schuylkill Expressway, in Grays Ferry. Stanfa is perhaps the only proprietor in Philadelphia who doesn't want you to know about his pizza joint. He'd rather make you a hoagie than talk about the blood that was shed at the same address nearly 20 years ago, or the story behind the scar on his cheek.

Not for nothing was Tony Soprano a solid-waste management consultant. The writers of the HBO series made New Jersey's most famous, albeit fictitious, wiseguy a player in an industry that for decades has been targeted for exploitation by organized crime. In that respect, Soprano was a "garbage mobster," a term used by the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation in a report made public last week that warned of the mob's continued presence in the multimillion-dollar waste-disposal business.

Reputed mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi was all about money, not murder, say law enforcement and underworld sources who have tracked the surprisingly long tenure of Philadelphia's low-key, circumspect Mafia don. On Monday, in a move that could signal the end of Ligambi's run, the alleged mob kingpin, 71, and a dozen other reputed members and associates of his organization were named in a 50-count indictment built around gambling and loan-sharking...

PHILADELPHIA - Wanna live like an old-school Philly gangster? Take out a mortgage on 934 Snyder Ave. But try to avoid the fate of a prior owner, former mob boss Angelo Bruno, who was killed by a shotgun blast to his head in 1980 while sitting in a car parked out front. "Everytime I come out of this house, I see the very spot where he was killed," said Bruno's daughter, Jean, who lives in the three-bedroom end rowhouse in South Philadelphia. The Snyder Avenue house, the first home Angelo Bruno bought, has been in the family since the 1950s.

Fred Aldrich, a mob associate who was targeted in one of the most notorious attempted gangland hits in Philadelphia history, died Monday, seconds before crashing his car into a Subway sandwich shop in Glenolden. Aldrich, 64, apparently suffered a massive heart attack while pulling into the parking lot off Chester Pike around 12:30 p.m., his son, Fred Jr., said yesterday. Eric Marrero, 28, manager of a neighboring furniture-leasing store, said he saw a gray Lincoln sedan crash into the front of the sandwich shop.

New Jersey authorities have decided to drop conspiracy, gambling and money-laundering charges against a South Philadelphia man indicted in the multimillion dollar, mob-linked bookmaking investigation at the Borgata casino in Atlantic City. Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the State Attorney General's Office, said yesterday that his office intends to drop all charges against Stephen Casasanto, one of 24 defendants indicted in the high-profile case. The decision came shortly after Casasanto's lawyer, Charles Peruto Jr., filed a million-dollar lawsuit against the Attorney General's Office, alleging that his client had been wrongly accused.