Salvatore Testa

Within hours of the discovery of Salvatore Testa's murdered corpse trussed up by the side of a lonely South Jersey road on the morning of Sept. 14, 1984, the theory was on the minds and lips of law enforcement authorities who study the mob: Nicky Scarfo did it. Even given the bloody factional war that had enveloped the Philadelphia mob since the execution of longtime boss Angelo Bruno in March 1980, law enforcement officers viewed the Sal...

Eight murders and one attempted killing are mentioned in today's New Jersey charges against Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo and a group of his alleged associates in the Philadelphia-Atlantic City crime family. The victims in the killings: Edwin Helfant, 50, an Atlantic City lawyer and former part-time Municipal Court judge in Somers Point, N.J. He was shot down as he sat with his wife in the bar of the Flamingo Hotel in Atlantic City on Feb. 15, 1978. John Calabrese, 45, gunned down Oct. 6, 1981, as he walked along Christian Street near 9th in South Philadelphia.

Victor DeLuca, a mob hit man who broke the "code of silence" and turned informant, is suffering from throat cancer and has had his voice box removed, sources have told the Daily News. For nearly two years, DeLuca has been providing investigators with details about the inner workings of the Philadelphia mob, and in 1984 his testimony helped convict Harry "The Hunchback" Riccobene of a contract killing. DeLuca, 47, underwent surgery in December at an undisclosed government hospital, sources said.

Assistant District Attorney Barbara L. Christie yesterday called the slaying of Salvatore Testa "an organized-crime killing" and said of several of Testa's friends who have been charged with the shooting: "If these were Salvatore Testa's closest friends, the man didn't need enemies. " With those comments Christie signaled the hard line the prosecution evidently intends to take in the murder trial of reputed mob boss Nicodemo Scarfo and eight associates who have been charged with the slaying of Testa on Sept.

Salvatore Testa, a top member in Nicodemo Scarfo's crime family, was shot to death on Scarfo's order because of an "affair of honor" concerning another mobster's daughter and because he was getting "too big for his britches," admitted mob soldier Nicholas Caramandi testified yesterday. The testimony came during a preliminary hearing on murder, conspiracy and weapons charges against Scarfo and eight other reputed mob associates accused of the death of Testa in September 1984. After a meeting of high-level mob members in late spring 1984, Caramandi said, he was told that the group "buried Salvie last night.

Rocco Marinucci, the son of a mobster shot and killed 22 years ago during the city's widespread mob wars, was wounded early yesterday in a South Philadelphia hotel during a suspected drug deal that went awry, police said. Marinucci, 29, suffered multiple gunshot wounds, said Capt. Joseph O'Brien, commander of the South Detective Division. He was reported in critical but stable condition later in the day at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Police were called to the Holiday Inn Stadium at 10th Street and Packer Avenue about 2:40 a.m. They found Marinucci badly wounded.

Convicted mob captain Francis "Faffy" Iannarella Jr. was sentenced yesterday to 45 years in prison - the longest term imposed so far in the successive sentencings of mobsters convicted of racketeering and conspiracy. In ordering the maximum sentence, U.S. District Judge Franklin S. Van Antwerpen dealt an additional blow: He directed that the federal sentence be served after the life sentence Iannarella is serving for the 1985 murder of mob associate Frank "Frankie Flowers" D'Alfonso.

Federal prosecutors, in a court document disclosed today, now accuse Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo of having "participated" in four murders and having "ordered or sanctioned" several others. The murders are listed in a pretrial detention motion filed by Ronald Cole, a prosecutor with the U.S. Organized Crime Strike Force here. Prosecutors describe Scarfo as the head of the Philadelphia-Atlantic City branch of La Cosa Nostra in the motion. The motion asks that Scarfo be detained without bail until he is brought to trial on the charges in the indictment.

For the first time yesterday, the presence of a victim was felt in the courtroom where reputed mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo is being tried in the 1984 slaying of Salvatore Testa. "Sal was my brother," Maria Testa Muzio said softly, moments after taking the witness stand. She was demure in a black-and-white print dress, her narrow face solemn and reminiscent of her slain brother's. As she began to speak, the coughs and throat-clearing rumbles in the courtroom that had punctuated the testimony of earlier witnesses died away.

Mob informant Eugene "Gino" Milano offered a Common Pleas Court jury a graphic and brutal description yesterday of how he and another mob figure assaulted Frank "Frankie Flowers" D'Alfonso in 1981, but he said he had no direct involvement in D'Alfonso's murder four years later. Milano, 37, said he and the late Salvatore Testa beat D'Alfonso nearly to death and later joked about the assault.The dark-haired and burly former gangster said he used an 18-inch steel rod to beat D'Alfonso, then 51, on the head, face, back, "all over.

Rocco Marinucci, the son of a mobster shot and killed 22 years ago during the city's widespread mob wars, was wounded early yesterday in a South Philadelphia hotel during a suspected drug deal that went awry, police said. Marinucci, 29, suffered multiple gunshot wounds, said Capt. Joseph O'Brien, commander of the South Detective Division. He was reported in critical but stable condition later in the day at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Police were called to the Holiday Inn Stadium at 10th Street and Packer Avenue about 2:40 a.m. They found Marinucci badly wounded.

Mob turncoat Eugene "Gino" Milano said he had joked with the late Salvatore Testa about how the bat "made a loud sound, like a baseball," as it cracked the skull of mob associate Frank "Frankie Flowers" D'Alfonso. It didn't matter to the unflappable Milano what kind of mob assignment he received, he beat up people and killed on command. "I didn't like or dislike it," said Milano, 37. "I did it. " As a soldier in La Cosa Nostra, he said: "I had to, that's the rules. " As a government witness, there are rules too. In 1989, he had to testify against his brother, Nicholas "Nick the Whip" Milano, a "made" member facing the death penalty in the July 1985 D'Alfonso murder.

Mob informant Eugene "Gino" Milano offered a Common Pleas Court jury a graphic and brutal description yesterday of how he and another mob figure assaulted Frank "Frankie Flowers" D'Alfonso in 1981, but he said he had no direct involvement in D'Alfonso's murder four years later. Milano, 37, said he and the late Salvatore Testa beat D'Alfonso nearly to death and later joked about the assault.The dark-haired and burly former gangster said he used an 18-inch steel rod to beat D'Alfonso, then 51, on the head, face, back, "all over.

Victor DeLuca, who took part in a notorious gangland shooting in the Italian Market in 1982 and later became one of the first mob informants in the city, is now battling with the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole for his freedom after spending nearly 14 years behind bars. A lawyer for the former South Philadelphia gangster filed a complaint in U.S. District Court yesterday contending that the state parole board has improperly blocked his entry into the federal Witness Protection Program.

Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia have given up on their quest to hold on to imprisoned mob boss Little Nicky Scarfo's 1973 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. The impounded vintage luxury car will be released to wealthy Las Vegas criminal attorney Oscar B. Goodman. Goodman, a Philadelphia native and frequent mob lawyer, told authorities he got the car in 1988 in exchange for picking up a $16,000 bar bill at the Four Seasons Hotel for a Scarfo victory party. The party was held after Scarfo and others were acquitted of murdering mobster Salvatore Testa.

The government has lost the latest round in the tug of war over who gets Nicky Scarfo's Rolls-Royce. A federal appeals court yesterday overturned the ruling of a federal judge who decided last year that the 1973 Rolls belonged to the government, not to Las Vegas lawyer Oscar Goodman. Scarfo, reputed head of the Philadelphia mob, had given the car to Goodman in 1988 in repayment for a $16,000 bar bill after a lavish party at the Four Seasons Hotel. The car was seized by the FBI a year later under federal drug forfeiture laws because, the government said, it had been used in drug transactions.

When you think of fair, former Philadelphia mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo is probably one of the last names that comes to mind. But after the state Supreme Court yesterday upheld a Superior Court decision granting Scarfo and seven other mobsters a new trial in the 1985 fatal shooting of Frank "Frankie Flowers" D'Alfonso, defense lawyer Norris E. Gelman wrote Scarfo to tell him "his name would be synonymous with a fair trial in Pennsylvania...

Federal prosecutors yesterday called attorney Robert F. "Bobby" Simone a "knowing accomplice" to former Philadelphia mob boss Nicodemo Scarfo, and recommended he be jailed between seven and 14 years for racketeering. Simone, 59, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge James T. Giles. "The evidence shows that Simone was a knowing accomplice to Nicodemo Scarfo, one of the bloodiest and most notorious mob bosses in the entire country," prosecutors William S. Lynch and Lynn E. Panagakos told Giles.

What to do with imprisoned mob boss Nicky Scarfo's 1973 Rolls Royce? Does it belong to the government, forfeitable because Scarfo allegedly purchased it with drug profits and used it to facilitate drug trafficking? Or does the faded yellow classic car belong to Oscar B. Goodman, a well- traveled Las Vegas-based criminal defense lawyer? Goodman claims he got the car from Scarfo's son as a payback for picking up a $15,000 bar bill for a "victory" party in 1988 at the Four Seasons Hotel.

The case of United States of America v. One 1973 Rolls Royce came before a federal judge yesterday. It was a case replete with testimony about imprisoned Mafia boss Nicodemo Scarfo and tales of a raucous party at the Four Seasons Hotel. And it was a case that pitted the power of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia against flamboyant criminal-defense lawyer Oscar Goodman of Las Vegas. According to Goodman, the case that ended up in a federal courtroom began with a party on May 10, 1988, to celebrate the stunning acquittal of Scarfo and eight others in the 1984 slaying of mob figure Salvatore Testa.