‘Skinny Joey’ Merlino, Former Reputed Boss of Philly Mob, Now a Free Man

By CRA News Service

After spending a little more than four months behind bars, the once reputed boss of Philadelphia’s mob became a free man again.

Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, the reputed head of Philadelphia’s La Cosa Nostra in the 1990s, served four additional months for failing to report a meeting with a former co-defendant at a Boca Raton cigar bar.

Circuit Judge Thomas Vanaskie signed an order Thursday releasing Merlino from a federal corrections facility in Miami.

“He’s out. He’s a free man, Merlino’s attorney Edwin Jacobs told Philadelphia’s Daily News.

Earlier, Merlino denied the meeting that landed him back behind bars.

“I never had dinner with mobster John “Johnny Chang” Ciancaglini. I bumped into him,” said Merlino, appearing fit and tan on a return trip to Philadelphia. “I didn’t report it. … It just slipped my mind.”

At the time, Merlino was prohibited from associating with Ciancaglini because he was finishing up his probation on the racketeering conviction that had kept him in prison for about 12 years.

Jacobs had argued that the feds hadn’t properly notified Merlino of the violation. A split appeals court sided with Jacobs today, but it has not yet issued its opinion with the rationale behind the decision.

Merlino, now 53, was believed to have been living in a halfway house or on house arrest in Boca Raton since 2011, when he left prison after more than a decade from a Philadelphia racketeering conviction. He would have been cut loose early next month, even if the appeal was unsuccessful. Jacobs declined to say what Merlino’s living arrangements had been prior to the ruling.

His lawyer maintains that Merlino plans to work as a maitre d’ at a new Boca Raton restaurant that will bear his name.

This report was supplemented with information from the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Enquirer and NBC10 Philadelphia.