Vincent "Vinny Ocean" Palermo (born June 4, 1944) is an American former mobster who was de facto boss of the New JerseyDeCavalcante crime family before becoming a government witness in 1999. Fictional mob boss Tony Soprano, the protagonist of the HBO series The Sopranos, is said to be based upon Palermo.[1] He also owned a strip-club called Wiggles, which was the inspiration behind the show's Bada Bing! strip-club.[2]
Vincent Palermo was raised in a traditional Italian American family in Brooklyn, New York. He was an in-law by marriage to Nicholas Delmore, the former head of the New Jersey crime family, whose nephew was Simone DeCavalcante, also a New Jersey mob boss whose daughter he married. He has five sisters, including Claire and Nancy, and two brothers. His father was an Italian immigrant who moved to New York when he was a teenager. Palermo came from a close-knit family and was said to have lived a harmonious lifestyle. He was an altar boy during adolescence. When Palermo was sixteen, his father died, which forced him to leave school and work two jobs to help support his family, as his mother was a bedridden asthmatic. In his earlier years, Palermo worked at a wholesale fish business in the Fulton Fish Market, where he earned the nickname "Vinny Ocean".
Palermo was very protective of children; he allegedly once stopped a man from beating his son, and rescued a toddler relative who had accidentally fallen into a pool. Palermo was also reputedly a dedicated family man. He attended Sacred Heart Church in Island Park, New York, drove his daughters to Brownie meetings, and reportedly watched Annie with one of his daughters regularly. Palermo also took in a troubled teenager named Richard, becoming his godfather. Palermo would allow his godson to stay at his home every weekend for a year, enabling the boy to study the Catholic sacraments in preparation for eventual baptism, Communion and Confirmation.[3]
Palermo was divorced once and remarried. In the 1980s, he became indebted to a hospital, local doctors, and the federal government. The tax liens against his property were in his second wife's name, an Italian-American woman named Angela, totaling $68,000. At the time, he was paying a large mortgage on a waterfront mansion with a 100-foot pier located in Island Park, New York. He had two Social Security numbers and paid alimony to his first wife. He also supports his second family, two daughters, Danielle and Tara, and a son Vincent Palermo Jr., with Michael (from his first marriage) and Renee. His son Michael is a graduate of Fordham University and a licensed New York stockbroker; he was an investment banker with Goldman Sachs up until his father's indictment, when Vincent Palermo Jr went into hiding.[4]
DeCavalcante's nephew-in-law
In the early 1960s, Palermo met and married the niece of crime bossSam DeCavalcante of the DeCavalcante crime family. DeCavalcante took a liking to his nephew-in-law and began inviting him to visit his social club in Kenilworth, New Jersey. He worked at the fish markets in the early morning hours and hung out with mobsters on Sunday afternoons. Palermo cultivated relationships with other crime families—a lucrative loansharking operation with one Gambino familycaporegime and bookmaking with another. He was also a close associate of the Genovese family. Palermo was known to say very little, speaking to only a very few close associates, and stayed away from mob-run social clubs. Until his racketeering indictment, he had only been arrested for the misdemeanor of stealing shrimp at the Fulton Fish Market.
Murder of Fred Weiss
On September 11, 1989, Palermo, Anthony Capo, and James "Jimmy" Gallo murdered Staten Island resident Fred Weiss,[5] on orders from DeCavalcante boss Giovanni "John the Eagle" Riggi through capo Anthony Rotondo. Weiss was a former newspaper reporter for the Staten Island Advance and a real-estate developer who had become associated with mobsters from both the DeCavalcante and Gambino families.
Weiss and two mob-partners had purchased a vacant property in Staten Island and started illegally dumping large amounts of dangerous medical waste there. Local authorities uncovered the scheme and started investigating Weiss, and the two mob-families became nervous. Gambino boss John Gotti worried that Weiss might become a government witness in exchange for leniency and requested that the DeCavalcante family murder Weiss to protect them. Palermo, Capo, and Gallo drove to the New York condominium of Weiss's girlfriend. As Weiss left the building and climbed into his car, Palermo and Gallo shot him in the face.
Family scandal
Palermo was appointed capo after the Weiss murder and given his own crew of soldiers. Riggi was sent to prison in 1989, and appointed John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato as his acting boss. In January 1992, Anthony Capo participated in the murder of acting boss D'Amato. Earlier in 1991, D'Amato's girlfriend, retaliating against D'Amato over an argument, told Anthony Rotondo that D'Amato was an active bisexual. She described swinging encounters that D'Amato had in Manhattan sex clubs with both women and men. Rotondo shared this information with underboss Giacomo Amari, and consigliereStefano Vitabile.[6][7] In 2003, capos Philip "Phil" Abramo, Giuseppe "Pino" Schifilliti and the reputed consigliere Stefano Vitabile were charged in organizing various crimes, including the murder of D'Amato.[8] Reputed men involved in the murder conspiracy, Palermo, Capo and Rotondo would later testify about this murder against their former associates.[9]
Power-struggle
With Amari's death, there was no clear candidate to become the new acting boss. Riggi, still in prison, restructured the family and created a ruling panel to run it in order to avoid a potential power struggle. Riggi appointed longtime members of the crime family to the panel: Vincent Palermo, Girolamo "Jimmy" Palermo (no relation to Vincent), and Charles Majuri. However, Majuri, furious that he wasn't appointed acting boss, decided to murder the two Palermos and take effective control of the DeCavalcante family. He asked Gallo to murder Vincent Palermo, but Gallo alerted Palermo about the plot.
To protect himself, Palermo decided to murder Majuri instead. Over the years, Majuri had made many enemies by removing fellow mobsters from a labor union that he controlled and taking their money. Palermo was able to recruit Capo, Gallo, and Joseph Masella to find and kill Majuri. However, on the one occasion when they were ready to kill Majuri, they became nervous and decided not to do it. When they reported their failure back to Palermo, he decided that Majuri didn't pose a threat after all and cancelled the murder contract. By the mid-90s, Palermo was the de facto boss of the DeCavalcante family, with Riggi reigning as boss in absentia from jail.
Government-witness
In 1998, DeCavalcante associate Ralph Guarino was arrested for stealing $1.6 million from a Bank of America inside the World Trade Center. To avoid 20 years in prison, Guarino agreed to work as an informant for the FBI, giving the agency information on the actions of DeCavalcante members. The agency gave him cell phones rigged with surveillance equipment to distribute to other family members. In October 1998, Palermo's trusted lieutenant Joseph Masella was shot to death, leaving an opening in the family. Guarino's status had been rising in the family due to secret assistance from the FBI, and after Masella's murder, Palermo and the rest of the DeCavalcante leadership promoted Guarino to made man.
In 1999, Palermo faced charges and possible capital offenses, so he decided to become a government witness. He confessed to killing Weiss and mobster Louis LaRasso, and to planning the murders of the two D'Amatos, Masella, Majuri, and Tom Salvata, the manager at his strip club.[citation needed] Palermo also implicated other DeCavalcante family-members in various crimes. After testifying for the government, Palermo and his family entered the federal Witness Protection Program. However, prosecutors later discovered that he allegedly gave his son Michael $1 million in cash, possibly jeopardizing his status as a protected witness.
New life in Houston, Texas
On September 14, 2009, the New York Daily News exposed Palermo's new life in witness-protection as a strip-club-operator in Houston, Texas.[5] He has been living under the name "James Cabella".[10] Houston Police alleged that Palermo's strip clubs were a source of drug dealing and prostitution in the Houston area. Palermo claimed that many of his Houston friends already knew of his past because of an A&E television special. He lived in a gated mansion in Houston.[11][12]
The day after the Daily News report, Houston NBC affiliate KPRC-TV aired an investigative segment on Palermo.[5] Forty days later, Palermo put his Houston mansion up for sale, first for $4 million but then, over the following two years, he reduced the price to $2.45 million. After the mansion still would not sell, he took it off the market on June 3, 2011. Palermo put his house up for sale again in September 2015; it eventually sold for $2.85 million on 5 August 2016.[13][14] In late 2011, the Houston Chronicle reported that Palermo was sued by the former owner of one of his strip clubs, claiming that he had only paid $5,000 of the $1.3 million selling price.[15][16]
Bankruptcy
On March 4, 2013, Palermo filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas. Under Chapter 11, a person's assets and debts are not liquidated, but the filer is given court-protection from creditors in order to try to perform a work-out[clarification needed] of the insolvency situation.[12][17]
Related Research Articles
The Genovese crime family, also sometimes referred to as the Westside and the Ivy League is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American Mafia. They have generally maintained a varying degree of influence over many of the smaller mob families outside New York, including ties with the Philadelphia, Patriarca, and Buffalo crime families.
The Colombo crime family is an Italian American Mafia crime family and is the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was during Lucky Luciano's organization of the American Mafia after the Castellammarese War, following the assassinations of "Joe the Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, that the gang run by Joseph Profaci became recognized as the Profaci crime family.
The DeCavalcante crime family, also known as the North Jersey crime family or North Jersey Mafia, is an Italian-American Mafia organized crime family that operates mainly in northern New Jersey, particularly in Elizabeth, Newark, West New York, and the surrounding areas in North Jersey. The family is part of the nationwide criminal network known as the American Mafia.
Joseph "Joey O" Masella was a mob associate in New Jersey's DeCavalcante crime family and a friend of known mobster Vincent "Vinny Ocean" Palermo.
Philip Abramo, also known as "The King of Wall Street" and "Lou Metzer", is a caporegime in the New Jersey DeCavalcante crime family who was allegedly involved in security fraud and murder. He is the capo of the DeCavalcante family's crew in Miami, Florida, United States.
Girolamo "Jimmy" Palermo was an Italian-born American mobster and longtime underboss of the DeCavalcante crime family in Elizabeth, New Jersey, under the imprisoned boss Giovanni "John the Eagle" Riggi.
Francesco "Frank" Guarraci was an Italian-born American mobster. He was a prominent member and reputed acting boss of the DeCavalcante crime family.
Giuseppe "Pino" Schifilliti is a former prominent member of the DeCavalcante crime family since the 1980s, heavily involved in labor racketeering and extortion activities.
Gioacchino "Jake" Amari was an Italian-American mobster who served as acting underboss and later acting boss of the DeCavalcante crime family of New Jersey.
John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato was an American mobster and former acting boss of the DeCavalcante crime family in New Jersey from 1990 to 1992. D'Amato was a prominent made man of the DeCavalcante family and appointed head by Giovanni Riggi under the influence of Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. D'Amato was suspected of engaging in homosexual activity and assassinated in Brooklyn in January 1992.
Louis "Fat Lou" LaRasso was an American mobster and the longtime official underboss of the DeCavalcante crime family.
Anthony "Tony" Capo was an American hitman in the DeCavalcante crime family who later became a government witness and entered the Witness Protection Program. His aliases included Marshall Beach, Mathew Beach and Wade Beach.
Francesco "Frank" Polizzi was a New Jersey mobster and captain in the DeCavalcante crime family.
Louis "Louie Eggs" Consalvo is a New Jersey mobster and reputed soldier and acting captain in the DeCavalcante crime family.
Frank "Franky the Beast" Scarabino is a New York City mobster and former soldier in the North Jersey-based DeCavalcante crime family,
Anthony Rotondo is a former capo in the DeCavalcante family of New Jersey and police informant.
Joseph Anthony Miranda was an American mobster and member of the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante crime family. A longtime "soldier" to Simone "Sam the Plumber" DeCavalcante and later boss Giovanni Riggi, he became acting underboss for Girolamo "Jimmy" Palermo following the imprisonment of many high-ranking members in 2003.
Giovanni "John the Eagle" Riggi was an American mobster and member of the DeCavalcante crime family since the 1940s, before the family had acquired its name. Riggi was the leader of the "Elizabeth crew" in the family when he was a Caporegime. He had been the acting boss during the 1970s and became the official boss around 1982. Riggi was incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) Devens, Massachusetts, on extortion and labor racketeering convictions. He was released on November 27, 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
