Maybe you knew him,maybe you read about him, On Dec 7,1996, we lost a really good man a man who respected people, im talking about people who were not only good but honorable.That word has not been used with any of the men written in the recent posts.This man joseph Sodano was really the last of the greats. A true money maker who's ability to work with others in making money in many area's.Its been over 16 sixteen years since that rainy night.And look around its all small time nonsense no big earners not a one ,lots cases,lots of talk about this one or that one, i'll never forget the night after he met with Stanfa ,the jist of the meeting was if Stafa was going away that Joe would be boss, Joe's answer was Boss of what? Joe declined that offer and for good reason the title of boss in 1994 means a life sentence. Even back then he knew it was over, these monkeys simply were not money makers could not make things happen just a bunch of uneducated morons.The truth is he knew it was time to retire.He thought guys like merlino were a joke and still is a joke.He thought time was on his side and at some point would take care of merlino in due time.
it is sad that the half a fag got him first as they did with willi and big bill but thats how life go's sometimes.Sometimes the hunter becomes the hunted and sometimes you just run out of time.That was joe's number one thing patience you got have it to earn both long term and to take care problems.

Ghost I thought Sodano ok'd the hit on willie gant? It was over shy money owed or something right?

i really dont know where these stories come from? he wanted willi around ,willi was a great stick Artist.Willi was also a bad gambler,very bad.He is probably the only guy to win 900,000 in a baccrat in AC gome home and drive back and lose it all in two days,and still never got his teeth fixed.He was a very good thief.No joe did not want willi killed by the Halfafag philly fay.Joe was not happy about what they had done to willi neither was i for that matter willi was really a crazy sick bastard hence the name Crazy Willi he took down some really good stuff ,just got carless.i named one of my dogs after him:)

I'm not taking anything away from Joe Sodano personally, and I'm sure he was a great guy. But, IF and that's a very big IF, Stanfa actually did wanna name Sodano as his successor it just further proves how out of touch with reality Stanfa was. There is absolutely no way Joe Sodano would have been accepted as boss of Philadelphia.

I had never heard that ghost. You don't think Sodano had anything to do with that hit? Never heard that about winning at baccarat lol, good theif yes and heard he owed big money to Andy Gerard thru sports with PD (junior).

I can assure you it was not a if,Stanfa wanted low or no profile guys that earn and not by scores by business GRAY MARKET OR OTHERWISE,GUYS WHO PUT THINGS TOGETHER. i guess perhaps your from philly or know of some guys in the area.its really was never about acceptance it was about putting the guys that can earn and earn long term and the ability to put guys in a direction to earn.Look around does it look like they are earning. Really in the real world anyone that would want to be the boss of that area would need to get his head examined by a brain doctor

i have many willi stories he made pulp fiction look like a disney kids movie some days ,i would shake my head and say why did you have to do that?and more important what was i doing there is what i used to ask myself? i guess joe wanted me to understand what happens if your uneducated,Willi was pretty fast with the iron,he had a fast hand witch made him handy with a blade,yes he owed lots of money for gambling,he could care less was his attitude he was going to find a job to do sooner or later,and joe wanted him around at that time joe had a doctor he had a guy signing up people for life insurance policy's he wanted willi around to make sure those policy's went into to affect,(dont ask who the doctor was )looked like the doctor from the cannonball run if you asked me,so no joe had nothing to do with that he really liked willi and willi ofcourse like also joe,joe would get him out of trouble or pay his debts and put it on credit until the next job

I understand what you mean and where you're coming from. Acceptance is a huge deal though, I mean look at how many problems Stanfa had, do you think he was even generating half of what he could have if he had things under controll? That's short term, then you think of all the damage he did long term with the idiots he had around him. I do agree 100% you'd have to be crazy to want that job.

I agree. I also think its funny that for all of the "old school" don talk about him, he had numerous people in his circle flip. Say what you will about Merlino, neither he nor any of his real close people ever flipped (Natale being the exception but he was really a patsy anyway).

HI JMACK PLEASURE TO TALK ABOUT THE OLD DAYS WITH YOU,Lets look at it from another angle if a guy lets you earn and i mean really earn even if you hate where he is from whether he is black,white,jew,italian, at the end of the day your going to ACCEPT HIM.Because your earning with him and if your earning a lot with him your even more accepting.The problem with philly was and is the same ol thing MONEY and the lack of it so what you have is a bunch of guys killing each other over crumbs,its really sad when you think about,Me personally who the fuck would want to stay there under those conditions,i would pick a place and move.

I agree with you, in principe anyway. If someone lets you earn you are going to accept them. The problem is Joey and his people considered themselves the rightful heirs to the Philly family. They were related to all the Scarfo soldiers that were in jail. Not to mention the fact that Sodano wasn't from South Philly. If this was the old days maybe, but not Philly in the 90's.

The north jersey crew of that family has historically been too strong for their own good. Scoops is a good fit bc he's too lazy and not ambitious enough to make any moves. Notice how long he's been made. He switches his alliegence with the wind and is probably why he's still alive today. I'm sure he had a close call when it came out that Sally d and Bobby manna wanted to take out ligambi and make the all the captains in the family drive to west orange.

When did Bobby Manna want to take out Ligambi?

i thought the plot against ligambi came from the lucheses while amuso was still in charge, because amuso still recognized scarfo sr as the official boss. nicky jr was trying to recruit a bunch of philly guys in north jersey to work for him, like he sent word to fazzini that he should report to him now. and nicky jr recruited joe grande to take out ligambi and run things for the scarfos in philly. this was all going on while nicky jr was still the luchese jersey crew captain so around the mid 2000s but pre-2007(when he was bumped down to soldier).

true, i was wondering about the whole bobby manna wanting to take out ligambi becuase i was never aware of that.

This is interesting where did you hear that?

It came out during the first trial last year. Apparently what wound up happening was licata went to grande and said they would go sit down with ligambi together and that grande "shouldnt have anything to worry about". So ligambi wound up giving grande a pass. On the steffanelli tapes ligambi was recorded talking about how joe grandes dad showed up at ligambis house and begged him not to kill his son.

Ahhh yes I forgot, thanks buddy

I don't think it was joe grandes dad that went to his house I thought it was a bar owner or something but I could have misread.

That had nothing to do with Grande. It was Daniel D'Ambrosias dad who went to Ligambis door. D'Ambrosia was the guy with Natale who was allegedly plotting with him and Caprio in an effort to take out Ligambi. D'Ambrosia runs a deli around the corner from Ligambis house. That should tell you all you need to know about the strength of the current Philly mob.

That's wasn't joe grande's father his father is a made guy so I highly doubt an old school guy like that would go begging to joe ligambi

John Coo Coo Grande, and I believe he passed away a couple years ago?

yeah your right it was dambrosia's dad they were talking about in the stefenelli tapes, so disregard that part about grandes dad. but i think you and i are talking about different plots against ligambi, the one im talking about came from the lucheses through scarfo jr. i mispoke about grandes dad.

Yeah, I think I read something about Joe Grande getting into it with Pungitore inprison over allegiances, etc

Yeah he did pass a few years ago and they didn't even mention the son salvatore "Wayne" in the obituary because they disowned him for being a rat