Philly Question

Why is Stanfa not killed after the Bruno hit? I mean he has got to be in on the hit right? If not, then why is he not killed when Bruno is?

He probably wasn’t killed because he was in on it. I’m sure he made sure to be in that spot at a certain time. But once the people behind it started dropping, he ran off and his under protection of a family member from NY if I’m not mistaken.


Not sure how the next generation felt about Stanfa but I was always surprised any of them had much respect for him.

It is Leonetti's claim that after the Bruno hit, he was accompanying Caponigro and his cousin Salerno to a sitdown with the Genovese but bolted as they were being killed, so he escaped death. He then disappeared because he was indicted for perjury after refusing to testify before a grand jury and he got jailed for some years, and after he returned Gotti asked Nick Scarfo if he'd give Stanfa a pass to come back to philly which he agreed to. Afaik it's not clear wether or not the powers that be believed he was in on the murder nor is it wether they still cared after all that time had passed and things were (somewhat) stable.

I saw one documentary that never even mentioned him being the driver or going to jail. They claimed he was brought from Italy by NY and put in as boss in Philly lol.

Does anyone have background info on him? On his early day in Philly before the Bruno murder?

http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/philadelphia-boss-john-stanfa

John Stanfa was born on December 7, 1940 in the tiny mountain village of Caccamo, about 30 miles southeast of Palermo, in a region of western sicily long dominated by the Mafia. Stanfa was the youngest of 4 children. He had 2 older brothers and 1 brother in law who were members of the Sicilian Mafia. He came to the U.S. with his wife Nicolena Congialdi and they moved to Philadelphia. In 1967 their first child Sara would be born followed by Joseph 4 years later and Maria in 1976. Stanfa went by unnoticed in his early years. The F.B.I. had seen him hanging around the wiseguy spots but didn't even consider him a big associate. He was registerd as a stonemason and bricklayer by trade.

just to clarify, he was indicted for perjury, because he gave testimony that the feds said was lied, not because he refused to testify..refusing to testify is civil contempt of court, which incarcerates you for 18 months OR the lenght remaining on the grand jury..perjury is a criminal charge, i dont remember stanfas sentence i want to say 8 years, old law so he did like 5 1/2 or so...again, dont quote me, i think the feds said he lied about whatever meetings he had before and/or after the death with the players involved, maybe saying he ddint meet X, and then the feds produced a pic of him with X or something to that affect...