"Merlino was the leader of the Philadelphia family of La Cosa Nostra," Assistant U.S. Attorney David Troyer wrote in Wednesday's filing.
Not to say I told you so but I've been saying for years that Merlino was retired.
Anyone still believe joey's pulling the strings?
Yeah i do believe he is running the family, you basically just took one sentence that suited your theory and left out the last part which goes against it. The way I intepreted that is the man is saying Merlino was the head of the family at the time of his conviction and that calling his encounters with members and associates as chance encounters is laughable is that he is still involved with Cosa Nostra and is the boss of his family. Why would he risk meeting with members and associates of Cosa Nostra while on parole if he wasn't
involved. But everyone is entitled to there own opinion, time will tell.
The second part of the paragraph in NO WAY contradicts the first part.
The second part of the paragraph simply states he had meetings with LCN members with the implication that he is still involved in LCN, not that he's the boss. This obviously doesn't contradict anything as one can be involved without being the boss. And again, LCN involvement is only implied.
'was' is past tense. If the government believed he is still the boss either they would have used different terminology or they've made a clear error.
