Unwelcome Cafe Guests Police And Rivals Haunt Joey Merlino's Espresso Bar.
By George Anastasia and Ralph Cipriano, INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Posted: October 26, 1995
Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino stood in the doorway of his espresso bar on Passyunk Avenue, puffing on a fat cigar.
As Catholic schoolgirls strolled by in plaid skirts and blue uniforms, the reputed mobster glared at two cops who sat in a marked patrol car parked across the street. The cops stared right back.
Merlino, 33, doesn't think much of the extra police detail that's been assigned to guard his Avenue Cafe up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, since Dante "Peanuts" Veasey stopped by for a chat two weeks ago.
"That's where your tax dollars go," Merlino said.
He said he's used to unwanted attention from police.
"They've been doing it for five years," he said.
The police have been staking out Merlino's coffee bar and cigar shop since Oct. 14, when Peanuts Veasey strolled into the store at 1:30 p.m. and said he was "looking for Joey," according to police sources.
Veasey is the brother of mob hit-man-turned-government informant John Veasey and William "Billy" Veasey, who was gunned down in a gangland-style hit earlier this month. A store employee told Veasey that Merlino wasn't there, and Peanuts left without a fuss, according to sources.
Merlino was not talking about that incident yesterday, but it is clear from court testimony, investigative reports and other sources that it has been more that just unwanted police attention that Merlino has attracted during his brief but highly publicized career as one of South Philadelphia's best-known and most-easily recognized goodfellas.
Forget Get Shorty. One of the longest-running shows downtown has been Get Joey. And Peanuts Veasey, according to several sources, hardly makes the A list.
In fact, Merlino has been ducking and dodging since 1989.
Long before he became an impresario specializing in espresso, cappuccino and fine cigars, he was number one on the hit lists of former Philadelphia mob bosses Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo and John Stanfa.
Both wanted him dead.
Neither got his wish.
Now both are in jail, Scarfo serving what amounts to a life sentence and Stanfa on trial in a racketeering case that carries a similar penalty.
Merlino, meanwhile, stands smiling in the doorway of his Passyunk Avenue coffee shop, and his legend grows.
Sure, he did two years in jail for a 1989 armored-truck heist in which $352,000 was stolen, but the thing that's important out on the streets is that, to this day, the money was never recovered.
And yes, he got pinched for a parole violation in 1993 and was sent back into the can for a year. But remember, say the wags on the corner, this is when Stanfa was trying to have him whacked, so the feds were doing Joey a favor by tucking him away in the joint.
That Stanfa wanted to kill him has been documented daily in the ongoing racketeering trial of the mob boss and seven associates in U.S. District Court.
Testimony and secretly recorded conversations played for the jury indicate that the Sicilian-born Stanfa was obsessed with Merlino and his associates during a bloody mob war that raged in 1993, referring to them derisively as the "little Americans" and plotting continually to have them bumped off.
If that testimony is to be believed, Merlino - who was wounded in the buttocks in a Aug. 5, 1993, ambush - walked away from nearly a dozen other murder attempts without a scratch.
Hit men armed with shotguns, pistols, rifles and a homemade bomb hunted Merlino on a daily basis for most of the late summer and early fall of 1993.
The bomb - a pipe stuffed with four pounds of explosive and rigged with blasting caps - was planted at least a half dozen times under or near a car believed to be Merlino's, but each time a remote control detonator malfunctioned.
Once, hit man Philip Colletti testified, Merlino was unknowingly leaning directly over the explosive that had been placed under some trash along a low brick wall outside the Cuthbert Street apartment building where Merlino was living.
As Colletti and some associates watched from a hiding place, "Merlino leaned against the wall and did some stretching exercises."
But when Colletti pushed the button on the detonator, nothing happened.
Dumb luck or nine lives, Merlino is a survivor.
So while Peanuts Veasey's visit to the coffee shop two weeks ago may have attracted police attention, it was not a major event on Merlino's social calendar.
Police are also investigating another incident later that day that may be connected.
At 5 p.m., Eric Pizzo, 22, of South Philadelphia, was beaten up by two unidentified men in the 1800 block of Passyunk, a block away from Merlino's cafe.
According to police, the two assailants had Pizzo down on his knees, punching him, and yelling, "Next time you snitch, you're dead."
Pizzo, according to police, refused treatment and refused to identify his attackers. Police, however, believe Merlino's associates may have been responsible.
Those two incidents prompted the extra police detail. Police sources say they want to prevent any further violence, as well as any drive-by attacks against Merlino.
Merlino doesn't seem too worried.
Yesterday, he was sitting in his cafe, munching on a chicken cutlet sandwich from Tony Luke's, a popular sandwich shop at Front and Oregon. And he was talking about the free turkey dinner that he's hosting Nov. 21 for about 40 children at the so-called Tent City homeless settlement in North Philadelphia.
Merlino has a sign in the window of his coffee shop that says, "Donations for the Tent City Children greatly appreciated."
He said taking care of the unfortunate is a Merlino family tradition, beginning with his mother and uncles.
The dinner, from 3 to 5 p.m. at his shop, will feature "turkey, sweet potatoes, salad, cranberry sauce and pie," Merlino said. And that's not all.
"We'll have a Santa Claus here to give out toys," he said. Asked who would play Santa, the reputed mob underboss said, "I don't know. We gotta find one."
