Vincent Palermo | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1944-06-04)June 4, 1944 (age 81) New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Other names |
|
| Occupation | Crime boss |
| Children | 5 |
| Relatives | Sam DeCavalcante (uncle-in-law) |
| Allegiance | DeCavalcante crime family |
Vincent "Vinny Ocean"Palermo (born June 4, 1944) is anItalian-American former mobster who was thede facto boss of theDeCavalcante crime family ofNorth Jersey before becoming a governmentwitness in 1999. Fictional mob bossTony Soprano, the protagonist of theHBO seriesThe Sopranos, is said to be based upon Palermo.[1] Similar to how Soprano worked from the fictionalBada Bing!strip club owned by Silvio Dante on the show, Palermo owned astrip club called Wiggles.[2]
Vincent Palermo was born inNew York City on June 4, 1944, and raised in a traditionalItalian-American family inBrooklyn. 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. Palermo 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 analtar 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 bedriddenasthmatic. In his earlier years, Palermo worked at a wholesale fish business in theFulton 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 inIsland Park, New York, drove his daughters toBrownie meetings, and reportedly watchedAnnie with one of his daughters regularly. Palermo also took in a troubled teenager named Richard, becoming hisgodfather. Palermo would allow his godson to stay at his home every weekend for a year, enabling the boy to study theCatholic sacraments in preparation for eventualbaptism,Communion andConfirmation.[3]
Palermo was divorced once and remarried. In the 1980s, he became indebted to a hospital, local doctors, and the federal government. Thetax liens against his property were in his second wife's name, anItalian-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 inIsland Park, New York. He had twoSocial Security numbers and paidalimony 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 ofFordham University and a licensed New Yorkstockbroker; he was an investment banker withGoldman Sachs up until his father'sindictment, when Vincent Palermo Jr went into hiding.[4]
In the early 1960s, Palermo met and married the niece ofcrime bossSam DeCavalcante of theDeCavalcante crime family. DeCavalcante took a liking to his nephew-in-law and began inviting him to visit his social club inKenilworth,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 othercrime families—a lucrativeloansharking operation with oneGambino familycaporegime andbookmaking with another. He was also a close associate of theGenovese 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 themisdemeanor of stealingshrimp at the Fulton Fish Market.
On September 11, 1989, Palermo,Anthony Capo, and James "Jimmy" Gallo murderedStaten Island resident Fred Weiss,[5] on orders from DeCavalcante bossGiovanni "John the Eagle" Riggi through caporegime Anthony Rotondo. Weiss was a former newspaper reporter for theStaten Island Advance and a real-estate developer who had previously associated with members 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 dangerousmedical waste there. Local authorities uncovered the scheme and started investigating Weiss, making the two crime-families nervous. Gambino bossJohn Gotti worried that Weiss might become a government witness in exchange for leniency and requested that the DeCavalcante family murder Weiss to protect Gambino ventures. Palermo, Capo, and Gallo drove to the New York condominium of Weiss's girlfriend. As Weiss left the building and entered his car, Palermo and Gallo shot him in the face.
Palermo was promoted to caporegime following the Weiss murder and received his own crew ofsoldiers. Riggi was sent to prison later in 1989, and appointedJohn "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 activebisexual. She describedswinging encounters that D'Amato had inManhattan sex clubs with both women and men. Rotondo shared this information with underbossGiacomo Amari, andconsigliereStefano Vitabile.[6][7] In 2003, caporegimesPhilip "Phil" Abramo,Giuseppe "Pino" Schifilliti and 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]
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 potentialpower 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 alabor union that he controlled and taking their money. Palermo was able to recruit Capo, Gallo, andJoseph 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 thede facto boss of the DeCavalcante family, with Riggi reigning as bossin absentia from jail.
In 1998, DeCavalcante associateRalph Guarino was arrested for stealing $1.6 million from aBank of America inside theWorld Trade Center. To avoid 20 years in prison, Guarino agreed to work as an informant for theFBI, giving the agency information on the actions of DeCavalcante members. The agency gave himcell phones rigged with surveillance equipment to distribute to other family members. In October 1998, Palermo's trusted lieutenantJoseph 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 tomade man.
In 1999, Palermo faced charges and possiblecapital offenses, so he decided to become a government witness. He confessed to killing Weiss and mobsterLouis LaRasso, and to planning the murders of the two D'Amatos, Masella, Majuri, and Tom Salvata, the manager at Palermo's 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 federalWitness 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.
On September 14, 2009, theNew York Daily News exposed Palermo's new life in witness-protection as a strip-club-operator inHouston,Texas.[5] He has been living under the name "James Cabella".[10] Houston Police alleged that Palermo's strip clubs were a source ofdrug dealing andprostitution in the Houston area. Palermo claimed that many of his Houston friends already knew of his past because of anA&E television special. He lived in a gated mansion in Houston.[11][12]
The day after theDaily News report, HoustonNBC affiliateKPRC-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, theHouston 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]
On March 4, 2013, Palermo filed aChapter 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]
