 Welcome back to the original gangsters podcast. I'm Jimmy Buccellato here in studio with my partner in crime, the intrepid Scott Bernstein and Benny behind the glass, the engineer. Just want to remind everyone to please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Please subscribe to our audio podcast on Spotify, Google, on Apple, and please spread the word. We appreciate your comments and the kind words and we thank you for your support. And before we get into our topic today, I also wanted to just take a moment and expand on something that Scott and our friend Jeff Nadu were talking about on last week's episode and I appreciate Jeff filling in for me. And they talked about collaboration with other content creators and I think that that's important and I think there's some content creators out there that sort of seems like their purpose is to cut down other content creators. More adversarial. Yeah, right. Adversarial and antagonistic and we try not to do that and we get along with a lot of the other content creators. So obviously Jeff is a friend of ours that sit down podcast and he's been on our show before. You've gone on his show before. You've gone on. You've collaborated with RJ. It was a big John Pinesi and his sit down news. George Anastasia and Dave Schratwizer and their mob talk sit down. Yeah. So we were more collaborative and inclusive, I think, in our approach. And then we, you know, we don't view this as a zero sum game where, you know, like it's traditional radio or traditional television where it's, you know, CBS against NBC or ratings, you know, cumulus media, a verse intercom radio or or Westwood One or a I heart radio. It's not if one person wins, it doesn't mean the other person has to lose. Yeah, I agree. So I think that's important to point out. And we've I've I went on Tom Lavecchia show a few weeks ago, Armchair MBA. And I've gone on the mob archaeologist show. Please check them out. They're good friends of ours. Angelo, Tony, Rick, Eric, those guys do a great job. Shout out to Mr. Big, a.k.a. Milwaukee mob. He's always been a big supporter of ours. Big Wayne, check out his books. And and and even like you're saying, even guys in the life, John Panisi, Michael Francis, they've been on our show before. On the other side, you know, Bobby Jenkins. Yeah. And Boston Bobby, Louisie. Right. So we I think that's important to keep that collaborative spirit. That's how it's supposed to be an academia. And I think it's it's nice that it's also happening with us with these other content creators. So anyhow, just just wanted to shout out those other friends of ours. We've got a good episode today. Unfortunately, some some people have passed on some some big names in the underworld. And we're going to talk about a few of them. But definitely the biggest name is Chicky Changalini from Philadelphia, who is really the definition just like on Scott's hat and OG. I believe it was almost 90 years old. What 88 and he's like was like this elder statesman of the underworld. But he goes back a long way. He was he was a captain under Scarfo and his his family is involved. You know, his sons have been involved in the life. So we we want to talk about his life and legacy, just like we did a few weeks ago with Jimmy I. And we do this sometimes sort of an obituary, if you will. So excuse me, so I guess he's a lot less complicated. Yes, and in the light of the news that broke on Jimmy I's right. Wake about the document that claimed he was an informant. Just to give a quick update on that. Yeah, I was able to confirm that that document. There was a lot of speculation about what that meant. Was he still cooperating after that document was drafted? I was able to talk to people that were familiar with the document, specifically as well as how those documents were drafted and what they meant. And that was a document or that was a reference to a closed informant. So when that was drafted, I believe in 1979 or 1980, I and Dino had already been closed according to the FBI. Interesting that the the the the letter and number next to his name would have been different. It would have said C.I. or C.W. or C.L. It just said C, which according to the people I talked to stood for closed. And then I just think there's some contextual things that if you check out Gangster Report, you know, you'll be able to learn. But I think that's most important in terms of what we've talked about here, that whatever the context was with his alleged information giving to the FBI in the 60s and 70s, when he was a guy in his yeah, 30s, 20s, 30s. It doesn't look like there's any evidence that there was any type of information gathering on the FBI side from Jimmy I. Going forward, you know, past the 70s. And I know there was a lot of people that were kind of running. A lot of the media outlets were running rampant with speculation that, you know, he was cooperating up until the week that he died. Sure. That I think that we at least I feel like I've. Put that to bed, at least 99 percent certainty that that was not the case. Yeah. And I just want. I just think that that's only fair to put out there when you're talking about Jimmy I. In the wake of that news breaking on on the week that he died. But Chicky. Yeah. Different. It's a lot different. You know, Chicky is Stone Cold Gangster. Right. And, you know, he was the South Philly OG. I mean, there's a lot of OGs in Philadelphia. I mean, there are literally, you know, more than a dozen guys that you'd probably refer to as an OG in the in the Bruno Scarfo family. But the pinnacle of that OG pyramid up until last Saturday night on March 11th was Joseph Chicky Changolini, senior. Very easily, I think, could have become a boss, a godfather, like some of these other guys who've talked about that we that we focus on here in the OG podcast. The best of the best in this in this world of of gangland politics and. Power. The way that power moves up and down and vertically, horizontally and what have you, you know, if you if you can check those three boxes, that what I called, you know, that that trifecta of beloved, feared and respected. Yeah, you can go very far in that world. And Joe and Joseph, senior, AKA Chicky, he checked all those boxes and he had to do 30 years in prison for it and kept his mouth shut and swallowed that 30 years lost from his basically from his fifties in to his eighties came out nine years ago and and got to live his best life his last decade and wasn't traditionally active, but was a guy that wasn't hard to find in South Philly would spend almost every day, if not every day at Stoge Joe's, which was a popular tavern in a South Philly street corner. And he'd get there at nine, ten in the morning and be reading his paper still like the school, the old school hard copy newspaper. And he'd be out there having his coffee early, early in the day and he'd stay there till after dinner. So it was known that you could go find Chicky and and get his counsel and pay your respects like the dark. Yeah. So but I don't think he was. There was a lot of questions when he came out of prison in 14 because 2014 when that Philadelphia family was in somewhat of a transitional phase, because you had all these Scarfo era guys that were coming out after 20 plus years and you had all these Merlino era guys that were coming out after 10 years and there was, I think, worry that there could be some flare ups there and that Chicky could be one of the people that bridged the gap. Maybe he did, but there never really was any flare ups. Yeah. And Chicky, if he ever was an underboss or a conciliary, it was probably just, you know, acting posts for, you know, kind of stopgap measures kind of like emeritus. Yeah. Kind of thing. Can we let's let's let's rewind that because we want to talk about his life, too. Let's let's rewind to like the beginning, like like on the come up because he was an interesting dude, like his affiliations with Scarfo. And he was a hitter, muscle. Yeah, he was. Well, he came up in the Teamsters. Yeah. OK. Yeah. In the late 50s, in the late 50s, early 60s, he got a reputation for being, you know, a union goon. Yeah. And someone that kept people in line and Nebuster. Yeah. And he was a big, burly guy, jar-complexed. I've heard a lot of guys that knew Chicky that referred to him as thick-blooded. He would get hot really easily. And I mean, like literally not figuratively like hot, you know, as temper. But like physically, he would get hot easily. And he was known for someone that always wanted to have the windows open when he drove the car and always wanted to have the air conditioning on. But he was made a name for himself in the Teamsters before he made a name for himself in the mafia. He started to get on the FBI's radar in the late 60s, early 70s, when he was according to the government, was the top lieutenant or right hand man to a powerful and very duplicitous and dangerous copper regime known as Frank Sendone or the Barracuda. And Chicky ran his his gambling, his loan sharking, his shakedowns. And the Barracuda was a co-conspirator in the assassination of Angela Bruno in 1980, which was unsanctioned. And the conspirators were marked for death. And I think one of the best lines in Goodfellas is it's not like in the movies where, you know, guys with masks come for you and break into your house to kill you. It's your best friends that come with a smile on the face who are the ones sent to kill you. And with according to the government, he was never convicted of this or charged with it. According to the government and intelligence memos that I've seen, it's believed that Chicky Changelini was given the murder contract on Sendone, his his boss, his mentor. He carried that out and took over that crew. So then that's how he so then he was good with Testa and Scarfo. Yes. And then he became a capo and became one of their top guys. Right. And help keep everything in line and and as stabilized as it could be after that destabilizing period of 1980 and 81, when first Bruno was killed and then his underboss, Phil Testa, was killed a year later. Was Sendone, I mean, was he integral to that conspiracy? He was integral to the Bruno conspiracy. Yeah, with Tony Bananas. Yeah, he thought he was going to become the underboss. OK. Caponegro is going to become boss. And Sendone would become underboss. And then with Testa, Chicky Narducci thought that he would become underboss. Yeah, the two chickies. We talked about that on a text thread. There were two, you know, there was the city of Philadelphia was only big enough for two for one chicky in the 80s. There were two of them. One of them got killed in the 82 and then Chicky Cangolini lasted until this week. So in terms of protocol, if Sendone is in on this conspiracy and then he was, he's not going to share that with his underlings. Yes. Yeah, I don't know what it's interesting to ask that question. Like, yeah, if you were Sendone's right hand, how much did you know? And Sendone is critical to this power play that Tony Caponegro was pulling. He was Bruno's consigliari, consigliari, I would guess that he knew. Yeah. And you know, you can get right by doing what? Right. Allegedly. Right. Because that was the. They want the person closest to you to be able to either rein you in and bring you in to get in line with the new regime or to take you out. Yeah. Yeah. So so either way, he made it right, even if he even if he had some insight. Yeah, that situation. But what's, you know, interesting in the way that, you know, fate plays a role in how things evolve and how crime families, how power ebbs and flows, you know, the stuff that was going on during the Bruno era, Chicky had to account for legally and took a case in the early 80s that really had nothing to do with what he was doing under Scarfo. But it was happening during the early years of the Scarfo regime, which ended ended ended up putting Chicky away before most of the Scarfo era guys went away. I think Chicky got locked up in 84, I believe. Most of the Scarfo era guys were off the street by early 87. What was it? What did he get pinched for? It was a it was a racketeering case involving extortion, gambling. I think there was a murder that was rolled into it. I think that might have been two separate cases that were rolled into one that he served concurrent sentences. And he was a suspect in at least three other murders beside Sendone, the Johnny Calabrese murder from 1981, which happened in South Philly. The Alvin Felbin murder from the 70s, where according to FBI informants, Chicky ice picked Alvin Felbin to death. And nobody's ever found Alvin Felbin's body. He was a Jewish racketeer, drug dealer close with the Scarfo group. That's the city of message. It means local brassie sleeps with the fishes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Was he not kicking up or something? What was, you know, I don't know what the beef with Feldman was. Exactly. I know the Calabrese murder was related to Nicky Scarfo taking over as boss in the spring of 81 and trying to get everybody in line. Yeah. And Calabrese was a guy that wasn't getting in line. Was not sharing drug proceeds and in bookmaking proceeds and whatnot. Yeah. And Scarfo had a like no no independence. Right. Like it right. That was Bruno had independence. Bruno was like, yeah, you can be independent as long as you send a present to me every Christmas. Right. And if you and if and if you were one of these guys that were holding out, Scarfo had no compunction about we'll just we'll just whack the fucking guy and do it cowboy style. Right. Leave him in the street. And we don't need to negotiate like it's just fucking wack. Which was a huge contrast to what was going on under Angelo Bruno. Now, I think there's been a misnomer with this tag that he's gotten, you know, historically in the narrative that he was the docile Don or that he he wasn't a a a peace first mafia boss. He was less bloodthirsty than some of the other East Coast mob bosses. Sure. But that didn't mean that he wasn't quick to order murders. And he ordered quite a few. Yes. Now, he did. He got the reputation because he allowed a guy that had tried to kill him early in his reign. Mr. Mr. Migs, Antonio Polina, I believe, was one of the guys who was the Joe Ida guy. Yeah, those are older. Yeah, these are the old timers that had to leave the country after Appalachian and then Bruno was moving into power. And there was another guy that wanted power. I think it was Polina and it was somebody else. Ignite. I'm blanking on the name, but it was Polina and somebody else. And basically, it was a bloodless power struggle that eventually could have I shouldn't say eventually what possibly could have resulted in murders because they wanted to murder. Bruno Bruno got tipped off to it. Went to New York, got the OK to take over and was given the the choice whether or not he wanted to kill these guys or put him on the shelf, vanquished him and he decided to put him on the shelf, it was got him the reputation of being a merciful Godfather. Yeah. Well, and he also did give his guys it seems like a more independent autonomy. But yeah, you know, unlike Scarfo, where he everyone had to. But he wasn't killing people in the streets. No, he was conscious of public relations in a way that Nikki Scarfo. I think Nikki Scarfo was aware of public the way public relations played, too. I think they just had two very different approaches. Yeah, Scarfo like being like a gaudy. We wanted we wanted to use the optics of of doing his hits cowboy style. And he told his this wasn't like a something that people intuited. He was when we when he would address his troops is the way we kill people. We do a cowboy style, we leave him in the street. Right. We don't want to do what what was done in our crime family in the past, where you guys disappeared or they were found in trunks of cars. Right. But so so the the hits were very brazen. And it was a stark contrast to what had been going on in the previous 20 years. And it all started with Bruno's assassination, which was brazen. And then test to getting blown up by the pipe bomb, which was famously written about by Bruce Springsteen in the song Atlantic City. But I think Bruno was old school in the sense of you like to use a cliche here, right? George Anastasia, you make money. Not have not have that was. But there was some truth to that, even though it's cliche. And Scarfo like like both. So Chicky helped get everybody in line under under Scarfo. And then right before he got locked up, there was a murder of an independent drug dealer named Bobby Hornicle. I don't know what the specifics of that were, but it's informants alleged that he ordered that with the Calvary's thing. I believe he was involved in the setup, but wasn't involved in the actual murder with Cindone and with Alvin Feldman. The allegations are that Chicky was, you know, got his hands dirty. So when he gets sentenced, what did you say? It was 84, I believe. Yeah, he got hit in 84 that he got hit again in the 87 case that took down Scarfo, but he was already nailed for the case that he got convicted of for what he had done under Bruno and Testa. So in 84, was that when he does his big stint or not yet? Yeah, he goes in in 84. And he isn't doesn't come out until 2014. OK, all right. And when he's inside is when, you know, the very Shakespearean aspects of his legacy start to play play a part and you have his three sons fall on different sides of a faction war that erupts in the 1990s between today's Philadelphia mob Don Skinny Joey Merlino and the Sicilian Don that got put in, who was a part of the Bruno murder conspiracy, got a free pass because of his connection to the New York five families and then was installed as the godfather after Nikki Scarfo goes away and you have all these guys that were the sons and nephews of Scarfo lieutenants led by Merlino who was Scarfo's underboss's son and Mikey Cangolini, who was Merlino's best friend and Chicky Cangolini son. Those three his three sons in 84 would not have been made yet. They would have. No, none of them got made. And there's actually a famous photo. I don't know if it's a still from a a local news television footage or if it's a photo from a newspaper. But it's from Chicky going into court. I believe in 83 for his case. And he's got his three sons with him. Yeah. And they are all kind of like or at least one of them is like combing his hair and the other ones like popping his collar. And they're at that time, they're all in their 20s. And it's like the picture of a mafia family and fast forward 10 years, literally 10 years. And it's like someone took a sledgehammer to that photo. And you had you literally had brothers trying to kill brothers. And not just trying, succeeding in one case. And it's just one of the most compelling. Mafia anecdotes or situations of the last 50 years, what happened with the Changalini family and how it intertwined in that power struggle of the 1990s. And I think that I've been able to uncover some insight that and Georgia Anastasia has done such an amazing job of chronicling all of that. And I wouldn't know any of what I know if it wasn't for his reporting and his books. Right. And so anything that I report is just it's because he laid the groundwork for. But I think I've been able to shed some. Fresh insight on what Chicky was advising from behind bars, because there was a belief. That both Chicky and Chucky Merlino, Joey's dad, were like coaching this younger faction and encouraging them and pressing them to go to war with Stampa. Yeah. And I can't speak to what Chucky Merlino was telling Joey. And Joey also had Ralph Natali in his ear. But I've been able in my reporting and people I've talked to, I've been able to destroy this narrative that had emerged that Chicky was somehow subversive. Right. Or Chicky was backing one brother or one son against another son when what I heard. Oh, yeah, for people that might not know. So you had Mikey Chang was on one side. Explain the politics of it. I know we've talked about another episode. Maybe people don't know. Joey Chang, who's the namesake of Chicky, Joseph Changelini, Jr. was named under boss to Stampa. Stampa named him his number two as. In theory, as an olive branch to the to the Changelini's and Merlino's to come underneath Stampa's banner. Now, Mike, so Mikey Chang is with Joey. Joey Chang is with John Stampa. And then Johnny Chang, who's the brother that is the really the peacekeeping brother between Joey Chang and Mikey Chang is locked up with dad. And. You have without Chicky on the on the street and without Johnny Chang on the street, you had two brothers in Joey and Mikey, who, I guess there was a lot of animosity from when they were kids. They had never gotten along, I guess, the way that maybe Joey got along with Johnny and Mikey got along with Johnny. Joey and Mikey didn't get along as well. So I think it was a miscalculation or proved to be a miscalculation by Stampa that putting in a guy that, even though it was a brother to Mikey Chang, but someone that Mikey Chang didn't always see eye to eye with, was the was the cure all. Right. He couldn't he couldn't reign in. The idea was that Joey Chang could reign in his brother and Joey Merlino. And that was an accounting for the force of nature that Mikey Chang was, who was a different breed than any of the three brothers. He was. He was like a hurricane according to some. Sources on the street. There's even this idea that he may have been the the the ring leader. More so than Joey, more so than Joe, at least in the early, early day. I think they both had a lot of ambition at a really young age. Um, one another. This wasn't necessarily a misnomer, but I think it was kind of a lost fact that I was able to get my hands on some FBI files and report this reason in the last couple of years. But Joey and Mikey Chang were plotting this takeover of Philly within weeks of scarfing, those guys going to prison. Like they go into prison in March of 87 and I got FBI documents from April of 87 with a 27 year old Joey. I was going to say, they're really young. Yeah. And like he changed going around to spots and them letting these people that had been paying tribute to scarf order. No, hey, now you're now you're paying us. So it wasn't in 91 or 92 when the war broke out, it had been bubbling for about five years. So I really want to get into the minutia of this. I know, but I think it's fun. And it's it's one it's a fun thing about doing this kind of show. So New York, why did the again, we've talked about another episode, but it's fun to revisit anything. Why is New York backing Stamford? Is it because they think that these guys are too young and inexperienced? Chang and Merlino, like, is I mean, why? And they had nobody vouching for them until Ralph Natali. Or I think Ralph eventually gave them that backing in New York. And Ralph Natali was an old school Bruno guy that had been like a hitman and a labor fixer, arsonist, drug dealer. Goes to prison, gets put in a cell with Joey Merlino. And I think they I don't think I know. They both saw a way to use the other to their respective benefits. Joey needed someone to politic with him, with the old school guys. And Ralph had made a lot of connections with the New Yorkers in his 15 years in prison. And specifically, the Chin and Goddy and Junior Perseco. And you had Joey or sorry, you had Ralph who needed muscle on the street to do what he wanted to do, which was take over the family. I don't think he cared that it was kind of a name only. He wanted the title of Godfather. Sure. So they kind of hatched this plan behind bars. But like I said, I think it's been lost that that plan was already percolating before Joey ever got to prison. And Joey had to serve, I think, three years for a truck heist, a armored armored car heist where he stole like three hundred fifty thousand dollars from a bank, an armored bank car that he had to deal with the person that was driving the car to drop the money. So it wasn't like he came in with a gun, like they dropped it somewhere where they just get where the Joey and some other guys just came and picked it up. And then Joey stole the money. Didn't give any of his co-conspirators any of the cash. And then I think the guy that was the inside man with the armored car company gave them a snitch to him. Yeah. So now when I know these guys have the same first name. When Joey Chang, when Stampa makes this make you so to couple at that point. So he's all bought in. And at this point, he's like, I'm I'm I'm Stampa's guy. Then yeah, even though my brother and my guys, I grew up with whatever he's always making him underboss. So that's yeah, I don't think I don't think Joey Merlino or Mikey Chang had planned to make Joey Chang. Right. Maybe they make maybe they had planned to give him a couple spot. I don't know. But I don't think he was going to be in the administration. And what do you think? Obviously, it's a speculative, but you know this area. You talk to a lot of people. Do we do we know anything about his mindset at that point? Is Joey Chang confident that he can reign in his brother and the young guys? Or I wonder what his yeah, I don't know. I know that in terms of leadership, this was in the wake. What what snap Stampa to attention was the fact that the Merlino, Mikey Chang, Ralph Natale faction had killed Stampa's number two, Little Felix Pacino, who was another co-conspirator in the Bruno hit twelve years before that. And even though Little Felix wasn't officially Stampa's underboss, he was acting as it. And I think the belief was he was going to be named underboss, but he was acting as Stampa's liaison to the street, getting trying to get everybody in line under Stampa. And Pacino gets hit in early 92. And Merlino gets out of prison. And that's when Stampa figures I'd rather make peace with these guys than go to war with them. He actually, Stampa actually makes. Joey Merlino and Mikey Chang, but he had made Joey Chang before. OK, he made Joey Chang in like 90 or 91. So they had this preexisting relationship. So with so when Mikey Chang. Is opposing Stampa, Joey Chang's got a one up on his brother. I got my button. You don't. Yes. Right. That might have fed into some of that resentment. I'm yeah. Well, I think it did. Yeah. So Mikey and Joey Merlino. Agree and they get made and Joey Chang becomes underboss. And like everything was copacetic for like three months. I mean, it fell apart real fast. And it fell apart because if you believe Mikey Chang. It's the spring of 92 and or sorry, spring of 93. And or winter 93, actually. And or at some point, it's either some point in early 93 or late 92. Mikey Chang is coming back from a basketball game that he had played at a local park and he's going to his house where his his family is there as a young wife, his daughters and his young son. And he's coming back like in his basketball gear. And two guys pop out of a car with shotguns. He's Mikey Chang swore one of the guys with shotguns was Joey Chang. And they light him up or like the house up. They don't hit Joey Chang, but they pepper the house with shotgun bullets. He's him and his wife are diving to protect the kids. And it just erupts from that point forward where he thinks my brother tried to kill me and he tried to do it in front of my little kids and my wife and could have killed my little kids and my wife and his own nieces and nephew. So then a couple either again, I'm messing up the time on here. But within the next couple of weeks or months, you have the only mob hit ever caught on surveillance tape, which was Joy Merlino and Mikey Chang going to where Joey Chang worked at six o'clock in the morning because the FBI was surveillance, was had surveillance on the place, which was a diner in the industrial area of Philadelphia. And Joey Chang seems like, you know, he wasn't one of these guys that was out till five in the morning and sleep until three in the afternoon and then getting into he's he's going and opening this place up at five o'clock, six o'clock in the morning and working behind the counter at a diner. And they know that. And so the FBI has got a surveillance video up right outside of the diner and they caught this hit team rolling up, going in there and like unloading multiple clips into Joey Chang. And miraculously, Joey Chang survives, but he's paralyzed. I don't think he was paralyzed, but he's disabled and has never been the same since, you know, can't he's got to walk with a cane and. Just it ended his life in the mob. By the way, if I were a made guy, I would definitely be the guy who stays up till rest of the morning. Yeah, I wouldn't be the guy waking up. What's the point of being the underbought if you got to wake up at six o'clock to open up your restaurant? Right. So I mean, it's a very serious situation. So I. But what I think there was this. This false narrative that made it out. And it's hard to when you're reporting in real time. So I'm not blaming anybody for the false narrative. I mean, I can get why you would believe that Chucky Merlino and Chicky Changelini were coaching Joey and Mikey from the sidelines when in reality, I'm told that it was relayed in a very firm manner that Chicky was telling Mikey to calm the fuck down and telling Joey, you and Mikey go, the boss is the boss. John Stamford is your boss. And get in line and be La Cosa Nostra kind of like Anthony or like Neil Delacroche or the actor playing Neil Delacroche and Anthony Quinn playing him in the movie. Yeah, the right. And if if the boss says you've got to go, I'd come in here with these two zips and you would go. But so. So what access at like in between the the shooting of Mikey, tempted murder of him. What what kind of access do they have to their father in prison? And they're the sons. Now they have a visitation rights. I know they were visiting Ralph on a regular basis. Ralph at that point was in federal prison, but he was in either Pennsylvania or New Jersey. He was really close. Yeah, OK. And they would have frequent visits with Ralph. I think the I think the contact with Chicky was coming through intermediaries and phone calls because I just wonder what he's thinking. If he's getting reports that that things are getting really tense between his two sons, what he's what he's thinking. Well, there's there's actual recordings of Johnny in prison pleading with both of his brothers to cool off until I come home and I'll fix it. And he's telling Mikey, please, please, just wait, I'll be home in six months. I'll be home in eight months and just don't do anything crazy. Like go try to kill your brother at his diner. Now, do we know because the way they're viewing it is its retaliation? How confident are you in Mikey Chang's theory that his brother was indeed one of the shooters? I believe that's probably true. OK, so he's so so Joey's guilty here, too. Joe Chang of like and what's his motive to this is coming from Stanford? Or yeah, this is a personal. I think it's coming from Stanford and he was willing to take out his own brother. So so Stanford really sort of like is bad guy of Ellie and like he wants Merlino and then we're going to make you we're going to make your brother boss. And then it was all it was all a con. And then as soon as you got your guard down, I'm going to fucking whack you guys out. So in the the woman that was at the diner, that was the waitress who was opening, who would open every morning with Joey Chang was the wife of one of Stanford's soldiers, a gate in Luchabello, who because of that flipped sides. Oh, and now to this day, he's been one of, you know, doing Merlino's main guys. So so. I mean, I guess it definitely puts Mikey Chang in a difficult spot, even if his brother and his dad are telling him. Chill out if his own brother tried to kill him in front of his family. You can you can understand why and Mikey was, you know, everyone talks about Joey and and Joey is a phenomena and someone that is as iconic as iconic and people will be writing and talking about Joey Merlino for 100 years. Mikey Chang, if you would have had time to have his legacy play out. He was. You know, Joey's a pretty laid back dude. I mean, I don't think you want to get on his bad side, but Joey's pretty chill. His reputation was really fun. Yeah, Mikey was not from what I know, people was not chill. Like Mikey was more like Joe Pesci from from Goodfellas and could go from zero to go home and get your fucking sandbox. Yeah, right. He'd go from zero to one hundred in the blink of an eye and it didn't matter if you were his best friend or your worst or his worst enemy. Yeah. So so now then there's retaliation for. So both. So at this point, like both camps are, you know, bunker style. And the FBI is got the South Philly on lockdown. The news, I mean, Jimmy, you said you remember going out to Philly in this time period, ninety one, ninety two, ninety three. And the newspapers are reporting it on a daily basis. Yeah, the news, the television news is reporting on it. People aren't living in their houses. They're living in safe houses. And when anybody's traveling, they're traveling with weapons, which gives them, you know, make them an easy target to get to get pinched. Yeah. So the Merlino-Changolini crew takes over an old green piece storefront. That was like a nonprofit save the whales. This is going to say it's ironic back in the 80s. And they get a hold of the storefront and make it and they kind of they black out the the windows and they make it their base camp for the war. And people knew that's where they would maybe they weren't sleeping there, but people knew they were there during the day. These guys didn't have jobs. So August ninety three, which is about five months after Joey Chang is shot and maimed. Joey Merlino and Mikey Chang are smoking a cigarette and going to get, I believe, going to grab lunch outside of that clubhouse. I think it was on Catherine Street in South Philly. And two of Stanford's hit men are doing, you know, are circling the neighborhood, looking for people in the Merlino-Changolini camp to kill and they come across the two main targets and they they open fire in a drive by Joey Merlino gets hit in the butt. Mikey Chang only gets hit once, but it gets hit right through the heart. And he dies in Joey Merlino's arms. And like I said, this is this is very Shakespearean. And I'm I'm actually shocked that we're sitting here 30 years from removed from this and there really has not been any dramatic or scripted recreation of these events. There was a really bad B movie called The Tenth and Wolf with Giovanni Rabisi. Yeah, some parts of it are I find it. I actually like it in terms of it. So so bad. It's good. Yeah, some parts of it are interesting. But yeah, with Giovanni Rabisi playing loosely based on playing Joey Marcucci. Yeah. Yeah. Where they're and then where the idea is like the zip takes over and the young guys resented. When Dennis Hopper plays like the Nikki Scarfo character who gets killed by the Sicilian, which they're, you know, they're playing with the facts. Right. Right. And then Merlino takes over or Joey Marcucci takes over by killing or goes to work for the Sicilian and then kills the Sicilian. Right. Giovanni Rabisi. He's actually not bad. Yeah, it's it's it's cute. And then one of the reasons why it's known as a B movie is Tommy Lee from Molle Cris. Tommy Lee's in it. Yeah. He's one of the sold out. Piper Paribou from Coyote Ugly is the female. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they really fictionalize the storyline where James Marsden plays like an old childhood friend of this South Philly mob who had left town. They didn't know that he'd become like an FBI agent and he goes back to and for that never really happened. Right. For the sake of the movie, by the way, isn't that stealing? Like, yeah, stay or exactly. Premise for Stanley. So but anyhow, so they're so they so they get retaliation. And then what happens after? And then, well, then there's a shoot out on the expressway. In the week, I think a week later, Joey Merlino allegedly. Gets a van and retrofits it with like machine gun turrets and they they follow Stamford and his bodyguards to work and they come up and, you know, next to him on the expressway and rush our traffic one morning. August, this always happened in August of 93. And they filled the the car with bullets and somehow Stamford survived it. His son was shot. Within a couple of months, Stamford would be indicted, go to prison and Ralph Natali and Joey Merlino would take over and. Mikey Chang wasn't there to, you know, to. To reap the benefits or, you know, enjoy the fruits of his his labor and taking it and taking over a crime family when you're in your 30s. I mean, I think that's what is so remarkable with what happened there where Joey Merlino, who's still the boss today, if you believe the federal government, he's 60 years old right now. And he took over the crime family and was 30 and that just doesn't never happen, you know, any during maybe during prohibition. But basically from for that young. Yeah, even back then, Joe Bonanno was really the only young guy. I think he was 26 when he became boss, because Luciano was pretty young, but he wasn't that young. Yeah, when he took over Maserias. So Merlino is really the the puppeteer. Ralph Natali is a lightning rod that's put out in front as a front boss. He's around for about four years, and then he becomes the first sitting my boss to become a cooperator. And then it's just been the joy Merlino show. You know, the he wasn't co-starring. He was the main star from from the mid to late 90s till the day. And same guys that were part of this, they called him the Young Turk faction. All guys that were best friends with Mikey Chang, just like Joey, guys that, you know, came up on the sandbox, came up in the sandbox together, where I've said this a lot. And I echo what what Anastasia and Shrattweiser have always said that the elite, these guys have been able to thrive and succeed and sustain in an era where there are so many cooperators because the oath they made to the mafia is a lot less important than the oath they made to each other as best friends since they were five, six years old. Yeah, because the traditional protocol is if the boss says you kill your best friend, you do it. And so back to the like, I'm interested in this kind of social psychology here. It's a very tragic story. And then Johnny and then Johnny Chang comes out of prison. And that's what I want to get back. And he goes underneath, you know, Joey and becomes into this day. He's one of Joey Merlino's top lieutenants and and advisors. So that's the old school way, which is he doesn't hold a grudge against him for killing his brother or not killing him. But potentially getting his brother killed. Right. Right. But I don't know how much this has been reported. I think I've talked about it here and there. Chiki Chinggielini did not feel the same way from what I that's what I want. How is he processing? Do we have any evidence of how he or in? Yeah, I was he processing is, you know, he blamed what I heard was that he wasn't going to get adversarial with Joey. You got to remember Joey in some ways was like a nephew to Chiki. Joey, when when Chiki was rising to prominence, Joey was a teenager and a kid that was around all those guys doing errands. And his dad was best, you know, one of his Joey's dad was one of Chiki's best friends. So. I don't think Chiki wanted to get adversarial with him. But I've heard from a lot of people that Chiki blamed Joey for what happened to his his sons. And there wasn't a lot of love there. There was respect, because Joey was the boss. But you wouldn't have found a lot of scenarios in the last decade where Chiki and Joey were hanging out. OK. But Johnny was hanging out with Joey a lot. And Johnny was hanging out with his dad a lot. Yeah. But I don't think there was a ton of Joey going to Chiki for for help or advice. I think the advisory role that Chiki played was more for guys like Stevie Mazzone and Georgie Borgacy and Johnny Chang. Mikey Lance. Yeah. Where he would feel kind of advisor with Joe Ligambi, Joe Ligambi, who was more of a contemporary of his. So I'm really interested in this. And, you know, it's obviously it's a family issue and, you know, some ways I feel odd talking about it because they're their privacy. But they're they are public figures, even if it's mafia. And there's been books. I mean, there's been books written about this. It just it's so similar to what you see in my particular areas of research, which is this is way more common in Sicily. This kind of shit that you see in the Italian American Mafia, where literally within. Biological families, I'm not talking about crime families, where guys who are related to each other get split in different factions and in some cases kill each other. And what that does to the genealogical family and how awkward that becomes in terms of family get-togethers and holidays and things like that. Do we do we have any insight into like what like the civilians in that family, what that did? Yeah, I don't know. I've seen a number of photos over the last decade of Johnny Chang and Chicky. And I know that Johnny spent a lot of time at Stogie Joe's with Chicky. I know that. Part of this last 10 years for Chicky was him getting to know his grandsons that he never got to really meet or develop relationships with outside of prison visits or phone calls. I know that. At least one of those grandsons belongs to. Either Joey Chang or Johnny Chang or sorry. I'm sorry, I'm getting either Joey Chang or Mikey Chang. And I believe Mikey Chang's son little Mikey Chang has been serving as some form of driver for Chicky. But again, I want to be very clear that I don't think Chicky was very active. But I know that little Mikey Chang spent a lot of time with his grandpa at Stogie Joe's and could be seen kind of taking him. Part of that just might be. I mean, I did the same thing for my grandpa at the end. I had to make sure he gets out of the car and doesn't fall down. It doesn't mean it's an affair. Right. And so he would have been pretty young when his dad. Yes, he would have been a baby. That's sad. So. So there's there's a couple of ways it could happen, like in the Sicilian case studies where the vendetta just goes on. And then in some cases, there's family members who won't even speak to each other because of because of this. In other cases, they fall in line and are like, we can't change it. This is what happened. And we got to move forward and come back together. And it's it's close in Austria. That's how it works. And we're not going to let that interfere with our sort of genealogical family. And we're going to try to make this work the best we can. You know, the I didn't finish the what I was trying to say about the it's my fault I got off track. But I've seen pictures of Johnny Chang and Chicky, a number of pictures. Dare I say, maybe a dozen, a dozen photos over the last 10 years. I've never seen a picture of Chicky and Joey Chang. I haven't seen a picture of Johnny and Joey Chang. I don't really know where Joey Chang. And what kind of shape is he in? I don't know what kind of shape he's in. I don't know what his relationship is with Johnny because of Johnny's relation to Joey. Sure. The FBI believes that both Joey and Mikey. Were the shooters, right? Or possibly the shooters in the Joey Chang attack. So I know that there was a report or I shouldn't say report. I know that in a court file, I believe it was in a court file. That when Nikki Scarfield was hatching this very strange spot behind bars to somehow try to take things back in the 2000s. His delusions made him think that him and his son could rip a bank off and for like 50 million dollars, they could buy the Philadelphia mafia back that there had been some type of overture to Joey Chang. I'm not sure he was in a position. Right. Yeah. So I don't know what that even means or what that. But, you know, so Chicky's been out for 10 years. I think he was, I think you could say semi-active, but he definitely wasn't active, active. And I don't think he was in a in a full administrative post. But he was around. Sure. Yeah, you can just Google and there's you see pictures of him. There's one thought that I think the photo that comes up first is a photo with him, Johnny Chang and then Jerry Blavitt, the Geter with the heater, who was the famous radio disc guy who just died recently at a baseball game or something. Is that the one you're talking about? I thought I saw I thought it was at a bar. Oh, maybe. Well, yeah. But Jerry Blavitt owned Memories in Margate, which is a very famous club that everyone, all the mob guys would hang out at. And he was known as a in addition to being a big voice on oldies radio on in Philadelphia, New Jersey. He was someone that dating back to Bruno would always take audience with mob bosses. OK, so I know that's the photo. If you put in Chicky Chang and that's the photo that's the first thing that pops. So he didn't lay low when he got. No, he was and he was at Stoke, you know, I don't know. Some of the Philadelphia reports of his of his death were afraid to name the restaurant. They said that he would spend his days at a South Philly bar. I apologize if if the people at Stoke Joe's take issue with with me reporting that it was Stoke Joe's. I've never really understood it other than. I get it. You know, you don't want to be labeled a place with hoodlums hanging out. But to the on the other side of the pendulum. Just the kind of the smell test or the eye test. In any city. Most places that are known as mob hangouts, whether it's known publicly in the press or just known on the street, are popular, successful businesses. It doesn't affect their business. It turns there. Yeah, if anything, I think people were going to Stoke Joe's the last 10 years to get a look at Chicky if he was there every day. Yeah. What do you think, again, all speculative, but you know a lot about Philly? What do you think guys like Chicky, Changelini and Joey's father in the joint were thinking of like Ralph Natali? Oh, I think they I think they were thinking it was a total joke. That's what I'm worried, because they knew who he was. Yeah, they were the same generation, yeah, basically. But Natali wasn't he wasn't. Those guys were made. Those guys were capos and Natali was. I'm not trying to diminish what Ralph Natali was, because he was a hitter. I mean, he was a guy that did multiple hits, serious gangster, serious gangster. I don't think he's anybody that if circumstances and fate hadn't played a role, that he could have maneuvered his way into a boss's seat without having ever been made. And it wasn't like Angelo Bruno was telling people in the late. This is a guy that's going to be running the family in 10 years. That's that's that's my sense. Really, the stars had to align right. Right. And it just so happens that Joey and I think Ralph. I've talked to Ralph about it. Ralph claims that he manipulated the cellmate assignment. That he made it so Joey got put into his cell, which is possible. But Joey still had to get sent to that prison. Sure. At that time. Yeah, that's back to the stars have to all line up for him to pull this off. And I, you know, I think Joey is the ultimate mob chess player and he has a very non-traditional style, but it's it's worked out for him. But I think he he he was playing three steps ahead of the game the whole time when Ralph was playing it even. Yeah. And I think that the whole time. Joey wasn't stupid. Mikey Chang weren't stupid. I mean, they might have believed some of what Ralph was was selling, but they knew that they were using him and that he wasn't a guy that if things would have happened in a normal protocol way would ever be in a position where it could go to the top of a crime family. I think I think that has to and that's why. And I'm sorry about throwing out all the names. I always say this, but but that's why Long John, Marterano got killed because Long John and Marterano was that guy. Was that guy that Angelo Bruno was telling everybody in the late 70s? This is the future of the family. And then when Long John, Marterano, Marterano gets out of prison after 20 years. If there's a debate about whether or not the rumors were true, but the rumors were that he was angling to challenge Marlena and Legambi for power and he ended up getting knocked off and killed in an unsolved hit. So again, I think if Ralph and Tally really what was what Ralph and Tally was pretending to be, they would have just killed him. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Right. But they didn't need to because he wasn't he wasn't a serious threat. But I do think if Ralph would have not been picked up on that. Parole violation in 98. I don't know if he made it. I don't know if he makes it to 99 when the when the whole bus goes down or the whole bus went down, I think in 2000. I don't know if he makes it the year and a half. Yeah, his act was getting old. Yeah, I think they probably would have clipped him in that time period. Marlena on those guys position becomes more solidified. Yeah, they don't need they don't need Natal. And the thing with the girl, you know, Ruthie. Again, I don't want to go down this rabbit hole because we could do a whole episode on it. But Ralph got. Let a girlfriend of his who was a. A street corner pal of Joey and his crew 30 years younger than Ralph and she twisted him around her finger. And by the time Ralph got picked up. She was. Puppeteering the the boss of the Philadelphia mob and like publicly embarrassing him. There was a situation where she slapped him in public and that just I wouldn't have been shocked. If they killed both of them, if if if Ralph doesn't get picked up, they find a way and they kill Ralph and Ruthie. Yeah, yeah, that doesn't go over in that world symbolically. But R.I.P. Chicky, I don't want to I don't want to be. Insensitive to, you know, to victims, families. And and I always try to thread a needle between glorifying. Yeah, people have this impression that we're glorifying these people or or propping them up as heroes. And I I don't view it like that. I view it as history and, you know, history, historical analysis and and in our research and whatnot. I don't want. Because, you know, besides the four murders that they suspect in playing a role in. I would guess that he probably played a role in other murders. And so you have lots of families and victims and who knows what they're consuming about this guy's death. So I don't want to come off as insensitive about that. But, you know, in the world that we study and in the stuff that we report on, Chicky Changelini was a very, very big deal whose legacy will ring loud in South Philly from here to eternity. Yeah, it's it's I was just thinking about something you said. And it's when you do a show like this and you look at some of the comments, you get you get criticized from both ends. You know, in the same episode, you'll see a criticism that says, oh, we're glorifying these guys romanticizing them. And in the same episode, you'll see someone saying that we're dry snitching. And we shouldn't be talking about this. And we're too friendly with the cops and like you can't you can't win. And like I've said before, we're not Team Uncle Sam. We're not Team LCN. We're Team OG podcast. We're just trying to tell interesting stories and talk about compelling people. My my closing to we don't have a we don't have a side. My closing to sense and just playing the what if game is that again, if things go differently, I could see Chicky Changelini become embossed of his family after Scarfo goes by the wayside. And the Changelini mob dynasty could have played out a lot different if Chicky's on the street with the three sons. But he probably would have been a good boss. Yeah. And I think you I think you would have been a guy that would have been like a little a Jola Gambi who came in and after Marlena went to prison as an acting boss and as a conciliary as a conciliary and was, you know, to me, Jola. Jola Gambi is like the the underrated superstar of the American Mafia in the 21st century. It's a guy that you would have, at least I would have never predicted would be one of the top bosses of the new millennium. And and, you know, he gets an A plus report card for me and what he's done with that family. And really stabilized. And Chicky, I think, would have been very similar in terms of the respect that he was afforded outside of Philadelphia within Philadelphia. He was a guy that commanded a room. Wasn't. Loud and ostentatious, like like Scarfo or Merlino, someone that with, you know, like a Carlo Gambino, like with the knot of the head, the knot of his head, you know, people. You know, snap to attention. Yeah. Yeah, that's my understanding. Do you want to at least mention some of the other. Oh, yeah. So in this past week, three other mob buttons died. We're going to do a more exhaustive, comprehensive episode on Nicky Slim Calabrese, who died, I think the same day that Chicky died. Nicky Calabrese was a soldier in the Chicago mafia. The only member of the Chicago mafia to ever flip. He was the star witness in Family Secrets participated in the murders that were shown in the movie Casino. And I am lining up an interview with the FBI agents that flipped him that worked the outfit for 30 years and get him to come on and talk about. The mafia bust that rocked the windy city. Will they answer our questions about Jimmy? I think we'll see. So look for that in the next couple of weeks. And then in New Jersey, a long time, Capo Paul Farina, who went by the nickname Pauli figs because he used to plant fig trees, was died at 96 years old, got named Capo in 1965. Wow. Became a ruling board member in the late 90s, early 2000s, married his daughter off to the boss of New Jersey in the 2000s and 2010s, Frank Garaji. And he died a couple of weeks ago. Teamster, sorry, not not a teamster. He was a labor union official that was longshoremen or something. I think it was eight. I think it was H. HOD carrier. I don't know. I'm going to get roasted by HOD or H-U-D. H-O-D. I don't know. HOD carrier, A-C-D. I don't know. I'm sorry. Been a long day. But he was known as in New Jersey as a guy that would liaise on for decalvacante and decalvacante successor, John the Eagle, Rigi Rigi, with labor problems that were going on with other families. So there was a lot of surveillance reports from the 70s and 80s with guys coming in from Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee that were doing a labor business that Pauli Farina would meet with and help smooth smooth things out. He was the business agent for the local local there. So he passed away and then Johnny Glorioso, who went by the nickname Johnny Glory or Harry Johns, Kansas City Mafia OG drug lieutenant, very close to the two guys that are alleged to run the Kansas City Mafia now, Johnny Joe Shortino and Las Vegas Pete Simone. I think they were in a dinner group together. They would they would dine on a regular basis. Gloria Oso was a convicted marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine dealer, did five years in the feds in the 90s. And he passed away this week. OK, well, we appreciate everyone sticking around and listening to us and watching us. And again, please subscribe. And we look forward to bringing more content in the future. I'm Jimmy Buccellato for Scott Bernstein. We're out.