Nick The Broker

 Nick the Broker 

By Paul Davis 

Over a second cup of coffee in the kitchen of his grandmother’s South Philadelphia rowhouse, former Cosa Nostra capo and government cooperating witness Salvatore “Salvie Shotgun” Stillitano launched into telling me stories about his life and his late father's life. 

As a writer, I found his stories to be interesting, and my tape recorder was running to capture them. He spoke in a fast clip with a dramatic flair as he told me about his great-grandfather and namesake, Salvatore Stillitano, his grandfather Lorenzo and his father Nunzio.  

While living and traveling with his late father as a teenager, Nick Stillitano regaled his son with stories of their Cosa Nostra tradition of crime.      

According to his father, the elder Salvatore was a “Man of Honor” and boss in the Fortuna clan in the Province of Palermo in Sicily. Life was good for Stillitano and the clan, but the old mafioso was wise enough to know that America was the future for Cosa Nostra, so he sent his second oldest son Lorenzo to South Philadelphia where he had cousins. His oldest son remained with him in Sicily. 

Lorenzo Stillitano grew up in South Philly and had charm and movie star good looks. He was outgoing, engaging and a good earner for the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family.

Lorenzo was a bootlegger and gambler, and with approval from the boss, Angelo Bruno, he used his Sicilian family contacts to foster overseas business. Bruno loaned Lorenzo Stillitano and his overseas connections to the Bonfiglio crime family, cementing Bruno’s relationship with Lupo Bonfiglio.  

Lorenzo’s son Nunzio, known as Nick, was born and raised in South Philadelphia. He followed Lorenzo and became a soldier in The Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family. He dressed conservatively and he was a handsome man in a quiet way with dark wavey hair. He became a gambler, a local fixer and a good earner. Nick Stillitano was good with his fists and a knife, but he was also business-like, level-headed, reserved, organized, and very smart.

Nick Stillitano was a natural leader among his young, hot-tempered and violent cohorts. Angelo Bruno, the then-boss of the Philadelphia and South Jersey crime family, respected Lorenzo and saw Nick’s qualities.  

In those early days Nick Stillitano shined as an organizer and negotiator, but he also still had a reputation of being a ruthless enforcer when he absolutely needed to be one, often using a knife, hence the early nickname “Nick Stiletto.” He later became a boxing manager and promoter and was involved in illegal gambling and numerous money-making schemes. He also used some of his former boxers to do his rough work, such as Anthony “Tony Ball-Peen” Gina.

Gina was Stillitano’s longtime number two. One might not expect that a thin, 5’5 man would be the crew’s chief enforcer, but Gina was a lean and muscular former welterweight boxer who loved to knock out bigger men.

He was called “Tony Ball-Peen” in his boxing days because he was said to hit like a ball-peen hammer, but Gina also used the real thing on a good number of people outside of the ring. 

In the late 1960s Nick Stillitano and Tony Gina went to a South Philly bar to have a couple of drinks. Stillitano frowned when he saw Rocco Stucci, a fighter he once managed and then handed him over to another manager when Angelo Bruno ordered him to do so.

Stucci, an up-and-coming heavyweight, disliked Stillitano. Stucci drank and when he was drunk, he was mean and dirty. From the bar, Stucci began to insult Stillitano, calling him a crook and a faggot. Gina walked over and tried to calm down the drunken boxer, telling him that Stillitano was a made man, but Stucci brushed off Gina, calling him a “washed-up welterweight.”

Nick Stillitano did not respond to Stucci’s insults and got up calmly to leave the bar. Stucci rushed up to Stillitano and hit him in the face with a swift and hard left jab that sent Stillitano crashing into the table and chairs. Gina pulled out a short, leather-bound metal sap and began to slap the bigger boxer across the back of his head as Stucci tried to pull up Stillitano from the floor.

When Stucci got Stillitano to his feet, he felt a pain in his stomach, as Stillitano had pulled out his stiletto knife and plunged the sharp blade into Stucci’s middle. The boxer became enraged, and he tossed Stillitano across the room, all the while receiving numerous blows on his head from Gina’s sap.

Stucci shoved off the men who tried to restrain him and he threw a wild swing at Gina, who slipped the punch and stepped back. Finally, Stucci collapsed to the floor. The owner of the bar rushed Stillitano and Gina into the bar’s kitchen and out the back door before the police and an ambulance arrived.   

 

Angelo Bruno was not happy. Although he respected Nick Stillitano and he admired his late father Lorenzo, Stucci was a mob fighter, and he had made the wiseguys in Philadelphia and New York a lot of money. He called in Stillitano and Gina for a "sitdown" meeting.  

Stillitano and Gina reported to a small bar after it was closed. Bruno sat alone at a table. Bruno motioned for Stillitano and Gina to sit across from him. He said he had heard about the bar altercation from others who were there that night.

“This is not like you, Nick,” Bruno said, shaking his head sadly.

Stillitano apologized and said he was afraid the drunken boxer was going to beat him to death. 

Bruno said that they had Stucci in a private room at a hospital in New Jersey and they put out the story that that the fighter had been hit by a car. The fight he was scheduled for that month had to be postponed.

As for Nick, Bruno said he had to get out of South Philly as reporters and the local cops were asking questions.

Bruno said he arranged for Stillitano to be taken in by Bruno’s capo of the crew in Wildwood, New Jersey. He informed Stillitano that while he operated from the New Jersey shore resort town, he would still report directly to Bruno. And he would continue to promote fights for Bruno and Luigi “Lupo” Bonfiglio, the boss of the Bonfiglio Cosa Nostra organized crime family in New York, and Bruno’s friend on the commission.

The two mob bosses wanted Stillitano to continue to promote boxing matches and arrange crooked fights up and down the east coast, as well as out west. Stillitano was told to give the Wildwood capo a small taste of the profits.    

“Take Tony with you to Wildwood,” Bruno said.

Stillitano and Gina, pleased not to have been “whacked,” thanked the boss.

As Stillitano and Gina were leaving the bar, Bruno told the two men that the Wildwood crew had a problem, and he wanted them to handle it.  

“Washed up welterweight, am I?” Gina said to Stillitano as they stepped into the street. “I knocked out that big heavyweight bum, didn’t I?” 

Stucci later died from his bar fight injuries.      

 

Late that week, Stillitano and Gina drove to Wildwood and met with the capo, “Johnny Rose,” Rosetti, who was known locally as “Johnny Gavone” as he was a huge fat man, and he ate and dressed like a slob.

Rosetti welcomed Stillitano, as he knew his father and he heard that he was a big earner. But some in his Wildwood crew were resentful. Mob associates in the crew like Thomas “Tommy Tomatoes” Biondo disliked the two South Philly mobsters. Called “Tomatoes” due to his father owning a large tomato farm, he complained about the newcomers to his fellow mob associates.

The problem Bruno spoke of was the first order of business.

Rosetti instructed Stillitano and Gina to take care of Roman Santini, a former associate of Rosetti’s who was on a robbery spree and was knocking over dice and card games run by the Rosetti crew as well as games run by New York mobsters.

Santini, a slim, rat-faced 30-year-old, was a violent killer and a fearless and crazy gunman who killed a New York made guy in one of his robberies. The New Yorkers told Rosetti to take care of “business,” or they would come in and kill Santini themselves.

This was a great loss of face for Rosetti, whose men could not, or would not, take out the killer.

Stillitano and Gina quickly met with a former pal of Romeo Santini and asked the hood to pass on an offer. Stillitano told the friend to tell Santini that he would give the killer an all-expenses paid vacation to Sicily. Stillitano would then set Santini up in Sicily and he would become a Sicilian boss.

Santini’s greed and ego made him accept the offer. Stillitano and Gina flew to Las Vegas, where Santini was living it up with a beautiful blonde and gambling away the money he robbed.

Stillitano and Gina met Santini in a hotel room on the Strip. Santini said he liked the deal and would move to Sicily. Gina got up and said he had to go to the bathroom to take a piss. As Santini was refilling their glasses, Gina came up behind Santini and threw piano wire around the killer's neck. As Santini was being strangled brutally, Stillitano stepped in and stabbed Santini in the heart.

Stillitano then called the telephone number he had been given and asked that someone come get the body and dispose of it.

The murder gained Stillitano and Gina a lot of respect in Philadelphia and New York.

But the local Wildwood crew, who loved Santini, were angry with the two South Philly mobsters.

Stillitano later returned to South Philly and told Bruno that the Santini pal told him that Santini was doing the bidding of Carmine “Big Carmine” Polina, the boss of the New York Gambone Cosa Nostra crime family, and a crime commission member. Known derisively as “The Face” for his large head, nose and ears, the greedy and violent New York boss coveted Bruno’s gambling operations in New Jersey. He was using Santini to cause dissention in the crime families. 

 Bruno told Stillitano to keep the news under his hat.

 

New Jersey is the only state in America that has several different Cosa Nostra families operating there. There were the five New York families, the DeCavalcante New Jersey crime family, and the Philadelphia crime family.  

Due to his diplomatic and business qualities, Bruno made Stillitano the capo of the Wildwood crew when Rosetti died of natural causes. Prior to Stillitano taking over, the crew members under Rosetti had numerous territorial disputes with the New York crime families. Bruno ordered Stillitano to resolve the disputes. 

Stillitano met with the New York and DeCavalcante capos and worked out deals that satisfied everyone, even Carmine Polino, although “The Face” secretly planned to outsmart Stillitano and take over Bruno’s New Jersey operations.

Due to Stillitano’s skills, Bruno, who was a member of the national crime commission, often used Stillitano as a Commission representative with foreign crime organizations, government officials and businessmen. In addition to his boxing matches, “Nick the Broker” Stillitano also organized gambling junkets overseas and looked after Bruno’s overseas interests, as well as those of Lupo Bonfiglio and the other New York members of the national commission.

Stillitano was Bruno's representative of the Philadelphia and New York families’ interests in Las Vegas, the Caribbean, London, Italy, and other places around the world. Those interests included illegal gambling, extortion and murder.

All was well for Nick Stillitano until Angelo Bruno ordered him to travel to Palmero, Sicily and broker a deal between waring Sicilian Cosa Nostra clans over drug trafficking.

Note: You can read the first three chapters via the links below:        

'The Rigano Murders'

 The Rigano Murders 

By Paul Davis

Rigano’s was crowded on that Friday evening in January of 1980.

People were lined up three deep at the nightclub’s long bar as they waited to buy drinks from the busy bartenders. Many others danced wildly and happily to club music on the large, square dance floor under a glitter ball that flashed roving light beams down upon them.

The well-dressed crowd was mixed, but many of the patrons were young people in their 20s from nearby South Philadelphia. They crossed the Walt Whitman bridge from South Philadelphia and drove to the upscale neighborhood in Cherry Hill, New Jersey to visit the trendy nightclub. Among the South Philadelphia patrons were a dozen or so of the younger members of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family.    

The young criminals from South Philadelphia were more than welcome at Rigano’s, as they were flashy big spenders and the two owners were themselves members of Cosa Nostra, although they were connected to the New York Bonfiglio crime family by way of Sicily.

The two owners and operators of the nightclub were Ciro and Angelo Rigano. The two brothers hailed from Palermo, Sicily. The 26 and 25-year-old stocky brothers with curly black hair looked like twins. They left Sicily to make their reputation and fortune in America. Their entry into America was sponsored by their father’s cousin, Luigi “Lupo” Bonfiglio, the boss of the New York Bonfiglio Cosa Nostra organized crime family.

The Rigano brothers’ popular and successful nightclub was not their primary source of income. The two brothers made the bulk of their money selling heroin, using the nightclub as their base. Their dealers spread across the region.

To operate in the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family’s territory, Bonfiglio had to approach Angelo Bruno, his longtime friend and fellow Cosa Nostra National Crime Commission member, and ask him for permission for his second cousins to set up a nightclub and heroin operation in the Philly mob’s territory. Of course, Bonfiglio offered Bruno a percentage of the drug sales. Bruno agreed.

Bruno and Bonfiglio were partners in several criminal ventures, from organizing overseas high-end gambling junkets to promoting and “fixing” national boxing matches. Bruno and Bonfiglio also voted together whenever an issue came to a head at the National Cosa Nostra Crime Commission.   

Known as a businessman and racketeer rather than a violent gangster, Bruno was a friend to politicians, cops, entertainers and his South Philadelphia neighbors. He made most of his money from illegal gambling, loansharking and controlling unions. Although in his more than two decades as the Philly boss, he had men killed and many more beaten over serious issues, he much preferred to negotiate and exert influence over others rather than commit violence.

In one situation in 1969, a heroin addict named Michael “Blackie” Russo was holding up mob-run card games. Russo was called Blackie due to his raven-black long hair and scraggily black beard, and he was recognized easily by the poker players when he waved a long-barreled revolver at them and demanded they place the money on the table, and their wallets, watches and rings into a pillow sack.

When the series of robberies were reported to Bruno, his underlings asked the mob boss for the authority to murder the drug addict. Bruno gave Russo a pass, as the addict was a nephew to a made member.

“Lean on him,” Bruno ordered. “Tell him to go rob liquor stores.”

But despite a “good talking to” by his uncle, Russo went on to hold up another game. Bruno’s underlings, including Russo’s uncle, called for Russo to be “whacked,” but Bruno ordered that Russo be given “a good beating.”

When Russo recovered from the beating, he needed money for his drugs, so he went out and robbed another card game. Only then did Bruno reluctantly order that Russo be murdered.          

Bruno was born Angelo Annaloro in Sicily in 1910. His conciliatory reputation began in 1959 when the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Joseph Ida fled the United States to avoid narcotic charges. Antonio “Mr. Miggs” Pollina succeeded Ida as the crime family boss.

Concerned about Bruno as a rival, Pollino ordered an underling to murder him. Instead, the underling informed Bruno of the murder plot. Bruno went to the Commission in New York to redress his grievance. The Commission sided with Bruno and authorized him to murder Pollino and become head of the Philadelphia crime family.

Instead, Bruno spared Pollino’s life and told him to retire from Cosa Nostra and move away from Philadelphia. Bruno then became the Philadelphia boss.

With his easy-going public demeaner, pencil moustache, white hair, jeff cap and big glasses, Bruno appeared to be everyone’s kindly grandfather. But in private, he ruled his crime family with an iron hand. But as the 1980s began, many in his crime family came to resent him for his greed and his old school Cosa Nostra ways. 

Allowing the Rigano brothers to sell heroin in Cherry Hill, New Jersey infuriated Bruno’s captains, soldiers and associates, as he forbade them to sell narcotics. It was bad enough that despite Bruno’s edict on narcotics, he turned a blind eye as the biggest methamphetamine dealer in Philadelphia operated openly in Bruno’s South Philly neighborhood as well as across the city.

The mobsters also knew that Bruno received a weekly fat envelope full of cash from the “meth” dealer. Now, Bruno was receiving another fat envelope from the Sicilian heroin dealers. And he was not sharing any of that tribute drug money with anyone under him.

The Philadelphia Cosa Nostra troops under Bruno were not happy.

Ricardo “Ricky” Amato, a tall, thin man in his 50s with a pinched face, was an unhappy caporegime in the Philadelphia crime family. He was unhappy that Angelo Bruno restricted his ability to earn a living by not allowing him to venture into narcotic trafficking. He was especially unhappy that Bruno did not share his drug money from those who were exceptions to his rule.

Not that he needed the money. Amato was caught on an FBI wiretap telling his fellow caporegimes that he had more money than he could possibly spend in his lifetime. Amato made a fortune overseeing illegal gambling, loansharking and theft from legitimate businesses in South Philadelphia. But he hated the boss for not sharing his drug tributes with his captains.

“It’s the principal, not the money,” Amato told his fellow mobsters. But of course, he wanted the money as well.

Although Amato’s parents came over from Sicily, he hated Sicilians. He said they were greedy and notorious cheap skates. He called them “Zips” and “greaseballs,” and he hated that Bruno dealt with them.

Amato was also unhappy at the way Bruno had made Atlantic City an “open city” like Las Vegas when New Jersey legalized casino gambling in the seaside resort town in 1978. Bruno retained a hold on several unions in Atlantic City, so the Philadelphia crime family made a fortune as the casinos began to operate. But his decision to call Atlantic City an open city allowed other Cosa Nostra crime families to operate in a city that was firmly in the Philadelphia crime family’s territory.

“He’s allowing these New York wiseguys and other crooks to pick our pockets in Atlantic city,” Amato told the gathering of Philadelphia caporegimes in his South Philly home in the Packer Park area. “And we can’t sell narcotics, but he allows these fuckin’ Sicilian “Zips” to set up shop in our backyard.

“It’s a fuckin’ insult.”     

The other angry captains nodded in agreement. Richard Amato, the capo’s son, overheard the conversation as he emptied ashtrays and refilled the captains’ glasses with Sambuco, Scotch and wine. Some thought it ridiculous, but the son was called “Little Ricky,” even though the 25-year-old was hefty and even taller than his father.

Little Ricky was ambitious, and he waited desperately to become “made,” and he dreamed of being inducted formally into the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family. He saw himself as a future boss of the crime family.

After the other captains left Amato’s house, the father sat his son down and explained what must be done, and how Little Ricky must do it.         

On that busy Friday night at Rigano’s, Little Ricky Amato was one of the many customers at the bar. He was accompanied by Joseph “Fireplug” Caruso, a short and stocky young man who was Amato’s best friend. Amato swallowed his Scotch in a gulp and Caruso lifted his bottle of beer and gulped down half of it. Amato slammed his glass on the bar, looked at Caruso and began to walk towards the men’s room. Caruso smacked his bottle down on the bar and the shorter man followed Amato.

Amato and Caruso lingered at the sinks, washing their hands until they were the only ones in the men’s room. Amato then pulled a ski mask out from his sport jacket and placed the mask over his head. As Caruso was also placing his ski mask on his head, Amato pulled out his 9mm Colt and theatrically jacked a round in the chamber, like they do in the movies. Caruso pulled out his 38. Smith & Weston.

“Let’s do this, Joe,” Amato said.

The two young mobsters rushed out of the men’s room and moved swiftly through the crowd towards a back table where the Rigano brothers were holding court with two young girls and a criminal associate named Billy Yates.

The Rigano brothers were so engrossed with drinking and laughing with the girls and Yates that they failed to see the two-masked gunmen moving towards their table.      

Amato and Caruso began shooting as they neared the table and Ciro Rigano and Yates died instantly from the hail of bullets. The girls screamed and ducked under the table as Angelo Rigano was up and attempting to run from the table. Amato ran up quickly behind the fleeing Sicilian and shot him in the upper back and the back of his head. Rigano fell and slid across the dance floor.

Most of the crowd at the nightclub were running and screaming from the numerous shots while many others had dropped to the floor. No one attempted to stop the two masked gunmen from running out of the nightclub. The two fleeing gunmen fired at a man in the parking lot as they jumped into their car. Amato rolled down his window and fired off two shots in the air to scare off anyone looking to stop them from driving away. 

      

The sensational murders at Rigano’s made headlines in all of the Philadelphia area newspapers and was the lead story on the TV news broadcasts. The Rigano murders also led to the murder of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family boss on March 21, 1980.  

After having dinner at a South Philly restaurant, Angelo Bruno was driven home by Sicilian John Stanfa. As Bruno sat in the passenger seat of the car in front of his South Philadelphia row home, someone came up to his window with a shotgun and blasted the 69-year-old mob boss. He died instantly. 

A macabre photo of the late mobster, his head back and his mouth agape, ran on the front page of the Philadelphia newspapers and other newspapers across the country.  

The brutal murder of Angelo Bruno led to further murders and an internecine mob war that stretched from South Philly to Sicily.  

© 2025 Paul Davis  

A Look Back At The Life And Crimes Of Ralph Natale: My Philadelphia Weekly Crime Beat Column On The Late Philadelphia Cosa Nostra Crime Boss

Philadelphia Weekly published my Crime Beat column on the life and crimes of former Philly mob boss Ralph Natale.

You can read the column via below:

You can read my Q&A with Ralph Natale via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Beat Column: My Q&A With Ralph Natale, The Former Boss Of The Philadelphia Cosa Nostra Organized Crime Family