Mafia Capo "Chickie" Returns to Philly
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| "Chickie" Ciancaglini |
He's not exactly free yet, but the 80-year-old has to wait about six months.
As TheGangsterReport.com noted in a recent story, Chickie was "recently placed in a Philly halfway house to serve out the rest of his murder and federal racketeering conviction (he was given a 45-year sentence in 1988)... Ciancaglini will be set free for good in early 2015."
We confirmed this on the BOP site, which reports
JOSEPH CIANCAGLINI
Register Number: 31458-066
Age: 80
Located at: Philadelphia RRM
Release Date: 05/04/2015
Gangster Report further adds:
Back in October of 1980, he rose to captain status by killing his own mob mentor, Frank (The Barracuda) Sindone, who six months earlier had taken part in the unsanctioned assassination of longtime syndicate boss Angelo (The Docile Don) Bruno. According to court documents and FBI records, Ciancaglini and his close pal, Salvatore (Chuckie) Merlino, lured Sindone out of hiding in California and back to Pennsylvania so they could kill him.
“Chuckie and Chickie made Sindone get down on his knees and beg for his life before they shot him,” one informant recounted to his FBI handlers.
Chuckie Merlino would rise to be underboss in the Philadelphia mafia in the 1980s. He died in prison two years ago.
A bear of a man, Ciancaglini, big, dark-skinned and imposing, cut his teeth in the East Coast underworld as a leg-breaker in the Teamsters Union before going to work for Sindone and earning a reputation as a trusted and capable collector and loanshark.
In addition to the Sindone hit, his name was tied to a number of gangland homicides in the bloody, but short-lived Phil (The Chicken Man) Testa regime and the early-portion of the reckless violence-infused Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo regime.