# Philadelphia Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/regions/philadelphia/ Philadelphia and South Jersey in federal records: the 1928 grand jury pages on Max Hoff, Al Capone's 1929 arrest and ten months in Philadelphia prisons, the Kefauver Committee's 1950 sessions, the Bruno-era RICO case, the Scarfo prosecutions of the 1980s, Atlantic City and Local 54, and the Merlino and Ligambi cases. This section holds records about organized crime in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey. Each statement below comes from the record linked beside it. The 1920s pages are newspaper reports of a prosecutor's claims; the later records are court opinions, Senate testimony, FBI files and Justice Department releases, and the text says which kind each statement is. ## The 1928 grand jury and Max Hoff In September 1928 wire reports covered District Attorney John Monaghan's grand jury inquiry into bootlegging and police graft. The United Press said 182 indictments had been returned and that a supplier was reported to have testified that he sold Max "Boo Boo" Hoff machine guns and bullet-proof vests ([September 7](/clippings/clip-washington-daily-news-1928-09-07-p3/); [September 10](/clippings/clip-washington-daily-news-1928-09-10-p4/)). Monaghan told the grand jury of $250,000 in Christmas presents to policemen attributed to Hoff ([September 13](/clippings/clip-washington-daily-news-1928-09-13-p3/)), and a syndicated feature relayed his claims about Hoff and visits by Al Capone ([Bismarck Tribune](/clippings/clip-bismarck-tribune-1928-09-15-p2/)). These are allegations. No charge or conviction of [Hoff](/people/max-hoff/) appears in the records filed here; he also appears as a boxing promoter suing Gene Tunney ([1927](/clippings/clip-washington-daily-news-1927-12-07-p22/); [1930](/clippings/clip-washington-daily-news-1930-11-12-p2/)). ## Capone in Philadelphia, 1929 to 1930 Al Capone and Frank Cline were arrested in Philadelphia on the night of May 16, 1929, indicted the next day, and sentenced on guilty pleas to one year for carrying concealed deadly weapons ([Evening Star, page 1](/clippings/clip-evening-star-1929-05-17-p1/); [page 4](/clippings/clip-evening-star-1929-05-17-p4/)). The Associated Press said they entered Moyamensing Prison and would be moved to Holmesburg ([Washington Daily News, May 18](/clippings/clip-washington-daily-news-1929-05-18-p9/)); a 1933 FBI memorandum names Holmesburg ([Capone Part 31](/items/fbi-vault-capone-p31-philadelphia-dates-memo-1933/)). An August 1929 dispatch places him in the Eastern Penitentiary as "Prisoner No. 5527" ([Washington Times](/clippings/clip-washington-times-1929-08-22-p11/)). He was released on March 17, 1930 ([Washington Times](/clippings/clip-washington-times-1930-03-17-p1/); [Washington Daily News](/clippings/clip-washington-daily-news-1930-03-18-p4/); [FBI Chicago letter](/items/fbi-vault-capone-p24-philadelphia-release-letter-1930/)). Two modern photographs of [Eastern State Penitentiary](/items/loc-2011632222-eastern-state-penitentiary-highsmith/) are filed as views of the building only. ## The Kefauver Committee, 1950 and 1951 The Senate committee's Philadelphia sessions sat in courtroom No. 1 of the United States Courthouse at Ninth and Market Streets on October 13 and 14, 1950, and the volume continues with sessions in February 1951 ([Part 11](/items/kefauver-part-11-pennsylvania-1950/)). Its witnesses included city police officials and Harry Stromberg. Further Pennsylvania witnesses were heard in Washington in 1951 ([Part 19](/items/kefauver-part-19-pennsylvania-1951/)). ## The Bruno years and 1980 to 1981 A RICO prosecution built on FBI wiretaps at three Philadelphia locations from 1972 to 1978 reached the Third Circuit in 1983, which wrote that [Angelo Bruno](/people/angelo-bruno/), a named co-conspirator, "headed the enterprise" and that [Philip Testa](/people/philip-testa/) was the underboss ([Riccobene](/items/courtlistener-us-v-riccobene-709-f2d-214/)). FBI Philadelphia teletypes of March 22, 1980 report Bruno's killing the night before ([Bruno Part 01](/items/fbi-vault-bruno-p01-philadelphia-teletypes-1980/)). In 1988 the FBI told the Senate that Testa was killed by a bomb on March 18, 1981 ([1988 testimony](/items/psi-1988-daniels-dennis-philadelphia/)). ## Scarfo, Atlantic City and Local 54 [Nicodemo Scarfo](/people/nicodemo-scarfo/)'s Atlantic City residence was searched in 1979, and he was convicted in 1981 of possessing a firearm as a felon ([685 F.2d 842](/items/courtlistener-us-v-scarfo-685-f2d-842/)). The FBI's Newark office ran a RICO case on him in 1981 and 1982 ([Part 01](/items/fbi-vault-scarfo-p01-newark-rico-file-1981/); [Part 02](/items/fbi-vault-scarfo-p02-newark-rico-file-1982/)). After the casinos opened, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission removed two officials of hotel workers' Local 54 in 1982 for their association with Scarfo, as the Third Circuit recounts ([Local 54 v. Read](/items/courtlistener-local-54-v-read-832-f2d-263/); see also [Danziger](/items/courtlistener-local-54-v-danziger-709-f2d-815/)). The President's Commission on Organized Crime subpoenaed him in 1985 ([783 F.2d 370](/items/courtlistener-in-re-pcoc-subpoena-scarfo-783-f2d-370/)) and reported on Local 54 in 1986 ([The Edge](/items/pcoc-1986-the-edge-local-54/)). ## The RICO prosecutions of 1987 to 1994 In 1987 Scarfo was convicted of extortion in a $1 million demand on the developer of the Penn's Landing project ([850 F.2d 1015](/items/courtlistener-us-v-scarfo-850-f2d-1015/)). In 1988 he and sixteen co-defendants were convicted of RICO offenses after a trial before an anonymous, sequestered jury ([711 F. Supp. 1315](/items/courtlistener-us-v-scarfo-711-f-supp-1315/)). The Third Circuit affirmed in 1990, with its account of the succession from Bruno to Testa to Scarfo and of the charged killings ([Pungitore](/items/courtlistener-us-v-pungitore-910-f2d-1084/)). Related appeals are [Eufrasio](/items/courtlistener-us-v-eufrasio-935-f2d-553/) and [DiSalvo](/items/courtlistener-us-v-disalvo-34-f3d-1204/). ## Later cases, 1999 to 2013 The 2001 trial on an indictment naming the Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra family as the enterprise ended with the murder racketeering acts found not proven and convictions on other counts ([349 F.3d 144](/items/courtlistener-us-v-merlino-349-f3d-144/); [310 F.3d 137](/items/courtlistener-us-v-merlino-310-f3d-137/)). A 2011 indictment of thirteen people was announced by the U.S. Attorney ([2011](/items/usao-edpa-ligambi-indictment-2011-05-23/); [2012](/items/usao-edpa-ligambi-second-superseding-2012-04-26/)); the 2013 trial produced some convictions, some acquittals and a mistrial on several counts ([verdict](/items/usao-edpa-ligambi-verdict-2013-01-03/)). Living defendants are named only as the court and the releases name them. ## People Person pages give a family or role only where a federal record on the page states one, and label its kind: [Angelo Bruno](/people/angelo-bruno/), [Philip Testa](/people/philip-testa/), [Nicodemo Scarfo](/people/nicodemo-scarfo/), [Salvatore Testa](/people/salvatore-testa/), [Antonio Caponigro](/people/antonio-caponigro/), [Max Hoff](/people/max-hoff/) and [John Monaghan](/people/john-monaghan/). Capone is described on [his own page](/people/al-capone/). ## Not filed yet Three Evening Star pages of October 1950 on the Kefauver sessions in Philadelphia are post-1930 issues and are not filed as clippings. No record of the 1928 grand jury itself, no Pennsylvania prison record for Capone, and no federal or no-known-restrictions photograph of Bruno, Testa, Scarfo or Hoff has been found. The National Park Service landmark form for Eastern State Penitentiary was opened, but its date is illegible and it is not filed. Not yet opened: Bruno Vault Parts 02 to 05, the Leonetti case (D.N.J. Cr. No. 84-253), the President's Commission volume *The Impact*, and Third Circuit opinions on the Merlino cases after 2003. A 1987 chart of the Philadelphia family printed in the 1988 Senate hearing is unreadable in the scan, and nothing is taken from it.