Ready to Talk

Sal the hitman says he is willing to tell the court about his alleged drug experiences with mob turncoat Ron Previte.

by Jim Barry



Head games: From left, Ralph Natale, Ron Previte, Bruce Cutler and Jack McMahon. photo: Susan Schary

Sal called again this week. The former hitman-turned-government informant was on the line from the witness protection unit of a federal prison. He wanted to know how the federal racketeering trial of Joey Merlino and six other defendants was going.

(Sal is not his real name. He is in the federal witness protection program and would be kicked out and forced to serve his entire sentence for chatting with the media, so City Paper calls him Sal.)

Like the wily underworld operative he used to be, Sal gossiped about everything else except the reason he called. He got to that in his own good time.

"It’s raining down here right now," said Sal. "We need it bad."

From Sal’s tiny pinprick of window in his cell he can peer out across a concert yard to the barbed wire fence and into a patch of green woods on the other side of the wire. Sal said that it’s always hot and humid and lately there’s been a long dry spell. "I’m glad for the rain. It’s a break."

When Sal isn’t talking about the weather or his imprisonment, he is reflecting on the bloody and whacked out underworld he left behind.

Before he switched sides to work for Team America, Sal was a hitman for mob boss John Stanfa, the cranky pants Sicilian who ran the Philly Cosa Nostra in the early ‘90s. One of Sal’s assignments from Stanfa was to assassinate Joey Merlino and any of his associates. Sal almost nailed Merlino a couple of times.

Though Sal testified against John Stanfa, today he speaks of his old boss with affection. "If Stanfa had been allowed to stay in power a couple more years," Sal said, "he would have built this thing [the Philadelphia Mafia] into something so strong the government would never have gotten a shot at taking it apart. He was on his way, too, and if Merlino and them hadn’t started a civil war the family would be one of the strongest in the country."

For the last year, Sal thought the feds were going to ask him to testify against Joey Merlino and six others. For Sal that would have meant some significant jail time shaved off his sentence. Sal is furious that he’s serving more time in prison than almost any of the other Stanfa turncoats.

"How did Previte do?" Sal asked about mobster-turned-government witness Ron Previte. "Did the jury believe him? Did the defense tear into him?" Previte has been testifying for almost two weeks in the Merlino trial.

Sal and Ron Previte go back a long way. Because Sal was a loyal Stanfa hitman and was being groomed by the Cosa Nostra boss for mob membership, Stanfa ordered the two newest crime family recruits from South Jersey — one an ex-cop-turned-crook, Ron Previte, the other Previte’s henchman, Mike Palma —to report to Sal.

Sal claims he told Stanfa he wanted nothing to do with Previte after he discovered that Previte was using and dealing cocaine. Previte’s attorney and the New Jersey State Police — Previte was their informant at the time — have denied these allegations. But Sal wanted to add some details about Previte in this telephone conversation.

"I was at Previte’s house in Hammonton [NJ], Ronnie [Previte] comes out of his bedroom wrapped in a towel. That’s a sight you can’t forget, I tell you," Sal said, referring to Previte’s 280-pound frame. "I go to sit down at the table and there on the chair is this big, triple beam scale. The kind that drug dealers use. Previte sits at the table and snorts a line of coke. Then this good looking woman comes out of his bedroom, says ‘bye’ to Previte and leaves. Ronnie brags to me that he just screwed this broad and that she is one of his biggest customers for coke."

When Sal reported this to Stanfa, he was rebuffed.

"Stanfa didn’t want to hear that ‘cause Previte was making him so much money," Sal claims. Sal said he told Stanfa he wanted nothing to do with Previte or his boy, Mike Palma. Eventually, Stanfa promoted Previte over Sal because Previte was making so much money for the mob. It still infuriates Sal that Previte was initiated into the crime family while Sal remained a lower level associate.

"Stanfa didn’t care about Previte," Sal said. But Sal claims one of Stanfa’s captains told Sal to be careful around Previte because Previte was dealing drugs.

City Paper asked Sal what he would do if the defense attorneys in the Merlino trial called him to testify about Previte’s drug dealing. "My agreement with the government is to tell the truth about everything I know," Sal responded. "I will tell the truth, no matter who is asking the questions."

When Sal was asked if he wanted to testify against Previte, he responded by saying "I’m not minding anybody else’s business but if I’m called to testify I’ll tell everybody what I saw at Ron’s house, everything I know about him, and let the chips fall where they fall."

Near the end of the conversation, Sal started to talk about Previte’s old associate, Mike Palma. Palma had agreed to testify against Stanfa and was in the witness protection program when he was killed in a freak accident. Palma was deer hunting with an Air Force sergeant in Dodge County, Nebraska, and both were killed when a train hit their car.

Sal said, " I always thought that train accident story about Palma was bullshit. I think he was killed because he…" The line went dead before Sal could finish the sentence. His prison phone calls are automatically terminated after five minutes. Sal’s time was up.