Also this issue: Seeking a Cure City Council members recommend prison health-care reforms days after the administration agrees to investigate alleged neglect. -Gwen Shaffer Rent! One woman's struggle to find a decent place to live. -Daniel Brook Variety Club -Mary F. Patel The Bell Curve City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life Smoke -- We Need the Money -Daryl Gale

June 13-19, 2002

city beat

Ralph and Ruthie: The Movie

GANGSTERâS PARADISE: Ralph Natale and girlfriend Ruthann Seccio dine in the sun.

Kinky sex, murder and mayhem -- the life of Ruthann Seccio -- may be coming to a movie screen near you.

by Brendan McGarvey

Just when you thought the Philadelphia Mafia story couldn’t get any more bizarre, word comes that Hollywood wants to make a movie about, well, about everything -- the 67-year-old former mob boss turned government witness; his substantially younger, bottle-blond mistress and their supposedly kinky sexcapades; and the dangerous power struggle between the boss and his right-hand man who wanted to oust the boss and take over “the family.”

Ruthann Seccio, the one-time girlfriend of former mob boss Ralph Natale, recently returned from a trip to Los Angeles, where she met with not one, not two, but three different Hollywood movie producers who are interested in making her life story into a feature film.

While on the Left Coast, Seccio and two gal pals from Philly were wined and dined in Beverly Hills and took a two-day side trip to posh Palm Springs because Natale had once promised to retire there with Seccio as his new wife.

"He said there were a lot of real old-time gangsters who retired to Palm Springs. They were his good friends," Seccio told City Paper in an interview earlier this week. "He said most of them had become legitimate types, running everything from movie studios to unions, but now they were soaking up the sun and leading the good life."

According to Seccio, Natale had it all figured out. He would make his millions running the local Mafia for a few years, then retire.

According to Seccio, Natale told her that his wife, Lucy, was ill and wouldn't live long, so he and Seccio would eventually marry and then divide their time between homes in Florida, Palm Springs and at the Jersey Shore.

Seccio said Natale told her he would also love to have children with her, one or two. She said he described yearly visits to Philadelphia, where they would saunter up Passyunk Avenue, pushing their baby in the stroller for all of South Philly to admire.

Alas, for Seccio, Natale had a change of heart after he was arrested in 1998 on parole violations and sent back to prison. Not long after his arrest, Natale switched sides and agreed to become a government witness against his longtime lieutenant, Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino. Seccio claimed that Natale had no choice because as soon as Natale was jailed, Merlino began stealing Natale's money, ruining his legitimate businesses and running the mob without consulting him.

"I don't think Natale thought he had to be loyal to Merlino anymore because Merlino was being disloyal to him. And Merlino was not acting like Cosa Nostra, so Natale didn't have to, either," Seccio explained. "Natale couldn't figure any other way to get back at Joey Merlino, so he got him the only way he could -- by turning government witness. I don't like rats. Ralph hated rats. But Ralph had no choice."

The much-rumored kinky sex scenes with her mob boss boyfriend -- which Seccio would not talk about specifically -- might earn the film at least an R rating, but Seccio confirms that the Ralph and Ruthie movie would be more than just a mob love story. "Ralph was a great lover. But he was also an old-fashioned gangster. He was a killer, and he could kill somebody and no one else would ever know it. But I never saw that side of him. He was always a gentleman with me."

The twisted tale of mob love and mobster violence should be coming to a multiplex near you soon, if Seccio signs on with one of the Hollywood producers.

"I'd like to make a cameo appearance in my movie," said Seccio. "And I'd like Sharon Stone to play me. I want either Sean Connery or Kevin Spacey to play Ralph Natale. Ralph loved both actors and thought they were phenomenal in different movies."

And speaking of movies, alleged mob associate William "Billy" Rinick, the one-legged man found hiding under Deborah Merlino's bed earlier this year, is in jail on a murder charge.

Rinick, who denied reports of an alleged affair with jailed mob boss Joey Merlino's wife, is infamous for videotaping his sexual encounters with women. "I didn't kill anyone," Rinick told reporters. "I have nothing to do with drugs. I just love to fuck, and I love to videotape it. That's all I'm about."

Rinick's attorney, Edwin "Eddie" Jacobs, told City Paper that he would answer any charges against Rinick in court. (Jacobs also represents Merlino.)

Police sources tell City Paper that an alleged associate of Rinick is cooperating with the government and was present on the morning of Oct. 31, 2001, when Adam Finelli was shot to death. The witness reportedly told cops that Rinick was in the back seat of Finelli's Cadillac Escalade and that he pumped several shots into Finelli before fleeing the scene at 18th and Jackson streets in South Philadelphia.

In conversations Rinick had with reporters before he was jailed last month, he repeatedly denied having anything to do with Finelli's death.

In this week's final movie connection, John Gotti, former boss of the Gambino crime family, died of throat cancer in federal prison at the age of 61. Last week authorities in New York arrested several members of the Gambino crime family, including Peter Gotti, who, feds claim, was running the mob for his dying brother.

One of the racketeering charges in the New York indictment alleges that the Gambino mob extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from action-movie star and martial arts tough guy Steven Seagal, the 51-year-old actor of such films as Under Siege and Exit Wounds.