Angelo Must Go?

by Brendan McGarvey and Gabriele J. Valentine

Sometimes what you know can get you killed. And it's possible that somebody in the Philly Mafia thinks Angelo Lutz knows too much.

The almost-500-pound mob associate known as "Fat Angelo," who just finished nearly seven years in jail on a federal racketeering charge, was supposed to be released to a halfway house. But Lutz's diabetes is so bad that the feds recently decided to let him serve out the remainder of his sentence under house arrest at his mom's place in South Philly.

During his trial in the summer of 2001, Lutz weighed in at 450 pounds, but he packed on more in prison.

"He's really sick right now," a law enforcement source tells Underworld.

Being housebound, however, may turn out to be good for the health of the well-known chef and Mummer, because Lutz could be in danger. Though Lutz served his time in jail and never talked to the feds, some insiders believe he may be marked for assassination by old Cosa Nostra buddies who are worried about what secrets he might spill.

Before going to prison, "Fat Ange" gained notoriety in the press for his class-clown antics, like calling local sports talk radio during his trial and spray-painting himself gold to march up Broad Street with a string band as a "Golden Buddha" in one New Year's Mummers parade.

He was raised in South Philly and went to school with Joey Merlino and Stevie Mazzone long before they became the reputed boss and underboss of the local Mafia. As a teenager, Lutz played baseball with Georgie Borgesi, who years later became the consigliere of the Merlino crew.

In the late 1990s, Lutz and Borgesi opened a wholesale food business called Pasta, Cheeses and Things. They would eventually have some disagreements — in an unpublished April 2001 interview, Lutz told City Paper that "Georgie and I had a few differences of how systems of economics worked," and that he had planned to buy Borgesi out — but Lutz insists the differences had nothing to do with a November 1999 beating in which Borgesi punched and kicked Lutz into unconsciousness.

Lutz claimed it was all a misunderstanding between friends, and that he forgave his partner as soon as the beating was over.

"Georgie Borgesi is the type of guy that will give you the skin off his back if he can," he said in that same interview.

Police, who overheard details of the beating on a wiretap, thought the incident had to do with finances.

But Underworld sources claim the real reason the consigliere attacked the clown was because Lutz was blabbing about a murder which supposedly occurred inside Pasta, Cheeses and Things, which was located on South Eighth Street between Tasker and Morris Streets.

In October 1999, former mob consigliere Ron Turchi turned up dead inside the trunk of his wife's car in South Philly. He had been shot and his head wrapped in plastic.

Turchi was a high-ranking mobster during the reign of Ralph Natale. In 1996, for reasons unknown, Natale suddenly demoted Turchi to soldier status. But the two were said to have remained friends, and Turchi was killed not long after word leaked out that Natale had decided to testify against his former crime family, including Merlino and Borgesi. Law enforcement sources say the Turchi murder was a signal to Natale to keep his mouth shut.

The murder, sources say, went down like this: Turchi was lured to Pasta, Cheese and Things and killed there. Someone then drove the decedent's car to a warehouse and put his body in the trunk. Another person drove the car to Passyunk Avenue and parked it.

Just who pulled the trigger is unclear, but law enforcement sources say that Lutz talked about the murder so much with fellow mobsters that Borgesi eventually heard about his gossiping. The violent beating may have been a warning to Fat Angelo to keep his mouth shut.

Now that Lutz is out of jail, some investigators think his old buddies are nervous again. "Fat Angelo would never talk about his friends on purpose," one mob expert tells Underworld. "But Ange has a big mouth and that worries the mob. They're thinking, what if he blurts something out by accident?"

Borgesi is in jail on federal racketeering charges until 2012, but according to police, Borgesi's uncle, Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, is the reputed current boss of the Philadelphia Mafia.

Before Lutz went to jail, he told family and friends that he planned to move to Las Vegas to work as a chef. "If I were Angelo Lutz," one organized crime investigator tells Underworld, "I'd be looking to change climates as soon as possible."

(editorial@citypaper.net)