Ralph Natale was the boss of the Philadelphia and South Jersey Cosa Nostra family from 1994 to 1998. After federal marshals arrested him on a parole violation in 1998 and prosecutors then charged him with a drug conspiracy, he agreed to cooperate. In May 2000, at the age of 65, he pleaded guilty in federal court in Camden, New Jersey, to a racketeering conspiracy that included murder, to murder in aid of racketeering and to bribing the mayor of Camden. Court papers filed the day before the plea tied him to two murders in the 1970s and five in the 1990s. He has been described as the highest-ranking American Mafia figure ever to help prosecutors.
His cooperation produced a bribery conviction against the mayor of Camden, Milton Milan, in December 2000. It also led to the March 2000 indictment of his own successor, Joseph Merlino, and to a four-month trial in Philadelphia in 2001. Natale testified at that trial for 14 days. The jury convicted Merlino of racketeering, extortion, bookmaking and receiving stolen property, and acquitted him of three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. Natale was sentenced to 13 years in prison and was released in May 2011.
Natale grew up in South Philadelphia, where his father ran numbers for the local mob. He gave his age as 65 at the time of his plea. He described himself as a hoodlum from boyhood. As a young man he worked as a bartender at a lounge owned by Felix DiTullio, a Philadelphia mobster who became his mentor in the underworld.
In the 1960s and 1970s Natale worked as a racketeer and enforcer for Angelo Bruno, the head of the Philadelphia family. The labor rackets of the period were part of that work. Bruno was himself killed in 1980, and the family that followed him was led in turn by Nicodemo Scarfo, who was convicted with 16 associates in 1988, and then by John Stanfa, who was convicted of racketeering in 1995.
Natale has said that Bruno ordered him to carry out two killings in the 1970s. He names George Feeney in 1970 and Joey McGreal in 1973. Court papers filed the day before his plea tied him to two murders in that decade, and he has described himself as the one who carried out two killings in the 1970s. Neither killing was tried. They are part of the racketeering conspiracy he admitted in 2000.
In 1979 Natale was convicted of arson, and in 1980 of drug dealing. He served close to 16 years in a number of federal institutions before he was paroled in 1994. In the years he was away, the Philadelphia family went through a violent split. Killings in the contest between the Stanfa group and a younger faction led by Joseph Merlino, which ran from May 1990 to December 1996, ended with Stanfa's conviction in 1995 and Merlino's rise.
Natale came out of custody in 1994 and took over the family, with Joseph Merlino as his underboss. The two had shared a federal cell in 1990 and 1991. The crimes Natale later admitted for these years included extortion, illegal gambling, drug trafficking, stolen cars and loan sharking in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey.
Natale said he authorized the killing of Joe Sodano, a Newark mobster, and he named Michael Avicolli as a victim in 1996. At the Merlino trial he said he had authorized three killings that Merlino and co-defendants were charged with carrying out. The jury did not convict on any of those counts.
Natale was already on parole. In June 1998 federal marshals arrested him for associating with known criminals, a parole violation, and he went back into custody. Merlino took over the leadership.
The break came quickly. In 1999 Natale was indicted in federal court in New Jersey on a drug conspiracy charge. Facing life in prison, he began to cooperate that summer. He later said that Merlino and the others he had left in charge had sent his wife and him almost no money after he was jailed, and he named that as the reason he turned.
His help led to an indictment in March 2000 charging Merlino and ten others with murder, racketeering, extortion and gambling. The U.S. Attorney, Michael Stiles, announced it, and eight of the defendants were arrested the same day. It also produced charges against the mayor of Camden, Milton Milan, who was accused of taking money, vacations, cars and home improvements from Natale and others in the mob.
On a Friday in May 2000 Natale appeared before U.S. District Judge Joseph E. Irenas in Camden and pleaded guilty to every count after the charges were read aloud. Lawyers went through the charges with him for about an hour. The counts were a racketeering conspiracy that included murder, extortion, illegal gambling, drug trafficking, stolen cars, loan sharking and other crimes; murder in aid of racketeering; conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance; and bribery of the mayor of Camden.
In open court he admitted seven murders and four attempted murders, committed, he said, to further the aims of the Philadelphia family. Prosecutors agreed that he would not face the death penalty. He could have received life, and prosecutors agreed to recommend a lighter sentence in return for his testimony, though the judge was not bound by that recommendation.
A federal filing the day before the plea tied him to two murders in the 1970s and five in the 1990s. In cross-examination at the Milan trial six months later he described his involvement in "nearly a dozen murders."
Natale's first appearance as a government witness came in November 2000 at the corruption trial of Camden's mayor. He testified for four days that he passed $30,000 to $50,000 to Milan so that city contracts would go to businesses connected to the mob. He said he wanted Milan to feel that he had to rely on Natale and on no one else, and that he paid for the mayor's dinner after he was sworn in and for a vacation in Florida in 1998.
Milan, then 38, was convicted that December on 14 of 19 counts, including fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. He was sentenced to seven years.
The racketeering case against Joseph Merlino was tried in Philadelphia. The fourth superseding indictment, dated January 24, 2001, had 36 counts against nine defendants and treated the Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra family as the racketeering enterprise. Seven defendants went to trial. Opening statements were on March 29, 2001. The government called about 50 witnesses over nearly three months, and the defense called 40 over six days.
Natale was the central witness. He testified for 14 days. He testified about three killings with which Merlino and co-defendants were charged; the jury acquitted on those counts. A former Philadelphia police officer, Ronald Previte, who had become a mob captain while working as an informant for the FBI, supplied recordings behind the drug, theft and gambling counts.
The defense called Natale a liar who was testifying to avoid dying in prison. Merlino's lawyer called the accusations "exclusively hearsay." The government reviewed about 300 of Natale's recorded prison calls and found nothing the defense was entitled to see; the Third Circuit upheld that ruling.
On July 20, 2001, the jury convicted all seven defendants of at least some charges, among them racketeering and racketeering conspiracy. It rejected most of the murder and violence counts. Merlino was convicted on racketeering, extortion, bookmaking and receiving stolen property, and was acquitted of three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. The Third Circuit later described the result as the loss of the heart of the government's case.
In December 2001 Judge Herbert Hutton sentenced Merlino to 168 months, or 14 years, and gave the same term to Joseph Borgesi. Three other defendants received 108 months and two received 71 months. The Third Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentences on November 12, 2003, with a change for one defendant on one count and a sentencing enhancement.
Natale expected a sentence of about five years, the usual reward for a cooperating witness, and received 13 years. He was sentenced in January 2005, after testifying in four cases in all. He was released in May 2011.
In February 2021, at the age of 85, Natale was living in the federal witness protection program. He published a memoir with a co-author in 2017.
Federal prosecutors charge organized-crime families under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which allows members of a group to be tried together. In the Merlino case the indictment described the Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra family as the enterprise and charged a racketeering conspiracy and a substantive racketeering count alongside murder, conspiracy to murder, extortion, bookmaking and receiving stolen goods. A jury can convict on the racketeering counts while rejecting the murder counts, as it did in July 2001.
The Philadelphia family had been strong under Angelo Bruno, who ran it until 1980. Every boss after him, Scarfo, Stanfa, Natale and Merlino, ended in prison. Natale's status as a boss turned witness was unusual enough that the FBI described him as the only American mob boss ever to flip.
The three killings Natale said Merlino and others carried out were never proved. The jury acquitted Merlino of all three murder counts and both attempted-murder counts, and rejected most of the murder charges against his co-defendants.
The number of killings Natale admitted is not fixed: seven in the plea, "nearly a dozen" in cross-examination.
1970: George Feeney killed; Natale has named himself as responsible on Bruno's orders.
1973: Joey McGreal killed; Natale has named himself as responsible.
1979: convicted of arson.
1980: convicted of drug dealing.
1980: Angelo Bruno killed.
1988: Nicodemo Scarfo and 16 associates convicted.
1994: Natale paroled; takes over the family with Joseph Merlino as underboss.
1995: John Stanfa convicted of racketeering.
1996: Michael Avicolli killed; Natale tied to the killing.
June 1998: arrested on a parole violation.
1999: indicted on a drug conspiracy charge; begins to cooperate.
March 2000: Joseph Merlino and ten others indicted.
May 2000: pleads guilty before Judge Irenas in Camden.
November 2000: testifies for four days at the Milan trial.
December 2000: Milton Milan convicted on 14 of 19 counts.
January 24, 2001: fourth superseding indictment, 36 counts, nine defendants.
March 29, 2001: opening statements in the Merlino trial.
July 20, 2001: verdicts; Merlino acquitted of three murder counts and two attempted-murder counts, convicted of racketeering and other counts.
December 2001: Merlino sentenced to 14 years.
November 12, 2003: Third Circuit affirms.
January 2005: Natale sentenced to 13 years.
May 2011: released.
2017: memoir published.
February 2021: living in the witness protection program.