Steven Mazzone

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Steven Mazzone (born 1964) is an American mobster and underboss of the Philadelphia crime family. After the family was decimated by prosecutions during the Nicodemo Scarfo and John Stanfa eras, Ralph Natale was released from prison in 1994. It was at this time Mazzone became a major organized crime figure in Philadelphia. Mazzone is a childhood friend of Joey Merlino. They both grew up in South Philadelphia and started their criminal careers together. According to Natale and law enforcement, Mazzone was inducted into the crime family in 1995 and made him a caporegime in 1996. Following Natale's 1998 arrest for drug trafficking, Merlino officially took over the family and become the new boss. However their reign was short. Mazzone was indicted and held without bail in 2000 along with Merlino, George Borgesi, and others for racketeering and murder. A year earlier, Natale, feeling slighted and now realizing he may have been a puppet for Merlino all along, decided to end his life as a criminal. Facing the rest of his life in prison for drug trafficking, he decided to cooperate with the government in 1999 and agreed to testify against his former friends. Natale testified that Mazzone was the shooter in the death of mobster "Little Felix" Bocchino on January 29, 1992. Natale also testified that Mazzone was one of the shooters in the failed murder attempt on Joseph Ciangalini Jr., on March 2, 1993. Mazzone and his co-defendants were acquitted of all murder charges at trial in 2001, largely due to credibility issues with the government witnesses. The defendants were found guilty of racketeering and illegal bookmaking. Mazzone was acquitted of murder, murder conspiracy and attempted murder but convicted of racketeering, extortion and illegal bookmaking and was sentenced to nine years in prison. The upper echelon of the family...