The power of the Philadelphia mob took a fresh hit Thursday after a federal court sentenced underboss Steven “Handsome Stevie” Mazzone to five years in prison, the maximum sentence that the crime boss could face under a plea deal struck with prosecutors in June.

Mazzone, who has been a top enforcer in the Philly crime family since the mid-1990s and the No. 2 man since 2011, engaged in racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, illegal gambling, and loansharking.

Mazzone financed high-interest loans to customers of sportsbooks who were unable to pay their debts, resulting in the collection of loans with interest rates as high as 264 percent, the Justice Department said. Members and associates of the so-called La Cosa Nostra threatened debtors who did not pay with violence, including one threat to make a victim “disappear” for nonpayment on a loan.

“In this case, the defendant used his role as the underboss of the Philadelphia organized crime family to try to revive its fortunes, extorting victims in Pennsylvania and New Jersey,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. 

It’s the second go-around in the joint for the second-in-command. Mazzone, 59, spent almost nine years in prison after his 2000 conviction for conspiracy to commit racketeering and illegal sports bookmaking. An attempted murder charge back then for the 1993 shooting of Joseph Ciangalini Jr. never stuck. 

Prosecutors said taking Mazzone out of the mafia hierarchy has further weakened the Philadelphia mob, which has been racked by convictions of its leadership over the past decades. But La Cosa Nostra “and its criminal activities are still very much a problem,” the department said. 

“We will not rest until the mob is nothing but a memory that lives on in movies,” said U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero, of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, two dozen of Mazzone’s relatives and friends crowded the courtroom and two of Mazzone’s daughters pleaded for mercy, claiming Mazzone was his mother’s caretaker and had been the family’s keystone after the murder-suicide of their own mother, Mazzone’s his ex-wife, a year ago. 

U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick, however, declared Mazzone unrepentant, noting that the latest charges mirrored those from his first conviction.

Mazzone is one of 15 alleged mobsters rounded up in the November 2020 arrests. The 40-page indictment also named suspected capo Domenic Grande, Salvatore “Sonny” Mazzone, Joseph “Joey Electric” Servidio, “Big Vic” Victor Deluca, Louis “Louis Sheep” Barretta, and Anthony Gifoli, also known as “Tony Meatballs,” among others. Grande and Servidio copped plea deals rather than go to trial.

The evidence against Mazzone was overwhelming. He was caught on tape during a “making ceremony” in October 2015 by an informant being inducted into La Cosa Nostra. 

Transcripts of the wiretap reportedly showcase Mazzone telling the new inductees, “Nobody break this chain. You know what I’m talking about?” to which the group replied in unison, “La Famiglia!” 

Mazzone was also recorded talking about getting Atlantic City back under Philly mob control. 

“We got to get a hold back in AC, buddy. That’s what I want,” Mazzone is recorded saying. “Gotta to get that back, period. Plant the flag again. … There’s a guy there now, and he is pushing big money out there. I can’t get nobody to get the hooks into him.”

The indictment itself reads like a primer on mob families, describing the structure, purpose, means, and methods of the family operation. It details how family members interact and the codes they must follow.

“Among the most important rules and traditions of the LCN is ‘Omerta’ or the Code of Silence,” the indictment said. “Omerta prohibits LCN members from revealing the activities, or even the existence, of the Enterprise to outsiders in general, and to law enforcement in particular. Made members who break Omerta are looked upon disfavorably as ‘rats,’ and may be targeted for death by other members of the Enterprise.”

As the underboss, Mazzone set rules for LCN members and associates in the Philadelphia mafia and collected profits from illegal activity that were siphoned upward through the LCN command structure, according to the Justice Department. Mazzone organized the composition of smaller groups of members and associates, or “crews,” which reported to middle managers, or “capos,” who in turn reported to Mazzone.

The head of the Philadelphia family is still believed to be Mazzone’s childhood friend, Joey Merlino, who now resides in Boca Raton, Florida.