Mafia boss ‘Skinny Joe’ relocates to Boca Raton

Philadelphia mafia boss Joseph Merlino, a.k.a. "Skinny Joe," has moved to Boca Raton a year after serving 14 years for extortion and illegal gambling.

Merlino is living in $400,000 townhouse that is part of a "cookie-cutter" development still under construction off Interstate 95, reported the Associated Press. It is unclear what he is doing in South Florida and whether or not his wife and children are living with him, although reports say he is now in the carpet-installing business. No telephone listing could be found for the former mob boss.

"How'd ya find me?" he asked a Miami Herald reporter in his unmistakable Philadelphia accent. He then grinned and said he didn't want to talk.  "I mean no disrespect."

When asked by the reporter if there is a possible movie deal in the works about his gangster life, Merlino retorted, "Don't believe everything you read."

"The word we got is Joey has a benefactor, he has somebody pumping money into him. How else could he get out of prison and move into a $400,000 house and drive a Mercedes," Stephen LaPenta, a retired Philadelphia police lieutenant who worked undercover as a mob informant, said to the AP. "It's trouble for South Florida in the sense that because Joey is there, others will follow."

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Merlino was allegedly the acting boss of the Philadelphia-South Jersey mob when he was arrested in June 1999 on drug charges, according to the AP. He was also tried and acquitted of ordering the 1996 killing of mob associated Joseph Sodano, who was found in his minivan on a Newark street with two bullet wounds in his head.