Mob Boss Wanted Philadelphia Radio Personality Jerry Blavat Whacked

Testimony continued this week in the trial of reputed Philadelphia mob boss Joseph “Uncle Joe” Ligambi with the revelation that he had allegedly vowed to kill radio celebrity Jerry Blavat after reading a 2009 article appearing in the Philadelphia Magazine.

Ligambi assumed Blavat was behind the piece that starts off by describing the mob boss this way:

Joe Ligambi is a compact little man, five-foot-seven and lean, with thin graying hair combed back over his head, a long, hawkish nose, and small eyes with little white showing, like the eyes of a bird. He wears a black short-sleeved dress shirt, the top couple of buttons undone so some graying chest hair spills out over the top.

The twelve page article features quotes attributed to Ligambi and seemingly questions the viability of the Philadelphia mob in light of the lack of bloodshed for six consecutive years leading up to the 2009 publication. 

The Philadelphia mob hasn’t killed anyone in at least six years — the longest peaceful streak this city has seen since the days of Angelo Bruno, the so-called “Gentle Don,” who was shot to death in 1980. If the mob doesn’t kill anyone, is it still the mob?

The ending to the piece might give better insight into why Ligambi appeared to be pissed, the first line in particular. 

Later, I’ll hear that Ligambi has some regrets about having met with me. He doesn’t give interviews, and now he wonders if I’m planning on publishing every little thing he said. He had hoped, it seems, that I would simply write down that I saw him as he sees himself — as a regular, down-to-earth man. A nice man. But of course, I’ve printed it all. Because isn’t this the point of the story — that Joe Ligambi’s mob, though evidently passing from this Earth, isn’t like the mobs that immediately preceded it? And that Ligambi’s mob has been something other than ruthless and stupid, and with Joey Merlino on his way out of prison, some fear we’re about to have a ruthless, stupid mob again? Isn’t the point of this story that Ligambi, as these things go, has run a quiet little mob — one we all know is there, but aren’t afraid of?

Lifting himself off his bar stool, Ligambi reaches out and shakes my hand again.

“Thanks,” I tell him.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” he says.

He walks away, shoulders stooped, with an old man’s hip-rolling gait, to the sidewalk, and disappears into the evening sunlight — a nondescript old man unless you know he is a marked man; a man who lived a life that maybe his son can render on film someday; a man who will go on drinking his expensive wine until the day the cuffs are slipped around his thin old wrists, with a click.

“He was ranting and raving, ‘That [expletive] Jerry Blavat, he set this up … Jerry Blavat, I’m gonna kill this [expletive],’ mob turncoat Louis “Bent Finger Lou” Monacello testified in regard to Ligambi's reaction to the article. 

Blavat seemed surprised by the revelation. 

“I grew up with these guys. I know Joe. I never heard it,” he said in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. “That’s strange.”

Additional testimony suggested the threats were no more than “hot air”.

Ligambi’s attorney is attempting to paint Monacello, the prosecution’s star witness, as a serial liar attempting to avoid a prison term. 

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com