{"id":155710,"date":"2020-11-18T03:17:44","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T11:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=155710"},"modified":"2020-11-18T10:39:11","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T18:39:11","slug":"joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Gambling Kingpin \u2018Skinny\u2019 Joey Merlino Denounces \u2018Crazy\u2019 Pennsylvania Ballot-Fixing Allegation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reputed Philadelphia Mob boss \u2018Skinny\u2019 Joey Merlino<\/a> has been reluctantly dragged into President Donald Trump\u2019s ballot-fixing conspiracy.<\/p>\n

\"Pennsylvania
\u2018Skinny\u2019 Joey Merlino says he is in the carpet-fitting business, not the Pennsylvania ballot-fixing business. (Image: Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The former gambling kingpin, who once offered odds on his own trial<\/a>, has been forced to denounce a story that he helped manufacture 300,000 illegal ballots in his native battleground state.<\/p>\n

The story first appeared in far-right conspiracy website The Buffalo Chronicle<\/em>, which Wikipedia includes in its list of false news sites. The article was titled, “How a Philly mob boss stole the election \u2014 and why he may flip on Joe Biden.” It alleges that \u201cDemocratic Party operatives\u201d provided Merlino with \u201ccrates of raw ballots\u201d just hours before polls closed on election night.<\/p>\n

Within hours, the former Mob boss\u2019s operation was churning out more than 3,000 ballots per hour at $10 per hour, it claimed.<\/p>\n

No Evidence for PA Ballot Fixing<\/h2>\n

Merlino\u2019s lawyer, John Meringolo,<\/strong> told The New York Daily News<\/em> that the allegation was \u201cout of control\u201d and that his notorious client had told him, \u201cThese people are crazy\u201d after reading the Chronicle<\/em> story.<\/p>\n

The article appears to be as baseless as the site\u2019s recent claim that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo planned to ban cigarettes as a measure to control the coronavirus. Nevertheless, the Merlino story was retweeted by attorney Jordan Sekulow, the son of one of Trump\u2019s top lawyers, Jay Sekulow.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the allegation of Pennsylvania ballot-fixing and subverting American democracy for cash that has offended Merlino. But he is peeved about the assertion that he \u201cmight just be willing to flip on Biden \u2014 in primetime Congressional testimony \u2014 if President Donald J. Trump is willing to issue the longtime mobster a full expungement of his decades-long criminal record.\u201d<\/p>\n

My client categorically denies all the allegations and Joey would rather die than ever be a snitch,\u201d<\/strong> said Meringolo.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You should be careful who you call a rat.<\/p>\n

\u2018Legitimate Businessman\u2019<\/h2>\n

These days, the “Dapper Don” bears a passing resemblance to Humphrey Bogart. But he claims he is no longer the powerful Mafia boss of the 1990s who survived 25 assassination attempts and who controlled the Philly crime families\u2019 gambling, loan sharking, and extortion rackets.<\/p>\n

When he was tried for racketeering, extortion, gun-running, and fraud in 2018, he argued he had given up crime to open a restaurant in Florida, Merlino\u2019s, since closed. Subsequently, he went into the carpet-fitting business, he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Merlino ultimately served two years for illegal gambling after the first trial ended in a hung jury. He is currently a free man.<\/p>\n

But he railed against the \u201cturncoat mobsters\u201d whose evidence put him in the slammer in 2018. After his sentencing, he quipped that the president had been right to suggest \u201cflippers\u201d should be outlawed.<\/p>\n

Merlino was referencing Trump\u2019s views at the time on his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who turned against the president after his arrest on tax fraud, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reputed Philadelphia Mob boss \u2018Skinny\u2019 Joey Merlino has been reluctantly dragged into President Donald Trump\u2019s ballot-fixing conspiracy. The former gambling kingpin, who once offered odds on his own trial, has been forced to denounce a story that he helped manufacture 300,000 illegal ballots in his native battleground state. The story first appeared in far-right conspiracy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":155711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJoey Merlino Denounces \u2018Crazy\u2019 Pennsylvania Ballot-Fixing Allegation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pennsylvania ballot-fixing story has angered reputed Philly Mob boss \u2018Skinny\u2019 Joey Merlino after it claimed he would rat on Dems\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Joey Merlino Denounces \u2018Crazy\u2019 Pennsylvania Ballot-Fixing Allegation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pennsylvania ballot-fixing story has angered reputed Philly Mob boss \u2018Skinny\u2019 Joey Merlino after it claimed he would rat on Dems\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-11-18T11:17:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-11-18T18:39:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/skinny-joey.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation\/\",\"name\":\"Joey Merlino Denounces \u2018Crazy\u2019 Pennsylvania Ballot-Fixing Allegation\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/skinny-joey.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-18T11:17:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-11-18T18:39:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Pennsylvania ballot-fixing story has angered reputed Philly Mob boss \u2018Skinny\u2019 Joey Merlino after it claimed he would rat on Dems\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/joey-merlino-denounces-crazy-pennsylvania-ballot-fixing-allegation\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/skinny-joey.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/skinny-joey.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":768,\"caption\":\"\u2018Skinny\u2019 Joey Merlino says he is in the carpet-fitting business not the Pennsylvania ballot-fixing business. 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