November 19, 2020 – The FBI’s organized crime unit in Philadelphia is re-examining the 2012 Gino DiPietro murder and issued a wanted poster and a $10,000 reward for information on the partially-unsolved gangland killing Tuesday morning. On the poster was a never-before-seen image of a stocky man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt snapped by a nearby security camera in the moments after the hit that authorities believe is the shooter.
Fox 29 TV and Mob Talk Sit Down’s Dave Schratwieser broke the news on his social media accounts. The City of Philadelphia is offering a $20,000 reward for tips leading to an arrest, bringing the total bounty when added to the feds’ 10K thank-you package to $30,000.
DiPietro, a 50 year old convicted drug dealer and suspected informant, was gunned down exiting his car in South Philly outside his residence on Iseminger Street in the late afternoon of December 12, 2012. Forty-eight year old Philly mob soldier Anthony Nicodemo is currently in state prison serving time (30 years) for being the getaway driver in the murder. Police found the murder weapon in Nicodemo’s Honda Pilot SUV less than a half-hour after DiPietro’s slaying. An eyewitness at the scene of the DiPietro hit noted the plate number and passed it on to responding officer
Nicodemo came up through Philadelphia’s Bruno-Scarfo crime family in the 1990s as a driver and bodyguard for mob boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino. Prosecutors in Nicodemo’s case named reputed mob capo Domenic (Baby Dom) Grande as the triggerman in DiPietro’s murder, but Grande has never faced any charges.
Grande, 41, is allegedly being groomed to one day take over the crime family, per sources and was a frequent gangland running buddy of Nicodemo’s. The always-dapper and quippy Skinny Joey Merlino, 58, resides in Florida and uses buffers in Philly to oversee his crime family multiple sources claim.
DiPietro cooperated against members of his own family in a 2004 coke bust. In the months preceding his murder, DiPietro had allegedly gotten into a verbal spat with Nicodemo at a card room Nicodemo controlled in Center City.
