Reputed Philadelphia soldier, Joseph ‘Joey Electric’ Servidio, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison on Thursday (22 Oct), following a case built mainly on audio recordings. He will also be required to serve five years of supervised release as part of his sentence.
Servidio pleaded guilty in a Camden federal court in June 2019 to charges which alleged he distributed pills laced with heroin and fentanyl in and around Atlantic City. The pills were marked to appear similar in appearance to prescription Oxycodone or Percocet.
Servidio, aged 60, worked with 80-year-old conspirator Carl Chianese. Authorities stated that the pair also dealt crystal methamphetamine. The men sold drugs to an undercover FBI agent for cash on several occasions. They claimed that Servidio distributed more than 200 grams of fentanyl and heroin, and around 300 grams of crystal meth. Chianese was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March. He was also ordered to forfeit a firearm and cash.
The identity of the cooperating witness, who recorded conversations with Joseph Servidio, has not been released by prosecutors. They went so far as to describe the informant as a made member of the Philadelphia mob with his own extensive crime sheet. The unidentified man started to record his Mafia associates in 2016, after being arrested in connection with an insurance fraud case involving a fake pawnshop robbery. He went on to record a dozen conversations with Servidio.
According to transcripts filed in court records, Servidio unwittingly gave up expansive information on the tapes regarding his illicit dealings.
”We need something legitimate. I’m a criminal. Everything I do is criminal, I got to get out of it..I need like $250,000 a year, or two, to break even. That’s what I need,” Servidio said in 2017.
He later stated, “There’s nothing better than making money. I make money every day, illegally.”
“Eighty percent of eyewitnesses get the wrong person … so without any corroborating evidence, you can beat that,” he said a year before his arrest, “The things you can’t beat are the tapes … with you saying it.”
Servidio was identified as a member of the Philly mob, but stated on one of the tapes that he often worked with capos from other crime families.
Servidio also told the informant that he had ‘made his bones’ at the age of nineteen, referring to a murder committed as part of his initiation into the crime family.
The recordings were made at Servidio’s Marmora, New Jersey, home and in various restaurants on the Jersey Shore.
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