Hollywood has done a brilliant job of successfully creating a sinister persona of an Italian-American mafia boss through The Godfather and countless movies after that. Reality isn’t that different from the cinematic portrayal of the gangsters and one of the individuals who lives up to those expectations would be the infamous American mobster, Joey Merlino, or “Skinny Joey,” as he’s more well-known.

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Born on March 12, 1968, in Philadelphia, Merlino acquired a reputation as the head of the Philadelphia crime family, who are known to have fought a battle for the control of criminal organizations in the mid-nineties.

Merlino has reportedly been active in some criminal activities such as gambling, illegal drug trafficking, and extortion — to name a few. Unlike others mob bosses who prefer to stay out of the limelight, he has frequently interacted with the media and public.

Prior to achieving the position of authority in the crime world, Merlino engaged in illegal activities, which led to his imprisonment. In 1989, he was charged with stealing $352,000 from Federal Armored Express Truck, which put him behind bars. While Merlino has always maintained his reputation as a formidable mob boss, not much is known about his family, especially his wife and children.

Joey Merlino with family. pic.twitter.com/nLe9uCODo0

— Mob History (@MobsterHistory) September 28, 2017

Merlino has Italian American ancestry, and his parents were Salvatore “Chuckie” Merlino and Rita Giordano. His uncle was the crime family boss Lawrence “Yogi” Merlino who died in 2001 at the age of 55. Besides his engagement in the various actions of the underworld, he is a family man who is married to Deborah Merlino and has two daughters, Nicollete and Sophia Merlino. He has been seen publicly posting photos of himself with his family, which includes his wives and two daughters.

There are not many details that have been disclosed about them, except their age in 2011. During the year, Nicollete and Sophia were reportedly 14 and 13 years old, respectively. Thus, their present age rounds up to 26 and 25 years. Besides their age, the only information known about them is that both of them attended a private Catholic University.

Meanwhile, a new piece of information was revealed about one of the daughters. On Oct. 28, 2021, a Reddit user that goes by the name u/19mete96 mentioned that one of the Merlino daughters is going to be a lawyer. He said, “Apparently one of Joey Merlino’s daughters just passed the bar and is going to be a lawyer.” Later he added, “Just saw it on her stories. Good for her I guess. I wonder if she’s going to work as a lawyer.”

Of course, there is no way to ascertain the veracity of the statement. The user stated that the information was disclosed in one of the daughters’ stories. However, there is no way to find out if it was the right account given that there are lots of account holders with Nicollete and Sophia Merlino as their names.

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