Early Career
As a teenager in the late 1940s, Scarfo first worked as a boxer, then took a job parking cars in a valet service. In the early 1950s, Scarfo's uncle Nicholas "Nicky Buck" Piccolo, a caporegime in the Philadelphia family, gave Scarfo a bookmaking operation to run. At the time the Philadelphia family was led by boss Joseph Ida and controlled criminal activities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, South Jersey, Delaware, Baltimore, Maryland and Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Scarfo soon received the nickname "Little Nicky" due to his short stature (five feet six inches, 1.67 m). Most people did not call him "Little Nicky" to his face, since he disliked the name. After several years of service, Scarfo became a made man in the family's Calabrian faction. In the late 1950s, Scarfo befriended Salvatore "Chuckie" Merlino who hadn't turned 20 at the time, but was a promising associate to the mob. Scarfo once told his nephew Leonetti that he was inducted into the crime family by Joseph Ida in 1954 or 1955. The ceremony was held at the Sans Souci restaurant and bar near the race track traffic circle in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Scarfo's cousin Anthony (Tony Buck) Piccolo and two maternal uncles Michael and Joseph were also inducted at the same ceremony. His uncle Nicholas had been inducted into the family about five years earlier. Between 1967 and 1970 Scarfo was a part-owner of The Penguin Club on the corner of North Virginia Avenue and Atlantic Avenue in Atlantic City with mob associate Thomas (Thomas Butch) Bucci. Leonetti would later say, "The Penguin Club was a "bust out" bar where strippers worked the bar and tables and tried to hustle the male customers. The strippers sat and flirted with the customers and tried to get them to buy over-priced bottles of champagne and drinks. On August 10, 1970 the liquor license was suspended for 100 days on charges that the strippers solicited drinks from patrons. He also had a hidden interest in The Haunted House bar in Atlantic City from September 1969 to June 29, 1972 and then again from 1972 to April 1, 1976. He first worked under Bruno family made man Felix (Skinny Razor) DiTullio as a mob associate. DiTullio took Nicky around and introduced him to many figures in La Cosa Nostra.
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