John "John-John" Veasey (15 May 1966–) was a capo in the Philadelphia crime family. He became an informant in 1994 and later survived an assassination attempt by order of boss John Stanfa where he was shot in the head and chest.
Biography[]
John Veasey was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 15 May 1966. His father died when he was three years old and his mother, who was of Sicilian descent, sold methamphetamine out of a bakery to sustain John and his five siblings, including his brother Billy, who would become a mob associate. As a teenager, Veasey was a rogue and unkempt thug, becoming addicted to drugs at age 15 and making a living robbing people in his neighborhood. In 1991, he was convicted of theft and sentenced to two years in prison. After being released in 1993, he started working at a construction company where he met mobster Frank Martines, who recruited him into the Philadelphia crime family and promised him $10,000 in exchange for killing his rival Joey Merlino. On 5 August 1993, Veasey and Philip Colletti drove up on Merlino and his right-hand man Michael Ciancaglini and shot at them repeatedly, with Ciancaglini dying and Merlino being injured in the buttocks. A ruthless and despicable individual, Veasey once took a drill to the head of a peer who criticized him and hacked off bits of his hair in the process. He was later assigned by boss John Stanfa to kill Merlino's friend Frank Baldino, shooting him to death on 17 September 1993 outside a diner. In December 1993, he became a made man and was promoted to capo but remained spiteful that he hadn't been paid the money promised for his first hit. At the recommendation of his brother Billy, he became an FBI informant in 1994, and the news reached Stanfa, who ordered him killed. On 14 January 1994, Veasey was lured to an apartment by Martines and Vincent Pagano, where Martines shot him four times in the head and chest; he miraculously survived, wrestling a knife from Martines and stabbing him in the face before escaping with his life. While he was getting ready to testify against Stanfa and 23 underlings in 1995, Billy was killed as he was driving his car in South Philadelphia, which filled Veasey with a growing sense of revenge. Stanfa was convicted in 1996, and Veasey was sentenced to 10 years in prison for crimes to which he admitted, being released in 2005. The federal government placed him in Witness Protection and Veasey became a successful car salesman and a born-again Christian, but also continually threatened Philadelphia mobsters and their families out of anger for the death of his brother.