Vincent "Vinny Ocean" Palermo (4 June 1944-) was acting boss of the DeCavalcante crime family from 1997 to 1999. In 2000, Palermo became a government witness after being charged in a racketeering indictment and helped secure convictions for many of his former associates.
Biography[]
Palermo was born in 1944 to an Italian-American family in Brooklyn, New York, and during his childhood, worked at the Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx, for which he gained the nickname "Vinny Ocean". He became involved with organized crime in 1965, when he married the niece of DeCavalcante family boss Simone "Sam the Plumber" DeCavalcante, and began dealing in illegal gambling and loan sharking. Palermo was known for his cutthroat business approach and intuition, eventually becoming a made man in the family in 1977. In 1989, he was assigned to murder Staten Island developer Fred Weiss by Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, who feared Weiss would become a cooperator and inform on him. Palermo and soldier James "Jimmy" Gallo shot Weiss to death outside his girlfriend's apartment, and afterwards Palermo was promoted to capo in the family, directing a crew of soldiers under him. Palermo owned a strip club in Queens called Wiggles through which he laundered his illicit money. He profited from a luxurious lifestyle, living in an expensive waterfront mansion with his family in Long Island. In 1992, Palermo took part in the plot to kill DeCavalcante family acting boss John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato, who was suspected of engaging in homosexual activity; he was shot in the back seat of a car as he left his partner's house in Brooklyn, disappearing and never being seen again. Following the death of succeeding boss Giacchino "Jake" Amari in 1997, the family was run by a ruling panel consisting of Palermo, Girolamo "Jimmy" Palermo and Charles "Big Ears" Majuri. At the head of the organization, Palermo became the de facto DeCavalcante boss, and final say in the family came through him. In 1999, Palermo was arrested along with over 30 members of the family in a sprawling racketeering and murder indictment. Facing a potential life sentence, he decided to cooperate with the government and his testimony resulted in dozens of convictions over the following years. After serving two years in federal prison, Palermo was released into the Witness Protection Program.