New York Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner said that a social media post that surfaced on July 7 is not what it seems: He was not “hanging out” with mob boss Joey Merlino.
After the convicted Philadelphia mob boss shared on social media video of him with Gardner on Instagram, Dov Kleiman, an NFL news aggregator on X, immediately posted that Gardner was “hanging out with alleged Philly mob boss Joseph ‘Skinny Joey’ Merlino’ in Florida” with a pondering-face emoji. Gardner refuted that summary on X hours later.
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“Dov, it’s funny because I know that you know I wasn’t ‘hanging out’ with him,” Gardner wrote. “Rent must be due eh ?”
As Merlino shook Gardner’s hand in the video, he told the camera, “Welcome to the party. My main man Sauce. The best defensive back in the NFL. I want to get him on the podcast. We’re having a full Fourth of July thing here.”
Gardner responded, “I appreciate you, man.”
Merlino teased in his caption a “podcast coming soon.”
Merlino was arrested in 2016 with four others in a crackdown on an East Coast syndicate that prosecutors say committed crimes including extortion, loan-sharking, casino-style gambling, sports gambling, credit card fraud and health care fraud. After a mistrial in 2018, Merlino was sentenced to two years in prison for illegal betting in eventually granted an early release.
Merlino once controlled remnants of a Philadelphia-South Jersey organized crime family that was decimated by a bloody civil war in the 1980s and 1990s. Federal authorities say he was frequently targeted by murder plots after rivals put a $500,000 murder contract on his head.
In 2001, a jury acquitted Merlino and six co-defendants of three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder that could have resulted in a life sentence. He was convicted of lesser racketeering charges and served 12 years in prison before his 2011 release.
Merlino now hosts his own podcast, “The Skinny with Joey Merlino.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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