November 26, 2022 — Philadelphia mob associate Sam (The Gator) Siligato died of natural causes earlier this year at age 72. Siligato lived and operated out of Hammonton, New Jersey, the “Blueberry Capitol of the World,” and was part of the Bruno-Scarfo crime family’s Garden State faction. He passed away back on May 3.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Siligato served as a driver and aide-de-camp for Philly mafia figure Vincent (Jimmy the Brute) DiNatale, the longtime reputed mob chief of the Hammonton region’s Hispanic migrant community of mostly blueberry farmers. DiNatale’s granddaughter is Kellyanne Conway, the spitfire Republican strategist that oversaw Donald Trump’s successful 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign.

Jimmy the Brute ran his rackets out of Siligato’s Silly Gators Inn bar in Hammonton. DiNatale died in 1983 at 70 and his funeral and wake were attended by mob dignitaries from across New Jersey and Philadelphia, including the Philly mafia’s then underboss Philip (Crazy Phil) Leonetti, paying respects on behalf of his uncle and Bruno-Scarfo crime family boss, Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo.

Stiligato drove Leonetti to Jimmy the Brute’s wake. According to FBI informant files, Stiligato helped DiNatale operate gambling, loan sharking and prostitution out of the Silly Gator Inn. He owned a vending machine company, and construction and trucking businesses. In 1991, FBI agents searched Stiligato’s house on the old grounds of the Silly Gator Inn looking for dead bodies, specifically a female prostitute an informant claimed Siligato bragged of killing after she told him she was pregnant with his child. The FBI didn’t find anything and Stiligato denied any role in any homicides.

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