Vincent Palermo

Vincent "Vinny Ocean" Palermo (born June 4, 1944) is a former de facto boss of the New Jersey DeCavalcante crime family who eventually became a government witness. Fictional mob boss Tony Soprano is said to be based upon Palermo.

Vincent Palermo was divorced once and remarried. In his earlier years, he worked at a wholesale fish business in the Fulton Fish Market where he earned the nickname "Vinny Ocean".

In the 1980s, he became indebted to a hospital, local doctors, and the federal government. The tax liens against his property were in his second wife's name, an Italian-American woman named Angela, totaling $68,000. At the time, he was paying a large mortgage on a waterfront mansion located in Island Park, Long Island (the mansion had a 100-foot pier). He had two social security numbers and paid alimony to his first wife. He also supports his second family, two daughters, Danielle and Tara, and a son Vincent Palermo Jr., with Michael (from his first marriage) and Renee. His son Michael is a graduate of Fordham University and a licensed New York stock broker and was an investment banker with Goldman Sachs up until his father's indictment when he went into hiding. Vincent has five sisters, including Claire and Nancy, and one brother. He was raised old-school Italian in Brooklyn. His father was an Italian immigrant who moved to New York when he was a teenager. Vincent came from a close-knit family and was said to have lived a harmonious lifestyle. Vincent was an altar boy during adolescence. When Vincent was sixteen, his father died which forced him to leave school and work two jobs to help support his family because his mother was a bedridden asthmatic. He was very protective of children, having once stopped a man from beating his son and rescuing a toddler relative who had accidentally fallen into a pool. He attended Sacred Heart Church in Island Park and watched Annie with one of his daughters regularly. Vincent drove his daughters to Brownie's meetings. He took in a troubled teenager named Richard and became his godfather, and let him stay in his home every weekend for a year while Richard studied the Catholic sacraments and prepared to be baptized and receive his first Communion and confirmation.

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