Ron Previte

Who is Ron Previte?

Ron "Big Ron" Previte was a former member of the Philadelphia crime family and a federal witness.

Previte was born in West Philadelphia and later grew up in Hammonton, New Jersey to a first-generation Sicilian-American father and a first-generation Neapolitan-American mother; his earliest memories are of gangsters. After leaving the Air Force he joined the Philadelphia Police Department. According to 60 Minutes, while a member of the Police Department, he "learned how to shake down pimps and drug dealers and collect payoffs from bookmakers and mobsters -- pocketing thousands of dollars a week in addition to his regular paycheck." He left police work and began working security for Atlantic City Casinos in 1981, where he says he ran poker games and prostitution on the side, while also stealing from guests safety deposit boxes and the casino's warehouse.

In the early 1990s he began working directly for the mob and also became a paid informant for the New Jersey State Police and the FBI. His work helped convict 50 members of the mafia.

Previte is the subject of the book The Last Gangster by George Anastasia.

He had been a resident of Hammonton before his arrest on bookmaking charges and remained in the Hammonton area after being sentenced to probation.