After moving from New York to Texas, he took a step up in the world of sleazy businesses. In Queens, he had one strip club. In the Lone Star state, authorities say he has two. Vincent "Vinnie Ocean" Palermo, a former mob boss for the Jersey-based DeCavalcante family turned government informant, is now living under an assumed name in Houston, where authorities temporarily shut down one strip club he operates and are trying to close another. Palermo, whose testimony following an arrest in helped cripple the DeCavalcante crime family, is now known as Vincent Cabella and lives in a swank Houston neighborhood in a gated white mansion with fountains and statues in the front yard.
Both a local Houston television station and the Daily News in New York have reported Palermo's new identity and whereabouts this week. As Cabella, he owns property in a seedy area of Houston where he and family members operate four adjacent businesses -- two strip clubs, a car wash and a Mexican restaurant.
One of the clubs, the Penthouse Club, is owned and operated by a Palermo family business known as "Hereweareagain, Inc. Though the Penthouse Club is expected to reopen Thursday, the city also has civil charges pending against the second Palermo club, All Stars Cabaret, a former sports bar that Cheatham said inherited the prostitution and drug activity after the Penthouse Club closed. When a judge closed the Penthouse Club last September, he also issued a ruling that a sexually-oriented business cannot be located at that location.
Houston permits sexually-oriented businesses, Cheatham said, but they must be at least 1, feet from schools, churches and residential areas. City officials claimed Wiggles also was a haven for prostitution and drugs and the club closed when former Mayor Rudy Giuliani targeted it in a crackdown on city sex clubs. Palermo has been living in Houston as Vincent Cabella for the past seven years. He became a protected federal witness after being charged in with a host of crimes, including four murders and extortion.
In one killing, he and an accomplice walked up to man on a Staten Island street and shot him in the face. Palermo was described by federal prosecutors in as an acting boss of the DeCavalcante family, the Jersey-based mob whose members boasted of being the inspiration for "The Sopranos" television show.
