PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 17 -- A Philadelphia television weatherman has been fired for giving videotapes of newscasts to an associate of reputed mob boss John Stanfa, the station said Tuesday. Bill Elias, a weekend weatherman for the Inquirer News Tonight, had been fired by another TV station over the incident in 1993.
Mike Adams, general manager of the company that produces Inquirer News Tonight, saidElias was dismissed for not telling the station why he was fired earlier by WTFX Channel 29. Elias has admitted using poor judgment when he made the tapes as a favor to Vincent Filipelli, a Stanfa bodyguard whom he had met at a New Jersey health club. He said he assumed Filipelli wanted the tapes so he could see himself on TV. But last week an admitted hit man testified at Stanfa's ongoing racketeering trial that he used the videotapes to target rival organized crime figures for potential mob hits. Elias, 37, was the weatherman for Channel 29, when the station televised the funeral of Michael Ciancaglini, who was shot to death in August 1993 while standing on a South Philadelphia street corner. Channel 29, a Fox affiliate, fired Elias in July 1994 after FBI agents informed station management that Elias had delivered a tape to a mob figure. Officials with the Inquirer News Tonight said they were unaware why Elias had been fired by Channel 29 when they hired him as a weatherman a few weeks later. Stanfa and seven associates are currently on trial in Philadelphia federal court on racketeering and murder charges. Elias' name is on the prosecution's list of potential witnesses in the trial.
