John's Bio
**************************
John Petrocelli grew up in the Italian section of Greenwich Village during turbulent times in the development of New York City .... A time when the mob clans ruled the local neighborhoods and the police (pre Al Pacino's Serpico, Knapp Commission) were so corrupt that many people ran toward the mob to get protection.

His Grandmother Kitty, who organized and was a co-creator of one of the first Italian Street Feasts in New York City (Saint Anthony's Street Festival on Greenwich Village's Sullivan Street) along with a much beloved, renegade, hooligan priest, the diocese recruited from the sticks of Pennsylvania, was also NYC's first woman's republican club leader, and also, the second in charge of NYC's Board Of Elections (but known as the only woman who got things done in the city and gave many early politicions who would have not gotten a chance because of party affiliation) their start.

John Petrocelli grew up under Kitty's rule, learning how to organize, assemble powerful organizations that got things accomplished , work with volunteers and from the age of 8, he was often times accompanying her to the Board Of Elections, becoming very familiar with New York's political structure and how the political back scratching system ... and things got done, from an early age.

John learned what was later was called 'though (tuff) love techniques' from both the mob and corrupt cops and how being a nice guy didn't get things accomplished or help anyone for that matter in the long run. In his early teens, when most of his friends were getting hooked on heroin, and the only option for them was jail, prison or locked up in a mental institution, John had the neighborhood reputation of 'baby sitting' them ... sometime 3 to 5 days he stay by his friends sides, often times slamming them in a closet while they went through withdrawal (remember, there was no gentle or medical option at this time ... NYC's founding fathers only solution to drug addiction, because they didn't have an option, was to switch the addicts from heroin to methodone, and 40 years later, those that are still alive, are still addicted and picking up their daily doses from the city's metadone clinics).

John was intrigued by an elderly priest's stories that regaled of the difference between the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament God was not the loving God of the New Testaments. He'd send minions of Avenging Angels to do his work .... hordes of locusts, pestilence to those who did not follow his word. But unlike the new testament God who gave mankind the option of choice, it just seemed natural, the God of the Old Testament got results ... and growing up with Grandma Kitty, it was always about results ....