Animal

by Casey Sherman

  The past four years had been especially taxing on Boston area police detectives, who were forced to divide their time between investigating the gang war and the sensational strangling murders of eleven women that had left the Greater Boston area in a panic. Authorities had little to show for their efforts in either crime spree.

  Deputy Police Commissioner Herbert F. Mulloney confirmed to the public what was already widely known among law enforcement officers—that much of the bloodshed could be traced to the McLean and McLaughlin gangs. “We think that sometimes a killing is to show personal strength. One gang wants to show another that it is strong, so they kill a member of a rival gang,”39 Mulloney said. Although these comments were elementary to the situation, they were made to show that the public was not at risk, unlike the Boston Strangler murders.

  Raymond Patriarca had been following the Boston mob war from afar for a number of years. At first, the New England Mafia boss was more than happy to remain on the sideline while the Irish gangs rubbed each other out. In Patriarca’s mind, the cannibalization of Irish gangsters would lead to greater control of the Boston area rackets for the Italians. However, Patriarca was eventually forced to step in when the war started to cut in on his business. Both the Winter Hill Gang and the McLaughlin Brothers Gang saw their profits plunge while their soldiers went to the mattresses, hiding out in apartments while only venturing out onto the battlefield for short periods of time. The gangs could not run their bookmaking operations that way. This shortage of steady cash forced the McLaughlins to shake down other Boston bookies, including those who paid a hefty tribute to Jerry Angiulo. Feeling the financial pinch and unwilling to take on the McLaughlins alone, Angiulo called upon Raymond Patriarca to settle the mob war once and for all. Patriarca told his associates that he would declare martial law if the killings did not stop. The Mafia boss called on Henry Tameleo to order a sit-down between Buddy McLean and the surviving McLaughlin brothers, Punchy and Georgie.

  The warring factions met at the Ebb Tide Lounge in early January 1965. Buddy McLean entered the club with a few of his men, while the McLaughlin brothers came through a side door. The air was thick with tension and the hardened memories of friends and loved ones lost on both sides. Standing in the center of the room, Henry Tameleo immediately noticed that both Georgie and Punchy McLaughlin were carrying small paper bags.

  “What have you got in the bags?”40 Tameleo asked the brothers.

  “We got our guns … we’re not going to come in here unarmed with them,” Punchy said, motioning to McLean and his men.

  The underboss was outraged. “You bring your guns to a peace meeting? Get out of here, all of you get out! Go kill each other!”

  Tameleo immediately reported back to Patriarca and explained that Buddy McLean, whom the Office had done much business with, and whom the Man liked personally, was willing to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the mob war, while the McLaughlin brothers appeared ready to continue the battle inside the confines of the Ebb Tide Lounge.

  Tameleo suggested that the Office finally choose a side in the Irish mob war, and Patriarca agreed. The Mafia would back Buddy McLean and the Winter Hill Gang and try to exterminate anyone associated with the McLaughlin Brothers.

  A month later, in February 1965, Georgie McLaughlin, now wanted for the murder of William Sheridan, the innocent man he had killed at a Roxbury party, was arrested by Special Agent Dennis Condon, who received a $150 incentive award from the FBI for his “outstanding work in investigating and apprehending the top ten fugitive.”

  One McLaughlin Gang member who had been marked for death since the fall of 1964 was Edward “Teddy” Deegan. Deegan had outlived friends Harold Hannon and Willie Delaney, but just barely. In September 1964, Deegan shot and stabbed twenty-two-year-old Anthony Sacramone, a former boxer whose body was found outside a housing project just a few miles north of Boston in Everett, Massachusetts. At first, police believed Sacramone had been murdered in a case of mistaken identity and that his killer was looking for a man by the same name who had been recently released from prison. The real story was that Deegan and Sacramone were affiliated with opposing gangs; Deegan was tied in with the McLaughlins, while Sacramone answered to Winter Hill. Yet, in accordance to the many subsets of the Boston underworld, these men were also partners in crime, and both had been robbing local bookies, which had become a McLaughlin Gang trademark. The two were sitting in a parked car when an argument erupted over drugs, as both were known users. Deegan stabbed Sacramone in the neck and later shot him.

  The murder did not sit well with Barboza or Jimmy Flemmi. For whatever reason, Flemmi had a soft spot in his dark heart for the Sacramone kid and had nothing but disdain for Teddy Deegan, who had not paid back a loan of $300 to the Bear. Flemmi wanted to whack Deegan. After all, he had killed men for much less. Word about Flemmi’s deadly intentions quickly reached FBI special agent H. Paul Rico, who on October 18, 1964, just one day after Sacramone’s murder, sent a memo to the special agent in charge of the Boston office that was then forwarded to J. Edgar Hoover, stating that he had learned from an informant that Flemmi wanted to kill Deegan. The memo was followed by another a few days later, stating that Deegan had been told by Boston Mafiosi Peter Limone that Flemmi was on the prowl, looking for payback on the $300 loan, and that he was prepared to kill Deegan for it. Both Rico and his partner, Dennis Condon, already had full knowledge that Flemmi was a cold-blooded killer. Since May 1964, both agents had drafted nearly a half-dozen memos suggesting that Flemmi wanted to be considered the best hitman in the area and had already committed several murders, including the decapitation of Francis Benjamin. Yet this information did not stop the FBI from jumping into bed with the Bear.

  During the winter of 1965, both Rico and Condon massaged their relationship with Flemmi, no doubt educating him on what they knew about his murderous career. Blackmail was a tactic that was used effectively by both sides. The feds were looking to turn Jimmy Flemmi into a double agent. They would overlook the Bear’s murderous exploits, thus giving him a license to kill, while also extracting from him useful information needed to take down Patriarca and the Mafia. In early March 1965, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover received a memo from the Boston office informing him that Flemmi had been designated a target in the Top Echelon Informant program. During this same time, Flemmi was also putting the final touches on his plan to kill Teddy Deegan. Normally, the Bear, in his typical devil may care way, would have murdered Deegan without blinking twice. But now he needed the permission of Raymond Patriarca himself. Concerned that Flemmi’s murders were drawing too much heat from authorities, Patriarca had decreed that all murders committed by Jimmy Flemmi now had to be approved by the boss.

  Flemmi’s erratic behavior had been first noticed by underboss Jerry Angiulo, who sat him down and told him that Patriarca had a high regard for his abilities, but that he did not use enough common sense when it came to killing people.

  “You can’t kill someone just because you had an argument with him,”41 Angiulo explained to Flemmi.

  However, the Bear was hell-bent on taking Deegan out, so he was forced to travel to Providence to present his case to Patriarca. Flemmi brought Barboza down for the meeting. The Bear and the Animal arrived in Providence’s Federal Hill section at midmorning on March 3, 1965. They grabbed a quick breakfast and a cup of coffee at a local diner and waited to be summoned by the boss. Patriarca told his men that he didn’t want the notorious Boston assassins to be seen entering his headquarters, so they would have to meet someplace else. Patriarca selected a nearby garage and ordered Flemmi and Barboza to wait there for his arrival. The Mafia boss entered Badway’s Garage just after 11:30 a.m. and returned to his office at approximately 12:15 p.m.

  During the forty-five minutes in between, Flemmi vigorously pleaded his case.

  “The kid [Sacramone] didn’t have to be killed,” Flemmi told Patriarca. “He’s a sneak [Deegan], and I don’t fuckin’ trust him.”

  Flemmi must have laughed at
himself when he delivered this line. Unbeknownst to both Barboza and Patriarca, Vincent Flemmi was negotiating a deal to become a top-echelon informant for the FBI. For Barboza, it was the first meeting with the Boss of Bosses in the New England mob.

  Henry Tameleo made the formal introduction.

  “This is Joe Barboza,” he told Patriarca.42

  Joe extended his hand. “My pleasure, Mister Patriarca.”

  “Call me Raymond,” said the Man.

  Barboza examined Patriarca closely. This was without question the most powerful man he had ever met. Joe was a student of mob history and had studied Patriarca’s rise to power. Now he was studying the Mafia don’s features and was taken aback at how sickly the Man appeared. Patriarca had deep bags under his eyes, over an ashen face. Patriarca was of medium build but looked smaller because of the stooped arc of his narrow shoulder blades. His mouth was a black hole of bad teeth and rotted purple gums, the result of his diabetic condition. If this was the face of power, Barboza briefly questioned whether attaining such power was worth it in the end. But men like Barboza could hardly understand the amount of stress Patriarca was under. He was the CEO of a large company where a rough fourth quarter could land you either in prison or on a slab at the morgue.

  Although Patriarca was unaware of the FBI gypsy wire in his office, he knew that the feds were gunning for him now more than ever before. His rival, Bobby Kennedy, was no longer in office, after having both his power and commitment to public service briefly rocked by the assassination of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. Still, Kennedy had helped lay the groundwork in the war against Patriarca and others in organized crime, and now the torch had been passed to young federal agents like H. Paul Rico and Dennis Condon, who were willing to bend any rule and break any law in the U.S. government’s campaign to destroy the mob.

  For Barboza, if there was any advantage of being on the outside looking in, this was it. Joe, Flemmi, and their associates were considered independent contractors by the Office. They had not taken a blood oath and were not tethered to La Cosa Nostra in a way that they could never break free if they had to. If you swore your allegiance to the Mafia, men like Raymond Patriarca owned your soul. The benefit of being an independent contractor meant that you were not in the daily crosshairs of a demanding and deadly boss. Several made men in the New England Mafia had a reputation of being lazy and content, which did not bode well for their long-term survival. Patriarca knew this, and those around him knew that he was willing and able to prune the trees of his organization. When discussing his Mafia soldiers, Patriarca once said, “They did something ten years ago and they figure they don’t have to do anything but play centerfield for the rest of their lives.”43

  Just as Barboza was beginning to empathize with, if not feel downright sorry for, the boss, his eyes locked in on the massive ring perched on Patriarca’s bony finger. It was white gold embedded with a row of four large diamonds. It was the biggest ring Barboza had ever seen. He followed Patriarca’s finger like a dog eagerly waiting for his master’s command as the Man waved it around the room to accentuate each point he was trying to make. Whatever Patriarca told them must have been open to interpretation. Barboza and Flemmi were under the impression that they had been granted permission to kill Deegan, but Patriarca in later conversations with his closest advisors would vehemently deny giving them the green light. What is clear, however, is that the assassins returned to Boston that day with Teddy Deegan number one on their hit list. During the drive back north, Flemmi nudged his friend in the passenger seat.

  “You didn’t have much to say in there. What were you thinking?”

  Barboza smiled at his friend. “I was thinking how I could bite his finger off and get that diamond ring.”44

  On March 10, 1965, FBI director Hoover was notified in a memo that Barboza and Flemmi had met with Patriarca to ask permission for the Deegan hit. The memo also stated that Flemmi had been with Barboza during the murder of Joseph Francione several months prior. This information did nothing to sway the FBI’S decision to align themselves with the Bear. Two days later, on March 12, 1965, Vincent “Jimmy the Bear” Flemmi was officially designated a Top Echelon Informant and assigned to Special Agent H. Paul Rico. Several hours later the bullet-riddled body of Edward “Teddy” Deegan would be found in a dark alleyway in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

  10

  Deegan

  Blood on the rise it’s following me

  JIM MORRISON

  It was Teddy Deegan’s greed that killed him. In early March 1965, a North End hood named Charlie Moore told Deegan about the Lincoln National Bank in Chelsea, which was a prime target for a big score. Moore explained that the finance company, which was located on the second floor of the building, kept a pile of money in its safe and that they would have access to the building after hours, thanks to Moore’s brother—a local cop who had agreed to leave the back door of the building open for a cut of the cash. The offer was too good for Deegan to pass up. He had been waiting for a score like this for some time. Deegan’s pockets had been a little lighter recently as a result of the murder of his former partner, Harold Hannon, at the hands of Barboza and Buddy McLean. Deegan jumped at the chance and quickly pulled in his friend Anthony “Tony Stats” Stathopoulos to help him on the job. Tony Stats offered to be the wheelman for the robbery, so that meant Deegan would need a third man to help him open the safe. He called on another friend, Wilfred “Roy” French, whom he had used on some previous burglary jobs. French was also a bouncer at the Ebb Tide Lounge. Deegan was confident that his three-man crew could pull off the score, and he also believed that they would encounter no resistance, which is why he decided to leave his gun at home.

  On Friday night, March 12, 1965, Tony Stats borrowed his brother’s Pontiac and called Deegan, who then phoned French at the Ebb Tide Lounge.

  “You ready?” Deegan asked.

  French told him yes, and the two decided on a meeting place where Tony Stats would pick him up for the job. Roy hung up the phone and returned to the bar, where Barboza, Flemmi, and five associates—Romeo Martin, Nicky Femia, Francis Imbruglia, Ronnie “The Pig” Cassesso, and Freddie Chiampi—were all waiting. French told the Animal that everything was a go. Barboza and his crew went out the back door of the Ebb Tide toward Romeo Martin’s car, while French took off for his rendezvous with Deegan and Stathopoulos.

  Barboza opened the trunk of Martin’s car and reached for a bulletproof vest and a bag of disguises. Joe applied a phony mustache and put on a pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses while Cassesso did the same. The Animal had strategically mapped out the hit on Teddy Deegan with the forethought of a field general. He would use two cars for the job; one to block traffic and another to make a hasty retreat from the scene. Neither vehicle was known to police, unlike Barboza’s own Oldsmobile Cutlass, which was dubbed “the James Bond car” by local cops because it was equipped with a hi-tech alarm system and a mechanism that spewed thick black smoke from the tailpipe. Femia was ordered to take one car and park it around the corner from the Lincoln National Bank. He had the vehicle in position to make a hard right and stall it in the middle of the street, thus blocking the route from the Chelsea police station if he had to. Barboza, Flemmi, Cassesso, and Martin placed the other car in position down the street at a parking meter between Broadway and Luther Place with its front wheels turned out to the street ready for a speedy getaway. Barboza and his team had also bent back the plates on the front and back of the car, leaving only a few numbers exposed. The men were sitting in the car with the motor running when Barboza noticed a man in a topcoat and scally cap walk by the vehicle and stop a few paces ahead. The man turned around and headed back their way.

  “What does this motherfucker want?’ Joe asked aloud.45

  The man leaned down and rapped on the window, giving Barboza a good look at him.

  “Hey, your plate is bent,” the man said.

  Barboza’s stomach tightened. The passerby with the keen eye happened
to be a well-known Chelsea police captain named Joseph Kozlowski.

  Barboza’s crew didn’t take any time answering Kozlowski. Instead, Romeo Martin pulled out onto Broadway with tires screeching and took off down the street. Kozlowski didn’t think too much of it. It was just another Friday night in Chelsea. He was not on duty at the time, so he didn’t pursue. However he did get a good look at the driver and the man in the backseat of the vehicle as it drove away. Martin took a quick left turn and parked the car further away from the alley. The men then doubled back and got into position in the darkness.

  Roy French stepped off the curb in nearby Revere when he saw Tony Stats pull up in his brother’s Pontiac.

  “You guys bring any weapons?”46 French asked as he climbed into the car.

  Both men said no. Deegan was armed only with a screwdriver.

  They proceeded to the finance company at Fourth Street and Broadway in Chelsea.

  Chelsea police officer James O’Brien was on patrol in the area that evening and walked by the alley in back of the bank at around 9:00 p.m. He failed to notice that the back door of the building had been left slightly ajar but did notice that the lights in the back alley had been turned off, so he turned them back on and continued on his beat. Moments later, someone turned the lights out again.

  The burglars arrived at the location thirty minutes later and parked on the opposite side of the street. Tony Stats stayed in the Pontiac as Roy French and Teddy Deegan climbed out of the vehicle, crossed the street, and disappeared into the pitch-black alleyway. Tony Stats scanned the street for potential witnesses but saw no one.

  His eyes then reverted back to the alleyway, where he suddenly saw several muzzle flashes light up the dark alley and heard a volley of gunshots. Seconds later Roy French ran out of the alley to the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, where the getaway car was parked. French looked directly into Tony Stats’s eyes and simply shrugged his shoulders. At that moment, Joe Barboza walked out of the alley wearing a dark coat and carrying a .357 Magnum in his left hand.