Animal

by Casey Sherman

  Rico and Condon nodded their assurances.

  “What do you have on Raymond [Patriarca]?” asked Rico. “He’s our number one target.”88

  “I’m acquainted with him and I’ve seen him on a number of occasions.”

  The agents asked whether those meetings had been set up through underboss Jerry Angiulo.

  Barboza shook his head no. “I never asked Jerry’s permission. I went straight to Raymond and that aggravated Angiulo. Jerry’s the biggest money-maker that Raymond has. He has about a million bucks in shylock business on the street and gives 50 percent of his profits to Patriarca.”

  Barboza then provided a few details about the murders of Teddy Deegan and Willie Marfeo. Unbeknownst to Joe, the FBI already knew much about the hit on Deegan. In fact, Rico and Condon were busy developing their own version of the gangland slaying that they hoped Barboza would one day reveal to a jury. Barboza’s information regarding the Marfeo murder was something entirely new. Of course everyone had suspected that Patriarca was behind the deadly shooting that occurred just a block from his office, but the Animal had now promised the feds a direct link to the Man. This was exactly what the FBI had been working toward when it first created the Top Echelon Informant program. It was one thing for a gangster like Joe Valachi to testify before Congress, where very little was at stake beside one’s reputation. It was another thing entirely for a witness like Joe Barboza to take the stand in a criminal trial where the defendants could lose their freedom and even their lives. The feds needed someone like Barboza to connect all the dots for a jury and to help bring Raymond Patriarca to justice once and for all. Both Condon and Rico felt their balloon pop when Barboza told them that he would provide his information behind closed doors but never in front of a jury.

  “Since the Mafia is doing everything in its power to hurt you, don’t you feel that justice could be done by testifying?” asked Condon.89

  “If I ever testified, you people would have to find me an island and make a fortress out of it,” the Animal replied.90 Instead, he implored the agents to convince his pal Patsy Fabiano to testify. “I can protect him while he’s in jail,” Barboza promised. “Once he’s freed, Patsy could hide out until I’m released from jail and I’ll continue to protect him then.”91

  Rico and Condon failed to see the logic. Barboza wanted his friend to testify so that he himself would not be labeled a rat by the press. Joe had worked to cultivate his own image over the years and did not want it tarnished beyond repair. The agents had a major dilemma on their hands. After sending Barboza back to Walpole, they discussed ways in which they could force Barboza onto the witness stand. Both men came to the conclusion that more pressure had to be applied to their reluctant witness. At Barboza’s urging, Rico met with Patsy Fabiano and pressed him for information about what he had seen during the Nite Lite Massacre, but Patsy insisted that he was never there.

  “I only spoke with Bratsos by phone and later drove by the Nite Lite and saw their cars parked outside,” Fabiano stated.

  Rico jotted down the information and passed it along to Barboza, who tried to persuade the agent of his own truthfulness. “Either Patsy’s afraid to testify or I was misled.”

  H. Paul Rico knew that he had caught the Animal in a lie. In a memo sent to his superiors, Rico wrote: “This office is aware of the distinct possibility that Barron [Barboza], in order to save himself from a long prison sentence, may try to intimidate Fabiano into testifying to something that he may not be a witness to.”92

  Rico was not discouraged by the falsehood, however. All criminals lied, this he knew. But some crooks proved better liars than others, and Barboza had just demonstrated the power of his persuasion. He could lie with conviction, and Rico knew that this personality flaw would serve them both well as this game continued to play itself out.

  J. Edgar Hoover had now expressed great interest in the Barboza case, and the agents provided the director with daily updates on the negotiations. The Animal also presented Dennis Condon with an opportunity to improve his own image within the bureau. In a performance appraisal in late March 1967, Condon was given an excellent rating with a special emphasis on how he “handled complicated matters in an able and capable fashion.” The appraisal further noted that Condon was dependable and enthusiastic, with an outstanding knowledge of the hoodlum and gambling element of Boston.

  Meanwhile, the hoodlum element of Boston continued to settle scores. In mid-April, Jerry Angiulo sent three of his men after Joe Lanzi, one of the informers who had tipped off police to the Nite Lite Massacre. The enforcers shot Lanzi as he sat in the front passenger seat of their car and then drove his body through Medford in the early hours of the morning, looking for a place to dump the corpse. Unfortunately the killers were spotted by police, so they tried to ditch the car and flee on foot. One of gunmen could not get out of the car fast enough and was arrested on the spot. The other two men managed to escape but were eventually captured a year later.

  The hit proved that the New England Mafia was back in the murder business big time after having sat on the sidelines for the majority of the Irish gang war. This was not good news for Barboza, who was now convinced that La Cosa Nostra would be coming for him en masse. Law enforcement still wanted its pound of flesh also. The Animal found himself back in court, where he was arraigned on the broad charge of being an “habitual criminal.”

  “The Suffolk County D.A. is trying to crucify me,” he told Rico and Condon.

  Barboza also believed that the Mafia had conspired with local law enforcement to “bury him in jail.”93 It was the opportunity the feds had been waiting for.

  “If these people are trying to do this to you, don’t you feel it would be fair in the interest of justice if you testified against them?” asked Condon.94

  Barboza answered the question with a question.

  “What if I testify against the Office and the government isn’t able to convict those I testified against, would the fact that I cooperated still be brought to the attention of the prosecutors and the judge who’d be imposing a sentence on me?”95

  Condon and Rico explained that before they could discuss the matter with the U.S. Attorney’s Office they had to find out in detail exactly what Barboza could testify to.

  What the agents wanted was for Barboza to provide information about Raymond Patriarca’s involvement in the murder of Willie Marfeo.

  “Sometime over the past two years, the date I can’t remember, I called Henry Tameleo in Providence,” Joe explained. “I asked if he’d be around that day and he told me to come down on Tuesday because George and I want to talk to you. “George” is the name Tameleo always gave on the phone when he was talking about Raymond.”96

  Barboza told the agents that he and Ronnie Cassesso went down to Providence to meet with Tameleo and Patriarca and were told that Marfeo had been running a crap game on Federal Hill that was drawing too much attention from police. When ordered to shut the game down, Marfeo slapped Tameleo and told him to go fuck himself.

  “We want this guy whacked out,” Patriarca told Barboza.97 The Man then suggested that Barboza and Cassesso disguise themselves as butchers complete with butchers’ coats and a truck in order to catch Marfeo off guard, as the wily mobster was always on the look-out for potential assassins. After getting a tutorial on Marfeo’s favored hangouts, Barboza returned to Boston, where he would draw up plans to begin casing Marfeo on the street. The next day, however, Joe was told to put the hit on hold, as Tameleo had just been arrested on some charge and there was too much heat. Days and soon months went by and no one brought up the name Willie Marfeo again, so Barboza forgot all about it.

  “About a year later, a guy mentioned to me that Marfeo had been shot and killed inside a telephone booth in Providence. I ran into Henry Tameleo later and he told me that everyone in the place where Marfeo was whacked out were plants of theirs. He said that a guy in a baseball cap nailed Marfeo and that the guy was a good guy and did a good piece of work for us.�
�98

  The details about the Marfeo murder were just what the FBI had been waiting for. Rico and Condon were drawn to the fact that Barboza had traveled from Massachusetts to Providence to discuss the proposed hit. This placed the case in a whole new category thanks to Bobby Kennedy’s ITAR statute, which made interstate travel in aid of racketeering a federal crime.

  The noose was already tightening around the neck of Raymond Patriarca. In early May 1967, a Patriarca soldier named Louis “the Fox” Taglianetti was put on trial for tax evasion in Providence. His lawyers pressed the FBI to turn over whatever evidence they had in the case, and, much to their chagrin, the feds handed over everything including files filled with memos regarding the wiretaps on Patriarca’s Atwells Avenue headquarters. The news came as a shock to Patriarca and the public at large. Newspaper reporters openly questioned whether this marked the beginning of the end to Patriarca’s reign as New England’s undisputed organized crime kingpin.

  The wiretaps had captured details of several Mafia murders, including Taglianetti’s hit on a hired killer named Jackie “Mad Dog” Nazarian. Mad Dog had been responsible for one of the most notorious mob murders in U.S. history—the assassination of Murder Incorporated chief Albert Anastasia as he sat in a barber chair at New York City’s Park Sheraton Hotel in 1957. Nazarian had signed his own death warrant, however, when he began mouthing off that he would make a more efficient, more fearsome crime boss than Patriarca. The Man answered the challenge by having Nazarian shot five times. Also highlighted in the evidence was the unusual correspondence between Patriarca and his unrequited prison pen pal Paul Collicci, who was serving prison time in Massachusetts for a robbery that had involved Patriarca.

  Collicci wrote:

  Hello Boss, Do you notice how I respect you and call you boss? But do you have to leave me in jail? I wrote to you and Henry [Tameleo], but I didn’t get an answer… . But dear boss, get together and get me a new lawyer and a new trial. Because I would like to be on the street… . Please don’t tell me you people are broke, because I know better. If not, tell me so and we can all be together here and have a good time… . I’m reading a novel, Oliver Twist, and it’s all about a man named Fagin. He was a man who sent kids out to steal and then would steal from them … Bye, Big Boss

  PAUL.99

  Collicci had described the right Charles Dickens classic, but the wrong character. Patriarca was no Fagin, but instead shared character traits with a more dangerous Oliver Twist character, the murderous Bill Sykes. Collicci discovered this for himself when he was later gunned down in Quincy, Massachusetts.

  No doubt influenced by the treachery of gangsters like Collicci, the wiretaps showed that Patriarca expressed a growing concern about the character of the men being recruited into the mob. “Don’t look for toughness alone in a man, but look for guys who have brains and don’t talk,” he told one subordinate. “Be careful who you bring in. Together we survive, alone we die.”

  Lawyers for Taglianetti argued that the evidence obtained by the FBI against their client should be thrown out because it was obtained through the use of an illegal wiretap. The harder the attorneys fought for Taglianetti, the more trouble they brought for their client. Instead of getting sentenced to a few years in prison for tax evasion, Louis “the Fox” got the death penalty, with Raymond Patriarca serving as judge, jury, and executioner. Just a few years after the wiretaps were made public; Taglianetti was shot dead while bringing his girlfriend back to his Cranston, Rhode Island, home.

  The wiretaps had caused irreparable damage to Patriarca and his control over the New England Mafia, and law enforcement officials feared that he would become even more dangerous and violent as he tried to cling to power. A week after the wiretaps were made public, Joe Barboza was brought before a grand jury to testify about what he knew about the Marfeo murder and the murder of Rocco DiSeglio, in which he implicated underboss Jerry Angiulo. But Barboza was still wrestling with his conscience. If he testified before a grand jury, there was no going back. He would be branded as a rat for all time. Instead of spilling his guts to the grand jury, Joe surprised both Condon and Rico when he suddenly got a case of cold feet and invoked his Fifth Amendment right to protection against self-incrimination. The FBI agents had fueled Joe’s anger and then rushed him in front of the grand jury before he had fully prepared himself for this life-altering decision. But the Animal wasn’t ready for his close up just yet. Barboza was sent back to Walpole, where he was visited once again by Stevie Flemmi, who finally persuaded him to fight back against Patriarca, a man hell-bent on destroying him. After serious contemplation, Joe told the federal agents that he was ready to confront the Mafia and his fear of being labeled a turncoat.

  Barboza returned to Boston under heavy security on May 11, 1965, where he provided ninety minutes of testimony before the grand jury. Following the appearance, he was taken down a private elevator and placed in the back of an unmarked police car. Knowing the methods used to kill other mobsters, including Connie Hughes and Joe’s best friend Chico Amico, Barboza felt particularly vulnerable in any automobile, even a police car. Once in the backseat of the vehicle, Joe rolled himself off the cushioned bench and onto the floor, where he would be out of an assassin’s direct line of fire. That is how the feared mob killer would be forced to live his life from now on—in hiding. The Animal would have to adapt to his changing environment. The predator would now have to retreat to the shadows in order to save himself and his family. There was no turning back.

  16

  Deegan Part II

  There is no hiding place. No where to run,

  no where to escape

  FOREIGNER

  Following Barboza’s testimony, a convoy of police vehicles escorted him back to Walpole without incident. Word of his betrayal had not been leaked to the public, but it soon would.

  Law enforcement officials feared that this news would inevitably trigger a bloodbath within the walls of Walpole State Prison, where Raymond Patriarca maintained a high level of influence over inmates and, in some cases, prison guards. A decision was made by Suffolk County district attorney Garrett Byrne to transfer Barboza from Walpole to the Barnstable House of Corrections on Cape Cod to ensure his safety. Joe’s wife, Claire, and their daughter, Stacy, were also placed under the protection of the U.S. Marshal Service. John Partington, the U.S. Marshal whom Raymond Patriarca had once referred to as a boy scout, was assigned the task of protecting Barboza’s family at their home in Swampscott. Claire Barboza was suspicious of Partington from the outset and asked him to define the parameters of the arrangement.

  “What’s expected of me, and what are you going to do?” she asked.100

  Partington shrugged and honestly told her that this kind of arrangement was new to him also, and that they would have to make it up as they went along. Claire Barboza was not at all what Partington had expected in a mob wife. She was petite and refined and looked no different from the wife of a banker, doctor, or lawyer. It was hard for Partington to fathom that this somewhat elegant woman was married to a murderous animal. The marshal felt the same way about Stacy. How could someone so evil also produce something so beautiful? The youngster reminded Partington of Shirley Temple with a head full of curls that joyously bounced like a circus parade as she walked. Unlike her mother, Stacy Barboza was taken with the marshal almost immediately. She climbed up on his lap and peppered him with questions that were mostly geared to her cat Oby. Partington had not been aware the child had a pet, and as harmless as the cat appeared, it could pose a problem with the family’s protection. The marshal understood that the stakes were extremely high with this assignment and that the Office would go to any lengths to prevent Barboza from testifying further. If they somehow managed to kidnap Joe’s daughter, there is no doubt the Animal would do anything they asked in hopes of getting her back safely. If by chance Stacy followed the feline off property, she would be at risk of being abducted. Partington would have to place Oby under house arrest during the course of t
his assignment. He had thought about taking the cat away but understood that Stacy was attached to her pet, and it was his job not only to protect the family but also to make them as comfortable as possible under his watchful eye.

  Partington had second thoughts about the cat soon after, when it escaped into the neighborhood. The marshal had to send other members of the protective detail from street to street, but they had no luck corralling the fugitive feline. At day’s end, Oby finally returned with a mouse in its mouth and placed it at Partington’s feet. The marshal made up his mind right then that the cat would stay. He faced other problems, however, from his own colleagues, who constantly complained about protecting a mobster’s family. Partington had to remind them that little Stacy Barboza had never harmed anyone and deserved to be kept out of harm’s way. He also had to remind himself not to get too close to Claire Barboza. Even a hint of impropriety would be hard to explain away to his fellow marshals and to Claire’s husband. With that in mind, Partington recruited students from nearby Radcliffe College to serve as matrons, and also convinced his own wife, Helen, to stay with them so that Claire would have someone to talk to and confide in if she felt the need.

  Meanwhile, Joe was having his own difficulty adjusting to his new home at the Barnstable House of Corrections, overlooking the cold waters of Cape Cod Bay. Barboza was housed in protective custody all by himself in the women’s section of the prison. Soon after his arrival, he was visited by his lawyer, John Fitzgerald. The Animal had been reduced to tears because of the way he had been characterized by the newspapers. The media referred to him as a canary, stoolie, and turncoat. For a mob killer like Joe Barboza, these were the worst insults imaginable. The gangster’s code had meant something to him at one time, and the tears of frustration proved it still did.

  “They [the media] shout for law and order, they pressure the police for action, but when they’re handed on a silver platter someone willing to stand up and do what most Americans are afraid to do, they call him names,” Barboza later wrote in his memoir. “Don’t they realize that these names of “Songbird” and “Canary” only help organized crime by discouraging other potential witnesses from coming forward? Is that what they really want?”101