“Society is eternally tugged toward the lynch law whenever they decide there is a criminal type,” O’Donnell argued.135 “Through propaganda we are told that all Irish are drunks, all Jews are sneaks and all Italians are gangsters. I don’t want any of that in the jury box. Michelangelo would turn in his grave. If that is the basis for your decision, scream it out now.” O’Donnell then raised his index finger to the jury before mentioning Barboza by his legal name. “In this case the evidence rests on the word of one man, Joseph Baron, and he should not be believed. A baron has no friends. A baron specializes in victims.”
The defense reminded the jury once again of the previous indictments against Barboza and asked the panel once again to question his whereabouts on the night of the DiSeglio murder. “Show me one honest man who has got up on the witness stand and testified to one single iota to the defendants,” O’Donnell asked rhetorically as he ended his speech.136
Prosecutor John Pino got the last word and made a desperate attempt to distance himself from his star witness and yet preserve his testimony. “This is the case of the Commonwealth against Angiulo, Zinna, DeVincent, and Lepore, and I respectfully direct your attention to that fact. This is not the case of Joe Baron against the defendants…. Joe Baron told the truth, and who would know better than a man of Joseph Baron’s criminal record?”137
The jury received the case on January 18, 1968, and reached its verdict after only two hours of deliberations. Jerry Angiulo and his three fellow defendants were rushed back into the courtroom, where they sat quietly as the judge rendered the verdict. The underboss had cheated death numerous times during his service in World War II, and now sixteen ordinary American citizens—a jury of twelve plus four alternates—posed a greater threat to Angiulo’s survival than the Japanese Navy ever had. He would get the electric chair if convicted. In the anxious moments before the decision was read, it is possible that Angiulo thought back to the prophetic words in Barboza’s telegram: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. Would his kingdom be divided among his enemies? But in the end, it was Joe Barboza who had been weighed by the jury and found wanting. His murderous past had made him unbelievable in court. The state’s case rested almost entirely on Barboza’s testimony, and that was not enough for the jury. The verdict was unanimous—Angiulo and the other three defendants were found not guilty on all charges.
Jerry Angiulo, who had cultivated an image of a strong, stern Mafiosi fought back tears in court. Swallowing hard, he told a flock of reporters, “I don’t want to say anything right now. I want to see my mother. She’s seventy-three, and this thing has been bothering her.”
For the prosecution, the FBI, and Joe Barboza, the verdict was stunning to comprehend. How could a jury let a notorious gangster like Jerry Angiulo walk? And what would this mean for the trials against Raymond Patriarca, Henry Tameleo, and the suspects in the Deegan case? As Barboza was notified of the acquittal, he simply paused and stared out at the wave crests colliding with the rock along Freshwater Cove. “See what ya get for trying to do the right thing?” he muttered to himself.138
18
Ka-boom!
We like explosions. It’s only right we should
DEVO
If Joe Barboza’s fragile mind wasn’t shattered yet, it soon would be. He had slipped into a minor depression after the Angiulo trial, and both Condon and Rico did their best to keep his spirits up. They told him that he had performed well during the trial but that the case was the weakest of the three. They promised him that he would get his revenge in the Patriarca and Deegan trials. Barboza was not convinced. Jerry Angiulo had been allowed to walk free, and no doubt the underboss would hunt the Animal until his last dying breath. The FBI agents made almost daily visits to the Gloucester estate to check on Barboza’s mental state. John Partington was concerned as well. He had recently found Joe in an off-limits room of the mansion—the kitchen, which was filled with knives and other utensils that could be used as weapons. Barboza’s eyes were bulging and his speech was slurred. Partington knew right away that he was under the influence of some kind of drug. At first, Barboza thought the marshal was an intruder. “You motherfucker,” he hissed as he moved slowly toward the marshal.139
“Joe, it’s me, John Partington, and you’re not supposed to be in here.”
His words shook Barboza out of his semiconscious state. Joe blinked several times and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He then gave an ominous warning to the man he now considered a friend.
“If you ever see me like this again, John, get the fuck away from me. I’ll fucking kill you. Don’t forget it.”140
In an effort to calm his prisoner’s nerves, Partington relied on an old horse trainer’s trick. One way to soothe a particularly stubborn horse is to place a smaller animal in its stable for companionship. Partington figured the method might work at Freshwater Cove as well, so he surrounded Barboza with a menagerie of pets including several dogs, cats, two canaries, and a wounded seagull that Joe tried to nurse back to health. The small petting zoo lightened Joe’s mood for a short while until one of his worst fears was finally realized.
Night had fallen on January 30, 1968, and with it came a cold rain. Folks had been buzzing from Boston to Washington, D.C., all day about Bobby Kennedy’s sudden announcement that he would not run against his nemesis, President Lyndon Johnson, in the November election. The former attorney general and current U.S. senator from New York told reporters at the National Press Club that although he questioned Johnson’s ability to lead the nation, there was nothing he could do about it because of the president’s power over convention delegates. Kennedy agonized over the war in Vietnam and most likely gave little thought to the war he had started against organized crime, which now appeared to be at a stalemate following the Angiulo debacle. Attorney John Fitzgerald was no stranger to war. He had fought to stay alive as a combat soldier in Korea, and now he was fighting for survival at home.
Fitzgerald had just locked up his office at 449 Broadway in Everett, Massachusetts, and had planned to visit his parents’ house for dinner before heading home to his family in Westwood. He had vowed to be a better husband since the revelation of infidelity surfaced in an anonymous phone call to his wife, Carol. Deep down, Fitzgerald knew that he would not be able to keep that promise. He was thirty-six years old, successful, and drawn to the action. He had been living his life vicariously through clients like Joe Barboza, but somewhere along the line he had morphed from attorney to gangster himself. He had the car, the women, and now he had the weapons. Fitzgerald carried two loaded pistols and made a mental note to keep them in his car during their dinner visit, so as not to upset his father, who was a retired Protestant minister. After turning the key to lock his office door, Fitzgerald waved good-bye to his partner, Al Farese, and walked across the street to a drug store to use a pay phone. Although he still worked with Farese, Fitzgerald no longer trusted him and did not want him eavesdropping on conversations.
Fitzgerald made several calls, including one to Paul Rico. He left the drugstore and walked swiftly through the driving rain to a vacant lot on Mansfield Street, where he had parked the James Bond car, the black and gold Oldsmobile that was still registered in Joe Barboza’s name. The lot was about a half-block away from Fitzgerald’s office. Normally he would have parked across the street from his Broadway office, but the lawyer was taking every precaution he could now that he was on the “hit parade.” One precaution that he had overlooked when he parked his car earlier that day was setting the alarm. John Fitzgerald got into the Oldsmobile and placed his briefcase next to him on the seat. He then placed the key into the ignition, turned it, and pressed his foot against the gas pedal.
The action ignited two big sticks of dynamite that were hidden under the hood. The car erupted into a huge fireball, launching the hood several feet in the air and propelling the hubcaps out hundreds of feet in both directions. The windshield exploded into a thousand pieces as tiny fragments of glass tore at Fitzgerald’s face and ja
w. Two nearby power lines were snapped by flying debris, and the impact also cracked the windows of neighborhood apartment houses. One man who lived nearly a block away said the explosion felt like a plane going through the sound barrier. There was a deafening noise and the ground shook. The explosion hurled Fitzgerald against the car door and onto the pavement. His clothing was on fire, his flesh was burning, and it appeared that portions of the car’s seat cover were molded to his body. The street resembled a war zone as flames and smoke smothered the area. Lying spread out on the asphalt with his right leg nearly ripped from his body, the lawyer begged for help.
“Help, help… . Get me the FBI!” he muttered softly as he slipped in and out of consciousness.141
Fitzgerald was rushed to Whidden Hospital, where doctors worked feverishly to save his life. He spent nearly six hours on the operating table and was given twelve pints of blood. A team of orthopedic surgeons could not save the right leg, which had to be amputated three inches below the knee. Fitzgerald was also treated for serious burns to his face and hands.
Back at the site of the car explosion, detectives from the Suffolk County D.A.’s office pulled Fitzgerald’s briefcase from the fiery wreck and hurried away from the scene. An explosives expert from the state fire marshal’s office later determined that two large sticks of dynamite—three inches thick, sixteen inches long, and weighing eight to ten pounds in total—had been wired to the ignition.
“It is a typical gangland bomb,” Inspector Joseph Sainato told reporters. “The whole thing can be installed in a minute. Anybody with any knowledge of explosives and electricity could do it.”142
Dennis Condon and Paul Rico drove to Whidden Hospital, where they waited with other law enforcement officials along with Fitzgerald’s wife and five children for an update on his condition. As Carol Fitzgerald prayed for her husband’s survival, Paul Rico privately hoped that he would die on the operating table. For Rico, it was a case of sacrificing one for the greater good of many. The FBI agent knew that Joe Barboza’s usefulness would end and he had to prepare for the future. It was a future that was dependent on the steady stream of information supplied by Stevie Flemmi, Rico’s newly minted Top Echelon Informant. Flemmi had helped convince Barboza to testify against the mob. If this news ever got out, it would mean an end to Flemmi and, more important, an end to Rico’s vaunted program in the Boston area. Flemmi needed to ingratiate himself with the Mafia so they would never question his loyalty. When the Office needed someone to send a message to Joe Barboza, Flemmi and his partner Frank Salemme volunteered for the assignment, no doubt with Rico’s full approval. The two men thought they had packed the Oldsmobile with enough dynamite to do the job, but somehow John Fitzgerald had made it out alive, if just barely.
“Joe Baron [Barboza] will be wild about this,” Al Farese told reporters when he was notified about the bombing.143 These words were an understatement. Once the news reached Freshwater Cove the Animal erupted, vowing to kill Raymond Patriarca and anyone else he could get his hands on. John Partington increased security on the Gloucester estate, not only to keep intruders from getting in but also to keep Barboza from getting out and making good on his threat.
The attack on Fitzgerald, which had been carried out in an effort to intimidate Barboza and prevent him from testifying against Patriarca, had the opposite effect on the Animal. The bombing only strengthened his resolve to bring the Man down.
“If I can’t get that motherfucker with my bare hands, I’ll get him with my mouth,” he told Partington.144
Barboza also blasted the media and local leaders for their public condemnation of organized crime. “They screamed about law and order and how a lawyer, the father of five and the son of a minister, wasn’t safe,” he later wrote in his memoir. “The politicians all got in the act. They had pretty much ignored the gang war all those years with the excuse it was just punks killing off punks and good riddance, but now that a lawyer had been maimed and crippled they rose up in wrath and tried to outdo each other in pious indignation.”145
The trial for Raymond Patriarca and his fellow codefendants, Henry Tameleo and Ronnie Cassesso, began in early March 1968 at U.S. District Court in Boston. U.S. Attorney Paul Markham served as lead prosecutor and used his opening statement to paint a picture of an all-powerful Mafia boss who had targeted Willie Marfeo, a small-time gambler, for operating a dice game that drew too much heat in Patriarca’s backyard.
“Henry Tameleo telephoned Baron [Barboza] in 1965 to say that he had a problem that Baron and Cassesso could straighten out,”146 Markham told the fifteen-member jury that had been impaneled in just forty-two minutes and ordered sequestered during the duration of the trial. “He told Cassesso and Baron that they wanted Willie murdered and they wanted it done right away.”
All three defendants listened quietly as they sat at the defense table with their lawyers, two of which, Joe Balliro and Ronald Chisolm, had been members of the successful Angiulo defense team. Patriarca had confidence that his lawyers would be tearing to shreds the testimony that would be provided by Joe Barboza. The sixty-year-old Mafia Godfather felt that he was due for a break after what had been a turbulent period in his life. His wife, Helen, had succumbed to cancer a few years before, and now his criminal empire had been jeopardized by FBI wiretaps and the words of a man he had dismissed as nothing more than a “nigger thug.” Patriarca had gone from being viewed as a gangland Lord Voldemort—“a man whose name you ordinarily hear whispered but nobody wants to hear out loud,” District Attorney Garrett Byrne had said at one time, to a criminal whose arrogance and sloppiness now threatened to destroy La Cosa Nostra in New England.
Joe Barboza was equally confident in his ability to hammer the nails into Patriarca’s proverbial coffin. Unlike his testimony in the Angiulo trial, his story about the Marfeo murder was mostly true. The challenge now, though, was keeping himself alive long enough to share it with the jury.
The task would fall to John Partington and his team. It was time once again to bring the Animal out of hiding and keep him out of harm’s way.
On the morning of Barboza’s scheduled testimony, as many as five Mafia hitmen were positioned outside the courthouse with orders to kill the Animal before he made his way inside. One assassin, tucked away in a nearby office building, covered the courthouse steps with a sniper rifle. Another killer tried to slip into the courthouse dressed as a policeman. A member of the protective detail discovered five hundred pounds of nitroglycerin that the mob had planned to use to blow up the security convoy. Partington had them all fooled; he had smuggled Barboza inside the building under the cover of night three full days before his testimony was to begin.
Sensing the impending danger, the marshal had Barboza transported by helicopter from Gloucester to the Charles River Esplanade. The chopper landed a few yards away from the Hatch Shell stage, where the maestro, Arthur Fiedler, conducted the Boston Pops every Fourth of July. To avoid any unwanted fireworks, eight heavily armed marshals surrounded Barboza during the short walk from the helicopter to an armored Cadillac. The caravan whisked the prisoner to the courthouse, where Joe and Partington were housed in a basement storeroom that had been reinforced with steel plates for added protection. It was not the first time that Partington had executed an elaborate scheme to protect his charge. During the Angiulo trial, he had Barboza brought to the city on a fishing boat that docked at an isolated pier on Boston Harbor. From there they had traveled in the back of a U.S. Postal Service truck to the courthouse, where they were escorted inside the building along with the day’s mail.
The U.S. District Courthouse resembled a military barracks, with bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling every floor. Barboza and Partington slept on cots and waited patiently for their names to be called.
The Animal was called to testify on the second day of the trial and was led into the twelfth-floor courtroom by twelve U.S. marshals. Patriarca sat up and leaned forward over the defense table as Barboza entered the room. The marshals moved Barboza alon
g quickly to avoid a repeat of Joe’s last courtroom confrontation with his former boss. As an unindicted coconspirator in the murder of Willie Marfeo, Joe took the witness stand and told the jury that he and Cassesso had been recruited by Tameleo and Patriarca to “whack out” Marfeo. As the public at this time was still unaccustomed to mob lingo, the judge asked Barboza what he meant by “whack out.”
“He [Patriarca] wanted him killed,” the Animal answered. “There was a lot of discussion about how we were gonna do this and when we were gonna start. They suggested we use a meat truck and wear white coats to look like delivery men, and using a dolly walk into the place where he hung out.”147
The Trojan Horse method seemed the most logical at the time, as Marfeo had recently increased security at his headquarters at the Veterans Social Club on Atwells Avenue by installing a reinforced door and placing metal bars on the windows.
“He [Patriarca] said he’d take care of us, and I said I’d do it for nothing and Cassesso said the same,” Joe added.148 He explained that providing a free hit for the boss would be good for business and would open up a lot of doors. By that, Barboza surely meant that such a favor might help his campaign for induction into La Cosa Nostra.
Under cross-examination, attorney Joe Balliro continued the line of defense that had torpedoed Barboza’s testimony in the Angiulo trial. Balliro questioned Joe about a recent letter he had written to a girlfriend.
“In the letter you stated that you had a few aces up your sleeve. And at least one of these aces was the testimony you were going to give against these three people?” Balliro said, pointing at Patriarca, Tameleo, and Cassesso. Barboza denied once again that his testimony was driven by profit but freely admitted that he had, as he put it, “deals in the fireplace” for a book and possible movie about his life.
“Did you intend to kill Willie Marfeo when you went down to Providence?”
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