The trial got heated during cross-examination when a member of the defense counsel, attorney Ronald Chisolm, questioned Barboza as to whether he had a personal vendetta against Teddy Deegan.
“Didn’t Mr. Deegan pull a gun on you at the Ebb Tide three weeks before and make you back down?”162
“Definitely not,” Barboza answered. “Mr. Chisolm, no one pulled a gun on me.”
The Animal continued his testimony over nine grueling days as defense attorneys poked and prodded the combative witness. When asked by one of the lawyers to provide a location for a pin to be placed on a chart that described logistics of the murder scene, Barboza answered, “You want me to show you what you can do with that pin?”163
The Animal had told the jury that Peter Limone had given him a slap on the back for a job well done on the day after the murder. This claim was called into question during cross-examination.
According to Barboza, Deegan was supposed to be shot inside the hallway of the finance company instead of out in the alley where the killing had actually taken place.
“So it wasn’t a good job, was it?” a defense attorney asked.
Barboza simply shrugged his shoulders. “He’s dead though.”164
When testimony centered on Joe Salvati, the innocent man who had replaced real killer Jimmy Flemmi on the hit squad, Barboza stayed true to his script.
“I told him [Salvati] to go outside and put Romeo’s [Martin’s] car down the far end of the parking lot. Then I told Salvati that when he saw me and the others come out the back door of the Ebb Tide to blink your lights once to let us know where you are and in what direction in the back of the parking lot you are.” When asked about the fake glasses, mustache, and wig he claimed Salvati wore as a disguise, Barboza testified that he could “see Joe [Salvati] putting on this wig and the snapping of the elastic.”165
FBI agent Dennis Condon also testified in the trial that he did not show Barboza any reports or other documents pertaining to Deegan’s murder, and that both he and Rico were “very careful not to impart any information about the case to Barboza.”166
Four of the accused men, Roy French, Louis Grieco, Peter Limone, and Joe Salvati took the stand in their own defense.
“Were you wearing a phony wig on the night of March 12, 1965, in Chelsea?” Defense attorney Chester Paris asked Salvati.167
“I was not.”
“Were you bald in any way in 1965?”
“No sir.”
“Was your hair in essentially the same condition it is today?”
Salvati allowed himself a hint of a smile. “It’s just a little grayer.”
“You didn’t have a bald spot?” Paris pressed.
“No sir.”
Paris then asked Salvati if he distributed the arsenal of weapons to the hit squad on the night of the murder, to which he replied no. Salvati went on to say that he had never held a firearm in his life.
Joe Salvati was the defendant prosecutors had feared most. He wasn’t a made member of the Mafia, and there was nothing in his past that would indicate that he was capable of participating in an act of such violence. In the press coverage surrounding the trial, most articles included the fact that both Henry Tameleo and Peter Limone had been named by the U.S. Senate as members of the La Cosa Nostra hierarchy in New England. French and Grieco were also known thugs, but Joe Salvati seemed to be the one defendant completely out of place. The one mistake Salvati made on the stand was telling the jury that he did not remember whether he had gone to work on the day of the Deegan murder.
“But yet you say you have a specific memory of not being in that apartment?” prosecutor Zalkind asked. The apartment he referred to was the Fleet Street meeting place where the Deegan murder was allegedly finalized.
Zalkind also pounded on Salvati for his lack of a full-time job at the time and the fact that he had been arrested ten years before.
“Are you the same Joseph Salvati who … had in his possession certain tools and implements designed for cutting through fencing and breaking into buildings, rooms, vaults and safes in order to steal?”
“It was only a pair of pliers,” Salvati responded.168
Zalkind told the jury that Joe “the Horse” had been given a suspended sentence of one year in the house of correction. A shaky memory, financial motivation, and a slightly blemished past were certainly enough to damage Salvati’s credibility. He stepped down from the witness stand no doubt wondering if he would ever return to his wife, Marie, and their children. He remembered a recent jailhouse visit from his young daughter Sharon who had asked, “Daddy, what is the electric chair?” Tears formed in Joe’s eyes upon hearing those words. “Where’d you hear that?” he asked the child. “The kids at school say they’re gonna give you the electric chair. Are they giving you a present?”169 Would his daughter’s classmates correctly predict the outcome of the trial? Salvati was left to ponder this thought as he watched his fellow defendants tell their own stories to the jury.
Peter Limone had actually been the first accused man to testify, providing yes and no answers to his attorney’s questions. Yes, he admitted that he knew Barboza. No, he said he did not contract the Animal to murder Teddy Deegan. Limone claimed that he was just an ordinary businessman who had operated a cigarette vending company before becoming the manager of a bar owned by the Angiulo brothers in downtown Boston. “Jerry Angiulo is a very good friend of mine,” Limone admitted on the stand.170
Louis Grieco told the jury that he was guilty of only two things, lying about the purchase of a refrigerator and trouble with his wife. “I’m fighting for my life,” he shouted angrily from the witness stand as Zalkind peppered him with questions. Grieco’s wife took the stand in defense of her husband, claiming that he was with her in Florida on the night of the Deegan murder. Although her claim was true, it was discounted by another FBI agent, William Boland, who testified effectively that Grieco was in Massachusetts when Deegan was murdered.
Prosecutors had two more cards to play before resting the state’s case in late July. One surprise witness, a convict named Robert Glavin, testified that he had been offered $50,000 to confess to the Deegan murder. The money would be put in escrow until Glavin’s release from prison, which the Office would work to secure. Assistant Attorney General Zalkind then called John Fitzgerald to the stand. It was the lawyer’s first public appearance since the car bombing. Spectators gasped as the once strapping Fitzgerald was wheeled into the courtroom, half the man he once was. Jurors who had seen black-and-white photos of the Deegan murder were given a full-color image of the true darkness of La Cosa Nostra. Fitzgerald’s words were less important than the symbol he now represented, but still he managed to provide evidence to bolster the state’s case. The wheelchair-bound attorney told the panel that he had contacted the FBI after learning that his partner, Al Farese, was working with the Office to offer Joe Barboza $25,000 not to testify in the Deegan trial. Lawyers for the defendants spent very little time questioning Fitzgerald during cross-examination, because they did not want to look like they were beating up on a man whose physical wounds had not yet healed, and whose emotional wounds would never heal.
During their closing arguments, Grieco’s lawyer, Lawrence O’Donnell, called Barboza nothing more than a loanshark “devoid of any human or moral emotions.”
“Show me just one man aside from Barboza who said Louis Grieco is a murderer,” O’Donnell demanded of the jury.171 The attorney for Roy French also stepped up and accused Barboza of “attempting to use this courtroom as his executioner.” Limone’s attorney, Robert Stanziasi, recited a passage from a letter that Barboza had written a girlfriend. “He [Barboza] wrote: I don’t care whether they’re innocent or not. They go.”172
Chester Paris, who defended Joe Salvati, maintained that “the only evidence against my client came from the lips of Joseph Barboza, uncorroborated in every respect.”
Jack Zalkind urged the jury to focus its attention not on Joe Barboza but on the defendants thems
elves.
“The judge and jury of Teddy Deegan were Mr. Tameleo and Mr. Limone,” Zalkind argued. “The executioners were Mr. French and Mr. Grieco. The other two, Mr. Salvati and Mr. Cassesso, are just as guilty. Can you believe Joseph Baron [Barboza]? I suggest to you ladies and gentlemen that in order for a person to tell a story such as Joseph Baron has told in this case, he would have to have the cooperation of the FBI, the Chelsea Police Department, the district attorney’s office, and the United States Attorney’s Office.”173
Both Condon and Rico must have swallowed hard during this part of Zalkind’s monologue. But the prosecutor had a good point. The year was 1968, before Watergate and before the American public began questioning en masse the character and trustworthiness of its leaders and of law enforcement. There was little chance the jury would believe that the vaunted FBI would partner up with a degenerate killer like Joe Barboza.
During his instructions to the jury, Judge Felix Forte also made statements to bolster the state’s case. The trial had been especially long—forty-six days and increasingly hostile. Forte found himself constantly locked in a verbal battle with each of the five defense attorneys who had accused him of operating his court in a double standard to favor the prosecution, and who all at one point had demanded a mistrial after the state had entered the term La Cosa Nostra into the record during its cross-examination of Peter Limone. Before sending the jurors off to deliberate the charges, Forte wanted to clarify the issue of corroborating evidence.
“His [Barboza’s] word does not need to be corroborated,” Forte explained. “The uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice is complete and sufficient evidence if you, as jurors, give it that support. It’s all up to you.”174
The jury was handed the case on the afternoon of July 30, 1968, and deliberated until 10:45 p.m. before retiring for the night. The panel resumed deliberations the following morning and came to a decision on the charges before noon. An exhausted Judge Forte, who had been resting at Deaconess Hospital, rushed back to the courthouse to pronounce the verdict. After seven hours of deliberations, the jury found the defendants guilty on all charges.
“You gave notice that the community will not stand for gangland murders,” Judge Forte told the jury. “You had the courage of your convictions, and it did take courage.”175
The crowded courtroom remained quiet but for the silent sobs of the defendants’ family members while the judge imposed his sentences. For Henry Tameleo, Peter Limone, and Ronald Cassesso, all members of La Cosa Nostra, the sentence was death. Louis Grieco was also condemned to die in the electric chair. The jury had recommended leniency for Roy French and Joe Salvati, who were each given life sentences without the possibility of parole.
“Oh no,” Grieco’s wife screamed as she learned of her husband’s fate. Roy French’s wife had to be assisted out of the courtroom after her knees buckled.
The Boston office of the FBI fired off a memo to Director Hoover, stating:
ALL SUBJECTS IN DEEGAN GANGLAND MURDER FOUND GUILTY THIS DATE, SUFFOLK COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT, BOSTON, MASS…. TAMELEO. LIMONE AND CASSESSO ALL PROMINENT MEMBERS OF LCN IN PATRIARCA FAMILY. TAMELEO WAS CAPOREGIME OF PATRIARCA IN PROVIDENCE, R.I. AREA…. GARRETT H. BYRNE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, SUFFOLK COUNTY, STATED PROSECUTION WAS DIRECT RESULT OF FBI INVESTIGATION AND PARTICULARLY NOTED DEVELOPMENT OF PRINCIPAL GOVERNMENT WITNESSES JOSEPH BARON, AKA BARBOZA, AND ROBERT GLAVIN. SAS H. PAUL RICO AND DENNIS CONDON WERE INSTRUMENTAL IN DEVELOPMENT OF BARON AND GLAVIN.176
Director Hoover responded to the news with personal letters to both Condon and Rico praising them for their work. U.S. Marshal John Partington was also elated by the verdict. He had kept his prisoner alive long enough to send seven men to prison, four of those men to death row. He had also unwittingly contributed to one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in American history.
20
WITSEC
So I run to the river. It was boilin’, I run to the sea. It was boilin’
NINA SIMONE
Joe Barboza returned to Suffolk Superior Court in November 1968 to be sentenced for his role in the murder of Teddy Deegan. Thanks to his cooperation with the FBI, the carnage he had caused would cost him only a year and a day in prison. He was also indicted on charges of being a habitual criminal. However, the indictments would not be carried out as long as the Animal never returned to Massachusetts. Barboza was to spend the rest of his sentence locked up at a U.S. Army post at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The idea of housing the Animal within spitting distance of America’s gold reserve must have given some law enforcement officials pause. U.S. Marshal John Partington could not wait to see Barboza off and get back to some sense of normalcy in his own life. He had spent the past sixteen months away from his wife and living with an unapologetic mob killer and his family. Yet there was separation anxiety on both sides. Partington had actually grown to like Joe, and especially his wife and their daughter. They had become a family of sorts, and Partington could not help but feel a tinge of sadness to watch them leave. Barboza had enjoyed the marshal’s companionship also, but what he would miss most was the attention he had received over the past year. Joe Barboza had become the biggest story in Boston. His name had appeared in news articles from coast to coast. He had been treated more like a dignitary than a prisoner and criminal. The man who once had abhorred media coverage was now addicted to it. The lights that had shined brightly on center stage had begun to dim. The government and now the public had no more use for Barboza. But the Animal would not go away quietly. When Partington informed Joe that he was to be transferred to Kentucky the next day by plane, he took the news much as a scorned lover would.
“You’re gonna see the real Joe Barboza tomorrow, not the rat fink,” he said angrily. “Bring your shiny badge. Bring your shiny gun, because you’re gonna need them.”177
Partington feared that his unpredictable prisoner would not get on the plane without a fight. He had deputies guard Barboza’s hotel room so that he would not escape. The next morning, Partington went to retrieve the Animal for the ride to the airport. Before entering the hotel room, he told one of his deputies that if he clicked twice on his walkie-talkie, it meant that he should run to the room and shoot Barboza if he had to. The deputy was coiled to attack, but there would be no need. Partington preached to the better angels of Barboza’s beastly nature.
“We’ve gone through too much together. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going out the way we came in, just you and me.”178
Barboza was taken aback. “No handcuffs? No leg irons? Just you and me?”
Partington nodded, and the two walked out of the hotel like old friends. When they arrived at the airport, Barboza pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one as he climbed into the Coast Guard seaplane. He smiled back at Partington. It was a nod to their first meeting at the airport on Cape Cod, when the marshal had ordered him to put out his cigarette before boarding the plane. Barboza took a deep drag from the smoke and blew it back in the marshal’s direction. It was a small act of defiance as the curtain closed on their relationship. As the plane lifted off, Partington remembered that he had one more duty to perform on behalf of Joe Barboza. His wife, Claire, was now contemplating her next move. Should she join her husband in Kentucky? Or should she run and never look back? She had been on a roller-coaster ride as Mrs. Joe Barboza, which at first had been dangerous and exciting. The danger remained, but the excitement had been replaced long ago by humiliation and despair. She had stayed with him during the trials because she had convinced herself that Joe was doing something both courageous and noble. However, letters written by her husband to his girlfriends and presented at trial had extinguished her love for the man. She had stood by him only to learn that he had returned her faith with deceit. Claire had plenty of reasons to leave her husband, but none more important than their daughter and their infant son, Richard, who had been born in late summer. The children would never have a chance at a normal life with a father as deadly a
nd erratic as Joe. John Partington drove to the small Boston hotel where Claire was staying and found her sobbing in her room. She had been running through her options in her mind, and she could not make a decision. Claire once again leaned on her protector and confidant, John Partington, for advice. The marshal’s guidance on the matter was not what she had expected. Instead of backing Claire’s decision to run, Partington urged her to remain with Joe.
“Do it for Stacy’s sake,” he pleaded. “She needs her father.”179
The marshal could sense the trouble ahead if Claire decided to walk out now. Barboza would revert to the wild animal he was, and that would pose a serious danger for those who had been ordered to guard him during the remainder of his sentence. After a long and emotional conversation, Partington finally persuaded Claire to reunite with her husband in Kentucky. He visited the couple a few months later at Fort Knox and found them relatively happy, despite the fact that Joe was still under guard. Barboza found security at the Fort Knox facility extremely lax and accused some marshals of being drunk on the job and stealing from his room. With no more Mafia trials on the horizon, the federal government decided that it was too costly to guard Barboza with a myriad of U.S. marshals any longer. They could not place him in a regular prison, because he would surely become a target for other inmates looking to score points with the La Cosa Nostra. The feds had no other choice but to grant him an early release in late March 1969.
The question that remained—where could Barboza go without the Mafia finding him? The U.S. government had been developing a new program that called for the lifetime protection of high-level witnesses and was now in the process of trying to relocate a Buffalo, New York, gangster named Pascal “Paddy” Calabrese, who like Barboza had recently testified against LCN. The federal Witness Security Program (WITSEC) would provide new identities and new lives for men like Barboza and Calabrese and their families. Calabrese was given a new last name, Angelo, and was packed off to Jackson, Michigan, where he was granted work at a manufacturing plant. For Barboza, remaining in the United States was seen as too much of a risk. At first authorities petitioned FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to allow Barboza to relocate to Australia. Hoover approved the plan, but the idea was later nixed in favor of northern California. No doubt, Claire Barboza expressed her concerns that Australia was simply too far away. Joe also shot down the plan when he was told that the Australian government would not allow his two dogs into the country. Santa Rosa, California, was as good an alternative as any. The city, just fiftyfive miles north of San Francisco, serves as a gateway to California’s wine country. Santa Rosa was considered a quiet place to live, despite blemishes in the city’s past that included the murder of its police chief in 1935. It was also the city made famous by director Alfred Hitchcock in his 1943 thriller Shadow of a Doubt. In the classic film, a killer had come to town unbeknownst to members of the community.
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