In 1958, while out on an appeal in a narcotics case, he was found shot to death in his car, which had crashed into a truck in Boston. Police believed that Fat John was a mob associate and that his death was related to the Brinks money, although they could never prove this theory. It is highly unlikely that the heist was committed without the knowledge of the Italian mob or that they did not receive a piece of it, especially since Angiulo fenced the money years later from the Plymouth Train Robbery. Nothing went on in the North End that the mob didn’t know about or allow to take place.
In the wake of the Apalachin summit, the FBI began its pursuit of organized crime. Apalachin was a meeting of all the top mobsters in the country in 1957. These men were meeting to discuss how they were going to carve up the United States among the crime families, and they anointed Vito Genovese as the boss of bosses. Unfortunately, two New York State troopers crashed the party and consequently brought the mafia into the public forefront. The FBI began bugging mob hangouts in order to obtain as much information on their illegal activities as possible. They also began working on developing informants out of current mobsters.
Originally, Patriarca stayed out of the Irish gang war. But eventually, he had no choice but to interfere because it was starting to cut into his business. His first thought was to let them kill one another, thereby allowing him to pick up a bigger piece of the pie. For the first few years, this plan worked out to his liking. As the war increased, people became increasingly outraged by the killings that were being exclaimed on the front page of the newspapers. Patriarca decided that he would use the gang war to settle some personal scores. The first score he was to settle was with Paul Colicci. They had originally been very close friends—until Colicci went to jail. While in prison, he wrote several nasty and threatening letters to Patriarca. Once released, he took up with a minor thief named Vincent Bisesi. In 1964, the two men were hustling stolen televisions in beach areas like Revere. They would use an actual TV and plug it in to show the potential customer how it worked. Then they would go out to the truck and get a new TV in a box. Unbeknownst to the customer, the set in the box didn’t have any internal working parts. Patriarca found out that Colicci was living in a motel in Quincy, so he dispatched his best assassins. Unfortunately, Bisesi was there too. Patriarca’s assassins killed both of them and dumped the bodies in the trunk of a car, which they left in a parking lot. The police found them on July 23, 1964, only because someone complained about the stench around the vehicle.
The second man on Patriarca’s list was a minor thief named Robert Palladino. Palladino had done a burglary with Tony Sasso, in which they had broken into a house and stolen some mink coats. It turned out that the coats belonged to the girlfriend of Mike Rocco, another mob figure. The thieves sold the coats to Ralph Lamattina, another wise guy and fence. When Lamattina found out where the coats had come from, he immediately dispatched a couple of assassins. Palladino was badly beaten and then was shot and dumped in the North End in November 1965. Sasso’s body was never found. It is widely believed that his remains are part of the foundation of the Wellington Shopping Center.
Meanwhile, the war between Somerville’s Buddy McLean and the McLaughlin gang raged on. One evening in 1965, Buddy McLean was at the Peppermint Lounge in Somerville with bodyguards Americo “Rico” Sacramone and Anthony “Tony Blue” D’Agostino. Stevie and Cornelius Hughes opened fire as Buddy left the lounge, killing him instantly. Cornelius “Connie” Hughes was one of the most feared assassins from Charlestown and a loyal member of the McLaughlin gang. On the evening of May 26, 1966, while driving in a Revere neighborhood, he was spotted by “Cadillac” Frank Salemme and Joseph Barboza. The two Winter Hill killers pulled up to Hughes and opened fire on him. They poured round after round into his body before driving off. When the Revere Police arrived, they found a piece of Hughes’s brain on the floor of his car. Revenge was sweet for the Winter Hill Gang.
After Buddy McLean was killed, Howie Winter was named as his successor. Winter was born on March 17, 1929, in Roxbury, Massachusetts. While he was still an infant, his family moved to Somerville. He began his criminal life early on and quickly became the right-hand man of Buddy McLean. He served as boss of the Winter Hill Gang from 1965 to 1978, when he was jailed for fixing horse races. The original indictment that had jailed Howie Winter also named Whitey Bulger and Stephen Flemmi. However, FBI agent John Connolly had convinced federal prosecutor Jeremiah O’Sullivan to remove them from the indictment because of their status as informants against the mafia. A few years after Winter was released, he was arrested again, this time for dealing cocaine. Despite being faced with another decade behind bars at the age of sixty-five, he refused the FBI deal, telling the agents that he was not about to be a rat. Winter was finally released in 2004 and lives somewhere in Massachusetts.
During the mob wars of the 1960s, the city of Revere was a virtual dumping ground for the bodies of those killed. With nightclubs and strip clubs dotting the city, Revere was a frequent hangout for these mobsters. One night, Revere Police officers were called to one of the clubs on the beach on the report of a shooting. Once the officers arrived, they discovered that not only was there no body, but a section of the carpet, presumably covered in blood, was missing and had been cut from the floor. Another time, the Revere Police responded to a stabbing call at a club on the beach. After arriving at the scene, the police went to inspect the bathroom only to find that the walls and floor had been conveniently cleaned.
The most famous hit man during this time was Joseph “the Animal” Barboza, who hailed from New Bedford. Barboza had been in and out of reformatories since the age of twelve. He started out as a boxer and quickly climbed the ranks of the New England mob, although he was of Portuguese decent. Barboza was with a crew out of East Boston and deferred to the Patriarca crime family and Stephen Flemmi, who was with the Winter Hill Gang. After the incident with Richard Castucci, which allowed the mob to take the Ebb Tide, Henry Tameleo spotted an opportunity. Barboza became a partner in the protection rackets. He would receive 25 percent of the profits of every club he was able to shake down for money. He and his crew were sent to over twenty clubs, including Alfonso’s Lonely Hearts Club in Revere and the Frolics, which Anthony Della Russo, aka Chickie Spar, owned and operated.
Another murder that Barboza committed was the killing of Joseph Francione. Francione and Joe Puzzangara were working out a deal to purchase a load of hijacked furs from a kid named Johnny Bullets. Francione would take the furs, sell them to a guy in New York and rip off the kid Bullets. Once he discovered that he was being swindled, Bullets couldn’t kill the two of them himself; however, his close friend, Joe Barboza, could. So Barboza showed up at Francione’s house on South Avenue in Revere and shot him dead. The police found the body face-down in the kitchen with two shots through the back of the head.
By 1966, Barboza had worn out his welcome; he was a cold-blooded, calculated killer who now had the mob worried due to his rogue ways. In fact, he had gone into the Mickey Mouse, a bar on Revere Beach, to kill a member of the McLaughlin mob on November 15, 1965. When Barboza entered the bar near closing time, it was empty. Barboza killed Ray Distasio, a bartender, and then killed a patron who had surprised him by coming into the bar to buy a pack of cigarettes at the wrong time. The man he killed was John O’Neill, a civilian with a bunch of kids and no attachment to any mob. This type of behavior angered the bosses since dead civilians and unauthorized killings bring unwanted heat.
In October 1966, Barboza was arrested in Boston’s infamous Combat Zone on a concealed weapons charge. His bond was set at $100,000. Barboza realized that something was up as soon as his bail was not put up immediately by Angiulo or Patriarca. Five weeks later, he was still in jail and two friends were attempting to collect the money to furnish his bail. Arthur “Tash” Bratsos and Thomas J. Deprisco Jr. had collected $59,000 when they visited the Nite Lite Café, managed by Ralphie “Chang” Lamattina, to do a little fundraising. The next day, both me
n were found dead in South Boston from gunshot wounds to the head. The bodies were dumped in Southie to make it look like an Irish gang had killed them as part of the McLaughlin war. Not only were Barboza’s pals dead, but the money was missing as well. In December, Joe Amico, another Barboza friend, was found murdered gangland style. The FBI figured that this was their chance to possibly turn Barboza.
Teddy Deegan, the man whose murder sent several innocent people to jail for over thirty years. AP worldwide.
In January 1967, following a ten-day trial, Barboza was sentenced to five years in Walpole on the weapons charge. By June, Barboza had had enough of doing time, and the mobsters in jail were probably walking away from him, knowing full well that he was a dead man. Barboza knew that if Patriarca wanted him dead, it would be easier to kill him in prison than on the street. Barboza began working with the FBI. The FBI was soon hailing him as the New England Joe Valachi. In August, he testified against Patriarca and Tameleo for conspiracy to murder in the killing of bookmaker Willie Mafeo, a Providence bookmaker, in 1966. He also testified against Jerry Angiulo, who was accused of participating in the murder of Rocco DiSeglio.
In October, six men were charged with the March 1965 murder of Edward “Teddy” Deegan. Barboza was at the Ebb Tide Lounge on Revere Beach that night when he and several friends left and returned approximately an hour and a half later. The Chelsea Police discovered the body of Edward Deegan slain gangland style in a Second Street alley. A thorough investigation was conducted by the Chelsea Police, and the case file even had a statement by Revere police officer Joe Errico, who was on detail that night at the Ebb Tide and personally identified the men with whom Barboza left. Teddy Deegan was part of a gang that was robbing Angiulo’s bookies. They were all warned, and in 1964 they had a meeting with Angiulo and were told that they would be paying the stolen money back. Deegan was a member of the McLaughlins, so the warning was a courtesy to McLaughlin, since Angiulo had done business with him in the past and respected him. Deegan’s partners, Edward Delaney and Harold Hannon, didn’t listen to the warning and held up Angiulo bookmaker Carmen Puopolo in Everett. They broke into his home, held a gun to his head and proceeded to rob him. Hannon was later found strangled by a Chinese knot and dumped between some pier pilings at Logan Airport. Delaney was found the same day. He had been beaten unconscious and dumped in the harbor, where he later drowned. Deegan laid low for a while and then went back to robbing more bookmakers.
On March 12, 1965, Roy French contacted Deegan about a big score at the Lincoln National Bank. The others involved were Barboza, Ronnie Cassesso and Louie Grieco. The men then proceeded to break into the bank. On their way out, Barboza, Cassesso and Grieco turned their guns on Deegan. Deegan was murdered on orders from Peter Limone, Angiulo’s right-hand man. In the first trial, none of the jurors found Barboza believable. The second trial was a different story. Patriarca was found guilty of conspiracy to kill Willie Mafeo, who was shot by four shotgun blasts in a telephone booth in a restaurant on Federal Hill.
The FBI kept moving Barboza to prevent the mob from getting at him. The mob even decided to send a message to Barboza through his attorney, John Fitzgerald. The attorney got in his car outside of his office on Chelsea Street in Everett. Suddenly, there was a large explosion, so immense that it blew out the windows of his office and the surrounding stores in the area. Fitzgerald survived but lost his right leg below the knee. Cadillac Frank Salemme and Stephen Flemmi were responsible for the car bomb. Flemmi informed on Salemme for the sanctioned bombing and caused Salemme to flee to Canada for a few years to avoid prosecution. Eventually, Salemme was caught and served time for his role in the bombing. In May 1968, the Deegan trial began. After fifty days of testimony and deliberations, the jury returned a guilty verdict. Found guilty and sentenced to death were Peter Limone, Louie Grieco, Henry Tameleo and Ronald Cassesso. Sentenced to life in prison were Joseph Salvetti and Wilfred Roy French. Barboza had done an impressive job and was sentenced to one year with time served. In 1969, he was released from prison and told to leave Massachusetts. Barboza managed to stay underground for approximately two years. He resurfaced in 1971 and pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge in California. He was sentenced to five years in Folsom Prison. Once he was released from Folsom, the New England mob was able to track Barboza and his every move. Less than three months after his release, he was gunned down in San Francisco by Joseph “J.R.” Russo.
In the late 1990s, the Boston FBI office was in shambles and under scrutiny for its handling of Whitey Bulger. The men who were convicted for the Deegan murder had always claimed that they were innocent and had been set up by Barboza. Even when Winter Hill hit man John Martorano became a federal witness, he informed a DEA agent that Barboza had admitted to framing the men convicted of the Deegan murder. “The mafia screwed me and now I’m going to screw as many of them as possible,” said Barboza, according to Martorano. Obviously, he was referring to the fact that the mob had wanted him out because of his renegade behavior.
Around this same time, the Chelsea Police headquarters building on Broadway was undergoing a complete renovation. At one time, the building housed the police station and the district courthouse. In recent years, a new courthouse had been built across the street, and now the police were taking over the entire building. While construction crews were ripping up the former chief of police’s office, the men found a thirty-year-old file that was hidden under the floorboards. The file was for the Edward Deegan murder. Documents in the file stated that Chelsea Police detectives assigned to the case had known the identities of the men involved with the murder within twenty minutes of receiving the case. It stated that Joseph Barboza, Stephen Flemmi, Vincent Flemmi (who died of a drug overdose in 1979) and Roy French (who was actually convicted of the crime) were all responsible for the murder. Meanwhile, Louie Grieco, Henry Tameleo and Ronald Cassesso—who were all innocent—had died in prison. Joseph Salvati and Peter Limone were released in 1997 and 2001, after serving more than thirty years in prison. The FBI had allowed two innocent men to waste away in jail and three known killers to continue to walk the streets of Boston because they were FBI informants. The FBI had even intimidated the chief of police in Chelsea into obstructing justice in order to protect its informants. This type of behavior was an ongoing practice with the Boston FBI office until it was exposed in 2000 because of agent John Connolly and Whitey Bulger.
Barboza had also testified against Bernie Zinna, another Revere mobster, concerning the killing of an ex-boxer in 1968. In April 1969, someone tried to kill Zinna with a shotgun on Route 60 in Malden, but they missed. Zinna was not so lucky on Christmas Eve in 1969, when he was gunned down on Ocean Avenue in Revere with a .38 caliber. He was shot four times in his Cadillac and left behind a widow and three children. Zinna was a low-level mobster whose only claim to fame was that he was tried and acquitted with Angiulo.
After Barboza was killed, J.R. Russo was promoted to capo. Joseph Russo was from East Boston. In the 1950s, he was employed as a taxicab driver and worked with the Taxi Cab Drivers Union in New York. His unofficial job was with the Lucchese crime family, the mob crew made famous in the movie Goodfellas. He served under the very powerful capo Paul Vario. Russo stayed with the Vario crew until the 1960s, when he moved back to Boston and served under the Patriarca crime family. After he killed Barboza in 1976, he returned to East Boston, took over a crew and ran most of the rackets around Eastie. Every afternoon, Russo would go into a butcher shop on Revere Street, in the shadow of Saint Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, and eat veal cutlets in the back room.
The two player-victims in this Greek tragedy against a background of violence with Italian and Irish participants were Richard and Carlton Eaton, who were born and raised in Revere. Carlton, who was always in trouble, became an associate of the Winter Hill Gang and close personal friend of Stephen Flemmi during the 1950s. On September 25, 1964, Carlton was sitting in his 1957 customized Cadillac Eldorado on Mingo Road in Malden when he wa
s shot and killed by Stephen Flemmi. He was murdered for holding out on a mob tax that he was funneling through his successful sports collectibles store in South Boston. His brother Richie was just the opposite. He was successful in high school, accepted an athletic scholarship and moved from Revere to Ozone Park, Queens, in the early 1950s. He also attended Notre Dame University. After graduation, he began working with the garment workers’ union. It was around this time that he became acquainted with Columbo crime family mobster Dominick Cersani. In 1978, Richie went into business with mob associate Jimmy Burke and was the front man for Robert’s Lounge, a hangout for the Vario crew.
Mob associate Henry Hill stated that Richie Eaton was a “hustler on a grand scale.” He was later involved in the 1978 Lufthansa heist and portrayed in the movie Goodfellas as the mobster who was discovered in the abandoned refrigeration truck in Gravesend, Brooklyn. It took four days to thaw out his body in order for the police to perform an autopsy. Apparently, Jimmy Burke had hogtied him and tortured his partner, allowing him to slowly strangle to death. Eaton’s connection to Revere raises the question, did Patriarca receive a cut of the Lufthansa heist? We may never know.
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