by Mike Stanton
Then there was the Saturday night, in the midst of the jury’s deliberations, that I decided to go watch the mayor serve as grand marshal in the Providence gay-pride parade. Cianci was seated in the back of a convertible with a drag queen when he saw me standing on the sidewalk. “Stanton, is that you?” he barked. “Get in!” I dutifully climbed into the front seat and rode through the rest of the parade with him, then joined him for drinks at a restaurant, followed by an impromptu trip to a gay nightclub with flashing strobe lights and half-naked men dancing on stage. He was, as I’d seen him on many other occasions, surprisingly relaxed given the enormous pressure he was under, a gifted raconteur with a remarkable capacity to compartmentalize.
The unqualified love that Cianci inspired in many people was evident that night in the steady stream of admirers, as was the underlying loneliness that so many of his former aides had described. As the evening wore on, he became boozy and sentimental. In the club, where the music was so loud that he had to put his mouth up to my ear and shout to be heard, Cianci told me: “You’re a good shit. I’m sorry I’ve been such a prick, but I’ve been under a lot of pressure. I hope for the sake of your children that you make a million dollars on the book.” Later, riding back to the Biltmore in his limousine, Cianci seemed tired as he dropped me off in front of Haven Brothers, the silver diner on wheels next to City Hall. The next day was Father’s Day, and we wished one another a happy Father’s Day. He told me to give him a call, and that he would talk to me.
But he never did formally cooperate with this book, which is not surprising. For years, Cianci had talked about writing his own book. He would needle me about how big an advance he thought I had gotten, and ask how much money I was going to give him.
“What do I get out of talking to you except agita?” he asked me one day in August 2002, about a month after his conviction, as he was preparing to leave office and be sentenced to prison.
It was a muggy afternoon. The mayor’s office was unusually quiet. Cianci sat in his shirtsleeves in his air-conditioned office, which felt like a meat locker, signing papers and going through his mail. He picked up a letter from a literary agent and read it aloud, then dropped it on his desk and said, “I get these all the time.”
The mayor launched into a lengthy discussion of the publishing industry—how there are fifty-six thousand titles published every year, and most sell fewer than five thousand copies, et cetera. Cianci told me that his story should command “a healthy six figures.” When I said that I’d gotten nowhere near that, he looked at me incredulously and shouted, “How could you sell yourself so cheap?” I replied that I was approaching this project as a chance to expand myself as a journalist by writing about a subject that fascinated me; I wanted to be fairly compensated, but it wasn’t all about the money. “Why not?” he said.
Outside, the wind was picking up and greenish-black clouds darkened the sky. Rain began to smack against the windows.
“The books that really sell today are the tell-all autobiographies,” Cianci said. “I reread Lee Iacocca’s book a few days ago. What makes that book is the personal stuff, Henry Ford calling him a Jew. You won’t have my stories—the stories about Frank Sinatra’s visits to Providence, the time I helped him get someone into Brown. You need the behind-the-scenes stuff. I’ll tell you what: we’ll call Random House right now, get a new deal, write the book together, get a six-hundred-thousand-dollar advance. I guarantee you that by five P.M. they’ll rip up your contract and we’ll have a new one.
“My story is the story of a man who becomes mayor, has political battles. He beats up his wife’s lover, has to leave office. He comes back, brings back the city. Then he runs into some other bullshit with the feds. He’s kind of a rogue. Maybe he wins his appeal. . . .”
Thunder rumbled above City Hall and lightning flashed outside. Cianci, his voice a similar low rumble, continued, “It’s like thunder and lightning. Your book will have the lightning, but it won’t have the thun-derrrr.”
But when you live as large a life as Buddy Cianci, your stories are everywhere—from the old political wards to the glitzy Providence Renaissance bistros, in the cracks and crevices of Providence itself. Everybody in Rhode Island, it seems, has a Buddy story. I was inundated. While some people were reluctant to talk, out of loyalty or for fear of incurring Cianci’s wrath, many more were eager. Some spoke anonymously, because they still have to live in Rhode Island. They shared their stories, good and bad, fond and outrageous. I have tried to weave their stories into a tapestry of Providence and of a gifted and flawed man who embodied both the corruption and the rebirth of an American city. In the words of Willie Stark in All the King’s Men: “Dirt makes grass grow; a diamond ain’t a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got awful hot. And God-a-Mighty picked up a handful of dirt and blew on it and made you and me and George Washington.”
Love him or hate him—and with Buddy Cianci there is no middle ground—most would agree that Providence won’t be the same without him. Even after he went away, many hungered for news of his life in prison. He worked in the prison kitchen, lost more than twenty pounds, and was still very bitter about his conviction. “I’m locked in the kitchen eight hours a day,” he wrote Wendy Materna, noting that this was his 110th day behind bars. “Prison is no fun, but an eye opener,” he wrote Mark Silberstein of the East Side Monthly. “There are some nice people here. And, then again, there are those who do not have too many branches on the family tree.” The mayor remained hopeful for his appeal.
Meanwhile, the new mayor, David Cicilline, was confronted with a fifty-nine-million-dollar budget deficit that he attributed to the excesses of the Cianci years. Cicilline struggled to change a culture where “everything was a favor and a handshake.” When former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, whom Cianci had once feted on Federal Hill, visited Providence, he signed his new autobiography for Cicilline and said, “Good luck cleaning up your town.”
Still, many in Providence said that they wouldn’t bet against Cianci’s winning his appeal and making yet another comeback. He has, after all, kept his Presidential Suite at the Biltmore. Shortly before he checked out, Cianci teased the reporters who had chronicled his exploits over the years and served as his foils. “You’re gonna miss me,” he said.
I hope that I have succeeded in capturing the thunder and the lightning that was Buddy—a dynamic spark both destructive and illuminating.
A NOTE ON SOURCES
Buddy Cianci, though he never formally agreed to cooperate with this book, provided considerable information in numerous interviews and encounters during the nearly four years that Operation Plunder Dome played out. We spoke in his ornate office at City Hall, in his limousine riding around Providence, and at various events throughout the city: speeches, groundbreakings, dedications, fund-raisers, parties, parades, and press conferences. I had ample opportunity to observe the King of Retail up close and in his element—politicking, schmoozing, joking, raging, cajoling, bullying, reminiscing, and painting his vision of Providence.
Early in 2000, shortly before his indictment, Cianci discussed his early career, philosophy, and style during a two-hour lunch at Davio’s. He also invited me to ride around with him one night, and to attend one of his directors’ meetings at City Hall. I also spoke to him quite a bit during his trial: in the hallway outside the courtroom, on the courthouse steps during rambling discourses with reporters, and in his office as he awaited the jury’s verdict.
I interviewed many people who worked for and supported the mayor, including Carol Agugiaro and her husband, Joe Agugiaro, Sharky Almagno, Paul Campbell, Artin H. Coloian, Patrick Conley, Raymond Dettore, Mickey Farina, Melissa Forrest, Rosemary Glancy, Ron Glantz, Charles Mansolillo, William McGair, Patricia McLaughlin, Bruce Melucci, John Palmieri, Urbano Prignano, Jr., Thomas Rossi, Normand Roussel, Carl Stenberg, and Joe Vileno, as well as others who wish to remain anonymous.
I also interviewed several past and present members of the Providence City Council wh
o have been with Cianci or against him, or both, over the years. They include Luis Aponte, Vin Cirelli, Raymond Cola, Nick Easton, Joshua Fenton, Sanford Gorodetsky, John Lombardi, Robert Lynch, John Murphy, Rita Williams, Balbina Young, and Ed Xavier. I also talked to Steve Woerner, who worked as the council’s auditor in the early 1990s, and James Lombardi, who succeeded him.
Wendy Materna, Vincent Vespia, Jr., Herbert DeSimone, and Bruce Sundlun provided me with insights into the personal Buddy, as did others who wish to remain anonymous.
Many journalists who have known Cianci through the years shared their insights, including past and present Providence Journal colleagues M. Charles Bakst, Scott MacKay, Bob Kerr, Doane Hulick, Ken Mingis, and Karen Lee Ziner. Also, Jim Taricani of WJAR–Channel 10, Jack White of WPRI–Channel 12, Jim Hummel from WLNE–Channel 6, and Rudy Cheeks and Chip Young, a.k.a. Philippe & Jorge, columnists for the Providence Phoenix.
The archives of The Providence Journal and the defunct Evening Bulletin provided an exhaustive day-by-day account of Cianci’s career and the various issues confronting Providence over the past four decades. I found several books helpful in understanding Cianci, urban politics, and Providence’s history and comeback. The Prince, by Machiavelli, was a valuable primer, as was The Portable Renaissance Reader, edited by James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin. Governing Middle-Sized American Cities, edited by Wilbur Rich, devotes a chapter to Cianci and the Providence Renaissance. Two useful sources on the Providence Renaissance were Interface: Providence, a 1974 study of the center city conducted by Professor Gerald Howes and his team of design students at the Rhode Island School of Design, and a 2002 booklet compiled by architect William Warner, An Abbreviated History of the Waterplace Park and River Relocation Projects. Three valuable resources on local history were Rhode Island: A History, by William G. McLoughlin; Rhode Island, by George H. Kellner and J. Stanley Lemons; and the Rhode Island Century series, by Scott MacKay and Jody McPhillips, which ran in The Providence Journal throughout 1999. Also, Downtown Providence, an architectural inventory compiled by the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission, and Downtown Providence in the Twentieth Century, by Joe Fuoco and A. J. Lothrop.
As chief of The Providence Journal’s investigative team, I covered Operation Plunder Dome from the day it became public, on April 28, 1999. Over the next three and a half years, as the case unfolded, I got to know the players. My investigative colleagues and I broke stories concerning the evidence against the mayor, the University Club affair, the city’s tow-truck operators, Edward Voccola’s dealings with the city, and the mayor’s personal use of campaign funds, which led to a state grand-jury probe and a civil consent order in which the mayor agreed to repay $7,400 in improper campaign expenditures and his campaign organization paid a $22,000 civil fine.
Prologue: A Knock on the Door
I interviewed W. Dennis Aiken about his early experiences as an FBI agent in Rhode Island. Cianci and Bruce Sundlun told me the story of the mayor’s having been offered a sitcom, in the early 1980s. A former aide told me about the mayor’s “to-go cups.” A source told me of Aiken’s visit to Cianci’s house on the morning of April 28, 1999, and three other sources confirmed it.
Chapter One: The Prosecutor, the Priest, and the Mob Boss
In an interview with me, Cianci mentioned his race to Maryland to uncover the truth about Father Moriarty. I filled in the details by interviewing Bobby Stevenson, the Providence police detective who accompanied him; former prosecutors Richard Israel and William Dimitri; former state police detective Vincent Vespia, Jr.; Monsignor William O’Donnell and Margaret McNeill at St. Ignatius in Oxon Hill, Maryland; and Allan Densford, the father of the girl who was baptized. (Stacy Lynn Densford grew up, married, and recently had her second daughter; she works as a hotel manager in Dallas, Texas. The Father Moriarty story has become part of Densford-family folklore.) Two key actors in the drama, Father Moriarty and prosecutor Irving Brodsky, are dead.
Brian Andrews, retired detective commander of the Rhode Island State Police, shared his insights and documents detailing Raymond Patriarca’s criminal career and the influence of the Mafia in Rhode Island—including a transcript of Colonel Walter Stone’s 1963 congressional testimony. I obtained a transcript of Patriarca’s 1959 congressional testimony, in which he was questioned by Bobby Kennedy, from the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. Lionel Benjamin, a retired state police major, told me about Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow, and the tale of Damon Runyon’s widow’s diamond ring. Vinny Teresa, in My Life in the Mafia, described Patriarca’s ties to Papa Doc Duvalier.
I also read old state police reports chronicling Patriarca’s career back to his bootlegging days, and FBI reports summarizing conversations in Patriarca’s vending office from the illegal bugging ordered by J. Edgar Hoover in the early 1960s, as part of Bobby Kennedy’s war on organized crime. The mob boss’s hatred of Kennedy is apparent. In one conversation, after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Patriarca lamented that his brother Bobby hadn’t also been “whacked.”
I learned about the Mafia in general and the Marfeo-Patriarca wars in particular from retired state police detective Vincent Vespia, Jr.; retired state police major Lionel Benjamin; former Providence police officers Vincent O’Connell, Don Kennedy, and Howard Luther; former Rhode Island attorneys general Herbert DeSimone and Richard Israel; and two Federal Hill sources who wish to remain anonymous.
A number of people talked to me about Cianci’s family and childhood, most notably his aunt Josephine Antocicco. His cousin Norma Lynch told me the story of Buddy’s telling his second-grade class he wanted to be president. Cianci, in comments to me and to other reporters over the years, talked about growing up and going to Moses Brown. Other sources, including aides and friends, talked to me about things that he told them about his childhood. Old-timers in Silver Lake also told me about the family. Wendy Materna offered insights into Cianci’s relationship with his father and his father’s womanizing, as did other sources who requested anonymity. Michael Traficante and Pasquale and Millie DeSocio talked about Buddy’s youth. Mary Ann Sorrentino remembered him as a childhood performer. His music teacher, Celia Moreau, who has since died, talked about Buddy’s performances in stories published in the Journal. The Italo-Americans of Rhode Island, published in the 1930s, offered biographical sketches of Cianci family members.
I learned about Silver Lake from many of its natives: Sharky Almagno, John Cicilline, Ronald and Christopher Del Sesto, Stephen Fortunato, Orlando Giansanti, Jr., Vincent Igliozzi, Teresa Merolli, Ralph Pappitto, Urbano Prignano, Jr., Fred Santagata, and Mike Traficante. Charlie Pisaturo sent me local historical articles. I also read Father Stephen Almagno’s book chronicling the history of St. Bartholomew’s, The Days of Our Lives.
I interviewed several schoolmates and teachers of Cianci’s at Moses Brown, most notably Robert Ellis Smith, Jerry Zeoli, King O’Dell, Steve Fortunato, Walter Nason, and Edmund Armstrong. Also, Barry Fain, Stephen Ham, George Kilborn, Frank Robinson, Doug Marquis, and Donald Shaghalian. I went through the yearbooks for the years he attended. Former Mount Pleasant wrestler John A. Volpe and his coach, Lou Marciano, talked about Cianci’s wrestling career.
For Buddy’s career as a prosecutor, I talked to Vin Vespia, Steve Fortunato, Herb DeSimone, Richard Israel, William Dimitri, and Slater Allen.
Chapter Two: The Anticorruption Candidate
I talked at length to Skip Chernov about his life and the Harold Copeland case before his death late in 2001, and read an unpublished manuscript that Chernov had written about his life. I also read stories published at the time in The Providence Journal-Bulletin, including two longer profiles, “Up from Rock ’n’ Roll” by George Popkin in 1971 and “The Rise and Fall of a Boy Wonder,” by Carol Stocker in 1976. I also talked to his former partner Bruce Goldstein; Morris Nathanson, who designed the Incredible Organ Pub; Chernov’s former lawyers Milton Stanzler and Jim O’Neil; former Rhode Island attorney general Richard Israel; and fo
rmer state police detective Vincent Vespia, Jr. I also read Chernov’s and Goldstein’s 1973 state police statements about Copeland, and the court file of a subsequent civil suit by Chernov against the Civic Center over lost concert business.
Chernov’s account of being pressured to change his testimony by a member of the Civic Center Authority was corroborated by his lawyer, Jim O’Neil. When Chernov sued the Civic Center, O’Neil told me that he saw a memo, written by a lawyer for Chernov’s business partner. The memo described the meeting, which Chernov had told me about, in which Lloyd Bliss, deputy chairman of the Civic Center Authority, told Chernov that he could resume promoting concerts if he changed his testimony about Copeland.
I found background information on Joe Doorley in the Doorley Archives at Providence College, including letters, speeches, biographical sketches, and materials about urban renewal in the 1960s. I also interviewed his top policy aide, John Cicilline, and political allies of Doorley and Larry McGarry, including Ray Devitt, John Murphy, and Ed Xavier, as well as Francis Darigan, who challenged Doorley in the 1974 primary. Dr. Paul O’Malley at Providence College, who worked in Darigan’s campaign, provided background about the Democratic machine and the texture of life in postwar Providence, as did Nick Easton, who is doing a doctorate in political science on political machines, and Dr. Patrick T. Conley. Journal colleague Scott MacKay gave me a research paper written by Providence College graduate student Carl Antonucci about the Doorley-McGarry split and the 1974 campaign. I showed the paper to Cianci one day during the Plunder Dome trial, and he talked about the 1974 race.
Several sources talked about Doorley’s drinking, including Farina, Glantz, Murphy, and Xavier. Murphy and Xavier, both of whom served on Doorley’s campaign committee, told me that Doorley’s campaign advisers talked to the mayor about controlling his drinking during the campaign. Xavier also described Doorley’s drinking buddies joking about Cianci. Farina described the Old Canteen encounter between Cianci and Doorley, and Vin Vespia, who heard about it from Cianci, corroborated it.
