“No father. Please deliver it in Portuguese,” Donald requested. “My brother was Portuguese.”
23
The Ghost of Joe Barboza
There ain’t no grave can hold my body down
JOHNNY CASH
The investigation into Joe Barboza’s assassination began with promise but stalled quickly. Three months after the murder, FBI special agent John Connolly fingered James Chalmas for helping to plan the gangland hit. Connolly claimed this helpful information was delivered to the feds by Top Echelon Informant BS 1544-CTE, the code word for James “Whitey” Bulger. In reality Bulger had not provided this information, but Connolly was under pressure to score a win for his friend, Whitey. According to Connolly’s memo, the “outfit” was now discussing plans to move against Chalmas, whom they rightfully considered to be the direct link tying them to Barboza. The FBI interviewed Chalmas and warned him that he was going to be eliminated. Chalmas crumbled under questioning and admitted that he had helped mark Barboza for death. He pointed the finger of guilt at J. R. Russo, but prosecutors refused to indict the Mafiosi because Chalmas was their only witness and his credibility would be torn apart on the witness stand. Instead, Chalmas pleaded guilty to a federal charge of conspiring to violate—by means of murder—Barboza’s right to testify against members of the New England Mafia. He was placed into the witness protection program with a standing agreement that he might be called back to testify against Barboza’s killers should they ever be brought to trial.
The Animal’s archenemy, Raymond L. S. Patriarca, would not die staring into the barrel of a loaded gun; instead the Man would die a gentleman’s death. The New England Mafia boss suffered a fatal heart attack in the emergency room of Rhode Island Hospital in the summer of 1984. He had been rushed to the hospital after two women called emergency crews to an apartment on Douglas Avenue in North Providence, just a short distance from the Godfather’s home. He had been suffering from diabetes and heart disease for several years. Most recently, a judge had found him too ill to stand trial for a new round of murder and racketeering charges.
A year after Patriarca’s death, further evidence linking the Mafia to Joe Barboza’s murder was presented during the 1985 federal racketeering trial of Jerry Angiulo. Investigators had arrested Angiulo while he was dining at a North End restaurant. “I’ll be back before my pork chops get cold,” he said defiantly. Despite his attempt to rule the New England underworld longer and smarter than Raymond Patriarca, Angiulo had not learned from his boss’s mistakes. The FBI had been listening in on Angiulo’s conversations since January of 1981, when agents successfully planted bugs in his headquarters at 98 Prince Street in Boston’s North End. Informants Stevie Flemmi and James “Whitey” Bulger had drawn the agents a diagram of where to hide the bugs.
Given the operational name Bostar, agents overheard Angiulo’s associates Larry Baione, Ralphie “Chong” Lamattina (who was now out of prison), and John C. Cincotti discussing how they had clipped Barboza.
“I was with him [J. R. Russo] every fucking day,” Baione boasted. “Me and him discussed everything … he made snap decisions.”209
Baione also called Russo a very brilliant guy. “He accomplished the whole fucking pot didn’t he? Smart as a whip … stepped right out with a fucking carbine.”
In a later conversation, Baione and Jerry Angiulo joked about facing the death penalty in California if ever convicted of Barboza’s murder. “They’ve gone to double chairs,” Baione laughed. “No shit. I won’t go any other fucking way.”
“We, we’ll go separate,” Angiulo promised. “We’ll toss a fucking coin.”210
After listening to the tapes in court, Angiulo’s lawyer told the eighteen-member jury that the government had more to gain from Barboza’s murder than his client did. The attorney may have been right. Barboza had wavered back and forth about recanting his testimony in the Deegan and Patriarca trials. Although a hit on the Animal would cause some short-term pain to the witness protection program, it would protect the FBI from lasting damage if the full truth of their relationship was ever revealed to the public. “I assure you that the evidence will show that people on death row wanted Barboza alive,” challenged attorney Anthony Cardinale.211 “They were waiting for Barboza to come forward and tell the truth again.” The jury could not fathom the possibility that the federal government would partner with the Mafia to engage in selective assassination. Jerry Angiulo was found guilty on a slew of charges and handed forty-five years in prison, a virtual life sentence for the legendary Boston mob leader.
J. R. Russo, a fugitive at the time, was later caught on tape himself presiding over a Mafia induction ceremony in Medford, Massachusetts. It marked the first time in United States history that a sacred La Cosa Nostra ritual had been captured on audio tape. Russo, now sixty years old, was charged with racketeering in 1992 along with four other high-ranking members of the Boston mob. He was also presented with the additional charge of Joe Barboza’s murder. Prosecutors reached plea agreements with each defendant, including Russo.
“I understand that there is enough evidence to prove me guilty of [Barboza’s] murder,” Russo said, acting as his own attorney despite holding only an eighth-grade education. “But I am not admitting to guilt.”
U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf gushed over Russo’s command of the courtroom. “You speak beautifully and I’m not sure any lawyer could have been more discriminating in picking what points to argue,” Judge Wolf told Russo. “It took more courage for you to plead guilty than to go to trial, or than getting gunned down in an alley. There is evidence, although you won’t admit it, to your leadership in the Patriarca family. You took that leadership seriously and you pleaded guilty.”212
J. R. Russo was sentenced to sixteen years in prison for the murder of Joe “the Animal” Barboza and other crimes.
Barboza’s family had received some level of closure for his death, yet the men he had put in prison for a murder they did not commit were still waiting for their own justice. Two of those men, Henry Tameleo and Louis Grieco, had died behind bars. Grieco had taken eight polygraph tests and had passed them all. He had also hired a new attorney, John Cavicchi, who spent an exhaustive amount of time beating bushes and gathering evidence to prove his client’s innocence. For him, the pain of a wrongful conviction was compounded by the impact felt by his family. Grieco’s wife, Roberta, began drinking heavily and eventually abandoned him and their two boys, fleeing to Las Vegas with the children’s savings bonds and paper-route money.213 Grieco’s two sons later died of drug and alcohol overdoses.
Peter Limone and Joe Salvati each filed countless commutation petitions through various lawyers in hopes of reducing their life sentences. Over time, Salvati developed legions of supporters, including Jack Zalkind, the prosecutor in the Deegan trial, who would not go so far as to admit that he had made a mistake but instead wrote the parole board that Salvati’s involvement in the Deegan murder was minimal. Salvati’s pillar of strength had always been his wife, Marie. She had been serving a sentence of her own—on the outside. Instead of receiving support from her North End neighbors, she was ostracized by many of her so-called friends. Her children were constantly tormented at school. Marie Salvati had tried to give her children as normal a life as possible, and made sure that they visited their father regularly in prison. Joe would dispense his fatherly advice to his children during the visits but could not go home with them. Marie would have to play the role of mother and father when the family returned to the North End. She was a comfort to her children, but there was no comfort for her, and she spent most nights crying in the darkness of her lonely bedroom.
The Massachusetts Parole Board finally approved Salvati’s clemency petition and sent it to Republican governor William Weld for his recommendation in 1991. Weld sat on the case for several months before rejecting the order, based on what he called “the seriousness of the crimes and the length of (Salvati’s) criminal record.” Unlike the other defendants in the case
, Salvati had barely any criminal record to speak of before getting thrown into the Deegan case.
In 1993 Salvati’s attorney, Vincent Garo, joined forces with Dan Rea, an investigative reporter at WBZ-TV in Boston, and together they worked on a series of explosive stories that spoke to Salvati’s innocence. Governor Weld commuted Salvati’s sentence in 1997 but claimed that public pressure applied by Rea, Garo, and Grieco’s attorney, John Cavicchi, had nothing to do with his decision.
Peter Limone would be subjected to the same legal circus as Salvati. His clemency requests had been shot down several times, in part because he was still a high-ranking member of La Cosa Nostra. In January 2001, a judge ordered Limone’s release from prison because so-called new evidence had cast doubt on Joe Barboza’s credibility. Peter Limone did not receive a commutation, however.
Five months later, Congress began to shed light on decades of darkness surrounding the relationship between the FBI and the mob. The House Committee on Government Reform launched a sweeping investigation into the government’s use of informants. When he learned about the probe, former FBI special agent Dennis Condon groused whether Congress had something better to do in light of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Committee chairman Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana, began a series of high-profile hearings on Capitol Hill, where once again Joe Barboza, or the ghost of Joe Barboza, took center stage. His victim, Joe Salvati, choked back tears as he recounted his long ordeal.
“The government stole thirty years of my life. My life as a husband and father came to a tumbling halt,” Salvati said. “In order to clear my name, it has been a long and frustrating battle. Yet, through all the heartbreak … my wife and I remained very much in love. Prison may have separated us physically, but our love has always kept us together mentally and emotionally. Our children have always been foremost in our minds. We tried our best to raise them in a loving and caring atmosphere even though we were separated by prison walls. More than once my heart was broken because I was unable to be with my family at very important times.”214
Salvati’s heartbreaking story echoed through the committee room. The congressional leaders were profoundly shocked at the treatment of Salvati and his family, and they were demanding answers to past secrets. One of the primary keepers of those secrets was H. Paul Rico. Rico, now seventy-six years old and ailing, had kept in close contact with the FBI over the years. In fact, after his retirement he was lured back to the bureau for a special assignment. The feds had asked Rico to play the role of a gangster in a bribery sting of federal judge and future Florida congressman Alcee Hastings. Rico was later commended for his performance, but it was a role he knew all too well. When it came time to testify before the committee, the once suave special agent had run out of convincing lines of dialogue. He looked haggard as he walked into the committee chamber with deep bags under each eye and a sea of liver spots masking his once handsome and confident face. The former agent still had a flair for fashion, however, as he walked past the media photographers in a smart gray suit, dark blue shirt, and yellow tie. Clearly taken by Salvati’s testimony the previous day, Ohio representative Steve LaTourette asked Rico why the FBI was willing to sacrifice thirty-three years of Salvati’s life to protect a man nicknamed the Animal.
“I don’t think the FBI was interested in saving Joe Barboza from anything,” Rico countered. “Joe Barboza was an instrument that you could use … we didn’t think he was a knight in shining armor.”215
Connecticut congressman Chris Shays took the microphone and peppered Rico about the fact that the FBI was privy to information in the Deegan murder that contradicted Barboza’s testimony. The former special agent responded to the line of questioning by playing dumb. He told the committee that it had never occurred to him to interview Deegan’s real killer, Jimmy Flemmi, or anyone else besides Barboza. The panel refused to buy Rico’s story.
“Do you have any remorse?” asked Shays.
“Remorse for what?”
“For the fact that you played a role in this.”
“I believe the role I played in this was the role I should have played,” Rico responded. He then went on to describe the method by which the FBI agents supplied witnesses for local law enforcement, to handle and prosecute from there.
“So you don’t really care much and you don’t really have any remorse. Is that true?”
Rico rolled his eyes and muttered, “Would you like tears or something?”
“Pardon me?” Shays shouted into the microphone.
“What do you want, tears?” Rico responded loudly.
The committee room grew silent. All eyes remained on the retired agent. No further words needed. The true terror of the mad experiment developed by Bobby Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover and conducted by Rico and others had been summed up in five simple words. Testimony did continue, as no one appeared willing to give Paul Rico the final say. Instead, committee members continued to extract their pound of flesh from Rico until there was little left on his brittle bones.
“It’s a fascinating day for me, Mr. Rico. I think the thing I’m most surprised about is that it’s clear to me that the FBI became as corrupt as the people they went after,” said Congressman Shays. “It’s clear to me that you have the same insensitivity that I would imagine in someone who is a hard and fast criminal. Cold as can be.”
Paul Rico left the hearing bruised but not yet defeated. That would come later in 2004, when he was indicted for the 1981 murder of Roger Wheeler, his former boss at World Jai Alai. Rico would never stand trial for the crime. He died alone in a Tulsa, Oklahoma, hospital with armed police officers waiting outside his door. “It’s not the closure desired or expected by law enforcement,” said Tulsa County district attorney Timothy Harris. “But life holds different turns.”216
Joe Salvati, Peter Limone, and relatives of the other falsely convicted men sued the U.S. Justice Department and were awarded a judgment of $101.7 million, the largest payout of its kind in American history. U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that secret FBI documents had shown that the bureau was responsible for framing four innocent men of murder. The bulk of those documents consisted of memos which suggested that agents and officials, including J. Edgar Hoover, knew that their star witness, Joe “the Animal” Barboza, lied in his testimony. The government immediately appealed the verdict, but the decision was upheld in August 2009 by the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals. “The damage awards give us pause,” wrote Senior Judge Bruce M. Selya. “The awards though high are not grossly disproportionate to the harm sustained as to either shock our collective conscience or raise a specter of a miscarriage of justice.”
In 2010, the federal government decided to give up its fight for good and announced that it would not appeal the landmark verdict yet again. Salvati, Limone, and the relatives of Henry Tameleo and Louis Grieco received checks from the government for approximately $33 million, which included $2 million in interest accumulated while the case was on appeal.
Julianne Balliro was a sixth grader when her father, Joe Balliro, saw his client Henry Tameleo convicted of murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. The younger Balliro is now an attorney representing members of the Deegan Four. “It’s a good day for civil rights,” she proclaimed after the ruling. “I hope that the FBI will be able to put this sordid chapter in their history behind them and redeem themselves to be the institution that they once were.”217
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
GENNARO “JERRY” ANGIULO
Died in 2009 at the age of ninety and given a full Mafia boss funeral, complete with nearly two hundred floral arrangements. Angiulo was also given a full U.S. Navy honor guard for his service in the Pacific during World War II. “He is probably the last very significant Mafia boss in Boston’s history,” said retired State Police colonel Thomas J. Foley. “In these times you don’t have anybody who exerts the control, the force, or even maintains the discipline like he had with his organization during his day.”*
> LARRY BAIONE (AKA ILARIO ZANNINO)
Died in 1996 of natural causes while imprisoned for loansharking and illegal gambling.
JAMES “WHITEY” BULGER
Formerly one of America’s Most Wanted fugitives, Bulger was captured in 2011 and is now imprisoned on charges that he committed at least nineteen murders.
DENNIS CONDON
Died in 1999 at age eighty-five after serving as Massachusetts state police commissioner and undersecretary of public safety for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
JOHN CONNOLLY
Currently serving a life sentence for second-degree murder in Florida for the death of Boston businessman John Callahan.
PATSY FABIANO
Murdered by the Mafia in 1976 shortly after the hit on Joe Barboza.
NICKY FEMIA
Shot and killed during attempted robbery of an auto body shop in 1983.
JOHN FITZGERALD
Relocated by federal government to South Dakota, where he became a circuit court judge. Died during heart surgery in 2001.
STEVIE “THE RIFLEMAN” FLEMMI
Currently serving a life sentence for murder at an undisclosed location.
* “Mob Boss Gennaro ‘Jerry’ Angiulo Dies at 90,” by Shelley Murphy, Boston Globe, August 30, 2009.
VINCENT “JIMMY THE BEAR” FLEMMI
Alleged to have murdered self-confessed Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo behind bars in 1973 to stop him from recanting his confession. Died in prison of drug overdose in 1979.
EDWARD “TEDDY” HARRINGTON
Currently serving as a federal judge in Massachusetts.
Animal Page 29
