Animal (29 page)

“Yes, they [the Mafia] would never let me out if they could stop it,” Barboza wrote later in his memoir. “They know they’d have to kill me if I got out and they know I’d take plenty of them with me. That old fool [Patriarca] in Rhode Island misinterpreted my respect for fear. Fear him? I didn’t fear tougher guys than Raymond Patriarca. Besides, I’d learned to accept dying a long time ago as my friends all around me died in the gang
war. I’ve got nothing left but my mouth with which to fight now. I’d be a fool to keep quiet on the theory that twenty years from now, when I’m 55, I could get out and get even. No, now while I’m young is the time to get even. I’ll bring them in the can with me since I can’t get out to them and when I get them here, we’ll get on with it.”
⁸⁵

Barboza sat down again with the agents two weeks later, this time at the Federal Building in Boston and this time in the presence of his lawyer, John Fitzgerald. For legal counsel, Joe had hired several attorneys during his criminal career, including F. Lee Bailey and Al Farese. But when it mattered most, he trusted Farese’s partner, John Fitzgerald, more than anyone. Fitzgerald was loyal to Barboza. Like Chico Amico, the attorney idolized Barboza and had seen his own status rise through his connection to the “biggest killer in the Commonwealth.” Fitzgerald acted like a mobster in lawyer’s clothing. Despite being married, Fitzgerald had his own harem of gangster molls that he squired around Boston in Barboza’s James Bond car, which he had purchased from Joe the previous year. Barboza had made Fitzgerald’s career, and Joe believed that the lawyer would protect his interests.

In the second meeting with Rico and Condon, Barboza said that he had come to the conclusion that they had a common enemy in “the Italian organization,” as he called it.
⁸⁶
Joe shared his belief that the Mafia would try to kill him in prison or when he got out.

“Either way, I’m a dead man,” he stated. “They can reach into local law enforcement agencies and obtain any information in their possession.”
⁸⁷

It was different with the
FBI
, Joe explained. Unlike local cops, the bureau was committed to the all-out destruction of
La Cosa Nostra
, and Barboza pledged that he was now committed to the effort also. He told the agents that he had even asked Patsy Fabiano to join the fight. He said that Patsy had been inside the Nite Lite Café during the massacre of Bratsos and DePrisco and had witnessed Larry Baione fire the first shot at Tashi. Barboza promised that he and Fabiano would also furnish names of the other shooters involved to District Attorney Garrett Byrne.

“I hope the district attorney appreciates my help and will gimme a break on the two cases still pending against me,” Barboza said, playing his cards closely.

Rico and Condon nodded their assurances.

“What do you have on Raymond [Patriarca]?” asked Rico. “He’s our number one target.”
⁸⁸

“I’m acquainted with him and I’ve seen him on a number of occasions.”

The agents asked whether those meetings had been set up through underboss Jerry Angiulo.

Barboza shook his head no. “I never asked Jerry’s permission. I went straight to Raymond and that aggravated Angiulo. Jerry’s the biggest money-maker that Raymond has. He has about a million bucks in shylock business on the street and gives 50 percent of his profits to Patriarca.”

Barboza then provided a few details about the murders of Teddy Deegan and Willie Marfeo. Unbeknownst to Joe, the
FBI
already knew much about the hit on Deegan. In fact, Rico and Condon were busy developing their own version of the gangland slaying that they hoped Barboza would one day reveal to a jury. Barboza’s information regarding the Marfeo murder was something entirely new. Of course everyone had suspected that Patriarca was behind the deadly shooting that occurred just a block from his office, but the Animal had now promised the feds a direct link to the Man. This was exactly what the
FBI
had been working toward when it first created the Top Echelon Informant program. It was one thing for a gangster like Joe Valachi to testify before Congress, where very little was at stake beside one’s reputation. It was another thing entirely for a witness like Joe Barboza to take the stand in a criminal trial where the defendants could lose their freedom and even their lives. The feds needed someone like Barboza to connect all the dots for a jury and to help bring Raymond Patriarca to justice once and for all. Both Condon and Rico felt their balloon pop when Barboza told them that he would provide his information behind closed doors but never in front of a jury.

“Since the Mafia is doing everything in its power to hurt you, don’t you feel that justice could be done by testifying?” asked Condon.
⁸⁹

“If I ever testified, you people would have to find me an island and make a fortress out of it,” the Animal replied.
⁹⁰
Instead, he implored the agents to convince his pal Patsy Fabiano to testify. “I can protect him while he’s in jail,” Barboza promised. “Once he’s freed, Patsy could hide out until I’m released from jail and I’ll continue to protect him then.”
⁹¹

Rico and Condon failed to see the logic. Barboza wanted his friend to testify so that he himself would not be labeled a rat by the press. Joe
had worked to cultivate his own image over the years and did not want it tarnished beyond repair. The agents had a major dilemma on their hands. After sending Barboza back to Walpole, they discussed ways in which they could force Barboza onto the witness stand. Both men came to the conclusion that more pressure had to be applied to their reluctant witness. At Barboza’s urging, Rico met with Patsy Fabiano and pressed him for information about what he had seen during the Nite Lite Massacre, but Patsy insisted that he was never there.

“I only spoke with Bratsos by phone and later drove by the Nite Lite and saw their cars parked outside,” Fabiano stated.

Rico jotted down the information and passed it along to Barboza, who tried to persuade the agent of his own truthfulness. “Either Patsy’s afraid to testify or I was misled.”

H. Paul Rico knew that he had caught the Animal in a lie. In a memo sent to his superiors, Rico wrote: “This office is aware of the distinct possibility that Barron [Barboza], in order to save himself from a long prison sentence, may try to intimidate Fabiano into testifying to something that he may not be a witness to.”
⁹²

Rico was not discouraged by the falsehood, however. All criminals lied, this he knew. But some crooks proved better liars than others, and Barboza had just demonstrated the power of his persuasion. He could lie with conviction, and Rico knew that this personality flaw would serve them both well as this game continued to play itself out.

J. Edgar Hoover had now expressed great interest in the Barboza case, and the agents provided the director with daily updates on the negotiations. The Animal also presented Dennis Condon with an opportunity to improve his own image within the bureau. In a performance appraisal in late March 1967, Condon was given an excellent rating with a special emphasis on how he “handled complicated matters in an able and capable fashion.” The appraisal further noted that Condon was dependable and enthusiastic, with an outstanding knowledge of the hoodlum and gambling element of Boston.

Meanwhile, the hoodlum element of Boston continued to settle scores. In mid-April, Jerry Angiulo sent three of his men after Joe Lanzi, one of the informers who had tipped off police to the Nite Lite Massacre. The enforcers shot Lanzi as he sat in the front passenger seat of their car and
then drove his body through Medford in the early hours of the morning, looking for a place to dump the corpse. Unfortunately the killers were spotted by police, so they tried to ditch the car and flee on foot. One of gunmen could not get out of the car fast enough and was arrested on the spot. The other two men managed to escape but were eventually captured a year later.

The hit proved that the New England Mafia was back in the murder business big time after having sat on the sidelines for the majority of the Irish gang war. This was not good news for Barboza, who was now convinced that
La Cosa Nostra
would be coming for him en masse. Law enforcement still wanted its pound of flesh also. The Animal found himself back in court, where he was arraigned on the broad charge of being an “habitual criminal.”

“The Suffolk County D.A. is trying to crucify me,” he told Rico and Condon.

Barboza also believed that the Mafia had conspired with local law enforcement to “bury him in jail.”
⁹³
It was the opportunity the feds had been waiting for.

“If these people are trying to do this to you, don’t you feel it would be fair in the interest of justice if you testified against them?” asked Condon.
⁹⁴

Barboza answered the question with a question.

“What if I testify against the Office and the government isn’t able to convict those I testified against, would the fact that I cooperated still be brought to the attention of the prosecutors and the judge who’d be imposing a sentence on me?”
⁹⁵

Condon and Rico explained that before they could discuss the matter with the U.S. Attorney’s Office they had to find out in detail exactly what Barboza could testify to.

What the agents wanted was for Barboza to provide information about Raymond Patriarca’s involvement in the murder of Willie Marfeo.

“Sometime over the past two years, the date I can’t remember, I called Henry Tameleo in Providence,” Joe explained. “I asked if he’d be around that day and he told me to come down on Tuesday because George and I want to talk to you. “George” is the name Tameleo always gave on the phone when he was talking about Raymond.”
⁹⁶

Barboza told the agents that he and Ronnie Cassesso went down to
Providence to meet with Tameleo and Patriarca and were told that Marfeo had been running a crap game on Federal Hill that was drawing too much attention from police. When ordered to shut the game down, Marfeo slapped Tameleo and told him to go fuck himself.

“We want this guy whacked out,” Patriarca told Barboza.
⁹⁷
The Man then suggested that Barboza and Cassesso disguise themselves as butchers complete with butchers’ coats and a truck in order to catch Marfeo off guard, as the wily mobster was always on the lookout for potential assassins. After getting a tutorial on Marfeo’s favored hangouts, Barboza returned to Boston, where he would draw up plans to begin casing Marfeo on the street. The next day, however, Joe was told to put the hit on hold, as Tameleo had just been arrested on some charge and there was too much heat. Days and soon months went by and no one brought up the name Willie Marfeo again, so Barboza forgot all about it.

“About a year later, a guy mentioned to me that Marfeo had been shot and killed inside a telephone booth in Providence. I ran into Henry Tameleo later and he told me that everyone in the place where Marfeo was whacked out were plants of theirs. He said that a guy in a baseball cap nailed Marfeo and that the guy was a good guy and did a good piece of work for us.”
⁹⁸

The details about the Marfeo murder were just what the
FBI
had been waiting for. Rico and Condon were drawn to the fact that Barboza had traveled from Massachusetts to Providence to discuss the proposed hit. This placed the case in a whole new category thanks to Bobby Kennedy’s
ITAR
statute, which made interstate travel in aid of racketeering a federal crime.

The noose was already tightening around the neck of Raymond Patriarca. In early May 1967, a Patriarca soldier named Louis “the Fox” Taglianetti was put on trial for tax evasion in Providence. His lawyers pressed the
FBI
to turn over whatever evidence they had in the case, and, much to their chagrin, the feds handed over everything including files filled with memos regarding the wiretaps on Patriarca’s Atwells Avenue headquarters. The news came as a shock to Patriarca and the public at large. Newspaper reporters openly questioned whether this marked the beginning of the end to Patriarca’s reign as New England’s undisputed organized crime kingpin.

The wiretaps had captured details of several Mafia murders, including Taglianetti’s hit on a hired killer named Jackie “Mad Dog” Nazarian. Mad Dog had been responsible for one of the most notorious mob murders in U.S. history—the assassination of Murder Incorporated chief Albert Anastasia as he sat in a barber chair at New York City’s Park Sheraton Hotel in 1957. Nazarian had signed his own death warrant, however, when he began mouthing off that he would make a more efficient, more fearsome crime boss than Patriarca. The Man answered the challenge by having Nazarian shot five times. Also highlighted in the evidence was the unusual correspondence between Patriarca and his unrequited prison pen pal Paul Collicci, who was serving prison time in Massachusetts for a robbery that had involved Patriarca.

Collicci wrote:

Hello Boss, Do you notice how I respect you and call you boss? But do you have to leave me in jail? I wrote to you and Henry [Tameleo], but I didn’t get an answer… . But dear boss, get together and get me a new lawyer and a new trial. Because I would like to be on the street… . Please don’t tell me you people are broke, because I know better. If not, tell me so and we can all be together here and have a good time… . I’m reading a novel, Oliver Twist, and it’s all about a man named Fagin. He was a man who sent kids out to steal and then would steal from them … Bye, Big Boss