Animal (36 page)

“He [Patriarca] wanted him killed,” the Animal answered. “There was a lot of discussion about how we were gonna do this and when we were gonna start. They suggested we use a meat truck and wear white coats to look like delivery men, and using a dolly walk into the place where he hung out.”
¹⁴⁷

The Trojan Horse method seemed the most logical at the time, as Marfeo had recently increased security at his headquarters at the Veterans Social Club on Atwells Avenue by installing a reinforced door and placing metal bars on the windows.

“He [Patriarca] said he’d take care of us, and I said I’d do it for nothing and Cassesso said the same,” Joe added.
¹⁴⁸
He explained that providing a free hit for the boss would be good for business and would open up a lot of doors. By that, Barboza surely meant that such a favor might help his campaign for induction into
La Cosa Nostra
.

Under cross-examination, attorney Joe Balliro continued the line of defense that had torpedoed Barboza’s testimony in the Angiulo trial. Balliro questioned Joe about a recent letter he had written to a girlfriend.

“In the letter you stated that you had a few aces up your sleeve. And at least one of these aces was the testimony you were going to give against these three people?” Balliro said, pointing at Patriarca, Tameleo, and Cassesso. Barboza denied once again that his testimony was driven by profit but freely admitted that he had, as he put it, “deals in the fireplace” for a book and possible movie about his life.

“Did you intend to kill Willie Marfeo when you went down to Providence?”

“Did I intend to? Yes,” Barboza replied.

After concluding his testimony, Joe walked over to the defense table, looked into Patriarca’s eyes, and simply smiled. He knew that his words had inflicted pain. In a period of only two months, Barboza had become a much more polished witness. He had nothing more to hide, nothing for the lawyers to use against him. He was a matter-of-fact killer who did the deadly bidding of more powerful men like Henry Tameleo and Raymond Patriarca. Still, the defense attorneys held onto their belief that the jury would not convict their clients based primarily on the testimony of a man
like Barboza. In light of this, they decided to rest their case without calling any witnesses.

“His story is just a fiction that is made up in cold calculation, in cold blood of which he himself said he was capable,”
¹⁴⁹
Balliro told the jury during his closing argument. “The case boils down to whether or not you believe Baron [Barboza]. You have ample reason not to believe him.”

U.S. Attorney Paul Markham agreed with Balliro that Barboza was no angel.

“The world would be a better place without the Joe Barons,” Markham admitted to the jury before pointing over to the defendants.
¹⁵⁰
“If you didn’t have Raymond Patriarca, you wouldn’t have the Joe Barons. Who is worse, the fellow who opens the door for the killers or the man who kills?”

Markham then implored the jury to discount the argument that Barboza’s testimony was a work of fiction. “His story is too implausible not to be true!”

The jury was handed the case on the fourth day of the trial. To prevent jurors from getting lost in the mire of gray areas, Judge Francis J. W. Ford instructed them to deliver a guilty verdict if Barboza’s testimony was to be believed. But if the panel had any reason to doubt the Animal’s veracity, it would have to allow Raymond Patriarca and the others to walk.

Joe was sent back to the basement storage room to await the verdict. Since the Angiulo verdict had been decided quickly, Barboza prayed for a lengthy deliberation, as it would increase the likelihood of a guilty verdict. Four long hours went by before John Partington was called up to the twelfth-floor courtroom.

“This is it,” he told Barboza, who was too nervous to respond. He paced around the storage room like the caged animal he was. If he couldn’t send Patriarca to prison, Barboza had no doubt that the
FBI
would throw him to the wolves. Minutes later, the door of the storage room opened and in walked John Partington. The lanky marshal could not conceal the smile that matched perfectly with his soft, blue eyes. “Guilty on all counts!” he shouted.
¹⁵¹

Barboza waved his beefy arms over his head as though he’d just won the heavyweight title. He launched himself into the air and screamed, “We did it! We did it!”

The immediate jubilation eventually subsided, and Joe allowed himself
a moment to reflect on what he had done. His eyes began to well with tears. He thought of the friends that had died or been maimed for him. He thought of the trials he had put his wife and daughter through. He thought of the man he had once respected and now reviled. The Portuguese kid from New Bedford had beaten the Mafia at its own crooked game. But he still had a few more scores to settle.

Partington handed him a marshal’s uniform and told him to put it on. He had to keep Joe alive for trial number three, and deception was still the key. Barboza changed into the clothes and was given an M-1 rifle—unloaded, of course.

“You’ll pretend to guard one of the real guards, who’ll pretend to be you,” Partington told him.
¹⁵²
Another marshal fitting Barboza’s build and hair color put on Joe’s suit jacket and kept his head low.

“All right, Barboza you asshole, keep moving,” Joe said as he nudged his decoy forward.

On the day of his sentencing, Raymond Patriarca asked to speak before the court. He was not happy with his defense strategy and wanted everyone to know it. “Your honor, I got something to say. It may be out of line. I had my witnesses here but counsel said it wasn’t necessary to use them. If we had used my witnesses it might be different.”
¹⁵³

Both the Mafia boss and his legal counsel had underestimated Barboza, and now Patriarca was going to pay a hefty price. The judge sentenced all three men to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Tameleo was shipped back to the Charles Street Jail to await the Deegan murder trial, and Ronnie Cassesso was sent back to Norfolk Prison Colony, where he would first have to serve out the remainder of a sentence for armed robbery.

Raymond Patriarca would begin his prison term a year later, after his appeal was denied. John Partington escorted the Mafia boss on a plane from Rhode Island to a federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. Partington the “boy scout” had gotten the last laugh.

19

The Lying Game

Everybody lies a little sometimes

B.B. KING

The Patriarca verdict was a watershed moment in the federal government’s war on organized crime. For the first time in history, a major Mafia figure had been taken down solely by the testimony of one of his men. It proved the
FBI’S
theory that the only way to defeat
La Cosa Nostra
was to destroy it from within. The significance of the verdict and the Animal’s contribution was not lost on those in the thick of the battle. “The case in the main depended on his [Barboza] credibility,” U.S. Attorney Paul Markham told reporters. “The jury obviously believed him, believed him 100 percent. It was a significant victory. To put it in a negative way, if we didn’t win it, it would be all over.”
¹⁵⁴
Much of the credit went to Paul Rico and Dennis Condon. U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark wrote a personal letter to J. Edgar Hoover, stating, “The recent conviction of New England Cosa Nostra leader Raymond Patriarca and two of his cohorts is one of the major accomplishments in the Organized Crime Drive Program. Without the outstanding work performed by Special Agents Dennis Condon and H. Paul Rico these convictions could not have been obtained.”
¹⁵⁵
Rico was recommended for a quality salary increase, while Condon was given a $150 incentive award for “skillfully handling an important government witness whose cooperation was vital to the conviction of Patriarca and his two associates.” While praise was being heaped on Condon and Rico, Joe Barboza was stuck at Freshwater Cove feeling angry and underappreciated. He was upset that Markham and other members of the prosecution team did not personally thank him for his role in the trial. Barboza once again threatened to shop on the other side of the street. “While these people don’t want to show their appreciation, I’m sure that Joe Balliro would show his appreciation to me,” he told Condon and Rico.

Donald Barboza visited his brother at Freshwater Cove after the Patriarca verdict. Donald had brought their father along. Joe Barboza, Sr., and
his namesake had been waging a cold war against each other for decades. The son was angry that the father had virtually abandoned the family during his youth, while the father was upset that the son had changed both his religion and his name.

“Why’d you have to do that?” Donald asked Joe.

“I did it for my Stacy,” Joe replied. “She’ll never get a fair shot in life with the last name Barboza. There’s too much history there. If she’s raised Jewish and if she has a different name, she just may be given a fair chance.”
¹⁵⁶

With Barboza on edge and on the fence about testifying in the upcoming Deegan trial, Condon and Rico paid a hospital visit to attorney John Fitzgerald, who was still recovering from massive injuries sustained in the car bombing a few months prior. The lawyer would spend a full year in the hospital, and it would take several more years before he felt safe enough to get into a car that had not already been started by someone else. On the day of the
FBI
visit, Fitzgerald was angry and ready to exact some revenge of his own. He told Condon and Rico that he would testify in the Deegan trial if it reached a critical point where his words might mean the difference between a conviction and letting the suspects walk free. He also pledged to write a letter to his client Barboza, urging him to continue the war on the mob and send as many gangsters to prison as possible.

The Animal had already bitten off the serpent’s head in the conviction of Patriarca, and he now felt that the
FBI
owed him a debt of gratitude. Claire was now pregnant with the couple’s second child and feeling ill. Joe pressed the marshals to have her and Stacy brought to a military base, where doctors would be readily available. The request was denied, so Joe penned a letter to Bobby Kennedy himself to complain about his treatment since being taken into federal custody. There is no telling if Kennedy ever received the letter, as he was now in the full throes of a presidential campaign.
RFK
had entered the race on March 16, 1968, just eight days after the government’s victory against Patriarca, Kennedy’s “pig on the hill.”
RFK’S
real launching point came after U.S. senator Hubert Humphrey’s strong showing in the New Hampshire primary. Seeing that Johnson was vulnerable, Kennedy entered the race. The president then
stunned the nation by announcing that he would not seek re-election, leaving
RFK
and Humphrey locked in a heated battle for delegates. Bobby Kennedy’s political philosophy had evolved greatly since his days as a hard-charging, mob-baiting, union-busting government lawyer. The times had changed, and Kennedy had changed with them.