Animal (43 page)

The two men never met again but talked several times by phone. “Is that lying bum still out there?” Russo would ask. The Mafia hitman also offered to send Chalmas tasteless, colorless poison with which to kill Barboza.

“I can’t handle it,” Chalmas admitted. “I’m in no position to do that.”

Knowing that applying pressure on Chalmas might mean a botched hit on Barboza, Russo ordered him to make no move against his so-called friend, even if an opportunity fell into his lap.

Chalmas was clearly no triggerman, but his relationship with the Animal was still very valuable to the Mafia. In early 1976, he met with another Angiulo surrogate, Larry Baione, at the Hilton Inn, San Francisco International Airport, where he allegedly received $5,000 to set a trap for the Animal. Still nervous, Chalmas asked Baione and Russo to wait until he went on a planned trip to Miami before moving on Barboza. Russo scratched the idea. He was concerned that Joe might flee the area in Chalmas’s absence.

Meanwhile, other criminals were looking to get their hands on the
Barboza bounty. Two inmates at the Orange County Jail in Santa Ana had heard through the grapevine that the Animal dined regularly at two restaurants, Luigi’s and La Pentera in San Francisco. They sent word to Boston and were told that two Mafia “torpedoes” would begin casing the cafes immediately.

Despite Barboza’s determination to publicize his new book and launch a comeback in the underworld, he sensed that he was living on borrowed time. In late January 1976, Joe telephoned his daughter, Stacy, back in Massachusetts. It had been several years since he had spoken to her, and the young girl did not recognize her father’s voice. Fighting back tears, Joe told his daughter to live a good and righteous life and stressed that education would be her pathway to success.

The words were certainly over the child’s head, but Barboza had hoped that she would be able to absorb them over time.

On the morning of February 11, 1976, Barboza borrowed Chalmas’s wife’s car and took their dog for a long ride. He later dropped off the pet and picked up Chalmas and drove to a nearby deli, where the two men ate lunch. They returned to Chalmas’s home and talked for several more minutes before Barboza left at 3:30 p.m. Chalmas walked Barboza back to his own car, which was parked at the intersection of Moraga Street and 25th Avenue. Joe took a can of Spam and other canned goods out of his pocket and placed them on the car. He was fishing for his car key and inserting it into the lock when he noticed Chalmas turn suddenly and walk nervously away. Barboza’s attention was then drawn to a white van as it came barreling down the street. The sliding door of the van pulled open, and J. R. Russo, with a stocking covering his head, leaned out with a carbine pointed at the Animal’s chest.

Another gunman stuck the barrel of a shotgun out the passenger side window. The assassins both opened fire. The first bullet missed Barboza and penetrated the side of his car. The next blast struck him squarely in the chest, lifting him off his feet as twenty-two shotgun pellets attacked his vital organs. The Animal fell to the ground next to his vehicle as the van sped away. Chalmas heard the gunshots and waited for the van to flee the scene before returning to Barboza’s side. The Animal was covered in blood and his eyes were closed under his dark, wraparound sunglasses. Chalmas noticed that Joe had not even had time to reach for his own pistol, a loaded
.38 that was tucked away in his jacket pocket. Joe Barboza, at forty-three years old, was dead in the street. The Mafia had promised a public execution for the vicious turncoat, and J. R. Russo made good on that pledge. The van was recovered the next day in a driveway five blocks from the murder scene. One of the murder weapons, a 12-gauge shotgun, was discovered inside. When news spread of Barboza’s stunningly violent death, controversial attorney F. Lee Bailey, who happened to be in San Francisco defending Patricia Hearst, summed it up this way: “With all due respect to my former client, I don’t think society has suffered a great loss.”
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A great loss was felt, however, by Joe Barboza’s family, who had all been holding their collective breath since his parole. Joe’s brother, Donald, was enjoying a rare family vacation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when he received a phone call at the hotel from his sister Ann.

“Joe has died,” she told him. “He was killed in California.” Don Barboza did not have to ask her how their brother had been killed, as he already knew. Instead of taking his wife and their four children to Disney World that day as planned, Donald piled everyone into the family car for the long ride back to New Bedford, where he would have to take care of Joe’s funeral arrangements.

The Animal’s body was shipped back from San Francisco to Perry’s Funeral Home in Barboza’s hometown. Donald walked into the funeral parlor and peered into the open casket. He leaned down and whispered into his brother’s ear. “You’re one tough son of a bitch,” he said softly. “You always told me this is how it would end. At least you’re at peace now.”
²⁰⁸
The funeral service for Joe Barboza was attended by Donald, their sisters Ann and Carol, and their brother Anthony, a U.S. marine who had served three tours in Vietnam. Joe’s mother, Palmeda, had been long dead by that time, but his father, the man he had spent a lifetime rebelling against and emulating to a certain degree, did attend. Claire Barboza and their children, Stacy and Ricky, stayed away from the funeral, as did Joe’s former friends in the
FBI
. As a small group of mourners gathered at the gravesite at St. Mary’s Cemetery in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, the presiding priest asked Donald whether the family wanted him to deliver his brother’s eulogy in English.

“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.”
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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.
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“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.”
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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.
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Grieco’s two sons later died of drug and alcohol overdoses.