Animal (25 page)

The Animal avoided prosecution for his major crimes such as the murders of Ray Distasio and Teddy Deegan, but he found himself in and out of court on lesser offenses—offenses that still carried jail time. In January 1966, Barboza was put on trial for assaulting a police officer, illegal possession of a firearm, possession of marijuana, and disturbing the peace. Through some legal maneuvering on the part of his lawyer, a young attorney named F. Lee Bailey, Barboza was convicted only of the least serious charge—disturbing
the peace, and was given a six-month jail sentence at the Deer Island House of Correction near Logan Airport. While behind bars, Barboza was put on trial again, this time for resisting arrest and fleeing police.

“He was speeding your Honor,”
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Barboza’s mob lawyer Al Farese explained in court. “He was fleeing police officers who thought he was someone else.”

The judge nodded and looked at Barboza. “If he had lived a better life, he wouldn’t be fleeing.”

“He changed his name to Baron so that he can change his life,” the lawyer pointed out.

This drew a laugh from the judge. “Mr. Farese, when Barboza changes we’ll all be on the moon,” the judge replied. Barboza was given a $35 fine and ordered back to Deer Island. Three more gangland murders were committed while Joe was behind bars. One victim was Barboza’s former training partner, Tony Veranis. In the words of Marlon Brando in
On the Waterfront
, Veranis coulda been somebody. He coulda been a contender. As a boxer, Veranis was one of the best welterweight prospects ever to come out of Massachusetts. He had fifteen hard-fought wins under his belt, with most victories coming by knockout. But he had also taken a beating in the ring, and the mileage began to show when he started complaining of severe headaches. In his next bout, Veranis was knocked down in every round and was later rushed to the hospital, where he fell into a coma. He recovered just enough to get back into the ring once again, but his best days were clearly behind him. He soon hung up his boxing gloves and fell into a life of crime.

Veranis was a minor criminal who carried major debts with the mob. He was constantly fending off loansharks that had come to collect what they were owed. One gangster continually stiffed by Veranis was Barboza crew member Tommy DePrisco. Veranis, who was fearless and oftentimes drunk, ran into DePrisco’s friend Johnny Martorano at a club opening in late April 1966. The former boxer boasted that he had just kicked DePrisco out of South Boston with his tail between his legs. Veranis told Martorano to fuck off and then reached for his gun. Martorano, who was every bit as capable as Flemmi and Barboza, drew first, shooting Veranis in the head and killing him with one shot. The former boxer’s body was later dumped in the Blue Hills of Milton.

A month later, talk of Veranis’s murder would subside as the Winter Hill Gang was able to hook a much bigger fish. The Hughes brothers were still on the streets and running the show for the McLaughlin Gang. Stevie Hughes had survived a recent ambush at the hands of Wimpy Bennett but had had to have his spleen removed. Stevie had been shot in the chest as he and Connie stepped out of a car across the street from Connie’s home in Malden. Wimpy Bennett fled quickly and so did Connie Hughes, leaving his brother on the street and bleeding badly until help arrived. Stevie of course gave detectives no information regarding his assailants. Brother Connie told police that that Stevie had “been shot, period.”
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Connie was not going to allow the law to settle this dispute. Instead, he hit the streets looking for revenge and looking for information on the whereabouts of Bennett and Howie Winter, the newly minted boss of the Winter Hill Gang. On May 25, 1966, Connie and an associate were inside a Charlestown bar grilling a young gangster for information. When the kid refused to talk, Connie took out a long knife and stuck it into his leg. The interrogation took more than an hour, and another bar patron, a young gangster named Brian Halloran, managed to get word out that Connie Hughes was inside and demanding answers. The Winter Hill Gang mobilized quickly and had two cars in position outside the tavern when Hughes finally departed in the wee hours of the morning. Connie Hughes jumped into his car and drove toward the Mystic River Bridge. The Winter Hill Gang followed. Connie did not appear to notice the tail. Instead, he paid the bridge toll and kept going. The killers drove through the toll gate and sped forward surrounding Connie on his right and his left. They opened fire on the car in the center lane, riddling it and the driver with more than sixty bullets. Connie Hughes was struck twice in the head, killing him instantly. His head hit the steering wheel as the car careened from the center lane toward a bridge abutment where it caught fire. The killers kept going. Moments later, a passerby, thinking he had stumbled upon a horrific accident, stopped his car and rushed over to the wreck. He pulled Connie’s body out of the vehicle just before it exploded into flames. It was then, in the pale light of the roaring fire, that the motorist noticed that Connie had been shot several times.

The newspapers once again tried to tie Barboza to the murder. One reporter claimed that Connie had been given a contract to kill an inmate
on Deer Island but that the inmate had somehow managed to strike first. Although he was not named in the article, it was implied to those in the know that Barboza was indeed the inmate in question. When Joe was notified about the hit on Connie Hughes, he celebrated with a filet mignon that he had stolen from the warden’s refrigerator and later some marijuana. As Joe stretched out in his bunk with a joint, he smiled and thought of his friend Buddy McLean, whom he had now avenged, at least in the public’s mind.

In March 1966, Special Agent H. Paul Rico was assigned exclusively to the development of Top Echelon Informants. He also received glowing praise from his superiors, who stressed that Rico had “exceptional talent in his ability to develop informants and his participation was considered outstanding.” A year later, Joe Barboza would help to enhance Rico’s reputation tenfold.

13

The Hit Parade

There’s a killer on the road …

JIM MORRISON

Less than a month after the fiery murder of Connie Hughes, another Boston gangster would also die in his car. The hit on Rocco DiSeglio was a classic case of what can happen when you bite the hand that feeds you. DiSeglio was yet another in a long line of boxers turned mobsters in the New England underworld. DiSeglio had first come to the Mafia’s attention during his brief prizefighting career when he proved all too willing to take a dive for the mob. But after his boxing career, DiSeglio felt that the Mafia owed him more than just a debt of gratitude. When Mafia money and opportunity didn’t flow Rocco’s way, he began to hold up mob-controlled dice games around Massachusetts. DiSeglio worked from the inside, making sure the doors to the joint where the high-stakes games were played were left unlocked. When Jerry Angiulo found out about the robberies, he pulled in one of the robbers and gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Kill DiSeglio, or be killed yourself. The robber quickly accepted the assignment and lured DiSeglio into a car ride of which he would not be coming back. The robber shot DiSeglio three times in the head, tearing apart half of his face. Another bullet traveled through the back of his head and exited out of his eye socket. The body of Rocco DiSeglio was dumped, along with his wife’s Ford Thunderbird, in the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary in the idyllic town of Topsfield, Massachusetts. Although he had not taken part in the hit, Barboza knew all about it. In fact, Angiulo had originally blamed Barboza for the dice game stick-ups, claiming that one of the robbers bore a resemblance to Joe’s associate Chico Amico. Hours after the shooting, Barboza called an Irish cop he knew and told him where to find DiSeglio’s body.

When Joe was finally released from Deer Island in the summer of 1966, his crew had grown to include not only the Frizzi brothers (Connie and
Guy) and Chico Amico but also Tommy DePrisco, Nicky Femia, and Arthur “Tashi” Bratsos. Femia was all brawn and no brains, but as loyal as a German shepherd. Tashi Bratsos was also brought aboard because of his loyalty to Barboza and because he had a brother who was a police officer. Like all mobsters, Barboza understood the benefit of having an informer from the other side of the law. One man whose loyalty had now come into question was Guy Frizzi, who had been with Barboza the longest. The other crew members hated him, and Guy had a habit of beating women, which did not sit well with Barboza. Frizzi felt the growing tension and decided to take a sabbatical to California.

“You’ve had a five-month vacation,” he told Barboza. “Now it’s my turn.”
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While Guy Frizzi was vacationing out West, a girlfriend approached Barboza with a warning. She told Joe that Frizzi had been talking behind his back constantly and that Guy believed that he should be the leader of the crew, and that he should be the one traveling down to Providence to confer with Raymond Patriarca. This was all Joe needed to hear. Guy Frizzi would leave the gang quietly, or he would leave in a coffin.

“I’m buying you out,” Barboza told Frizzi.

Tashi Bratsos bought Frizzi’s end of the shylocking business for $15,000 with an agreement to pay an additional $10,000 in the future. At first, Frizzi refused to sell and went around to the gang’s customers begging them to come with him. But the customers were loyal, and, more important, fearful of Barboza. Guy Frizzi took the cash and left the gang with a chip on his shoulder and a score to settle with the Animal.

While Guy Frizzi could be both conniving and vicious, he still knew how to run a bookmaking business and, equally important, he knew how to steer clear of the law. This could not be said of Barboza’s other crew members, who were too quick to decide a dispute with a knife, a gun, and even their mouths. This lack of discipline would continue to plague Barboza. Shortly after his release from jail, Joe was picked up on a phantom gun charge while at a club in the South End. The Sahara Club was raided by cops one night and a gun was found in the back office. Police fingered Barboza for the weapon and placed him in cuffs. Joe knew the charge was bullshit so he kept his cool, which could not be said for his friend Chico Amico.

“You can’t leave him alone, can you?” Amico shouted at the officers as they placed Barboza in a waiting cruiser. “You won’t be satisfied until they find some of you on the streets with your heads blown off!”
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Boston police officers did not take kindly to the overt threat, so they kept Barboza in stir for several hours before they let him go. Immediately afterward they went looking for Amico, who managed to escape but not before spraining his ankle in flight.

When Barboza finally caught up with Chico, he squeezed the bad ankle until the man screamed out in pain. “You and your big mouth,” the Animal scolded him.

Amico should have heeded Joe’s warning. Instead, he brought heat on the gang once more when he stabbed a man outside the Tiger Tail Lounge in Revere. The victim, twenty-three-year-old Arthur Pearson, had become embroiled in a shouting match with the club’s bouncer when Amico, Barboza, and Nicky Femia entered the fray.

“We don’t like you, guy,” one of the men whispered into Pearson’s ear from behind. Pearson also felt something sharp against his back.

After the dust had settled, Pearson left the bar only to find Barboza’s crew waiting for him outside. Without a word, Chico Amico stepped forward and stabbed Pearson in the stomach. The victim was rushed to the hospital while police rounded up the usual suspects, which in this case meant Amico, Barboza, and Femia.

Pearson survived the attack and gave a statement to police while lying in his hospital bed. He told investigators that all three men had been involved in the stabbing in some way. Pearson also said that two of them walked over to him while he was lying on the ground and warned him not to talk or he would be killed. The victim was happy to share his story with police at the hospital, but when it came time to testify before a grand jury Pearson suddenly grew silent. Barboza’s threats were real, as was the $10,000 he had given the victim’s father to ensure his silence. The case was eventually dropped, but Joe’s faith in the competency of his crew grew even more suspect.