Ex-New England boss Manocchio dies

Former New England Mafia boss Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, known by the nickname "Baby Shacks," died Sunday, December 8, 2024, at the age of ninety seven. He was a resident of the Rhode Island Veterans Home in Bristol, Rhode Island, at the time of his death.

Manocchio

Manocchio was the last New England crime boss based in Rhode Island before the mob's power center shifted back to Boston. He term as boss began with the 1995 arrest of Boston-based leader Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme, and it concluded with his retirement in 2009.

Manocchio was born in Providence in June of 1927. He provided birth dates of June 9 and June 23 for official records. His parents were Nicola and Anna Mary Marino Manocchio. His father, Nicola, originally from the community of Baranello, within Campobasso, Molise, Italy, settled on Providence's Acorn Street with his family while still a minor. Anna Mary was a Rhode Island native born to immigrants from Pietra Vairano, Caserta, Campania, Italy. She was raised on Vinton Street, near Gesler Street, about a block south of Atwells Avenue in the northern portion of Providence's Federal Hill neighborhood. Anna Mary was not yet fifteen when she and Nicola were married on May 17, 1921. 

Luigi Giovanni Manocchio was the second son born to Nicola and Anna Mary. Five years separated him from older brother Andrew. A third brother, Anthony, was born more than a decade after Luigi, about 1939.

Luigi grew up in the Little Italy neighborhood on Providence's Federal Hill during the desperate years of the Great Depression. The family home in 1930 was an apartment at 34 Vinton Street, close to Gesler Street. Nicola worked in the Fulford Manufacturing Company jewelry factory in East Providence. Soon after the state census of 1936, the family moved to 36 Gesler Street. Nicola was a foreman for Fulford by that time, and Andrew had begun work in jewelry manufacturing.

At the age of eighteen, early in 1946, Luigi Manocchio enlisted at Boston as a private in the U.S. Army. His enlistment stated his education included just one year of high school and his civil occupation was "semi-skilled chauffeurs and drivers, bus, taxi, truck and tractor." His term in the Army lasted just one year. He was discharged in March 1947. The reason for the discharge is uncertain. He returned to live with his parents and little brother, then residing at 17 Vinton Street just south of Atwells Avenue. 

Luigi Manocchio's first known arrest occurred in December of 1952. He and two accomplices were charged with the $3,800 gunpoint robbery of a D.R. Carner Company payroll truck. Initially charged with two counts of assault and robbery, illegal possession of a revolver and driving a stolen car, Manocchio managed to have all but the possession charge dropped. He received a suspended sentence.

In the later 1960s, Manocchio was apparently part of the Providence Mafia organization run by Raymond L.S. Patriarca out of the Coin-O-Matic Distributing Company headquarters on Atwells Avenue. He had acquired the nickname "Baby Shacks," an apparent reference to an older underworld-connected relative known as "Shacks" for his common practice of "shacking up" with women. 

Patriarca

At that time, Patriarca had a brief conflict with the Marfeo brothers, stubbornly independent gambling racketeers in Providence. On July 13, 1966, William Marfeo was shot four times in a Federal Hill restaurant phone booth. He died on the way to Rhode Island Hospital. Press reports indicated that the forty-one-year-old Marfeo had a police record dating back twenty-five years. Manocchio, then forty two, was shot and wounded in the neck in a gunfight on Federal Hill on December 1, 1967. Police later arrested his pal Joseph A. Schiavone, who was found to be carrying a pistol. They initially (and, it seems, incorrectly) charged Schiavone with committing the shooting assault of Manocchio. According to reports, Manocchio and Schiavone went into hiding in the Midwest for a time until the matter was forgotten.

Rudolph Marfeo, younger brother of the murdered William, was struck and killed by a shotgun discharge on April 20, 1968, while in Pannone's Market, 282 Pocasset Street in Providence. His associate and supposed bodyguard Anthony Melei was also killed. The market was a regular hangout for Marfeo, who lived in an apartment upstairs. Police determined that Patriarca had ordered the killing of Marfeo because, despite what occurred to his brother, he still refused to share the proceeds of his gambling operations with the crime family. The order reportedly was passed through Patriarca aide Henry Tameleo and Ronald Cassesso. Manocchio was one of the men accused of taking part in the planning of the hit.

In the fall of 1968, Manocchio was arrested in connection with the killings of Rudolph Marfeo and Anthony Melei. By that time, Patriarca and two codefendants had already been convicted of the earlier murder of William Marfeo. Manocchio was released on bail and promptly disappeared. 

A nationwide search was conducted for him over the course of the next decade. The FBI watched and repeatedly questioned those known to be close to him, including attorney and friend Thomas DiLuglio and Manocchio's brother Anthony, by then a practicing medical doctor. FBI agents received tips that Manocchio was hiding in New York with Nicholas Bianco. A Providence native and a former New England mafioso, Bianco had relocated to Brooklyn and associated himself with the Colombo Crime Family. Agents found no evidence to support the tip and learned from police agencies in Rhode Island and Massachusetts that there was no information connecting Manocchio with Bianco. Interviewed by the FBI in autumn 1970, Bianco denied knowing Manocchio. Agents also looked into tips that Manocchio was in Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Baltimore, Maryland; Florida; various locations in Europe.

During Manocchio's absence, Patriarca's problems grew. He was tried (acquitted) for loan sharking in 1969 and indicted in that same year of conspiracy to murder in the Rudolph Marfeo case. He and four codefendants were convicted in March 1970. The different cases and convictions resulted in Patriarca being transferred back and forth between state and federal lockups. He was paroled from his last remaining state sentence early in 1975. (He faced additional charges of murder conspiracy and labor racketeering late in life but died in 1984 before those could be brought to trial.)

Manocchio surrendered himself to authorities on July 13, 1979, apparently believing that advancing years and declining mental faculties of a key witness against him would prevent him from being convicted. However, a jury found him guilty as an accessory to murder in 1983, and he was sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences plus ten years. He won release on bail during a 1985 appeal and succeeded in having his conviction overturned.

The later 1980s saw Manocchio rise to become a powerful leader in the New England Crime Family and a close ally of Boston-based "Cadillac Frank" Salemme. Manocchio reportedly oversaw bookmaking, loan sharking and robbery rackets in Rhode Island. He used a Federal Hill laundromat as his headquarters and lived modestly in an apartment above the Euro Bistro restaurant on Atwells Avenue. Overall leadership of the New England organization was cloudy in the period. Patriarca was succeeded for a time by his son. Factions emerged and some violence erupted. Bianco returned to New England to oversee operations for a time, but he was removed by a successful prosecution for racketeering conspiracy. By 1991, Salemme was in control.

Manocchio (1990s)

A reputed hit man, Kevin Hanrahan was murdered in 1992. Law enforcement later learned that Hanrahan had been involved in a failed effort to murder Manocchio through a bombing of the Euro Bistro. Statements obtained for court documents indicated that Salemme and Manocchio planned the vendetta murder of Hanrahan, but neither Mafia leader was charged.

Salemme was taken into custody in 1995, and Manocchio was elevated to the position of boss. In the following year, Manocchio was tied in with a large New England burglary ring. Investigators learned that he installed stolen appliances, gifted to him as tribute from ring members, in an apartment he renovated for his mother. After some negotiations, Manocchio pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of accepting stolen applicance and received a suspended sentence. 

FBI agents in 2008 linked Manocchio to the extortion of protection payments from Providence-area strip clubs, but he was not immediately prosecuted. Perhaps anticipated the case against him, in 2009, Manocchio decided to step down from New England Mafia leadership. The federal extortion case proceeded in 2011 with his January arrest at the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airport. The case involved threats of violence against strip club owners if monthly payments were not provided. Though Manocchio insisted that he had never threatened anyone, early in 2012 he reached another plea deal. He admitted conspiring in a racketeering enterprise. On May 11 of that year, he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison. He made a brief comment at his sentencing hearing: "By virtue of my position, I inherited the deeds of my associates. I simply do not want my family and my friends to think that I personally threatened anyone."

He was released from federal prison in North Carolina in 2015 and was allowed to spend six remaining months of his sentence in home confinement. He reportedly lived quietly through his remaining years.

Sources

• "Alleged N.E. Cosa Nostra chieftain faces trial," Springfield MA Union, Dec. 14, 1967, p. 15.
• Barry, Dan, "R.I. crime figure Nicholas Bianco dies in prison," Providence Journal, Nov. 15, 1994, p. 1.
• Berger, Joseph, "Raymond Patriarca, 76 dies; New England crime figure," New York Times, July 12, 1984.
• Clendinen, Dudley, "Of crime, equal rights and a mental hospital," New York Times, Nov. 5, 1984.
• Connolly, Richard J., and Jim Calogero, "Raymond Patriarca dies at 76; reputedly ruled N.E. organized crime," Boston Globe, July 12, 1984.
• "FBI nabs a fifth in R.I. gang killings," Newport RI Daily News, Aug. 15, 1969, p. 1.
• "Gang killing being probed," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, July 14, 1966, p. 13.
• "Hub death may be gang slaying; man also wounded in Rhode Island," Holyoke MA Transcript-Telegram, Dec. 1, 1967, p. 14.
• Krupa, Gregg, "A look inside the Boston mob," Providence Journal, May 26, 1985, p. A1.
• Louis Manocchio World War II Army Enlistment Record, Fort Banks, Boston MA, service no. 31507596, Jan. 10, 1946.
• MacGougall, Ian, "Reputed mob boss pleads not guilty," Boston Globe, Feb. 25, 2011, p. B3.
• Marriages registered in the City of Providence R.I. for the Year Ending December 31st, 1921, p. 197, Ancestry.com.
• McWeeney, Sean M., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio... Fugitive," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-42, NARA no. 124-10212-10052, Oct. 23, 1969.
• Mooney, Tom, "'I inherited the deeds of my associates,'" Providence Journal, Dec. 8, 2024.
• Murphy, Shelley, "Reputed ex-N.E. mob boss arrested," Boston Globe, Jan. 21, 2011, p. 1.
• Nicola Manocchio World War I Draft Registration, serial no. 3871, order no. 3746, Division No. 9, Providence RI, Sept. 12, 1918.
• Nicola Manocchio World War II Draft Registration, serial no. T-790, oreder no. T10-160, Local Board No. 11, Providence RI, Feb. 16, 1942.
• "Patriarca is released in $25,000 bail; arrested for first time in 20 years," Nashua NH Telegraph, June 22, 1967, p. 20.
• "Patriarca jailed," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 19, 1969, p. 5.
• "Patriarca released on parole," Berkshire Eagle, Jan. 9, 1975, p. 8.
• "Patriarca, 2 others sentence date set," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 9, 1968, p. 1.
• "Patriarca, four others convicted," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 28, 1970, p. 1.
• "Patriarca: The man and the mob," Providence Journal, July 15, 1984.
• "Raymond Patriarca," TIME, July 23, 1984, p. 103.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchi, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-98, NARA no. 124-10207-10267, Sept. 25, 1970.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-100, NARA no. 124-10207-10269, Oct. 30, 1970.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio," FBI report BS 166-845, NARA #124-10207-10271, Jan. 29, 1971. 
• State of Rhode Island Census, Providence County, Providence City, Census Tract 253, Jan. 20, 1936.
• Sullivan, John G., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-120, NARA no. 127-10207-10290, Jan. 31, 1972.
• "Two men slain gangland-style in Providence," Boston Globe, April 21, 1968, p. 22.
• "Two mob members admit to extortion," Boston Globe, March 14, 2012, p. B2.
• United States Census of 1920, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 9, Enumeration District 286.
• United States Census of 1930, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 9, Enumeration District 4-104.
• United States Census of 1940, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 13, Enumeration District 6-253.
• United States Census of 1950, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Enumeration District 7-366.
• White, Tim, "Manocchio, last New England mob boss from Rhode Island, dead at 97," WPRI, wpri.com, Dec. 8, 2024.
• Valencia, Milton J., "5 Mafia figures to plead guilty," Boston Globe, Feb. 17, 2012, p. B1.
• Valencia, Milton J., "Former N.E. mob boss gets 5 1/2 years," Boston Globe, May 12, 2012, p. B2.

Ex-boss Salemme, 84, convicted of murder

"Cadillac Frank" Salemme, eighty-four-year-old former New England Mafia boss, has been convicted of the 1993 killing of a government witness, according to published reports. A South Boston federal jury on Friday, June 22, 2018, found Salemme and co-defendant Paul Weadick, sixty-three, guilty of the murder.

Salemme
(AP courtroom sketch)

The defendants will be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs on September 13. The offense carries a mandatory life prison sentence. Salemme's attorney Steven Boozang said he plans to appeal the verdict.

"Today's verdict ensures that both men will finally pay the price for killing Steven DiSarro in cold blood," said Harold H. Shaw, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office. "They took his life in order to ensure his silence."

Salemme, then boss of the New England crime family, and his son Francis P. Salemme, Jr., had early 1990s financial interests in The Channel, a South Boston night club managed by DiSarro. The FBI discovered DiSarro's link with organized crime and sought his assistance in exposing Salemme's operations. Salemme learned of this and ordered the murder of DiSarro.

Press release, U.S. Attorney's Office

The forty-three-year-old night club manager was killed May 10, 1993, in a Sharon, Massachusetts, home in the presence of Cadillac Frank. According to prosecution witness Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi, who claimed to have entered the home while the murder was occurring, Francis Jr. strangled DiSarro as crime family associate Weadick held the victim's legs. DiSarro's remains were then buried behind a mill on Branch Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island, with assistance from other mobsters.

Salemme in 1995

Federal agents intended to arrest Salemme at that time, but he went into hiding. He evaded authorities for almost two years. Not even the funeral of his son Francis Salemme, Jr., who died June 23, 1995, brought him out of hiding. Tips obtained through the television program America's Most Wanted reportedly directed agents to a rented townhouse in Sandalwood Lakes Village, West Palm Beach, Florida, where Salemme was arrested in August, 1995. He was charged with racketeering, extortion and money laundering.

Federal prosecutors were able to secure a racketeering conviction against Salemme in 1999. The boss began cooperating with authorities, when he learned that underworld figures he believed were his friends were serving as informants against him. Following a release from prison, he was put into the federal witness protection program. He lived under the assumed identity of Richard Parker from Atlanta.

While Salemme provided information to authorities about other rackets figures, he was not entirely truthful about his own activities. He was thrown out of the witness protection program in 2004. He was convicted in 2008 of lying to the government about the killing of DiSarro.

DiSarro's body was found eight years later. The owner of the Providence mill got into legal trouble and told authorities about the body long buried on his property. U.S. attorneys prepared a case against Salemme and Weadick for murder of a federal witness and arrested Salemme in Connecticut that year.

DiSarro

The guilty verdicts against Salemme and Weadick concluded four days of jury deliberations at South Boston's Moakley Courthouse. U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling told the Boston-area press that the conviction brings to an end "a long, dark chapter in our city's history."

Salemme gained notoriety in 1968, when authorities sought him in connection with the January 30 car-bombing of John E. Fitzgerald of Everett, Massachusetts, an attorney who represented mob turncoat Joseph "Barboza" Baron. Fitzgerald was critically injured in the blast and needed to have his shattered right leg amputated. Salemme went into hiding at the time, remaining a fugitive for several years before being apprehended in New York. At trial in 1973, he was represented by noted criminal defense attorney F. Lee Bailey. Salemme was convicted on two charges and sentenced to lengthy terms in prison. He served a total of fifteen years.

The long prison stretch enhanced Salemme's underworld reputation. After release, he became a key figure in the New England Mafia organization of Raymond "Junior" Patriarca. A conflict within that crime family caused him to be targeted for assassination in June 1989.

In the early 1990s, prosecutions took a severe toll on the New England Mafia leadership. Cadillac Frank is believed to have moved into the position of boss, largely because there was no one else to fill the role.

Some years later, Salemme reportedly told a journalist that the life of an outlaw inevitably ends badly. "You're not going to beat the government," he said. "Let's face it. One way or the other, they're going to get you."

 Sources:

• "FBI arrests mob suspect after 2 years," Tampa Tribune, Aug. 13, 1995, p. Metro-2.
• "Former Mafia boss and associate convicted of 1993 murder," press release from United States Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts, June 22, 2018. 
• "Salemme gets long jail term," Lowell MA Sun, June 19, 1973, p. 14. 
• Amaral, Brian, "'Cadillac Frank' Salemme found guilty in 1993 murder of Providence native," Providence Journal, June 22, 2018.
• Crimesider staff, "'Cadillac Frank,' ex-New England Mafia boss, guilty in slaying," CBSNews.com.
• Dumcius, Gintautus, "Former New England Mafia boss Francis 'Cadillac Frank' Salemme found guilty," Masslive.com, June 22, 2018.
• O'Donoghue, Edward, "Salemme guilty of attempted murder of Everett attorney, sentence delayed," Lowell MA Sun, June 16, 1973. 
• Richer, Alanna Durkin, "Ex-New England Mafia boss 'Cadillac Frank' guilty in slaying," Boston.com.
• Staletovich, Jenny, "Reputed mob boss arrested," Palm beach FL Post, Aug. 13, 1995, p. 1.

Top New England mobsters targeted

On this date in 1989:
In the late morning of Friday, June 16, 1989, "Cadillac Frank" Salemme, a rising star in the Patriarca Crime Family, was walking through a House of Pancakes parking lot off Route 1 in the Boston suburb of Saugus, Massachusetts, when two gunmen opened fire on him from a passing automobile. 
 

Salemme

Salemme scrambled for cover and rushed inside a Papa Gino's pizza shop about thirty yards away. As he did so, the gunmen's car turned and made a second pass, firing more shots at the fleeing Mafioso.

"Cadillac Frank," wounded and bleeding, ran to the rear of the pizza shop, yelled out, "Call the police!" and collapsed near the door to the men's room. He regained his composure and his footing. Returning to the front of the shop, he sat down at the first table. He had been struck twice by the slugs fired at him - once in his chest and once in his left leg. As he waited for police and paramedics to arrive, he calmly pressed his windbreaker jacket against the chest wound to slow the flow of blood.

The authorities found the gunshot victim uncooperative. He refused even to identify himself. When asked who shot him, Salemme answered, "No one." Salemme was taken to AtlantiCare Hospital in Lynn, Massachusetts. Later in the day, doctors graded his condition as "guarded but stable." Investigators knew of Salemme's connections to organized crime, but they weren't sure what to make of the murder attempt. Things became somewhat clearer that afternoon.

End of the Wild Guy

Shortly after three o'clock, two fishermen discovered a dead body partly submerged in the Connecticut River at Wethersfield, just south of Hartford, Connecticut. Police arriving at the scene found that the male corpse was fully clothed and still in possession of a wallet. Cards inside the wallet belonged to William P. "Wild Guy" Grasso of New Haven.

Grasso

Further investigation positively identified the dead man as Grasso, considered the number-two man in the Patriarca organization, behind only Rhode Island-based boss Raymond "Junior" Patriarca in importance.

An autopsy revealed that Grasso had been killed by a single gunshot to the base of his skull. The medical examiner concluded that the gunshot had been fired at least twenty-four hours before the body was found.

 When the news of Grasso's murder was released, Connecticut's United States Attorney Stanley A. Twardy, Jr., noted that the "Wild Guy" was "the single most influential organized crime figure in Connecticut." Twardy also commented that he could not rule out a connection between the murder of Grasso and the attack on Salemme.

Detectives kept watch for familiar underworld figures at Grasso's funeral on Tuesday, June 20. Hundreds of people filled St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church in New Haven for a Mass of Christian Burial, but no known Mafiosi were seen. The funeral cortege included fifty cars. Grasso was buried at All Saints Cemetery in his hometown, sharing a grave with his wife, who died a year earlier. He was survived by a son, three brothers and two sisters.

'Best thing that ever happened'

Grasso, a New Haven native and once a member of the New York-based Colombo Crime Family, became a member of the New England organization after serving time in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for creating a garbage hauling monopoly in southern Connecticut. His cellmate at Atlanta was "Junior" Patriarca's father, notorious New England crime boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca. Grasso emerged from prison as a trusted aide of the elder Patriarca.

Grasso later referred to his Atlanta sentence as the "best thing that ever happened to me."

When Raymond L.S. Patriarca died in 1984, "Junior" Patriarca became boss and Grasso became underboss, directly overseeing New England Crime Family rackets in Connecticut. Grasso aggressively expanded his territory from New Haven, across the southern portion of the state into Fairfield County, up into Hartford and beyond into the Springfield, Massachusetts, area, stepping on many mobsters' toes along the way. New York Mafiosi had long dominated in Fairfield County, several crime families had interests in Hartford, and Springfield was known to be the territory of a faction of the powerful New York-based Genovese clan.

'Kill or be killed'

Authorities quickly understood that the moves against Grasso and Salemme were designed to weaken the administration of "Junior" Patriarca. But it took some time before they could piece together just what was going on.

The loss of Grasso was keenly felt within the New England Mafia. No one within Connecticut's branch of the organization had Grasso's combination of ability and loyalty. According to FBI sources, the Patriarca administration appointed a Rhode Islander, Matthew L. Guglielmetti, to oversee rackets in the Nutmeg State. Nicholas L. Bianco, another Rhode Island resident, was elevated to the position of underboss.

In 1990, federal prosecutors began dismantling the New England Mafia through successful prosecutions. In the process, they learned that brothers Louis and Frank Pugliano, Gaetano Milano and Milano's longtime friend Frank Colantoni, Jr., participated in the killing of Grasso. Believing that Grasso was planning to murder them, they set to the job of eliminating him first.

Grasso funeral (Courant, June 21, 1989)

They set up a phony underworld meeting in Massachusetts on June 13, 1989. With Louis Pugliano at the wheel of a van, they picked up Grasso to take him to the meeting. While driving along Interstate-91 in Connecticut, Milano fired a single shot into the back of Grasso's neck. The group deposited Grasso's body at the Connecticut River.

At his sentencing in 1991, Milano told U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas that he felt the killing of Grasso was necessary: "It was kill or be killed."

A like-minded group in Massachusetts was found to be behind the attempt on Salemme's life. Authorities learned that Enrico Ponzo and Vincent Michael Marino were the gunmen who attacked "Cadillac Frank."

U.S. prosecutors assembled convincing cases against the New England Mafia rebels (Ponzo was able to avoid capture until early in 2011) and much of the crime family leadership. But an important part of the story remained unknown to them and to the American public. It was unknown because agents of the FBI were keeping it secret.

FBI sparked rebellion

Years later, it was learned that some in the FBI had worked with informants within the New England underworld to create a destructive rivalry within the Patriarca Mafia organization. Seeds planted by the FBI convinced groups within the Connecticut and Massachusetts branches of the organization that the Patriarca administration was planning to eliminate them. That prompted them to act against Grasso and Salemme, and it also figured in several other murders.

Defense attorney Anthony Cardinale revealed in a 1997 affidavit that intentional FBI activities caused the plots against Grasso and Salemme and that the FBI knew of the plots but kept silent about them for a period of sixteen months. FBI improprieties were documented in the following years.

One of the mobsters involved in the FBI efforts was Angelo "Sonny" Mercurio. The FBI actively hid Mercurio's involvement in instigating the anti-Grasso plot while others were tried and convicted for it. Mercurio was never charged in connection with the killing. He died in Florida in late 2006 while in the witness protection program.

The revelations of FBI involvement and coverup led to revised sentences for a number of those convicted in the early 1990s.

Sources:

• "Garbageman backs attempt to regain 'stolen' customer," Bridgeport CT Post, Nov. 7, 1968, p. 20.
• "Police confirm reputed crime boss a homicide victim," Associated Press, June 17, 1989, apnews.com.
• Cullen, Kevin, "Two men linked to mob shot in separate attacks," Boston Globe, June 17, 1989, bostonglobe.com.
• Hays, Constance L., "A mob leader in New England is believed slain," New York Times, June 17, 1989.
• Foderaro, Lisa W., "Mob leader's slaying may signal power struggle," New York Times, June 18, 1989, p. 31.
• Mahony, Edmund, "Hundreds attend rite for Grasso," Hartford Courant, June 21, 1989, p. 1.
• Gombossy, George, "Magistrate may free mob suspects on bond," Hartford Courant, March 31, 1990, p. C1.
• Mahony, Edmund, "Two plead guilty to racketeering charges in surprise move," Hartford Courant, May 2, 1991, p. C1.
• Barry, Stephanie, "Mob killer may get out early," Springfield MA Republican, Sept. 22, 2008, masslive.com.
• Christoffersen, John, "Judge reduces mobster killer's sentence," Norwalk CT Hour, Oct. 9, 2008.
• Marcus, Jon, "Attorney says FBI encouraged mob shootings," New Bedford MA SouthCoast Today, Jan. 10, 2011, southcoasttoday.com.
• Guilfoil, John M., "Fugitive mobster found in Idaho," Boston Globe, Feb. 9, 2011, boston.com.
• Mahony, Edmund H., "The Mob in Connecticut: Grasso's reign of terror," Hartford Courant, April 26, 2014, courant.com.