Jack's Justice - Part 2: Richie's Disinformation Campaign

Lara:

Hi all! Last week we left you in 1979 with Louis Manocchio posting bail for charges he had been facing for over a decade. The 1968 murders of Rudy Marfeo and Anthony Melei led to the conviction of Robert Almonte in May of 1969. In a normal story, that would have been the end, but nooooo! The following month, John J. “Red” Kelley or as we refer to him, Jack, was arrested for the December 1968 Brinks robbery. What followed was hardly anything but normal. Today we’ll recap the events leading up to the murders of Rudy Marfeo and Anthony Melei, and discuss the events and so called investigation that lead to the second Marfeo/Melei murder trial. We originally planned to also cover that trial today, but there are too many stories, twists and turns to cram into one episode. It will be mid-season before we get back to Louis Manocchio.

Nina:

Well, I’m still hoping he contacts us! 

Lara:

Hey anything is possible, but I’m not holding my breath. Some of our listeners think he might be listening.

Nina:

Oh ye of little faith! 

Lara:

Don’t get all biblical on me now!

Enough banter! Let’s go all the way back to 1928! Don’t panic, we aren’t staying there for long, but in Nina’s research she came across an interesting connection between Raymond Patriarca and the scene of the Marfeo/Melei murders, Panonne’s Market!

Nina:

I can finally tell everyone what I found out about Pannone’s!  In late February 1928, Patriarca and Ben Tilley were arrested for stealing a safe from Angelo Marrocco’s grocery store on 282 Pocasset Ave. in Providence.

Lara:

What would decades later be the home of Panonne’s Market. Do you think Raymond remembered that it was the same location?

Nina:

I mean 40 years had passed, and with all the stress Raymond was under, I doubt it. For our listeners who want to hear more about that robbery and Raymond’s early criminal days, they should listen to our most popular episode where we introduced Raymond Patriarca. 

 Lara:

And Ben Tilley, who will be one of our subjects in a couple of weeks. By the way, that episode was also our most disliked episode! Guys, we are allowed to have our own opinions, so are all of you and we don’t have to agree. It’s ok to disagree. 

Nina:

A lost art form!

Lara:

Sadly! All of those years in the debate club were wasted.

Before we move on I want to tell my favorite story from that robbery. A 10 year old boy saw Raymond crumple up one of the stolen checks from the safe and toss it over a fence. The kid picked it up and headed to the police station. Much to the boy’s delight, there was Raymond already standing in the middle of the station. The little boy marched up and handed Raymond the check saying “here, mister, you lost this.”

Nina:

Classic! I also love the fact that Raymond had the knob of the safe in his pocket at the time of his arrest! So the checks probably wouldn’t have made a difference.

Lara:

Also classic! I doubt Raymond wanted to admit to that crime in his later days. Not exactly the image of a major crime boss. No ruffled feathers guys!

Nina:

Moving on from that, I want to discuss the connections between the families on both sides of the murders.

Lara:

We need one of those fancy interactive whiteboards to sort that out!

Nina:

You’re telling me!

I think it might be better to go in reverse this time. 

Lara:

Good idea!

Nina:

At the time of the murders of Rudy Marfeo and Anthony Melei in April of 1968, Rudy Marfeo, who was still married but separated from his wife, had been having a lengthy affair with Mary Baccari, the estranged wife of Harry Baccari. On August 7, 1966  at 12:40am an attempt was made on Rudy Marfeo’s life by his brother-in-law Joe Baccari, & Joe’s nephews, Raymond and Louis. Four shots were fired into Rudy’s apartment while he was sitting in his living room watching TV. The three Baccaris were arrested on attempted murder charges, and Joe Baccari was also charged with assaulting a police officer and illegal possession of a firearm after he attacked a cop during questioning at police headquarters. The following day the men pleaded innocent to all of the charges.

As a result of his arrest, Joe Baccari was unable to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding later that month!

Lara:

Now if you’ve managed to follow the tangled mess so far you realize that Joe’s daughter was also Rudy’s niece. Joe was married to Rudy’s wife’s sister.

A couple of weeks before, Rudy and Willie Marfeo and Joe Baccari’s nephew, Joseph Marfeo Jr. was shot in the leg while standing in his driveway. The prior evening, just sixteen days after the slaying of Willie, the second floor apartment of Rudy, was set on fire.

Nina:

A little bit more about the intermarriage.

Lara:

Must we?

Nina:

I know, we’ve been over it in two previous episodes, but it’s important because it shows there were others who had motive to kill the Marfeos besides Raymond Patriarca.

Lara:

I know! I feel like I should warn everyone to pause and get out their notepads.

Nina:

Don’t be so dramatic! The Baccari-Marfeo family tree is in Wikitree, if anyone needs a visual, and I’m constantly adding to it.

The Marfeos were also related to Jackie Nazarian by marriage. Jackie was arrested for the murder of Tiger Balletto. Rudy’s mistress Mary Bacarri was living in the late Tiger Balletto’s house at the time of Rudy’s murder.

Lara:

For clarification, Tiger was killed in 1955, but his son was living in the house at the time Mary was residing there in 1968. Nina is still trying to find a connection between Mary and the Balletto family. 

Nina:

Maybe there isn’t a familial relationship, but that’s the address the Feds had for her when they questioned her about the murder.

Lara:

And Jackie Nazarian had been dead since the early 1960s.

Nina:

Correct. Jackie’s wife, Sarah, was the daughter of Gaetano Baccari and Angelina Barone. Two of her sisters were married to Marfeos. Her younger sister, Angelina, to Savino Marfeo, and her older sister, Rosie, to Joe Marfeo. As Lara mentioned a few minutes ago, Joe “Buffy” Baccari and Rudy Marfeo were also brothers-in-law through their wives, the Curria sisters. The Baccaris court appearances continued throughout late 1966 and into 1967. Rudy refused to testify against his family, and so the only thing the cops could get Buffy Baccari on was the weapons possession charge. Finally, in September 1967, Baccari was sentenced to one year in Rhode Island state prison. 

In the middle of June that same year, there was a drive-by shooting at Joe Marfeo’s house in Cranston. Joe’s wife Rose nee Baccari was home when two shots were fired. Joe wasn’t home because he was at the police department filing a report that his son’s car had been shot at on Federal Hill.

Lara:

We quipped in the last episode that Rudy Sciarra was arrested for nearly every murder that took place in Providence. Well that included the murder of Jackie Nazarian. During the murder trial, a witness claimed that Willie Marfeo had been at the scene when Rudy Sciarra killed Jackie Nazarian. According to Anthony Ricci Jr, Willie had tried to pull the two men apart but failed in his efforts and that’s when Jackie got shot. After Sciarra was acquitted, Willie was charged with Jackie’s murder, but the government couldn’t get an indictment.

Nina:

Back to the events leading up to the murders of Rudy Marfeo and Anthony Melei. Willie Marfeo was murdered by an unknown assailant in the street on July 13, 1966. Raymond Patriarca, Henry Tameleo and Ronnie Cassesso would later be charged, tried and convicted on conspiracy charges based on Joe Barboza’s testimony. They weren’t convicted until late 1968.

Lara:

Before we move onto the investigation, here’s a brief recap of the murders of Rudy and Anthony. On the Saturday after Easter, April 20th, 1968, just before 3:00 pm Rudy Marfeo and Anthony Melei were gunned down in Pannone’s Market at 282 Pocasset Ave in the Silverlake section of Providence, RI by two masked men. Anthony Melei was shot from a distance of roughly six feet away near the ice cream freezer, and Rudy Marfeo from a distance of about three feet just near the front door of the store with his .38 in hand. The shots tore Marfeo’s left side apart and hit Melei directly in the face. A single copper jacketed lead bullet, a .30 caliber cartridge case and five shotgun shells were found at the scene. The murder weapons were a carbine and a shotgun. 

Rudy’s brother Savino was present as was Mary Baccari. Savino suffered a heart attack as he did previously when he heard the news that their brother Willie had been killed, but this time he never recovered and passed away the following year on June 3. Mary was in Pannone’s shopping with Rudy as had become their routine during their relationship when he was shot down.

Nina:

The initial suspects in the double homicide were Rudy Sciarra, Dicky Callei, John E Rossi, Richard J. Quattrocchi, Robert Fairbrothers, Alex Mandine, Andrew and Louis Manocchio, the Badway brothers: Raymond, Malcolm and Joseph, and Richard Ricci. 

In mid-May 1968, the local authorities looked into another pair of suspects, asking for help from Washington in identifying a latent fingerprint found on the license plate of the abandoned getaway car. The prints they provided to DC for possible matches belonged to another nephew of Buffy Baccari’s, Richard and his business partner, Charles White. But their prints did not match the latent fingerprints, and the locals were forced to look elsewhere. Less than a week after the negative response from DC came back on the prints, Robert Almonte was charged with the double homicide. He was convicted the following May and sentenced to life in prison. 

Jack Kelley was arrested not long after Almonte’s conviction, and a massive investigation began based on Jack’s tales.

Lara:

And let’s not forget a large dose of dad’s tales and deliberate misinformation.

When Jack came forward with his story, the authorities from the US Attorney General to the Boston FBI Field Office SAC were very concerned about moving forward with the investigation as Almonte was already doing a life bid for the Marfeo/Melei hit.

Nina:

But the Feds weren’t going to let that pesky little detail get in their way. The arrest warrants were issued and the first batch were executed on August 12, 1969 with the arrests of Robert Fairbrothers, John E. Rossi and Maurice Pro Lerner. The following week Rudy Sciarra was arrested, with not a little help from Frank Imbruglia. Raymond was already serving time for Willie Marfeo’s murder in Atlanta, so the authorities didn’t heave to look far for him. Frank Vendituoli and Louis Manocchio were on the lam.

Lara:

And the FBI informants from Boston to New York were spinning magnificent stories. One former Fed, John B. Green was now a criminal attorney collecting statements from some of those informants.The informants were reporting on what they’d been telling Green. Of course dad was in the middle of that mix. Pro Lerner’s defense, the mob and other local thieves were very concerned about what Jack was going to say on the stand, and they all wanted to make sure that dad was on board to undermine Jack’s testimony.

Nina:

But the reality was that Jack and Richie had plotted for months about exactly what Richie would say in both statements to the authorities and on the stand. Jack wasn’t just doling out justice to who he felt was his enemy, but by getting others off he was doling out his revenge against the authorities for their years of harassment. 

Lara:

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves!

Two weeks after the arrests of Lerner, Rossi and Fairbrothers, Jack appeared at their bail hearing. That same day an informant told the Feds that Pro would testify at a later date that Jack had contracted him to kill Tommy Richards and Pro refused. According to the informant that is why Jack was testifying against Pro.

Nina:

On September 3, 1969,  FBI Informant BS-936  reported to SA Gerard Comen that Pro felt Roy Appleton and Billy Kenny would testify at the Marfeo/Melei murder trial corroborating much of Jack’s testimony. The informant also said he heard that Pro was making arrangements to take out Roy and Billy Kenny. Meanwhile, Richie had been telling Comen that Rudy Sciarra was orchestrating the hit on Kenny. 

Lara:

Better safe than sorry.

Nina:

BS-936 also told SA Comen that affidavits would be forthcoming to discredit Jack’s mental competency. Unamed individuals would give statements that on the day of the Melei/Marfeo murders, Jack couldn’t have possibly been in the Providence area because he’d had an argument with his wife and was staying in a room at the Danish House on the Brockton-Avon line. Others would testify that Jack was with them the Saturday of the killings in Providence.

Lara:

The informant obviously didn’t know that Jack was the real owner of the Danish House.

Nina:

Don’t you think this person did know that and it was another way to undermine the prosecution?

Lara:

True! Any of the informants that were close enough to Jack for their claim to seem credible would know what Jack owned and didn’t. They would also be in dad’s sphere. Dad lived to concoct outrageous stories, and was extremely convincing when telling them. There he was with nothing but time on his hands. Jack was locked up, so for the first time in over seven years dad wasn’t glued to his side. Pro was in the can, Mello Merlino was on the lam and Sonny Diaferio was out on bail. My grandmother was gone, mom and I were in California, and it wasn’t like dad could go out and rob in his free time. Other than hanging around my family’s store and delivering groceries around Beacon Hill, he had nothing but time on his hands. After he cooked up one of his tales, he floated off to one of his fellow informants or a local gossip and shared his story. Before the end of the day a dozen people were telling the same story, half of them sharing it with the Feds. 

Nina:

Well, Richie continued that practice for decades! Look at what he did with the Gardner Investigation!

Lara:

No question about that!

Back to the investigation. On September 27, 1969, informant BS-1047 told SA Pieroni that Sonny Diaferio had called him two days prior and told him to meet him at Bailey’s office. When he got to Bailey’s office, Sonny took him to meet another lawyer who he said was representing Jerry Angiulo. When they arrived at the attorney’s office at One State Street, the informant was introduced to John B. Greene. 

Greene told the informant that he was working with Ronnie Chisholm on what he referred to as “the Jack Kelley situation”.

Greene stated that it was necessary to discredit and destroy Kelley’s effectiveness as a prosecution witness. He wanted to know about Jack’s medical history, dates of hospitalization and medications taken.

Jack had previously had two small heart attacks which he’d kept a secret. But dad knew, so chances are that he’d already spread that around too.

Nina:

During the interview, Greene told the informant that he was a former FBI agent and therefore knew how the FBI functioned. Greene instructed the informant not to submit to an interview by any FBI agent. Obviously Greene was unaware that the man Sonny was dragging along with him was an informant.

BS-1047 told SA Peroni that he believed Greene was more interested in the Marfeo/Melei case than the Brinks trial based on the limited amount of time Greene devoted to discussing it. The informant felt that was because the LCN was interested in the murder trial. 

Lara:

The fact that Jerry Angiulo’s so-called attorney, Al Horrigan was present at the meeting, and gave “the definite impression of being in charge of the inquiry” verified that the LCN was a little more than interested in Jack’s testimony. Greene told the informant that he might have to sign a certain affidavit in order to preclude him from becoming involved as a witness in support of Kelley.

Nina:

Just so you get the picture, former FBI Agent turned defense attorney John Green was holding a meeting with not one but two longtime FBI Confidential Informants.

Lara:

At the same time!

Nina:

From would we can deduce from the Fed’s system of numbering CIs, Horrigan had been an informant longer than Richie at that point. 

BS-1047 went to meet Green again on the morning of October 1st. Green knew all about Jack’s strategy of parking illegally and getting parking tickets from the BPD, and asked the informant if he had any information about it. The informant did know about the tickets, and gave Green all the details he knew about Jack’s car at the time, a 1968 blue Mercury. The same car that Jack had told the Feds he’d been driving at the time of the Marfeo-Melei hit. But he said he didn’t know where Green could find the tickets. 

Some of our listeners might recall that Richie would park Jack’s car in a conspicuous location where it was certain to be ticketed when they were scoping out a robbery that Jack was planning. Richie reported to his handlers at least twice about that practice. No doubt he shared that with BS-1047 and others, including Green!

Lara:

1047 used another one of dad’s favorite techniques, turning the tables on your inquisitor. The Informant told his handler that he had some questions for Green, asking him who exactly he was representing. Green told him he was working for “some people in Boston”. Not satisfied with that answer, the informant asked again, and Green answered that he was working for Ronnie Chisholm. But who was Ronnie working for, the informant wanted to know. At which point, Green repeated, “some people in Boston”. Ronnie was Jerry Angiulo’s defense attorney, so we know who those people were.

Nina:

The informant also claimed that he asked Greene why he should trust him since he knew that he was a former Fed. Greene stated that he’d been checked out by his clients. Greene told the CI that he’d worked with Lawrence O’Donnell during the Teddy Deegan murder case and they’d been held in contempt by Judge Felix Forte.

On October 3, Frank Imbruglia told Dennis Condon that Ronnie Chisholm had hired Condon’s former colleague, John B. Greene to interview prospective witnesses in the Brinks robbery trial and the murder of Rudy Marfeo. Imbruglia told Condon that Greene had already interviewed Roy Appleton and was thinking about interviewing Richie. Greene’s plan was to get statements from these people in order to prevent them from testifying at trial.

But as I already said, we know that Greene was already talking to Richie because he couldn’t have had the information he was asking the other informants about if Richie hadn’t told him.

Lara:

On October 23, 1969, informant BS-1201-PC told SA McWeeney that F. Lee Bailey had $300 to $400,000 of Jack’s money, and that it was Jack who arranged for Bailey to defend Rudy Sciarra in the Zoglio murder case.

Nina:

I need to interrupt you! Why would Jack arrange for Bailey to defend Sciarra in October of 1968, only to give him up less than six months later.

Lara:

The thing that screams madness to me is the list of the indicted on the same day in October of ‘68.

Rudy Sciarra, Bobby Fairbrothers and Rinaldo DiPietrantonio were indicted for the Zoglio murder, and Louis “The Fox” Taglianetti for the 1962 murder of Jackie Nazarian. Remember we mentioned earlier that at first Rudy was indicted for Jackie’s murder. After he was acquitted Willie Marfeo was then charged in Jackie’s murder, but the authoroties were unable to get an indictment. Louis Manocchio was charged with soliciting the murder of Willie Marfeo and as we also mentioned a little while ago Raymond Patriarca was charged and later convicted of conspiracy to murder Willie. Basically the usual suspects.

Nina:

You forgot to mention that the same day he was indicted for the Zoglio murder, Sciarra was also charged with killing Angelo DiPalma.

Lara:

Who wasn’t Rudy charged with killing? Was he ever actually convicted of murder?

Nina:

I don’t think so. They convicted him on weapons charges in the 1980s. We briefly touched on that story in the Hit Parade of ‘65, and we’ll come back to it later in the season. And the charge here was conspiracy to murder. They never got him as the trigger man. 

Lara:

It didn’t stop them from trying! In late October, dad was back telling Comen about a mystery man named Jefffrey.

Nina:

But who was Jeffrey???

Lara:

One of dad’s fictional characters!

According to dad, Jeffrey was telling prospective witnesses that they’d be compensated for cooperating with Green and Chisholm at the upcoming trial. Dad was vague about what exactly “cooperating” entailed. Dad also told SA Comen that the defense strategy was to question Jack’s mental competency in an effort to discredit him to the jury.

Nina:

Richie went into great detail in describing Jeffrey: 5’9”, 170 pounds, between 30 and 35, stocky with a large hook nose, and black hair. He was driving a 1969 black Lincoln. But no other clues!

Lara:

Because Jeffrey was a figment of dad’s imagination. The description is the same as the guy at the VA. He also told Comen that Pro’s sister, Carrie, was acting as a messenger for both Pro and Pro’s new attorney Ronnie Chisholm. I know I said this before, but when I was doing my little internship at Ronnie’s office I wish I knew that those files were a goldmine of information as was Ronnie!

Nina:

If you only you’d known! 

In the meantime, BS-1047 told his handler SA Pieroni that John Green had contacted him again to meet in the next few days. Sonny Diaferio had called the informant shortly after the appointment with Green was made, and told him that they also wanted to talk about Richie. 

Lara:

You mean Greene had his suspicions about dad?

Nina:

He was the only one, it seems!

On November 10th, Roy Appleton went to meet Green again. Green didn’t have any questions for Roy this time. Instead he had some things to say to him. He read Roy Jack’s testimony about the Marfeo/Melei murder and then read him the indictment against Jerry Angiulo. They arranged another meeting and Roy left.

Lara:

I want to remind our listeners that Jack had made it clear to Roy that he and dad would not be dragged into any of Jack’s tales. Jack kept that promise to Roy until after Roy’s death. We’ll discuss that later in the season.

Three days later, Sonny Diaferio and Roy met at Al Horrigan’s office on Tremont St. to discuss Jack’s testimony and the efforts to discredit him. Again, Horrigan seemed more interested in the double homicide. Horrigan asked about Armand Caprioli, Nick Mancusso and Ferris of Nantasket Beach and their relationship with Jack and if they would be helpful to the defense or if they’d cooperate with the government. I wish I could remember the details of Ferris! Maybe one of our listeners remembers him.

Nina:

Horrigan questioned Roy again about Jack’s cars and health. He also asked about Jack’s statement that he’d met Pro at The Scene. “He pointed out that it was necessary to break that part of Kelley’s story”. Why was that so important?

Lara:

I assume that Horrigan meant where did Jack and Pro first meet rather than some random meeting. The lot of them were always in the Scene, so that doesn’t make sense. The official story has always been that Billy Aggie introduced Pro to Jack shortly after the Plymouth Mail Robbery. According to dad it was at Jimmy's Harborside Restaurant, but I’ve also heard Anthony’s Pier 4 was the spot. But Anthony’s Pier 4 didn’t open until 1963. Anyhow, Horrigan must have wanted to prove Jack was lying.

Nina:

Jack was deliberately lying, but no one caught on! He was leaving escape hatches for Pro all over the place, but Ronnie seemed not to notice. It would take a decade and a half for one of those escape hatches to be utilized, but that story is for later this season.

Lara:

I don’t believe that it was deliberate on Ronnie’s side. He was so focused on getting Jerry Angiulo off that he was stretched too thin. And Greene was busy chasing informants and their disinformation campaign.

On November 14th, Imbruglia told Condon that Nicky Angiulo had told him that Jack was making another Grand Jury appearance, this time in a case involving five corrupt police officers.

Nina:

What case was that?

Lara:

There was no case. Just more propaganda!

Imbruglia also told Condon that dad was telling Horrigan and Green that he was in touch with the Feds on a daily basis. 

Nina:

The informants informing on the informants to informants.

Lara:

Stop! It’s too much.

On November 18th, Lerner and Fairbrothers presented motions in Rhode Island State Superior Court to allow them to inspect “Minutes of the Grand Jury”, to permit the defense to see the prosecution’s witness list, to see statements made by co-defendants and to be furnished with any other evidence the Attorney General had that is favorable to the defense. Additionally a motion was submitted to permit the defense counsel to talk to Jack Kelley. The Judge denied all the motions made by Ceresi and Chisholm. A replay of the murder trial of Georgie McLaughlin!

Nina:

The following month Bobby Almonte was released from prison and cleared of the murder charges.

Lara:

They kept him locked up for four months after the others were charged. The justice system.

Following Almonte’s release, RI State AG Richard Israel informed the Feds that the trial date had been set for January 5, 1970.

Next week, we’ll go through the trial including when Jack took the stand and Raymond confronted him about Wimpy Bennett’s demise.

Nina:

No teasers!

Lara:

Ok, ok! Thanks everyone for listening.

Nina & Lara:

Bye!!!