Copyright 1990 U.P.I.
 
United Press International
March 26, 1990, Monday, BC cycle
SECTION: Domestic News

LENGTH: 673 words

HEADLINE: FBI ''drives stake'' into heart of Patriarca crime family

BYLINE: By JOHN P. GREGG

DATELINE: BOSTON

BODY:
The FBI unsealed three indictments Monday against 21 organized crime figures headed by reputed New England mob boss Raymond ''Junior'' Patriarca, driving a ''stake in the heart'' of the family, Attorney General Richard Thornburgh said.

Authorities arrested Patriarca and at least 15 of the reputed mobsters Mondayin connection with 113 separate counts ranging from murder to extortion to kidnapping, Thornburgh said.

The FBI also was able, for the first time, to record an induction ceremony for newly ''made'' crime members taking blood oaths.

''It should lay to rest once and for all any doubts that La Cosa Nostra is a figment of law enforcement imagination,'' said Thornburgh, who called the indictments an ''unprecedented assault'' on the New England mob.

''The case is important because it represents a stake in the heart of a major organized crime family from the boss on down,'' he said.

FBI Director William Sessions said he was proud his agents were able to ''invade the inner sanctums of these organizations with the intent to destroy them.''

Thomas Hughes, head of the FBI's Boston office, said the five-year investigation included ''multiple undercover operations, multiple wiretaps, multiple sophisticated surveillance.''

Officials declined to say whether any law-enforcement agent actually joined the crime family.

FBI agents arrested Patriarca, 45, at his Lincoln, R.I., home at 6:30 a.m. Patriarca was charged with racketeering and conspiracy in a 65-count indictment that spans 15 years and alleges a pattern of murder, robbery, extortion, drug running, obstruction of justice, and racketeering, officials said.

Arrested at the same time as Patriarca were Nicholas Bianco, 47, and Matthew Guglielmetti, 41, both of Providence. Bianco is the reputed underboss of the Patriarca organization and Guglielmetti the ''capo regime'', officials said.

Patriarca, who according to his lawyer has never been indicted or convicted, was selected to succeed his late father, Raymond L.S. Patriarca, who died in 1984, the FBI said.

Patriarca sat motionless in U.S. District Court in Providence Monday as his lawyer unsuccessfully requested a three-day delay of his client's arraignment in Boston. The attorney, John Cicilline, argued that he needed to review medical records regarding Patriarca's treatment for cataracts and cancer.

Bianco and Guglielmetti were to be arraigned in Hartford. Patriarca was taken to Boston, where he was being held pending arraignment Tuesday.

Bianco and Guglielmetti are both accused of racketeering charges involving conspiracy to murder, loan sharking, illegal gambling, wire fraud and interstate travel in aid of racketeering.

Seven other reputed mob figures were charged along with Patriarca in the 65-count indictment handed up in Boston, including the alleged underboss of the greater Boston area.

A separate 37-count indictment in Boston named three other Patriarca associates and an 11-count indictment unsealed in Hartford named Bianco, Guglielmetti and eight others.

On Oct. 29, 1989, four men were inducted as soldiers of the crime family in a ceremony in Medford, Mass., attended by Patriarca, officials said.

According to government documents, Biagio Digiacomo of Boston opened the ceremony, which included drawing blood from the inductees' trigger fingers by saying, ''In honor of the family, the family is open.''

He then administered, in Italian, the following oath to each of the soldiers: ''I ... want to enter into this organization to protect my family and to protect all my friends. I swear not to divulge this secret and to obey, with love and omerta,'' or conspiracy of silence.

After burning a holy card depicting the Patriarca family saint, Digiacomo said to the new members, ''We get in alive in this organization and the only way we gonna get out is dead no matter what. It's no hope, no Jesus, no Madonna, nobody can help us if we ever give up this secret to anybody... This thing that cannot be exposed,'' the indictment said.