Copyright 1990 Globe Newspaper Company  
The Boston Globe
 
March 27, 1990, Tuesday, City Edition
SECTION: METRO/REGION; Pg. 15 p.

LENGTH: 887 words

HEADLINE: FBI tapes offer a rare inside look at Mafia induction

BYLINE: By Elizabeth Neuffer and Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff

BODY:
They swore to commit murder.

They pricked their trigger finger and drew blood.

And then, as pictures of the family saint were set ablaze and oaths recited in Italian, the top leadership of the Patriarca crime family watched four men become baptized into the workings of their underworld, pledging all along they would never reveal the secrets of Mafia, this "Thing of ours."

Except that federal agents heard every word.

In what may be the greatest incursion ever by law enforcement into the innermost sanctums of organized crime, federal authorities revealed yesterday they had successfully bugged an Oct. 29 induction ceremony of four new members into the Patriarca organized crime family.

While underworld figures have previously described the Mafia's induction ceremony in court testimony, authorities said capturing the Patriarca crime family's private ceremony on tape provides a potent tool for future prosecutors chasing organized crime, establishing without a doubt the Mafia exists and killing is one of its weapons.

But the excerpts of the induction ceremony contained in yesterday's indictment are also an incredibly vivid portrayal of the Patriarca family's most sancrosanct moment.

They chose as their site an ordinary yellow house on Guild Street in Medford. It was the home of the sister of Vincent Federico, one of the four men scheduled to be baptized.

The sister would be away and wouldn't be the wiser, Federico is said to have told his associates. Federico, serving time at MCI-Shirley for shooting a man, would be able to attend the Sunday ceremony because he had lined up a furlough.

Acting on a tip, FBI agents hustled to make the home penetrable by electronic surveillance. They apparently did so just hours before the various contingents arrived from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Raymond J. (Junior) Patriarca, the reputed Boss, headed up from Rhode Island, accompanied by capo regime Matthew L. Guglielmetti, soldier Pasquale Galea, and Robert P. Deluca, who was one of the four to be baptized.

Deluca is alleged to have earned his stripes bookmaking for the Patriarca family in Providence, where they allegedly set him up in a jewelry business for some time.

Deluca would be joined by three men "proposed" for membership by Boston capo regimes: Federico, his pal, Richard J.E. Floramo, and Carmen A. Tortora, an enforcer whose exploits and threats to crack open skulls were mentioned on tapes recorded by the FBI's 1981 incursion into the North End headquarters of the Angiulo brothers.

When the Providence contingent arrived, gathered at the Medford home was a veritable "Who's Who" in the Patriarca crime family: 17 members from three states, including the Boss; the consigliere, Joseph (J.R.) Russo; five of the family's capo regimes, or lieutenants, Vincent M. (The Animal) Ferrara, Robert F. Carrozza, Biagio DiGiacomo, Charles Quintina, and Guglielmetti; and 10 soldiers, Angelo (Sonny) Mercurio, Antonio L. (Spucky) Spagnolo, Vincent (Dee Dee) Gioacchini, Frederick M. Chiampa, Alexander S. (Sonny Boy) Rizzo, Pryce L. Quintina, all from the Boston regimes, Dominick Marangelli and Louis R. Failla from the Hartford regime, Gaetano J. Milano from western Massachusetts, and Galea from Providence.

What they had gathered for was a "baptism" of Mafiosi. DiGiacomo had explained the significance of the ceremony to Tortora.

"Carmen, we're going to baptize you again," DiGiacomo says, according to the indictment. "You were baptized when you were a baby, your parents did it, but now this time we're going to baptize you."

Perhaps because he is Sicilian-born, perhaps because he is alleged to have undergone the induction in both Italy and the United States, DiGiacomo is said to have officiated at the ceremony.

"In onore della Famiglia, la Famiglia e abbraccio," DiGiacomo is said to have began, using the Italian for, "In honor of the Family, I embrace the Family."

Then he administered the oaths:

"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."

Omerta is the oath of silence each Mafiosi takes. If it is broken, the offender must die.

After blood was drawn from each of the inductees' trigger fingers, a holy card with the image of the Patriarca family saint was burned as DiGiacomo administered the second oath:

"As burns this saint so will burn my soul. I enter alive into this organization and leave it dead."

DiGiacomo then explained the commitment they had made.

"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, any kinds of friends of mine, let's say. This Thing that cannot be exposed."

The conversations recorded inside the house on Guild Street will most certainly be used to prove that the men assembled belong to La Cosa Nostra, the Mafia.

As it turned out, the four men allegedly being inducted into the Mafia helped violate omerta the very moment they were asked to uphold it with their lives.

And it may turn out 17 men who gathered in the yellow house in Medford to welcome their new "friends" violated omerta not so much by speaking, but by being heard.