Copyright 1991 Globe Newspaper Company  
The Boston Globe
May 17, 1991, Friday, City Edition
SECTION: METRO/REGION; Pg. 21

LENGTH: 762 words

HEADLINE: Patriarca's life was threatened, witness says

BYLINE: By Efrain Hernandez Jr., Globe Staff

DATELINE: HARTFORD

BODY:
Boston mobsters planned to murder Raymond J. Patriarca in 1989 if he refused to relinquish the leadership of the Mafia family named after his late father, a mobster who has turned informant testified yesterday in US District Court.

John F. Castagna, an associate of the Providence-based Patriarca Mafia family, testified he learned of the threat, at the height of feuding between Massachusetts and Rhode Island factions of the crime family, during an August 1989 meeting in a Boston club. The meeting was attended by Joseph Russo, Vincent M. Ferrara and Robert Carrozza, who are to be tried on racketeering charges in Boston later this year.

"They wanted him to step down or he would be straightened out or taken care of," Castagna said, referring to what Russo, the alleged family consigliere or counselor, said about Patriarca.

Castagna testified that Russo told him: "Raymond Junior had tears in his eyes and he was begging for his life. If he didn't step down he would be killed."

Castagna said that the threats against Patriarca occurred after his second-in-command, underboss William Grasso, had been murdered in Connecticut during the feud. He did not say why plans to eliminate Patriarca were never carried out.

Testimony by Castagna also included the first evidence against Nicholas L. Bianco of Providence, who law enforcement officials say is now the boss of the Patriarca family.

The prosecution played a recording of a July 24, 1989, conversation between Castagna and Louis R. Failla of East Hartford that was intercepted by law enforcement surveillance. Castagna testified that the conversation concerned who would control the Patriarca family's activities in Connecticut. He said the reference to "Nicky" meant Bianco.

"But Nicky's gonna go ahead and do what he has to do. He don't have to ask Boston or nothin'," Failla said on the tape. "He's the. . . boss. He don't gotta ask their permission to put a guy in Connecticut. He's gotta do what he gotta do."

Bianco, law enforcement officials say, became the Patriarca family boss when Raymond J. Patriarca lost power. Law enforcement officials say Patriarca may have lost power because of a secret taping by the FBI of an alleged Mafia induction ceremony that Patriarca attended in Medford on Oct. 29, 1989.

Bianco - a long-time important member of the New England underworld, according to law enforcement officials - is on trial in Hartford on two counts of racketeering.

Castagna, who was in his third day of answering questions from Assistant US Attorney John H. Durham, said Russo's statements about Patriarca occurred when Castagna, Failla and defendant Gaetano Milano went to Boston to report on an earlier underworld meeting in Mystic, Conn.

That meeting, run by Matthew Guglielmetti Jr. of Providence, a reputed capo regime in the family, resulted in Connecticut and Springfield-area mobsters being told to answer directly to Providence.

Guglielmetti, who pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in Hartford May 1, said "that there would be no captain named for Connecticut and if they had any beefs they could take them to Rhode Island and it could be settled there," Castagna testified.

The directive meant bypassing the traditional arbiter of family disputes, the consigliere, who allegedly was Russo, and it exemplified the tension between the Providence and Boston factions.

In testimony Wednesday, Castagna detailed the killing of Grasso, saying it was caused by the feuding. The defendant Milano is alleged to have shot Grasso.

Federal law enforcement officials believe Grasso was killed because he began organizing the killing of Ferrara, a lieutenant in the crime family.

Castagna yesterday afternoon also began facing cross-examination by defense attorneys.

Boston attorney Anthony M. Cardinale, who is representing defendant Louis A. Pugliano of West Springfield, started by tracing Castagna's many arrests and convictions since 1963, including a manslaughter conviction in 1972.

"I wasn't an angel," Castagna told Cardinale.

Then Cardinale repeatedly asked Castagna whether he was cooperating with the government in order to reduce the 90 years in jail he could serve if convicted of various charges.

"All I know is I had to come here and tell the truth and that's what I'm doing sir," Castagna said.

Cardinale asked whether Castagna expected to testify at the upcoming Boston trial, but Castagna said he was unaware of any such plans.

"You got any hunches?" Cardinale asked.

"No - I quit gambling," Castagna said, drawing laughs in the courtroom.