U.S.

Freedom Looms for Crime Bosses?

April 13, 1998 / 10:57 AM EDT / AP

A federal judge was set to consider whether FBI wiretaps of Mafia ceremonies were legal, and convicted mobsters - from Raymond J. "Junior" Patriarca to John Gotti - see the hearings as a potential ticket to freedom.

At issue is whether the tapes, including a recording of a Mafia induction ceremony in the Boston suburb of Medford that has been used in three mob prosecutions, were obtained legally by the FBI.

If the judge rules the wiretaps were illegal, it could open the door for dozens of Mafia figures to appeal their convictions. Hearings continue this week.

"These hearings are generating, on a daily basis, information that could be viewed by convicted defendants as the keys to their jailhouse doors," said Martin Weinberg, lawyer for Raymond J. "Junior" Patriarca. He said the tapes were the foundation of the case against Rhode Island's crime boss Patriarca.

In a 1991 ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf agreed: "Absent the evidence intercepted, there may not be a prosecutable case against some of the defendants, including Raymond Patriarca."

Last summer, Wolf also said the revelation that the FBI had informants at the meeting could jeopardize other wiretaps.

"When the government obtained the Medford tapes, they thought they had the best thing since sliced bread," said attorney Wendy Sibbison, who is handling an appeal for convicted Patriarca crime family soldier Gaetano Milano, one of those at the ceremony. "They overreached to obtain the tapes and they're going to fight to the death to hang on to that prize."

This week's court action is the latest of several pretrial hearings before Wolf regarding the cases of alleged New England crime boss Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme and three other accused mobsters.

In a series of stunning revelations last year, defense lawyers learned that several crime figures had worked as FBI informants, some for more than three decades.

The informants included Angelo "Sonny" Mercurio, who was at the induction ceremony.

Because federal courts typically allow wiretaps only when no other investigative tools, including informants, are available, defense lawyers say the wiretapping was illegal.

If the tapes are thrown out as evidence, it could affect mob convictions nationwide. The induction ceremony tape has been used at several organized crime trials, including Gotti's in New York City, to prove the existence of the Mafia.

The tape records the Oct. 29, 1989, meeting of 17 men who cut their trigger fingers, burned a holy card with an image of a saint and took a blood oath: "As burns this saint, so will burn my soul. I enter alive into this organization and leave it dead."

Twenty-one reputed mobsters were indicted in March 1990, partly on the evidence of the induction tape.

The following year, prosecutors played the tape in Hartford, Conn., at the racketeering rial of eight members of the Patriarca crime family of New England. All eight Hartford defendants were convicted.

After the Hartford convictions, the induction tape was used to get guilty pleas out of seven members of the Providence, R.I., branch of the Patriarca family.