Former Colombo Street Boss Ralph DeLeo Back In The Can
Ralph F. DeLeo, 82, who was released on parole last year after spending more than a decade in prison for crimes committed while serving as the street boss of the Colombo crime family, was arrested yesterday, according to court documents filed in Massachusetts.
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| Ralph DeLeo |
Why he was arrested is not something we know, though we may learn about it later today. DeLeo appeared yesterday afternoon for a revocation hearing before Massachusetts Magistrate Judge Paul Levenson and has a detention hearing at 2:30 p.m. today.
The FBI ended DeLeo’s yearlong reign as Colombo street boss when they pinched him on a drug rap in Little Rock, Arkansas, in December 2009. In 2012, he was sentenced to nearly 17 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release (and a $50,000 fine—which alone would be enough to make us want to gargle Drano). DeLeo earlier that year had pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.
DeLeo—a veteran bank robber who made a daring escape from a prison hospital in the 1970s—may be only a footnote in the annals of New York organized crime history, but his story includes some fascinating facets, including why he was anointed to run the Colombo family in the first place.
He was picked from the choir around 2008 by Alphonse (Little Allie Boy) Persico, the son of longtime Colombo boss Carmine (The Snake) Persico. Allie Boy had recently been sentenced to life in prison for ordering the 1999 rubout of Colombo underboss William (Wild Bill) Cutolo. Seeking to avoid a repeat of the third Colombo war that shot up the streets of New York City in 1991-1993, leaving 12 dead and dozens wounded, Persico decided to go with an Arkansas-born Boston-based outsider who wasn’t even slightly connected to either faction of the Colombo family. The factions were (are?) alive and well, and Allie Boy had concerns about putting the crime family in the wrong hands. This is deadly serious business for these guys. Persico is today serving a life sentence for killing Wild Bill because Allie Boy, in his heart, believed Cutolo—a major player in the Vic Orena faction, which opposed the Persicos in the war—might possibly one day rise up and try to wrest control of the crime family. (Cutolo’s family and friends tell us that Cutolo had no interest in mounting another challenge to the Persicos.)
It was slim pickings for Allie Boy. 2008 was not a good year to be a big shot in the Colombo family, as we’ve previously noted. In addition to Allie Boy being given a life sentence, the Feds that year pinched underboss Sonny Franzese, acting boss Thomas (Tommy Shots) Gioeli, and another Persico (and heir apparent) Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico at different times and on different charges.
Persico chose DeLeo, whom he met in the Federal prison in Baxtrop, Texas in December 1986. Persico, then 31, had been convicted of racketeering and had been sentenced to 12 years in prison, his first prison sentence. DeLeo, a bank robber who was serving time on a murder charge, had at least one decent credential, a longtime friendship with Gennaro Anguilo, underboss of the New England Patriarca family who oversaw the Boston faction.
What Allie Boy and apparently most other people didn’t know at the time was that DeLeo had done something that should have made him ineligible to belong to, let alone run, a borgata—something that would have been a death penalty offense among wiseguys: he had already flipped and testified. To be cold-heartedly objective about this, though, the murder in question was not Mafia-related. It involved a Halloween 1977 contract hit in Ohio: One doctor wanted another doctor killed in the most gruesome manner imaginable (castrate him and let him bleed to death). DeLeo—who had just successfully escaped from a prison hospital and needed quick cash—accepted the contract (shooting the man in the head and chest, not castrating him).
Allie Boy unknowingly took a major gamble, though it seems to have paid off in the sense that, as far as we know, DeLeo never flipped and testified against Allie Boy or any other members of organized crime.
The Feds dubbed DeLeo the “telecommuting street boss” who traveled between Boston and New York two or three times a month by car or plane. He lived in Massachusetts in a basement apartment and was employed as a maintenance worker. DeLeo was “actually a hard worker,” an FBI special agent said of him at the time of his arrest in 2009. He also ran a crew based in Somerville, Mass., that focused on drug dealing and loan sharking.
DeLeo was not window dressing for the Persicos: he was a legitimate power. He presided over at least one making ceremony—in 2009 on Long Island.
His frequent telephone calls to his sister Michelle—which the FBI dutifully recorded—provide us with some interesting insight into the social behaviors, rights, and rituals around Mafia life in New York in the early 21st century.
"I'm laying down,” he told her in one chat. “I'm tired. I didn't sleep for two days. I was doing a lot of running around in New York, and it was kind of stressful, you know. That was my ahh, one of my first days on the job. I had a lot of, well, that weekend was, you know, it was like ahh, busy, busy weekend, I had to meet people and ahh, ahh, we had a couple of things going on that I had to reside over and I was ahh, I was tired. It was like overwhelming a little bit…"
Michelle: "Did you have a chance to go out?"
Ralph: “Oh yeah, that was the problem. One time I was out you know til 1 o'clock in the morning. I was eating constantly. I had to meet these people, everybody wanted to go out to eat. When I got back to my hotel room my stomach looked like it was a big basketball in there. I was eating all day. I started with meeting people for breakfast. And right after breakfast I had to go meet someplace somebody else at a restaurant at another end of town…. Then we had to meet some people and then we went out to dinner at 8 o’clock to meet some more guys, alright, and that 8 o’clock dinner lasted til 1 o'clock in the morning and ahh my stomach I just had too much food I couldn’t sleep. Then, the next morning we had a thing going on. I’ll tell you about it when I see you, but that ahh was like ahh a ceremony. And, yeah so anyhow we had that going on that morning, actually all day cause we had to go in different groups and different cars and make sure we weren't followed and all this type of stuff. You know, so it was a big deal people picking us up here, driving us there. Other people picking us up taking us somewhere else, and all that type of stuff. I wasn't ready for all that.”
“Here,” continued DeLeo, “I’m nothing like that. There, everybody is holding the door for you, helping you on with your coat, giving you hugs, hugging you, kissing you and all this kind of stuff. Oh, you gotta sit in the front; you gotta do this; are you comfortable? Can I get you coffee?”
Michelle: “Oh that is so cute.”
She asked him if restaurant patrons stared at him because he has “the look.”
“Well,” said Ralph, “they’re coming up and giving me hugs and kisses. That’s why people are looking. People wonder why they kissing this guy.”
DeLeo wondered how he ever got himself into this, told his sister that he kept his girlfriend in the dark about his “business” trip, and didn’t want to be doing “this for a long time” because “it’s risky.” But some opportunities “to make money” in some “legitimate things” had come up.
“You know,” said DeLeo, “there’s some place in New Jersey, Bayonne, that we got, and there’s a construction company here in Boston that wants the job. It’s a 10-year-job… Anyhow, I should make money there. That’s what I’m hoping for. I gotta make money for my old age.”
The FBI ended DeLeo’s yearlong reign as Colombo street boss when they pinched him on a drug rap in Little Rock, Arkansas, in December 2009. In 2012, he was sentenced to nearly 17 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release (and a $50,000 fine—which alone would be enough to make us want to gargle Drano). DeLeo earlier that year had pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.
DeLeo—a veteran bank robber who made a daring escape from a prison hospital in the 1970s—may be only a footnote in the annals of New York organized crime history, but his story includes some fascinating facets, including why he was anointed to run the Colombo family in the first place.
He was picked from the choir around 2008 by Alphonse (Little Allie Boy) Persico, the son of longtime Colombo boss Carmine (The Snake) Persico. Allie Boy had recently been sentenced to life in prison for ordering the 1999 rubout of Colombo underboss William (Wild Bill) Cutolo. Seeking to avoid a repeat of the third Colombo war that shot up the streets of New York City in 1991-1993, leaving 12 dead and dozens wounded, Persico decided to go with an Arkansas-born Boston-based outsider who wasn’t even slightly connected to either faction of the Colombo family. The factions were (are?) alive and well, and Allie Boy had concerns about putting the crime family in the wrong hands. This is deadly serious business for these guys. Persico is today serving a life sentence for killing Wild Bill because Allie Boy, in his heart, believed Cutolo—a major player in the Vic Orena faction, which opposed the Persicos in the war—might possibly one day rise up and try to wrest control of the crime family. (Cutolo’s family and friends tell us that Cutolo had no interest in mounting another challenge to the Persicos.)
It was slim pickings for Allie Boy. 2008 was not a good year to be a big shot in the Colombo family, as we’ve previously noted. In addition to Allie Boy being given a life sentence, the Feds that year pinched underboss Sonny Franzese, acting boss Thomas (Tommy Shots) Gioeli, and another Persico (and heir apparent) Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico at different times and on different charges.
Persico chose DeLeo, whom he met in the Federal prison in Baxtrop, Texas in December 1986. Persico, then 31, had been convicted of racketeering and had been sentenced to 12 years in prison, his first prison sentence. DeLeo, a bank robber who was serving time on a murder charge, had at least one decent credential, a longtime friendship with Gennaro Anguilo, underboss of the New England Patriarca family who oversaw the Boston faction.
What Allie Boy and apparently most other people didn’t know at the time was that DeLeo had done something that should have made him ineligible to belong to, let alone run, a borgata—something that would have been a death penalty offense among wiseguys: he had already flipped and testified. To be cold-heartedly objective about this, though, the murder in question was not Mafia-related. It involved a Halloween 1977 contract hit in Ohio: One doctor wanted another doctor killed in the most gruesome manner imaginable (castrate him and let him bleed to death). DeLeo—who had just successfully escaped from a prison hospital and needed quick cash—accepted the contract (shooting the man in the head and chest, not castrating him).
Allie Boy unknowingly took a major gamble, though it seems to have paid off in the sense that, as far as we know, DeLeo never flipped and testified against Allie Boy or any other members of organized crime.
The Feds dubbed DeLeo the “telecommuting street boss” who traveled between Boston and New York two or three times a month by car or plane. He lived in Massachusetts in a basement apartment and was employed as a maintenance worker. DeLeo was “actually a hard worker,” an FBI special agent said of him at the time of his arrest in 2009. He also ran a crew based in Somerville, Mass., that focused on drug dealing and loan sharking.
DeLeo was not window dressing for the Persicos: he was a legitimate power. He presided over at least one making ceremony—in 2009 on Long Island.
His frequent telephone calls to his sister Michelle—which the FBI dutifully recorded—provide us with some interesting insight into the social behaviors, rights, and rituals around Mafia life in New York in the early 21st century.
"I'm laying down,” he told her in one chat. “I'm tired. I didn't sleep for two days. I was doing a lot of running around in New York, and it was kind of stressful, you know. That was my ahh, one of my first days on the job. I had a lot of, well, that weekend was, you know, it was like ahh, busy, busy weekend, I had to meet people and ahh, ahh, we had a couple of things going on that I had to reside over and I was ahh, I was tired. It was like overwhelming a little bit…"
Michelle: "Did you have a chance to go out?"
Ralph: “Oh yeah, that was the problem. One time I was out you know til 1 o'clock in the morning. I was eating constantly. I had to meet these people, everybody wanted to go out to eat. When I got back to my hotel room my stomach looked like it was a big basketball in there. I was eating all day. I started with meeting people for breakfast. And right after breakfast I had to go meet someplace somebody else at a restaurant at another end of town…. Then we had to meet some people and then we went out to dinner at 8 o’clock to meet some more guys, alright, and that 8 o’clock dinner lasted til 1 o'clock in the morning and ahh my stomach I just had too much food I couldn’t sleep. Then, the next morning we had a thing going on. I’ll tell you about it when I see you, but that ahh was like ahh a ceremony. And, yeah so anyhow we had that going on that morning, actually all day cause we had to go in different groups and different cars and make sure we weren't followed and all this type of stuff. You know, so it was a big deal people picking us up here, driving us there. Other people picking us up taking us somewhere else, and all that type of stuff. I wasn't ready for all that.”
“Here,” continued DeLeo, “I’m nothing like that. There, everybody is holding the door for you, helping you on with your coat, giving you hugs, hugging you, kissing you and all this kind of stuff. Oh, you gotta sit in the front; you gotta do this; are you comfortable? Can I get you coffee?”
Michelle: “Oh that is so cute.”
She asked him if restaurant patrons stared at him because he has “the look.”
“Well,” said Ralph, “they’re coming up and giving me hugs and kisses. That’s why people are looking. People wonder why they kissing this guy.”
DeLeo wondered how he ever got himself into this, told his sister that he kept his girlfriend in the dark about his “business” trip, and didn’t want to be doing “this for a long time” because “it’s risky.” But some opportunities “to make money” in some “legitimate things” had come up.
“You know,” said DeLeo, “there’s some place in New Jersey, Bayonne, that we got, and there’s a construction company here in Boston that wants the job. It’s a 10-year-job… Anyhow, I should make money there. That’s what I’m hoping for. I gotta make money for my old age.”
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