Cosa Nostra News

On Tuesday Federal prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss a perjury case against a Rhode Island mob associate/bookie. Gaythorne (Poochie) Angell Jr., 84, was indicted in 2016 for lying to a grand jury about shakedown money paid to the mob by the Foxy Lady strip club. He is the Angell family’s patriarch — whose friends range from Smith Hill politicians to Federal Hill wiseguys. Poochie has long denied he was anything but a consultant. But a 2009 court document signed by a Foxy Lady lawyer showed that Angell had a previously undisclosed financial interest in the club, raising questions about the city’s oversight of its liquor-licensing laws. He since successfully completed a pretrial diversion program, as prosecutors noted in a filing in U.S. District Court, Providence. If a judge agrees to the dismissal, Angell, of East Greenwich, will not face the perjury charge in federal court. Jim Martin, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said that prosecutors and Angell agreed...

Final The Bonded Vault Company was a commercial safe-deposit business that occupied a vault inside Hudson Fur Storage in Providence, Rhode Island. It was an unofficial "bank" for members and associates of the Patriarca crime family. Located at 101 Cranston St., the bank consisted of 146 safe-deposit boxes (each of which was 2 feet high, 2 feet wide and 4 feet deep). Patriarca allowed his bookies, associates, and amici to store their valuables there. And they did, putting everything and anything -- cash, guns, gold bars, and jewelry -- in the Patriarca family's "bank." A film dramatizing the story of the infamous Bonded Vault robbery is hitting theaters next month. Partially filmed in Providence, Rhode Island, the film stars Theo Rossi (Marvel’s Luke Cage, Sons Of Anarchy), Clive Standen (Taken, Vikings, Everest), Emmy winner Samira Wiley (Handmaid’s Tale), Oscar nominee Chazz Palminteri as mob boss Raymond Patriarca, and Golden G...

Reputed New England boss "Spucky" Spagnolo is 72. Two New England Mafiosi in their 70s, including the alleged acting Patriarca crime family boss, are going to prison after copping to a years-long extortion scheme in federal court.  On December 16, Antonio “Spucky” Spagnolo, 73, and Pryce “Stretch” Quintina, 75, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to affect commerce by extortion. Prosecutors alleged that Spagnolo, of Revere is the acting boss of the New England Mafia. Co-defendant, Quintina, also of Revere, reported to Spagnolo, prosecutors said. Both men pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Boston to charges of conspiracy to affect commerce by extortion for threatening the owner of the Revere Moose Lodge and another businessman, the Boston Globe  reported , If Judge Patti B. Saris approves a plea agreement between prosecutors and the two mobsters, Spagnolo will be sentenced to two years in prison and Quintana to 18 months. A senten...

From the Providence Journal : BOSTON MOB: The Rise and Fall of the New England Mob and Its Most Notorious Killer,” by Marc Songini. St. Martin’s Press. 369 pages. $27.99. This is a colorful, even gleeful, account of murder, mayhem and corruption during the heyday of the New England Mafia. As you can imagine, despite the title, a lot of it is about Rhode Island and Raymond L.S. Patriarca, who ran the “Office,” as it was called , from the Coin-O-Matic office on Atwells Avenue in Providence. Three strains run through the book by Boston-area journalist Marc Songini. The fast-reading narrative begins and ends with the turbulent history of Joseph Barboza, or Joseph Barboza Baron after he changed his name. Of Portuguese descent and from New Bedford, he worked with many of the other figures in the book.