Wide Sweep Targets Mafia : 21 Suspects Sought in Three States

FBI agents arrested two top members of New England’s organized crime families this morning as part of a three-state dragnet targeting 21 suspected mobsters on a total of 113 criminal counts.

Paul Cavanaugh, a spokesman for the FBI’s field office in Boston, said alleged mob figures in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut were being arrested on unsealed indictments alleging a variety of crimes, including murder, racketeering, kidnaping, drug trafficking, gambling, obstruction of justice and witness intimidation.

At least six persons were already under arrest this morning after agents began zeroing in on alleged mobsters about 6 a.m., Cavanaugh said.

“Dozens of agents are out making arrests all over the three-state area,” he said. “It’s one of the biggest strikes against organized crime in law enforcement history.”

Raymond Patriarca Jr., reputed boss of the Patriarca crime family that formerly was headed by his late father, was arrested at about 6:30 a.m. today at his home in Lincoln, R.I.

Patriarca appeared later before a U.S. magistrate in Providence, who ordered him transferred to Boston for arraignment on Tuesday at the earliest.

Attorney John F. Cicilline had argued that his 45-year-old client should be given three days to determine whether he is medically fit to make the 50-mile trip to Massachusetts. Cicilline said his client suffers from cancer and cataracts.

Alleged underboss Nicholas Bianco was also arrested, along with a lower-level figure, alleged Mafia captain Matthew Gugliemetti, according to Lincoln Almond, the U.S. attorney in Providence. The names of the three others arrested by late morning were not immediately made public.

Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh was en route to Boston, where he and FBI Director William S. Sessions were scheduled to detail the indictments at an afternoon news conference.

“This is definitely a megacase,” Cavanaugh said. “It’s a real blow to the leadership and activities of all the alleged criminal organizations.”

Almond said the unsealed indictments cover four of five alleged captains of the Patriarca crime family and their legal adviser.

“It involves the whole hierarchy of the family,” he said. “We’ve broken the family.”

Patriarca Sr., who died in 1984, was identified as head of the New England Cosa Nostra during 1969 Senate committee hearings. An eighth-grade dropout, he shined shoes and worked as a bellhop in the Biltmore Plaza Hotel in Providence before allegedly working his way into small-time rum running and armed robbery.

The alleged mob kingpin was arrested more than 40 times and convicted of 18 crimes, ranging from playing dice on Sunday to armed robbery and conspiracy to murder. He served seven years in prison.

The ailing elder Patriarca was indicted in September, 1981, on charges of taking part in a scheme to skim $11 million from the Laborers’ International Union, but a federal magistrate found him too ill to stand trial on the racketeering charges in Florida.

Law enforcement officials generally believe that Patriarca’s son inherited control of the New England mob on his father’s death.