Prior to Morelli�s death in the early 1950s, Teresa said he confessed to him that his gang was responsible for the 1920 murders for which Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed. The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, for the double murder of two shoe company employees in South Braintree, Massachusetts, drew national attention because the pair were self-described anarchists who claimed they were being persecuted by the government. According to Teresa, Morelli said, �These two suckers took it on the chin for us. That shows you how much justice there really is.�
The leadership of the Boston / New England crime family from the 1930s to the early 1950s is as murky as the Charles River. As mentioned, Vincent Teresa claimed that Joseph Lombardo �replaced� Morelli with Buccola, which obviously indicates that Lombardo outranked Buccola. In their book The Underboss, authors Gerard O�Neil and Dick Lehr state that Lombardo ran gambling and loan sharking as second-in-command to Buccola. The same authors state that when Gennaro Angiulo, the focus of their book, wanted to take over Boston�s bookmaking operations in 1951, he went to Lombardo to get permission. The writers can�t seem to agree on the spelling of Buccola�s last name. It is listed many places as Bruccola. What everyone does agree upon is that Buccola fled to Sicily in 1954 leaving control of the family in the hands of Patriarca.
Raymond Salvatore Loreda Patriarca was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on St. Patrick�s Day 1908. He was 3 years old when the family moved to Providence, where his father operated a liquor store. Patriarca�s early life was uneventful until his father died in 1925. Just 17, Patriarca was arrested and convicted of breaking prohibition laws in Connecticut. Over the next 13 years his arrests included failing to stop for a policeman, breaking and entering, white slavery and masterminding a jail break in which a prison guard and a trusty were killed. During his lifetime Patriarca was arrested or indicted 28 times, convicted seven times, imprisoned four times, and served 11 years in prison. More than half of his prison time was for a murder conspiracy charge during the 1960s.
From an early age he possessed the right combination of brawn and brains to make him successful in his chosen field. Patriarca gained a reputation for fairness, but if crossed he could be the most ruthless of men. He was once described by a Massachusetts state policeman as, �just the toughest guy you ever saw.�
During the Prohibition years Patriarca served his apprenticeship in Providence, first as an associate and later as a member of the New York Mafia. In the late 1920s, he was involved in prostitution and hijacking. In 1938 Patriarca participated in the robbery of a Brookline, Massachusetts, jewelry store. He was convicted of carrying a gun without a permit, possession of burglar�s tools and armed robbery. He was sentenced to three to five years in state prison. Less than three months into the sentence Patriarca was paroled, setting off a political corruption storm in the wake of his release. The ensuing investigation lasted three years. In 1941 Daniel H. Coakley, a Massachusetts Governor�s Councilor, was impeached and removed from office for his involvement in the incident.
After getting out of prison in 1938, Patriarca returned to Providence where his influence and power increased during the 1940s. His rise included murder and building political influence. Patriarca�s only rival in Providence was Irishman Carlton O�Brien, a former bootlegger who went into gambling and took control of the area�s race-wire service. Patriarca�s men shot O�Brien to death in 1952. By the early 1950s, it was �impossible to be a major figure in crime in New England and not have to deal with Patriarca.�
With the retirement of Buccola in 1954, Providence became the center of the New England Family�s operations. From a wood-frame, two-story building in Providence Patriarca ran his crime empire. The building, nicknamed �The Office,� housed the National Cigarette Service Company and Coin-O-Matic Distributors, a vending machine and pinball business, on Atwells Avenue in an area known as Federal Hill. Organized crime figures there were referred to as �members of the Office.� Vincent Teresa described Atwells Avenue as a noisy open-air market that was also an armed camp with �spotters� located everywhere. These �spotters� were area residents and vendors who kept an eye out for suspicious people � especially snoopy law enforcement officials. This set up was similar to other popular mob-run areas like Mulberry Street in Manhattan�s Little Italy, Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and Prince Street in Boston.
In The Underboss, Patriarca was said to be �a member of the ruling Mafia commission in New York.� His influence outside the New England area could be seen in his national investments. He held hidden interests in two Las Vegas casinos and pieces of deals in Florida and Philadelphia. Patriarca had a �polished way� with the police and the public. From his Atwells Avenue office he held court and sorted out both domestic and crime family disputes. O�Neil and Lehr write that Patriarca was involved �in a complex maze of interests, he completely controlled some markets, especially those involving gambling, loansharking, and pornography, and dabbled in others such as truck hijacking and drug traffic, in which free-lancers negotiated a fee to do business.� Contradicting part of this statement, however, Teresa explained that Patriarca had a hard and fast rule on narcotics and there was nothing worse than dealing in drugs as far as the boss was concerned.
�No one in the New England mob ever starved, whether they were made guys or working for the organization,� Teresa affirmed. �Patriarca wasn't like Genovese or old Joe Profaci. He made sure his men got paid well.�