April 29, 2022 – After surviving an assassination attempt in the summer of 1989 at a suburban Boston restaurant and spending 10 days in the hospital recovering, soon-to-be New England mafia boss Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme took off for a near year-long exile before finally returning to the Northeast, laying low a little while longer and then finally taking the throne as don. Salemme spent time in various major cities outside of the region for the rest of 1989 and well into 1990 prior to coming home to Beantown. By Christmas, he had become the Godfather of the Patriarca crime family, his time away from the fray having paid off with a coronation.
This recounting of Salemme’s 9-month exodus from Boston is told through a compiling of FBI records, Massachusetts State Police reports and first-hand accounts:
Long known for exhibiting a natural, radiating swagger and heaps of ambition, Salemme came out of state prison in February 1987 following 15 years for a car-bombing attack and immediately began making moves to grab the reins of the mob in New England. His gangster politicking skills and network of contacts around the country were unquestioned and provided resources he would use to propel him into the boss’ chair. He quickly aligned himself with beleaguered Providence mafia chief Raymond (Ray Rubber Lips) Patriarca, Jr., the son of one of his mob mentors and the crime family’s namesake, as well as Connecticut-based underboss Billy (The Wild Man) Grasso, a former cell mate of the elder Patriarca’s during a prison stint in the late 1970s with a reputation for unhinged behavior.
Patriarca, Jr. succeeded his father as boss of the crime family bearing his name upon Patriarca, Sr. dying of a heart attack in 1984, but was never able to rally support behind him and placate his men in Boston and by 1989, he was losing his grip on the organization. Salemme and Grasso were his muscle and only protection, with Salemme tasked to liaison with Boston mob shot callers Joe (J.R.) Russo and Vinnie (The Animal) Ferrara on his behalf. Russo wanted Patriarca, Jr. to step down and give him the crime family to run from his East Boston encampment in Maverick Square, however, knew he would have to eliminate Salemme and Grasso first. College-educated “Vinnie the Animal” Ferrara lorded over Boston’s historic North End at that time.
On June 16, 1989, Russo and Ferrara dispensed hit teams to murder Salemme and Grasso hours apart in two different states. Grasso was slain in New Haven and dumped on the shores of the Connecticut River. Salemme on the other hand dodged death in the parking lot of a Saugus, Massachusetts’ International House of Pancakes, taking six bullets without losing consciousness and finally finding shelter in a nearby pizza parlor where employees called 911.
When approached by the FBI and MSP in his intensive care hospital room for information regarding the attempt on his life, Cadillac Frank refused to tell them a single detail. He checked out of the hospital on June 27, packed his bags and departed for Los Angeles.
For the rest of the summer and into the fall, Salemme shuffled back and forth between Beverly Hills and Malibu and the Las Vegas Strip. Word got sent to him in August that Russo wanted to have the entire Providence and Connecticut factions to his favorite East Boston restaurant, Lombardo’s, for a pre-Labor Day hatchet-burying session. New York mob boss John Gotti demanded that Russo and Ferrara halt their insurgence at a Long Island wedding they were all at and met to discuss the violence in Boston.
Salemme sent word back east, that he wouldn’t be attending the Lombardo’s gathering and instructed his loyalists to do the same. FBI informants tipped their handlers to the fact that the Lombardo’s peace summit was really a ruse and just a way to draw Cadillac Frank back to Boston so Russo and Ferrara’s group could “finish the job” and kill him once and for all.
In October of that year, Salemme protested — albeit from afar — the promotion of Russo to consigliere and the making ceremony of men loyal to Russo held in a small Medford, Massachusetts residence, telling Patriarca, Jr., he was wrong for acquiescing to Russo and Ferrara’s demands. His instincts proved on-point and the ceremony was recorded by the FBI, the final nail in the coffins for Patriarca, Jr., Russo, Ferrara and company in a pending federal racketeering case coming their way.
Around the time of the doomed October mob induction ritual captured for prosperity by the feds, Cadillac Frank was on the move again and spending most of his time between Las Vegas and Chicago. He spent the holidays in L.A. and New Year’s in Miami. He ultimately came back to Boston in late March 1990, in the weeks after the feds scooped up most of the leaders of the crime family in a RICO bust, and stayed close to home in Sharon, Massachusetts. Getting protection from his pals in the South Boston Irish mob, Salemme rarely ventured into the city and when he did, it was only to “Southie” spots controlled by the Winter Hill Gang, mostly a series of garages and auto parts businesses owned by Winter Hill Gang lieutenant Georgie Kaufman.
Per Russo’s wishes, Patriarca, Jr. had relinquished his post as boss of the New England mafia in the months before he was arrested and replaced by Providence mob chieftain Nicky Bianco. The Nicky Bianco reign atop the Patriarca clan was short-lived though and his own mounting legal problems eventually pushed Salemme to the forefront of the New England gangland scene. Corralling backing from the Gambino, Lucchese and Colombo crime families in New York, Cadillac Frank was installed as boss of the Patriarca crime family in a small affair hosted by his consigliere, Charles (Charlie Q Ball) Quintina, in the basement of a Revere, Massachusetts Italian bistro in the days before Christmas.
Bianco and Russo both died behind bars in the coming years. Patriarca, Jr. wound up trying to kill Salemme from prison, but his plan was thwarted when the hit man he tapped for the job, notorious Irish street tough, Kevin Hanrahan, was killed in Providence on a Federal Hill street corner in September 1992. According to sources, Salemme ordered Hanrahan’s murder and a grand jury has been convened for the last several years hearing testimony on the circumstances surrounding the homicide.
Salemme headed the New England mafia for the next half-decade. He entered the Witness Protection Program in 1999. The FBI kicked him out of the Program six years ago and arrested him for the 1993 gangland slaying of his former business partner, Boston nightclub owner, Stevie DiSarro, whose remains were unearthed in a 2016 excavation of disturbed earth in the backyard of a converted Providence textile mill. Found guilty at trial in 2018, the now 88-year old Cadillac Frank was sentenced life and will most likely die in prison.
Patriarca, Jr., 75, and Ferrara, 73, are said to be retired from their days in the mob. Ferrara encountered a minor brush with state law enforcement in a 2008 gambling case out of Quincy.
This article was originally posted here