May 1, 2022 — The extortion of a Lynn, Massachusetts drug ring and towing company was the final straw in the brewing tensions between two New England mafia factions back in May 1989, according to FBI records and court documents. Subsequent unrest lasted for the better half of the next decade.
When Boston mobster Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme stole $85,000 worth of cocaine and informed Gus LaFace and his business partner John (Smiley) Mele they had to pay him a piece of their businesses to keep operating, his rivals in the mafia, who backed LaFace and Mele, decided it was time to take action. The ensuing violence rocked the Patriarca crime family to the core.
Salemme was shot six times in a failed assassination attempt staged on the morning of June 16, 1989 in the parking lot of a Saugus, Massachusetts’ International House of Pancakes where he thought he was meeting his rivals for a sit-down. Mele was suspected as being one of the men in the blue-colored Dodge Dynasty responsible for the attack on Salemme at the IHOP — along with three suspected accomplices, he was arrested later that evening in Everett, Massachusetts. Patriarca crime family underboss Billy (The Wild Man) Grasso was murdered that same day as well in Connecticut.
Two years earlier, Cadillac Frank returned to Boston from a long prison stay with his eyes on the region’s mob throne. Buoyed by his allegiance to flailing New England mob don Raymond Patriarca, Jr., based out of Providence and desperate for muscle, respect and protection from the circling sharks in his own crime family, Salemme rose fast, going from soldier to capo to skipper of the Patriarca clan’s Boston wing. Cadillac Frank’s ascent didn’t sit well with East Boston crew boss Joe (J.R.) Russo and Boston’s North End shot caller Vinnie (The Animal) Ferrara and they moved for Patriarca, Jr. to give up power and resign as boss.
All through 1988, when Salemme began acting as Patriarca, Jr.’s liaison to Russo and Ferrara, and into 1989, the tensions in the organization grew and the divide between the two camps, mainly split between Massachusetts and Rhode Island and Connecticut, widened more by the day. In April of 1989, Salemme and his son, Francis (Frankie Boy) Salemme, Jr. entered into a cocaine deal with Gus LaFace and Smiley Mele, who used a tow-truck company in Lynn, Massachusetts as a front for their narcotics business and paid tribute to Joe Russo in East Boston for protection, per FBI records. At first, Russo’s East Boston mob crew thought it was an act of good faith on the Salemmes’ part. They were wrong. It wasn’t.
The problem? The Salemmes took the near $100,000 of blow purchased, sold it at a substantial markup on the street for themselves and refused to share any of the profits with LaFace and Mele. Furthermore, Salemme showed up at the tow-truck company office on May 21 and demanded a weekly take of the tow jobs the company was doing. The next day, LaFace called Salemme back to the office in Lynn for a talk and asked where his money from the coke transaction. Salemme told him he pocketed it and LaFace and Mele wouldn’t be seeing a thing. LaFace and Mele took their problem to Russo and Russo became “livid and let it be known the disrespect from Cadillac Frank wouldn’t go unchecked,” FBI informant files allege.
Russo was taken off the streets in 1990 in a racketeering bust and died in prison of cancer in 1996. Ferrara, 73, went to prison on the same case and is currently free and allegedly, at least, “semi-retired” from New England mob affairs. Patriarca, Jr. was incarcerated in that case, too.
Salemme assumed the reins of the Patriarca crime family around the same time and sought retribution for those affiliated with Russo’s attempt to block his trajectory to the boss’ chair. His five-year run as don ended in a prison cell as well and in 1999, Salemme flipped and entered the Witness Protection Program. Today, Cadillac Frank Salemme, 88, is back in prison for a 1993 Boston gangland slaying he failed to tell the FBI about when debriefing.
Massachusetts State Police raided LaFace’s home in June 2010 and found a pipe bomb, an Uzi sub-machine gun, ammunition and bags of marijuana. The 66-year old LaFace was linked to then East Boston capo Mark (The Ripper) Rossetti, also arrested in that case. Rossetti was aligned with Salemme in the 1990s and eventually outed as an FBI informant himself. LaFace’s police jacket also includes a federal weapons conviction from 1985.
This article was originally posted here