New England outside of New York and Chicago and along with Buffalo was the largest Cosa Nostra Family in the country...

The NYC five.... then all others are in the rearview.

I'd say at their height; Buffalo, Chicago, and Philadelphia we're somewhat comparable in basic size.

NE, Detroit, Cleveland, Tampa, and a few others were next

then NJ (DeCavalcante), Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, LA

then: St. Louis, San Fran, San Jose, New Orleans, etc.

then: Madison, and one or two abstract ones left that even slip my mind at the moment

Lmao

No offense taken. Everyone has a viewpoint. Please tell us yours. In what order do you feel they should be listed?

The 5 New York families and Chicago were the strongest in the country, to get even more granular the Genovese and Chicago families were the strongest in Cosa Nostra followed by the Gambinos and Luccheses and below them were the Bonnanos and Colombos after that I would say Buffalo because they were on the commission and the large swaths of terriitory they controlled beyond Buffalo in Niagra Falls and into Toronto.Then you had New England followed closely by Philadelphia and below them was Detroit after that they’re was a gap where families below them had less than 40 members and may have big time in theyre area but were small time in the overall scheme of Cosa Nostra...New England in its heyday had roughly 80 made members and 9 captains....50 or so made members and 5 captains in Boston and 3 in Rhode Island w roughly 25 made members and 1 captain and 8-10 made guys in Connecticut, Springfield areas(which you did have some patriarcas,not to mention New Jersey,Philadelphia were around as well)and In Hartford etc the Gambinos and Genovese....

I wanna modify my previous statement to a degree. IMO, at the 1950s-1960s peak, Ray Patriarca probably had closer to 60, or 70, or so formal 'inducted' members with him. I do think he had more than the 50 that I had first stated.

What makes NE, and other crews for that matter, seem so much larger was the large amount of top associates they also had. Many of which were mis-identified as "made" members but were actually not. But because many of them were well entrenched in rackets, with some even leading sub-crews, LE often thought they was members.

And many of these same fellas did in fact later get inducted in later years. But at any given time, although they were mob guys, not all of them were members at the same time. And therein lies the difference.

In later years, the NE crew has in fact had much less than 70 members. Probably closer to 40 or 50 made guys. But back in the 1960s? I think 60-70 at any one time is a decent guesstimate.

I want to say either Vinny Ferrara or Nino bufalino

Anguilo payed Patriarca for the position not given or earned he payed for it

People won't agree or think it's BS but I can give inside info into the boston mafia from those times my dads 73 and was heavily involved and I grew up with most of those guys always around. I personally know and very good friends with limones and remember the old man's first year out of prison he payed for my hockey team to go to nationals after we won state tournament. He paid everyone's air fare the hotel warmup suits everything all expenses paid for. His grandson is my best friend

Patriarca Sr., was a sharp (and ruthless) guy. He intentionally kept his inner circle of made guys relatively small. so everybody earned better. Yet, they had a lot of guys around them who earned well. Don't hold me to this, but Rudy Sciara, who was one of Raymond's top hitters for years. A scary guy. I think he was made much later than a lot of NE people think. He may have been 'well thought of,' or even 'proposed' in those early years, but I believe he was straightened out later.

And there are other fellas who mob aficionados have down as made, yet they were not. Al least in the era that most think they were.

@NYMafia don’t take offense, I’m still waiting for newengland to give an opinion on something, anything, instead of just telling people they’re wrong.

Taking a step back, and being devils advocate, I feel like the Patriarca family gets over looked. And what I mean by is, for example, NYMafia you mentioned during the 60-70s was there heyday and peak. When you think about organized crime/cosa nostra history, the Patriarcas were never involved in a major organized crime event. Hoffa, Kennedy, Las Vegas skim, Apalachin, Cuba, and the list goes on. So IMO they never got any real national pub.

So the I think the perception of that family, regardless of membership, is that they were in that Detroit, Cleveland, Philly class of families. Yes you had the bonded vault, but it was pulled off by guys of a separate crew that were “ connected “ to the family. You had Whitey, but again, that was a combination of him doing what he did and embarrassing the FBI for what they allowed to go on.

Just thinking outside the box but I think that’s what brings the Patriarcas down on a national level sometimes. Raymond Sr held as an iconic position in that life as many of the headline names we talk about. But again, I just think they easily get overlooked for really not putting their stamp on any one event or situation.

The patriarcas were involved in the skim in the 50s and 60s and later junkets to London,Patriarca, Anguilo and Anselmi were partners in this...

Wish we had wiseguy and pogo the clown on here they have fbi info and charts from the 60s to the 80s and the patriarcas had 80 or so made members in the day not 60. They have roughly 50 made guys now

I believe they were involved in that. My point is that the perception of the family isn't the same as the 5 families, Chi, or any of the smaller families who had a hand in historical events. And for that, the Patriarcas sometimes are overlooked. Regardless of size and what power and impact Raymond Sr had. I think that plays a big part.

He was made in 1977 in Boston along with Junior and Matty G and a few others, Sr was in jail and that's why Jerry did the ceremony in Boston

Thank you for that. About 77' makes sense. But he was a powerful mob figure who for many years, the 1950s and 1960s, was already thought to have been a formal soldier under Patriarca Sr.

They had 9 Capos during the 50s all the way into the late 1980s.... Anguilo was the Underboss and his empire on Average grossed 250k a week! That alone is more money than any Underboss outside of New York or Chicago was seeing....

They also had heavy clout in New England and nationally in the laborers union, The position of International Secretary Treasure was controlled by them and high ranking laborer officials like the Coias Sr and Jr.... as well William McCarthy who was THE President of the Teamsters Union in the late 1980s
The current General Secretary Treasure of The Laborers International Union and the Head of the New England Region also has decades of links to the mob, Armond Sabitoni Jr

Here’s an article that covers the 2005 bust involving theyre influence in the Laborers Union

Working with the mob, the union

-- and the FBI


This story is from The Journal archives

By MIKE STANTON and W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI Journal Staff Writers
The Providence Sunday Journal
Sunday, 4/24/2005

For decades, the Rhode Island construction industry has been dogged by stories of corruption and mob influence. Here's what happens when federal agents break into the market with an undercover shop in Johnston.

* * *

PROVIDENCE - On the morning of Jan. 20, federal and state agents armed with search warrants and cardboard boxes marched into the Arthur E. Coia Building at 226 South Main St., home to the New England Laborers' union.

As officers stood guard outside, the FBI and Rhode Island State Police searched the first-floor offices of Nicholas P. Manocchio, head of the union's New England organizing department, and Harold Tillinghast, who works for Manocchio.

On the second floor, agents searched the offices of a New England Laborers' training fund and its administrator, state Sen. Dominick J. Ruggerio, and carted away boxes of records.

In Cranston, meanwhile, more agents kicked in the doors of Capital City Concrete and started seizing records.

The company's owner, Lori DeRobbio, was at home, blow-drying her hair, when she received a phone call from Special Agent John Foley. He told her, she said, that he was with the FBI in Boston and that he was in her office.

"Yeah, and I'm Axel Foley," she cracked, a reference to comedian Eddie Murphy's character in Beverly Hills Cop.

But Agent Foley wasn't kidding.

Later that day, according to DeRobbio, Foley told her that the FBI was investigating corruption in the Rhode Island construction industry.

For nearly three years, she recalled him saying, the FBI had been running an undercover operation targeting contractors and Laborers' officials.

To break into the construction business in Rhode Island, the FBI had created a fake company. Foley told her that people had been caught taking bribes. He didn't say who, she said.

Earlier that morning, before the raids, the FBI had arrested a central figure in the investigation: Matthew L. Guglielmetti, a notorious member of the New England Mafia and a member of the Laborers' union.

Foley asked DeRobbio about Guglielmetti.

She said that Laborers Local 271 of Providence had assigned Guglielmetti to work as a union steward for her company on the new Kent County Court House garage in Warwick.

"Why do you think they did that?" the agent asked.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe because he has 30 years experience pouring concrete?"

She recalled Foley's reply: "We think it was for other reasons."

'No [expletive] way! We got rid of Matty years ago'

For decades, the Rhode Island construction industry has been dogged by stories of corruption and mob influence.

In 1988, a state police intelligence report detailed the Mafia's influence over local unions, particularly the Laborers. The report described how Edward "Mulligan" Romano, one of New England mob boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca's top lieutenants, wielded power over Local 271 of the Laborers.

Romano, who died in 1999, and his brothers, the late Joseph Romano, a business agent for Local 271, and the late Louis Romano, a Local 271 member, were active in organized crime, gambling and labor racketeering, the report said.

Romano operated out of Providence's North End. The report said he "has been able to put organized crime figures and/or their associates to work on various projects through the union halls," including no-show jobs and jobs for people who faked injuries to collect workers' compensation.

"Romano, because of his union power and organized crime position, has used this influence to settle disputes between construction companies and the union workers," the report said. "In return, Romano is reported to have received kickbacks from the construction companies."

The state police ran surveillance on Romano's headquarters, the Chalet Restaurant on Mineral Spring Avenue in North Providence. The report said that the place was "frequented by leaders of labor unions, construction company owners, and persons who have been directly tied to organized crime activities."

The New England Laborers say that they have come a long way since those days. Ten years ago, federal prosecutors threatened to take over the national union because of the pervasive mob influence. The Laborers, to keep control, signed an unprecedented agreement with the Justice Department to get the gangsters out of the union.

The general president of the 700,000-member Laborers' union was Arthur A. Coia of Rhode Island. Coia's late father, Arthur E. Coia, also a powerful Laborers' leader, had been an associate of Raymond Patriarca.

The son, a political ally of President Clinton, hired ex-prosecutors and retired FBI agents to root out union corruption. But in the process, he, too, was investigated for alleged mob ties. After a union disciplinary hearing, Coia was cleared of having ties to organized crime, but fined $100,000 for taking a "personal benefit" from a Rhode Island car dealer that leased automobiles to union executives.

A former federal prosecutor, Robert D. Luskin, became the union's internal prosecutor. He said he has purged hundreds of mobsters and mob associates from Laborers locals around the country.

In the late 1990s, when he was investigating allegations of Coia's mob ties, Luskin said that he sought to question mobster Matty Guglielmetti, a member of Local 271. When Guglielmetti refused to fully cooperate, Luskin said, he initiated steps to banish him from the Laborers'.

But because of what Luskin calls a paperwork screw-up in his office in Washington, Guglielmetti was never thrown out of the Laborers.

Instead, he resigned from Local 271 and took a job with a Laborers' local in the Boston area. Within months, he was back with Local 271 in Providence.

In January, as Luskin marked his 10th anniversary with the Laborers, he read of Guglielmetti's arrest in Rhode Island and the raid on the union offices on South Main Street.

"I called another lawyer who worked with me, who's now an assistant U.S. attorney in New York, and told him, 'Matty's busted!'," said Luskin.

"He said, 'No [expletive] way! We got rid of Matty years ago.' "

'When he spoke, they listened'

Matty Guglielmetti has made his living in concrete and crime.

As a member of Local 271, Guglielmetti, 56, served as a union steward and appeared on the payroll of different concrete companies.

As a capo regime -- one of the top spots on the Mafia flow chart -- Guglielmetti presided over gambling and loan-sharking for the Patriarca crime family.

A native of Cranston, Guglielmetti's rise in the rackets was punctuated by arrests for possession of an illegal pistol, possession of narcotics, and possession of a bludgeon. In 1984, he was indicted, along with his father and several other hoods, in the heist of a truckload of Canadian Mist whiskey from the old Penn Central Railroad yard in Providence nine years earlier. The case, however, was later dismissed.

In 1989, Guglielmetti attended a seminal event in Mafia lore -- a mob induction ceremony in Medford, Mass., that was secretly recorded by the FBI.

That same year, after the murder of Connecticut mob boss Billy "The Wild Guy" Grasso, Guglielmetti was dispatched to a motel in Mystic to inform mobsters that he would be taking over the rackets there. He was acting on orders from Raymond "Junior" Patriarca, and his underboss, Nicholas L. Bianco.

In 1990, Guglielmetti was indicted, along with Patriarca, Bianco and several others, in Hartford, Conn. He pleaded guilty to racketeering and served nearly five years in federal prison in Sandstone, Minn.

"He's not just a messenger boy," said the judge who sentenced him. "When he spoke, they listened."

Released from prison in 1995, Guglielmetti returned to the construction business. Four years later, during a divorce case, he reported to Family Court that he earned $600 a week and had a $2,100 annuity from the Laborers' union.

Guglielmetti's name continued to surface in connection with underworld activity.

In 1997, he refused to tell the police how he had wound up at a Pawtucket hospital with two stab wounds. According to the police, Guglielmetti politely informed them that it was "family policy" to consult with a lawyer before saying anything.

That same year, wiretaps in an investigation of a mob gambling ring picked up one of the leaders, Rudolph Sciarra, discussing a higher-up known as "good looking," a reference to Guglielmetti.

Guglielmetti was not charged in that case, but 18 others pleaded not guilty or no contest to their role in an enterprise that brought in $600,000 in one month alone.

Also that year, Guglielmetti was questioned by Robert Luskin, the Laborers' in-house prosecutor from Washington, D.C., who was investigating Arthur Coia's alleged ties to mobsters.

Luskin, in a recent interview, declined to elaborate on what he wanted to ask. He said it didn't relate to the union disciplinary charges filed against Coia later that year.

"We talked to Matty in the course of the Coia investigation," said Luskin. "But Matty wouldn't cooperate fully. He wouldn't answer things that we felt were important for us to find out."

Under the Laborers' new internal reforms, Guglielmetti's refusal to cooperate was grounds for his removal from the union; Luskin estimates that he has thrown out at least 50 people, around the country, for refusing to cooperate.

Luskin said he negotiated a settlement agreement with Guglielmetti's lawyer, John F. Cicilline, in which Guglielmetti promised that he would no longer be a member of the Laborers anywhere in the country.

But the agreement was never finalized.

"This was an internal screw-up in my office," said Luskin.

When Luskin learned of Guglielmetti's arrest in January, he said, "I was as surprised as anybody that he was still a union member."

Given Guglielmetti's notoriety, Luskin said, his continued presence in the local union raises questions. For instance, why did Providence union leaders allow a well-known mobster in their ranks? Why was he allowed to be a union steward?

"People in the local unions have an obligation to bring things to our attention," said Luskin. "They can't wash their hands completely."

Guglielmetti's arrest has prompted the Laborers' inspector general, W. Douglas Gow, to take a new look at the mobster's involvement with the union in Rhode Island, said Luskin.

"Everything about Matty is on the table," said Luskin. "We'll look at his role in the union and anybody with the union who was in Matty's orbit."

Conflicting reports

In the fall of 2003, Guglielmetti was working as a laborer for Lori DeRobbio's Capital City Concrete on the construction of a parking garage for the new Kent County Court House in Warwick.

According to Lori DeRobbio and her husband, Albert E. DeRobbio, who was a company vice president, Guglielmetti was assigned to be a union steward on the job by Local 271.

A steward is a position of responsibility, serving as the union's "eyes and ears" on a construction project, said Luskin; the steward is supposed to make sure that the contractor follows the terms of the collective-bargaining agreement, and serves as the intermediary between the union and the contractor.

The Laborers have provided The Journal with conflicting information about Guglielmetti's union status.

Initially, a union spokeswoman in Washington, Linda L. Fisher, said that Guglielmetti had been a steward on the court house garage project, appointed by Local 271's longtime business agent, Edward J. DiRissio.

Fisher, in late January, said that Guglielmetti was "a union member in good standing," and had previously served as steward on other jobs.

In March, a Providence spokesman hired by the union, Michael Trainor, said that Fisher "misspoke." The union could find no records reflecting that Guglielmetti had been the steward on the garage. Trainor said that Guglielmetti may have been a steward on another job.

DiRissio, who retired as Local 271's business agent in January, said that Guglielmetti was a union steward on the Kent County garage project -- and that he did a good job.

DiRissio, who spent 45 years with the Laborers, had known Guglielmetti, and his late father, for years. By putting men like Guglielmetti to work after prison, DiRissio said, he "helped guys put their life back together."

'They were very personable -- nice guys'

In 2003, Matty Guglielmetti was a busy man.

He was working for Capital City Concrete. He was working for the Mafia. And he had become a silent partner in a construction company that was a front for the FBI.

Hemphill Construction opened for business in April 2002 in an unassuming office plaza on Atwood Avenue in Johnston.

Sandwiched between the Boston Bartenders School and a Providence Journal news bureau, the occupants of Suite 207 attracted little notice from the other tenants of Crossroad Commons.

The two partners were Mike Jameson and Mike Sullivan. Their company signed a two-year lease, for $925 a month, according to the landlord, Peter Lombardi. When the lease expired last April, they rented month-to-month.

Their cover story was that they owned a company in Massachusetts that managed parking garages, Park Rite Management, and that they were expanding into Rhode Island. Jameson also had business cards introducing himself as the president of a construction company, Hemphill Construction, with a drawing of a steam shovel.

Business people in suits would go in and out of the office, recalls Lombardi. Occasionally, he would see a secretary working there.

"They were very personable -- nice guys," said Lombardi. "They ran a clean operation."

They launched Hemphill with help from a fourth-generation Rhode Island contractor, Gerald E. Diodati, who said in a recent interview he was unaware that they were undercover agents.

"I'm surprised by it," he said. "But, obviously, I had nothing to do with it."

Diodati said he met the Hemphill partners as a favor to a friend, whom he declined to identify. Diodati said his friend asked him to help Hemphill get started and to train an estimator. Diodati also moved his company, Rhode Island Demolition, into the same office in Johnston.

Diodati declined to elaborate on his business dealings with the men. He said that he stopped working with Hemphill sometime in 2003, but wouldn't say why.

Sometime after Hemphill opened for business, one of the undercover agents was introduced to Guglielmetti. How they met is unclear. But, according to court records, the mobster became a silent partner.

According to an FBI affidavit, Guglielmetti started taking money from the company -- "including a share of the profits from laundering what Guglielmetti believed were drug proceeds through the undercover business."

The state police knew where to find Matty Guglielmetti

Meanwhile, in 2003, from August through November, Guglielmetti worked for 4271³2 hours at the Kent County court house parking garage, according to payroll records from Capital City Concrete provided by Rhode Island court officials.

Lori DeRobbio, the owner of Capital City, said that Guglielmetti showed up for work, and that he did a good job.

In the fall of 2003, as the garage progressed, state court officials said they were pressing Capital City to turn over its payroll records, to conduct criminal-background checks on their employees.

The court had obtained similar records from other contractors working on the project, but Capital City was the last to comply, according to court officials.

Finally, about a week before Guglielmetti stopped working on the garage, the records were produced.

Even then, according to court spokeswoman Dyana Koelsch, court officials failed to turn up any criminal record for the mobster, because they checked only Rhode Island cases, not federal. At a court hearing this past January, a federal judge alluded to unspecified charges that Guglielmetti had had expunged, or erased, in the state courts.

But the state police knew who Matty Guglielmetti was, and where to find him.

In October, detectives from the Rhode Island and Massachusetts state police stopped by the garage construction site to see Guglielmetti. They came to tell him that his voice had been picked up on federal wiretaps in Massachusetts.

According to court records, the wiretaps captured Boston mobsters discussing Guglielmetti's role in collecting a gambling debt in New Hampshire, and in mediating a dispute among mob soldiers in Massachusetts. A Massachusetts state police affidavit in the case identified Guglielmetti as a Rhode Island capo and Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, of Providence, as the New England Mafia boss.

In one conversation, Guglielmetti commiserates with two wise guys about how their rivals are "throwing fish around" as apparent death threats.

"I went with a broad I had a fish in my doorstep inside the entry way," says one gangster.

"That's HBO," Guglielmetti says.

In another conversation, Guglielmetti laments the Mafia's decline -- the result of promotions based on seniority, and not merit.

"So now, I mean it's like, ah, a whore in the neighborhood," he says, "you know you stand here long enough we'll use her."

In December, a court administrator, Paul M. Petit, recognized Guglielmetti's name from his previous job at the state prison, and ran another criminal check. When it turned up empty, Petit visited the construction site. But it was too late. Guglielmetti was gone.

Lori DeRobbio said that while Capital City was finishing at the court house garage, Local 271 reassigned Guglielmetti to work as the union steward on another project Capital City had begun, at a West Warwick pumping station.

She said that she asked her husband, Albert DeRobbio, who oversaw field operations for Capital City, "Why is Matty going there?" His reply, she recalled, was: " 'Because he is. They [the union] put him there.' "

'(The) construction industry is a very tight-knit group of people'

By 2003, both the FBI and Guglielmetti had set their sights on Capital City Concrete.

According to Lori DeRobbio, Mike Jameson of Hemphill Construction, the undercover FBI operative, was eager to invest in her business.

She said she was introduced to Jameson by the steward on her payroll for the court house garage, Matty Guglielmetti.

She didn't realize that Guglielmetti was a silent partner with Jameson.

As a woman business owner, Lori DeRobbio qualifies as a minority contractor in Rhode Island. State law requires government-funded projects to include minority contractors.

In 2003, Capital City Concrete was chosen as the minority contractor on the $5.8 million Kent County Court House parking garage, a contract worth $593,000, according to state records.

The company also had been selected as a minority contractor for the biggest public works project in Rhode Island history -- the Narragansett Bay Commission pipeline project.

Capital City Concrete was awarded a $7-million piece of the $300-million project to build a gigantic tunnel beneath Providence to prevent sewage from overflowing into Narragansett Bay. (Capital City's part of the job has not yet begun.)

DeRobbio said that Jameson asked her if she could help him get work on the Narragansett Bay Commission project.

A woman in a tough, male-dominated industry, DeRobbio had been around the concrete business for years.

Her father, Tom Manni, founded Atlantic Concrete Forms in Cranston in 1958. Lori J. Mason, her name at the time from a previous marriage, graduated from Boston College, became a certified public accountant and served from 1986 to 1999 as Atlantic Concrete's executive vice president and chief financial officer. According to her resume, the company recorded annual sales of $1 million.

In 1999, following her father's death, she struck out on her own, founding Capital City Concrete with a $9,400 loan. Business grew from $225,000 in her first six months to more than $2.5 million in 2002, according to records at the state Minority Business Enterprise Compliance Office.

She also negotiated a labor agreement with the Laborers' and carpenters unions, allowing Capital City to pursue bigger, union jobs.

Mason also made a name for herself outside of work. She founded a scholarship fund in memory of a brother-in-law, Cranston police officer Michael Gunson, who was killed in a traffic accident while off duty.

And she was chosen by then-House Speaker John B. Harwood to serve on the Rhode Island Ethics Commission.

Charles C. Newton, head of the minority compliance office, questioned whether DeRobbio was a true minority contractor, based on her new company's ties to her family's business, Atlantic Concrete, run by her brother.

She satisfied the commission as to her independence, and retained her minority certification. At a compliance hearing in 2000, Lori Mason talked about the Rhode Island construction industry.

"Rhode Island is a very small place," she said. "[The] construction industry is a very tight-knit group of people . . . Everybody knows everybody."

Al DeRobbio had problems

Things got more complicated after Lori Mason married Albert DeRobbio in the spring of 2001.

Albert DeRobbio, a former Rhode Island state trooper and the son of Chief District Judge Albert E. DeRobbio Jr., went to work for Capital City Concrete as vice president for operations.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank J. Williams, who is responsible for the Kent County Court House project, said that neither he nor Judge DeRobbio had any role in selecting Capital City Concrete to work on the court house garage.

That task fell to the general contractor, H.V. Collins, according to both Williams and H.V. Collins.

Albert DeRobbio's responsibility at Capital City Concrete was overseeing safety and operations at the work site. His new job and new marriage represented a fresh start in a turbulent life.

Al DeRobbio grew up in Cranston, the son of a mob-busting state prosecutor who became a judge. The younger DeRobbio, who sometimes visited crime scenes and autopsies with his dad, followed his father into law enforcement; in 1980, he became a state trooper.

But there were problems.

An avid weightlifter, DeRobbio came under scrutiny for possible steroid use, according to state-police memos. He was never charged.

In 1988, he found himself in the middle of a bitter sex-discrimination lawsuit brought by a female state trooper.

Not long after, a fellow trooper wrote a memo describing how DeRobbio had screamed at him that other troopers were talking about him behind his back, and that none had the guts "to meet him out back to settle their problems."

In 1989, he was suspended for two days after he fired a realistic-looking toy machine gun that shot paint pellets at a fellow trooper while on duty. But after a disciplinary hearing, he was cleared of the charges.

That same year, DeRobbio went out on paid sick leave. He lifted weights and ran a small contracting company, Future Development.

In 1992, while still on paid leave from the state police, DeRobbio and two convicted felons who worked with him at Future Development were charged with extorting two Federal Hill businessmen over the cost of house repairs.

According to a state police affidavit, "Trooper DeRobbio began yelling . . . and told him to pay the money or the building would be burned down."

According to a witness statement in the court file, DeRobbio said of his pals: "You don't want to [expletive] with these guys; you don't know who they are."

The businessmen also told the state police that when they wanted to open a coffee shop on Federal Hill, DeRobbio warned them to check first with mobster Louis Manocchio.

The businessmen told the state police that DeRobbio went to see Manocchio, proprietor of the nearby Caffe Verdi. DeRobbio reported back that "as a property management/realty company we were welcome neighbors here on the street, but as a coffee shop, that we would not be."

The extortion case was resolved with DeRobbio pleading no contest to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct.

In 1993, the state police declined to re-hire DeRobbio when his enlistment came up for renewal. A few years later, his second wife filed for divorce; his only income, he reported, was from a part-time job at the Providence Civic Center.

'I paid Arthur a monthly fee'

In 2000, while he was dating his future wife, Lori, Al DeRobbio worked a security detail for a union conference in Miami Beach, Fla., and met Arthur A. Coia.

DeRobbio recalled an inspiring speech by Coia that convinced him of the value of running a union construction company.

Coia, of Barrington, had recently retired as the Laborers' international president. He had stepped down as part of a deal with federal prosecutors, pleading guilty to a felony tax fraud charge for evading payment of nearly $100,000 in taxes on three Ferrari sports cars.

The agreement barred Coia from union affairs. He became the union's "general president emeritus," and was awarded a lifetime annual pay of $250,000, including his pension. After his retirement, Coia launched his own consulting company, the Arthur Coia Group, based in Delray Beach, Fla., where he maintains a second home.

Lori DeRobbio said she hired Coia as a consultant for Capital City Concrete.

"I paid Arthur a monthly fee, and gave him a 1099 [tax form]," she said. "Everything was above board. He did a great job, and I have the highest regard for him. He was a gentleman. He's very intelligent. He's a people person."

Coia advised her when she negotiated labor agreements with Local 271 and with the carpenters union, she said. He offered counsel on dealing with union and job-site issues. And he helped her "open doors" in Rhode Island, she said, by vouching for her with contractors.

She said that Coia introduced her to H.V. Collins, which subsequently hired Capital City Concrete as a sub-contractor for the Kent County Court House garage.

'You betrayed me'

By 2003, as the Kent County Court House garage was going up, the DeRobbios' two-year marriage was falling apart.

According to Lori DeRobbio, there were conflicts between Al and her construction crew.

There were tensions at home, where a difficult pregnancy and the birth of a daughter made it more difficult for Lori to focus on work, she said.

Meanwhile, she said, Al was distracted by other business interests, including a stone-importing company and a real-estate and home-repair business.

Last winter, she said, she made a difficult decision. Faced with complaints and ultimatums from her workers, she fired Al.

"It wasn't easy to go home and tell your very Italian husband, 'You can't work for me anymore,' " she said. "He said, 'You betrayed me.' But I didn't. It wasn't in our wedding vows that he could work for Capital City."

Last July, Al DeRobbio was charged with assaulting Lori at their house in Scituate. According to the police report, Lori alleged that Al came at her with a knife, and that he "then pushed her over the couch and punched her three times on the side of her head."

Al DeRobbio told the police that "his wife attacked him with a knife and that he had to punch her in the face to get away."

Al DeRobbio filed for divorce. The couple waged a bitter court battle, and fought over the assets of Capital City Concrete.

Last October, with his felony assault case still pending, Al DeRobbio was charged with making a threatening phone call to Lori DeRobbio, in violation of a court restraining order.

A state social worker who overheard the call said that DeRobbio screamed and cursed at his wife, and told her "I'm gonna get you," and threatened to desecrate her father's grave.

According to Lori DeRobbio's statement to the Cranston police, her husband vowed to dig up her father's corpse and dump it at her mother's house.

'Looking to break into the business'

Last fall, Lori DeRobbio said, she called Coia and told him that she might want to hire him again, to boost her company's image in the wake of her marital problems. She said that she mentioned the possibility of her taking on a business partner.

"That's funny," she recalled Coia's telling her, "I have a client from out of state who's looking to break into Rhode Island. He tried to do it on his own, but couldn't."

Coia promised to arrange a meeting, she said. Last December, she said, she received a call from one of Coia's employees, telling her that Coia had set up a meeting.

She went to the address provided her, in Johnston, she recalled, and was surprised to discover that Coia's client was the same Mike Jameson of Hemphill Construction whom she had met a year earlier.

Back in 2003, during the court house garage project, Matty Guglielmetti had stopped by her office in Cranston and said that he wanted to introduce her to Mike Jameson.

"Matty said, 'He's a nice guy, he's educated, you're educated, and he's looking to break into the business,' " recalled Lori DeRobbio.

A short time later, she said, Guglielmetti came by with Jameson and Gerald Diodati, the contractor who had helped Hemphill Construction get started.

Capital City and Hemphill Construction wound up bidding together on a job to renovate the clubhouse at the Valley Country Club in Warwick, but didn't get the contract.

Albert DeRobbio had also been dealing with Hemphill. He and Guglielmetti had attended meetings at Hemphill's office in Johnston.

And in December 2003, Albert DeRobbio met with Jameson, Diodati and Arthur Coia at the Providence Marriott near the State House. DeRobbio said that Hemphill Construction wanted Coia to represent them as a consultant; Coia said he'd think about it.

One year later, in December 2004, Lori DeRobbio went to see Mike Jameson, for the meeting that Coia had arranged.

Jameson was a big, rugged man with a curly "Frito Bandito" moustache, recalled DeRobbio. He told her that he was eager to invest in her company.

She said that she returned to Hemphill's office a week or so later for a follow-up meeting, with her accountant. But she was wary.

When she had first walked into the office, she recalled, "nothing about the place rang true."

"There were no secretaries, no phones ringing, just some guys in suits sitting around, drinking coffee," she said. "I kidded them, 'Boy, you guys don't have to work very hard.' Jameson said, 'Oh, well, our main office is in Massachusetts.' "

She also found it odd that Jameson told her money is no option. She was accustomed to businessmen who squeezed every penny. Outside in the parking lot, after the second meeting, her accountant warned her to walk away.

DeRobbio said her lawyer checked around, but could find no record of Jameson's business in Massachusetts. Hemphill Construction, she discovered, had been incorporated in Rhode Island in 2003. The only "Mike Jameson" her lawyer could find was a black football player.

"I called Arthur Coia and said, 'Arthur, there's no Mike Jameson,' " she said. "He said, 'Really?' "

Coia, she said, seemed surprised, and told her that he'd met with Jameson.

Coia has not returned calls seeking comment for this story. His lawyer, Howard Gutman in Washington, declined comment.

DeRobbio pulled out of the deal, and used her marital problems as an excuse. She said that she was afraid to share her suspicions with Jameson. She thought he was a drug dealer, looking to launder drug money.

Arrested and handcuffed

The next month, on Jan. 20, 2005, FBI agents, state troopers and Providence police swept into the offices of Capital City Concrete in Cranston and the Laborers' in Providence.

Among the information they sought, according to the search warrant, were any records concerning Hemphill Construction, said Anthony M. Traini, a lawyer for union trust-fund administrator Dominick Ruggerio, whose office was among those searched.

Earlier that morning, the authorities had arrested Matty Guglielmetti and two confederates, and charged them with conspiring with an undercover FBI agent to protect 67 kilos of cocaine.

Lori DeRobbio's suspicions had proven at least partly true. The FBI's undercover operation had convinced Guglielmetti that Hemphill was also being used to launder drug money. In December, while Hemphill was trying to buy into DeRobbio's company, her would-be partner had also been plotting with Guglielmetti, who said he needed some cash for Christmas, to guard a shipment of cocaine passing through Rhode Island en route to Canada.

The conversations about the drug deal were captured on audio and videotape.

The phantom deal went down on Jan. 18. Two days later, when Guglielmetti came to the Hemphill office in Johnston expecting to collect his $67,000 payoff, he was arrested and handcuffed.

Later that morning, Lori DeRobbio was at home when FBI Special Agent John Foley called.

" 'We just kicked in your door,' " she recalls him telling her. Then he told her to turn on her television; "We're kicking in the Laborers' doors now."

Later that afternoon, Lori DeRobbio agreed to meet with Foley, another FBI agent and a Rhode Island state police detective at Panera Bread on Route 44 in Smithfield.

"They flashed their badges and I thought, 'I'm in someone else's life,' " she said.

Agent Foley told her the FBI had been working undercover in Rhode Island.

"Hemphill Construction," he said. "Does that ring a bell?"

The agents said that the case was big -- bigger than Operation Plunder Dome, the federal corruption probe that toppled Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr.

They also talked about Matty Guglielmetti. One agent said: "Matty's gone. He's going to prison for the rest of his life. He'll never see the light of day."

"I said, 'You say that like I should be heartbroken,' " recalled DeRobbio. "I said I was sorry for Matty, but what did that have to do with me?"

She said that she chided the FBI agents for their unconvincing efforts to make Hemphill Construction seem real.

"Don't you guys watch Mission Impossible and see what they do to create backgrounds for fake companies?" she recalled telling them.

" 'Yeah, we have to work on that,' " she said one replied.

The agents sketched out their investigation, without naming names, she said, and told her: "You're the only one that didn't bite. Everyone else took the money."

"I'm not everybody else," she shot back.

"Oh, we know -- you're a savvy businesswoman," one of the lawmen responded.

DeRobbio said that she told them she was offended that they would think that the only way a woman could get ahead in the construction business was to pay bribes.

"After this is over," she said, "you're going to owe me an apology."

Laborers' official declines to comment

Last month, Matty Guglielmetti agreed to plead guilty to charges of cocaine trafficking. He is expected to receive 12 years in prison; his two associates also have agreed to plead guilty, and each expects to be sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The government's agreement states that the mobster will not be charged with other crimes relating to his "association and involvement with Hemphill Construction."

Officials from the Laborers declined to comment on what they know of the investigation, or what dealings union officials may have had with Hemphill Construction. They also declined to say what records were seized.

The union says that it is cooperating with the investigation.

Michael S. Bearse, the union's general counsel in Washington, said that the government has not contacted the union or indicated where the investigation is headed.

Dominick Ruggerio, the administrator of the New England Laborers' Labor-Management Cooperation Trust, declined to discuss the FBI's search of his office, or whether he had any dealings with Hemphill Construction.

Ruggerio's lawyer, Anthony Traini, and the lawyer hired to represent the training fund, John A. Tarantino, also declined comment.

Bearse said that the trust fund, which works with local unions and contractors throughout the New England region to win projects and jobs, is a separate entity from the New England Laborers, and that it was only the trust fund that was the subject of the federal search warrant.

However, Bearse confirmed that the FBI also searched the offices of Nick Manocchio, the regional organizing coordinator for the New England regional office, and Harold Tillinghast, who works for Manocchio. Bearse said he didn't know why, nor would he make available a copy of the search warrant.

Manocchio and his lawyer, C. Leonard O'Brien, declined comment. Manocchio is the nephew of New England mob boss Louis Manocchio.

Tillinghast also declined through a union spokesperson to comment.

Bearse said that Armand E. Sabitoni, who besides directing the New England regional office also serves as chairman of the training fund's board of trustees, would not comment.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente declined to comment.

In the wake of the Jan. 20 search warrants, Albert and Lori DeRobbio attempted to reconcile.

"We're back together," Albert DeRobbio said four days later.

And Lori DeRobbio now says that she pulled a knife on Al DeRobbio, not the other way around, and that she did so in self defense. State prosecutors have declined to drop the charges.

About three weeks ago, Al DeRobbio was arrested and charged with violating a no-contact order in his assault case by going to his wife's home. It was Good Friday evening, and she said that he was just bringing her medicine for a migraine headache.

But somebody called the police, and Albert found himself back in court. A state judge ordered him sent to prison.

For sure they had clout and respect. Raymond was a top boss for God's sake. And he ran a strong crew. Regardless of the numerical size. Look at Marcello. He ran a very small crew by comparison to others. At one point he only had 5 made guys left. Tiny.

Yet, he was one of the most influential bosses around. Its not always the 'made' guys who oversee, but your associates and the important aspects of industry and commerce you control.

That PROJO article is old. And yes I get it it outlined the influence they had in our local unions. But its LOCAL. Matty babysitting cocaine was old news with DeRobbio.

Again we know they were a major player in our area. But to my point and what NY said, Marcello had a smaller family but more influential NATIONALLY.

That's where the Patriarca's have always come up short. Lack of national influence in any given area. Just is what it is.

There's no doubt he had clout. None at all. I just think more times than not, the Patriarcas are overlooked.

There was a fella up that way years ago who was a friend of my family by the nickname of Tony Canadian. He was very close to Raymond. I think his real name was Sandrelli if I'm not mistaken.

100% @ theMarble guy...

Bobby Walison was one of the messengers between Nicky Bianco and the coias. If the coias needed help from Raymond Jr or Nicky Bianco. Bobby would “assist” for lack of a better term....

Was this the Tony Canadian also close to the Lucchese family?

I like Bobby. Good dude. What was the name of the bar he had? FM Station? Back in the day

At least 40 made men.I would say that out NY there biggest are Patriarcas,Philly,Decavalcante,Chicago (few made men but large number of associates) and Buffalo but I don't think that is a still a family but a small crew.

I made a video about the members, former members and associates of the New England, Patriarca family, hope you all enjoy it!

The NE crew is not the same as they once were. But let's face it, what crew in any city still is nowadays?

Still, ya gotta give em credit because they're still chuggin along.... took a repeated lickin, but kept on tickin!

Raymond Patriarca | Joseph Barboza | Patriarca Crime Family | (1972)

Just saw on the news that they're claiming Lato to be the underboss, has anyone else heard this?

Government is saying Lato is the UB and Matty is a captain.....

https://www.wpri.com/target-12/inve...de-to-mob-associate-marijuana-operation/