CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
A Mafia induction ceremony was held at 34 Guild Street in Medford on October 29, 1989.
Vincent Federico, Carmen Tortora, Robert “Bobby” DeLuca, and Richard Floramo were the inductees. The house belonged to Federico’s sister. She didn’t know it was happening.
Federico was on furlough from state prison. On his application he told authorities he had to conduct some family business. Did he ever.
Unbeknownst to the mobsters, FBI agents were watching them, and their conversations were being recorded. The tape recordings revealed little-known facts about the Mafia and how it operated at the time, and the quirky personalities of the men involved in the organization.
A lot of preparation went into the ceremony. Consigliere Joseph “JR” Russo and capo Vincent Ferrara put plenty of thought into setting up the room.
Russo: Okay. These seats gonna take up lot of fuckin’ space. The food takes up a lot of space . . . What’s in there? A [unintelligible]? This is a non-smoking house. I don’t see ashtrays. She’s going to smell smoke in the fuckin’ house. There’s ashtrays here.
(Sound of footsteps)
Ferrara: Joe.
Russo: Yeah? Yeah, we’re gonna use all that. Put that in the kitchen.
Russo: Okay put everything. . . . Okay, this stuff here is all gone. Remember to set it on the table and put the striped cloth on. Put this stuff back on the table. . . . That was on this. Now move that. . . . We’re gonna need this room. And I can’t put a chair here so (unintelligible) we should bring this back out here and put . . . so that it cuts right in the corner here so we can have that room.
Ferrara: Yeah. We can leave it out in that room.
Russo: Yeah, but we need a space there. Let’s see what it takes.
(sounds of furniture being moved)
Ferrara: That’s perfect. Like this, and like this. Like this. Gonna leave this chair.
Russo: Now ah, we need more public room.
Ferrara: Like this. Let’s see. We’re gonna have’ta do it like this, Joe. It will be Raymond, Nicky, and you. Like this. Get it?
This went on for a while. Both Russo and Ferrara paid close attention to arranging the furniture and figuring out the best way to display and serve the almonds, dates, and figs.
Ferrara: You know when Sonny comes with the chairs . . .
Russo: Maybe if we take that end table and put that down. In between we’ll put some food on it like and a couple chairs around it.
Ferrara: What I was going to think we should do is put the food on the coffee table. Then ah, let’s have our meeting. The food comes afterwards. Then put the food on the counters right here.
Russo: Yeah, that’s a good idea.
Ferrara: All right? Okay?
Russo: Yeah, that way . . .
Ferrara: This is gonna be just glasses and plates.
Russo: Yeah.
Ferrara: Okay? And napkins and knife and fork. We’re gonna have a meeting first.
Russo: Mmm-hmm.
Ferrara: We don’t want the food getting in the way of the, ah . . .
Russo: No. Okay, so let’s just do this here. Now this vase.
Ferrara: This I’m gonna leave right here.
Russo: Yeah.
Ferrara: In here. The glasses.
(sounds of things being moved)
Russo: Yeah, you’re right. You’re right, you’re right, you’re right. Now it looks like we’re not all cluttered with food and shit like that.
Russo and Ferrara adjusted the lighting of the room and discussed the table settings. When it comes to mobster etiquette, table settings and seat arrangements are important. Russo joked that they should give two napkins to Raymond L. S. Patriarca’s son, Raymond “Junior” Patriarca.
Russo: Let’s shut these blinds. . . . How do I shut these blinds?
Russo: Two napkins for the boss?
Ferrara: Huh?
Russo: Two napkins for the boss?
Ferrara: We should give him, we should give him, ah, the royal knife, fork and spoon and make a joke out of (unintelligible). You need two more napkins. If they don’t come, we can leave that seat open.
Russo: Yeah.
Ferrara: The bottom line is this, Joe. He don’t show up, we say out of respect for Abe, we’re gonna leave this seat open. See, I don’t want this. I don’t want Nicky sitting there, because then people take it like he’s over you, and he’s not.
Russo: That’s why, for example, the knights of the round table was round, so nobody was, ah, the boss. . . .
Ferrara: All right? Joe? That’s important. I want no one to get the wrong message. All right?
This went on for a while until the guests arrived. Once they were all assembled, Raymond “Junior” Patriarca addressed the group: “We’re all here to bring in some new members into our family and more than that, to start maybe a new beginning,” said Patriarca. “Put all that’s got started behind us. ’Cause they come into our family to start a new thing with us. Hopefully, that they’ll leave here with what we had years past. And bygones are bygones and a good future for all of us.”
A native of Sicily, Biagio DiGiacomo owned the Roma restaurant in East Boston, and authorities pegged him as a “caporegime” or “captain” of Patriarca’s organization. DiGiacomo administered the oath in Italian and asked each prospective mobster to repeat the words after him. When Vincent Federico was sworn in, he spoke his words solemnly:
Io, Vincenzo (I Vincent)
Voglio entrare (Want to enter)
In questa organizzazione (Into this organization)
Per proteggere (To protect)
La mia famiglia (My family)
E per proteggere (And to protect)
Tutti i miei amici (All of my friends)
Io (I)
Lo giuro (Swear to)
Di non svelare (Not divulge)
Questo segreto (This secret)
E di ubbidire (And to obey)
Di amore (With love)
Ed omertà (And omertà)
Giuro (I swear)
After the swearing in, Russo asked Federico, “Which finger do you use to shoot the trigger?” The “trigger” finger of the inductee was then pricked, and a picture of a saint was set afire in his hands; he’d have to hold it as it burned, bouncing it back and forth in his palms as he recited the next part of the oath. Once again, DiGiacomo spoke the oath in Italian, with Federico repeating each line.
Questo e’ il santo della nostra famiglia (This is the holy image of our family)
Come si brucia (As burns)
Come si brucia (As burns)
Questa Santa (This Saint)
Cosi (So)
Si brucera’ (Will burn)
La mia anima (My soul)
Giuro (I swear)
Di non en, di entrare (To enter)
Vivo (Alive)
In questa organizzazione (Into this organization)
E di uscire (And get out)
Morto (Dead)
DiGiacomo then asked the inductee, “Do you understand most of the things that I spoke to you over here?” After receiving an affirmative response he added, “You can never say anything to anybody [unintelligible] about this organization.”
After all the inductees were sworn in, Patriarca cautioned the newly made members not to let their status get to their head, saying, “You all come here highly recommended. You’ve all done everything you hadda do. . . . Stay the way youse are, don’t let it go to your head . . . it’s not to be used to make money. It’s not an advantage, a ticket to abuse people, it doesn’t make you better than other people. The thing is you have all of us to protect you. If you don’t let it go to your head, and you don’t abuse it, you’ll have a happy, happy, happy life.”
After cleaning up that night, Ferrara went to lock the door of the house and remarked: “Only the [expletive] ghosts knows what really took place over here today by God.”
Little did they realize, however, that at least one of the soldiers attending the ceremony—Angelo “Sonny” Mercurio—was a government informant.
And the whole thing had been recorded by the FBI.