In re: statement of frank Salemme

158 Pages·2003·3.3 MB·English

by  US Congress. House of Representatives. Committee on Government Reform

BOSTONPUBLICLIBRARY
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BOSTON PUBLIC
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Form No, 1374—5/75
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
In re
:
STATEMENT OF FRANK SALEMME
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Washington, D.C.
Statement of FRANK SALEMME, pursuant to
agreement, in the offices of the United States
Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue,
N.W., Washington, D.C, convened at 10:51 a.m.,
before Keith Wilkerson, a notary public in and for
the District of Columbia, when were present on
behalf of the parties:
:
APPEARANCES
On behalf of the Committee on Government
Reform:
JAMES C. WILSON, ESQ.
MICHAEL J. YEAGER, ESQ.
J. KEITH AUSBROOK, ESQ.
United States House of Representatives
Committee on Government Reform
511 Ford House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
[phone]
On behalf of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation:
ELIZABETH R. BEERS, ESQ.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
FBI Headquarters
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20535
[phone]
On behalf of the Department of Justice:
M. FAITH BURTON, ESQ.
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
[phone]
JOHN H. DURHAM, ESQ.
United States Attorney's Office
157 Church Street
Suite 2300
New Haven, Connecticut 06510
3
PROCEEDINGS
1
2 MR. WILSON: Mr. Salemme, thank you very
3 much for being here. I would like to point out
4 before we start that we have provided Mr. Salemme
5 with a copy of an immunity order that has been
6 signed by Judge Hogan and which is a direct result
7 of a vote of the Committee on Government Reform
8 yesterday to confer immunity on Mr. Salemme.
9 Prior to taking this step, the committee
10 consulted with a number of local jurisdictions, the
11 Suffolk County district attorney, the Middlesex
12 County district attorney, and the Tulsa district
13 attorney, and they informed us that they had no
14 objections to our taking that step.
15 With that said, first, thank you very i
16 much, Mr. Salemme. You voluntarily appeared before
17 us a couple of weeks ago to be interviewed, and we
18 really appreciate your taking that step, and we
19 also appreciate the fact that you answered the
20 questions that we asked you. There were some
21 concerns at the time that caused us to move forward
22 and go through the process that conferred immunity
23 on you. I understand there are some concerns that
24 you have with the process that brought you here,
25 and I think perhaps at the end of this proceeding
1 it might be entirely appropriate for us to discuss
2 that.
3 Now, as you're aware, the last time we
4 spoke, the first questions I asked you about were
5 concerning John Fitzgerald. And to the extent
6 possible, if you can do what you did before, which
7 was to just provide a narrative account of what
8 happened, that will save me asking a lot of
9 questions and will get the story down on the record
10 as clearly as possible.
11 With that, if you would, just tell us as
12 much as you can about what happened with John
13 Fitzgerald and the bomb that ultimately caused him
14 injury.
r
15 MR. SALEMME: Where do I start? In the
16 middle? In the beginning? At the end? John
17 Fitzgerald was representing Joseph Barboza, as we
18 all know. John Fitzgerald was playing both ends
19 against the middle. He was a lawyer, and he was
20 also, as I like to say in the vernacular, a crook.
21 He was running Joe Barboza's loan shark operation
22 for him. They were meeting in Al Farese s office,
'
23 which was also John Fitzgerald's office in Everett,
24 and they would cut up his money.
25 John Fitzgerald was, from my
1 understanding, going to be a witness --he was
2 going to write a book with Barboza, but he was
3 going to be a witness against Raymond L.S.
4 Patriarca. So word came from Providence; I was
5 called to eliminate John Fitzgerald. That was
6 agreeable to me, why he had to be eliminated,
7 because he was going to be a witness against
8 Raymond L.S., and I would take care of it my way.
9 I did some preliminary work on Fitzgerald
10 and saw that it would not be that difficult a job.
11 He was kind of a romancer. He had a girlfriend and
12 would spend a lot of time there. And he was a
13 drinker, and he spent a lot of time in certain
14 bars. One in particular was the Irish Ale House
15 out in Dedham, Massachusetts, which was like a very
16 rural type area.
17 Then the second word came from Larry
18 Baione. Larry came to my club one day, our club,
19 Peter Poulos and myself, and said that Raymond now
20 is going to handle this, they're going to blow him
21 up. Blow him up for what? He wants to make an
22 example. That's when I withdrew. I abandoned it.
23 Flemmi stayed on board with Zannino and Baione and
24 put the thing together.
25 Within a week, five to seven days or so,
1 Steve got a call at the club, left, and went to
2 Sherman Avenue, to Baione' s joint, the Sharma
3 Tavern. He met him, and they went off, and Frankie
4 Balliro and Joe Russo, they went to Everett and put
5 the bomb in the car. They came back to the club, I
6 was still there, and we waited for the news to come
7 on that the bomb had gone off. : ,
8 Basically, simply put, that's what
9 happened. _ -.
10 MR. WILSON: Let's move back and take a
11 few various bits and talk about them. The
12 statement you made about Mr. Fitzgerald being
13 involved in Joe Barboza s loan shark business, how
'
14 do you know about that?
15 MR. SALEMME: Well, we knew who he was
16 working with and would get information back from
17 people that they were his crew. I watched them on
18 Saturdays when they went and cut up for Mrs. Baron,
19 and Frank Imbruglia and Al Farese was there, and
20 John Fitzgerald was there.
21 We knew some of the customers, so it was
22 pretty easy to put the thing together, the puzzle
23 together, what they were doing, and Mrs. Baron
24 would be there to pick up her money on Saturday
25 mornings. That's when it was, Saturday mornings.
.
1 the cut-up of his loan shark business. Plus the
2 automobile that he was driving was Barboza's
3 automobile. It was like a payment type thing to
4 him that he was part of the Barboza's gang, so to
5 speak.
6 MR. WILSON: So Barboza had given
7 Fitzgerald the automobile?
8 MR. SALEMME: Right
9 MR. WILSON: You mentioned that Flemmi
10 was involved with Larry Baione. Were you referring
11 to Stevie Flemmi?
12 MR. SALEMME: Yes.
13 • MR. WILSON: Was Jimmie Flemmi involved
14 at all in this whole endeavor. .>-
, ,, ,
15 ' MR. SALEMME: No. Jimmie Flemmi had very
-,:,.
16 little to do with us on a personal basis, except he
17 was the instigator in us getting involved in the
18 gang war. He was a loose cannon, Jimmie Flemmi,
19 very similar to Joe Barboza, and I wouldn't have
20 him in my business. We went through that gang war
21 without him knowing (indicating) about what was
22 happening before or even what happened afterwards.
23 As far as I was concerned, he never knew. I don't
24 know if his brother told him, but he never told him
25 before the fact. Obviously I never got caught for
1 it.
2 MR. WILSON: I just want to point out
3 when Mr. Salemme was saying Jimmie Flemmi didn't
4 know anything, he made a hand signal, and it was a
5 signal for zero, so he was indicating Jimmie Flemmi
6 didn't know anything about the business that
7 Mr. Salemme was involved in at the time.
8 Going back to the purpose or the motive
9 for the bombing, you indicated that it was because
10 Raymond Patriarca wanted to set an example. Can
11 you tell us a little bit more about that, and can
12 you tell us about how you came to that
13 understanding?
14 MR. SALEMME: Well, like I said, I had
15 been called to Providence and told that this man
16 had to be eliminated because he was going to be a
17 witness in the Barboza case, and Raymond Patriarca
18 was scared that he was going to get done in by this
19 guy.
20 MR. WILSON: You're referring to the
21 Marfeo murder conspiracy case?
22 MR. SALEMME: Right.
23 MR. WILSON: Did it have any relationship
24 to what was --
25 MR. SALEMME: Well, I'm not sure now if