Bound by their roles in the colorful history of a gritty city, partners in Crimetown reflect on life, the law and their paths through it all
By Amanda Milkovits
Providence Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Should Providence just embrace its legacy as Crimetown?
Behind its renaissance is a mayor who went to prison for corruption. The head of the New England mafia had a reach that extended into City Hall, the State House and the Supreme Court.
Providence’s dirty past is now exposed worldwide through the “Crimetown” podcast, which has had more than 16 million downloads so far and found audiences as far away as Australia.
Locally, though, not all find those old stories entertaining.
“We realize it covered some older history of Providence but we believe it is just that: History,” Rick Simone, executive director of the Federal Hill Commerce Association, said in an email.
“Tourists may have an interest or be intrigued in what the past was, however they certainly recognize the Federal Hill of today is much different.”
Mob boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca in Providence in the mid-1970s, above.
But the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau has been waiting for someone to ask about “Crimetown” and tourism. “I think it does beg the question,” said Kristen Adamo, vice president of marketing and communications, who has been listening to the podcast.
“One of the things with tourism right now — tourists like an authentic and true experience,” Adamo said. “And this is a part of our history. We are who we are.”
Stores and restaurants display photos of former Mayor Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci Jr., who championed the neighborhood’s comeback decades ago.
But what has made “Crimetown” so popular was not the places, but the people.
The criminals and those who loved them, the investigators who tried to stop them, and those of us who just happened to live among them in this fishbowl of a state.
Charles “The Ghost” Kennedy, burglar and international drug trafficker
He was a self-taught lock picker and thief, good enough to catch the attention of master thieves conducting major scores in the 1970s. By the 1980s, he'd moved into drug trafficking, attracted by the big money and flashy lifestyle.
“Burglary was the sport, and marijuana was the lifeblood that kept me alive.”
He’s out of “the business,” as he calls crime, and now he’s in the “entertainment business” — hoping that a book by the late Providence Journal reporter W. Zachary Malinowski, and “Crimetown,” will attract attention from Hollywood.
Law enforcers once called him “The Ghost” because he was an elusive thief. Now, though, he’s willing to talk about his criminal past, encouraged by Malinowski and “Crimetown.”
Drug trafficking allowed Kennedy to buy expensive suits, cars and an extravagant home in East Greenwich.
“I understand how people live vicariously through people like myself. It’s like a fantasy to put yourself in this situation, of life and death. It’s an adrenaline rush. What makes it special is it’s local and real life.”
“I can’t believe I did some of those things,” he says. “I’m alive to talk about it, and I’m not doing a life sentence.”
He has plenty of stories that didn’t make it into the podcast. There were his brushes with powerful politicians and powerful criminals. There's also missing money. Kennedy said he left about $200,000 in drug money buried at his old house in East Greenwich before he went to prison. He said it was missing when he returned to dig it up.
“Obviously, someone got to it,” Kennedy says. “Someone’s having a very good retirement.”
Dr. Barbara H. Roberts, cardiologist for Raymond L.S. Patriarca and mistress of mob boss Luigi “Baby Shacks” Manocchio
She’d made headlines as the one person who kept the New England crime boss out of prison during the last years of his life. She protected Patriarca’s health, sometimes at the cost of her reputation.
“He trusted me, because I told him you’ll go to trial over my dead body, because I thought a trial would kill him.”
At the same time, she had a secret that only her closest friends and family knew: She’d become romantically involved with Manocchio, the last boss of La Cosa Nostra New England crime family.
She was keeping that story for her memoir. Then last year, Smerling came to Jamestown to ask her to talk to him for “Crimetown.”
Roberts was the first female cardiologist in Rhode Island, director of the Women’s Cardiac Center at Miriam Hospital, a professor at Brown University’s medical school, and author of a book about cholesterol medications known as statins.
“What do you think you know about me?” Roberts recalled asking Marc Smerling. “He said, ‘I know you’re Raymond’s cardiologist.’”
I said, “I was also Louis Manocchio’s mistress.”
Smerling’s face lit up, Roberts said. Now, millions of listeners know about her secret affair.
Louis Manocchio, former mob boss, is escorted from Superior Court in Providence where he was found guilty on several counts in connection with the 1968 gangland-style slaying of Rudolph Marfeo and Anthony Melei. [Providence Journal file photo/Richard Benjamin]
Patriarca treated her like a daughter, and his family, associates and friends treated her “like I was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary,” Roberts said. “For years, I couldn’t pay a bill in a restaurant on Federal Hill.”
Others didn’t understand. People said nasty things to her children, and some doctors stopped referring patients to her because she was treating Patriarca. Some patients sought her out. “They said, ‘Raymond can afford the best, and if he’s going to her, she’s the best.’”
Dr. Barbara Roberts testifies about Raymond Patriarca’s health in Superior Court in 1981.
Now, because of “Crimetown,” people know her by the name the mobsters gave her: The Doctor Broad. “I thought it was hilarious,” she says of the nickname.
Raymond Patriarca flicks his cigar at a reporter as he enters state prison in 1969.
Patriarca leaves court in 1958, above, and below, elderly and frail, in 1981 with his attorney Jack Cicilline.
“‘Crimetown’ emphasizes that no one is totally good and totally evil,” Roberts says. “There are various shades of gray.”
Her parents were part of the Catholic Workers Movement, and she credits her independence to her faith. “My upbringing was to be a saint, and a martyr, to sacrifice everything. To do what’s right, no matter what anyone thinks, and to make sacrifices for one’s beliefs.”
Others in “Crimetown” talked about Patriarca and murders and heists. Roberts saw him as an ill patient and an elderly man who once sang a nursery rhyme with her daughter.
Tony Fiore, master thief, and Brian Andrews, retired state police captain
They look like just two retirees, sitting over a cup of coffee, laughing and finishing each other’s sentences. Except their conversation is about armored car holdups, burglaries at precious metals factories and wiretaps.
They both started their careers around the same time, two young men on opposite sides of the law. They followed each other’s moves, obsessing about what the other was doing, until Andrews finally caught Fiore on an armored car heist.
Their relationship could have ended after Fiore went to prison. Then came “Crimetown.” Malinowski brought them together to talk. They started swapping stories about the old days.
Andrews finally learned about all the preparation Fiore went through to steal and rob, as well as his involvement in unsolved heists.
“I’m not naming names, and the statute of limitations is over on everything,” Fiore said.
Their “Crimetown” episodes unfold like a tutorial in how to be a burglar and how to be a cop.
Fiore said he can’t count how many jobs he’d pulled off. “I had houses, Cadillacs, everything. I could do a job, get $100,000 today, and then I’d be out in a few days later, looking for the next one.”
Andrews would change investigative techniques to catch Fiore and his crew.
Brian R. Andrews in 1992, formerly commander of Rhode Island State Police detectives. [Providence Journal file photo]
Anthony William “Tony” Fiore - 1975 R.I. State Police mug shot
“I made his career!” Fiore said.
“He is right, he did help my career,” said Andrews.
They are the “Cat and Mouse” of “Crimetown,” the master thief and the state police detective who ran the first ground-breaking wiretaps to crack open the burglary ring.
“He was a professional criminal, and we learned a lot from him,” Andrews said. “We learned a lot about New England organized crime, and we learned that the Irish mafia was so active.”
Even though Andrews sent him to prison, Fiore has no hard feelings. “I did my time. I considered what I did a job, and he had a job to put me away.”
After years of competing, they are now friends, talking with admiration for each other’s work.
“Some people in law enforcement may think I’m crazy when I say I have a lot of respect for him,” Andrews said. “He was doing million-dollar scores, and he put a lot of work into it. He was a master at what he did.”
Dennis Aiken, FBI special agent at the center of the probe known as Operation Plunder Dome
He says he doesn’t like coming into Providence anymore. Too many ghosts at the Biltmore Hotel, where former Mayor Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci Jr. lived during the Plunder Dome trial. Too many people in this fishbowl of a city who have some connection to the corruption case from nearly 20 years ago.
“I see somebody who was an informant or a subject. They bolt when they see me.”
As Aiken talks recently in a coffee shop downtown, assistant U.S. Attorney Richard W. Rose walks by. Rose was one of the federal prosecutors on the Plunder Dome trial. Although Aiken talked in “Crimetown” about how the federal corruption investigation came together, he’d rather give credit to Rose, prosecutor Terrence Donnelly, then-U.S. Attorney Margaret Curran and top deputy Craig Moore.
The prosecutors weren’t named in Crimetown, but Aiken wishes they were. He remembers the excitement when he played the first wiretap for Curran. Tony Freitas, a local businessman, wore a wire and caught Joseph Pannone, chairman of the Board of Tax Assessment Review, talking to him about how to pay a bribe.
Antonio Freitas gets an envelope with $1,000 and instructions from FBI agent Dennis Aiken, right, in this 1999 secret FBI tape to try to gather evidence of corruption in Providence City Hall.
FBI Special Agent W. Dennis Aiken, left, arrives with Antonio R. Freitas at U.S. District Court in Providence for the Operation Plunder Dome trial. Freitas is a key witness for the prosecution in 2002. [Providence Journal file photo/Mary Murphy]
“I’ll guarantee you it’s not over,” Aiken says. “Greed and ego are the causes of corruption. And there’s plenty of it to go around.”
Rhode Island’s U.S. Attorney Margaret Curran heads into Federal Court with Prosecutor Richard Rose, center. Tom Connolly, left, is spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. [Providence Journal file photo/Bob Thayer]
Richard Rose, the prosecutor in the Operation Plunder Dome trial leaves court to the applause of some of the bystanders on Kennedy Plaza after Mayor Cianci and his codefendants were found guilty on many of the charges. [Providence Journal file photo/Mary Murphy]
This was the first key that would go all the way to Cianci. It took courage to prosecute this as an organized crime case, Aiken said, and skill to present all the evidence to a jury.
In “Crimetown,” Cianci is on tape, talking about being motivated by power and ego. People who thought they knew about Cianci are surprised, Aiken said. They say: "We had no idea that he was like those criminals on the podcast. He was the same.”
Aiken isn’t surprised. Cianci is dead. The New England mafia is largely gone. But human nature is human nature. There’s no end to “Crimetown.”
amilkovi@providencejournal.com
On Twitter @AmandaMilkovits
Listen to the final "Crimetown" and soundtrack bonus episodes, Catch up on any episodes you missed, and explore projects from The Journal’s archives on the Patriarca crime family and the vice and virtue of Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci Jr., at providencejournal.com/crimetown
Credits:
The Providence Journal 2017