Crime in Sports - #326 - The Most Dangerous Man In The Mafia - The Mercilessness of Joe "The Animal" Barboza

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

This week, we look at a man who was born into terrible circumstances, and only made them worse. He had a brief boxing career, but this story is all about crime, murder, mayhem, and a man who ...will bite your face off! He was a loanshark, bookie, and general all around New England mob associate, who spread out into murder with such ferocity that the head of the FBI called him the most dangerous man in the United States. As you might imagine, this story doesn't end well for anyone, and it ends exactly the way the rest of the story was... violently!Follow in your father's footsteps of being a violent lunatic, scare everyone from mobsters, to cops, to prison officials, and have 26 murders under your belt with Joe "The Animal" Barboza!!Check us out, every Tuesday! We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!!  Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman  Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: crimeinsports@gmail.com  Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com  Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports crimeinsports@gmail.com facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:34 A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. The Queen of the Courtroom is back. How did I know that? i have crystal ball in my head new cases leave her a long so uh this is not a so this is a period classic judy it's streaming you can say anything it's an all-new season judy justice only on freebie Hello everybody and welcome back to Crime and Sports. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host.
Starting point is 00:01:33 I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another edition of Crime and Sports as we round the back stretch and head into the home stretch. I don't know what the fuck we're talking about. So either way, we're going, and we we have these are going to be all crazy episodes. Everybody. We got your Lawrence Taylors. We got your Aaron Hernandez.
Starting point is 00:01:52 We got Hector Macho Camacho. We got a crazy surfer, which is fun stuff. Yeah, we got a bunch of really fun stuff. And then this one, maybe the I think he is actually the worst person we've ever had on crime and sports today possibly that's saying a lot oh he's a he's a gangster and a bad motherfucker but before we get to that very very quickly just want to say thank you for everything you always do for us head over to shut up and give me murder.com right now to get what do you get there everything merchandise also tickets to the virtual live show
Starting point is 00:02:26 it's a small town murder show virtually live i will say because it is it's it's coming to you live so whatever happens like if jimmy happens to knock his beer over all over all of my stuff that's gonna happen like last time open it like a fucking idiot that was awesome things like that just like a regular live show the screen the, except you're in your living room. If you can't get to a live show or maybe you're in another country, whatever, do that. Come see us. It's a lot of fun. It's available for seven days after that as well.
Starting point is 00:02:55 So you can watch it ten times. You can watch it whenever you want. That is October the 27th. Halloween spectacular. Come and join us there. Also, Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports is where you get all the bonus stuff. And we've been asked a lot. Yes, even after Crime in Sports is over, the Crime in Sports.
Starting point is 00:03:14 The brand itself. The Patreon episodes for Crime in Sports will continue to a month like that. The same thing. We're going to keep that going because there's a ton more athletes. They just don't have stories that can last two and a half hours. So that's how it works. So we're going to do that. because there's a ton more athletes. They just don't have stories that can last two and a half hours. So that's how it works. So we're going to do that. Lots of fun this week for Patreon.
Starting point is 00:03:29 Anybody $5 or above, a cup of coffee will get you not only a very bingeable 150-episode back catalog of bonus stuff, but also new ones, two new ones every other week, including one crime and sports, one small-town murder. You'll have it all this week. What we're going to do for crime and sports, one small town murder. You'll have it all this week. What we're going to do for crime and sports. We're going to talk about Len Bias, which is one of the biggest tragedies in sports history. It's known as basically a can't miss. He's a number one draft pick. He was drafted in the NBA.
Starting point is 00:03:58 I mean, we're talking LeBron James level can't miss of obviously this guy's going to dominate. And he dropped dead the night of the draft from a coke overdose. The most talented college basketball at the time and maybe in the history up to. What if LeBron James after all that hype because it was hype for years got drafted and then the day he was drafted he dropped dead from a
Starting point is 00:04:18 cocaine overdose. That would be the crazy that's what happened here and it happened in the 80s Len Bias we'll talk all about him then for small town murder we are going to talk about the differences between the Netflix Jeffrey Dahmer and the real Jeffrey Dahmer. We've done our own Jeffrey Dahmer thing. But, yeah, we're going to talk about kind of what they cheated and what they did, lent dramatic license to, and when they combined two victims into one person and things like that well we got a deaf guy and a model let's make him a deaf model fuck it we'll make we'll just make it
Starting point is 00:04:51 one guy deaf model what do you say more aptly described as the episode with which james will air his grievances and why he's so angry that's gonna happen so there you go patreon.com slash crime and sports is where we're gonna get all of that and more and you'll get a shout out at the end of the show yes of course that said so we have so much crazy here we got to get right to it let's get into it jimmy with our lunatic of the week first of all have to give credit to a book that plenty of good information came out of that wasn't really available many other places. That is a book called Animal, the Rise and Fall of the Mob's Most Feared Assassin by Casey Sherman.
Starting point is 00:05:32 Whoa. And that's who we're talking about today. What a book. Yeah. That sounds vicious. Oh, it's just murder, murder, murder the whole time. Let's talk about Joseph Barboza Jr., of course. No kidding.
Starting point is 00:05:46 Of course he's a junior. Better known as Joe the Animal Barboza. Oh, boy. And Joe the Animal, he boxes very briefly. Very little sports in this episode. I mean, like maybe seven minutes of sports is going to be in this whole thing. He boxes for a little bit. That's not his boxing
Starting point is 00:06:05 nickname that's what he that's his that's what the mobsters nicknamed him on the street mobsters called him the animal yeah that's not him that's other people call him the animal and uh oh boy first of all he's got a head on him that is just a fucking massive block of granite, basically. He's just got a big honking skull with a big jaw. He looks like a guy that you're like, wow, if I punched him, his face would just ingest my fist. It wouldn't do anything to it. His cheek would eat your hand. You couldn't damage it, it looks like, if you punched at it as hard as you tried.
Starting point is 00:06:44 Cinder block face. Couldn't damage it. You're like, if you punched at it as hard as you tried. Cinder block fake. Couldn't damage it. You're like, God damn, you just break your hand apart. So that's him, Joseph the Animal Barboza. He is the second son born to Portuguese-American parents, and we'll talk about that. It makes a big difference in his life here. He's born September 20th 1932 oh grace good morning that's grace that's there is never a high point other than that um baby crying grace
Starting point is 00:07:16 grace that's it i'm telling you that's when you hear about his life you're like jesus christ okay but then his brother goes on to be you can see that's the other thing in the end we'll talk about his brother donald and it's like you can see how there's two paths and he just chose one and his brother chose the other and you could have gone either way his father joseph senior obviously was a los angeles-based boxer back in the day only had a few professional fights, but his first fight, his father's first fight, was on January 27th, 1933.
Starting point is 00:07:51 Otherwise, his father was a milkman. Joe Barber was the milkman? The milkman. The guy who brought milk back in the day, if you don't know, if you're from another country too, I don't know. That was a thing. Men in trucks showed up every morning and just dropped off dairy products on your door, on your doorstep.
Starting point is 00:08:06 You'd have like a box they put them in. Right. It's crazy. Whether or not you're there, they leave dairy in the sun. They leave very perishable items out in the morning sun. So either way, you better get out there. There was these cold boxes, but they weren't refrigerated. It was just like a bread box you'd put you'd put some milk and like heavy
Starting point is 00:08:26 cream in so my grandmother had that in colorado up until like shit 2005 holy balls yeah i didn't know very recent still dropping it off with like the the foil seal on the top and everything like when we were kids in the 80s that was like an old timey thing that was like way back in the day, back when Grandma and Grandpa or Little the Milkman would come. That's what it seemed like. They did drop the glass and turn it into plastic, but it's still reusable. Yeah, but to me, if you're going to have a milkman, he's got to bring glass bottles or else it's not real. I'm not looking at you the same way. And it better be so fresh that when you drink the milk out the the the bottle is still
Starting point is 00:09:05 coated with it's still coated with yeah yeah i want that because otherwise it's what are you you're just a glorified instacart driver at that point big deal thanks a lot but otherwise if you're yeah you know otherwise you're going to be the milkman i want to hear bottles can clink tink tink and as you come up my doorstep there, you son of a bitch. Yes. Dress like a dork. I want that. Just like a guy that fingers every woman on the block.
Starting point is 00:09:32 All of them. Every woman. Damn it. He's got a bunch of kids on the block. Looks just like him. That's probably what Joseph senior did, but he fought under the name of Jackie Walgast. Well, who makes up the name walgast w-o-l-g-a-s-t who makes that up as their stage name that's a bad name you can be called anything
Starting point is 00:09:51 you want you pick jackie walgast that's what you pick i'm willing to bet zach galifianakis's ig says zach galifianakis probably or at least he was like i'm'm I'm Greek. I'll pick something Greek. I don't know. This guy. I say Zach Thomas. That would be really infuriating. Infuri cafeteria and also does side work as a seamstress growing up because he's born in 32, which is just dead center of the depression. So this is tough times. I mean, milkman's a good job or a steady job anyway, but still times are difficult. They lived in a really shitty broken down house here, which he's from Massachusetts, by the way. He's from Western Massachusetts. He'll be in the Boston area a lot and he'll be with kind of the the Rhode Island Patriarchal Crime Family, the Providence crime family there.
Starting point is 00:10:56 That's kind of his that's his jam here. So they he it's right across from a hospital, too. So everything around a hospital is usually not nice by the way. Yeah. It's generally not good. It's usually shitty if it's around a hospital. Yeah. Nice, really nice neighborhoods don't set themselves up so they can watch gunshot wound victims
Starting point is 00:11:14 be brought in at two o'clock in the morning. That's not, there's a nice hospital in Western, uh, Phoenix, but it's like, and it's in a nice area, but it's just, it's all just people coming to have heart attacks. It's the elderly area. They're buying a house specifically because it's close to a hospital, too. They're like, well, it's close to the hospital. When one of us inevitably has a stroke, it'll be a quick ride on the ambulance. It'll probably save us our motor skills.
Starting point is 00:11:38 Let's do it. I feel like that's what happens. Yeah, golf carts, golf courses, and a hospital. That's what their life is. That's it. Oh, my God. And a hospital? There's b golf courses, and a hospital. That's what their life is. That's it. Oh, my God. And a hospital? There's bingo every Wednesday and a hospital.
Starting point is 00:11:48 Okay. Thank God. So Joe has had a brother, Donald, who's four years older than him, and he's got a younger brother, Anthony, and a sister named Ann. And Ann doesn't come until- Four damn kids? Yeah, four kids. Ann doesn't come until later. She's like, the parents are in their forties when Ann's born.
Starting point is 00:12:05 So she's a, he's a, he keeps his milk fresh. Let's just say that. That sounds awful. That sounds brutal. You raised three kids and you're like, no,
Starting point is 00:12:16 I got a teenager and an infant. That's you. Just 40. You just rolled a back to start in life is what you just rolled back to one everybody fuck for real i was so close i just bought furniture with sharp corners again this is bullshit all our furniture has sharp corners now what are we supposed to do i just threw out all of those plastic those little Those little plug things. Now the kid's going to electrocute herself for sure because I'm not putting more in there. So problem is, too, Joseph, not only are they pretty broke, but Joseph Sr. is always fucking other people.
Starting point is 00:12:55 He's always having affairs and he's banging everybody. He's the milkman. He gets around. Literally. He meets a lot of people. He meets. It's the job description. He meets a lot of women who are alone a lot of the times, and things happen.
Starting point is 00:13:09 He's Portuguese? He's Portuguese, yeah. Portuguese man brings the milk? He's bringing the milk, the Portuguese. There he is. So there's a lot of fighting and everything like that. The fighting, apparently, they got married in 1927, his parents, and they were fighting right from the very beginning hell yeah always fighting joe senior's a handsome guy um bad temper and just beats the shit out of everybody in his path he's one of
Starting point is 00:13:36 these guys he only weighs about 180 pounds so he's a light heavyweight but basically he um and in kind of the non-professional semi-professional boxing circuit back then where they would have you know saloon fights and things like that he was known as the guy not to fuck with and all of those basically yeah he's a badass and uh you know a couple of guys beating the shit out of each other on and some fairgrounds somewhere yeah it would be stuff like that so and he's a handsome man. He's got shit to lose. He's fighting for real. Absolutely, yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:07 And it was brutal back then. So he also would beat the shit out of his wife and kids on a regular basis too. So that's the other thing. He would take off just weeks at a time. He'd just disappear. Leave for work one day, come home a month and a half later. Oh, my God. That's what he would do. You can't do that. He'd just go shack up with some broad home a month and a half later. Oh, my God. That's what he would do.
Starting point is 00:14:25 You can't do that. He'd just go shack up with some broad for a month and a half, and then he'd come home. Well, I guess I got to go home. That's all he would do. He had a bunch of mistresses, and that's what he would do. He had two children out of wedlock that we know of over the course of this marriage, too. So he's got six. He's got all.
Starting point is 00:14:43 Who knows how many kids he has? At least six very he's very poor about um actually supporting everybody financially as well too even his wife and kids at home he doesn't really you know do much in terms of that financial help here uh as well as everybody's scared of him because he's just looking for a reason to beat the hell out of everybody. What the fuck, man? He's a really nasty guy. During one particular bout of peak here, he knocked out his wife's front teeth while she was holding baby Joe in her arms in a bed.
Starting point is 00:15:24 while she was holding baby Joe in her arms in a bed. He came up. She was sitting up in a bed holding the baby, and he came up and punched her in the mouth and knocked her teeth out. Took teeth. Took fucking teeth. Yeah. So that's how this happened. Turns out she was crying when he walked into the room.
Starting point is 00:15:38 She was holding the baby, and he said, why the hell are you crying? And he said, quote, I'll give you something to cry about, and then knocked her teeth out. That gem wasn't an argument this wasn't a thing that built up for it's not that there's an excuse but it wasn't a thing that built up for three he just said why are you crying and she didn't give an answer so he was like i'll give you something to cry about and knocked her teeth out with a with a punch um that is absolutely crazy um I would say, obviously. The next day, his younger brother Donald comes in and sees his mom all beat up. And she said, Mom, what happened?
Starting point is 00:16:19 And she said, Your father was chopping wood down in the cellar, and one of the logs popped loose and hit me by accident. That's a terrible story. And the kid was like, Yeah, okay. I mean, you're a four-year-old. That sounds feasible, right? You could see Bugs Bunny doing that. Sure.
Starting point is 00:16:29 I mean, it could happen, you know, but that, that doesn't sound right. No, to a four year old though, it's,
Starting point is 00:16:36 it would sound totally fine. Especially if your mom tells you, it must be true. Yeah. You trust her. You trust her. You don't go, I think dad's beating your shit out of you again. Did she get, she get that TRO? Like I told you about, like he was, uh, her you trust her you don't go i think dad's beating your shit out of you again did you get
Starting point is 00:16:45 did you get that tro like i told you about like he was four so mom said a log hit her i guess a log hit her um she also had a couple suicide attempts as well uh which i mean i don't blame this woman for christ's sake would you not first of all she's got four kids she's essentially taken care of by herself her husband cheats on her all the time and is gone for a month at a time now when he's gone you're actually happy because he's not beating the shit out of you but also you don't have any money to feed these kids and you need his money as well because where are you the middle of the great depression right so you can't get any more like, fuck my life than this lady.
Starting point is 00:17:27 All that scenario happens throughout time. And sure, that's super depressing. But it's so much more depressing when you're in a time that's literally called depressing. The depression. It's not good. It's not good. One day, Joe and Donald came home from playing outside, and the whole house smelled like gas. They're like, whoa, why is it smelling here?
Starting point is 00:17:51 What's going on? They found mom passed out on the floor with all the gas jets wide open, fucking gas pouring into the house here. Natural gas. Natural gas, yeah, like from the stoves. Yeah. Yeah, and all that going. From the meter, not fucking gasoline. This is terrible.
Starting point is 00:18:07 Yeah, I guess she took some pills and then fucking was going to let the house blow up while she was in there. Oh, shit. Thinking maybe my kids will come home while it's blowing up or something, but that's not good. Joe would later say, quote, he wrote a book later on in 1975. He wrote an autobiography that's not to be believed for most things, obviously. But, you know, things like how his parents were, I tend to believe him on because it just makes sense. Yeah. He said the house we lived in was was more of sorrow than of happiness. He said we were constantly on welfare my mother was in was very much in love with my father regardless of his infidelities
Starting point is 00:18:45 and took out her loneliness by constantly keeping me and my brother around her and both of us were wild so she wanted them always come here you know stay close and they were like no we're running the streets so mom was really you know mom's got some issues, too. I mean, obviously not helping that dad is beating the shit out of her constantly and using her love against her. So that's a weird thing to learn. Joe also, by the way, he lives in New Bedford at one point, and that's where they moved to. And he's constantly fighting little Joe here. The little animal is constantly fighting. Apparently he's obviously he's got a huge head he's got long arms and stubby legs so everybody called him an ape everybody said he looked like an ape because he had a big head long arms stubby
Starting point is 00:19:35 legs makes sense so you you don't fuck with uh a primate though that's the thing and they are vicious animals and that's what people learned uh people learned very quickly first of all he was pretty good with the you know schoolyard comeback as well you know he could fucking he could quit yeah he could put you down just as easily he's not a dumb guy as we'll talk about he's not the brightest man in the world but he uses every iq point that he has he squeezes He squeezes every bit of intelligence out of it like you would squeeze oil from an olive. Like put it that way. It's just so relatable.
Starting point is 00:20:12 Yeah, he's squeezing it. It is. It's really relatable for both of us. So he is – but he's known as – everybody calls him an ape. And so he'll come back with words and then he'll come back with beating the shit out of you in the style that he learned from his dad tuck your chin to your chest so you can't get knocked out your head doesn't move and then just fucking
Starting point is 00:20:31 drop bombs that's it drop bombs and he's a big tough guy and he would do that everybody after a while said oh maybe don't call him an ape to his face because he will he'll beat the shit out of you. He'll punch you in yours.
Starting point is 00:20:46 Yeah. And then girls as well would like him as well because he had confidence and he was pretty tough. So back then that was considered pretty damn cool in the early 40s, you know. Safe. Mid 40s, yeah. So one point here, he's at a Halloween dance, okay, and he's a child's a child, 13, 12, 13, something like that. Did he go as a shower? That would be great.
Starting point is 00:21:14 He went as a shower. That's a great reference. So he approaches a girl here from the neighborhood who he likes as an attractive young lady. She's dressed as a Polynesian princess. She's got the grass skirt and the coconut bra and all that kind of shit. I like that. So he goes over, and the thing to do here would be to say, would you like to dance, being that it's a dance. So there's an easy way to break the ice here by asking if someone would like to dance and then you can take him out and dance he chose a different route let's call it let's call it the
Starting point is 00:21:50 back road here um this is a choose your own adventure he doesn't know it this is a wow this is as a teenager imagine thinking of this he just grabbed the coconut shells being used as a bra and flipped them over just grabbed them and flipped them up so the girl's tits fell out in the middle of the dance this poor little girl uh she's a teenage poor teenage child has her tits out yeah i would have never thought to do that so she screamed obviously and covered herself up and it's the 40s too it's not like you know it's not an instagram stunt where she would you know she'd be in on it. And like, this is an actual like thing that an assault for Christ's sake.
Starting point is 00:22:28 She screams. And luckily for her, she has many brothers who are there at the dance as well. Oh, they hear her little sister scream and covering up her chest and some kids standing by. They go, let's go beat the shit out of that ape kid. And they find Joe takes off and runs away obviously jets off and as shower curtain falling off he's ditched that a long time ago and so he's being as the brothers chased are chasing him out of the thing they're yelling to everybody hey this girl she's trying to go after my sister so basically half the dance comes with them. So now he has like an almost a pitchfork and torch angry mob behind him chasing him down the street.
Starting point is 00:23:09 So deserve. This is what happens. You know what I mean? So everybody's chasing him. They chased him halfway across town. I mean, this is blocks, multiple blocks. He's heading chain link fences and shit. James sidewalks,ys chain link fences oh so does a little asian man save his life
Starting point is 00:23:30 or not i'm telling you i'm telling you man this is it's he's gonna turn around and he's gonna know what he's doing he's not gonna take it anymore he's not gonna he's been waxing cars and painting fences and this guy is not gonna they're gonna be in trouble brothers dressed like skeletons they are that's you didn't know that they're all dressed like skeletons if you're very young you have no idea what we're talking about these are all karate kid references the ralph macchio version so there you go. And Cruel Summer's not playing in the background. It's a great song. Every storefront he passes.
Starting point is 00:24:08 It's a cruel, cruel summer. There you go. It's a cruel, it's a cruel. That's open storefronts as he goes by. He hears just like a flash of it. He hears it behind him until he gets to the next open door where everyone's in unison. So he's running toward the waterfront where he somehow escapes the angry mob. Wow.
Starting point is 00:24:35 He went up and hid somewhere and all these people didn't fucking. He thought it was hilarious later on. He's like, I was funny. I felt like Quasimodo. It was funny. Just chasing me through the streets. Saw a pair of two young titties and you know sometimes you see titties and you're like i'll get chased through the streets and me in fear for my life over this this makes sense i'll assault this young lady adolescent tits are worth the run oh man jesus christ so during one of the father's frequent absences for months at a
Starting point is 00:25:08 time um her her his mother found out where he was shacked up and with whom he was shacked up some woman so she takes the boys donald and joe and waits down the street and says go to that house and go find your father and tell him you know know, I want to fucking talk to him. Tell him, you know, get your ass out of here, basically. What? So, yeah, send the kids in there to go, hey, dad, you got to come home. Back then, you'd send kids to go find the father. That's my mother's job all the time.
Starting point is 00:25:37 My grandfather was a, you know, I won't get into the whole thing, but his office was a bar at the end of the street, basically. So when my grandmother wanted to find him, it was my mother's job in the Bronx to go fucking walk. And this is, you know, in the 60s in New York. It's a Bronx tale. She'd walk into the bar and go look and try to find him amongst all the Italians while they're gambling and smoking and all that kind of shit.
Starting point is 00:26:02 And she'd go find him and bring him home. Hey, you know, she wants you. And she'd go find him and bring him home. Hey, you know, she wants you and she'd go, I thought I'd be there in a minute. And that's how it would work. So this is like a normal thing. Go tell your father to come home. Right?
Starting point is 00:26:12 So Joe found his father in, in the backyard of the house, hanging out with his girlfriend, some lady named Cecilia. And, um, he said, I told him that I wanted to see him,
Starting point is 00:26:27 you know, Hey dad, I want to see you. What are you doing here? Yeah. And he said i told him that i wanted to see him you know hey dad i want to see you what are you doing here yeah and he said quote he looked at me with anger in his eyes and said get out of here you little bastard which what you're making me a bastard don't you understand that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy do you know what a bastard is? It's your fault. That's what I mean. You're doing this. You can't do this. And he said, the irony. And then he turned and left.
Starting point is 00:26:51 He couldn't take it anymore. He turned and screamed, the irony. He just started choking because the irony was so thick. Then he got into Shakespeare. It was very different. No, he said, I turned around blindly and ran down the street. I couldn't stop crying. Oh, I can't imagine.
Starting point is 00:27:10 It was a life lesson. So when his dad ended up coming home eventually, another week or so, he felt a little bit bad that he called this kid a little bastard and told him to get out of here. That's pretty ugly. Yeah. So he bought him a pigeon to make up for it. What? There you go, kid. Have a filthy animal. There you animal there you are yeah it's bird yeah it's probably got disease so be careful all right but i bought you something that's very free well in the in in new york you would buy pigeons from
Starting point is 00:27:40 people who would keep in new york and the Northeast back then, immigrants. And later on, like Mike Tyson did it too. Yeah. Pigeons are a big, like you keep pigeons in coops on rooftops and shit. Homing pigeons. They train them to come go and come back. And there's a whole thing that they train them to do. So you buy pigeons from people that have, that do that sort of thing. So that's, he might have bought him one of those.
Starting point is 00:28:02 Not the most attractive bird to look at. Yeah. He said, though, that he hated it because it didn't make up for what his dad did. And he was like, fuck this bird and fuck this guy. Yeah, and every time you look at it, you hear bastard in your head. Hey, little bastard. He named the bird Bastard, actually. I don't know about that.
Starting point is 00:28:20 But he said that was it. That day in the yard when his dad called him a little bastard, he really never forgave his dad. He said, quote, the punk broke my heart. Oh, Jesus. He was done. Once he's a teenager here, he gets together a little gang, a little street gang like everybody had back then. And they were a bunch of poor kids that would go steal from.
Starting point is 00:28:44 They had a thing set up where they would distract people and then steal from stores. That's how they would do it. And then they'd go fence whatever they stole and make a couple of bucks basically. So they would try to get like a watch or a piece of jewelry or something like that that they could actually make some money off of. So that's all they would do, get it in their pockets and then everybody would take off and run. And eventually though, out of that, they started getting ballsy and they started figuring out how to pick locks oh once they did that they would you know start breaking into places at night and instead of stealing one thing they'd steal a shitload of things and make more money basically um he thought
Starting point is 00:29:21 joe thought that well if he does it at night it cuts down the risk of getting caught too because there's less people seeing us and all that kind of thing but the problem is anybody doing anything at midnight inside of a store stands out whereas yeah you're not really hiding in plain sight at that point you're standing out so at
Starting point is 00:29:40 13 he's arrested for the first time like put in jail here on a charge of breaking and entering. So he is shipped to the Lyman School for Boys for that, which is a reform school and a very well-known reform school. It's in Westboro, Massachusetts. Is he stealing from the man, like a business, or was this a private property? They're breaking into businesses and stealing merchandise,
Starting point is 00:30:09 is what they're doing, because they want stuff. They need to know that there's money to get. They break into a store, they know they have watches and jewelry and things like that. I just want to know if I should root for him or not, because if you're stealing from private citizens, I fucking hate you. You're breaking into houses?
Starting point is 00:30:22 Yeah. But if you're stealing from businesses, fuck, dude. How am I going to judge a poor person doing that yeah i think they would have stole from houses if they knew where someone had something valuable but they just didn't know who had what valuable because they were kids so they knew that the store had valuable shit because later on he's not above stealing from anybody really he's oh yeah he doesn't give a fuck this guy and i do realize the economical impact of stealing from businesses where that drives the fucking prices up, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Look, if people weren't fucking broke, they wouldn't have to do that. And obviously there are socioeconomical things that keep people broke.
Starting point is 00:30:54 Well, this was... Fuck the man is my point. Yeah, and these were kids, too. They're also 13 at this point. So they're going around trying to make a buck. You know his home life, not a lot of money here. And we've talked about this is a very common crime and sports upbringing here. Sure is.
Starting point is 00:31:08 We hear it a million times, whether it's here in the 40s or it's the projects in the 90s or whatever the fuck it is. It's the same thing. It's not a lot of money and not a lot of supervision causes kids to do shit that they shouldn't do. That's just how it is. And he's the same thing. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from or what era it is. So if you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, what was in Al Capone's vault or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia. But that's OK.
Starting point is 00:31:40 I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden, and I'm inviting you to listen to my new podcast, WikiHole, from SmartList Media. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, you'll learn that that's the science-y term for eardrum. We embark on a hyperlink rollercoaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link, careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively shout, how the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Starting point is 00:32:26 Taylor Swift is soaring high, her every move captured in the news cycle and devoured by her devoted fans. She's broken billboard records and made Grammys history, not to mention becoming a billionaire in the process. But along the way, Taylor has had to wage war, first by taking on a very powerful, very famous manager, Scooter Braun, and then by going up against the biggest live events company, Ticketmaster. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's show, Business Wars. We go deep into some of the biggest corporate rivalries of all time. And in our latest season, Taylor Swift will shake up not only the music business, but Hollywood and the NFL.
Starting point is 00:33:07 Follow Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. He's sent to the Lyman School for Boys. It's known to be a tough place. It's built in 1886. It's the oldest reformatory. It's built on the grounds of the State Reform School, which was the oldest reformatory in the United States. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 00:33:29 It's on a it's on like a thousand acres of farmland, which is maintained by the inmates. The children. Oh, Jesus. God, they have children. Abuse has happened here for. Oh, think about it back then, too. Oh, man. Hundreds of years.
Starting point is 00:33:42 Holy shit. Brutal. Yeah. If you've ever read the carl pansram book this is the the fucking beginning this is how these these reform schools yeah well lucky for him he's a big guy who can defend himself but if you're a small guy like he was back then pansram you get beat up and you get fucking raped by everybody and beat by everybody and all that sort of thing so it's known yeah it's known to – oh, Albert DeSalvo went here.
Starting point is 00:34:09 No kidding. Yeah, the Boston Strangler. So he went here as well. So it's got quite the lineage. It's got quite the lineage here. Would you dare call that tradition? Our tradition dates back to the days of the Boston Strangler and also a man they called the Animal.
Starting point is 00:34:28 It's very nice. Stranglers and animals. We've had it all. Sounds like a wrestling school. The Strangler and the Animal are from there? Oh, shit. Wow. They really teach you how to go, I bet.
Starting point is 00:34:41 Yeah. I mean, you're ready to work. You're ready to work when you come out of there. I'm in. Yeah. It's like Calgary. It's like stew hart trainage or something you're ready to fucking rock and roll when you're done there baby holy shit so um they were a lot a lot of discipline they also had carpentry and masonry and plumbing and they taught kids trades but it was a lot of discipline too that's that was the main part of this uh huge giant beatings were handed out all the time um weapons belts pick handles what axe handles things of that nature yeah kids were beaten with discipline children implements
Starting point is 00:35:19 yeah um even small things minor infractions they would be taken to the Oak Cottage, which is the disciplinary cottage. That sounds horrible. Yeah, it sounds like whatever they have in Scientology, that one place. This is where they're taking it. It's the same thing. And they were given what was known, they might have invented this term, as, quote, attitude adjustments. That's what they'd call them. Take you out the Oak Cottage?
Starting point is 00:35:42 It's just the same thing as woodshed. That's what it is. That's what it's saying. Instead of behind it, you'd go into it. Take you out the oak cottage? It's just the same thing as woodshed. That's what it is. That's what he's saying. Instead of behind it, you go into it. Barbossa received a lot of beatings because he's a real hard-headed kid, and it doesn't hurt him that bad. He's real good at taking a beating, so it's one of those things where he's like,
Starting point is 00:35:58 I could take a beating. Sure, why not? He's not afraid. His father's been beating the shit out of him since he's a kid. His father's a professional boxer. These fucking teachers aren't going to have anything more on him. Is that all you got? Yeah, that's kind of what it is. They would beat the shit out of him.
Starting point is 00:36:11 So they had to find new ways to break some of these kids who were strong-minded and also came from environments worse than they live in now in this place. So they came up with something called the hot foot. in this place so they had they came up with something called the hot foot the hot foot where is they would um beat the kids uh the arch of their feet beat their feet they'd beat the arches of their feet so they couldn't walk essentially yeah uh it's fucking horrible here now there's no walls or fences or anything in this place just farmland it's basically the fear of if you get away and get caught you're gonna have then what yeah yeah who god knows what a tease what the hot butthole is gonna come next and that's that's a worse one nobody wants that so um crotch sounds horrible
Starting point is 00:36:57 yeah the hot crotch sounds bad the hot taint nobody wants that nobody wants the hot taint so the kids that did escape were apparently they all said never seen or heard from again so they were probably caught and sent somewhere worse to a jail i assume but the kids basically the rumors were that uh the runaways were killed and their bodies were buried in a nearby swamp which is is probably not true. Like I said, they probably were sent to a jail at that point, but the teachers would encourage these rumors to go around. Yeah. A little Frankie disappeared. Who knows what happened to him?
Starting point is 00:37:32 I hear he's out by the swamp. You don't want to be bad, do you? So it was, it was, um, you know, it was scary,
Starting point is 00:37:39 but do you think that that derailed the animals? Fucking he's the animal. He said, I'm going to run away, I think. He walked away one day and spent two weeks on the run. Two weeks. Two weeks. I guess every day the cops would come to his parents' house, and they thought they were hiding him. And they were like, we don't know where the fuck he is.
Starting point is 00:38:01 The last place he would come is here, probably. We take shit care of him. We find the bastard and keep us posted. Keep us posted and tell him i said he's a little bastard by the way make sure you say make sure i told him you said that all right good so um they didn't know either he the family it was the first they heard he escaped was from the cops they were like oh he escaped wow weird so one night he showed up at his parents' house, and he had an engineer's hat on. Like from the train. Yeah, like, you know, Steve Martin and the jerk there.
Starting point is 00:38:31 Right. My engineer Fred hat. And they said, where the fuck have you been for two weeks? The cops are here every day. He said, I found work selling vegetables from a cart on the street, so I'm good now. They were like, what the fuck? So they didn't call the cops but they drove him back to the school the next day really yeah joe senior and his mom handed joe over and
Starting point is 00:38:54 said you know here's joe jr he's promised he's never going to escape again i told him i'm going to fucking level him if he escapes again this this little bastard. So go on, you little bastard. Get in there. We found the bastard, Joe the Bastard Barboza. And they just drove away. And Joe was, of course, taken into the cottage and beaten and all that sort of thing. While he's there, though, he picks up boxing that's not just beating kids in a schoolyard. It's actual with gloves on and training a little bit.
Starting point is 00:39:27 And he was really, really good at it. And they were like, Jesus Christ, this fucking kid. He's the last kid they wanted to be good at boxing. Right. What have we done? Yeah. So they were pissed off. So they put him in the ring with an older kid.
Starting point is 00:39:40 And they were like, here, this kid will beat him up and he won't want to do it anymore. Good. So they put him in there. Joe beat the living shit out of this kid. Like, the kid had to be taken to the medical center. He was fucking. Yeah. He was really, like, he pummeled this kid terribly.
Starting point is 00:39:54 Joe's a mean, tough son of a bitch. He's just one of these guys. So, yeah, the coach ended up, I guess he ended up saying something wise ass to the coach after that like yeah who else you got you know what the fuck i'll take them to so he went into the um he went into the locker room and i guess the coach followed him into the locker room and just punched him gave him like attacked him from behind and beat the living shit out of him in the locker room sucker punched him bare-fisted sucker punched him and just pummeled him an adult beat up a child like that so um somehow i guess he ended up getting word to his family that this happened
Starting point is 00:40:32 the beatings in the cottage were one thing but this was a cheap shot you know what i mean so somehow i don't know why but joe senior who is a terrible man to his family does all this shit only he's allowed to beat the shit out of his family, though. That's the thing that they're going to find out right now. That's what it is. You don't beat my kids. I beat those little bastards, you motherfuckers. So Joe Sr. got in his car and fucking peeled out of the driveway going down there to beat the living shit out of the teachers at the school.
Starting point is 00:41:02 In front of the children children he challenged the coach and several other administrators standing by to fight i'll kick all your asses and um all that sort of thing so he they didn't want any part of it and they found a way to get him out of there without anybody being injured but uh basically joe said this was the only time that he was actually felt like his dad protected him and had his back and did anything for him in his whole life. If there is a time for him to be a great father, he really showed up. It is, but it's also only when violence is needed. That's the thing.
Starting point is 00:41:35 Still, he didn't guide him in something. He said if you have a problem, what you do, you have to overcome it with more violence. That's what he said. And Joe was like, oh, I get it. I get it now. If they beat you, you beat them worse. Okay. I get it now.
Starting point is 00:41:49 Had you been a great father before this incident, maybe I wouldn't have been here at all. That's it. So he gets in tons of fights. He'll say he was involved in more than 100 brawls while he was at Lyman here, saying he was constantly beating people up. So he gets out of the Lyman school, goes back to New Bedford, and he's trying to, he's still got to, you know, still got to make some money.
Starting point is 00:42:15 That's what he's trying to do here. So they had such little money at home that mom would sometimes bring home scraps from the hospital cafeteria that were left over for them to eat. That's what they ate. God, that food's not good when it's new. That's what I mean, especially imagine back then.
Starting point is 00:42:30 But it was like, holy shit. Donald had to quit school at 16 before he graduated so he could help the family out and get a job and everything like that. He got a job as a welder's apprentice in a shipyard in Providence, and he would hand over a bunch of his paycheck to his father, thinking that his father would support the family, but most of the time his father would pocket it and then go bang some other women. But he would take his money, definitely.
Starting point is 00:42:57 So Joe didn't want to do that, though. Joe and his gang would start robbing houses. Apparently, over a short period of time they robbed 16 houses in the new bedford area over just a couple of days wow stealing everything in there and um yeah he loved it at one point he even went he did it as revenge a shop teacher insulted him because he was shitty at woodworking he was taking a class in school. So Joe broke into his house and destroyed the place, basically. You thought that was a terrible jewelry box? Watch this.
Starting point is 00:43:34 Watch me destroy your whole house. Now, this is from that book I told you about. Quote, when police spoke to reporters about the incident, they said that the robbers had left a cream pie dripping from the wall. Of course, the press seized on this unique news nugget and dubbed the guy the gang the cream pie bandits so that's what they called them the real version though the cops actually didn't tell the reporters was that because nobody's going to say this in the papers back then they didn't fucking put cream pies on the wall they shit all over the walls they smeared shit all over the walls
Starting point is 00:44:05 as if cream pie wasn't gross enough wasn't gross enough no they they took shits and smeared it all over the walls like they were like losing their minds in solitary confinement or something gross so they destroyed this man's house and shit it up his walls defiled it that's defiling a house yeah so on new year's eve 1949 joe barboza is arrested for all these break-ins um he is called the leader of the cream pie bandits which sounds really hilarious that cream pie bandits is really dressing up what they did yeah just busting a house up and shitting all over it is really something man that's less of a cream pie what would i've ever heard what if the cops told the reporters the truth what would they have called them you know what i mean would have been
Starting point is 00:44:55 even better i would have chocolate cream pies i don't know chocolate cream pie today the cream pie bandits are way worse oh yeah yeah they're really dangerous coming on everything they're really dangerous whole lot of jizz and a whole little amount of time i got more jizz than time my friend it's time to get busting so if something was called cream pie on a porn site and you clicked it and it was just them rubbing shit everywhere you'd never be attracted to that porn ever again you'd never trust any porn again you could never trust porn has to have a very honest relationship with you where it has to tell you exactly what's in it because no one wants to be surprised sexually that's the thing no by the time you're doing
Starting point is 00:45:42 that you know what you like so you're not like oh oh you know what i didn't think i would like poop but actually i do that doesn't happen either you like that or you don't so it has to be very specific that's a horrible surprise when you hear cream pie and there's just shit on the wall nobody wants that oh god so he's 17 at this point and uh he's too old for the lyman school you can't send him, and he's too old for the Lyman School. You can't send him there, but he's too young for state prison as well. Okay. So what do you do?
Starting point is 00:46:10 They give him, you, young man, may fuck off five years and one day in the Massachusetts Reformatory in Concord, which I guess is like juvie jail. Yeah. This one is a real shithole. It's opened in 1884, so it's already old as shit. And it's been established as a, basically it's where people, guys under 30 criminals under 30 can unit,
Starting point is 00:46:36 you can learn a trade. It's people that, you know, we're going to get out again, no life sentences or anything. So it's trying to teach them something. So, um,
Starting point is 00:46:45 uh, Malcolm X went here. No kidding. Yeah. He was was he was here as well when he got caught selling drugs back in the day so he was first um at first barboza was put to work in the uh weaving mill okay imagine him weaving but yeah yeah he i don't know what the fuck he's weaving. He has to be transferred to the cafeteria because he wanted to learn to be a cook, wanted to learn how to cook. So he lasts a couple days there because in the kitchen is and this happens a lot. A lot of times inmates with power run the kitchens because you control the food. So that's a lot of control that you can have. So that's how that works. So in the kitchen is an inmate who pretty much is
Starting point is 00:47:25 the you know he's the guy nobody fucks with in here he's kind of the boss well joe breaks his face with one punch they get in an argument yeah this guy tries to strong arm joe and joe's not having it he fucking absolutely levels this guy uh broke his jaw in a couple different places and gets tossed into solitary confinement. Then he gets put in the boiler room when he gets out of there where he's assigned to shovel coal all day. Oh. Into the boiler. Now, they're trying to break him, but he loved it because, number one, everybody knew not to fuck with him now.
Starting point is 00:48:04 And number two, he gets super strong from shoveling coal all day. Yeah. He gave the man the weight room. That's what they did. He loves it. He thinks it's fucking great. He loves it. He can't wait to shovel coal because then he's even stronger.
Starting point is 00:48:14 He's kicking ass. So either way, he gets sent over to the Norfolk prison colony here at the time. This is about a year in. Norfolk prison colony here at the time. This is about a year in. And when he's there, there's a boxing ring there, and he can continue to learn to box. So that's what he does. He said he wanted to be better than his father at boxing.
Starting point is 00:48:37 So, yeah, there was that. He hated his father at the time, too. He's training as a middleweight here, and he's beating the shit out of a lot of people. I mean, there's older people, bigger people, more experienced people, and he's beating them a lot. He's getting the spar. He's getting to work out. He's jumping rope. He's doing all that kind of shit.
Starting point is 00:48:56 He's still bored, though. Yeah. Still pretty bored in there. You know what I mean? You know how it goes. It's kind of boring in jail. It's not easy. Yeah, you can train, and then what do you do you sit there all day it's not like he's got like you know kids he's got a
Starting point is 00:49:08 wrangle or anything like that so he tries to find some drugs to do now this was a time period when basically there's a lot of heroin going around so this isn't meth this is like heroin so yeah they don't mind the jail generally is kind of lax on heroin because it's kind of an they're supposed to bust it but it's kind of an unspoken thing that if guys are high on heroin you know what they're not doing causing trouble right yeah they're pretty calm they'd rather you be on the nod on your bunk than fucking you know trying to stab one of the guards or something so right with a fucking sharpened piece of spoon. So they pretty much look the other way when it comes to drugs.
Starting point is 00:49:49 Wow. And it works that way with everybody except for Barbosa. It has the opposite effect on him. He does drugs. He turns into a fucking maniac. Really? He likes to sniff paint and sniff thinner and shit like that. Paint thinner is his big thing.
Starting point is 00:50:05 Yeah, paint thinner will give you a buzz. mean obviously it's fucking that destroys your fucking brain oh terrible for you so anyway one night what he would do is he'd sniff paint and he'd turn into a psycho it was like he was doing fucking dust and meth at the same time that was the way it happened to him so it's almost as if your brain cells are dying and and struggling to live and fighting each other right punching each other so one night he sniffed a bunch of paint thinner and then just whipped up a prison revolt he just really yeah he whips up a prison revolt and challenges the guards to fight him. So, okay, he waited in his cell, so there's a narrow entry point, and said, come on, motherfuckers, come get me.
Starting point is 00:50:52 Okay. So they'd send a few guards in, and he's dropping guards as they come through the door, left and right. He knows how to box now, too, so he's just fucking walloping these guys. He's very efficient now in his punches, so he's dropping one with one punch one with another punch and he's set up an area where yeah he's got the advantage
Starting point is 00:51:10 because he's like 300 yeah they're pushing through and he's you know hitting one hitting the other he's beating these guys asses dropping persians just dropping them man so and as he's doing it too he's fucking screaming at the other, calling their mothers cunts and their fucking wives. Your wife's a fat pig and I'll fuck your girlfriend. And yeah, he's losing his mind and they keep coming and he keeps fucking bashing him. So after he beats the shit out of a few of them, they just stop coming. Yeah. And they're like, well, if he stays in there and we stay out here, eventually he'll come down and he'll probably chill the fuck out. So about two hours go by of him just shouting insults and challenging them to come in and all this sort of thing. And then his buzz wore off. He's over it. Where am I? He was like, all right, I give up and let him handcuff him as he was smiling and everything just was like, OK, sorry about that.
Starting point is 00:52:06 Just had a. I got to be honest. I'm fucking rooting for the guy. He's nuts, right? He's awesome. He's crazy. The prison administrators called him beyond rehabilitation at that point. And he was transferred to Concord to serve out the remainder of his sentence.
Starting point is 00:52:21 And he continues his boxing. He's also lifting weights and getting stronger um it's you know frightening he becomes a he'll be a light a middleweight and a light heavyweight later on so in that in that range um he is a big fucking guy uh one guy he he ends up beating uh he becomes the prison boxing champion he beats a guy named Walter Rocky Stone, which if you're an old Jason Fuller will know this. We'll say that again. You've got to be a very specific wrestling fan. But there is an old jobber in WWF and Christ.
Starting point is 00:52:58 He was an AWA and NWA named Rocky Stone at the time. Not the same guy, I don't think. But he'd have been a lot younger the wrestler but either way um he would constantly fucking i guess he got along better with the jailers at concord he wouldn't at norfolk all he would do was was taunt them and try to get them to fight him so from new hampshire we get it it's conquered just leave james alone yeah i don't care don't fuck with him i don't. You ever heard of Concord grape? Look, it's your own fucking fault.
Starting point is 00:53:27 Yeah. Well, just because you say Concord because you got that fucking accent doesn't mean that's how you say it. You have an accent. And in New York, water has an R. But you wouldn't know that by going to New York. Sorry. Anybody that says they're regional shit, I go, when you come to New York and say water, should I go, you know, there's no R at the end of water here no because then i'm an asshole so flip that back on yourself let's take your concord ball it up real tight cram it up your ass don't care i'd raise one leg that's it don't give
Starting point is 00:53:57 a fuck what you think about that yeah don't care so he goes back to concord go on he goes there and he figures out that if you make friends with the guards, you can get them to do things for you, like sneak in drugs and booze and food and do all that kind of shit. He figures out how craft works here, basically. And he also had guys sneaking him in knives that he would sell to the other inmates. So he had a whole thing going on here. He loved a good prison riot, though. That's the one thing. He loved a good prison riot, though. That's the one thing. He loved a good prison riot.
Starting point is 00:54:27 He's involved in a couple of them, gets tossed in the solitary for 30 days at one point, everything like that. When he gets out of solitary, they send him to a prison farm where he'll be isolated from the rest of the prison population. Kind of sent him to go farm alone. Go farm by yourself he said he'd swim in a water reservoir that was nearby out there he'd have a good old time he'd steal chickens from the hen house and fry them up in the kitchen uh the prison kitchen so he's plucking and make wow oh yeah yeah figuring all that sort of thing. He found they basically, the warden said that he would help get time shaved off his sentence if he would decide, if Joe, he said, I'll make a deal with you, Joe. I'll help you get out of here earlier if you stop causing trouble.
Starting point is 00:55:17 Deal? So Joe said, sure. And then, of course, he didn't do it, clearly. One night, he was drinking a bunch of booze in the boiler room with the other guys and when they're drunk he convinces them to escape let's escape let's escape all right so they overpower some guards tie them up and steal a car and escape the jail uh so they drive around they they're heading for boston basically um they're driving around they're shit-faced you know whooping it up their car breaks down their stolen car of course
Starting point is 00:55:52 it does so they abandon it and steal another car uh joe punched the driver and yanked him out and then they just took the car that's not stealing that's car jack that's car jacking yeah that's what that is 40s or 50s carjacking. Unarmed carjacking. He just punched a guy. Pow, get out of the car. So he ends up being picked up in Revere the next day. And there you go.
Starting point is 00:56:15 While they take him in, they arrest him, take him in. He's getting processed. As they're processing him, he's got to take his mugshot. He knocks the photographer out who is trying to take his mugshot. I've lost all respect for him. He's got to take his mugshot. He knocks the photographer out who is trying to take his mugshot. Now I've lost all respect. He's fucking crazy. This will go on his whole life. Even when he's in court, reporters try to take pictures of him.
Starting point is 00:56:34 He threatens to kill them. He doesn't ever want his picture taken. What's the deal with that? He's a very, very weird man. So he's brought back to Concord um placed into solitary confinement again um yeah uh one of the guards that he tied up during his escape paid him a visit here and the guard was embarrassed and he said fuck you for making me look like an asshole and all this type of thing and you motherfucker you made me look like a jerk so meanwhile he went in this is in his cell like he went into
Starting point is 00:57:06 his cell he's talking shit so jesus christ there's a wooden table in the room barboza grabs the table by the leg and swings the whole table at him oh my god and just beats him with a table holding it by the leg just beats him and beats him and beats him the whole table um right in the head the guards six guards had to you know took six guards to subdue him and all that sort of thing so um yeah he's sent to the charlestown charleston prison state prison just outside of boston at that point and he's sentenced to 10 to 12 years now new sentence you could have just done it easy time and conquered now you're gonna go to the fucking prison man now he's going to prison this is uh terrible damp dark shithole
Starting point is 00:57:51 no plumbing um also there's a nearby railroad yard that coal dust blows from constantly making it really hard to breathe in there you're're always breathing. It's like working in a coal mine, living there. Real shithole. Time Magazine once called it a verminous pest hole unfit for human habitation. Verminous is your lead word? Verminous. That's the first thing. It's basically more vermin than building. It has a pulse, and then the building's kind of around the verminous that's the first thing it's basically it's more it's more vermin than building it has
Starting point is 00:58:26 a pulse so then the building's kind of around the vermin that is fucking oh fuck um he's known to be very cunning and manipulative he can get people to do things as he can keep getting people to do prison revolts here that's the thing about prison and the reformatory system is that's what it fosters that behavior. It does. Because you have to. You have to be cunning to get anything to make your life better there. That's what you've got to do. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:58:55 Here he talks to a prison psychiatrist. And the prison psychiatrist said that he has the power of persuasion, does Joe. He can persuade people to do just about anything he said quote his features make him look less bright than he actually is which is true he looks like a he looks like a big dumb guinea i know he's portuguese but he looks like everybody thinks he's italian too he looks like a big dumb guinea that's what he looks like he looks like the guy who you'd have standing by you close by and go just watch the door make sure no one comes through and they go okay and they'd stand there that's what he looks like watch the car you got it both you got it boss but that that is very dangerous because people
Starting point is 00:59:34 think he's dumb and they treat him like he's dumb and he ain't fucking dumb at all so he's a he's a you know a crocodile waiting so um he said he uh the psychiatrist wrote, his IQ is of the order of 90 to 100, which is in the average range. And he has the intellectual ability to do well in a moderately skilled profession. The psychiatrist also wrote that he had a, quote,
Starting point is 00:59:58 sociopathic personality disturbance and that there's a great possibility for further antisocial behavior in the future. Boy, more correct could a person never ever be in an assessment like talk about predicting the future imagine if he never huffed gas james he probably would be so much smarter probably yeah it'd be a lot smarter he's still crafty though and very street smart and shit like that but holy shit man that is um anti-social behavior does we'll find out later on that this is his fbi statistic i'll give it to you now
Starting point is 01:00:31 the fbi has him for 26 murders so would you call that anti-social you think very much so i think yeah killing the a quarter of the population of the last town we did on small town murders. Probably probably antisocial, I would say here. Yeah. And that's just what they're pretty sure about. That's not what may have happened. So that's a prisoner a prisoner revolt again that he's right in the middle of there's an 82 hour standoff with authorities which was the second longest standoff in u.s history at the time it happened four days that's a long time yeah that's almost four days um so barboza here though he wasn't in the middle of it middle of it he was just you know kind of off to the side of it he wasn't one of the organizers or anything so um this was four armed prisoners held six fellow inmates and five guards hostage in uh this whole thing um anyway later on there's reform to this prison and all sorts of shit like that and they you know knocked it down and they built another prison and this was part of it. So he wants to get out, though, once he's there.
Starting point is 01:01:47 During an inmate evaluation prior to his appearance before the parole board, a psychiatrist said this, quote, he's a 26-year-old man serving a 10 to 12-year sentence for a series of offenses occurring on and after an escape from Concord in 1954. A review of his record reveals that he has a difficulty with the law since the age of 10. Oh, my. And has either been at Lyman School or in correctional institutions since then. His behavior has been poor. He has a sixth grade education. Wow. 26 years old.
Starting point is 01:02:22 However, he has conformed better since 1956. During the present interview, he is pleasant, answers questions relevantly and coherently, and is in good contact and shows no evidence of mental disease. He states that he has learned a few things and that he's grown up and realizes that his previous behavior was childish. I don't think I'd call what he's been doing childish. Challenging guards to come get some as you knock them out one at a time. That's not childish. That's pretty, it's maybe immature, but not childish. So in June of 1958, he is released from prison on parole.
Starting point is 01:03:02 Really? Yep. Donald picks him up from jail. Yep, his brother drives him back to New Bedford here. And now Joe, though, has a girlfriend at this point, a woman named Philomena Termini. Oh. Yeah, Philomena, Faye she goes by, is 16 years older than Joe. Older?
Starting point is 01:03:24 16 years older than Joe. older 16 years older than joe she's the hell is she's 40 it's up she's 42 years old he's 26 um she's divorced has four children she knows how to she owns some property in east boston but not a lot to be she's not wealthy or anything like that um they she said he just said that they she'd been writing him in prison she would never say in East Boston, but not a lot to be. She's not wealthy or anything like that. He just said that she'd been writing him in prison. He'd never say how he met her. But the important thing, he doesn't care that she's older, has four kids, whatever, none of that matters to him because she has one very important quality that he's interested in.
Starting point is 01:04:01 Do you know what that is, Jimmy? Her brother is in the mob she's sicilian not even that she is sicilian and he knew that the mafia doesn't induct people if they're not italian yeah so he's portuguese and he's trying to figure it out um he said maybe um he could get a loophole going where if he marries a Sicilian chick, they can fucking kind of loophole him into the mafia. Take her last name and then it looks like he's. Not even take her last name, but Barbosa's an Italian name too. That's fine.
Starting point is 01:04:33 Yeah, that could be Italian. So they're like, no one will care. Maybe they'll just say, oh, it's close enough. And he married a Sicilian girl. It's okay. Here's the thing, James. I don't know a lot about them all but what i do know about them is they don't like being bamboozled and lied to no no no he doesn't want to lie he
Starting point is 01:04:51 tells him who he is but he he thinks that if he marries a sicilian girl they'll go close enough yeah but appropriate no that's not how it works they don't like that either no that's the whole thing here. So the wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience. Quickly, I see that. The queen of the courtroom is back. I didn't do anything.
Starting point is 01:05:18 You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases. She wanted to fight me. Leave her alone. Okay, so, um... This is not a so.
Starting point is 01:05:34 This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother. That's not him. Yes, ma'am.
Starting point is 01:05:44 I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all new season. It's streaming. You can say anything. Judy Justice.
Starting point is 01:05:59 Only on Freebie. And it's so stupid too because that's a big thing. He feels his Portuguese-ness is another issue with him in his life because all the people he runs with are Italians. It's mostly Italians in this neighborhood. So he always said he feels like an outsider because he's not Italian because he's Portuguese. And they treat him differently because he's Portuguese and all this type of shit, which is the stupidest thing ever because it's all right there. Yeah. You know how close Portugal and Italy are?
Starting point is 01:06:30 They're pretty fucking close. They're close. It goes, Italy goes down like this. Yeah. And then next to it is that peninsula that comes down. That's Spain and Portugal. They're right fucking next to each other. Oh, Portugal's over there.
Starting point is 01:06:41 Yeah. Portugal's in the same peninsula as Spain. Spain's the east side of it. Portugal's the northwest side of it. That's European, huh? Yeah. That's over there. Yeah, Portugal's in the same peninsula as Spain. Spain's the east side of it. Portugal's the northwest side of it. That's European, huh? Yeah, that's southern European. It's four inches from Tunisia and fucking Libya and all that shit up there. I'm not going to tell you where I thought it was.
Starting point is 01:06:53 We're going to move the fuck on. Yeah. But it's all the same. Like, on both sides of my family, when both of my parents did their DNA stuff and all that kind of stuff, that's half of our DNA is Iberian Peninsula, which is Portugal, Spain. Yeah. It's Italy and it's Portugal, Spain. That that fucking the western part of the of that peninsula.
Starting point is 01:07:15 So it's like most of us probably have a lot of that all mixed together because they're so close. People were probably fucking each other back then and causing kids. Yeah. You know, so I mean, there was conquering back and and forth there's a lot of shit mixed together down there relax water separating you it's not that big of a deal just relax that's why when you have an italian kid you never know what's going to come out blonde hair blue eyes fucking afro who knows you never know what you're getting it doesn't it could be anything so that's why so either way boy do they really embrace the the whole different places on the boot you know what i mean oh yeah
Starting point is 01:07:50 yeah boy do they love that that is uh people do that here for christ's sake without without a thousand years of history behind it just because my grandpappy fought for the whoever the fuck i don't know right so you know this is this is. It goes for history. And, yeah, there's a big deal with northern Italians are kind of, I guess, snobbish toward these southern Italians. That's how it works. So, yeah, that's how it always is. It's back to the old country. It's a big deal. It's it.
Starting point is 01:08:16 So it's a big deal. It's real greaseball shit. So good fellas for you. Yeah. So he gets out of prison. He works briefly on the docks, which is like his job, his prison job, where he unloads fishing boats. Yeah. My God.
Starting point is 01:08:31 He didn't like it, though, obviously. So he quit his job, packed up his shit, and he decides to go live with Faye in Boston. Okay. So that's what he's going to do. He wants to be a prize fighter. That's what he's going to do here. He's like, I beat the shit out of everybody I fought in prison. I. So that's what he's going to do. He wants to be a prize fighter. That's what he's going to do here. He's like, I beat the shit out of everybody I fought in prison. I'm the champ. I beat up all the guards. I can fucking do this
Starting point is 01:08:52 basically. I'm going to do this. He finds a gym on Hawthorne Street in Chelsea and gets a boxing manager named Johnny Dunn to take him on. He said that he didn't seem like too much of a prospect he's older guy to start boxing and whatever but he he seemed pretty tough so he said what the hell i'll give
Starting point is 01:09:10 him i'll give it a shot here so uh we'll talk about his first few boxing fights here uh he's paid 30 for these fights that he's going to do 30 bucks here um this is the 50s though this is the 1958 so 30 bucks it's it's not too terrible here um but he had a he's trying to also support his uh now he married faye so he's got a new wife he's got her four kids he's trying to support yeah um he couldn't find a decent job he said he couldn't get anybody to hire him because he's been in jail since he was 13 essentially so um he told his brother no one's gonna hire me because of my past it means since he was 13 essentially so um he told his brother no one's gonna hire me because of my past it means i gotta do the only thing i know how to do so he steps into the boxing ring and he by the way his nickname in the ring is the baron that's what
Starting point is 01:09:57 he goes by the baron joe the baron barboza okay okay yeah i don't know barboza yeah the baron so august 7th 1958 is his first fight it's at glover's bowl in north adams massachusetts he fights frank harold and this is frank's only pro fight so you can imagine how it went for frank yeah frank gets knocked out in round three and it's a one and0 record for old Joe. August 14, 1958, Fall River Stadium in Fall River, Massachusetts. He fights Lee Williams, who is 4-6 coming into this fight. He'll finish his career 6-20, by the way. Is that right?
Starting point is 01:10:37 This guy. I looked up his record. He won his first four fights. So he was 4-0, and then he went two and twenty for the rest of his career what the fuck happened bro that's disappointing that wasn't even taped for them to study to know what to do just i don't know you keep losing now what were you doing in those first four fights that you're not doing now do that again don't get hit as much and when you don't get hit then punch them more that's how we're gonna win this and we're gonna hit them more than they hit
Starting point is 01:11:12 you that's i think that'll work probably most of the time winning strategy winning strategy with lee williams uh joe wins this in a unanimous decision in four rounds so he's two and oh next up august 26th so he's just fighting every week the 7th the 14 in four rounds so he's two and oh next up august 26 so he's just fighting every week the 7th the 14th um and then he's fighting the 26th in 1958 glover's bowl this is a light heavyweight contest here against jimmy montz uh jimmy montz is nine and three coming in so that's not bad he turns out 14 and seven for his career this goes all four rounds and joe loses on points oh no so it's 2-1 uh two and one he is now in his career that's his first three fights now while he's doing this fighting in the ring he's also fighting on the street he's starting to become known in kind of
Starting point is 01:12:00 the east boston's organized crime he's starting to be, people know who he is. He's a regular at certain bars. They know what he's up to here. There's one corner, Bennington Street and Brook Street, and it became known as Barbosa's Corner. That's where him and all his buddies hung out there. He had just burglars and thieves and a small-time little hood group.
Starting point is 01:12:24 I can read off their names here. Joseph Amico, Patrick Fabiano, James Kearns, Arthur Bratzos, Thomas DiPrisco, a father and son team, Joseph and Ronald Dermotti, Carlton Eaton, Edward Goss and Nicholas Femia. And then also the Patriarcha crime family here. They're basically, if you're operating like this, even if you're a small-time group of hoods here, and you're operating in a mob-run city like Boston, you better get permission to do whatever you're doing. Or else you're not going to do it very fucking long because you're going to shake down the wrong person and then they're going to kill you. You're going to disappear, yeah.
Starting point is 01:13:06 So basically, they're kind of a known entity and they're being overseen just kind of making sure they don't fuck up by a guy named Stephen Flemmy who is known as the Rifleman. Do I know that? I think I know that name. F-L-E-M-M-I.
Starting point is 01:13:21 I think I do. No, they call him the Rifleman. So you don't want to piss off the rifleman probably that sounds so familiar what i don't know if he's a mob guy from back he's a random mob guy he wasn't a very popular guy not a guy you would have guy i doubt it's a guy you would have heard of but maybe you could have seen a movie that maybe you know what i mean that's just the right that that's possible um so joe. So Joe didn't tell his brother really what was going on here. Didn't want to frighten him.
Starting point is 01:13:51 His brother's a straight guy. So he's arrested, though. Within three months, he's arrested for breaking into a house or trying to break into a house. The cops are arresting him. He's saying, I didn't do nothing. I didn't do nothing. But then they found a ton of burglary tools in his possession. So they're like, well, you were trying to do something.
Starting point is 01:14:09 He has given you, sir, may fuck off a three to five year sentence back at Walpole now. Walpole. Which is the new prison they built to take down the old prison, the verminous pest hole. Oh, so he was at Walpole for a little bit before then. Yeah, when they transferred it here he had recently applied for a boxing license through the Massachusetts State Boxing Commission but then he got to jail and he couldn't
Starting point is 01:14:31 fucking get it again now so once in prison the warden offered him a deal basically tell you what I'll give you easy work outside the prison walls if you don't cause me trouble. Basically, I'll make your life easy if you don't make my life hell.
Starting point is 01:14:49 Have you heard about the deal they offered me in Conker? Yeah, I didn't do that. I escaped. Do you understand? He said, okay, I can do that. Yeah, sure. So the warden's like, okay, we have a deal. You're not going to fuck around in here.
Starting point is 01:15:02 You're not going to embarrass me or any of that. But within like three weeks, he attacked another inmate while they were working in the prison cafeteria. Yeah, this guy, I guess, gave him a bunch of fucking line of bullshit and told him to go fuck himself. So he knocked him out cold. And there's a guy named Eddie Kilroy or Kilrow. And Eddie Kilrow gets knocked out cold the another inmate comes over with a bucket of water and pours it on him and it didn't do anything oh my god so we think he's dead so yeah the inmate goes he looks dead and uh the guards pick him up he's unconscious
Starting point is 01:15:38 they load him onto a stretcher he's given a spinal tap he couldn't move his arms and legs he remained paralyzed for many days what until he finally came out of it and got feeling back to his arms and legs and apparently the effects of the severe concussion would go on his whole life he would basically yeah he beat him stupid he neurologically damaged this thing that was like the biggest sack ever. CTE in one sack. Fucked his ass up. But the warden kept his part of the deal. Well, he would let him work outside the prison walls here. And while he would do that, Joe would sneak into the woods and drive off for hours at a time with friends.
Starting point is 01:16:20 His friends would give him a sport coat to wear over his prison uniform. And then they they take him to restaurants he'd go he'd go where restaurants they'd go fishing swimming they've you know barbecues and shit here um yeah just mdoc down his back he's got a nice jacket a nice sport coat on here it's amazing what a sport coat could get you anywhere anything oh he's got a sport coat he's fine he's is that brill cream in his hair and a sport coat well i you anywhere anything oh he's got a sport coat he's fine is that brill cream in his hair and a sport coat well i mean what he's legit he could run for congress tomorrow right yeah that's fine he'll be seated now he's good yeah so he will be seated now that's an
Starting point is 01:16:56 inside joke everybody sorry about that but he'll be seated now with that sport coat he will be seated now so he always came back when he was supposed to come back, though. So the warden just didn't fucking care what he was doing. He was like, you're back on time. You didn't fuck off. You're not embarrassing me.
Starting point is 01:17:13 Great. So the warden's even giving him good reports of what he's doing. So he's going to get paroled again in 1960. And by the time he gets paroled, though, while he was out doing these things, he was building up a bookmaking loan sharking business on the outside. So he had a soft place to land. So he hooks up with another guy here, another Flemmy, Vincent, who Vincent, known as Jimmy the Bear Flemmy. It's got to be a family. It's got to be.
Starting point is 01:17:44 Yeah. I mean, they kept going for years and years and years. known as Jimmy the Bear Flemmi. It's got to be a family. It's got to be. Yeah, yeah, the Flemmi, yeah. I mean, they kept going for years and years and years. They've got to be part of something that's much bigger than I heard of. And Vincent, Italian guys named Vincent a lot of times go by Jimmy, which is very weird, too. Is that right? My stepmother's father was named Vincent and went by Jim. Why would you do that when Vinny is such a cool name?
Starting point is 01:18:05 I don't know. It's Vincent, and a lot of that's jimmy i don't know what it is i don't know how that they get i don't know vin goes to jim is that what it is no idea i don't know vincent is jimmy a lot of times it's really strange how do you get fucking how do you get jack from john i don't know yeah do i get to go by vinny then no you don't get to go by only works that way I know and if anybody's gonna go by Vinny I think it's me can you go by Vinny I don't think I can't fucking name it's not a good name if you're if you're Italian and you're named Vinny it's just you're fucked everyone's oh you're come on I can I can hide with my first name once they find out my last name the jig is up up. You know what I'm saying? Can't hide.
Starting point is 01:18:50 I love, I've always, Gus and Vin. I love them. Maybe we should just do that. I'll go by Gus. You know how many people in my family are named Vinny, Jimmy? Be a great point. What's one more then? A couple.
Starting point is 01:19:03 That's true. Throw another one in the mix here. I have at least one named Jim, so what's the difference? That's what I mean. Fine. My name's Vincent then. You don't know. Call me Jim.
Starting point is 01:19:13 Call me James. So he carries over his bookmaking business. He started off with a $2,000 loan from a boxing manager of his named Eddie Fisher. And then he ended up uh making that into about twenty five thousand dollars here um and at the same time eddie fisher while he's helping him with this he keeps barboza he needs a parole job so his parole job is an employee at scooter land which is a scooter sales showroom behind the hotel Statler. What are those, $8 for a scooter then? He's like, hey, come over here. What are you looking for, a fucking scooter, huh?
Starting point is 01:19:50 This one's a good one. What do you want, that one? I told you this one's a good one. You want me to come over there and break your fucking face? This is the good one, you fucking asshole. What kind of salesman is that? But as an Italian selling scooters, how fucking on the nose is that? I got a scooter for you.
Starting point is 01:20:07 Yeah, no shit. It's not a Vespa place, but yeah. So he worked there for nine months and was even promoted to assistant manager, even though he was only there about three times in nine months. He's still promoted to assistant manager. Employee of the month. Here he is. He's never there. Who's that guy? I've never seen him before. He showed up three days. Employee of the month. Here he is. He's never there. Who's that guy?
Starting point is 01:20:26 I've never seen him before. Don't worry about it. He's the employee of the month, all right? Don't fucking worry about nothing. How infrequent is anybody showing up if three days gets you a promotion? Well, this is a no-show parole job. So, yeah, this is a favor for a friend. So this makes it look now he can go to his parole officer.
Starting point is 01:20:43 He even got a promotion. And they're right. Joe is doing very well and is adjusting in the outside world. He's crushing it. It's good. Meanwhile, he's just running around with people,
Starting point is 01:20:53 fucking making scores, doing his deal here. He goes back to boxing, though, that year in 1960. December 20th, 1960, Boston Garden he's fighting. What? Home of the Celtics and everything.
Starting point is 01:21:05 Yeah, he fights Bob Jasmine, who is a 2-0 fighter coming in. He'll finish his career 6-1. Not bad. Yeah. This fight goes all four rounds, and it's a split decision loss for Joe. So he's 2-2. Next fight, January 14th, 1961, so just three weeks later. This is at, I don't know where it is.
Starting point is 01:21:26 The listing just says Arena, Boston. So some arena. This is a rematch against Bob Jasmine. So Christy fought him on December 20th, and they rematched on January 14th. See you after Christmas. I'll see you soon. Yeah, go tell the wife and kids I said, no, no, no. Take this for your mother. No, seriously no seriously take take it's a nice fruit basket
Starting point is 01:21:48 for your mother take that no i insist get the fuck out of harry and david i'll see yous after the holidays we'll come in here we'll break each other's fucking faces have a good one have a good one bob so um this time it goes all four again and this time it's a unanimous decision win for the animal. So three and two now. So he's sparring all over the place here. He ends up – this is fucking amazing. There's a guy named Cardell Farmos. He's bigger, stronger, faster, and more skilled than Barboza.
Starting point is 01:22:23 He's always – Better fighter. Better fighter. He's just better all around, and and more skilled than Barboza. He's always better fighter. He's just better all around, and they're sparring all the time, and he's always just fucking knocking the shit out of Joe in these sparring matches. So at one point, this is fucking amazing, he's in the last round of their sparring. He lost it and finally got pissed off. He jumps out of the ring before the round is over, Joe does, and runs toward the locker room.
Starting point is 01:22:47 A minute later, he comes out waving a pistol and chasing this Cardell Farmos around the gym. And fucking, you know, finally somebody, a guy named Joe DiNucci, came out and got Barbosa to calm down. Well, the other guy hid behind a heavy bag. That's not. Begging for mercy no gun play is no plays in boxing um next up march 21st 1961 at arena again he fights bob barden he's only fighting men named bob now he's from now on that's it only bobs i won't fight any jims or pauls or franks only a bob till i get to the one with the big boy. That's it.
Starting point is 01:23:28 Take it out on him for his fucking bad buffet. Finally, the leader of Bob. That fat fuck. That fat cherub-faced cocksucker. I'll get him. I'll find him. So Bob Barden's 0-0 coming in. First fight.
Starting point is 01:23:41 Debut. And his whole career he finishes 0-1. So it didn't go well for him. Yeah. First round knockout win for, for the animal here for four and two for Joe, April 22nd, 61, a month later at Boston garden.
Starting point is 01:23:54 Again, he fights Gordon Farnsworth. Who is five and six coming into the fight here. He's five and eight career. This goes all four rounds, unanimous decision win for the animal. He is and two may 23rd 1961 the next month he fights joe hill if ever a man could use a nickname it's joe hill yeah holy shit joe hill by the way is oh and two coming in he'll finish his career at 0-8.
Starting point is 01:24:26 Oh, my God. Maybe his nickname should have been Glass Joe, because I think that's who he is. That's who Tyson fucking, that's the punch out. He was modeled after this guy. Goes down easy. Goes down real easy, and it's a first round knockout. I wonder if his feet went as he fell down into the corner. First round knockout, 6-2 for the Animal here. June 5th, 1961, a month later at the arena again, he fights Sherman Dodds.
Starting point is 01:24:55 0-4 coming in. 0-6 career. Jesus God. He's figured it out. Don't fight anyone who's ever won a match before. That's his new strategy, and it's working splendidly for him. And continue that streak for them. Just keep doing that.
Starting point is 01:25:09 Yeah, keep fighting guys who can't beat others. This goes to the fifth round, though. It's a six-round fight, and it's a fifth-round knockout for Joe. So, seven and two here. Seven and two. Now, Jesus Christ. While celebrating this win, he is at the Peppermint Lounge in Boston. Okay.
Starting point is 01:25:29 He's got a couple of pals with him, brothers named Guy and Connie Frizzy. In the Northeast, there's a lot of guys named Connie, by the way. A lot of guys named Connie. You do not fuck with those men. A lot of dudes named connie so guy and connie frizzy get into a scuffle with a guy that spills out of the bar and out into the curb there so one of the frizzy brothers we don't know which one guy or connie stabs the man probably connie he's got more anger because you know yes so this guy um who he, he stabs this guy.
Starting point is 01:26:07 The guy pulls a gun out and starts firing it at him. Oh, shit. A stabbed man is now firing. He's now firing. Yeah, which is, I guess, a fair thing. You stab me, I'll try to shoot you. I guess that works. So fair gunplay.
Starting point is 01:26:18 He didn't take it out while they were in fisticuffs. That's good. So anyway, they all escape. The whole crew takes off. But the next day they find out that the victim who they stabbed and who shot at them was packing heat, not because he's a gangster, because they were like, who the fuck is that guy? We should know everybody who's got guns around here and isn't afraid to fire at us. Turns out he is both an ex-police officer. Yes, a decorated retired Boston police officer and a war hero as well. Oh, boy.
Starting point is 01:26:47 So newspapers are saying, oh, my God, the officer once said that he was stabbed while investigating loan sharking. Meanwhile, he was just hanging out at the bar. The article had a picture of him in his hospital bed with his wife standing by his side. I mean, they really holding a booklet of metal, a booklet of metals in one arm and with his wife standing by his side. I mean, they really. Holding a booklet of medals. A booklet of medals in one arm and their baby girl in another. You know what I mean? The folded flag on the decoration. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:27:15 So apparently Joe was looking at this in the newspaper and sees it, and he goes, Joe says to somebody else, he says, well, that wasn't the girl he was with at the Peppermint Lounge, I'll tell you that much. So at that point, he said, just as he got the words out, Boston police officers fucking are breaking his front door down. They got the whole street blocked off and everything like that. They bring him down to the police station where they grill him all night. Basically, they fucking question him all night.
Starting point is 01:27:43 They said several witnesses placed him at the scene of the crime. He said, I don't know what you're talking about, which is powerful words back then when there was no like video or sell stuff or text messages or DNA. You just go, I don't know what you're talking about. And they go, well, we were you. You wait right there, Buster. We're going to get somebody to identify you. We don't know what else to say. So they told him that.
Starting point is 01:28:09 I don't know what you're talking about. The cops, they treat him all right. They treat him with all the respect, he said, which was good. He said they knew they were boxing fans and they knew of him from boxing. So that's why they treated him with respect. But, you know, it's a stabbed cop here. So they said, we're going to take you down to the hospital where this cop is, and he's going to take a look at you, and he's going to tell us if you're one of the guys, right?
Starting point is 01:28:31 So they put him in a squad car. They drive him to the hospital. They take him past his room so the guy could take a look at him. And the cop recognized him. He knows Joe the animal here. So he asked Barbosa, Barbosa asked him, did you see me in the Peppermint Lounge? That's what he asked Barbosa. Like, you know, I know you know me.
Starting point is 01:28:56 And he said, yes, sir, but it wasn't with the girl standing outside the door right now. And the cop said, quote, this wasn't one of them. He's too big. Get him out of here. I don't know that guy. Don't know him. My wife's five feet away.
Starting point is 01:29:12 Never mind. They uncuffed him and left. He's going to fuck my life up. Let him go right from the hospital. Didn't even take him back to the station. Yeah, I seen you. I seen you. Not with her.
Starting point is 01:29:23 Oh, God. Not with that broad, though. July 26, 1961, Route 128 Motel in Dedham, Massachusetts. He fights Joe Pamanvanja. And he's 0-0 career coming in and 0-1 career total. So this is a first-round knockout for Joe. See, he's really got a good strategy. He's 8-2 now.
Starting point is 01:29:45 He's built his record up. Well, he figured out you have to build up your record before you make any money. Yeah. You have to have a respectable record. So September 23, 61, he fights again at Boston Garden this time. Pretty cool. Don Bale he fights. He's 11-9-2 coming in, 15-14-3 for his career. It's a six-round fight, and toward the end of the 6th
Starting point is 01:30:06 round Joe loses by TKO as the ref stops the fight. He got caught. So it's 8 and 3 is his record here. And that's it for boxing. That's his whole career. 8 and 3. Back to the mob. He just stopped. He gets busy with this
Starting point is 01:30:21 and starts making money in loan sharking and shit and just doesn't have time to boxing takes a lot of time. If you're going to be serious about it, you got to fucking run every morning. I do road work. You got to eat. You got to do all this shit practice. There is something pretty amazing about the East coast when you're,
Starting point is 01:30:36 especially in this time period where you can be ingrained in a, in a culture or ingrained in a, in a group of people that if you know this, the right people, you can do pretty like fighting in the garden is probably not something a lot of people, that if you know the right people, you can do pretty, like fighting in the garden is probably not something a lot of boxers get to do. You know what I mean? And he's going to do it a lot.
Starting point is 01:30:52 I think they had like Friday night fights, because they used to have that at Madison Square Garden too. Oh really? Okay. Friday night fights, and it would be a smaller thing, so they might have done that,
Starting point is 01:31:01 but it still sounds good. It's fucking impressive. It's the big arena, yeah. It's like your brother. Your brother gets to do some pretty fucking things. Like for a baby reveal, he gets to change the lights on a bridge. That's crazy to me. I was stunned.
Starting point is 01:31:14 I'm like, how Italian are you? A little bit. A little bit. How do you get to do that? And he's in a union, too. So, I mean, between that and the Italian, he's got all the connections. It's pretty incredible the ability and opportunities that you can have just by being ingrained in a in a community for a long period of time it helps yeah it doesn't hurt can't hurt
Starting point is 01:31:33 i think that's why they do it september so yeah that was september now may of 62 here we go may 1962 barboza and one of the uh i think it's guy frizzy he walks in with here one of the frizzy brothers they walk into alfonso's clam house okay okay it's very boston they're gonna check out a new lounge act they heard is good so they're gonna watch it right and the chowder and the of course the chowder so there's a what's described as a redheaded gangster who's a bookie in Boston. And he thinks he's hot shit, basically, this guy. And Barbosa and Frizzy take a table with their friend Skinny Spindale is his name. So I guess they look over at the bookie guy and Frizzy said, ah, fuck that guy.
Starting point is 01:32:23 Who the hell does he think he is, right? So apparently they think he said it loud enough for the bookie to overhear him. Oh, boy. So the bookie comes over and he's trying to act like this is his joint, basically. He comes over and tells Skinny Spindale to put out a cigarette. He says, we don't want to start no fire. That's what he tells him, right? Oh, boy.
Starting point is 01:32:41 So the animal, he steps in and tells the guy, guy look we don't want no trouble i'm not looking for trouble you want trouble you better go bother somebody else okay so the guy um at that point um guy frizzy gets up and they start jawing back and forth and then they start fighting each other the bookie and guy frizzy okay they're throwing dropping fucking bombs on each other punch punching it out okay barbosa said he stood stands by the side everybody says he's watching this because it's a fair fight you know they're fighting each other um then though he starts thinking shit i'm going to violate my parole here i can't be involved in a public melee here but you know he does um eventually he grabs a beer bottle, breaks it on the table, and then tries to stab the man in the back with the broken beer bottle. Why?
Starting point is 01:33:32 The guy's got, like, a sport coat on and shit, though, so it doesn't go too far in with a broken beer bottle. And it doesn't even stop the guy. The guy keeps fucking fighting because the adrenaline's going so much. You'd just think somebody punched you in the back. You wouldn't even feel it at that point. And a redheaded guy in Boston? how drunk is this man oh he's hammered anyway he's fucking hammered he doesn't know what's going on he's falling all over the place an irish guy from boston forget it so i guess this guy oh he's an italian guy if he's
Starting point is 01:33:56 running a fucking book in this area a redhead italian guy does that exist my grandmother's oh yeah you never know she's got a sister who excellent point literally people thought she was black when they moved here and she has red hair and green eyes you never know same parents it's just such weird genetics you never know when they're gonna pop up so anyway they're fighting i guess the bookie got the best of his buddy here of Frizzy, and he knocks his glasses off his face because they were fighting. This guy had glasses on. He knows his friend's pretty blind without the glasses. So Barbosa at that point said, all right, fuck you, my friend here.
Starting point is 01:34:37 And he steps in between them and knocks the man out and punches him twice and just knocks this bookie to the fucking ground here. I mean, that was obvious. I will kick your ass so i'll let this go until you start winning and then i'll end the fight it's over yeah i'm gonna end it quickly so i guess they ended up uh he ends up being arrested for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon um but they don't let him out though they don't they don't keep him he's on a it's a parole violation but they don't keep him they let him out though they don't they don't keep him he's on a it's a parole violation but they don't keep him they let him back out on the street while his case is pending what is that about so it's who knows his connections and you know this guy and might have had a good connection so why do they call him the animal love to know well let me give you an account from this book of why they call him
Starting point is 01:35:20 the animal here um he's at a club one night called the Ebtide. This is this club, right? Now, at this club, they get good acts that come in a lot of times, the mob run joint, and they pay good money to get good acts in there. They had Fats Domino there that night. Is that right? Absolutely, Fats. He did his second set of the night, and they were, you know, Fats is leaving the room and doing all of his shit here,
Starting point is 01:35:49 and everything's kind of quiet after the second set you know a lot of people left after the show and everything like that right uh fats domino is um isn't that blueberry hill or whatever you might be right yeah i think that's him uh the twist yeah that he might be the twit no the the twist is chubby chubby checker chubby checkers the twist and uh yeah don't be don't be a guy that makes great songs and uh name yourself after being heavy and i won't confuse you all right that's true you know the difference between him and heavy d heavy d and fat joe i have a problem with there you go see fat guys from the same era it's very difficult don't fuck with me it's tough you're ruining it man i don't have a ruining it for jimmy you're ruining it for jimmy don't be fat and know each other stop
Starting point is 01:36:30 so um while this is going on it's basically thinned out to just gangsters in the place here so joe's sitting there hanging around and all this type of shit and uh apparently um he was always he's always got his he's always looking for trouble here yeah so he's sitting and drinking and doing all this shit he's talking with a buddy of his and he's got a deep voice that's pretty loud and if you have a deep voice it carries yeah i've been told since i was 12 if you like go to somebody's house you're like your voice is really i know you're not talking that loud, but it carries. So, yeah. So, anyway, it carries and people hear him. And one guy, this gangster in the room, said, hey, quiet down over there.
Starting point is 01:37:13 Oh, boy. So, Joe doesn't listen to him. Keeps talking. This guy says it again. Hey, quiet down over there. So, Joe tells his buddy, I got to go take care of something. Yeah. He gets up and walks over to there uh walks over and he's a big fucking guy everybody's getting out of the way and they're like oh shit here he comes now so he approaches this guy and slaps him in the
Starting point is 01:37:38 face open-handed just open hand whacks him in the fucking face now that's a fun meeting it's loud and everybody hears it and the whole play the record goes it's one of those like holy shit like this is crazy it's the mic down no shit um so this guy um ends up he slaps him and as he's slapping him he's stepping toward him a little more and then then he says, your move. So what are you going to do about it is basically what he said. This guy, who's not a – he's a fucking gangster. He'll probably shoot you or have you killed, but he's not a fist fighter with a professional boxer. He's probably an older guy too or whatever. So he doesn't do anything, keeps his hands at his side.
Starting point is 01:38:23 And so some other guy comes along who we'll talk about, Henry Tomello. He comes in here. He's the underboss of the fucking Patriarca family. So he's of the New England Mafia. He's the underboss of this guy. He looks like an accountant. He's a real little tiny, doesn't look like much, but he carries a lot of weight. I mean, he can have a whole block killed in two minutes if he wants to.
Starting point is 01:38:47 Carlo Gambini was a very small man. Carlo Gambino did not look like he was anything. Gambini? Yeah, he said Vincent LaGuardia Gambini. That's okay. It's fair. At least I didn't call him Carla, I guess. That's true.
Starting point is 01:39:01 At least I didn't call him Carla, I guess. That's true. So, Tommelio comes in and he is pissed off that this is going on in the bar. He doesn't want it happening in the club. This is a nice joint. We just had Fats Domino. Cut the shit. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:39:22 So, he says, and Joe knows he's got to respect this guy, too, whether he can slap him or not. He's got to respect this boss that walks over now. So, Tommelio says, I don't want you to ever slap that man again. This is my place. I don't want you to touch anyone here with your hands ever again. You hear me? Never lay your hands on anybody. Like, you're obviously the best fighter in the bar, so no need to prove it.
Starting point is 01:39:49 So wordlessly, okay, doesn't say shit.boza nods his head like i get it then lunges forward toward the man who's backed up against a wall not with his fists with his face and bites off a chunk of his cheek oh my god and spits it on the bar yeah i'd call that man the animal then the guy the underboss was like holy shit what the fuck fucking barboza here the animal smiles at him and see blood coming down his face and he says see i didn't use my hands and laughed thought it was hilarious said, this guy's a fucking animal. Henceforth, he's the animal. I saw him bite a guy's cheek off. What the fuck is that? He is an ape.
Starting point is 01:40:34 He's biting faces off. That's what I mean. He's a dangerous man. He'll do anything. So this is fucking insane. Where do you even go from here? Even for the mob, they're like, Jesus Christ, take it down a notch. If you're freaking out mobsters with your over-aggressiveness, you're going far.
Starting point is 01:40:53 Who the fuck else would want you? He's sitting around thinking, God, if I'm too much for the mob, who can I? I can't be this out of control in any other job in the world. And just as he's thinking that, sitting in his apartment, there's a knock at the door. And who is it? It vince mcmahon ceo and i don't know if he still is whatever the fuck you know who the fuck he is and new golf enthusiast and he says How is it you've come to arrive here? Oh, my God. I am engorged right now. I'm engorged with this.
Starting point is 01:41:36 You'll bite a man's face off? Look at you. You look like an animal. You look like an animal. We've had George the Animal steal. Yeah, I'm an animal. He wasn't willing to bite faces off like you are. Oh my god.
Starting point is 01:41:47 We're going to take it. You're not a beast. That's going to be your finishing move. That's it. You're going to hold the man down, and you're going to bite a big chunk of his head off, and you're going to spit it into the audience. It's going to be hard. We're going to have to find more guys for you to fight. I've got a lot of opponents. It's not a lot. You can't go back from that.
Starting point is 01:42:04 I'm going to have to pay them pretty well for that. But I'm telling you, you're going to be the biggest, baddest thing in the world. Oh, my God. Let me ask you one more thing. Just take your shirt off for me, will you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Put these overalls on.
Starting point is 01:42:17 Oh, now you're an animal. Now you're an animal. Yes. Oh, God. Oh, my God. Poof. animal yes oh god oh my god and then a poof and an explosion of fucking of uh 1099s and jizz and other people sweat he got so hard he just exploded he couldn't take it anymore golf balls in it golf balls and he's not retired jesus christ a bag of titleists he will die at
Starting point is 01:42:41 the office that guy probably yeah he's doing some clerical work. Yeah. Something, yeah. He's doing something. So here's some more animalistic exploits here. One of his bosses at Scooterland here secured him a job at Duffy's Tavern in Hull, Massachusetts. He worked as a part-time bouncer during the summer. And a lot of fights
Starting point is 01:43:06 around this area as we know a lot of you think you're better than me what what are you looking at you looking at me ah what are you doing ah this fucking guy a lot of drunken irish italian people yeah fighting each other in this area at all times in a place called duffy's for sure yeah oh man in duffy's especially so joe's job is to make sure there's no fights and nobody breaks shit up and all that sort of thing. He's hired to be the muscle of this place? The muscle of the place. Which, you hire the animal if you want to keep people from fighting. I mean, all he has to do is bite one guy's face off and no one's doing shit there ever again.
Starting point is 01:43:42 Everything's going to be calm. You could be able to hear conversation over a low din of music after he's done like hey i don't know what are you up to so there's a few uh people knew to stay away when barboza was there if you were gonna cause trouble that wasn't the night to do it because he'd fuck your ass up one group of kids didn't quite understand that one group of guys here there's a bunch of guys hanging out near the go the go-kart track harassing the ride operator so this is very like 60s type of thing you were bouncing here did you ever know tiny locally the the historic like every yes he worked at a biker yeah no i actually i know who you're talking about yeah yeah he worked at
Starting point is 01:44:22 all the bars and he was like the the main fucking guy that on big nights that these bars would have celebrations or whatever. They'd make sure that Tiny was at the door. And for the same reason, Tiny fucking hurt so many people that people knew in the neighborhoods, if you're going to that bar and Tiny's working, don't fucking cause trouble. No, that's the thing. Those guys exist fucking everywhere. I imagine that's what he was there. Is that the guy? Yeah, we'll talk about it's the thing. Yeah. Those guys exist fucking everywhere. I imagine that's what he was there. Is that the guy? Yeah, I will talk about it after the show, but I think I had a giant fucking man.
Starting point is 01:44:51 Huge. Yeah. Like six fucking six. Nine. Yeah. Enormous. I'll tell you exactly. I'll tell you exactly.
Starting point is 01:44:59 All right. I can't wait. I spent a whole night with him. So here we go. All right. So here we go. All right. So here we go. Here we have Joe. He goes over and tells him to fucking, you know, he could go, hey, get the fuck out of here.
Starting point is 01:45:13 Right. Yeah. Instead, he doesn't say anything. He walks over and just starts. There's seven guys. He just starts knocking them all the fuck out. Oh, boy. Seven guys.
Starting point is 01:45:24 He just starts knocking them all the fuck out. Oh, boy. Seven guys. He just starts punching them. So another friend of his from the bar, friend of the animals here, sees what's going on and fucking runs over to, hey, I'll go help Barbosa out over here. So I guess Barbosa looks over and his buddy got fucking hit from behind by the biggest guy of the seven who they were fighting. And he's holding him in a bear hug. So this is fucking insane. So Barboza here. Oh, my God. Breaks an arm free.
Starting point is 01:45:55 Pulls the guy's head down. Oh, my God. Grab the guy's head. Pulls it toward him. And fucking bit his face off again. Bit a giant part of his cheek off and then spit it at him. And then everybody ran away. I imagine.
Starting point is 01:46:12 So, yeah. So the cops came, everybody scattered. And this guy's got flesh in his mouth. And so, yeah, he's a fucking maniac. Basically, don't fuck with this guy. Essentially, he will hurt you. So, yeah, he's a fucking maniac, basically. Don't fuck with this guy, essentially.
Starting point is 01:46:24 He will hurt you. So another time, a high-ranking cop in Boston, he broke the guy's, this cop's son's jaw. Had a scuffle outside of a bar. And so the officers threatened to get Joe sent back to prison unless Joe paid him $2,000 or paid his son $2,000. So Barboza's boxing manager offered the cop $1 dollars and uh they made a deal uh there that way so that's how that works in the middle yeah meet in the middle here yeah which is probably what he wanted so barboza moves back to east uh east boston moves back in with fay his wife even though their relationship has been all fucked up here um they don't spend any time together he doesn't like hanging out at home
Starting point is 01:47:04 he's a he's a fucking what on his face he comes home you're like what is that flesh in your beard what's going on you have flesh in your stubble again i think you have i think you have lip in the corner of your mouth what is that a part of an ear so um uh also faye had a miscarriage early in the marriage but she's in her 40s what do you want joe i mean jesus said that back then that wasn't a it didn't happen a lot so the uh he began i guess this is when he really started going out in the streets more i guess that hurt him a lot here um yeah there you go so joe was out all the time now here is a another gangster named uh vincent theres, and he wrote a book called Vinnie Teresa's Mafia. Okay? Of course he did.
Starting point is 01:47:51 And he, this is what he wrote about Joe Barboza. So this is from a fellow gangster here. Take Joe Barboza. He's one of the toughest enforcers around in New England before he became a federal informer. A little foreshadowing for you there. He had a reputation on the street of being a violent violent violent guy with a terrible temper the cops were afraid of him street people were afraid of him afraid of him even me as
Starting point is 01:48:11 close as i was to the guy i'd never so much as cross a bridge alone with him in a car you never knew what would set that guy off i might be tossed off the fucking bridge even though we're friends um yeah there was one incident I remember in particular involving Joe. This happened on Bennington Street in East Boston. It was about one in the afternoon and I was standing on the corner. Barboza was in a car with Guy Fritzie and a street guy that Joe was close to at the time. When they say street guy, that means a gangster, not a homeless person, by the way. Nowadays, a street, you know what i mean so yeah uh they were driving along bennington street when some poor guy with
Starting point is 01:48:49 his wife and two little kids cut barboza off by accident joe went wild he started chasing this guy blowing the horn and yelling out the window you motherfucker son of a bitch i'll get you finally joe caught up with the guy and cut him off the driver was smart enough to lock all his doors and windows barboza and fritzy pounded on the windows and then jumped on the hood of this guy's car smashing at the windshield at the same time barboza was yelling nasty things he planned to do to the guy's wife once they broke through jesus christ that's horrifying i remember seeing these poor little kids crying their eyes out hanging on to their father while their mother is screaming her head off
Starting point is 01:49:30 jesus christ now while this was all happening there was a cop standing on a nearby corner just watching not even gonna do anything it's one of his guys probably yeah he said finally the cop turned away and walked down the street he was scared to death of barboza himself and he's in the middle of a big tizzy like this i'm not gonna i'm not gonna come up to him now this is a bad time to talk to him about it he'll calm down later what did the cops do when that reggaetang travis was tearing people apart they just stood by for a minute what are you gonna do oh shit what do we do here we shoot shoot everybody? What do we do? I don't know what to do. He said Joe wasn't through
Starting point is 01:50:07 though. He ran back to his car and got out a baseball bat and started pounding on the car. He smashed the fenders, the windows, everything. He almost destroyed the car before some cops finally came over and tried to calm Joe down. While they were trying to cool Joe, they told
Starting point is 01:50:23 this poor driver who's sitting there in his smashed up car to get the hell out of the area fast and forget about the damage like ryu in a fucking holy shit he is man tearing it up i was standing there all the time watching it laughing my head off this is the theresa guy at the time it was funny now i think back and it ain't so funny the driver would have actually been killed if jo Joe had got his hands on him and all because he accidentally cut Joe off in traffic. For the egregious act of coming over a lane accidentally. He didn't then tell him to go fuck himself. He just cut him off by accident.
Starting point is 01:50:57 With my family in the car. Good God. Here's another little excerpt from this book about Joe here. That's why he was so dangerous. He was unpredictable. When he tasted blood, everyone in his way got it. Barboza went into the club, searching for a member of the McLaughlin mob named Ray DeStasio, and caught DeStasio cold. The trouble was, a poor slob named John B. O'Neill, who had a bunch of kids, walked in to get a pack of cigarettes.
Starting point is 01:51:24 Barboza killed them both because he didn't want any witnesses. He'd just kill everybody. He didn't give a fuck. That's how he was. DeStasio got two in the back of the head and O'Neill got three. It was a shame. I mean, this O'Neill was a family man. He had nothing to do with the mob.
Starting point is 01:51:39 Barbosa should have waited. That's why he's so dangerous. He was unpredictable. Most guys... He was worse. was unpredictable most guys worse yeah most guys most guys would have just waited to see if that guy was leaving or not and if that guy left he would have went okay now that's what most guys do he just said well i want to kill him right this second and a guy's here so i'll just kill everybody and i'm gonna kill the guy getting the marlboros harder who knows fuck him yeah three because he put two didn't kill him probably so he
Starting point is 01:52:02 put three and to stop him. So September 1962, unsurprisingly, he's sent back to prison for parole violations. All these things have added up here. He's in prison for a couple years, a little less than two years. He gets paroled April 30th, 1964, paroled from Walpole. He had been corresponding with a young blonde woman named Claire Cohen, who he'd he'd met while working at scooter land one of the only days he was there yeah um claire as like um she is uh well she's jewish so claire comes from like a jewish neighborhood with professional parents and it's the complete opposite of him in every way shape and form her father is a local grocer who owned his own store um yeah
Starting point is 01:52:47 she told him the only way for them to have any future is if he converted from catholic to jewish oh you gotta convert so he's like yeah i don't fucking care um he's like i'm not religious i don't give a shit yeah well say whatever you want me to say i don't care i'll stand up there and say some shit so he said, what the hell? He knew his mother, who's a devout Catholic, would freak out about the whole thing. Like, you know, George becoming a Latvian Orthodox in Seinfeld or something. Are those the people who torture squirrels? So, but he said he didn't give a shit. He said he had very little faith in God who had showed him such little mercy over the course of his life.
Starting point is 01:53:26 So he didn't really give a shit what God it was. He changed at that point. And also, as part of his conversion, he changes his name to his ring name. He legally changes his name to Joe Barron, B-A-R-R-O-N. Really? Legally changes his name to Barron, his ring name. And, yep, he also gets circumcised. He's been uncircumcised this whole time and he gets circumcised in his 30s god jesus he said it was the worst pain he ever had in his
Starting point is 01:53:53 life i'll bet no shit um holy crap so yeah this is uh this is crazy so finally he's gonna get into he's on the periphery of the mob here he does things he's he's a known quantity but now he's going to get into – he's on the periphery of the mob here. He does things. He's a known quantity. But now he's going to get to meet somebody very, very important, the Tomellio guy that we told you about, the guy who was like, holy shit, this guy is an animal. Yeah, that watched him by the face. Yeah, Tomellio, he is – he's an underboss and Patriarca, Raymond Patriarca is the boss of the family, and Tomellio's kind of in charge of Boston. So Tomellio introduces the animal to his boss, Patriarca, basically.
Starting point is 01:54:40 Yeah, there's a wake for a gangster, and they're all there. Yeah, there's a wake for a gangster, and they're all there. And Barbosa, he was impressed by how much power these guys had. They looked like nothing, but they could snap their fingers and have everybody killed. He said that they always were respectful of him and everything like that, too. So either way, they end up after the funeral. They go to the Ebtide. Barbosa's having a drink when a guy named Junior Ventola walked in and ordered Joe to leave.
Starting point is 01:55:18 So Joe said, Henry said, I would never be insulted in here again, meaning Tommelio said that. And Ventola said, I don't care. I want you out. So Barbosa said, let's go in the kitchen you motherfucker right and follows him in there so he pulls out his 38 joe does and puts it under the guy's chin this is him you don't shoot people in the kitchen or your mob run joint it's just bad business so uh he does that and he said now pull your right hand out of your pocket or i'll blow your tonsils out of the top of your head he was overheard saying oh boy so uh that's how that happened it was calmed down the temelio came in and calmed the whole thing down and got him not
Starting point is 01:55:50 to kill the man but um it happened so either way the animal uh temelio sends barboza to look for a guy named joe francione uh who was supposed to deliver a shipment of stolen furs instead francione sold the furs in New York and pocketed the money, leaving Tommelio with his thumb up his ass and pretty pissed off. Son of a bitch. So a friend of Barbosa's
Starting point is 01:56:13 had also been screwed over in the deal. So this is business and personal, and it's good for him. So he's happy to go find this guy. He learns that this Francione guy is staying in an apartment in Revere, Massachusetts. So he approached the apartment in broad daylight, knocked on the door. Francione was on the phone. He heard the knocks. He put the phone receiver down to go answer the door. And his friend was on the other line. And his friend heard over the phone, no, don it he heard a scream and uh this guy turned his back to try to run away from barbosa so barbosa shot him in the back of the head and then two more
Starting point is 01:56:50 times in the head uh overheard on the phone here the whole time oh shit um yeah so his friend who was on the phone went to the police station uh turned himself in on an outstanding warrant because he was a criminal too uh he said it was better to be in jail than out on the streets where Joe Barbosa was looking for him probably. So he went into the, he didn't go to tell on Joe for the murder. He went to turn himself in on a warrant
Starting point is 01:57:13 so he'd be in jail. Yeah, he didn't go tell. Oh shit. He just said looking at warrants, I want to stay here. Yeah, I'd be safer here. That's what it is. Unreal.
Starting point is 01:57:23 Yeah, that's fucking wild. So anyway, he married Claire Cohen right after he got out of prison, and they had a honeymoon in Johnston, Rhode Island. And Joe decided to make a pit stop at Guy Frizzy's place in Boston, and Guy presents Joe and Claire with a wedding cake and all this type of shit. They introduce him also to a guy named Joseph Chico Amico, and they're going to be friends later on. Anyway, two days later, Joe's relaxing with his wife here. They're in their honeymoon. They're at the Colonial Motor Lodge in Johnston. Oh, that sounds wonderful.
Starting point is 01:58:02 Colonial part sounded nice until you get to motor. Until you got to it smells like exhaust here. And then you're like, oh, I don't like that. So he gets a frantic call from Guy back in Boston, Guy Fritze. And he says, did you hear the news? And Fritze said, they found a body in the trunk of a car with its head still missing. And Joe said, his head is still missing. Did they identify the body?
Starting point is 01:58:24 And Fritze told barbosa they had no idea who the victim was but the mystery here you know they want to know either way so turns out the body belonged to a former convict named francis benjamin uh joe knew him since they were kids um they were both fresh out of prison and um jo Joe said he was a tough southpaw and a right-on mother, which is 60s for a good guy. Yeah. A right-on mother. Lefty. He's a tough southpaw and a right-on.
Starting point is 01:58:54 Great guy and left-handed. Those are two. A lot of slang there. So he heard about this, and he decided that he would try to uh find out some shit about that so barbosa and guy fritzy hopped into uh guy had a 62 gold cadillac of course he did they drove from east boston uh toward dearborn and roxbury dearborn square and roxbury they um they just fucking they spot who they're looking for um a friend of his they spot. They wave him over. And he said, you know, the guy gets in and they're talking and they said there's a lot of cops in this area and all this type of shit.
Starting point is 01:59:34 And, you know, blah, blah, blah. They're bullshitting. Anyway, they get to the curb. They pull over to the curb and they're talking and they're kind of driving and stopping every once in a while. The guy they picked up, Flemmy, he's pulling his hat down over his head and all this type of shit. They're talking about what the cops know. It's like one of these conversations here. But at this point, the quote here, here's a quote.
Starting point is 02:00:04 They drove off with two cars, Wimpy in his own car and Punchy driving his car with the cut up in it meaning the body he's got the whole story he's telling them what happened with this body right he tells barboza and fritzy that uh bennett and mclaughlin these two gangsters dumped the car with the body in it and drove away together with benjamin's head in a bag between them oh boy they were looking for a quiet place to bury the skull while you know, they went. So, yeah, they ended up doing that. He says, Flemmy goes on to say, when they got to a wooded area, Punchy asked for Wimpy's gun.
Starting point is 02:00:35 When Wimpy asked Punchy what for, Punchy said he would not dare go into the woods with no gun with Wimpy being armed. So they refused to hand it. Now they don't trust each other, basically. So they said okay we'll go somewhere else he says i'll drive your car where are we going bennett said i'm taking my head and leaving the gangster equivalent i'm taking my ball and going home i'm taking my head and leaving i'm done with you so flevi tells barb, that's the story, blah,
Starting point is 02:01:05 blah, blah. Um, so either way, he knows that was bullshit. He knows that this guy is bullshitting, but he doesn't want to say anything. So either way,
Starting point is 02:01:13 uh, we'll get to that in a minute. He's also got a James Bond car is what the cops call it. He becomes a loan shark and he's doing really well saying he's, he's telling everybody he's making like 6,000 bucks a week in loan sharking, which is, yes, which is a great insane amount of money in the sixties, even now. But in the sixties, and really well saying he's telling everybody he's making like $6,000 a week in loan sharking. Barbosa is? Yes, which is an insane amount of money in the 60s. Even now, but in the 60s,
Starting point is 02:01:29 that's a really insane amount of money. Yeah, a car costs fucking two grand. Yeah, a car's $2,800 back then, so it's not pretty good money here. Making two Cadillacs a week isn't bad. It's not awful. In the FBI, 1965, FBI agent H. Paul Rico It's not awful. spotless which law enforcement officials referred to as the james bond car because it had some really weird sophisticated alarm system that they couldn't figure out how to disable to put a bug in
Starting point is 02:02:10 it and it even has a device where he can flip a switch and huge clouds of black smoke come from the taillight so he can disappear what the fuck he does like a smoke screen and disappears yeah and then he takes off oil slicks that he little missiles that come out this is fucking crazy row of nails yeah that's why they call it the james bond car that's amazing so he's introduced to raymond patriarca who's the boss here uh temelio makes the formal introduction he He says, you know, here you go. Introduces him, said, this is Joe Barbosa. It's my pleasure, Mr. Patriarch.
Starting point is 02:02:49 He tells him, call me Raymond. So right off, good start. Barbosa is looking him over, and he's like, wow, this is the boss here. You know, this is crazy shit. So either way, they're talking about all this. Barbosa is wondering, you know, like, wow, how do you get to be this kind of guy here? You know what I mean? Like he said, he was a real big deal. So either way, there's a guy named Teddy Deegan.
Starting point is 02:03:13 Okay. Teddy Deegan is a guy that he'll kill here. Barbosa. Barbosa. About early 1965, March 1965, Charlie Moore, who's just a guy from the street here. Charlie fucking M? Charlie fucking M. He tells Deegan about the Lincoln National Bank in Chelsea, which is a target to rob, basically.
Starting point is 02:03:35 He says that the finance company, which was located on the second floor, kept a big pile of money in its safe and that they would have access to the building after hours thanks to a guy's brother that he knows who's a local cop who agreed to leave the back door of the building open for a cut of the cash. Okay. So Deegan said, sure. They make the money. They do all this shit, right? They're making the money. But the problem is he's had a partner, by the way. Harold Hannon was his old partner who was killed by Barbosa.
Starting point is 02:04:07 So Deegan needs money because he hasn't had a lot of big scores lately. So they do this fucking score. They get all this money here. March 12, 1965, Tony Statz is one of the guy's names. He borrowed his brother's Pontiac. He calls Deegan, and they get together. They're going to go out and do this job, right? They hung up the phone, and they went back to the bar where Barbosa, Flemmy, and five of their friends,
Starting point is 02:04:36 Romeo Martin, he'll come up later, Nicky Femia, Francis Imbruglia, and Ronnie the Pig Cossessio. Ronnie the Pig. They're all waiting right so anyway Barbosa and his crew go out the back door of the ebb tide toward Romeo Martin's car while this other guy takes off for his rendezvous with Deegan and the other guy
Starting point is 02:04:57 that are gonna rob some shit Barbosa opens the trunk of the car and gets out a bulletproof vest he's got a bag of disguises. They start putting on fake mustaches and fucking glasses and, you know, all this type of shit. The animal here had mapped out the hit on Teddy Deegan. They're going to use two cars for the job, one to block traffic, another to make a retreat from the scene. We have one car break down.
Starting point is 02:05:22 That's what you do. So they do that. Neither vehicle's known to the police because they're not going to use his car, the James Bond car here. So the one guy's ordered to take one car, park it around the corner from the Lincoln National Bank. He had the vehicle in position to make a hard right and stall in the middle of the street, blocking the route from the Chelsea police if he had to.
Starting point is 02:05:45 So Barbosa, Flemmi, Ronnie the Pig, and Romeo Martin are in the other car. They place that in position down the street at the parking meter between Broadway and Luther Place with its front wheels turned out so they can get away quickly. It's all planned out. They also had bent back plates. They had bent the plates on the back of the car leaving so you can only see a few numbers you couldn't see it all right so they
Starting point is 02:06:11 kind of bent the sides in they're sitting in the car with the motor running when they notice someone coming up to them and joe says what does this motherfucker want the guy rap taps on the window and says hey your plate is bent some asshole trying to be a helpful good Samaritan hey mind your own fucking business how's that bad people run away yeah turns out though the guy who
Starting point is 02:06:36 noticed that happened to be Joe recognizes him as a police captain in the area so they just gun it and take off. Drive away. The police captain's like, whatever, who gives a shit? I'm not going to go chase these guys over a bent plate.
Starting point is 02:06:52 That's no big deal. So either way, they're trying to rob banks. They're trying to kill people who rob banks. There's a guy named Conniees here who we'll talk about they blew out the back window of his car but he escaped without getting killed they shot out his window um so he connie barbosa is called on to take care of this so that same evening barbosa's waiting for connie hughes at an alleyway near his home and somebody stumbles out from the darkness and um the guy Joe tells the guy quote you'll leave with more than you came if you don't leave right now
Starting point is 02:07:32 mister that's what he tells him get the fuck out of here so the guy said oh okay and walked back back down the street as he's walking past a street lamp Barboza goes oh fuck that's the guy i was supposed to kill shit didn't recognize it as he notices this connie hughes jumps into a car and then joe and his crew follow behind so now there's a car chase here joe gets in in the passenger seat with a rifle all right he tells the driver to pass alongside use his vehicle he looks inside and he sees that connie's in there and so is his brother Stevie. So Barboza, though, couldn't get the rifle out enough quickly to get a shot. So instead, they open fire. The Hughes brothers open fire, blasting the door and the windshield and just missing Barboza.
Starting point is 02:08:20 And then they take off after that. So they're stopped in that way. So Jesus Christ. Anyway, another hit attempt here. I'm just giving random hit attempts here. He goes to Providence for a sit down here. He goes to talk to the bosses at the National Cigarette Service Company and Coin-O-Matic Distributors. That's where the main gangster office was.
Starting point is 02:08:43 Cigarette and Coin-Op? That's where the mob boss hung out at a coin-o-matic distributor so um uh barboza is talking to patriarca they're the boss and um they're like yeah we can't fucking kill this guy this is ridiculous you know jesus christ so they're talking about this other guy they're trying to kill if they couldn't kill him and uh joe has some recon on this guy, and he's going to tell Patriarcha what he knows and see if he wants to go ahead with the hit. So Joe says he lives in a three-family house. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to break into the basement, pour gasoline all over the place, after which I either get him with the smoke inhalation or I just pick him off as he climbs out the window. Either way, I win. Okay.
Starting point is 02:09:26 Bad plan. Well, great plan if you want to kill the guy. You're probably going to kill him. Bad plan if you want to kill everybody else. Well, that's the thing. I'll just pick him off. So he said that Barbosa says, also, before I do this, I'll cut the phone line so the guy can't even call the fire department and nobody will come, right?
Starting point is 02:09:44 So Patriarchus said, well, does anybody else live in the house? Is he there by himself? the phone line so the guy can't even call the fire department and nobody will come right so patriarca said well does anybody else live in the house is he there by himself and barbosa goes yeah his mother lives there and patriarca goes you're gonna kill his mother too and barbosa's answer was quote ain't my fault she lives there she could live anywhere so patriarca who's a heartless mob boss said we're not killing this guy's fucking mother that's against that's not what we do you don't kill mothers that's not part of this you know what i mean yeah sorry uh no not at all and after that he was kind of like he told uh temelio this guy's too fucking crazy for us he goes he's we can't have a fucking bloodthirsty maniac walking
Starting point is 02:10:25 around it's got to be a business thing he can't be like sure i'll shoot his mom as she climbs out of a fucking window to escape fire that's crazy that's nuts what do we what do we a ruthless uh gang or are we not what are we doing we're not that bad sir calm down no shit they were like what his willingness he's gonna kill this guy's mom. What the fuck, man? They're like, Jesus Christ. And then they were basically deciding, do we leave this guy alone and just try not to deal with him much or do we kill him? What do we do with this fucking guy? He's dangerous. And yeah, it was very fucking weird here. So he's starting to fall out of favor here. So he's starting to fall out of favor here. Here's a strong-arming story again, by the way. Barbosa and his crew would enter a club. This is how they would strong-arm a club into paying the money.
Starting point is 02:11:11 Protection, yeah. Yeah, they'd walk into the club and start just throwing shit around. Pick up a chair and throw it at the bar. Fucking break all the bottles in the glass behind the bar to get their attention, that sort of thing there. And then smack anybody around who tried to stop them. Then what would happen is the club owners would run to Henry Tomellio and offer the mafia money to help them because that's who ran the neighborhood. And so then Joe would get – that's how he would get a big take of the club basically. Protection against who? Protection against who protection against me
Starting point is 02:11:45 against me yeah unless you want that to happen again is basically what it is yeah so on one of the jobs here they shook down a club owner uh for more money than he was supposed to this is the romeo martin guy shook down a club owner and took more money than he was supposed to and tried to keep the difference and not tell anybody about it, which is... Oh, you can't do that. The number one thing in the mob you have to do is you have to be honest with your partners as far as money goes.
Starting point is 02:12:12 If you steal a certain amount, you better kick up the right amount of tribute to the boss. You better pay the right people the right ways because that shit goes a long way for you. And if you fuck anybody, your word's worth nothing and then they can just kill you because why have you around? You're not worth shit.
Starting point is 02:12:26 You're lying to us. Who else are you lying to? We're your family. There's a reason this is called the family. We're in this together. So either way, he tried to do this. Joe found out about it. And basically word got around to Romeo that Joe's after him and he's going to kill him.
Starting point is 02:12:45 Right. So Romeo thought, Jesus, that's crazy. It's a few bucks. He wouldn't. He doesn't kill over a few bucks. That's insane. He's like, you know, that's nuts. He's not going to kill me.
Starting point is 02:12:56 That's crazy. You guys are all out of your mind. Meanwhile, in Joe's mind, he can't be trusted now. Fuck him. Yeah. So either way, here they go um jesus christ um they're theresa and another guy that vinnie theresa from the book him and some other guy uh we were um i guess they were they were talking they were trying to tell him to cool off it's
Starting point is 02:13:18 gonna be all right fat vinnie then reminded romeo that he had left his golf clubs in the other guy's car. And he said, okay, I'll go get my bag and I'll come back and have one more drink with you, as Romeo Martin said. So he walks toward the door and he said, then I'm going to go get my wife and we'll take off. He walks out of the car thinking, yeah, yeah, I probably overreacted. I'm sure Joe's not that mad at me. Then here comes Joe into the parking lot, and he sees that Joe and Joe's pal Ronnie the Pig there, Cossessio, are waiting for him,
Starting point is 02:13:53 or Cossesso, are waiting for him. Romeo tries to flee, but the animal grabs him and throws him in the back of a car. Okay, they drive to an undisclosed location where they shoot Romeo Martino martin five times of course um yeah uh they basically said that uh the the mob people are like well was this just over a few bucks is this they didn't want to deal with it they're like we don't want to deal with joe so they just left it alone nobody got mad uh barbosa and cassesso were pallbearers at his funeral also jesus how cold that happens
Starting point is 02:14:27 all the time in the mob is that right oh fuck yeah uh fuck yeah um so here's a guy named punchy he's waiting for a bus punchy okay with six other people he's got a small paper bag that he's been carrying around he's got a handgun in there all of a sudden two cars pop up into view um there's all sorts of people coming at him the second car uh pulls up first car has four people in it second car i'm sorry two people in it second car pulls up across the street okay he sees like the hit team like those are the killers. That's the crash car. Fuck. You know what I mean? Yeah. This isn't good. Right. So, um, he's like shit. He, uh, and also he sees that they appear to be wearing wigs and glasses and all this
Starting point is 02:15:13 shit. So he's like, Oh, I'm pretty fucked here. So this guy turns and runs. Um, he fucking, uh, tossed the brown paper bag to a frightened woman who was waiting in line for the bus. Here you go. And took off. Everybody caught up to him, and they shot him five times, heart, liver, lungs, and spleen.
Starting point is 02:15:32 Everything. And then the last bullet was at close range, piercing his scrotum. So that was on purpose. Oh, my. Put it right up to his ball sack and shot old Punchy McLaughlin. And there was their police round up the usual people here. They get Joe Barbosa who has, uh,
Starting point is 02:15:51 Joe's been wanting to kill punchy's brother, Georgie here, but he couldn't get to Georgie. So, uh, Barbosa had hoped to shoot Georgie from an apartment window overlooking Georgie's in jail is why he can't get to him. So he was going to try to shoot him from an apartment window that overlooks the prison yard.
Starting point is 02:16:08 Going to get him while he's in jail. Going to shoot him from an apartment window. Holy shit. Which is fucking crazy, though. The problem is this guy would never go outside or leave his cell because he was afraid people were going to kill him. He was smart. So anyway, once they figured out they couldn't get him, they figured we'll get Punchy instead. So that's what happened.
Starting point is 02:16:28 They got Punchy and Joe the Animal was the planner of the Punchy deal here. And also Joe Barbosa's car fit the description of one of the vehicles used by the killers as well. So that's not good. When they searched Joe's car, when they found him and searched his car, they found a suitcase filled with wigs and makeup. He told the cops, Barbosa, that the case had been left behind by a girlfriend of his who works as a showgirl and an actress. They interrogated him for 11 hours until several female witnesses were brought in at the hope that they could positively identify the killers. Barbosa is asked like the one way mirror lineup. He's asked to do the typical one of those.
Starting point is 02:17:10 He's asked to do that. They told him to stand still, but he wouldn't. He instead paced back and forth and he knew the people were on the other side. So he'd growl and walk up to the window and go, you better be fucking sure. You better be fucking sure if you're going to pick me up. Scaring the shit out of these people. Yeah. So all of them said,
Starting point is 02:17:27 no, I'm not sure that's him. I don't know. I can't say for sure. Did you hear him? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. At this point,
Starting point is 02:17:34 the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover in 1965 said, Joseph Barbosa is the most dangerous individual known to us. J. Edgar Hoover knows very well who he is that's crazy he's the most dangerous person that we have amongst all the people in this country that guy scary holy shit man um it's it's pretty fucking interesting so um uh yeah october 1966
Starting point is 02:18:01 he and three local hoodlums are arrested on weapons charges while cruising the combat zone in Boston. They called it there. His accomplices were released on bail. But Barbosa had his bail set at one hundred thousand dollars, which he couldn't afford. Oh, so he's like, fuck. And nobody from the Patriarchal Crime family came down to post his bail and rid of them. crime family came down to post his bail. They got rid of him. Well, yeah, and they liked that he's in there. And he even heard from some of the cops that he knew that it was the family that actually tipped the cops off about him.
Starting point is 02:18:32 They wanted to get him put in jail to get him away from here. So two of his associates, a Bratzos and DiPrisco, they went around trying to raise his bail. They're trying to raise cash for his bail, right? So five weeks later, they've raised $59,000 in cash for his bail. And while they're in the process of doing this, they're at the Nightlight Cafe, and they are killed there. Yeah, they're killed there here. They were basically, they killed the guys, found 59 grand on them so that's a fucking
Starting point is 02:19:06 that's cool put their bodies in the back of bratzos car and dumped it in south boston and um basically tried to say it was irish gangs just dumped it there i was like must have been those fucking irish you never know you know them so but another mob associate named joseph lonzi tipped the cops off about the murder. And there you go. The FBI at this point really tried to turn Barbosa informant because they know how much he knows. And it's a bunch of stuff they really need to figure out. But Barbosa instead is sentenced to five years at Walpole on a weapons charge. They can't get him to flip.
Starting point is 02:19:41 on a weapons charge. They can't get him to flip. So in the summer of 67, basically Steve Flemmy went and met with Joe and told Joe that one of the underbosses, not Tomellio, the other one, Anguillo, and his brothers had planned to kill him.
Starting point is 02:19:58 Okay? They said they think that you're going to flip and they're going to kill you and all this type of shit, right? They're killing people that are trying to bail you out. You're certainly in danger. You're in a lot of fucking danger. So the government at this point steps in and goes, we hear that you want to that they want to kill you.
Starting point is 02:20:15 Now, unbeknownst to the gangsters, they had the FBI had a lot of what they call gypsy wires set up. These were wires that weren't court ordered. These were wires that they couldn't use anything said in court or anything like that because they weren't authorized. They were illegal wire taps is what they would do. What did they do with those? Just to help them? They know what's going on now. They know now if you hear
Starting point is 02:20:36 what's going on, now you know how to legally look for things and you can just say, oh, I you know, you can make something up because that's what they did. So they had a lot of places tapped and they had a gypsy wire in Patriarch's office. So they go, look, they're going to kill you. We got to tell you what we'll do for you. We're going to put you in this new thing that we just came up with.
Starting point is 02:20:56 You're going to be you can try it out called the Witness Protection Program. OK, you be a witness and we'll take your wife and kids and you'll be protected if they'll be protected as long as you testify they even promised to set him up in his own restaurant and to get him plastic surgery to change his appearance uh to protect him as well pretty good deal that's not bad not too bad by the way they do they do none of those things they didn't give him a restaurant they didn't get him plastic surgery they kept no promises here so june he says all right fine i'll do it that feels illegal oh yeah they did all the time promise you shit not give it to you is that not illegal now is that illegal that should be i don't know he killed over 20 people he's not in prison so he should be pretty happy about that
Starting point is 02:21:41 but promising things and not giving it seems no that seems super fun yeah it's you're not supposed to promise things either that's the other thing so it's all very illegal so patriarchy gets arrested on june 20th of that year he and temelio are indicted on conspiracy to murder in the 1966 killing of willie marf. And so, yeah, there's that. Now, Jesus Christ, they arrest people for the Teddy Deegan murder. They're arresting people for all these murders. During this trial, there's going to be a trial for patriarchy. He's indicted.
Starting point is 02:22:19 They find out that Barbosa is a witness now. It's all over the paper. It's in the newspaper and everything. He tells the Boston Herald, all I want to be is left alone. That's what he says. The mob offers Barbosa $25,000 to quit talking. If he stops talking, we'll give you $25,000.
Starting point is 02:22:39 Yeah, but they're going to fix my nose. Yeah, I really want some plastic surgery. I'll be honest with you. I never like my chin i want better cheekbones so then he gets it up to fifty thousand dollars which he it's all agreed to but then he talks to a lawyer and then says no never mind i'm better off doing this fuck you people and you're 50 grand now even though he will testify and Guilo will be found not guilty. Really? Yes.
Starting point is 02:23:12 And the jury will never say what the fuck happened until 20 years later. The jury foreman, Kenneth Matthews, said that none of the jurors found Barbosa believable, stating he didn't help the state at all. He wasn't reliable. He was nothing as a witness. He's a bad man. They don't believe him. So Joe's got to go to – he's also had death threats on his family. So Joe is going to take the deal and he's going to get sentenced here. And he said that they made him talk about his – basically he got paid $150 a week for public relations from an insurance company, whether he worked there or not.
Starting point is 02:23:47 They'd made a big deal out of that because they're trying to get other people. Yeah, when they asked him during the murder trial if he was hoping for anything from the government in return for his testimony, he said he was, quote, hoping for a break. Hoping for a break here. Yeah, then got in an argument with a defense attorney during his testimony and he said, I'm only doing this because they threatened my wife and kid. So there you go.
Starting point is 02:24:14 He's being sequestered and held by U.S. Marshals while he's doing this. Yeah. The witness, or the defense attorney asks basically, why'd you decide to take the witness stand? And that's what caused this big fight. Yeah, that's what caused the whole thing.
Starting point is 02:24:35 They talk about when did you first get into this business? And he said basically 1961. They said, have you continually engaged in this business? And he said, no. And then they argued about that. And he said, well, in 67, you were in trouble in this courtroom. And he said, yes. And they said, and you were on the stand.
Starting point is 02:24:53 And he said, yes, under oath, yes. Did anyone ask your occupation? He said, yes. And they said, what was your answer? Insurance. And he said, well, I made $150 a member. I told you, blah, blah, blah. That was a job.
Starting point is 02:25:04 Yep. And they said, you were doing public relations work? And he said, in, I made $150. Remember I told you, blah, blah, blah. That was a job. Yep. And they said, you were doing public relations work? And he said, in a sense, yes. Kind of. How many hours a day did this public relations work consume? Whenever I could get people I knew to insure their car with his business. Also, none of your goddamn business. I made $150 a week.
Starting point is 02:25:21 It doesn't matter what I worked. He said, how many hours a day were you working in June 1966? I don't remember. Were you working at all in June? I was getting a paycheck. Was it $150 a week? Yes, sir. But you don't remember how many hours you worked for that check? No, sometimes not at all. Sometimes I worked an hour a month, but I always got the check. In public relations? Yes, sir. So these are the reasons why he is considered not a valuable witness here. They also say, Mr. Barron, what other name are you known by? Barboza, but my name is Barron.
Starting point is 02:25:54 When did you change your name? October 64. You changed it legally? Yes, sir, I did. Do you know when in October 64? I don't even know if it was October. That was his answer to that. That's not good.
Starting point is 02:26:08 Yeah, this is fucking insane, man. So they said, what other name were you known by? And he said, known by? Other name? You don't understand what I mean? He goes, oh, I understand, but it has many meanings. And the judge says, answer the question. So Joe says, people called me. People came to talk to me. People who talked to me either called me Joe Barbosa or Barron and referring to me and taking of me and talking of me as Joe Barbosa or Joe Barron. And they said, is this the only name you are known by? And he said, in some respects. Dude, you are a terrible witness it's terrible ruining this so the question is in other respects what were you named and he said seagull i never heard that before nobody called him seagull seagull's an animal technically it is yeah um so then they go of a bench conference uh conference and it's Mr. Baron. When you testified about some conversation, you say took place eight days after the death of Rocco DiSeglio,
Starting point is 02:27:08 uh, who was present Benny's in a Mario Lepore. And you referred in your testimony to a conversation three or four days after the death, who was present Zina and Lepore. Was there anybody else else present? No, they go back and forth with all this type of shit.
Starting point is 02:27:21 Um, they basically are placing, trying to make him place other people in areas on certain days. So they say you were told of a conversation, yes, and you were told of a subsequent time when you were
Starting point is 02:27:35 there and had a conversation, yes. You made two visits, yes. What was the date you made the visit to Mr. Anguillo's office? Either the 13th, 14th, or 15th, June of 1966. You don't have any trouble remembering the evening of the 13th, 14th or 15th, June of 1966. You don't have any trouble remembering the evening of the 15th, do you? No, sir, he says. They said, but the conversation you say you had with Mr. Anguillo, the best you can do is 13th, 14th or 15th. Now, I guess he said he realized that he was accusing himself of a crime and conceded he
Starting point is 02:28:02 had been told he would not be indicted if he testified. So basically he's putting himself in crime scenes that might not, he might not have been there for just because they're telling him that he's got immunity for him is what they're saying. He also admitted to writing letters in prison in 1967, indicating a concern at the sentence. If you might get, if he gets convicted as a, as a habitual offender.
Starting point is 02:28:25 So, yeah, he said that basically he thinks he's trying to get out of a long prison term here. And after all this testifying, he's given you, sir, may fuck off one year in prison, but that also includes time served, so it's going to be way less than that. So he's going home, yeah. He's basically going home. But that also includes time served, so it's going to be way less than that. So he's going home, yeah. He's basically going home. January 30th, 1968, a bomb is planted in the car of Barbosa's attorney.
Starting point is 02:28:51 Oh? Yeah. By the way, Patriarca was found guilty and sentenced to five years for conspiracy. Okay. After that. Not a lot, but yeah. His attorney, John E. Fitzgerald, here. By the way, later on, he'll become a Rapid City, South Dakota judge for the Seventh Circuit, which is a federal judge.
Starting point is 02:29:10 He will have his car blown up, and the attorney loses his right leg below the knee from this blast. Holy shit. I'll show the picture. I'll make it one of the pictures on social media because it's crazy looking. the pictures on social media because it's crazy it's crazy looking um so they move barbosa all around from thatcher island to fort devins uh to the junior officers quarters in fort knox kentucky all these different safe federal places where nobody can get to him basically devins is crazy yeah he owned a german shepherd and while he was at Fort Knox, he would walk his dog with a member of the military police who will become a future corrupt FBI agent named John Morris. That's where he meets him.
Starting point is 02:29:52 Jesus Christ. In May 1968, the Deegan trial began after 50 days of testimony and deliberations. That's a lot. That's when the jury came back guilty and that's when patriarcha gets five years okay so joe gets paroled in march of 69 and he's supposed to be a witness protection guy now okay love coming up summer of love um when that's 68 summer of love yeah 68 i think it's 68 woodstock was 69 i think right either way it's over with him. Either way, it's over with him. He just missed it. So he now is Joseph Bentley. Okay. And he's relocated to Santa Rosa, California, where he enrolls in a culinary arts school. Beautiful.
Starting point is 02:30:35 Yeah, it's an interesting change. Then, in the summer of 1970, he murdered a guy named Clay Wilson, who we'll talk about. Why would he do that? According to the FBI, this was number 26 of his career here. Shit. Also 1970, he's threatening to recant his testimony. He's saying that basically the – they're saying that – okay, here we go. There's a motion filed with the Suffolk Superior Court that states that that Tamelio's conviction was
Starting point is 02:31:05 obtained in violation of process of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. They said because Barron is now recanting. They said basically what the press is saying that this is just like he's trying to fuck the federal government. What he said was actually true. The government's like, no, no, he's just trying to fuck us over now by saying it's not true. Yeah, you know, it's just trying to fuck us over now by saying it's not true. Yeah. You know, it's that sort of thing.
Starting point is 02:31:27 But Barron Barbosa signed an affidavit saying, I, Joseph Barron, also known as Joseph Barbosa, under oath and free from duress or coercion directly or indirectly of any kind,
Starting point is 02:31:39 say the follows. One, that I am the same Joseph Barron, also known as Joseph Barbosa, who testified in the trial. Two, that I am the same Joseph Barron, also known as Joseph Barbosa, who testified in the trial. Two, that I wish to recant certain portions of my testimony during the course of the trial insofar as my testimony concerns the involvement of Henry Tomellio, Peter J. Limone, Joseph Salvati, Louis Greco, and the killing of Teddy Deegan. Three, that the testimony I now offer to give concerning his death
Starting point is 02:32:05 will be the whole truth as known to by me. So, the murder he does here, Ricky Clay Wilson here, he will end up being bound over in superior court and arrested for this. This Ricky Clay Wilson's a 26-year-old Santa Rosa heavy equipment operator. Oh. Yeah. Mrs. Wilson, his wife, said she and her husband and Joe
Starting point is 02:32:29 and another woman went for a walk the night of July 5th 1970 near Glen Ellen. She said the men were walking in front when she saw a flash. She said she and the other woman turned and ran and heard two more shots as they ran. Then she said she and the other woman turned and ran and heard two more shots as they ran.
Starting point is 02:32:47 Then she said she went home and took some medication and went to sleep and never reported the incident. Went home after hearing shots, took some medication, went to bed. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Her husband was killed in front of her the two men were walking in front the two women in behind she said she saw a flash then heard two more shots and rather than go hey are you okay she just ran away took some medication and went to sleep run for your life motherfucker they're trying to kill us and left her husband dead in the street that's fucked up uh that is really fucked up she did not like him i guess not um she said she was asked by his parents on several occasions before the body ends up being found three months later
Starting point is 02:33:37 that she didn't know where he was and didn't know anything about it yeah yeah she ends up being a prosecution witness later. They said, hey, why wouldn't you report your husband's death that happened in front of you? And she said that before his death, that Barbosa and her husband had been arguing over about $100,000 worth of stocks and bonds, which her husband said was buried in a tin box in the area.
Starting point is 02:34:05 She said that a few hours before the shooting, he uncovered the box and turned and gave it to Joe Barbosa, who came in, got it and stomped out of their house. So, yeah, they said then they were going for a walk. His body was found in a shallow grave three months later. That's fucking crazy. Sheriff's officers said that the mysterious stocks and bonds referred to were probably part of a $300,000 security
Starting point is 02:34:30 big burglary from a residence in Petaluma two years before none of the bonds that were ever recovered including any of the ones that were in the house so this fucking guy Jesus Christ man anybody around him is just in danger.
Starting point is 02:34:45 Like the guy said, I don't want to drive across a bridge with him alone. Right. I don't know what's going to happen. I mean, you got to, Jesus Christ. I feel bad for people who are making the guy a sandwich at the sandwich shop. What if you don't even know when you fuck up and you put like tomatoes on? He said no tomatoes. He'll kill you for that.
Starting point is 02:35:00 God forbid he puts mayonnaise on it and ruins the sandwich. I'll kill you over that. So this guy will bite your face off over that. I mean, I see that as no, I see that as fair though. You ruin my sandwich. I get to take a chunk of your face. That works. I think no fault there either way.
Starting point is 02:35:16 I mean, God, you feel bad for these people, but not nearly as bad as I feel for Joe Barbosa, director of finance and grant administration at the American Academy of Addiction Psychology in Providence, Rhode Island. In Rhode Island. In Rhode Island. Joe Barbosa, product specialist at Speedline in Westport, Massachusetts.
Starting point is 02:35:37 So let's keep it up. Joseph Barbosa, photography at Barbosa Photography in Pahrump, Nevada, outside of Vegas in the middle of nowhere. That's like live PD where Nye County is there. Joe Barbosa, principal owner at Aim to Please Renovating. Aim to please or kill. Aim to kill or please.
Starting point is 02:35:59 In Houston, Joe Barbosa, delivery driver class A slash stock handler, Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Wow, I think you're just a driver, friend. Yeah. Joseph Barbosa, Bachelor of Applied Science, BASC at Rhode Island College University, some shit, in Cranston, Rhode Island. So many in fucking New England. So many. That's why I thought it was funny because that's where Portuguese people are from is New England. Remember Family Guy for a couple years? he was a fisherman and he had portuguese
Starting point is 02:36:27 people that's right and later on they made a joke about it going no nobody knew what portuguese people were so we had to get rid of them and give me a new job so the trial for this murder lasts nine weeks wow nine fucking weeks man. It's crazy. It's going on and on. After nine weeks, he stops suddenly and decides to plead guilty. Fuck it. Never mind. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:36:53 Second degree murder. There's almost the whole trial. Yeah. Yeah. There's almost the whole trial, too. The judge immediately sentences him because they said that, you know, I heard the whole trial. I don't need a sentencing report and all that so um when when he pled guilty and everybody was leaving the court he turned to the chief deputy district attorney and shook his hand and said no hard feelings
Starting point is 02:37:15 great job and the da said okay joe just shook his hand like great don't bite my face off please um the public defender said he advised barron to change his plea over the weekend. He said, in my opinion, it was in his best interest of Mr. Barron to plead guilty to second-degree murder. He said it was a move against a risk that the jury might convict him of first-degree murder. He said, I had to explain to Mr. Barron what my opinion was. He was somewhat hesitant at first. He was still hopeful of an acquittal. Barron, though, once he pleads innocence, innocent, he writes a letter to the newspaper maintaining his innocence and saying why he pled guilty.
Starting point is 02:37:54 He says, quote, I am innocent of any willful intent to harm, hurt or kill Clay Wilson. Clay Wilson, but my past affiliations with the mafia, my status of that as an ex-convict, which caused me to hide the body of Clay Wilson, prompted by two other people. So he said, I just hid the body because they told me to. I didn't kill him, but I've touched a dead body. I did hide the body. Jesus. He said, considering these two major factors, they were too much in my mind and that of my attorneys to overcome in the hands of a jury deciding my fate. He then called his lawyer,
Starting point is 02:38:29 one of the best trial lawyers in the country. And he says, I have no animosity toward the DA's office in regards to their prosecution. In fact, the DA's office is a credit to the people of Sonoma County. Fascinating. That is fucking hilarious. Um. The DA said, or one of the DAs said, I feel the defendant was justly convicted. The plea removes any possibility of a retrial on appeal and a hung jury, both of which were distinct possibilities. So, yeah, they said we felt that a reasonable doubt was created, whether it was willful, deliberate or premeditated in terms of the killing. So who knows what could have happened? So he pleads guilty. Yeah. He is sentenced to how many times has he pled guilty to things and been convicted of things violent things terrible things so many terrible things he is sent so this is a murder
Starting point is 02:39:15 second degree murder this should what do you think here it's 30 years yeah uh you sir may fuck off five years does new england only give out five year sentences this is in california oh yeah that's right this is sonoma county five years in fulsome wow here um yep while there he wrote poems about the mafia yeah and i can't get i couldn't find them i want them so bad i can't find them um maybe if i had more time i could have like somehow found his autobiography which has been out of print for 40 years i don't know and maybe it was in there they're awful what do you it's a gangster who's been punched in the head constantly what do you think his poetry is his prison poetry violets of blue i shoot your head nothing but goo i shoot
Starting point is 02:40:03 your head it's full of goo there you go yeah i was gonna say on the wall of your head it looks like a plate of gobble goo there you go which i don't know nothing about because i'm portuguese but that's okay so five years he writes poems boston's gang war is one of the poems yeah uh by the way in the 60s it was a huge gang war with people getting killed all over the place that's why in the 60s, it was a huge gang war with people getting killed all over the place. That's why in the mid 60s, he was a good guy to have around
Starting point is 02:40:28 because he was muscle. But then once the war became less with each other and more with the FBI, you didn't want this guy around because he was too much trouble. Yeah, he was the heat. Right.
Starting point is 02:40:37 Exactly. So he also wrote The Mafia Double Crosses as one poem. A Cat's Lives is another poem. And then The Gang War Ends is one poem. A Cat's Lives is another poem. And then The Gang War Ends is another poem there. Oh, boy.
Starting point is 02:40:50 So then it comes out that while working for the FBI, Agent H. Paul Rico, remember him that he met when he was an MP, helped to frame Joseph Salvati, Peter Limon, and Louis Greco, as well as Henry Tomellio for the murder of Deegan. Out of the six people convicted of murder, only Ronnie the Pig, Cossesso, and Wilford Roy French were actually involved and present in the alley where the murder took place. Agent Paul Rico had offered French and Cossesso leniency if they would corroborate Barbosa's false testimony. so leniency if they would corroborate barbosa's false testimony they refused the offer and when french was threatened with the death penalty he responded by telling rico to quote warm up the electric chair pal fuck you that's a gangster you better fucking do it you'll get the death penalty well warm up the electric chair then asshole get the Get the seat warm for me, would you? Wow. That's a fucking gangster, man. It's ice cold.
Starting point is 02:41:48 Holy shit. So either way, he ended up, Cossesso ended up dying in prison 30 years later. Wow. And French did 34 years in prison before he was let out. Jesus. An enforcer named John Mortarano became a government witness in 1999 after learning that
Starting point is 02:42:07 both stephen flemmy and whitey bulger were fbi informants and had been delivering obviously information about the mafia flemmy's name because flemmy yes he's the bulger guys so i mean bulger went back and forth in court arguing with each other yes it's the funniest two old ass men calling each other rats and stoolpatches they when they both are yes they were totally both rats they're both pieces of shit yelling at each other it's fucking amazing so um in his plea agreement he told the dea the drug enforcement administration that barbosa had admitted to lying about the men convicted of killing Teddy Deegan. Marta Rano also revealed that Vincent Flemmi had admitted to murdering Deegan. So, Tomellio and Greco died in prison after serving almost 30 years,
Starting point is 02:42:57 and Salvati and Limon were finally released in 1997 and 2001. The families of Greco, Tomellllo, Salvati, and Limon filed lawsuits totaling in excess of $1 billion against the federal government. Holy shit. Because they set it all up that way. Will you lie? Will you lie? And it came out that it's positively a fact that Rico was a crooked agent and was doing
Starting point is 02:43:20 all this type of shit. So in 2007, U.S. District Judge in Boston found the Bureau, helped convict the four men, and the U.S. government was ordered to pay $100 million in damages to the four families. To gangsters. To four gangsters' families because they didn't kill that particular guy. Wow. Yep.
Starting point is 02:43:43 Now, back to Barboza here. Wow. He receives approval of the Montana Parole Board because he'd been transferred after his life was threatened in California. So California authorities decided to conduct their own inquiry. And during 1973 parole hearings, those who testified on Barron's behalf were attorney Edward F. Harrington, former head of the U.S. Justice Department Strike Force in New England. He got him to testify. Justice Department strike force in New England. He got him to testify. He was characterized by federal authorities as having close ties with leaders of organized crime and was perhaps the most important witness developed in recent years, even though it was all a lie.
Starting point is 02:44:35 He claims there's a standing contract for his life and he's offered and said he was offered half a million dollars by organized crime to recant his testimony. Yeah. So October 30 at 75, he's released from prison there. He moves into a $250 a month apartment in San Francisco under the name Joseph Donati. Jesus. He takes the last name from some twin brothers he knew. He ends up basically being befriended by a guy who used to live in Boston, James Chalmers. Okay.
Starting point is 02:45:11 That led to Gennaro Anguillo, who was acquitted, finding out where Barbosa was. Because that guy knows people. He knows people and he told. And I'm sure there's dollar signs on his head. So on February 11th, 76, Barbosa left Chalmers' San Francisco apartment. As he was walking to his car, he's shot four times by a shotgun at close range. Ouch. Joe the animal. He's armed with a.38, an unregistered.38, of course, but he never had a chance to even pull it.
Starting point is 02:45:41 Must have never seen it coming. Yeah, so he is killed on february 11th um 1976 is joe the animal barbosa street of san francisco on the street it was an empty street his former attorney or his attorney at the time was f lee bailey who is the famous drunken disgraced and also very prolific defense attorney he's one of oJ's attorneys. So he says about Barbosa's death, quote, with all due respect to my former client, I don't think society has suffered a great loss. Probably true here.
Starting point is 02:46:13 He was kind of a bad guy. Yeah. Ilario Zanzino, or Zanino, he's an enforcer for Anguillo, Gennaro Anguillo. He was overheard on a hidden bug saying that it was J.R. Russo who killed Barbossa. He described Russo as, quote, a genius with a carbine. And, yep, he is buried in South Dartmouth Cemetery in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. And, yeah, I guess that day
Starting point is 02:46:45 Barbosa had been at lunch with somebody and he said he was worried for his own safety. He applied for Siemens papers so he could leave San Francisco. He wanted to get out on a boat and just go fish? Just go out somewhere. He told his friend that he knew someone was after him and that someone was going to try to kill
Starting point is 02:47:02 him. And 335 is when he got killed over lunch. He is when he said it. One woman heard two loud bangs and looked out her front window. She saw the van double parked in the street by the car. She saw one man leaning out of the right window with a shotgun in his hands, aiming at Barbosa. She heard another bang in the van, drove away at high speed. So there's one of several witnesses, but no one was able to provide police with a license plate number or anything like that, of course.
Starting point is 02:47:31 When police arrived, Joe Barbosa was lying in the street on his left side, obviously bleeding a lot. His head was propped up against the left rear wheel of his car, which was a blue two-door 63 Thunderbird with the vanity license plate NEPCO. NEPCO. Hmm. I don't know what that is. So he's dead. Fully loaded. Fucking, like we said, fully loaded.38.
Starting point is 02:47:54 $300 cash in his pocket. Car keys in the door lock. Wow. San Francisco detective in charge of this said there's no question this was a professional execution. He said, obviously, this is, you know, we know what this is. Obviously, they talked about it. They said he even said that he was not under protective custody, but he was under occasional surveillance by our department, which probably was for criminal reasons more than anything else.
Starting point is 02:48:21 for criminal reasons more than anything else. So members of the Boston police said it had been rumored for weeks that Barron was going to return to Boston to get even with people. That had been the big rumor on the street was Barbosa was coming back to settle some scores. And he says once that word hit the street, everybody predicted it would be a matter of weeks before Barbosa would be hit. So, yep, that's no one called claiming the body, they said afterwards either.
Starting point is 02:48:48 Is that right? Yep. He told a friend minutes before, like we said before he was shot, fucking, they said that basically someone might have gotten about 500 grand out of this is what they found from the,
Starting point is 02:49:01 that's how big of a price was on his head here. So FBI stats, like we said, 26 they know of. Here are 11 that were positive of because they were like litigated. But they know of 26. Harold Hannon on August 4th, 1964. This was a revenge for a murder of one of his friends. And then he killed his friend Wilford Delaney also. Ted Deegan, who we talked about.
Starting point is 02:49:27 This was revenge for the robberies. Romeo Martin, who we talked about. Ed McLaughlin, October 1665. He was a rival gang leader. We talked about the McLaughlin guys. Raymond DiStasio, November 1565. Wouldn't pay a debt of $15,000 to the family. So they killed him.
Starting point is 02:49:47 By the way, when he was a collector, when he would collect for people, he'd say he had a certain amount of time. After two weeks, he'd start beating you up, punching you. And he said after this many weeks, whatever it was, eight weeks or nine weeks, it was a very specific amount of time, he'd start stabbing you then. Oh, my God. He just got to stab you in the in the arms and the legs you know just in the just stab you up a little bit to let you know we mean business just to give you a few stab wounds to think about um john b o'neill uh because he witnessed just asio's murder he was the guy getting cigarettes out of the machine cornelius hughes
Starting point is 02:50:20 who's a rival gang member his friend sammy uh sam They called him Sammy Linden, Samuel Lindenbaum. He was with him that day, so he got killed as well. Stephen Hughes in 66. And then, of course, Clay Wilson. So in September of 83, Joe Barbosa's name comes up again. As racketeering and indictments are handed down by a federal grand jury in Boston. As racketeering indictments are handed down by a federal grand jury in Boston. And here the indictment is for Anguillo, who's the guy who we're pretty sure had him killed.
Starting point is 02:50:53 All this type of shit. Agents also were determined to solve the murder of Joe Barbosa, even though Barbosa was careless and violated the protection rules. The Justice Department felt like they needed to figure out who did this so they could tell people in the future you won't get whacked under witness protection. So, yeah, after the murders, they got some information through two other murders, Bratzos and DiPrisco, who are two of his friends. They ended up finding some stuff from that. They ended up investigating the Barron murder as a civil rights case. It was like he was a witness who was killed.
Starting point is 02:51:29 They maintained Barron's rights were violated when he was slain because he had a constitutional right to testify against the new England underworld organization. Good Lord. But the statute of limitations in the civil rights case expired in 81 and the justice department had to find find find it another way. They get the Chalmers guy who told on him, the guy whose apartment he was at. He pleads guilty in February 79 to conspiring with others to deprive Barron of his right to testify and was given a five year sentence.
Starting point is 02:52:01 But he wouldn't identify his co-conspirators as well. So Joseph A. Russo, the guy who we heard on wiretaps did it, described by law enforcement as an organized crime figure who operated in East Boston, was also named in a subpoena to appear before the West Coast grand jury. But at the time, FBI agents couldn't find him there. So either way, they ended up everybody pretty much ends up getting killed in this whole thing here.
Starting point is 02:52:30 One guy here who was a manager of the lounge admitted he was an accessory after the murder of Bratzos, and that doesn't matter. Okay, 1985, James N. Chalmers, the guy who's the last guy to see our guy here, testifies in a racketeering trial that basically he finally began cooperating with investigators in July 79 after lying to FBI agents for years while a paid underworld informant. He better fucking be careful. yeah he said that um he um said that he has a bad memory but he started telling the truth about his role in the execution of joe barbosa and um he testifies as the prosecution's chief witness he's on the stand for like over a week here it's fucking crazy um yeah uh anyway he tells them that um baron was a very real prospect that he was going to tell on them again. So that's why they ended up killing him.
Starting point is 02:53:29 And, yeah, so anyway, that's how it works out. Chalmers ended up cooperating, and he gets other people in jail for the murder of Baron, and that's how this goes. goes um so the one guy here russo the actual trigger man here he has not been charged with the crime though incorporated uh that's incorporated in the overall racketeering involvement so he doesn't even get he doesn't even get like fucking no because he is cooperating so he denies he killed baron and that's that wow Wow. So 2002, the House Government Reform Committee in Congress is convinced that not only the FBI and federal prosecutors assist Barboza in his defense on the Wilson murder charges, the one where he only got five years, but knowingly allowed Barboza to falsely testify on several occasions that sent men who were innocent to jail. Joe Barboza went on
Starting point is 02:54:23 trial for murder in 1971. Here you have a mob hitman. The FBI believed that he'd already committed 26 murders. The evidence against Barboza in the 1971 trial was overwhelming. The detectives and even Barboza's own lawyer testified that it was a slam-dunk capital murder case, and the FBI pulled out all the stops to try to help get Joe Barboza off. They flew out to California. They worked with the defense team. They testified on Barbosa's behalf. Wow, that's fucking crazy. So
Starting point is 02:54:50 they had all of these fucking hearings and the Justice Department trying to figure out who the fuck is crooked and all this type of shit. And they end up, that's when the Rico guy testified in front of Congress and all that. They said they were worried that if Barboza were given death for the Wilson murder,
Starting point is 02:55:10 that he'd recant his previous testimony. So they wanted to help him in any way they can. The better they treated informants in the witness protection program, the more people would join them. This they made perfectly clear to me at the time. That's what a lawyer says. So basically, if they're with us, they can kind of do what they want because we want people the time that's what a lawyer says so basically if they're with us they can kind of do what they want because we want people to know that's part of the draw hey if i go with them not only will i not go to prison for this but in the future they'll help me get out of other shit that i'm gonna get into because you know i'm gonna fuck up you know i'm gonna fuck up so um yeah they said at the end here this this um this hearing said Joe Barbosa was a cold blooded killer.
Starting point is 02:55:47 They gave him a new identity. They put him in the middle of an unsuspecting community. They put him on the payroll and he killed again. At that point, they should have locked him up and thrown away the key. They did just the opposite. They did everything they could to get him back on the street. Joe Barbosa was murdered himself in 1976 i have to wonder if he hadn't been killed how many murders would they have let him commit before the justice departments decided to rein him in excellent points i don't know ask sammy the bulgarvano who fucking hundreds tons of shit after that so uh 2000 i'm telling you this to show you the difference between the memory donald his brother donald didn't die until 2015.
Starting point is 02:56:25 Wow. Yeah, think about how much longer that is. An extra 40 years he got out of life. He was 86 years old. Jesus. He was the business agent. He was a fish lumper. That's what he did. I guess I did something with fish.
Starting point is 02:56:43 Prior to becoming the business agent and financial secretary of the New Bedford Fish Lumpers Union, local 1479 ILA includes the chief fish way or of the city of New Bedford. There you go. Donald was also president of the Southeastern Labor Port Council and president of the Santa Santo Cristo Club. He was married for 60 years. Wow. Yep. And kids and all this sort of thing um yeah they have two kids there you go so that's the difference one went the one way and one just became a regular guy who was married for 60 years had a nice union job and went home at the end of
Starting point is 02:57:19 the day yeah that's so different diverging paths anyway that's that's Joe the Animal. What a story. Holy shit. Got to get any kind of gangster who played sports. We obviously have to talk about them. That's a better story than so many movies. Why is that not the one? They made a movie about that. Did they?
Starting point is 02:57:37 They were trying to in 2018. I don't know if they ever got it. It's a great story. It is a great fucking story. Just his childhood's crazy. It's insane. It's wild. So. It is a great fucking story. Just his childhood's crazy. It's insane. It's wild. So anyway, that's Joe the Animal Barbeau.
Starting point is 02:57:49 So like we said, coming in hot for the last couple months of this show because 26 murders is pretty hot to come in with, I think. That's what we're doing. If you like the show, tell the world about it. Get on Apple Podcasts. Whatever. I don't care if you fucking leave a review or not. It doesn't really matter.
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Starting point is 02:58:15 other thing to do head over to shut up and give me murder dot com right now get all your merchandise get your tickets to live shows get your tickets to October the 27th coming up up, virtual live show.
Starting point is 02:58:26 Halloween spectacular for small-town murder, not for crime and sports. But we are going to be just like a regular live show, except you're in your living room. Come see us and hang out with us. And it's available for a week after that. So you can watch it over and over again. You can do whatever the hell you want with it. But do it. Hang out with us.
Starting point is 02:58:41 watch it over and over again. You can do whatever the hell you want with it. It's going to be great. But do it. Hang out with us, and you can get those tickets at shutupandgivememurder.com or moment.co slash smalltownmurder. Either one of those. Patreon is something you need. Not you want.
Starting point is 02:58:56 You need. You need to have it. $5 a month or above, whatever you want to do, but $5 is the minimum. It gets you everything. It's a cup of coffee, man. Yeah. A cup of coffee gets you not only a huge back catalog full of bonus episodes
Starting point is 02:59:10 that will take you a while to binge, but new stuff all the time. Every other week, you're going to get two new episodes, one crime and sports, one small town murder. Even after crime and sports ends, it will live on on Patreon forever or for a long time anyway.
Starting point is 02:59:24 So do that that get in there this week what we have uh number one for crime and sports we're going to talk about one of the more tragic stories in sports history yeah the story of len bias who was a number one overall nba draft pick in the i think it was 86 and he was like an undisputed this guy it's going to be him and jordan are going to be the two i mean he's going guy. It's going to be him and Jordan are going to be the two. I mean, he's going to be a top five player immediately. And the day he gets drafted number one overall, he goes out that night to party and celebrate
Starting point is 02:59:54 and overdoses on cocaine and dies, has a heart attack and dies. One of the craziest things of all time. We'll talk about that. And for small town murders, we are going to talk about the difference between real-life Jeffrey Dahmer stuff and Netflix thing.
Starting point is 03:00:12 Yeah. Now, the Netflix special, I think they did a good job as far as filmmaking goes and as far as acting goes and everything like that. Terrific job. The story, though, is very loosely based on what's going on. They created characters that didn't exist or mashed two into one and then made them have a whole other role in the story. There's a lot of weird stuff.
Starting point is 03:00:32 So we're going to talk about it all out of control. There's a lot going on there. So we'll talk all about that. That is Patreon dot com slash crime and sports. And of course, damn it. You will get a shout out, which is going to take place in just a moment here because we've got to thank you so much for what you do for us
Starting point is 03:00:48 and we do appreciate it. That said, I think I need to hear the names of the most wonderful people going. Jimmy, why don't you lay into me and hit me with those names right fucking now.
Starting point is 03:00:59 This week's executive producers are Roy Koontz. It could be Koontz. I don't know. What are you gonna say gary friedman uh thank you so much for roy cunts cunts gary friedman has been giving us uh money for years now and gary i gotta say thank you appreciate you mary uh katie and there's no fucking way i'm saying this right sick and nyanyo what i'm sure you're on the money Katie, and there's no fucking way I'm saying this right, Sikandnyanyo.
Starting point is 03:01:25 What? I'm sure you're on the money, Jimmy. There's a G in there and Sichi. Sichinyanyo. You're on the money, dude. Robin, maybe, I believe. Andrea Clark, Goulam Shamulziyai. I don't know if that's real.
Starting point is 03:01:42 Nate at the Gold Standard Maintenance, and also Sharon Lee Jones. Thank you guys so much for everything you do. It's really more than appreciated. You guys are amazing. Thank you. Other producers this week are Yeti Shetty and JB in Canada. Zoe Bednacek. I see you, Zoe.
Starting point is 03:01:57 Keep going. You're doing great. Wee Willie Keeler and his wife Mildew. Mark Ratner and Damone. Peyton Meadows. Peyton. Peyton's been around for years also, and Brendan Ables. Thank you guys. Hey, Brendan, we love Brendan Ables.
Starting point is 03:02:10 Carla Horner, listen to episode 61. Do you remember that one, James? Whoops-a-daisy. Kurt Olsen, and also thank you, officer. Unnecessary shower scene in the Allentown video. Tia Churchill. Men's asses, man. Jimmy's Tijuana stripper.
Starting point is 03:02:25 The guy from MASH who looks like Killer Khan. I don't know who that is. Which one looks like him? I think they're making a joke that a lot of people do because they're in Korea. Got it. Killer Khan was an Asian wrestler. I will move along.
Starting point is 03:02:38 Cheyenne Eyman. That's a joke. Andrea Fellow. Stacey Heban. Janice Hill. George Jefferson's first dollar earned from dry cleaning. Fuck yeah. Jen Parato. He's made a lot of money.
Starting point is 03:02:52 Jen Parato, Megan Stanford, Caitlin Peterson, Pamela Catherine, Ethan Banks, Robin Vergari. Vergari. That's not right. Vergari is probably right. Jamie Steeves, Dylan Barber. Vergari is probably right. Jamie, Steve's Dylan Barber? It might be Jaime also. Christy Brewer, Aggie Music, Eric C., Christina Lutz, Samantha with no last name, Robert Johnson, Haley, I think, Piran, oh boy, Piran Dozie.
Starting point is 03:03:18 Hang with it, Jimmy. You got this. Kyle, Irie, Sophia Petrillo, Christy Waters, Zach DeBlonsack, Ryan Wilson, Victoria Hohenwarder. Warder. Warder. Like people say it in, what is it? Pennsylvania? Warder.
Starting point is 03:03:36 Is that Philly? Yeah, it's Philly. No, it's Pittsburgh, right? Is it Philly? It's Pennsylvania. Who knows? Warder. Lebanon, James.
Starting point is 03:03:45 Amanda with no last name. Crystal Viramontes. Arabia. Arabia Breakfield Dinger. Alexis Freiberg. Allie would know the last name. Amy Bob. Anthony Hewitt.
Starting point is 03:03:56 Lindsay Hobbs. Patricia Lynn Harris. Lynn Harris. Lynners. Lex Mullet. Stormy Braga. Braga. Fuck. Sam Hamilton. Amy Pierce. Nels Shelton, Lindsay Buck, Dylan Dutch, Kara Niram, Bethany Hagen, Bridget Brick, Claire with no last name, Sherry Humphrey, Tonya Barron, Searinks with no last name, Brock Norris, Rebecca Swift, Sweetie, no last name layla baca uh dabby abby and megan
Starting point is 03:04:26 alvarado stacy lessig crust chris f with no last name stefan nope that's christopher okay patrick cadian james cornelson andrea morrison uh kimberly george dave schaefer chrissy with that can't be right. That's a fucking mistake. All right. Aaron Lowry, Luke with no last name. Brett Bias, Jesse Sandlin, Kimberly Barnes, Lucy Craft, Michael with no last name. Luke Tyrell, Jessica Ivory, Johnny O'Hara, Dan Morris, Ann Quackenbush, Dana Penny, Brittany Proctor, Michelle Conliff, Melanie. Nope, that's Molly.
Starting point is 03:05:04 Landek, Stephanie Tell, Melissa with no last name, Amy Johnson, Geggy with no last name, Emily Leone, Alex Schultz, Melissa Alpert, Madison Holly, Caitlin Walker, Julia Condon, Brandon McPherson, Chase Stanley, Mikkel with no last name, Sammy Woods, Emily Blackwell, Christina Miranda, those are two different people. Lucas Prasha, Ben Du Simpson, Kimberly Cooper, Savannah O. Veltman. That's close to Vietnam. Sean David.
Starting point is 03:05:36 That is my Vietnam. I was laughing at that. Elizabeth Schmidt, Chandler Cofode, Madeline Crumbus, Laura Zelnyo, Charles Gies, Shlomo Dean, Zane Bohe, Patrice Dautriev, Dalton Luna, Rebecca Kaufman, Daniel Morgan, Menzi Chase, Katrina Perez, Jen O'Regan, Patricia Mosina, Chantel Forster, Luke Messmer, Harry Patel, Steve Fust, Denise with no last name, Connie Bennett, John Phipps, Sean Neuenberger, Bauer, Nugabowger, Max Murray, Katie Cakes, Desiree Benson, Danny Bellinger, Courtney Lagasse, Corey with no last name, Sandra Groves, Rodelidge. Kayla Gowdy. Lacey Soyster. Crystal Griffin. Chris VanViver. Gary Plummer. Kevin Whitney. Molly.
Starting point is 03:06:53 Molly. Molly. Russell's Wart. Yuck. Molly Russell's Wart. Yeah, who's that? You know who it is. I don't know who it is. You know Uncle Buck fans.
Starting point is 03:07:01 Oh, that's where it's from. Danielle Willey. Cynthia Romero, Nikki Lee, Sharon Ross, Sandra Rowland Backward, what? Daniel Jones, Issa Vega, April Makely, Chance
Starting point is 03:07:15 Shricken Ghost, Tiffany Capozzi, Travis Run, Jennifer Collins, Keegan Kittle, Betty Williams, Sean Snarr, Samantha Volner, St. Dog Mom, Connie Moeller, Monique Carmen, Matthew Smith, Cheryl Holmes, Edward... Matthew Smith. You said that like it was... I expected this long Italian last name. You're like, Smith! Eduardo Juan Morales, Jay Mount, Whitney Van Wick, Elle Goodman, Shane Thomas, Ross Gowlick, Tracy Reiser, Raelynn Crowley, Cara with no last name, Matt Spicer, William Doster, Chris with no last name, Braids Grenades, Nathaniel, God damn it, Wilder, Clint Baker, Bill Hinckley, Rosemary Spargour, Ted Dejerapont, Rachel Esposito Kelly, Amy Lee, probably not that one, Brian Weidemann, Jeanette LeBlanc, Jaden Clare, Heather Murphy, Ryder Holder, Nerman, no last name, Jack Bolablu, Bobby Lou, Morga Bliger. Are you just making up things, sounds now?
Starting point is 03:08:27 I think so. Anna Karina Castillo, Charles Theis, Beth Whitaker, Santa Yana, Sonny Carter. Santa Yana, I think that's right. Michael Thiem, Thime, Andrea Darnell, Seda with no last name, Anthony Francis, Eden, Eden, Holy, Allison, Patrick, Carly, Kay, Bittner. That's one person. Katie Burns, Rich Traub, Robert Miller, Joan, John Arndt. That can't be right. Haley Casabon, one, two.
Starting point is 03:09:00 That's a person. Michelle Sprayberry, Malti Stange, Courtney Howlett, Gina Winterstein, Pamela Lucci, Michelle Wells, Derek Adams, Olivia Tungy, or Tongue, Allison Lindsay, Alex Cameron, Gabby Machow,ill. That's it. Leonidas's mom, Nicholas Carter. Probably not that one. Christine Heck, Alessandra Pildner, Von Steinberg, Andy Scorefield, Craig Hunt, Joshua, no last name, Logan Peterka, and Melissa Elrod and all of our patrons. You guys are amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody, for all that you do for us.
Starting point is 03:09:48 God damn it. Do we fucking appreciate it. And we're going to keep pumping out the Patreon goodness and hope you keep loving it because we love doing them. So lots of fun. Thanks for everything. Thanks for hanging out with us. Like we said, going to be crazy. There's going to be no kind of, eh, that was the right story.
Starting point is 03:10:05 None of that shit in the next couple months. It's all crazy stories. Movie worthy. Movie worthy. These are all going to be short movies or long, actually. This is a long movie. Either way, we're going to do that. You want to find us on social media, very easy to do that.
Starting point is 03:10:19 Either Google search Crime and Sports Podcast hosts or you can just go to shutupandgivememurder.com where everything is there, links to all that shit. Come find us, hang out with us, keep coming back for a little while anyway, and live from the Crime and Sports studios, we will see you next week. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Crime and Sports early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

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