BRATTLEBORO — Join independent scholar and Boston author Marc Songini for a talk on his book, Boston Mob: The Rise and Fall of the New England Mob and Its Most Notorious Killer, on Saturday, Jan. 24, at 3 p.m., in the Library's Meeting Room.
Songini will discuss the true story of revenge, corruption, and power of how Bobby Kennedy, first as attorney general, then as U.S. senator, targeted Raymond Patriarca, don of the New England Mafia, for destruction.
Kennedy had a resentment of the Mafia in general and of Patriarca in particular. To bring him down, he initiated the United States Federal Witness Protection Program, as well as other laws that would ensnare Mafia leaders. But when FBI agent H. Paul Rico turned to Mafia enforcer Joe “The Animal” Barboza, the bullets really began to fly.
Barboza was a survivor of the gang wars of the 1960s, which included a vicious feud between the Charlestown Irish McLaughlin gang and the original pre-Whitey Bulger Winter Hill Gang.
Barboza became the first witness with inside knowledge of the Mafia to testify, and he was the first member of the Witness Protection Program. He sent top men from the New England underworld to jail for life. But he was also a ruthless, psychopathic killer who murdered approximately 20 people, one of whom he killed while in the program.
Songini is a Boston-area journalist whose work has appeared in the Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, and other major publications. He is also the author of The Lost Fleet, a chronicle of Yankee whaling and disaster at sea.