Lawrence W. Frisoli, 57; lawyer pressed lawsuits for family in Curley case

Lawrence W. Frisoli spoke in his Cambridge office in August 2000 after a jury awarded the family of Jeffrey Curley, a 10-year-old murder victim, $328 million in a wrongful death suit. (Jim Walker/Associated Press/file)

As he filed a lawsuit against the two men who raped and killed Jeffrey Curley, Lawrence W. Frisoli conceded in an interview with the Globe that "there's no sum of money that could compensate" the family of the 10-year-old Cambridge boy who was murdered in 1997.

And because the defendants were broke and serving life sentences for the murder, the money was symbolic when the Middlesex jury awarded the Curley family $328 million in the wrongful death suit. Still, Mr. Frisoli told the Globe that August day in 2000, the message was important.

"This is a measuring stick by which to judge people who rape kids and get caught," said Mr. Frisoli, the Curley family's lawyer. "We can't stop pedophiles from raping children, but we can make it harder on them."

Mr. Frisoli, who served a two-year term in the Cambridge City Council and ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general two years ago, died Wednesday of kidney and liver failure at Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital in Salem. He was 57 and had lived in Bedford.

"He was a great guy who fought for what he believed in, and he helped my family a lot," said Robert Curley of Somerville, Jeffrey's father. "The thing I remember most about Larry is his kindness and caring. It was more a friendship than a relationship as a client and an attorney."

In a case that drew national attention, Jeffrey Curley was killed after Charles Jaynes and Salvatore Sicari abducted the boy from his East Cambridge neighborhood on Oct. 1, 1997, luring him into a car with the promise of a new bicycle. When Jeffrey resisted their sexual advances, the two men smothered him. His remains were found several days later in a Maine river.

Representing the Curley family, Mr. Frisoli also filed a $200 million lawsuit in federal court against the North American Man/Boy Love Association, a group that advocates sex between men and boys. The wrongful death and civil rights lawsuit claimed that the actions of one of the men who killed Jeffrey Curley were spurred by material he had obtained from the organization.

The family dropped the suit earlier this year, saying only one witness was prepared to testify that the organization's material incited one of the killers to act. A judge, meanwhile, had ruled that the witness was not competent to testify.

Frank Frisoli of Winchester, Mr. Frisoli's partner in a Cambridge law practice, said the end of the NAMBLA lawsuit and the symbolic, rather than monetary, nature of the earlier victory weighed heavily on his younger brother.

"I don't think he ever appreciated how much good he did in the world," Frank Frisoli said. "He was somebody always interested in helping people, that's what he was about."

Lawrence Frisoli grew up in Cambridge and went to parochial schools, graduating from Christopher Columbus High School in the North End. In 1972, he received a bachelor's degree from Boston University.

"I was already in law school when he was getting out of college, and there was no hesitation, that was what he wanted to do," his brother said of Mr. Frisoli's decision to become a lawyer. "He was wise beyond his years. He was one of those people who could figure out right away what to do and follow it through."

Mr. Frisoli graduated from Suffolk Law School in 1975 and worked as an assistant district attorney in Norfolk County. In 1977, he was elected to the Cambridge City Council, and he served as vice mayor of the city before he was defeated in a reelection bid two years later.

His first marriage ended in divorce, and in the 1980s, he married MaryJo (O'Connor), with whom he had twin sons, Michael and Morgan.

Eight years ago, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly chose Mr. Frisoli as one of the publication's lawyers of the year. In 2006, he lost the race for attorney general of Massachusetts to Martha Coakley.

For more than eight years, Mr. Frisoli was president of the Massachusetts Adult State Soccer Association and recently had been Region I director of the United States Adult Soccer Association.

"All of us in the US Adult Soccer family have lost a good friend and . . . ambassador of the game," Stephanie Walker, the organization's national administrator, said in a message posted on the athletic group's website. "Larry was extremely dedicated to adult soccer, not just from an administrative standpoint but also as a player."

Because of his work with the Curley family, Mr. Frisoli appeared many times on TV as a guest of hosts such as Bill O'Reilly, Geraldo Rivera, and on CourtTV, "but when you'd talk with him, you'd never know he was anybody," his brother said.

"One of the things that I'd have to say is that he was so different from most people in that the letter 'I' was not in his conversation very often," his brother said. "It was always about you."

In addition to his wife, two sons, and brother, Mr. Frisoli leaves four sisters, Mary Ann Harold of Medford, Elizabeth Breuder of Bedford, N.H., Martha Gibson of Brookfield, Vt., and Angela Tomlinson of Grayslake, Ill.

A funeral Mass will be said at 9 a.m. tomorrow in St. Francis of Assisi Church in Cambridge. Burial will be in Cambridge Cemetery.