Notorious Rhode Island mobster who served 25 years to be freed
PROVIDENCE - Providence mobster Frank L. Marrapese Jr., a convicted killer known as a one-man crime wave, is about to rejoin society.
Marrapese, better known by his nickname, Bobo, will leave the Adult Correctional Institutions prison complex in Cranston on Wednesday after serving 25 years.
He will be fitted for an electronic monitoring bracelet, which he will wear for a year, then be on parole for the rest of his life. Local police told The Providence Journal that they will pay extra attention to Marrapese, 65, to make sure he does not reunite with his mobster friends.
Marrapese was convicted in 1987 of murdering mobster Richard "Dickie" Callei. who was shot five times in 1975. But he was acquitted of two other killings and was in and out of jail numerous times on various charges, from machine gun possession to bank robbery, that never seemed to stick.
"Just the word 'Bobo' would instill fear," retired State Police captain Brian Andrews, former commander of the detective division and intelligence unit, told the Journal. "He was a major player as far as we were concerned, and he was into everything."
Marrapese grew up in Providence and became a thriving member of the Patriarca crime family during its heyday in the 1960s and '70s.
He ran the Acorn Social Club, which was a key meeting spot for mobsters from across New England. Callei visited the club during the final hours of his life in March 1975. His bullet-riddled body was found the next day buried near a golf course.
The killing went unsolved for a decade. Meanwhile, Marrapese's criminal career continued, and police got closer to putting him away.
In October 1981, Marrapese and an associate were arrested in the theft of a truckload of stolen
By 1984, Marrapese was indicted for Callei's murder. He was also under indictment for stealing asphalt from the city and using it to pave driveways and parking lots.
Marrapese spoke about the pressure on him in a secretly recorded conversation that was played in court.
"How do you think I feel?" he said on the tape. "I got three houses, five businesses, five kids, two girlfriends, and a wife, and now I'm right there. I'm almost at the top, where I'm set for life."
At the Callei trial, two of Marrapese's former underlings cooperated with the state and testified against him.
Inside prison, he was disciplined 35 times.
