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Suspects accused of dismembering, cooking body

E-mail|Link June 8, 2009 03:03 PM

Norfolk prosecutor Robert Nelson outlined a murder case against Daniel Bradley and Paul Moccia. Defense attorneys Steven Boozang and Charles Tamuleviz said their clients are wrongly accused. (Video by John Ellement, Globe Staff)

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

WRENTHAM -- Two longtime friends today were accused of murdering a Guatemalan immigrant, dismembering the body, and then "cooking" the remains at a Walpole concrete business.

Norfolk Assistant District Attorney Robert Nelson made the ghastly accusations in Wrentham District Court as Daniel Bradley and Paul Moccia pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges and were ordered held without bail.

The prosecutor said that the victim, Angel Antonio Ramirez, was a drug dealer who obtained kilos of cocaine from the West Coast. Moccia owed Ramirez $70,000 from prior drug deals, Nelson said, and Moccia decided he was not going to pay Ramirez back and made the decision to kill him.

Nelson said that on March 20, Moccia met Ramirez near the concrete company in Walpole that Bradley co-owns. Moccia is accused of shooting Ramirez in the back with a .357-caliber pistol. The victim's body was then taken to RJ Bradley Co. Inc. where Bradley allegedly dismembered the man's remains.

Nelson said one final effort was made to eliminate evidence of the killing. "It was cooked," Nelson said of Ramirez's body. Prosecutors did not say how the body was cooked.

Prosecutors expect forensic evidence recovered from the concrete factory to bolster the case against the two suspects. Attorneys for the two men staunchly denied that their clients were guilty of the charges and questioned whether a crime occurred at all, because prosecutors can't produce the victim's body.

John Gibbons, one of Bradley's defense attorneys, said that Bradley did not know Ramirez. He also said that Bradley and Moccia were questioned repeatedly by investigators in the last several weeks, but Bradley never fled.

"He wants to defend his name and his family's name," Gibbons said. "At the end, the evidence will show, the forensic evidence will show, that Mr. Bradley had nothing to do with this, had nothing to do, no involvement at all" with this incident.

Steven Boozang, Moccia’s attorney, told reporters that he has known Moccia, a Massachusetts Turnpike toll taker, for 25 years and is stunned he is accused of being a major drug dealer.

"He's just a good man and a great, great father," Boozang said of Moccia. He said Moccia has two sons and a sick mother, and that he works as much overtime at the Turnpike as he can and spends the rest of the time with his family. Boozang said Moccia would not have enough time to be a drug dealer.

A MassPike spokesman said yesterday that Moccia has been suspended without pay.