Former Mafia underboss Gennaro Angiulo dies at 90

By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff

Gennaro "Jerry" Angiulo, the former underboss of the New England Mafia who ruled the Boston rackets from the 1960s until his headline-generating arrest and conviction in the 1980s, died today. He was 90.

Gerry Angiulo in 1987

Angiulo and his three brothers, Donato, Francesco, and Michele were all convicted in February 1986 in the region's first sweeping federal racketeering case against the mob. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the case.

The son of Italian immigrants who ran a North End grocery store, Gennaro Angiulo rose through the Mafia ranks under Raymond L.S. Patriarca of Providence because of his keen skill at making money. The Angiulo brothers were disciplined hands-on operators, who had a virtual monopoly on the region's illegal gambling and loansharking, according to law enforcement officials.

But the Angiulo empire was toppled when the FBI planted bugs in their Prince Street headquarters and at a social club on North Margin Street for three months in 1981, as Angiulo ordered murders and beatings and boasted of his misdeeds.

When he was hauled by FBI agents out of Francesco's Restaurant in the North End in 1983, he yelled, "I'll be back before my pork chops get cold."

But he was wrong. He wasn't released on parole until 2007. In recent years, he has been living quietly at his home in Nahant.