'Things got worse' without them

Looking back, Edward Greco calls them "the wonder years." His family lived in a nice Colonial in Peabody. His father built him a fort in the backyard and was always around for family dinners, homework help, and trips to the beach and ballpark.

Everything changed when Eddie Greco was 10. His father, Louis , a decorated World War II veteran, was arrested for a 1965 gangland murder in Chelsea, wrongfully convicted with three other men and sentenced to death.

"That time there was the most black time of my life," Edward Greco, now 49, recently told a federal judge as he testified about the disintegration of his family while his father sat on death row in the late 1960s. "Things got worse and worse at home."

His mother sank into depression, drank heavily, and became abusive and neglectful, failing to shop for groceries or do laundry . "There was no food in the house," said Edward Greco, who said he survived by eating leftovers from classmates' school lunches. "I had no clean clothes to wear. . . . and some of the pants I can't even button because I'm growing."

Life changed dramatically, too, for the families of the other three men convicted with Greco in state court while FBI documents that might have helped prove their innocence remained buried in the bureau's files.

Joseph Salvati and Peter J. Limone were in their early 30s when they went to prison, each leaving wives struggling to raise four young children. Henry Tameleo , who at 66 was the eldest of the group when he was arrested , left an ailing wife who died at home without him.

On Tuesday, a federal judge will hear final arguments in a civil suit seeking more than $100 million in damages from the government for the false imprisonment of Salvati and Limone, whose convictions in the slaying of Edward "Teddy" Deegan were overturned six years ago, and Greco and Tameleo, both of whom died in prison before they were exonerated.

Lawyers for the four men cited wrongful convictions nationwide in which more than $1 million was awarded per year of imprisonment. By that calculation, the government could be forced to pay at least $112 million.

US District Judge Nancy Gertner is expected to rule next month on whether the FBI is liable for failing to disclose documents during the 1968 trial that indicate the men were framed, and if so, how much the government should pay the men and their families.

US Justice Department lawyers have argued that the FBI is not liable because it had no obligation to share internal documents with state prosecutors or defense lawyers, and that the state prosecuted Salvati, Limone, Greco, and Tameleo after conducting an independent investigation.

However, in January 2001, Superior Court Judge Margaret Hinkle threw out the convictions of Salvati and Limone after reviewing the newly discovered FBI documents, ruling they cast serious doubt on the credibility of Joseph "The Animal" Barboza, a notorious hit man who was recruited by the FBI to testify at the trial.

The documents showed that the FBI knew Barboza may have falsely implicated the four men, while protecting one of Deegan's killers, who was an FBI informant. They also revealed that the FBI was aware of plans to kill Deegan, but failed to stop the slaying.

The judge set Limone free after 33 years in prison. Salvati had been paroled in 1997 after nearly 30 years in prison.

The civil case is being closely watched in Boston. Limone and Tameleo were alleged to be Mafia leaders at the time of Deegan's murder, and Greco and Salvati had minor criminal records. T he case caps a decade of investigation into the FBI's mishandling of informants in Boston while zealously pursuing the Mafia.

The trial, which began in November, dredges up a violent chapter in Boston history when the mob was a powerful presence in New England.

Barboza said during the 1968 trial that Limone offered him $7,500 to kill Deegan, and that Tameleo sanctioned the hit. He also testified that Greco and Salvati were involved in the ambush of Deegan in a Chelsea alley on March 12, 1965.

"It was all a lie," Salvati testified last month, saying he'd never met Deegan and suspected Barboza framed him because of a dispute over $400 he had borrowed from a loan shark to pay bills. At the time, Salvati, 34, worked various jobs as a truck driver, doorman at a North End restaurant, and laborer offloading fishing boats to support his wife and children, then ages 5, 9, 11 and 13.

Greco, then 50, also had run-ins with Barboza. With Limone and Tameleo, he also denied any role in the murder.

After all four men were convicted in 1968, Greco, Limone, and Tameleo were sentenced to die in the electric chair and spent several years on death row before their sentences were reduced to life in prison. Salvati had been sentenced to life in prison. They began their sentences in Walpole State Prison, as MCI-Cedar Junction was known at the time, then were moved to other institutions over the years.

"The first couple of years were real rough," Salvati, now 72, of the North End, told the judge. His children were taunted on the street, he said.

Photographs spanning five decades that were presented during the trial show Limone and Salvati entering prison as dark-haired young men with small children and emerging as gray-haired grandfathers.

The Limone and Salvati children recounted frequent trips to prison, where they would be frisked before entering and frightened by the sound of heavy metal doors clanging behind them. Their fathers missed milestones in their lives, including birthdays, communions, graduations, weddings, and births of their children.

"They could never replace my childhood that they took from me or my father's youth," said Sharon Salvati, who was 11 when her father went to prison and 41 when he came home. She said her mother was "a rock" who kept the family together and never complained , but sometimes she'd hear her quietly crying.

Salvati's wife, Marie, got a job as a Head Start caseworker, took college courses, and worked her way up to director. On weekends, she packed up the children to visit her husband, traveling by train and Greyhound bus.

It was similar for Limone's wife, Olympia "Olly" Limone. A stay-at-home mother with children ages 1, 4, 7, and 8 when her husband was arrested, she sewed drapes and cleaned homes to support her young family.

Greco's wife, Roberta Werner, who divorced him in 1970, testified that he was at the movies with her in Florida when Deegan was killed. She felt depressed and unable to cope after his conviction, she testified, and fled to Nevada, leaving her sons, then 13 and 15, to live with their aunt in Revere.

Werner, who later reconciled with her children and former husband, testified that she felt "terribly ashamed" at leaving them, but thought her sons would fare better in a new town and school where no one knew their father was a convicted murderer.

Life was better for a while, Edward Greco told the judge. He was working an overnight shift, buffing floors at a supermarket, while attending eighth grade, but he had plenty to eat and his aunt was good to him, he said.

But when she died from liver disease his uncle threw him out of the house and at age 17, he said, he was living on the streets and selling drugs .

Edward Greco, who lives in a New Orleans nursing home and is recovering from lung cancer surgery, said he stopped visiting his father because he just could not bear seeing him in prison anymore, recalling how his father would say, "I'm not going to die in here . . . They're going to find out some day that I'm innocent, and I'm going to get out of here. So, don't worry. Just hang on."

But Louis Greco died in prison in 1995, at age 78. Two years after his father's death, Edward Greco said, his brother, Louis Jr., committed suicide by drinking Draino.

Tameleo had three heart attacks in prison before dying in 1985, at 84. His son, Saverio, said he was devastated at not being able to be with his wife of 60 years, Jeannete, when she died in 1979.