Violent and notorious Rhode Island mobster sentenced to 9 years in prison
Frank “Bobo” Marrapese, one of the state’s most notorious mob figures, was sentenced to nine years in state prison on Monday after he pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, extortion conspiracy and criminal usury.
Marrapese, 70, who was on parole for murder at the time of his arrest in May 2011, exhibited no emotion as he stood before Superior Court Judge William E. Carnes Jr. for sentencing. Long known as one of the most vicious enforcers in the Patriarca crime family, Marrapese looked like an ordinary senior citizen with gray, slick-backed hair, dress slacks, black sweater and oversize glasses.
The only clear giveaway of his legendary criminal past were the handcuffs and leg chains.
But though age has caught up with Marrapese, he believes that time hasn’t lessened his feared reputation on the street.
Special Assistant Attorney James Baum told the court that Marrapese was captured on a court-authorized wiretap in February 2011 chatting with Thomas “Red Ball” Hartley, a longtime organized crime associate.
“People know about me. What I’m about,” Marrapese said on the recording. “People [soil] their pants when they hear my name.”
The aging mobster was in court to plead guilty to seven counts from the 2011 arrest — racketeering conspiracy, five counts of extortion conspiracy and criminal usury, known as lending money at exorbitant interest rates. .
Baum argued that Marrapese’s record and the nature of the charges should prohibit him from earning credit for time served. He has been jailed since May 6, 2011, in the prison’s maximum-security unit.
Carnes disagreed, saying that Marrapese should get credit for spending the past 21/2 years in prison for violating the terms of his parole.
In April 2008, Marrapese, then 65, walked out of the Adult Correctional Institutions for the first time in 25 years — the sentence for the murder of Richard A. “Dickie” Callei — though Marrapese remained on parole. On March 15, 1975, Callei, a mob associate, spent the last hours of his life in the Acorn Social Club in the heart of Federal Hill.
Marrapese’s father owned the club.
Callei’s bullet-riddled body was discovered later that day near a golf course in Rehoboth, Mass. The murder remained unresolved for a decade, but Marrapese, a top earner for the Patriarca crime family, was always a prime suspect. He was finally convicted of the murder in September 1987.
The ’80s were a busy time for Marrapese. He was under indictment in 1984 for the Callei murder and for stealing asphalt from the city and using it to pave driveways and parking lots. His partner in crime in the asphalt case was Edward F. “Buckles” Melise, a city worker.
Marrapese, in a secretly recorded conversation that was played in court in June 1984 during a perjury conspiracy trial in which mob figure Alfred “Chippy” Scivola Jr was a defendant, knew his world was falling apart.
“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.”
That same decade, Marrapese was charged in two other murders: the May 1982 gangland slaying of Anthony “The Moron” Mirabella in Fidas Restaurant on Valley Street, and the August 1982 murder of Ronald McElroy, 20, of East Providence, who was beaten to death with a baseball bat after he inadvertently cut off Marrapese and a mob associate on Broadway in Providence. Marrapese was found not guilty in both murders.
It didn’t take Marrapese long to return to his criminal ways after his release from prison five years ago.
By fall 2010, Marrapese and several other high-profile mob figures, including Edward C. Lato and Scivola, were allegedly running a large-scale sports gambling ring that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars. The state police set out to break the criminal enterprise they say was run by Vincent R. “Tootsie” Tallo, of Johnston, and they obtained court-authorized wiretaps to record their conversations.
In May 2011, Marrapese, Lato, Scivola, Tallo and 21 others were arrested on racketeering, extortion, conspiracy and gambling charges. It was the charges from that arrest that led to Marrapese’s sentencing Monday.
Last year, Lato and Scivola pleaded guilty to federal crimes stemming from a lengthy investigation into New England mobsters shaking down Providence strip clubs for more than $1 million in extortion payments.
Lato, 66, is in a federal prison in Estill, S.C., until July 2019, while Scivola, 72, is in the federal medical center at Fort Devens, Mass., until January 2015.
In seeking credit for time served, Marrapese’s lawyer, John B. Harwood, said Monday that his client has had time to reflect in prison and he realizes that “the world has changed.”
Based on his advanced age and medical condition, Harwood said that Marrapese “should be given the benefit of the doubt.” Afterward, he shuffled out of the courtroom with two sheriffs serving as escorts. They took him to the lockup, where he remained until he was bused back to the ACI in Cranston.
http://www.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/content/20131118-r.i.-mobster-bobo-marrapese-70-going-back-to-prison-for-racketeering-extortion.ece
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