Joseph Barboza

The End of the Road

As of 1962 Barboza was now a bona fide Patriarca hitman and within a span of a few years, would kill over two dozen people, during what was an especially deadly time on the streets of Boston. But after a gun-related arrest in 1966, Barboza would quickly decided to reassess his place in the organization – after mob boss Raymond Patriarca failed to bail him out. When some of Barboza’s crime associates raised more than $80,000 toward it, Patriarca had three of them killed and their money taken. The boss also took over The Animal’s loanshark racket. Barboza heard of it all in jail. Poised to stay in the pen for the next five years, the Animal soon became a snitch for the Feds.

In what is now known as one of the most corrupt, misguided and greatest miscarriages of justice by the FBI, agents would go on to coach Barboza to falsely testify against six men for a murder of low-rent criminal Teddy Deegan. A murder that Barboza, along with Vincent “The Bear” Flemmi actually committed. The six men spent over 25 years in prison (two died during their incarceration) and were later awarded $102 million dollars by the federal government. In the meantime, Barboza was the first person to enter the witness protection program after the trail.

In 1976 word got back on the location of Barboza to Patriarcia underboss Gennero Angiulo through a south Boston contact that befriended Barboza. On February 11, 1976, Barboza left the contact’s San Francisco apartment and as he was walking to his car, a Ford van pulled up and the sliding door opened and Barboza was hit by four shotgun blasts at close range by mob associate J.R. Russo. Although he was armed with a Colt .38, Barboza never had a chance to draw it.

Shortly after Barboza’s 1976 death, his former attorney F. Lee Bailey said: “With all due respect for my former client, I don’t think society has suffered a great loss.”