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Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:35:30 -0500
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From: "James M. Atkinson" <jm..._at_tscm.com>
Subject: Obit - Mercurio
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http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/02/mo...
Mafia soldier Angelo "Sonny" Mercurio, whose cooperation with the FBI
led to the first-ever bugging of a mob induction ceremony, has died in
Little Rock, Ark., where he lived in the federal witness-protection
program, relatives said Sunday.
The-70-year-old former member of the Patriarca crime family died on
Dec. 11 of a pulmonary embolism, relatives said.
"He never wanted to be outed ... it was something he was ashamed
about," said Michael Liston, a Boston attorney who represented
Mercurio, who had been living under the name of Anthony Valenti. ''He
described it as being the worst level of hell.''
Born in Boston's West End, he grew up working in the family's
business, Pearl Bakery, in Malden. After having trouble with the law,
he started Vanessa's Italian Food Shop, named after his daughter, in
the Prudential Center. There, he and other mobsters planned many of
their criminal transactions, according to accounts in court.
Mr. Mercurio, who had been a liaison between the Boston Mafia and the
Winter Hill Gang, became one of the FBI's principal informants in the
late 1980s, after the FBI bugged his shop and gathered enough evidence
to indict him and others for extorting a couple of elderly bookmakers.
Mr. Mercurio's FBI handler was John J. Connolly, Jr., the now-
disgraced former agent who also used James Bulger and Stephen Flemmi
as informants.
Mr. Mercurio told the FBI in 1989 that an induction ceremony would be
held in Medford that October. He ferried others to the house, where 17
mobsters, including the hierarchy of the New England family gathered
as four new members were baptized.
During the ceremony, in which the four pledged their lives to La Cosa
Nostra, Mr. Mercurio even turned down the television to make it easier
for FBI bugs in the home to pick up the conversation, according to
accounts in court.
The tapes were hailed as critical because it was the first time law
enforcement had infiltrated the secret proceedings, offering proof of
La Cosa Nostra's existence. Mr. Mercurio's work with the FBI also
played a role in the downfall of Connolly, who was convicted on
federal racketeering charges in 2002 and is serving a 10-year
sentence.
Gail Marcinkiewicz, an FBI spokeswoman, declined to comment.
In 1990, Mr. Mercurio fled just before being indicted with then-New
England mob boss Raymond Patriarca and others who attended the
infamous ceremony.
Mercurio later testified that he regretted ever turning informer. He
claimed to have been entrapped by the FBI.
In 2000, a judge reduced Mr. Mercurio's 110-month prison sentence for
helping expose serious misconduct by the FBI agents who ran the
informant program.
Mr. Mercurio said he wouldn't have done it again. "I deserve nothing,"
he said at the time. "When you're a rat, you deserve nothing."
Judith Gopoian, Mr. Mercurio's mother-in-law, said Mercurio lived in a
one-bedroom apartment in Little Rock.
"I call him the last of the wise guys," said Gopoian, 74, of Lake
Worth, Fla., in a phone interview. "Money was nothing to him," Gopoian
said. "He just went gambling and did whatever he wanted," often
traveling to neighboring states to play the lottery and spend his FBI
stipend.
Though the two talked every week, they never discussed his
relationship with the FBI. "He was put in a situation that he didn't
like, but he had to do it, or he wouldn't have been around," Gopoian
said. "People think that because of the business he was in, he wasn't
a good human being, but he was."
Gopoian said Mr. Mercurio suffered from a blockage of arteries in the
lungs. She said he never fully recovered from an operation he had
about two years ago.
In addition to his daughter, Mr. Mercurio is survived by his sister,
Lorraine Carvalho of Woburn and his brother Michael of Arizona.
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