Court Filings: More Information Released In New England Mob’s DiSarro Murder, Victim Left Ominous Note

New federal court filings fill in some critical gaps in the first-degree murder case against former New England mafia don Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme, who will stand trial next month for the 1993 gangland slaying of Boston nightclub owner Stevie DiSarro. The 84-year old Salemme led the Patriarca crime family for the first half of the 1990s and was pulled out of the Witness Protection Program in August 2016, charged with ordering DiSarro’s murder in the months after DiSarro’s remains were exhumed from underneath a converted mill in Rhode Island.

DiSarro, 43, was partners with Salemme in a South Boston music venue and rock-and-roll bar called The Channel and believed to be skimming profits and cooperating with the government in building a vcase against the violence-plagued Salemme regime. He disappeared in the spring of 1993.

Per a number of briefs filed by prosecutors in recent weeks, a frantic DiSarro left a note for his son telling him they wouldn’t be seeing each other for a while in the moments before leaving for a meeting with Salemme he would never return from. Prosecutors allege DiSarro was strangled to death by Salemme’s son, Francis (Frankie Boy) Salemme, Jr. and Frankie Boy’s best friend, Paul (Paulie the Plumber) Weadick at the Salemme family home in swanky Boston suburb of Sharon, Massachusetts on the afternoon of May 10, 1993 as Cadillac Frank and his brother Jackie (Action Jack) Salemme, watched on.

Salemme, Jr. and Weadick worked at DiSarro’s club, as a manager and bouncer, respectively. Weadick, 62, will stand trial alongside Salemme next month. He is currently part of the Gemini Social Club crew in Boston’s North End ran by modern-day New England mafia bosses the DiNunzio brothers (Carmen “Big Cheese” DiNunzio and Anthony “Little Cheese” DiNunzio). Both Weadick and the elder Salemme have pled not guilty. Jack Salemme, Cadillac Frank’s acting boss prior to flipping in the late 1990s, has not been charged in the case.

Salemme, Jr. died of complications resulting from the AIDS virus in 1995, shortly after him and his dad were indicted in a major mob racketeering case. At the time of DiSarro’s murder, Salemme, Jr. was under indictment for a labor racketeering case tied to Teamster payoffs trying to secure Hollywood movie contracts and was confined by the courts to the Sharon residence until his trial.

DiSarro and his brother-in-law Roland Wheeler purchased The Channel, located on the “Southie” waterfront in 1991. By March of 1993, the FBI approached DiSarro and let him know he was on the verge of being arrested for money laundering and bank fraud in relation to his ownership in the club, according to prosecutors briefs. Wheeler testified in front of a federal grand jury about the club and its links to Salemme in April. After hearing of Wheeler’s testimony, Frankie Boy Salemme, Jr, expressed concern to his father that DiSarro was cooperating with the FBI and IRS.

In his initial debriefing with authorities in 1999, Cadillac Frank denied involvement in DiSarro’s disappearance, claiming the hit was called in from behind bars by his predecessor to the Patriarca throne, Nicky Bianco, who had died years earlier in prison. Also divulged in the new court filings is the fact that former Patriarca soldier Joe DeLuca got inducted into the crime family for burying DiSarro’s body.

DeLuca is the younger brother of one-time Salemme underboss Robert (Bobby the Cigar) DeLuca, set to be the star witness at next month’s trial and the man responsible for the Providence wing of the Patriarca clan during the Salemme regime. The elder DeLuca, 71, admits to being tasked with overseeing burial duties in the DiSarro homicide. He agreed to testify against Salemme in exchange for charges not being levied against his baby bro.

Joe DeLuca has told prosecutors he volunteered to physically bury DiSarro’s body to protect his older sibling from exposure, due to the fact that Bobby the Cigar had a wife and kids. He further admitted to rendezvousing with Salemme at a Providence pharmacy on the evening of May 10, 1993 and taking possession of DiSarro’s corpse, which had been wrapped in a blue-colored tarp and driven across state lines in the back of Salemme’s Ford Explorer SUV.