Much like his on-screen namesake played by matinee movie idol Brad Pitt, the late Boston mobster Joseph (Joe Black) Lamattina wasn’t someone to be trifled with. Back in the 1980s, he got jammed up in a loansharking case for threatening to physically harm one of his debtors. This week in federal court it was revealed that he was looking to kill a future mob boss’ son for a brazen drug rip off. In late 1982, used car dealer Billy DiStefano sought a street loan of $5,000 from Joe Black, a longtime member of Boston’s North End mob crew run by Larry Zannino. DiStefano received the loan at a 5% interest rate. By February 1983, DiStefano took out an additional $5,000 loan from Lamattina at a 3% interest. Since he hadn’t paid back the first loan yet, DiStefano gave Lamattina a stolen car as collateral. Just weeks later, DiStefano needed another $5,000 and Joe Black provided it with the same 3% interest rate as his last loan. Within months, DiStefano couldn’t keep up with his monthly payments to Lamattina, was under investigation by the police for insurance fraud and skipped town. An irate Joe Black showed up at his girlfriend’s clothing store and told her to tell DiStefano, “He took my blood, now I’m going to take his.” When DiStefano called Lamattina from out of town to try to calm him down, Joe Black said, “There’s no place left to hide,” in response to DiStefano trying to use his connection to imprisoned gangland figure Pete (The Crazy Horse) Limone as a means of receiving mercy for his transgressions – Limone would go on to become Godfather of the New England mafia in the 2000s. DiSteffano contacted the FBI in February 1984 and wired up in meetings with Lamattina. The feds indicted Joe Black in early 1985 and he was convicted at trial in 1988, sentenced to eight years behind bars. He was released from prison in January 1993. Joe Black died of natural causes in 2015 at 85 years old. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, he spearheaded the Patriarca crime family’s out-of-state casino-gambling interests, working with iconic Jewish wiseguy Meyer Lansky. Lamattina tried taking out a murder contract on Francis (Frankie Boy) Salemme, Jr. in the 1980s but Winter Hill Gang leader Stevie (The Rifleman) Flemmi intervened on Salemme, Jr. behalf and had the contract removed. Flemmi testified about the incident this week at his one-time close friend Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme’s trial, Frankie Boy’s dad and the former Patriarca clan don who’s fighting first-degree homicide charges in the 1993 slaying of nightclub owner Stevie DiSarro. Federal prosecutors claim the now-deceased Frankie Boy strangled DiSarro on his father’s orders on the morning of May 10, 1993 at the Salemme family home in Sharon, Massachusetts. DiSarro, 43, had fallen out of favor with the Salemmes after their business relationship went sour and the father-son gangster tandem suspected him of stealing as well as snitching. DiSarro’s remains were dug up in 2016. Flemmi, aligned with the Boston Irish mob in his gangland heyday, has told authorities he accidentally walked in as the DiSarro hit was in the process of being carried out that fateful spring day 25 years ago. He also told jurors this week he instructed Lamattina to back off and give Frankie Boy a free pass for scamming an associate of his in a drug deal while Cadillac Frank was away serving time in prison. Salemme, Jr. had sold a Lamattina underling $2,000 worth of fake pot. Joe Black’s wrath might have indirectly led to the 99 Restaurant & Pub Massacre in the Charlestown section of Boston, where North End Goodfella Robert (Bobby the Blade) Luisi, Sr. and several members of his family were gunned down in a booth eating dinner on November 6, 1995. A staunch Salemme loyalist, Luisi, Sr. had attacked Lamattina weeks earlier with a tire iron in a beef over real estate Luisi, Sr. was trying to buy in which Joe Black had been running gambling rackets out of. The massacre was the work of the Clemente family and killed four wiseguys, Luisi, Sr., his son, his nephew and an associate. Anthony Clemente and his son Damian were butting heads with Bobby the Blade regarding drug dealing they were doing in the North End without paying Luisi, Sr. protection. Rumors circulated immediately following the slayings that Lamattina had signed off on violence towards the Luisi, Sr. camp in the aftermath of his September 1995 attack, leaving him 75 stiches in his head. Less than 24 hours before the massacre, Damian Clemente had beat up another nephew of Luisi, Sr. at a North End eatery escalating tensions.
