The FBI is depending largely on its first-ever recording of a blood initiation ceremony for new Mafia members to win its case against 21 reputed organized-crime figures named in newly unsealed indictments.
"It should lay to rest once and for all any doubts that La Cosa Nostra is a figment of law enforcement imagination," Attorney General Richard Thornburgh said, announcing the indictments at a news conference.Thornburgh said the FBI had driven a "stake in the heart" of the crime family headed by reputed New England mob boss Raymond "Junior" Patriarca, by seizing at least 15 of the 21 suspects, including Patriarca.
But federal agents also warned that organized-crime members in other cities might try to kill Patriarca and other New England Mafia leaders over their unwitting revelation of the ceremony, reports said Tuesday.
"They have made a monumental mistake," Thomas Hughes, director of the city FBI office told the Boston Herald. "La Cosa Nostra has hit - murdered - people for much less than allowing the FBI to eavesdrop on an induction ceremony for new members."
The induction rite, mentioned in each of the indictments unsealed Monday, was recorded by an FBI bug last Oct. 29 at a house in Medford, Mass., agents said. Seventeen members of Patriarca's organization were in attendance.
The suspected mobsters were named in three indictments listing 113 separate counts, including murder, extortion, kidnapping, illegal gambling and drug running, Thornburgh said.
According to government documents, Patriarca presided over the ceremony which included drawing blood from the inductees' trigger fingers. Boston's Biagio DiGiacomo began it, saying, "In honor of the family, the family is open."
He then administered, in Italian, the following oath to each of the soldiers: "I want to enter into this organization to protect my family and to protect all my friends. I swear not to divulge this secret and to obey, with love and silence."