 All right. Welcome into the original gangsters podcast. Another quick hitter edition. I am your host Scott Bernstein. Today we're going to talk about breaking news out of Providence. We were the first ones to report that Providence mob soldier Providence mob rat Joe DeLuca passed away at age 83. He passed away a couple days ago and he will be laid out at a funeral home on Branch Avenue Monday and I believe the funeral will be around that time. And there's a lot of talk right now about whether or not his brother Robert Bobby the Cigar DeLuca who was in witness protection right now who along with his brother were the star witnesses at the 2018 murder trial of Cadillac Frank Salemi. Bobby the Cigar's you know best friend and it was you know his eyes and ears in the Providence area Cadillac Frank was from Boston and there's a lot of speculation and worry on the part of law enforcement that Bobby DeLuca is going to come back into town to attend his older brothers Wake and Funeral. Tim White over at WPRI reported that he has been told that the state police and the FBI in Rhode Island will be on full alert will have a very noticeable presence at the Wake and Funeral in either anticipation or in case Bobby DeLuca is there. Him coming back to town after testifying against a lot of his former friends well I shouldn't say test helping build cases against them testifying against Cadillac Frank doesn't have a lot of friends left outside of his family in Providence I was told by a series of very solid sources that one of the reasons the speculation about Bobby DeLuca coming back in to Providence is buzzing around whether it be on the street or within law enforcement circles is that back in 2021 less than or about two years ago you had a situation where one of Bobby DeLuca's best friends Richard Barone wasn't a wise guy legitimate contractor and antique dealer he passed away in 2021 and according to my sources Bobby DeLuca snuck back into town and attended his funeral in Wake and then snuck back out you know if he decides to do it again it's definitely going to be interpreted as a message to guys like Baby Shack's Minocchio who granted he's retired in his 90s right now but Big Cheese DiNunzio who's running the show in Boston right now Eddie Lado who's running the show in Providence right now guys that he cooperated against and wired up against or wired up and recorded conversations with are are are going to interpret it as as a you know a fuck you or you know what are you going to do about it I'll say that you know in this day and age in the mafia we're not we're not at a point where there are a lot of bodies dropping I don't suspect there's a good chance that that Bobby DeLuca will be hurt if he decides to come back but it just it seems very risky and I understand it's your brother they were very close but I if I was advising Bobby DeLuca I would probably tell him to mourn from a distance but you know Bobby's his own man and I know that you know I don't think he's afraid of these guys you know baby shacks is in his 90s I don't know how afraid he could be of him although you know a phone call or or you know a nod of the head for someone like baby shacks can get stuff done even though he's retired but you know Eddie Lado was you know was partners with Bobby you know for years they ran gambling and and loan shark and extortion rackets out of strip clubs and you know Eddie had to go do a nice chunk of time through the 2010s because of Bobby DeLuca's cooperation Bobby DeLuca started cooperating before he actually wired up and then disappeared into witness protection in 2011 but but we emerged five years ago when uh Cadillac Frank was indicted for a cold case murder and let's kind of finish off this episode talking about the gangland the 1993 gangland homicide of Steven DeSauro. Stevie DeSauro was a a Providence native nightclub owner uh and business partner of Cadillac Frank Salemi and they owned uh a rock club in South Boston together uh that was called the Channel it was a very famous iconic rock club that by the time Salemi and DeSauro took it over in the early 90s had fallen on hard times uh they had it up as a rock rock and roll venue for a while then they changed concepts and it became a strip club it was it was uh it was on its last legs and part of that the reason why was because Salemi and and his crew were robbing the place uh and DeSauro was getting stuck with a lot of bills and he was maybe robbing the place too or that's what the Salamis believed they also thought he was cooperating um and they lured him uh Cadillac Frank and his son Frankie boy uh lured him to uh uh the Salemi family house in Sharon, Massachusetts a very quaint modest uh a house in in the suburbs and uh it was the day after mother's day 1993 may 1093 that morning they lured him there and Frankie boy uh strangled Stevie DeSauro to death as his dad watched on at that point they bring in the DeLuca brothers and uh Joe DeLuca at that point was a mob associate Bobby DeLuca at that point was a mob uh Capo uh something that was called a Kingsman Capo uh where you know he just reported to Salemi and he didn't have to report to anybody in Rhode Island uh but DeLuca uh at then wasn't really known as a mob guy and even you know into the into the new millennium wasn't known as a mob guy uh very low-key even though he was a character uh was known around Providence area as uh uh a guy that worked at a bakery and sang a a jingle for pizza chips the original Italian bakery in Johnston um it wasn't public knowledge that he was a member of the mafia until 2018 and he popped up as a defendant at at the Salemi trial I should I apologize popped up as a witness at the Salemi trial um and Joe DeLuca testified Bobby DeLuca testified that they were brought into the conspiracy by Salemi after they uh after Salemi and murdered DeSauro and they were tasked with burying the body uh the body went across state lines Cadillac Frank brought the body himself um the evening of May 10th uh to a North Providence parking lot where he gave the body to Joe DeLuca who was assigned to go um pick it up from his brother and Joe DeLuca uh took the body which was wrapped in a tarp Cadillac Frank told him that be sure when you dump the body to get rid of the tarp because it's got a lot of fingerprints on it including Cadillac Franks so Joe DeLuca goes to a piece of property uh Branch Avenue in Providence uh an old converted textile mill which was owned by a guy named Billy Ricci who was a member of uh the the the mob crew in in Providence and Billy Ricci was doing some construction in the back of the mill and they went and Joe DeLuca dumped Stevie DeSauro's body there forgets to take the tarp as instructed by Salemi gets back to to meet up with his brother and his brother's like you got to go back and get the get the tarp at some point in the next day or two they go back uh retrieve the tarp and throw it away and then nobody hears from Stevie DeSauro for for for another 25 years when Billy Ricci gets uh jammed up in a drug case and he leads the feds to DeSauro's body at this point Bobby DeLuca's in witness protection Cadillac Frank is in witness protection he uh flips back in 1999 helps them make some corruption uh cases against the FBI that were operating Whitey Bulger and Stevie Fleming but doesn't admit to any of the murders that he ordered or helped carry out uh during his reign as boss between 1990 and 1996 comes back to bite him uh they dig up the body and DeLuca and Salemi are in trouble because neither of them had given uh information in their debriefings about their role in in the uh DeSauro homicide I speculate in both cases they were trying to protect someone I think Salemi was trying to protect Bobby DeLuca because he was so close with Bobby DeLuca um it's ironic that DeLuca is the one who eventually puts him away in prison on it when he testifies against him and then DeLuca is trying to protect in one case he's trying to protect Salemi when he debriefs in the 2000s but he's also trying to protect his his brother um Cadillac Frank in theory would be trying to protect his son Frankie Boy but Frankie Boy died of AIDS back in 1995 so he wasn't around to uh have to answer uh so Joe DeLuca was being protected by Bobby DeLuca and then it was the end of the line when they dug DeSauro up uh both DeLuca brothers testified Joe DeLuca was kind of flippant when when leaving the courthouse back in May of 18 Tim White approached him uh and asked him for comment and he kind of made a reference to the board game clue and said something like oh the Butler did it um probably not the best look uh when you're when you're talking about a family that lost uh lost a loved one like Stevie DeSauro so uh we'll we'll see what we'll be keeping you updated at the original gangsters podcast and at gangsterreport.com about what happens this week in Providence um but the FBI uh and the state police will be on high alert they will be uh an aggressive um and in an aggressive formation or in a uh showing up with with a heavy presence to send a send word to everybody out in in uh Rhode Island that that that wakes and funerals are not to be disturbed and uh you're not going to mix business with family here whether you know whatever whatever beefs you have with Bobby DeLuca or even Joe DeLuca uh you know this is a time for their families to mourn and uh you know deal with it on your own time so uh well don't deal with it at all I'm sure if you're that yeah that's what you're saying but uh hopefully uh it goes off without a hitch we will see only time will tell um Joe DeLuca dead at age 83 he died in Providence at a nursing home initially it was reported that he died in witness protection he had gotten ushered into witness protection uh in the months after he testified he didn't he didn't go in right when he testified uh he went in about eight months later after when a baby shack Minocchio's uh old uh body guards uh Napoleon Andrade Andrade was killed in a halfway house and uh they pulled uh Joe out of Providence and and tucked him away for a while at some point the last couple years he's come back and went into a nursing home um and died I believe of cancer so again Joe DeLuca dead at night at 80 at 83 one of the last remaining OG Providence mob soldiers we've been reporting on some new blood coming to the family but uh from the Salemi era or the baby shacks era or even the patriarchy era uh they're few and far between we'll be back this week I'm on the full uh OG pod with Jimmy my partner Jimmy Bucciolato shout out to the doctor thank you Ben behind the glass Scott Bernstein OG pod out