Mob informant busted for drug trafficking
An East Boston mobster turned government snitch is charged with getting back up to his old tricks, returning to his North Shore haunts and getting pinched for alleged drug distribution — despite a stern warning from the federal judge who sprung him early that any backsliding could land him back in prison.
John J. Patti III, 47, is free on on $7,500 bail after being nabbed July 18 following a three-month-long undercover operation that ended with authorities seizing a 25-pound shipment of “high grade marijuana” he had shipped from California to the doorstep of his Saugus apartment, according to court records.
Patti had already been in prison since the mid-1990s for armed robbery and drug offenses when he was sentenced in 2000 to 30 years in prison for his role in the attempted gangland hit on of then-New England Mafia godfather Francis P. “Cadillac Frank” Salemme at the International House of Pancakes on Route 1 in Saugus in a plot to take over his turf.
But in a 2005 hearing in federal court in Boston, Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton cut Patti’s sentence, allowing him to walk after only 10 years behind bars. His pass came as a result of information he gave feds that led to the convictions of murderers and mobsters and thwarted the execution of an assistant U.S. attorney by a fellow prisoner.
“He has helped place former friends, associates and colleagues in prison through his cooperation. His actions in aiding prosecutors in numerous cases involving violent crimes show that he has made the decision to forego (sic) the criminal way of life that he has previously led and proceed in society as a law abiding citizen,” Patti’s attorney, James Gribouski wrote to Gorton at the time.
“I just want to go home to my wife and children. I’m through with this life,” Patti, then 40, told the judge in 2005.
Gorton said he believed Patti “has turned the corner” but warned him if he returned to his life of crime, “You will go to jail for the rest of your life.”
Patti and Kevin R. Prendergast, the Salem attorney representing Patti in his recent arrest, could not be reached for comment yesterday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston declined to comment.
Patti, who went by the aliases Nicholas DiGiovanni and John Morgan, had been living with his girlfriend, Victoria Messina, in the ground floor apartment of a split-level home in Saugus.
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220817new_charges_could_send_mobster-snitch_back_to_jail
John J. Patti III, 47, is free on on $7,500 bail after being nabbed July 18 following a three-month-long undercover operation that ended with authorities seizing a 25-pound shipment of “high grade marijuana” he had shipped from California to the doorstep of his Saugus apartment, according to court records.
Patti had already been in prison since the mid-1990s for armed robbery and drug offenses when he was sentenced in 2000 to 30 years in prison for his role in the attempted gangland hit on of then-New England Mafia godfather Francis P. “Cadillac Frank” Salemme at the International House of Pancakes on Route 1 in Saugus in a plot to take over his turf.
But in a 2005 hearing in federal court in Boston, Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton cut Patti’s sentence, allowing him to walk after only 10 years behind bars. His pass came as a result of information he gave feds that led to the convictions of murderers and mobsters and thwarted the execution of an assistant U.S. attorney by a fellow prisoner.
“He has helped place former friends, associates and colleagues in prison through his cooperation. His actions in aiding prosecutors in numerous cases involving violent crimes show that he has made the decision to forego (sic) the criminal way of life that he has previously led and proceed in society as a law abiding citizen,” Patti’s attorney, James Gribouski wrote to Gorton at the time.
“I just want to go home to my wife and children. I’m through with this life,” Patti, then 40, told the judge in 2005.
Gorton said he believed Patti “has turned the corner” but warned him if he returned to his life of crime, “You will go to jail for the rest of your life.”
Patti and Kevin R. Prendergast, the Salem attorney representing Patti in his recent arrest, could not be reached for comment yesterday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston declined to comment.
Patti, who went by the aliases Nicholas DiGiovanni and John Morgan, had been living with his girlfriend, Victoria Messina, in the ground floor apartment of a split-level home in Saugus.
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220817new_charges_could_send_mobster-snitch_back_to_jail
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