Enrico "Henry" Tameleo also known as "The Referee," was an Italian-American mobster from Boston, Massachusetts and underboss

Underboss

Underboss is a position within the leadership structure of Sicilian and American Mafia crime families. The underboss is second in command to the boss...

 in the New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

-based Patriarca crime family

Patriarca crime family

The Patriarca crime family, also known as the New England crime family and the Providence crime family, is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate based in New England, specifically Providence, Rhode Island and Boston, Massachusetts, and is part of the Italian-American Mafia or "La Cosa Nostra"...

 of La Cosa Nostra

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

 from 1952 to 1968.

Criminal career

Tameleo was a long time participant in organized crime

Organized crime

Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

 and is considered one of the founding fathers of the Patriarca family. in 1967, Tameleo, Raymond L.S. Patriarca

Raymond L.S. Patriarca

Raymond Loreda Salvatore Patriarca, Sr. was an Italian-American mobster from Providence, Rhode Island who became the longtime boss of the Patriarca crime family, whose control extended throughout New England for over three decades...

, and Jerry Anguilo were charged with the murder of bookmaker

Bookmaker

A bookmaker, or bookie, is an organization or a person that takes bets on sporting and other events at agreed upon odds.- Range of events :...

 Willie Marfeo . Before the trial's conclusion, on March 12, 1965, Tameleo, Peter Limone, Louis Greco, Wilfred Roy French, Ronald Cassesso and Joseph Salvati were indicted for the murder of hoodlum Edward "Teddy" Deegan . In 1968, all six men were found guilty of the Deegan murder in the Superior Court

Superior court

In common law systems, a superior court is a court of general competence which typically has unlimited jurisdiction with regard to civil and criminal legal cases...

 of Suffolk County, Massachusetts

Suffolk County, Massachusetts

Suffolk County has no land border with Plymouth County to its southeast, but the two counties share a water boundary in the middle of Massachusetts Bay.-National protected areas:*Boston African American National Historic Site...

. Tameleo, Limone, Greco and Cassesso were sentenced to death by the state, with Salvati and French receiving life sentences. The death sentences were later reduced to life in prison, where Tameleo died in 1985.

Wrongful conviction

By 2000, all charges had been dismissed against Tameleo and the other accused men amid accusations of a government frame-up and cover-up extending over thirty years. In 2007, a federal judge in Boston awarded damages of $101.7 million to the four men who were wrongly convicted in the 1965 Deegan murder. It was proved that Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

 (FBI) agents H. Paul Rico

H. Paul Rico

Harold Paul Rico was an FBI agent. Indicted for murder in 2003, he played a significant role in the 1968 framing of four men for murder, unjustly imprisoning them for decades....

, Dennis Condon, John Morris, and John Connolly

John Connolly (FBI)

John J. Connolly, Jr. is a former FBI agent, who was convicted of racketeering and obstruction of justice convictions stemming from his relationship with James J. "Whitey" Bulger, Steve Flemmi, and the Winter Hill Gang...

 withheld evidence of the defendants' innocence in order to protect FBI informants Vincent "Jimmy the Bear" Flemmi and Joseph Barboza. Out of this settlement, $13 million went to the estate of Enrico Tameleo, specifically his son, Saverio, as administrator of the Tameleo estate, and Tameleo's wife Jeanette.

See also

• Patriarca crime family
  Patriarca crime family
  The Patriarca crime family, also known as the New England crime family and the Providence crime family, is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate based in New England, specifically Providence, Rhode Island and Boston, Massachusetts, and is part of the Italian-American Mafia or "La Cosa Nostra"...
  
  
• Winter Hill Gang
  Winter Hill Gang
  The Winter Hill Gang is a structured confederation of Boston, Massachusetts-area organized crime figures, predominantly Irish-American with a small Italian-American faction. It derives its name from the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts north of Boston. Its members have...