Sunday, November 20, 2016

Say Goodbye to the Saint

On November 7th one of the last vestiges of the old Patriarca crime family in New England, Anthony "The Saint" St. Laurent, a one time capo, cashed in his chips.  

He had not been well for a long time and he was released from Federal prison less than two weeks before his death.  I am sure they knew he was not going to make it.

He died in a Providence Rhode Island Hospital of natural causes.

The Saint was once a trusted member of Raymond Patriarca Mafia family that was run from the Coin-O-Matic business on Atwells Avenue on Federal Hill.  The Saint took care of a lot of the bookmakers in and around Providence Rhode Island.

The Patriarca family takes its name from the long time boss Raymond LS Patriarca who made the family into a powerhouse that encompassed Boston and surrounding cities.
He did not found the family, but he made it a more powerful organization.

The family that was once able to murder Joe Barboza, an informant then hiding in California, and controlled most of the Boston area bookmaking thanks to its underboss Jerry Angiulo and his brothers in the North End.

The Saint was a capo in 1993 when he was busted for running a bookmaking operation out of the Foxy Lady in Providence.  Law Enforcement called it the largest operation ever taken down in the state.  The Foxy lady itself was a huge money maker. It was a stripclub that was two stories of debauchery.  It had three stages and cream wrestling.  It also had the ever popular Legs and Eggs 6am breakfast buffet.

The Saint was also one of the rare few that were inducted into the Nevada gamings so called Black Book. He was placed in after his many convictions, but one has to wonder why because he was 2,600 miles away from Las Vegas.  I am sure he didn't lose any sleep from not being able to set foot in a casino.

He would go down again in 1999 for extortion because he was shaking down bookmakers.

Then he was accused by another family member of being an informant. The man who accused him was Bobby DeLuca, a capo in the family.

The irony in that is that Bobby DeLuca became an informant and then later lied to the FBI about a murder and a hidden body.

The Saint admitted in 2011 that he tried to hire a man to murder DeLuca for accusing him of being an informant.

He met the hitman in a parking lot and he drove him to a restaurant in Providence, where DeLuca was working.  He promised the hitman cash.  After Deluca was murdered he planned to get cash from a local bookmaker who was paying DeLuca protection money.

One thing he wanted the hitman to tell DeLuca is that  it was from the Saint before he died.
The problem was, the hitman was an informant for the FBI.

Old age, failing health and changing times caught up to the Saint.





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