In Frank vs. Stevie, truth lies in Salemme
By Howie Carr
Boston Herald Columnist
Friday, December 22, 2006 - Updated: 12:21 AM EST
My money’s on Cadillac Frank.
Granted, there’s no honor among thieves, especially geezer gangsters who’ve pleaded guilty to 18 murders between them. But if it ever comes down to a polygraph battle to determine which multiple mob murderer is more truthful, I’m with Frank Salemme over Stevie “the Rifleman” Flemmi.
Mobster showdown
Gunslinger showdown: Salemme challenges Flemmi to lie detector test
Oh what a tangled web they weave when first they practice to deceive. Even before they start lying, it’s confusing enough. Here’s just one example: Frank’s middle name is Patrick, and he’s half-Irish, yet he was the head of the Mafia. And Stevie, who is a full-blooded Italian, was sometimes described as an “Irish gangster,” because that was the gang he ran with.
They were pals back in the ’60s. They wiped out practically half of Charlestown together. Stevie was the “spontaneous reactor,” as Frankie told congressional investigators in 2003, and he was the master electrician. He bugged the phones, he ran the garages in Roxbury where they fixed the cars for crooked FBI agents. As for Stevie, he only cared about two things: “his money and his women,” as Frank put it, “not necessarily in that order.”
There was another difference between the two hoods. Stevie was a rat for the FBI, and Frankie wasn’t. When they both got indicted for a carbombing, can you guess which one did 17 years, and which one had all the charges dismissed and got to run free, making millions, killing and raping to his heart’s content.
Frank was cut loose for seven years, and then he got locked up again, this time with Flemmi. It was then that Flemmi learned that his dear chum had been playing footsie with the feds. At this point,let’s have Cadillac Frank describe his next interaction with the smaller Flemmi:
“I took him downstairs and grabbed him and threw him against the wall and started choking him, and the marshal saw, but they didn’t come in to stop it, they wanted to see what was going on, and I said you SOB, you can’t even tell the truth (about the bribed FBI agents) . . . They were going to testify for you, weren’t they?”
Shortly thereafter, Stevie “remembered” another murder he’d seen back in the early ’90s. Guess who he pointed the finger at. Stevie’s doing life anyway, so whatever he says is no skin off his rear-end. Stevie’s sinking his old pal Frank one final time, which is why Salemme has challenged Stevie to the lie-detector match.
Here’s the tale of the tape:
Girlfriends strangled by Whitey Bulger at request of gangster: Flemmi 2, Salemme, 0.
Brothers currently doing time in federal penitentiary after disgracing their police badges: Flemmi 1, Salemme 0.
Numbers of arsenal/houses owned by parents next to the home of then-Senate President William Bulger: Flemmi 1, Salemme 0.
Number of FBI agents gangster has admitted bribing. Flemmi 6, Salemme 0.
Do you begin to get the point? Salemme was bad, Flemmi was evil. Just ask Salemme. In his 2003 testimony to House investigators, he couldn’t stop talking about how Stevie had Whitey murder two of his girlfriends.
“Debbie Hussey,” he recalled of a 1985 victim of Whitey and Stevie. “She was like a niece to me, she was his stepdaughter, molesting her at 13 and killing her at 26. I mean, I used to take this kid to the beach with my daughters.”
Frank, I know it’s not going to happen, but I hope you get your lie-detector test. One bit of advice, though: If they ever do have you hooked up, don’t resurrect that slur you used with the congressional probers, when you mentioned how Stevie said he was “jewed” out of some informant money by a bent G-man.
Don’t go there, Frank. If you don’t believe me, just ask Judith Regan.
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