Enrico "Henry" Tameleo (d. 1985), also known as "The Referee," was an Italian-American mobster from Boston, Massachusetts and Underboss in the New England-based Patriarca crime family of La Cosa Nostra from 1952 to 1968.
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Criminal Career
Enrico Tameleo was a long time participant in organized crime and is considered one of the founding fathers of the Patriarca family. in 1967, Tameleo, Raymond L.S. Patriarca, and Jerry Anguilo were charged with the murder of bookmaker Willie Marfeo . Before the trial's conclusion, on March 12, 1965, Tameleo, Peter Limone, Louis Greco, and Joseph Salvati were indicted for the murder of hoodlum Edward "Teddy" Deegan . In 1968, all four men were found guily of the Deegan murder in the Superior Court of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and sentenced to death by the state. This penalty was 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.[1] 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 (FBI) agents H. Paul Rico, Dennis Condon, John Morris, and John Connolly 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.[2]
