Boston Might Not Be Big Enough For Both Of Them: Colombo’s DeLeo Dissed Patriarca’s DiNunzio Bros. In Prison Emails Re. Boss Beef

In the final years of his most-recent federal prison term, former Colombo mob acting boss Ralph DeLeo penned emails and told a confidential informant he was doing time with that he didn’t recognize the DiNunzio brothers as the mafia dons of Boston and was looking forward to a physical altercation with them after he got free, per court documents related to his release. One of the emails showed DeLeo writing to the unnamed recipient of his desire to lose weight and get fit for an occasion when he sees the DiNunzios on the street.

The controversial 80-year old DeLeo was released from the feds last October. He gets out his halfway-house assignment this month. Law enforcement in New York and New England don’t believe DeLeo intends on following through with his threats and the comments were boastful bluster of an aging mobster going stir crazy after another decade in the can.

Based in the Boston area, DeLeo led New York’s Colombo crime family in a front-boss capacity for the Persicos in the late 2000s until he was busted in a racketeering case in 2009. Also headquartered out of Beantown, Carmem (Big Cheese) DiNunzio and his younger brother Anthony (Little Cheese) DiNunzio head New England’s Patriarca crime family, the same organization DeLeo got his start in the mob in during the 1960s.

A one-time cooperator with state authorities in Ohio and federal investigators in Maine, DeLeo stunned mob watchers when he grabbed the reins of the Colombo clan in June 2008 at the urging of legendary incarcerated Godfather, Carmine (The Snake) Persico and his mafia prince son Alphonse (Little Allie Boy) Persico, who DeLeo met and became close to doing prison time together years earlier.

DeLeo was a burglar and bookie for longtime Patriarca crime family underboss Jerry Angiulo, the King of the North End, in Boston. He was “made” into the Colombos in a summer 2000 ceremony and skippered a satellite crew for himself in Somerville, Massachusetts, which operated rackets in the Boston area, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Florida and Arkansas, according to FBI reports and court filings. Angiulo chased the DiNunzios from the North End in the 1980s at the end of his reign, sending the sizeable siblings scurrying off to Las Vegas to work for the Chicago mob’s West Coast branch, before they returned a decade later, got their buttons and eventually took command of mob affairs in Boston by the early 2000s.

Rumors circulated in the 2010s that “Big Cheese” DiNunzio got into a fist fight in prison with DiNunzio getting the best of DeLeo, gossip DeLeo denies and addresses in one of the emails included as exhibits in court filings by federal prosecutors tied to DeLeo’s attempt to get out of his prison stint early due to the COVID-19 pandemic. DiNunzio, 66, came out of prison in 2015 and today is considered the No. 1 shot caller in the entire New England mafia. His brother, “Little Cheese” DiNunzio, 65, serves as his acting boss, per sources on both sides of the law. It’s unclear what, if any, role DeLeo currently holds in the Colombo mob.

DeLeo is back in Somerville. The DiNunzios moved their nerve center from the North End to suburban outpost hot spots in nearby Medford and Revere.

According to court records and 302 debriefing documents, DeLeo cut a cooperation deal with state authorities in Ohio relating to a murder-for-hire conspiracy. While in custody in the Buckeye State in the heart of the Midwest, he tried to help the feds in cracking the still-unsolved 1976 gangland slaying of a Boston bank executive found dead in Maine.

“Little Allie Boy” Persico, 69, is in the middle of doing life in prison now, but his cousin, Theodore (Skinny Teddy) Persico, is slated to take the throne when he returns from prison in a few years, per reports. Carmine Persico passed away five years ago at the age of 85 doing his own life prison sentence. Trusted Persico ally, Robert (Little Rob) Donofrio is the Colombo family’s reputed acting boss these days, keeping the seat warm for the capable and ambitious 60-year old “Skinny Teddy” for the next two years until his release.

How come he got made and then became a street boss with that pedigree ?


I knew some mob guys questioned his standing while he was in prison but i didn't know it was that bad.

DeLeo was clueless, and a jerk off...and a rat! But the guys who didn't "vet" him and propped him up are at fault here, 100%

what else could ya say? lol

He was the cellmate with Allie Boy and what they could do? Call a private eye? The good question is why didnt whack him after descover that was a rat?

"What they do" is contact mob guys up in Boston (where he came from) and inquire about the guy and find out who he is and if he's a standup guy or not! THATS what they're supposed to do!....THATS how its supposed to be done. Thats how its always been done with a guy you're not familiar with. You "reach out" and make an inquiry.

They dropped the ball on this one...big time!

When he was in jail recently, he was detained with then Colombo associate Vito Guzzo and other mob guys. The other guys were keeping their distance from him and there were rumours around the prison that Ralphie DeLeo was shelved.

Vito Guzzo asked his brother Anthony Guzzo (Lucchese made guy) to see if Ralphie DeLeo was still in good standing with the Colombo family. Anthony Guzzo went to John Pennisi (Lucchese soldier) who himself reached out to Salvatore "Sally Bread" Cambria (Colombo capo). Sally Bread asked the Colombo administration about DeLeo and words came back that he was in good standing.

This helps DeLeo not being ostracised by the other mob guys in the jail. And somehow he was even allowed to induct Vito Guzzo into the Colombo family right in the jail.

So even years later the Colombos knew something was wrong with Ralph DeLeo but they didn't do nothing. On the contrary they actually gave him more power.

Yeah, I don't know what that says about the situation, Malavita. But it definitely says something...It's a very strange dynamic, for sure.

In the early 90's The Genovese proposed a guy whose name i can't remember. When the list went around to the other families, The Lucchese informed the Genovese that there was an issue with that particular guy.

Lucchese capo Anthony Barrata knew him and he said that he had been an informant on a specific case some years ago. Apparently, the Genovese didn't know about it. There was a sitdown between the two families and ultimately the Genovese decided not to make the guy. They actually ended up killing him a short time later.

Ralphie Deleo probably got through that inquiry because his informant activities took place in Maine and Ohio and it wasn't known to many mob guys.

I remember that incident too. I believe you're talking about a guy, an "associate" named Ralphie. His last name may have been DeSantis or something similar to that. He got whacked out...He may have just "disappeared" off the face of the earth, or was found in a car trunk. But he got whacked. I believe that was in the late 1980s, early 1990s.

"DeSimone" I think his last name was. Ralphie DeSimone.

Yes that's the name DeSimone.