Shocked prosecutors have discovered Frank Salemme, the longtime former head of the New England Mafia, scores on the low end of the federal criminal history scale, according to court papers.
Calculating Salemme's time for a sentencing hearing today in federal court, the feds called Salemme's score "surprisingly low" for a lifetime criminal. So low, in fact, that even Frank admitted the number didn't capture the true essence of his decade atop La Cosa Nostra.
Frank and feds go before Judge Stearns agreeing the mob boss deserves five years for lying to prosecutors by suggesting another mobster played a role about in the murder of Boston nighclub owner Stephen DiSarro in 1993. No one has been charged with DiSarro's murder and his body has never been found.
Apparently, Frank's worst crimes, which he admitted in a 1999 plea deal to racketeering charges, go back so far that they don't "count" anymore under the complex sentencing arithmetic, the feds said. Frank and former crime partner Stephen Flemmi were once a two-man hit squad in the 1960s. They planted a bomb maiming a mob turncoat's lawyer and once dressed as rabbis to try to sneak into a hospital to finish off an enemy.
Frank has been behind bars again since his arrest in 2004 on charges of obstructing justice and making false statements. Back then, he was scraping by on a little money from the witness protection program and had just $2,372 in the bank.
If the judge accepts the joint sentencing recommendation, Salemme probably will be free around the holidays thanks to credit for good behavior. He'll be free to sip coffee at his favorite Brookline hangout, The Busy Bee, and ponder the epic betrayals against him by Flemmi.
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