# A quiet passing for Hub gangster



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

By *Howie Carr*
Boston Herald Columnist
Saturday, December 2, 2006

*M*ichele "Mikey" Angiulo, who died this week at age 79, was the gangster to be named later in the 1984 indictment of the Boston Mafia. 
He's listed seventh, after four of his brothers - Gerry, Nicky, Donny and Frankie - as well as Larry Baione and Sammy Granito. 
Which wasn't a bad thing for Mikey. The feds never got him on the racketeering (RICO) counts they hung on his siblings. And for the one or two gambling counts they hung on him, he did maybe five years - good years, as it turned out just before he was released. 
Like a lot of cons, he improved his health while he was in the can. He worked out, watched his diet, and pretty soon, he'd dropped 60 pounds.

So the feds let Mikey go home on a furlough or some such thing, so that he could attend the Feast of St. Anthony's in the North End.


Mikey was back hanging on Endicott Street when he spotted one of the FBI agents who'd brought him and his brothers down. It was the guy ****** Bulger used to call "the Pipe."Mikey ran up to him and started hugging him and his wife in the middle of the crowds thronging the narrow street.

"It's me, Mikey!" he yelled, as the agent stared at him, unable to recognize the newly slimmed down Angiulo. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Mikey yelled.

He spread his arms. "Look at what you did for me, look at how much weight I lost - you gave me 20 extra years on my life."

Those 20 years ran out on Wednesday, and the only mention in the newspapers yesterday were the paid death notices.

Of the six Angiulo brothers, three now survive. Frankie the Cat and Donny did serious federal time, but they're out, and as for Gerry, good old 03583-016, he's still at Devens, and will be until May 15, 2010.

He'll be 91 years and 2 months old when he gets out. Yet still the paid obit described the Underboss as "Gennaro of Nahant," even though he hasn't lived there since the first Reagan administration.

After Mikey got out, he went back to 98 Prince St. and worked the phones. He was the keeper of the trial files, and the bugging transcripts, for the endless appeals. And he visited Gerry and Donny and the Cat in prison. Everybody loved the guy.

Yesterday I was going over some of those FBI transcripts of the bugging of the Angiulo headquarters back in 1981. Usually Mikey is only there early, as Frankie the Cat is making collections.

Mikey is funnier than most of the other hoods, although his speech is dotted with a lot of the same verbal tics as Gerry, as he rants about "(bleepin') nitwits," and uses "youse" as the plural of you.

One day in April 1981, a bookie identified only as "Charlie" arrives at the Doghouse to settle up. He and Mikey are screwing around about what happens if he doesn't pay.

"What the hell you gonna do?" Charlie says. "You gonna kill me? Hit me in the head?"

"(Bleep) yes," says Mikey. "Take you straight to Malden Cemetery. Oh sure. Tie you." 

"Maybe you do me a favor." 
 "Tie you to the tombstones, then we call your wife up to go and get you. And in between . . ." 
Hey, Mikey was kidding, OK? 
Mikey to Charlie: "Just come up with the money, and don't start." 
Charlie: "Yeah, when I go collect it all - " 
Mikey: "What collect it all? You got that money. You collect every day, they told me. I don't know if it's true. I mean, we got a guy following you." 
Those were the days, I guess.


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