Digital Extras

10.14.2001 00:05

A loan shark, bookmaker and role model

For years, Bobby Buehne lived a double life -- as a player in the Providence underworld and as a police informant. Now he has a new identity and a new life, which the government gave him after he helped lock up a ruthless figure in the Rhode Island mob. This is his story.

BY W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Bobby Buehne was tired of waiting outside the club -- sitting in the car next to the body shop on the dead-end street. He went inside to see what was taking his friend so long.

From the moment Buehne entered the dimness of the Ace of Hearts, he knew he wanted to be a mobster.

Ronnie Coppola, a loan shark and bookmaker with a lot of pump, sat at a card table, puffing on a cigar. One woman filed his nails. Another got him coffee. A third rubbed his back.

The portly Coppola, 53, wore a silk shirt with his initials embroidered on the collar, Sansabelt slacks and Pierre Cardin shoes with thick soles that made him taller. Coppola's gleaming white Lincoln Continental was parked outside the club in an industrial area off Douglas Avenue, in North Providence.

Coppola quickly sized up the muscular Buehne.

"I thought he was coming in here to break up the place," Coppola cracked.

Buehne laughed.

In his eyes, Coppola had it made.

"This guy was a big-money, major hitter, and I wanted to be just like him," Buehne recalled. "Women were all over him, and he wasn't working at all."

As Buehne left, Coppola told him to drop by sometime for a drink.

IT WAS THE SUMMER of 1988 and Bobby Buehne (pronounced Bee-nee) was on the fast track to nowhere.

He was 18, a high-school dropout, working for local contractors. He plastered and painted off-campus apartment houses near Providence College. At night, he partied, and tried to charm the college girls.

Buehne ran small scams and jumped at crimes of opportunity. He stole car stereos, and faked injuries to collect checks from insurance companies.

Buehne was raised by his mother on the third floor of a triple-decker at the gritty corner of Candace Street and Douglas Avenue in the Smith Hill neighborhood of Providence.

A longtime stronghold for Irish immigrants, the area had grown tired and rundown over the years. By the 1980s, Smith Hill, like other aging urban neighborhoods, had its share of drugs and destroyed lives.

Buehne stole lawnmowers, sold a little pot, and did as little as possible in school.

"I was like a degenerate hoodlum," he said.

Concerned, Buehne's mother shipped him off to relatives in Massachusetts; he attended Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School, in Franklin. Initially, he liked his new life. He went to class, studied plumbing and even played on the football team.

But after his sophomore year, Buehne dropped out and returned to Providence to work at plumbing and carpentry for his uncle's construction company.

He wanted to make some serious money. He wanted to be like Coppola.

WITHIN TWO YEARS, Buehne was out on his own. He launched a business, RB Contracting.

But Buehne felt the tug of the Rhode Island criminal world.

He began collecting gambling debts for a bookmaker. A couple of times a week, Buehne drove to a country club in northern Rhode Island and collected cash -- $500 to $5,000 -- from bettors who had lost money on professional and college football games.

Buehne, built like a bear at 5 feet 9 inches and 260 pounds, never had collection problems: the gamblers always paid up.

Once Buehne proved himself as reliable, the bookmaker started taking him to the Ace of Hearts -- to meet with Coppola. The more Buehne saw, the more he was impressed.

Coppola was not a made guy -- never officially "baptized" into La Cosa Nostra -- but he was treated like one.

Gamblers approached Coppola's table near the bar and jukebox. Some delivered money. Others had excuses for why they couldn't make their payments.

Some visits were memorable.

Coppola would spring from his seat and slap a deadbeat across the face.

"They would whimper like little babies," Buehne said. "My biggest fear was that I would screw something up enough that something like that would happen to me."

But Buehne sensed that Coppola liked him. He was welcome at the mobster's table.

SURVIVAL IN THE PROVIDENCE underworld is all about money.

One day, Coppola loaned a man $5,000 so that his wife could open a beauty salon in East Providence.

Three months passed, and the debt had not been repaid. The loan, with the exorbitant mob interest rates, had reached $25,000.

The man, Buehne and Coppola's bookmaker -- who had arranged the loan -- were summoned to a sit-down at the Ace of Hearts.

Coppola attacked the man, knocking him off the chair and sending him sprawling on the floor.

Then, Coppola directed his ire toward the bookmaker. He had vouched for the borrower, so he was on the hook, too.

They had to do something -- fast.

The bookmaker knew about owners of a nightclub in New York who were interested in opening a club in Providence.

Buehne, meanwhile, said he knew a mob-connected Rhode Island man who owned a vacant building on the East Side of Providence.

A con was soon under way.

They flew the three New York club owners to Rhode Island, picked them up in a limousine at T.F. Green Airport, and put them up in a hotel.

Then they took them on a tour of the East Side building and assured them they would renovate the club and get the mob's OK for them to operate.

"Not only could there be massive profits," Buehne said to dazzle them, "but the mob will promise you that you can run drugs through there without fear of hassles from the police."

The nightclub owners were told that $50,000 would seal the deal. They said they had to return to New York and work out the numbers.

About a month later, the club owners invited Buehne, the bookmaker and his friend to New York. The Rhode Island trio rented a white Lincoln Town Car for the trip.

They toured the sprawling mansions in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and spent the night partying at the Long Island club alongside models and actors from New York City. In a roped-off area of the club, the trio toasted the deal with champagne. Buehne was fixed up with a Penthouse playmate.

The next morning, Buehne was sick from his big night out when the club owners stopped by their hotel room.

"Hey, this will make him feel better," said one of the nightclub owners. He flipped over a duffle bag and dropped $25,000 in 50s and 20s on a bed.

So far, so good: the scam was working.

Instead of heading home, Buehne, the bookmaker and his friend drove to New Jersey. Buehne said the bookmaker blew the $25,000 and an additional $20,000 of his own money in the Atlantic City casinos.

The next weekend, the nightclub owners met them in Atlantic City with the remaining $25,000.

"Hey, do we want to be giving these guys all this money while they are in Atlantic City?" asked one of the club owners.

Within two days, the bookmaker went through $15,000 of the second payment.

Buehne was livid. He worried that Coppola would now hold him responsible.

The bookmaker said he didn't care.

They returned to Rhode Island and Buehne stopped by the Ace of Hearts with the $10,000.

"Where's the other fifteen?" Coppola demanded.

Buehne told him that the bookmaker had gambled it away.

That week, the nightclub owners arrived in Rhode Island. They wanted to get their new club going. Buehne and the bookmaker put them up in a hotel and apartment for about a month. They kept telling the visitors that there were permit and licensing delays at City Hall.

The nightclub owners soon realized that they had been scammed.

Buehne paid them one last visit.

"I'm a messenger," he said. "The deal isn't going to go through. You had better go back to New York."

The nightclub owners left town. The bookmaker settled his debt with Coppola. Buehne remained in good standing at the Ace of Hearts.

"From now on," Coppola said, "when I want something, I'm going to ask you."

Tomorrow: Bobby Buehne becomes disenchanted with his newfound friends.

Back to: RI News Printer-Friendly Version Read/Post to our Bulletin Board on this topic