Digital Extras

10.15.2001 00:05

Wiseguys make fair-weather friends

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.

BY W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

It was the summer of 1989, and a Providence television station had broadcast a report about two city detectives who had spent a year secretly watching the Rhode Island mob.

The cops had based their operations in a second-floor apartment over a bakery in the heart of the Federal Hill neighborhood, then headquarters for organized crime in New England. They had posed as photographers from New York City and worn disguises -- fake beards, mustaches and wigs. They worked around the clock, watching the sidewalk scenes and gathering a mother lode of intelligence on organized crime.

The broadcast caught Bobby Buehne's attention.

It took just a few months for Buehne (pronounced Bee-nee) to become disenchanted with his newfound friends in the mob. He had been arrested for passing bad checks. He had spent about two weeks in jail cells around Rhode Island. There were warrants out for his arrest in Massachusetts.

But none of his pals had come forward to help pay for a lawyer.

Buehne was 20 years old, a high-school dropout with a criminal record. He worried about his future. He wondered, "How can I have a wife and kids and drive around?"

He decided to call the cops.

DETECTIVES STEVE CROSS and Bobby Lauro were an odd couple.

Cross grew up in Massachusetts, in Swansea, a quiet community on the Rhode Island border. Lauro was raised in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Providence, on the third floor of a triple-decker.

On a Friday afternoon in February 1971, Cross walked into the Providence police station and filled out a job application.

He bumped into a police major who asked him two questions.

"So, you want to be a cop in Providence?"

Yes, Cross said.

"Can you type?"

Sure.

On Sunday, Cross started a clerical job typing police reports. He was 20.

A few months later, he entered the Providence Police Training Academy.

By the mid-'70s, Cross was a patrolman and a physical-education instructor at the academy. One of the recruits in his class was Bobby Lauro; Cross had worked on patrol with Lauro's older brother, Billy.

After the academy, Cross and Lauro's careers took different paths. Cross became the department's first "Officer Friendly," warning children about the dangers of drugs. Lauro worked undercover on drug investigations.

In the mid-'80s, Cross, then a detective, was assigned to Federal Hill. In 1988, the department merged its organized crime and drug units, and Cross and Lauro became partners.

Despite their differences, they shared a disdain for the mob.

They also shared the ability to talk with the wiseguys who hung around Federal Hill, the North End and Silver Lake. They knew that the best way to get information from them was to get to know them.

"You're only as good as your informants," Cross said.

After work, Cross, a champion handball player, competed at the Broad Street YMCA. Sometimes mobsters such as Kevin T. Hanrahan challenged him to matches. The criminals honed their talents in prison where they smacked the rubber ball against the sandstone walls that kept them apart from the outside world.

Cross and Lauro spent hours working the streets and watching the activities of prominent underworld figures.

Among them was a trusted player in the city's North End, a man who was deeply involved in loansharking and gambling: Ronnie Coppola.

BUEHNE TURNED OFF the television after the news segment about the mob. He thought the two cops in the report looked like honest guys.

The next morning, he called Cross, who was assigned to an organized-crime strike force at the Rhode Island attorney general's office.

"I don't trust many people," Buehne told him. "I'm involved in a few things. I want to clean up my life. If you help me, I could help you."

Within days, Buehne and his mother met with Cross in their apartment in the Smith Hill neighborhood of Providence.

Buehne also met with Lauro.

At first, Lauro thought Buehne was a "punky kid." But they soon hit it off. He and Buehne shared similar experiences growing up on the streets of Providence. They were both raised on the third floor of triple-deckers.

Unlike a lot of criminals, Buehne did not harbor a hatred toward the police. His grandfather was a retired Providence cop and his uncle was on the force.

Cross and Lauro perked up when Buehne told them that he was close to Ronnie Coppola.

"The idea that he was trusted by Ronnie Coppola was a big thing," Cross said.

The authorities had been tracking Coppola for decades. He was a key figure in the mob's lucrative rackets.

In the early 1970s, the state police arrested Coppola and mobster Bobby DeLuca for pistol-whipping a man outside a social club. DeLuca would later rise to the rank of capo in the Patriarca crime family.

In 1973, a federal judge in Oklahoma sentenced Coppola to 10 years in prison for trying to con a rancher out of his horses. The federal prosecutor filed a memo in the case stating that Coppola "is in charge of organized crime's numbers, gambling and sports bookmaking in Rhode Island."

Upon his release from prison, Coppola returned to Providence. He worked as the right-hand man for Edward "Mulligan" Romano, an aging capo in the Patriarca crime family who ran the rackets in the city's North End.

In the mid-'80s, Coppola and Romano had a falling out.

The feud started over a woman and Coppola's use of drugs, according to a state police surveillance report.

For a while, Coppola kept a low profile. He was no longer seen at the El Dorado restaurant, a Romano hangout on Charles Street. Soon the state police observed that Coppola was back -- this time at the Ace of Hearts, a social club off Douglas Avenue in North Providence.

Coppola was again the point man for loansharking and bookmaking operations in the North End. He started reporting directly to DeLuca, who had attained more power and was aligned with the Boston faction of the Patriarca family.

BUEHNE WAS READY to work for the cops. Cross and Lauro were encouraged, but they remained skeptical. They wanted to make sure that Buehne wasn't some kind of mob mole.

About a week after their first meeting, they introduced Buehne to Gerald J. Coyne, a veteran prosecutor who headed the organized-crime division in the Rhode Island attorney general's office. Coyne was in a position to help guide Buehne through his legal problems.

Coyne could also prosecute any mob cases that Buehne delivered.

Coyne laid down the law with Buehne.

"Why should we believe you?" he said. "If there's going to be a relationship, it's going to be on our rules."

Coyne had been down this road before. Potential informants often have drug problems and can't stay out of trouble. Coyne was encouraged that Buehne said he shunned drugs. Buehne's arrest record showed no propensity for violence.

Still, Buehne had to prove himself. And Buehne wanted to make a good impression, too.

Buehne said he could deliver proof of a major theft if he were promised immunity from prosecution.

Coyne gave him that assurance.

Buehne told them about a scam in Central Falls. He and two friends had rented an office, hired a secretary, and wrote bad checks for $200,000 for computer equipment, which was delivered to their office. They closed shop four days later and sold the computers to a Warwick businessman.

Neither Coyne nor the others at the meeting were aware of the caper, which had taken place six months earlier.

Buehne urged the investigators to call the Central Falls police. His story checked out.

Coyne and the investigators thought it was significant that Buehne would implicate himself in a felony theft.

Within days, the police raided the Warwick business, recovered the computers and returned them to the rightful owner.

No charges were brought and the courtship had begun.

Buehne was told to stay close to Coppola. It was agreed that Buehne would call Cross and Lauro several times a week.

"We might be able to help you," Coyne said. "Just don't kill anybody."

Tomorrow: Bobby Buehne's connections lead him to legendary mob enforcer Kevin Hanrahan.

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