Mobsters Ouimette, DeLuca

convicted of extortion

This story is from The Journal archives

Facing life in prison, Ouimette tells reporters: 'Just another day'

By W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer
THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL-BULLETIN
Friday, 10/27/1995

Mobster Gerard T. Ouimette, a career criminal with a fearsome reputation, shuffled out of federal court in handcuffs and leg irons yesterday, minutes after a jury found him guilty of extortion.

About a dozen armed marshals and guards, one toting a double-barreled shotgun, marched Ouimette out the back door of the courthouse. His convicted co-defendant, mobster Robert P. DeLuca Sr., shuffled close behind.

Ouimette, who has spent about half his life in prison, knew the drill.

Asked to comment on the verdict that could send him and DeLuca away for life, Ouimette said to several reporters, "None at all, fellas. Just another day."

Ouimette, 55, of Fall River, Mass., and DeLuca, 50, of Lincoln were hustled into a waiting prisoner van and driven back to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, where they will remain until they are sentenced Jan. 26.

Both men face life imprisonment without parole under a new federal crime law's "three-strikes-and-you're-out" provision. They are the first defendants in New England to be prosecuted under the statute since it was signed into law last year.

Their trial in U.S. District Court will be remembered as one of the more colorful mob cases in recent memory. Over six days of testimony, the jurors heard threats about leg-breaking, listened to government informants and watched three exotic dancers take the stand.

They also saw a secretly recorded videotape of Ouimette meeting with one of his extortion victims. He made several references to his friend "John," to "Louie" and to friends in New York.

The authorities say Ouimette was talking about John Gotti, imprisoned boss of New York's Gambino crime family, while Louie is Luigi "Baby Shanks" Manocchio, rumored to be the next boss of the Patriarca crime family.

The spectator gallery was regularly filled with relatives and friends of Ouimette and DeLuca, including a few convicted felons.

The law enforcement community breathed a collective sigh of relief when the jury returned guilty verdicts after deliberating for two days.

"It's the end of an era in Rhode Island's criminal history," said U.S. Attorney Sheldon Whitehouse. "(Ouimette) has been a thorn in the side of law enforcement and a danger to the public for decades. His criminal career has now concluded."

The turning point in the case occurred the day before the trial started.

Moments before jury selection began, mob enforcer James "Slugger" Gellerman, another co-defendant, pleaded guilty to three extortion-related charges and turned government witness.

Gellerman, 34, of Johnston agreed to testify against Ouimette and DeLuca, his former partners in crime. In return, the government agreed to drop its bid to have him sentenced to life without parole; instead, he faces up to 16 years in prison.

In a soft, often barely audible voice, Gellerman, who stands about 6-foot-3 and weighs 250 pounds, told the jury how he assaulted two Rhode Island businessmen under Ouimette's direction last winter.

Ouimette, he said, worked for DeLuca, a capo in the Patriarca crime family.

Gellerman provided details about slugging Cranston businessman Paul A. Calenda at Calenda's Providence jewelry company.

The beating was a response to Calenda's refusal to pay Ouimette and DeLuca a $125,000 extortion payment and hand over his restaurant, the Fore 'N Aft, in Warren, to Ouimette.

Gellerman also laid out for the jury an extortion attempt against David J. Duxbury, a Providence car dealer.

Duxbury, who suffered a vicious beating in the basement of the Satin Doll strip club, was the victim of a $5,000 shakedown. Gellerman said that he was working for Ouimette when he donned leather gloves and punched Duxbury in the head.

Three exotic dancers from the strip club also testified. Two of them appeared terrified and wept in the witness box; they refused to point out Ouimette - even though they mentioned him by name.

A third woman identified Ouimette as one of the extortionists in the club, then she pointed to DeLuca when asked to identify him.

Calenda and Duxbury went to the authorities and agreed to cooperate with them.

The government's second key witness was Paula Coppola, widow of Ronnie Coppola, a loanshark and bookmaker who was gunned down in a Cranston social club in April 1994.

The day of Ronnie Coppola's funeral, Paula Coppola said, DeLuca approached her in a North Providence restaurant where family and friends had gathered afterward. She said DeLuca told her to call him if she found any money or loansharking slips around her Cranston condominium.

Coppola, who was placed in the federal Witness Protection Program, testified that she found about $54,000 in cash and kept it.

But seven months later, in December 1994, she discovered a slip of paper listing a series of nicknames with debts totaling about $35,000. She said she called DeLuca and he stopped by, saying that he and Coppola had had "$300,00 3on the streets," in loanshark payments.

The shakedowns of Calenda and Duxbury soon followed.

Robert DeLuca's lawyer, Anthony M. Cardinale, portrayed Paula Coppola as a money-grubbing opportunist bent on nailing his client because he never treated her with any respect. DeLuca had remained close to Coppola's first wife, Etta.

As a clerk recited the guilty findings yesterday, Deluca's wife, Natalie, moaned and buried her head in the lap of a young man seated beside her.

Outside, she cried hysterically in the hallway, hugging her son, Robert P. DeLuca Jr., who also was in tears.

Next month, Robert Jr. is scheduled to stand trial on extortion charges stemming from the Duxbury assault at the Satin Doll.

And the senior DeLuca still faces federal racketeering charges in Boston.

* * *

TRIAL JOURNAL

Court security tight

Federal marshals took extra security precautions for the extortion trial of Gerard T. Ouimette and Robert P. DeLuca Sr.

The second-floor courtroom was regularly swept for weapons. The names of the jurors remained anonymous and marshals drove them to and from court each day, in a van.

Marshals also recorded the names and driver's license numbers of spectators entering the courtroom. Ouimette's lawyer, Richard M. Egbert, asked Judge Ernest C. Torres to halt the practice, calling it unconstitutional.

Torres refused, and the marshals continued maintaining the list on a yellow legal pad.

'Celebrity' spectator

The three exotic dancers called as government witnesses weren't the only strippers to stop by the courtroom. For two days, Heidi Mattson, Brown University grad, ex-stripper at the Foxy Lady and author, sat in on the trial.

She said she was doing research for a second book, a novel involving mobsters.

(She said her book Ivy League Stripper: Sex, School and the American Dream is in its third printing in hardcover and will be out in paperback next spring.)

Mattson said she knew defendant DeLuca's son, Robert P. DeLuca Jr., from the Foxy Lady.

She said the younger DeLuca, scheduled to stand trial on federal extortion charges next month, "was a total sweetheart."

Military visitors

Security was tight inside the courtroom. But did the feds need to call in the Belarus military?

During the trial, about a dozen officers and a Supreme Court justice from what had been the Soviet republic of Byelorussia stopped by. They seemed interested that two mobsters were on trial, something not unfamiliar to them. Organized crime has flourished in their homeland and neighboring republics since the dissolution of the U.S.S.R.

U.S. Attorney Sheldon Whitehouse advised the visitors that Egbert, Ouimette's lawyer, was about to cross-examine a witness.

"You're seeing a very talented practioner at work," Whitehouse told them.