Violent life comes to quiet end

This story is from The Journal archives

By W. Zachary Malinowski Journal Staff Writer
The Providence Journal
Tuesday, 12/5/2006

Richard "Red Bird" Gomes once counted the late John Gotti and Raymond L. S. Patriarca among his closest friends.

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NORTH PROVIDENCE - Richard "Red Bird" Gomes, a violent mobster who terrorized the state for decades, died quietly on Sunday in his apartment near the Smithfield town line.

The North Providence police reported that two of Gomes' nieces - who were not identified - found their uncle at 6:15 p.m. lying fully clothed on the living room couch in his apartment at 242 Waterman Ave. He was unresponsive and the women called 911. The police said that it appeared Gomes, 73, died of natural causes. Several bottles of medication for respiratory problems were found on a kitchen counter.

On the wall of his apartment were photographs of two powerful old friends: John Gotti and Raymond L.S. Patriarca.

"When it came to organized crime activity, the guy never took a day off," said Brian Andrews, retired detective commander of the Rhode Island State Police. "Prison never stopped him from doing what he did every single day. He was a seasoned, cold-hearted killer. If there was a New England Wiseguy Hall of Fame, he would be a shoo-in.''

Gomes, who grew up in South Providence, turned to a life of a crime as a kid. At age 12, he was arrested for breaking into a freight car in Providence. Twice, he spent time in reform school as a teenager, and at age 17, joined the Army.

The disciplined life of a soldier was not for Richie Gomes.

In 1951, 10 months after joining the service, Gomes deserted after his unit was about to move into combat in Korea. He was sentenced to five years for desertion with intent to avoid hazardous duty. While in prison at Camp Gordon, Ga., Gomes took part in a mutiny in which several guards were injured and the camp nearly destroyed. He was court-martialed in January 1953 and sentenced to 45 years of hard labor in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Eventually, Gomes was released from prison and he returned to Rhode Island.

As a young man, he joined a crew of non-Italian mobsters led by Gerard T. Ouimette, a feared mob enforcer who had strong ties with crime families in Providence, Boston and New York City. Gomes and Ouimette could not be formally inducted into La Cosa Nostra because their mothers were not of Italian descent. Still, they had close ties to powerful Italian mobsters across the Northeast and they were well-respected in the underworld.

Gomes held a special stature in the Rhode Island criminal world. He had been a lifelong friend and the onetime driver for the late Gotti, also known as the Dapper Don, the charismatic head of the New York-based Gambino crime family. In the late '60s, Gomes and Gotti struck up a friendship while they were both serving time in the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa.

In Rhode Island, Gomes was constantly in trouble. In 1972, he stabbed to death Robert Cullen, 46, of Providence, in the basement of a Johnston bar. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In 1975, while serving that sentence at the Adult Correctional Institutions, Gomes and three others ganged up on a fellow inmate and nearly beat him to death with lead pipes.

Gomes spent more than 50 years in prison and he lived a charmed life behind bars. Retired state police Cmdr. Andrews said that Gomes and Ouimette ran the North State Wing of the prison, also known as "Steel City." They regularly had food catered into the maximum security prison and, through messengers, they continued to oversee their criminal empire on the outside, he said.

Gomes was freed from the ACI in 1979.

The bond between Gomes and Gotti grew even stronger after the murder of Gotti's neighbor.

On July 28, 1980, John Favara, Gotti's neighbor, disappeared shortly after he killed Gotti's 12-year old son, Frankie, in a car accident. The boy was riding a borrowed mini-bike on the street outside his home.

Shortly after Favara's disappearance, detectives visited Gotti at the Bergin Hunt & Fish Club in the Ozone Park section of Queens.

"I'm not sorry the guy's missing," Gotti told the police. "I wouldn't be sorry if the guy turned up dead."

According to several New York City newspapers and law enforcement authorities, Gomes joined seven members of Gotti's crew, which abducted Favara, stole his car and killed him. They dumped his body and had his car crushed in Brooklyn, destroying all evidence of the crime.

Andrews, the retired state police commander, said he has "no doubt" that Gomes participated in the murder.

In the 1980s, Gomes descended into a world of late nights, cocaine and violence. In March 1985, he opened fire on two men who were sitting in a car eating wieners outside the New York Systems diner in Providence's Olneyville Square. He emptied four shots into the two men, leaving them seriously wounded.

A few years later, Gomes went on trial for the shootings and was convicted of assault with intent to commit murder. As the guilty verdict was returned, Gomes turned to his lawyer, John F. Cicilline, and kissed him on the cheek.

Gomes spent the next 16 years in prison. He was released from the ACI on Aug. 1, 2005. Gomes, who was frail and in poor health, spent his days at a Johnston social club where he hung out with young men who had served time with him in prison. State police Maj. Steven G. O'Donnell said that, on the street after his release last year, Gomes made "every attempt to ingratiate himself" with made members of the Patriarca crime family.

"He was not welcomed with open arms," O'Donnell said. "Some would deal with him. Some would not."

Gomes had lost his power. Gotti was dead and Ouimette is serving a sentence of life without parole in federal prison. The old mobster was just another old guy looking for a few bucks and some respect. On Sunday, he left this world and joined his old friends Gotti and Patriarca.

bmalinow@projo.com / (401) 277-7019