FBI agents allege that Ralph Deleo, a former renowned street boss of the Colombo Crime family, was arrested this month for conspiracy to kill at least three people who helped put it behind bars in 2012, according to newly deposited court documents.
The Massachusetts American prosecutor’s office revealed in court documents that federal agents “received a tip from a confidential source reporting that Deleo actively plans to kill two and a former federal official.” Federal officials were all involved in the condemnation of Deleo over ten years ago, according to court documents.
As targets 12 for the first time reported, Deleo, 82, was arrested on May 15, but federal officials did not publish any publicly details on his arrest to the filing of new court documents on Tuesday evening. Deleo’s criminal history dates back decades and the FBI allegedly alleged that he had been a partner of the Patriarca crime family, who operated from Providence.
In 2012, Deleo was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison for racketeering, among other crimes. He came out of prison under the supervised liberation in May 2024, and federal agents allegedly alleged that he had recently planned to kill the people who put him away. (People have not been identified publicly.)
The confidential source told agents that Deleo had shared with him that a partner of the Cosa Nostra, or the mafia, had obtained “tools” on his behalf, which federal officials have taken to signify firearms. Deleo was also looking for a silencer, according to court documents.
Deleo would have asked for personal information about the people he was targeting, “including reception addresses and names of immediate family members”, according to legal documents.
The federal agents made searches on him and his house earlier this month and found “packets of copy of personal information for several people”, including two of the federal officials. The source told agents that he had asked Deleo the information, and the aging mafioso had told him “that they were his” retribution “.
FBI agent Molly Driscoll wrote in a sworn affidavit that Deleo initially said that he himself had collected personal information from civil servants, but the agents later determined that he was lying.
“More specifically, the police have obtained SMS between Deleo and a third party demonstrating that Deleo asked the third party information relating to targeted persons,” wrote Driscoll. Documents show that he was communicating with convicted criminals, including people with whom he was charged with radical racketeering charges in 2009.
The agents also recovered from his home, a burglary kit, marijuana, steroid bottles, “and a handwritten note concerning silicone masks”, according to court documents.
The burglary kit contained “tools including a bodybar, a mini-foot, bolts cutters and a picking kit”, according to Driscoll.
Federal officials allegedly alleged that Deleo has shown a history of resentment to the people who condemned him. During his prison, Deleo told a confidential informant in 2014 that he was going to “cut” the head of one of the federal officials who became the target of his last killing plot, according to court documents.
Prosecutors have also detailed Deleo’s vast criminal history in the past six decades, which they say, have started when he has been found guilty of several armed robbery and other crimes at 16.
“Deleo’s life has been devoted to crime,” wrote the American lawyers Adam Deitch and Lauren Maynard in a request for detention filed on Tuesday evening.
“His criminal record is riddled with violence covering the course of decades,” they added. “And just as aging has had no impact on its activity in the past, the current advance of Deleo has no impact on its will or its ability to continue to engage in criminal activities.”
Deleo committed crimes in the 1970s, including an armed robbery and an attempted kidnapping, which earned him a sentence of 25 to 40 years. But he ended up escaping from the guard and put himself to fascinate in Ohio, where he committed an armed bank and kidnapped a bank director, according to court documents.
“While he was still in Ohio, Deleo committed his most horrible offense: kidnapping for having hired an eminent doctor with the intention of castrating it, but instead, pulling and killing the victim when he resisted the Deleo kidnapping attempt,” the prosecutors wrote.
Deleo was released early a sentence in 1997, and he finally took importance in the Colombo Crime Syndicate, one of the five families in New York, according to FBI agents. He directed his own violent gang in the Boston region known as “Deleo Crew”, according to prosecutors.
Deleo finally became the renowned street boss of the Colombo family before being charged in 2009, according to federal agents. Prosecutors now ask a federal judge to hold Deleo for violating the terms of his supervised release. No new criminal affair was tabled against Deleo before the Federal Court on Tuesday.
“Deleo spent his life committing violent crimes,” they wrote. “It seems that he intends to spend his sunset years to do the same. The severity of the most recent threats, the long and violent criminal record of Deleo, and his story to try to flee the guard all led to a conclusion: Deleo must be detained. “
Deleo defense lawyers have asked for him to be released from detention because he suffers from multiple health problems, including problems which, they will require oral surgery.
Lawyers have also argued in court documents that he does not receive the medical care he needs at the Wyatt detention center in central falls and should be transferred to a federal prison.
Deleo’s detention hearing is scheduled for Thursday at 9:30 am.
https://www.wpri.com/target-12/mobster-ralph-deleo-plotted-to-kill-federalo-officials-who-put-him-way-way-court-docs-show/
