"Cadillac" Frank Salemme, who in the early 1990s consolidated his position as boss of the New England mafia was found guilty in United States District Court of one count of the murder of a witness. Jurors reached the verdict on Friday after a seven-week trial and four days of deliberations.
Co-defendant Paul Weadick was also found guilty of the same charge. Both face a likely life sentence.
Salemme and Weadick were accused of the 1993 murder of Stephen DiSarro, a Massachusetts man who for a time was an owner and managaer of The Channel, a popular Boston rock club.
Prosecutors say that Salemme ordered DiSarro killed, fearing that DiSarro, who himself was under investigation for bank fraud, would provide the FBI with information on Salemme's criminal activities.
Prosecutors argued Salemme had DiSarro brought to his Sharon, Massachusetts, house, where Weadick and Salemme's now deceased son, Frank Jr., strangled DiSarro in front of Salemme.
Salemme then drove DiSarro's body across state lines to Providence, Rhode Island, where he had other associates dispose of the body at an industrial site.
DiSarro's remains were recovered in 2016, and an arrest warrant was issued for Salemme, who was living in Atlanta under the federal witness protection program, after having testified for the government in the prosecution of now-disgraced FBI agent John Connolly.
In the trial, several ex-Mafia members and former gangsters testified on behalf of the prosecution, including Stephen "Rifleman" Flemmi, an admitted hitman and former enforcer for South Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger.
All of those ex-mobsters had made deals with federal prosecutors in exchange for their cooperation. Flemmi, currently serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to 10 murders, was able to avoid the death penalty for cooperating in this case and others.
Lawyers for the defense said those witnesses were proven liars and career criminals whose testimony could not be believed and who had incentive and opportunity to concoct a false narrative they could trade for better deals from prosecutors.
Jurors made three requests for transcripts of testimony and found the government's witnesses credible enough to convict.
