Transcript
Index
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Ethel White 00:01
It's now April 14th, 1994, and we're going to continue our conversation. And
just in case we didn't get this on, we think that the Hoffa trial was in 1964, and that the march on the Pentagon would have come a little bit later than that. Maybe 1967 but we haven't checked our books yet. And so, now you're going to move on to what happened next.Jesse Grider 00:29
Well, then it goes without saying, all the publicity that the march on the
Pentagon got, and I think we covered that pretty much. So, from there, then I was sent, I did not return to my home. I was sent to [the] Boston, Massachusetts area, on a witness protection program. To give you a little background, briefly, the Department of Justice, which United States Marshal services a grand job, came to an agreement that with other federal agencies that in order to, and I know they don't like to use this word mafia, but organized crime organizations, that were set up within the Justice Department and could get witnesses maybe to testify with the promise of protection and so forth. And it fell on the United States Marshals. Are other marshals were selected to furnish a protection for individuals that were willing to give testimony against organized crime and with a promise of protection. So, there was a section set up within the United States Marshals headquarters that dealt strictly with these witnesses. This particular case was very interesting, and it was, I'll have to go back a little bit and give, as I understand it, the person that was willing to testify against the New England mafia was in the fellow the name of Joe Barboza. They call him the mad dog. Barboza was a loan shark in Brockton mass or there in the Boston area.Jesse Grider 02:47
And he was not a member of the organized crime, but he carried out contracts.
So, he testified for the organized crime, our mafia people. He had gotten caught for, I think, a gun charge or something, and was serving some time in the State Penitentiary in Massachusetts the Federal Bureau of Investigation had tapped the head of the New England mafia phones and had taped some conversation[s] were and I think the head of The New England mafia was patriarchal. Had put out a contract on Barboza. They had used him as much as they wanted, and they were, I think, concerned that that he might begin to talk, and so they put a contract out on him. So, the bureau went to the penitentiary, played the tape to Barboza, and then made the commitment to him that if he was willing to testify and give information on what he knew about the organized crime in the New England area, that they would furnish him protection, which he and his wife and child.Jesse Grider 04:30
After playing this tape, then Barboza realized that, you know, this was his best
bet, according to the agent that I talked to--the FBI, that he just went totally wild when this tape was played to him, which he was--I'll get in a little bit later, could be why a very wild person. He--they got him out of the penitentiary, then put him in the wood. This program, and so, I was sent up to--to work on what we referred to as a detail. Samuel Dash was the United States Attorney at the time in Boston. Uh, and he and I could not think of Harrington's first name, but I think he was one of his assistants, which later, I don't recall. But anyway, he stayed with a justice moved on up in the ranks, but Dash was there. Now, later on, I had him meeting with Dash, several years later on, the John Dean and the Nixon thing. So, he was the lead investigator on the city investigating committee on the Nixon Watergate. But anyway, they would come out we, we went up and had Barboza in custody, and to safe keep him we found an island off of the coast of the little community fishing community of Gloucester, Massachusetts.Jesse Grider 06:21
This island was under the control of the Coast Guard. There were two lighthouses
on the island and two houses. The Coast Guard kept a person in. One lighthouse was active, and the other one was inactive. The Coast Guard kept one or two Coast Guard men on the island twenty-four hours a day, around year-round. And so, we moved, the witness and his family out on this island, put them in the one house, which was adjoining, the two houses were joined. We had about twelve, I think U.S. Marshals then, that we housed in the other, other house. We kept outside guards around the island and trying to keep it quiet as to where he was. Then we depended on the Coast Guard on transporting us out to the island, back and forth for groceries and whatever. We did our own cooking and this sort of thing. Now, the witness-.Ethel White 07:34
Were these houses attached to the lighthouses?
Jesse Grider 07:37
No.
Ethel White 07:37
--Were the part of it or were they separate?
Jesse Grider 07:38
No, they were separate from the lighthouses. And as I say, there was [were] two
lighthouses on--.Ethel White 07:45
--Right--.
Jesse Grider 07:45
--On the island, and I don't know, maybe three-hundred yards apart or something,
and one was still active. We kept one Marshal in the top of that lighthouse twenty-four hours a day.Jesse Grider 08:02
We went in, gosh, I don't know we would go out. I would go out there for two or
three weeks at a time and stay on that island, and then I would come home, and then I would go maybe for two weeks, and then I would go back for another three or four weeks. So, this went on several months, and when it got closer to court time, where Barboza was going to have to testify in court, which the first court action was federal--was the state court. We were trying to find some place inland [clears throat] where we could have of the witness and make it a little bit easier in getting in downtown Boston to testify. We found this beautiful compound that sounds, I've never been to the Kennedy compound, but in hearing a description of it, this one looked a lot like it.Jesse Grider 09:19
There were two houses right on the edge of the water. You could sort of sit in
the living room and fish from it, really. The water was that close to the house. And they had a swimming pool, and it had the court--they--the houses adjoined but separate. There was a courtyard in between the houses, and it was beautiful. It was for sale and the government had leased it from the--from the owner for several thousand dollars a month I think, to keep this witness there. So, we went in and set up, it'd get awful[ly] cold in the wintertime there. And so, we had little guard shacks---type-shacks built in four corners of the house. AndJesse Grider 10:30
[Tape cuts off]
Jesse Grider 10:30
Well, you're always concerned, and on a security mission, you look at every
possibility. And one of the possibilities, of course, with this house being two thirds surrounded by water, that they could maybe get to them by boat and also by air. And on these things, as most things, rumor flies, and if the FBI, or any other federal agency--and I think they--they got this after the--got criticized so much over the Kennedy assassination in Texas. That the FBI supposedly knew where [Lee Harvey] Oswald was and knew that he was a potential threat or with his background, but they had not passed that information on to the Secret Service. So, the Secret Service did not realize or they normally, it's a different story, but I've been through their program. So, any person that is a threat to the president of the United States, they try to keep track of, and they watch them wherever they go. But anyway, by this, we--rumors usually fly, or the FBI or other agencies. If they hear something from some informant. It may be true, and it may not, but when you're talking about that kind of money put it on someone's head, you have to presume that somebody's going to try to collect that money if possible.Jesse Grider 12:15
So anyway, we were concerned about the air, and we concerned about the water.
There was only one way to get in by land, and it was a little dirt road that went back to this compound. So, we put out--we put out guard shacks on each corner of the house. One--two of them on the back side was overlooking in the water. And you'd have to realize in that area that boats, fishing boats, pleasure boats, sailboats are just constantly and all over the place. And so, we had to keep a pretty sharp eye on that. We set out trip wires out into the woods and this sort of thing. Some things we homemade ourselves by putting gravel and rock and tin cans and tying them to a thin wire so we could hear a rattle. Well, that was a good idea, except some animals would hit the wire and [laughs]--and run us crazy if it happened to be a dog or a rabbit or something would through and trip a flare or. But anyway, we felt that did give us some--some security. And we did all the witness['s] shopping for him. Of course, we laughed about it because he had two or three cats, and the government was paying the bill, and this guy didn't need eat except the best. And the cats didn't need anything but the best. I have seen him feed lobster to the cats. There wasn't any anything out of his pocket. He was a total wild individual. He had an awful high temper.Jesse Grider 14:19
He would get mad at just to--the drop of a hat over some little something that
didn't mean anything. We--you do get awful close to these people, and I spent an awful lot of time playing hearts with him. Two or three of us, and Steve Mellinger was a Deputy United States Marshal out of and Lexington and Mellinger may mean name--may mean something to you. It may not, but he was out of Pennsylvania, and he came to Kentucky on a scholarship, played football, became an All-American at UK.Ethel White 14:53
What was his name again?
Jesse Grider 14:54
Mellinger, Steve Mellinger. He played pro ball for Green Bay and Pittsburgh and
Washington, and then became a Deputy United States Marshal. But anyway, Mellinger was on the detail at the same time I was this particular time, and we were playing hearts with Barboza, and we'd play penny a point. And you know, nobody ever lost two or three bucks at the most. But anyway, Mellinger was--in game of hearts, if you're not familiar with it is you try to keep away from the big camp. And I think, as I recall, the Queen of Hearts maybe was the half point or something. So, Mellinger had the opportunity to slap the Queen of Hearts, or whatever the card was on Barboza. And so, when Barboza played and Mellinger said, "let's play like the mafia's playing. Let's get Barboza." And he threw that card down [laughs] and Barboza started foaming at the mouth, and he jumped up on that table and turned [it] over and took off back towards his-- [chuckles]--house.Jesse Grider 16:11
Well, Steve Mellinger, I say, was an All-American. He's about six foot five, and
weighed about 230 or 240 pound[s], and had fists like a (??) of meat and Barboza wasn't about to fool with him. But anyway, that was just some of the funny things that went on. And we--he'd come back, and we'd play hearts again, and, you know, he'd get mad and run off, and he had a German Shepherd dog that he wanted to train. He had totally ruined that dog. He would try to train him, and the dog would get mad and snap at him. I saw him pick that dog up and bite its nose and damn near bite his nose off. He had that dog so scared that when he hollered at him, the dog would urinate. I mean, he just, he ruined the thoroughbred [purebred] German Shepherd Dog. And that dog was so scared of him that it's unbelievable. And a lot of people were scared of Barboza, not just dogs.Jesse Grider 17:24
So, anyway, we--the court time came. This went on for several months, and I was
in and out. Court time came for him to testify in state court, and we were trying to figure out how we were going to get Barboza into the court and get him out, security wise. So, we came up with the idea to fly him in by helicopter, into Boston. We would have a mail truck at the heliport. And we put Barboza and myself [me] and two or three other people in the back of the mail truck, and we would take him into downtown Boston and into the courthouse. We were going to take him in the day before and put him in jail, which the jail and the courts were located in the same building. But he flat refused to go because he--unless marshals stayed in the jail with him. Because he knew a lot of the local law enforcement and who was on the take and who wasn't and he just didn't trust anyone at all, except the marshals. So, there was [were] three of us, then that went into jail with him, and we stayed in the cell. I don't recall, two or three days, I think, in the jail. We would not let the jail furnish him his food, nor would he have eaten it if they had of. Of course, we did not eat so, one of us would go out and carry meals into the jail and we would eat [in] jail.Jesse Grider 19:23
So, the time came for him to testify, and at that time, and I'm sure it still
is--the new--in the New England area, particularly Boston. That's the old English courts, where the defendants sit in a box in the center of the courtroom, so you never have any problem identifying who [chuckles] the defendants are. And Patriarca and about four other guys were defendants in this case, and I--went in with Barboza and sat next to the witness stand, while he was testifying. They kept giving him the old kiss of death sign to him, and he would lose his temper and give it back. And the kiss of death is using the thumb and behind the front teeth and flipping it at an individual, and that's called their kiss of death. Barboza testified for several days, and on the witness stand, he omitted being involved in--or involved in and committing the crimes himself of about forty-three murders in the Boston area. A lot of this I had known that he had told me at night, just sitting around talking, that--some of the ways that he had gotten rid of people. Some just for punishment that he didn't want to kill, but [to] get their attention. Different ways and he--some that they would use the old meat hook and freezers. They would use a--.Jesse Grider 19:36
--You better--.
Jesse Grider 20:12
A baseball bat.
Ethel White 20:45
--Spell that one out.
Jesse Grider 21:24
Well, they would take a guy in a big walk-in freezer and hook him up to a meat
look. Like you've seen in movies or something, and they would just do this to get his attention, let them know they were serious people or--.Ethel White 21:37
Or they--this was not a way to kill them?
Jesse Grider 21:39
No, but on those that they killed why he had done them different ways. He'd shot
some, he'd bombed some. He would do anything that the mafia wanted. If they wanted some business out of business, he'd burn them down, and his reward was that he would not charge the mafia. You know, it may be willing to pay him $50,000 but he had about a six or eight block area that he loan sharked. And they agreed to leave him alone and let him operate in there with no outside interference from anymore. Then, in return, he would do them favors by carrying out some of their contracts for him.Ethel White 22:27
But, but what would he do when he loan sharked? He must have been making money.
Jesse Grider 22:31
He claimed he was making $12,000 a week at the time he got busted--.
Ethel White 22:37
--Also, with--.
Jesse Grider 22:37
--Just by loan sharking.--
Ethel White 22:38
--With other contracts or?
Jesse Grider 22:40
No, no, he would not charge them for their (??)--.
Ethel White 22:42
--No, I mean.
Jesse Grider 22:42
He took care of that.
Ethel White 22:43
But I mean what--what was the loan sharking? How did that make you money.
Jesse Grider 22:46
--I'd loan you five bucks for a week, and you'd pay me back ten. you know, you
just double your money?Ethel White 22:52
Oh, okay.
Jesse Grider 22:53
Okay.
Ethel White 22:54
Sorry to be slow. [laughs]
Jesse Grider 22:54
No, that's not all right. You--a loan shark is a--is about a $500 interest. You
know, he'll loan ten thousand for a month, you pay me back twenty. And you better not be late, or that's when they take you in and hang you to the meat hook, and let you know what to expect if this isn't paid. He told a story, and I have no reason not to believe him, that Patriarca had a dry cleaning, as a front in the Boston area. And in the back of that dry cleaning shop, he had an aquarium, and he had the meat-eating fish. I can't recall their name--proper name, in that aquarium. He has taken people in there, and they have stuck their hands in that fish and let the fish chew on them a little while. And that was just to get their attention. You know, the next time it might be your body in there and not just your hand and people then would go out and get that money some way. If they had to rob, steal or whatever, because they knew they were in trouble.Jesse Grider 24:13
Anyway, on the testifying, Barboza admitted using baseball bats, you know, just
to break the guy's legs, whatever was necessary. If it was really a serious matter in the mafia, wanted someone wiped out (??) and then he would wipe them out. Or he---if someone else got--carried out the contract, he would assist him, and in return, they would leave him alone and let him operate his own little business in the Brockton, or one of the neighborhoods there in Boston. And he was not scared, and the--Patriarca and his buddies sitting there giving him this kiss of death, and he would look them straight in the eye. --He was not worried about them.Ethel White 25:06
Do you know how you spell Pap--is it Patriarca or--.
Jesse Grider 25:10
--Patriarca--.
Ethel White 25:11
--Or arca--.
Jesse Grider 25:14
Probably have--I have that upstairs--.
Jesse Grider 25:17
And I'll get it. So anyway, after his court, which was three or four days, it
was time to get him back out of there, get him back out to our secure area. We were concerned about--of course, everyone, and--.Ethel White 25:17
Okay--okay.
Ethel White 25:39
This was back to the compound.
Jesse Grider 25:41
--Back to the compound--.
Ethel White 25:41
--As opposed to the island--.
Jesse Grider 25:42
--Out of the court---.
Ethel White 25:43
Where'd you change clothes, in the cell?
Jesse Grider 25:43
---Out of the court and jail building. It was the old Charles Street Jail, as I
recall. [coughs] I think it was built--since built a new one. So, we came up with an idea that Barboza and I were about the same height. And I like I think I'm a little bit better looking than was. Because he [laughs] but I was probably not much, but he--we were about same the height, he was a little bit heavier. Physically, you always, I don't know whether all men do this or not, but in this line, all men, I think, do. That you meet the judge and individual, whether you think you could handle them physically or not. And I think I could have handled Barboza physically, but he was type of guy that you'd never win. Because he would cut your throat at night or [chuckles] shoot you in the back or something. But anyway, we were about the same and the same in height, and Barboza always wore a big old black hat and a field jacket. Which we furnished an old Army military field jacket. We decided that I would dress as Barboza and come out of the jail and the marshals would be--. I would be in the center as Barboza and Barboza would be in one of the positions as a marshal.Ethel White 25:43
--Okay.
Jesse Grider 25:44
In the jail, yeah.
Ethel White 25:47
Where and--nobody could see you.
Jesse Grider 25:48
No, no, no, there wasn't anybody in the cell area there but the marshals and
Barboza. We had a--two cars there, and they'd put me and one in the backseat, with a marshal on each side of me, and one driving, and one in the passenger side. And then Barboza got in the lead vehicle, which people watching would have thought he was the marshal and that I was Barboza. And we went, like a bad attitude--motorcycle policemen escorting us back to the helicopter pad. The helicopter was waiting on us, and we got into the helicopter. I jumped in the helicopter and ran from the car to the helicopter like I was really concerned. And Barboza moseying around with a rifle. You know, he had the rifle, of course, unloaded, no, no, no bullets.Ethel White 28:28
Let me ask you about the reasoning. Now, did you do this--I mean, this says he's
more valuable than you are. And is this because you gave him his word you were going to protect him, or was there some other thing that you were saving it for?Ethel White 28:40
So, you weren't so much preserving him for further testimony as you simply were
protecting the guy that you said you would protect.Jesse Grider 28:40
On any of these things--you know, that's why you're on the hazardous duty of
retirement. And--which means you get an early retirement. Twenty years and fifty and you can retire. You're paid for risk as a police off--all law enforcement people are. You--you have, I don't know whether it's brainwashed or training, but you do what is necessary to protect your subject. Whether It's the President of the United States or whether it's a federal judge or whether it's some witness.Jesse Grider 29:27
That we would protect. The Justice Department had committed in that we--we went
at these jobs as you know, we will do what's necessary to protect the individual. And I guess and it felt like if someone was going to get shot with a sniper rifle, it better a marshal than [laughs] their main witness, you know. I mean, this is true with the president, the Secret Service agent that got shot with [Ronald] Reagan. They're trained this that you know, your subject is the most important thing, and you're to put your body in between the subject and anyone that could hurt [them]. I did this in the--with the students going to the schools. You would do what was necessary to protect whoever you're the protect--he [him].Ethel White 30:26
But, but a president or--and a six-year-old student is a--even, is a little bit
different than a loan shark who has already testified, and that's just--.Jesse Grider 30:36
--But--.
Ethel White 30:36
--Why I asked--.
Jesse Grider 30:36
--If you're committed, you know--you're committed. The Justice Department's
committed. The Marshal’s Service was committed to this program, and so you did what was--what you felt was necessary. So anyway, we got him back--we got back on the helicopter. Got him back out to the compound and--and Patriarca and the four other co-defendants were convicted, they served time. Barboza then after a few months, of course, they appealed their conviction and this sort of thing, but pending the appeal, I think the courts denied their bond and they went on to the--to jail.Jesse Grider 31:25
Several months then went on that we kept him in that area, just in case, in the
compound, really. And then they asked if I would run a detail. We were looking for a place to move him. In order to complete the program, which was that we would change their names. We would change their entire family. There would be no record. We would get them new birth certificates, new Social Security [numbers], driver's license[s], school records. Everything--the person Barboza no longer existed when we get through with them. So, they asked me if I would run the detail, if we moved him to [the] Kentucky area, and I agreed. So, we moved him to Fort Knox. While we were at Fort Knox, then we, we had [him] over an officer's quarters, which were houses, not the barracks. We had two, two apartments, or townhouses, I call them. They have their own separate entrances and exits, nobody above you. Actually, we got three. We put Barboza and his family in the center one. We put marshals on one side and marshals on the other. We did not have outside guards. We would run the detail with about six or eight people. So, you'd have four marshals living on one side and four marshals living on the other. And that no one would know or ever suspect that he was at a place like Fort Knox.33:14
But the fact--if the marshals were there, wouldn't that call attention to--?
Ethel White 33:17
--Well, they--.
Jesse Grider 33:17
--Yeah, a lot of people would you know, living in the area and wanted to know.
Well, he--here he was with--had the Cesarean [Sicilian?] whatever you call them, Lebanese look. He had long, black oily hair. Wore sunglasses constantly, had a big black hat, and he was out in the backyard one day, and one of the officers that lived three or four doors down, was talking to him. Wanted to know what he did, and he told him he was with the--was a [in the] civil investigating agency in the military. Now, here was a guy [laughs] that stuck out like a sore thumb. You take him to the bowling alley, you know, to bowl or try to keep him--something going for him. You know, just sitting at that townhouse all day. And people were just staring at him. I mean, you--he was one of these guys that you look at--three or four glance back at. So, you know, he just stood out.Ethel White 33:17
--This man--.
Jesse Grider 34:23
So, anyway, we set it up to--to get his name changed. And so, we called an
attorney down in Paducah. And the attorney happened to be a former United States Attorney for western Kentucky, Bill Sims (??). And so, we told Bill what we needed to do. And so, we took him to Paducah, spent the night in the motel with him, and Bill got all the paperwork done, and we got his name changed. And I cannot, to save my life, remember what we changed his name [to]. We asked him to start thinking of some names. And he came up with Wilson. And I said, "Now, Barboza, anybody that looks like you is not [laughs] gonna get by with the name of Wilson." [laughs] He['s] got to do better than that. And I cannot, to save my life, remember what name we decided on (??). But anyway, we got it all done legally. I mean, this was all done before a judge. And the judge did not know who he was or anything about it, but sent--got the name changed, and we did that. We got him--his driver's license and birth certificates, yanked all school records, everything pertaining to him in the Boston area, that was--I mean, he just no longer existed. Then we tried to find--we wanted to find him a job. He was a hell of a cook, that he could cook, and they like the very spicy type, not a Mexican-type food, but a lot of herbs and so forth in their food. And it was very rich, but he could cook.Jesse Grider 36:14
So, we contacted our office in San Francisco, and we--what happens, we have
contact people in every district of the 95 districts in the country. And if we wanted someone to go to Seattle, for instance, can you--and a guy happened to be a fisherman, then we would call Seattle and say, "look, we got a guy who's pretty good fisherman, can you get him job on a fishing boat?" So anway, we call--San Francisco, and was telling this guy's a cook. He's good, can you get us something--get him a job, and so forth. So, they got him a job on the--cook on the Japanese freighter, and so he--we flew him to San Francisco. Relocated him to San Francisco, had our contact out there to get him a house. We flew him out, we went out with him. Got him located, got him in his job so, every once in a while, I'd get a card from him from--or our office here, and he would send us, you know, from Tokyo or someplace. And one time he sent us one that had a razor blade in it. I don't know whether he got mad at us, wanted us to cut our throat or [chuckles] what but.Jesse Grider 37:40
So, I sort of kept up with him a little bit. And in all of these conversations,
he would tell me how he had gotten rid of people. And he always said, "the best time to get someone is getting in and out of an automobile or a vehicle." Because they are in an awkward position, even if you're armed, you know, got one in your belt, or whatever, you're in a position that you can't get to it that fast. So, he--obviously that was the best time to get one. Back up just a little bit. --The--one thing that was a sole main concern about Barboza, knew how serious it was. He had an attorney in Boston. The attorney did not know where Barboza was. No one did, but evidently, the mafia didn't think he was telling the truth, and they bombed his car. Yeah, he lost both legs.Ethel White 38:46
The lawyer's car?
Jesse Grider 38:47
The lawyer's car. So they were, they were, they were wanting Barboza. There
wasn't any, you know, you hear a lot of little rumors, but this was not rumors. This was serious business. So anyway, we got Barboza, as I say, we'd get cards from him and so forth. And I, I sort of kept up with him through government agents. Which was only well, anybody would know--could possibly find him. But for some reason, and this is a bad part of the program to start with. When a--when a kid has started out in crime, running numbers or whatever they may be doing, and this is all they know. You're not going to go in and pick one of these people out and change their name and change all this information and throw them back out into society and expect them to go straight. I mean, it's just not their nature, and they don't know all this stuff. [clears throat] For some reason, Barboza went back to Massachusetts. And was in Springfield, Mass, as I recall. He was by himself and in a car, he came on a roadblock. He had his sawed-off shotgun laying in the backseat. And on the roadblock, the state trooper stopped him, and eyed the shotgun and placed him under arrest. And took him into, I don't know whether it was Springfield or, I think it was Springfield, Massachusetts, but anyway, put him in jail. They tried him and convicted him, and the word got out that it was Barboza.Jesse Grider 40:52
Sent him back to the penitentiary and the name of the penitentiary in
Massachusetts escapes me. But anyway, he--in the penitentiary then, he got in a fight. And they threw him in the hole, which is an isolated cell, locked up.Ethel White 41:07
Solitary.
Jesse Grider 41:07
Solitary confinement. This is worse than--in the hole is worse than solitary.
Solitary is just a cell and stay locked up in all time. The hole is usually, you use a bucket for relieving yourself and they set you a bucket of water in there. No showers, no anything, but anyway, they threw them in the hole. And a couple of other fellas in the institution got in a fight, and they threw them in the hole. So, about two days in the hole, the other two fellas sent word out that they had some information they felt like people would be interested in, and they would like to talk to someone. So, they call them out and the lieutenant or some officer of the institute--.Jesse Grider 41:58
[Tape cuts off] End of interview.
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