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Salemme trial: Fellow mobster testifies about burying the body

BOSTON — A Providence mobster described how he buried the body of a Boston nightclub owner during the trial against Cadillac Frank Salemme Wednesday.

Joseph DeLuca, 78 described for the jury, in detail, how the body of mob victim Steven DiSarro was buried behind an aging mill in Providence, Rhode Island.

Salemme and codefendant Paul Weadick are on trial for DiSarro's murder. Federal agents believe Salemme ordered the hit, concerned that his partner in the Channel Nightclub was going to flip on him.

DeLuca testified that Salemme himself drove DiSarro's body in the truck of a car to Providence, where he delivered it to DeLuca and his brother. His order was to bury the body, and destroy the blue tarp wrapped around the body, because it might hold incriminating fingerprints, DeLuca said.

DeLuca described how he and another mobster, nicknamed Harpo, brought the body to the mill building where the owner, William Ricci, helped them bury it.

A near disaster struck when the group made its move in the darkness

"We went out the loading dock. Harpo fell down and the body fell off the hand truck. We dragged the body across the lot. We could see the dunes where the sand was. We slid the body down into the hole," DeLuca said.

DeLuca said he ignored Salemme's order and buried the body with the tarp.

A few days later, he returned to dig it up, but Ricci was already working the area with a backhoe.

"I went out there he was digging already," DeLuca testified. "He hooked up on the body, the package, on the shovel. He pulled it up, the tarp ripped open down the middle and the body fell out, back where he was digging."

DeLuca also discussed how he and his brother became involved with the Patriarca crime family and the La Cosa Nostra, including the structure of the mob.

MORE TRIAL COVERAGE:

Lawyer: Ex-Mafia boss charged in 1993 slaying 'no angel'
Testimonies resume in mob trial of Frank Salemme 
Salemme trial: 2nd day of testimony provides look inside life of a mobster