Escape from prison

He was first sent to prison in 1950 to the Massachusetts Correctional Institution - Concord for five years. Barboza would later lead a wild prison break in the summer of 1953, which would become the largest in the prison's seventy-five-year history. Joe and six other fellow inmates had guzzled contraband whiskey and pilfered amphetamine tablets, overpowered four prison guards and raced away in two separate cars. During their furlough of freedom they beat random people in the street, cruised the bars in Boston's Scollay Square, wandered to the neighborhoods of Lynn and Revere, and were finally apprehended at a subway station in East Boston. The escape party had barely lasted twenty-four hours. That November, while awaiting trial for his prison break, Barboza slugged a prison guard in the cafeteria for no reason. Three months later, he tossed a table at a guard's chest when he entered his cell.

Entry into organized crime

Barboza may have first been exposed to figures of Boston organized crime while incarcerated at Walpole. Paroled in 1958, he became a recognized figure in East Boston's organized crime circles and was a regular at a bar on the corner of Bennington Street and Brook Street, which became known among local criminals as "Barboza's Corner". His crew of small-time burglars and thieves consisted of Joseph W. Amico, Patrick Fabiano, James Kearns, Arthur Bratsos, Thomas DePrisco, father and son team Joseph and Ronald Dermody, Carlton Eaton, Edward Goss and Nicholas Femia. The crew was officially supervised for the Patriarca crime family by Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi. He was never officially inducted into the Patriarca crime family because of his non-Italian ancestry, but within eight years during the escalation of gangland warfare, he earned a reputation as one of Boston's most prolific contract killers and sidewalk soldiers. Due to his dark complexion and Portuguese heritage, Barboza was referred to as "the nigger" by his Italian associates.^[6][7][8] According to Patriarca capo-turned-government witness Vincent Teresa, Barboza "hated Negroes" and killed at least two victims solely due to their race.^[9] In 1964, Barboza legally changed his surname to "Baron".

It was widely believed in law official circles that Barboza had performed contract killings for Raymond L. S. Patriarca. By January 1966, Barboza was considered a powerful crime figure in the Boston underworld. For disturbing the peace one night, he slugged a Metropolitan District Commission Police Officer, Joe MacLean, and received a six-month sentence. After his release from prison and his graduation from an expensive cooking school he was shipped out on the SS President Wilson to the Orient.

A few notorious victims on his murder roster included Edward McLaughlin and both Cornelius Hughes and Stevie Hughes, killed between 1965 and 1966. Barboza aligned himself with the Winter Hill Gang in part because James "Buddy" McLean was an ally of Vincent Flemmi, who Barboza trusted along with his brother Stephen Flemmi. As early as 1965, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent H. Paul Rico, was using that trust to drive Barboza into becoming an informant. Barboza drove a 1965 Oldsmobile Cutlass which was referred to by law enforcement as "the James Bond car" because it had a sophisticated alarm system and a device for making thick black smoke come out of the tailpipe.^[10]

Turning government witness

By 1966, he had a very turbulent position in the Boston underworld. He had been shot at while standing outside his home in Chelsea. The local authorities believed there had been other unreported attempts. Brimming with reckless power, he was not abiding to the traditional rules of La Cosa Nostra. One night he went into a nightclub that was paying Gennaro Angiulo for protection and demanded that the owner make payments to him as well. By mid-1966, the unrelenting attention from the law Barboza received from the authorities only made his standing in organized crime more tenuous.

In October 1966, he came to terms with his falling-out with the organized crime element after he and three local hoodlums were arrested on weapons charges while cruising the Combat Zone in Boston. His accomplices were released on bail, but Barboza had his bail set at $100,000 which he could not afford. Nobody from the Patriarca crime family came down to post his bail and he heard that it was the Mafia family who tipped off the cops.

Two of his associates, Bratsos and DePrisco, went to raise Barboza's bail. Five weeks later, after raising $59,000 the pair were murdered in the Nite Lite Cafe by soldiers serving under Ralph "Ralphie Chong" Lamattina, who served in the crew of Ilario Zannino. After relieving them of their bail money, they stuffed their bodies in the back seat of Bratsos' car and dumped it in South Boston, hoping to throw blame onto the Irish gangs. However, a mob associate named Joseph Lanzi tipped the cops about the murder. On April 18, 1967, he was murdered by Jerry Angiulo's enforcers Carmen Gagliardi, Frank Otero and Ben DeChristoforo.^[11]

The FBI began diligent efforts to turn Barboza into an informant. In December, Joe Amico was murdered. The following month, after a ten-day trial, Barboza was sentenced to a five-year term at Walpole on the weapons charges. In the summer of 1967, Steve Flemmi met with Joseph and informed him that Gennaro Angiulo and his brothers had plans to murder him. In June 1967, Barboza turned FBI informant while imprisoned for murder, and eventually testified against Raymond Patriarca before becoming one of the first informants to enter the Witness Protection Program. The government told Barboza his wife and children would not be protected unless he agreed to testify. The government also promised to set him up in his own restaurant — and plastic surgery to change his appearance and further protect Barboza and his family — but it did not fulfill either of these promises.

Barboza went on to testify against Raymond Patriarca and many high-ranking members and associates of the New England family. On June 20, Patriarca and Henry Tameleo were indicted for conspiracy to murder in the 1966 killing of Providence bookmaker Willie Marfeo. On August 9, Gennaro Angiulo was accused of participating in the murder of Rocco DiSeglio. Finally in October, six men were charged with the March 1965 murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan, who had been marked for death for several burglaries which he had committed with Stephen Flemmi, in Chelsea. Shortly after the indictment of Raymond Patriarca, which drew front-page stories about Barboza as a turncoat, Barboza wrote to the Boston Herald: "All I want to be is left alone." The La Cosa Nostra was willing to pay Barboza $25,000 to quit talking. He showed some interest in the deal raising the price to $50,000 which was agreed upon but later turned down after consulting his lawyer.

Angiulo was later found not guilty. Despite efforts by reporters to coax jurors to explain their deliberations, none did. Twenty years later, however, jury foreman Kenneth Matthews said none of the sixteen jurors had found Barboza believable, stating "He didn't help the state at all. He wasn't reliable. He was nothing as a witness".

On January 30, 1968, a bomb was planted in the car of Barboza's attorney, John E. Fitzgerald, future Rapid City, South Dakota Judge for the 7th Circuit, resulting in Fitzgerald losing his right leg below the knee.^[12] After that Barboza was moved around frequently from Thacher Island to Fort Devens and even to the Junior Officers' quarters located in Fort Knox, Kentucky. Barboza owned a German Shepherd dog and while at Fort Knox he would walk his dog with future corrupt FBI agent John Morris who was a member of the military police at the time. In May 1968, the Deegan trial began. After 50 days of testimony and deliberations, the jury returned a guilty verdict. Found guilty and sentenced to death were Peter Limone, Louis Greco, Henry Tameleo and Ronald Cassesso. Sentenced to life in prison were Joseph Salvati and Wilfred Roy French.

Barboza was given a one-year prison term, including time served. He was paroled in March 1969, under the name of "Joseph Bentley", and relocated to Santa Rosa, California^[12] where he enrolled in a culinary arts school.^[13] In summer 1970, Barboza murdered Clay Wilson. According to the FBI, this was the 26th murder by Barboza.^[14] In 1971, he pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge and was sentenced to five years at Folsom Prison. At prison Barboza wrote poems about the American Mafia, "Boston Gang War", "The Mafia Double Crosses", "A Cat's Lives" and "The Gang War”