Ex-Mafia Boss ‘Cadillac Frank’ Salemme Dies In Prison

BOSTON, MA — Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme, the once-powerful New England Mafia boss who was serving a life sentence behind bars for the 1993 killing of a Boston nightclub owner, died Tuesday, according to the Bureau of Prisons. He was 89.

Salemme led the Patriarca crime family in Boston in the early 1990s before helping prosecutors convict a corrupt FBI agent after learning that other mobsters had been talking about him to authorities.

Salemme’s longtime attorney, Steven Boozang, said Sunday his client had been nothing but a “gentleman” to him and he believed he “regretted a lot of the things he had done in his life, particularly the effects it had on his immediate family and the families of others.”

Salemme got his nickname from his duties while working at an auto body shop in Boston, where his specialty was fixing Cadillacs.

But according to former WBUR crime reporter David Boeri, Salemme "never liked Cadillacs, actually. He drove BMWs.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.