Surprise! Sal DiMasi's lawyer convicted felon...

Article 6-15-09

And had ties to Mob

By Howie Carr
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Jun. 15, 2009

Why would Sal DiMasi hire as one of his attorneys a convicted felon who went to prison for conspiring with the Mafia underboss of Boston to subvert a 1981 federal organized-crime probe?

The lawyer is William Cintolo, and if Sal wants a glimpse into his likely future, all he has to do is go to the Bureau of Prisons Web site - bop.gov - and type in his lawyer’s name under “Inmate Locator.” It comes back:

“William Cintolo 14829-038 62-White-M (release date)12-05-1988.”

Sal has conclusively proven that he’s not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree - trophy wife, allegedly taking checks, doing business with dolts and rats - but this is really embarrassing.

Now Sal hires a guy who did Club Fed time for conspiring with Mafia boss Gerry Angiulo to stop a witness from testifying against La Cosa Nostra. I couldn’t believe it when I saw Cintolo driving his law partner Tom Kiley’s black Jag at DiMasi’s first court appearance last week.

But on Tuesday, Cintolo was a no-show at Sal’s arraignment. So I called Kiley to find out what was going on.

“How can I not help you today?” Kiley said.

Is Cintolo really representing Sal?

“He filed a notice of appearance, didn’t he?”

Yeah, but he wasn’t there Tuesday.

“Look, if there was any problem with Bill Cintolo, he wouldn’t be my partner, would he?”

So there you have it. Here’s what put Sal DiMasi’s lawyer in the can: In 1981, he had as a client a Combat Zone bartender named Walter LaFreniere. Gerry Angiulo was worried LaFreniere was going to testify before a grand jury investigating Mafia crime in Boston.

According to the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, Cintolo was a “regular participant” in conversations with Angiulo at his underworld headquarters on Prince Street. Neither of them knew that the feds were taping all of their conversations.

One day Angiulo and the boys, including Cintolo, were discussing another possible informant. Let’s join the narrative:

“In response to a query by Cintolo, Angiulo gave the following chilling command: ‘I don’t want to know about this guy no more. I want (LCN associate Skinny) Kazonis to go see him . . . We’ll . . . kill him once and for all.”

The court’s conclusion about Sal DiMasi’s attorney: “In any realistic light, the most authentic victim of Cintolo’s behavior was not his nominal client, but the due administration of justice.”

And now he represents Sal DiMasi, the third House speaker in a row to go down on a federal rap. Why are we not surprised?

Meet William Cintolo (above), a convicted felon who
also had ties to the mob, now representing ex House
Speaker Sal DiMasi on federal corruption charges.
(DNN Staff photo)

Bernabei, Graham, O'Reilly, Carr, Siciliano