Everything about Richard Eaton Criminal totally explained
Richard "Richie" Eaton (c.a.
1937 Revere, Massachusetts-
January 17,
1979 Gravesend, Brooklyn) was a New York criminal, a
South Ozone Park, Queens saloon owner and general manager of Moo Moo Vedda's dress factory and an associate of the
Lucchese crime family. He was involved in labor
racketeering, accessory-to-murder after the fact,
extortion,
loan sharking,
racketeering,
credit card fraud,
counterfeiting,
illegal gambling,
drug trafficking,
money laundering and more importantly a suspect in the
1978 Lufthansa heist. He is the brother of
Steve Flemmi mob associate Carlton Eaton (
1937-
1964).
Biography
Born in
Revere Beach, Richard Eaton lived an average childhood. Richard had one
maternal twin brother named Carlton born in
Revere Beach c.a.
1937. Carlton became an associate of the
Winter Hill Gang and a close associate of the powerful
Boston contract killer Steve Flemmi in the late
1950's to
1964. Carlton was an ex-
saloon bouncer for somewhere in
South Boston and a small time, wealthy entrepreneur collectable football card salesman. Richard's estranged twenty-seven-year old criminal brother Carlton was shot twice in the
temple with a .38-caliber handgun as he sat in the driver's seat of his customized
1957 Cadillac Eldorado by
Steve Flemmi on
September 25th,
1964 on Mingo Road in
Malden, Massachusetts. The Carlton Eaton homicide was never solved until
Joe Barboza became an informant years later. He was murdered for holding out on paying the
extortion mob tax being funneled by his successful
sports collectible store in
South Boston for
Howie Winter. Richard on the other hand in school he was a high achiever and successfully graduated from high school. After graduation he accepted an athletic scholarship and moved from
Revere Beach to
South Ozone Park, Queens in the early
1950's and attended
Notre Dame University. Eaton excelled at the university and eventually earned a
business degree. He also learned several languages including
Spanish and
Italian which he spoke fluently in. Richard suffered from
Antisocial personality disorder as many scam artists are know to. After graduating from
Notre Dame University he became involved with the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.
Richard's Boston accent
He spoke in the traditional
Boston accent which is non-
rhotic; in other words, the
phoneme [r] doesn't appear at the end of a
syllable or immediately before a
consonant, as in some types of
British English. Thus, there's no [r] in words like park [paːk], car [kaː], and
Harvard [haːvəd]. After high and mid-high
vowels, the [r] is replaced by [ə] or another
neutral central vowel like [ɨ]: weird [wiɨd], square [skweə]. Similarly, unstressed [ɝ] ("er") is replaced by [ə], [ɐ], or [ɨ], as in color [kʌlə].
Introduction to the Mafia
It was around this time that he first met
Colombo crime family mobster
Dominick Cersani. Dominick convinced him to be a front man and Richard became the general manager of several non-
union sweat shops including Moo Moo Vedda's non-
union dress factory, all located in
South Ozone Park, Queens on Lefferts Boulevard. Through his mob contacts he also become a close business partner of
Lucchese crime family capo Vincent Aloi who ran the "
Capo Trucking" garment trucking firm out of
Ozone Park, Queens in the
1960's and
1970's. He wasn't only able to supervise the day-to-day operations of a six-day-a-week business with over fifty employees, but could sell garments too. He had long ago known that he was worth every penny Cersani and later
Jimmy Burke paid him. He would place the illicit funds into a legitimate financial sector, restaurants, and the dress factories, and allow the funds to earn interest. His contacts and range of acquaintances allowed him to deal easily with bankers, investors and financiers. Richard was always well-barbered and manicured, always careful to give the appearance of an urbane and successful businessman. By
1978 after working for the violent gangster for nearly twenty years he strongly believed he could do better elsewhere, preferably as his own boss at last. At that point in time he was legally written up as being the sole proprietor and manager of
Robert's Lounge and as the general manager to several mobbed-up
sweat shops in the area. To Burke and Henry Hill he was bright, concientous, astonishingly detail-oriented, personable, eager to learn, easy to teach, savvy and amazingly aggressive as a salesman. Every week Richard had to pay back a certain amount every week to Burke, who didn't care whether business was good or bad. Richard is described by
Henry Hill as a
"hustler on a grand scale" or a
confidence man. Richard was nicknamed "
Richie" among fellow criminals, his business partner mobsters,
Dominick Cersani,
Tom Monteleone and
Charles Kottler. Richard also was a boyfriend of
Theresa Ferrara. He is alleged to have been involved in a $125,000 in
1977 cocaine deal that ripped off Jimmy Burke. Richard was well tanned from frequent shady business venture trips to visit
Tom Monteleone in
Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Richard's legendary skill as a union manipulator came in handy many times.
Thomas Lucchese thought up a scheme of hiring non-union, cheap
Mexican labor for
Jimmy Burke's clothing factories and Eaton was investigated intensively by the
ILGWU and the
Immigration and Naturalization Service. He was also investigated by the
New York State Liquor Authority,
NYPD and
FBI for the criminal activity at his
saloon Robert's Lounge. Richard Eaton had some of his own money invested in
Robert's Lounge and essentially had Burke as a
silent partner in the saloon and garment factories. He also obtained a
Liquor license for Burke's business since Burke himself wasn't allowed to have one because of his criminal past. He opened his saloon early and allowed
the Vario Crew to drink on the tab. When it came time to settle the liquor bills he was usually paid in stolen merchandise from hijackings which he'd sell at his garment factories to his workers. It is unknown if Richard was present at the murders of
Michael "Spider" Gianco,
Martin Krugman and Burke's hijacking friend
Dominick Cersani, but his saloon was used as the location of at least three murders, Hill later suggested to FBI as many as twelve or more buried in the basement of Richard's saloon. Through a leak in the
District Attorney's office Burke was later thought to have dug up the bodies and transplanted them elsewhere for their final and permanent burial ground.
The sweatshops
Moo Moo Vedda's was one of the illegal sweatshop garment factories managed by Richard. It was located conveniently next door to Eaton's lounge,
Robert's Lounge which was a "front" for Burke's
hijacking,
extortion,
loansharking and
bookmaking operations. From outside, the building in
South Ozone Park, Queens, looked as if it had been abandoned years ago. A layer of grime coated the windows and a rusting metal grate stretched across the storefront. Several of his sweat shops were under contract to sew and press apparel for
PUMA AG Rudolf Dassler Sport (PUMA), a large
German-based
multinational company that to this day produces high-end
athletic shoes and other
sportswear. During the investigaton of the
1978 Lufthansa heist a distinct PUMA shoe print that matched the size of suspect
Parnell Edwards was found by the
NYPD in the abandoned
Brinks armored car. Several times over the years Richard was in business Moo Moo Vedda's and the other sweat shops in
Corona, Queens and around the working class neighborhoods of
Brooklyn had been cited as "fronts" for being illegal
sweatshops by the
New York District Attorney, which was a
misdemeanor offense, but the charges later dropped on grounds of insufficient evidence. A certain mob associate and shop foreman of Moo Moo Vedda's,
Charles Tuso was a no-show employee of Richard's. Charles Tuso would later be arrested for his alleged involvement in the acid-blinding of
columnist Victor Riesel on
April 5,
1956 along with several other low echelon
Lucchese crime family mob associates. The charges against Charles, and his alleged cohorts were later dropped.
Jimmy Burke and
Henry Hill also used the garment factories to sell amounts of stolen goods like
cigarettes or other hijacked clothes to the workers. Richard later helped Henry set up a silk screening company with his wife Karen and sister-in-law Judith in the garage of their Rockville Center home. Henry used the business as a legitimate front for his federal tax statements to avoid scrutiny from the
IRS. Henry created t-shirts, baseball caps and sweatshirts for the
New York Jets including all their logo jersey shirts. Henry later estimated that he produced about 50% of their sport memorbelia clothing. With the help of Richard he also earned contracts with
Perrier water and serviced all the nightclubs in the area.
Involvement in the Lufthansa heist
Three days following the disappearance of
Tommy DeSimone, the body of Eaton was discovered in the trailer of an abandoned
refrigeration tractor trailer in
Gravesend, Brooklyn which had been taken during an unsolved
hijacking. His body had been found by children playing inside the abandoned trailers. His hands and legs had been tied with wire in a
Hogtie and his
neck was broken. Jimmy had attempted to torture and kill Richard by tying Richard's hands behind the back along with the feet, with one end of the rope around the his neck. The tension on the neck-rope could have only been relieved if Richard kept theneck, back and legs in an arched position. Eventually Richard would have become tired and strangled himself. It seems Jimmy grew impatient of waiting for Richard to die and dislocated the
vertebrae in his neck before the self inflicted
asphyxia succumbed him. There was some delay in identifying the body since it had been frozen so stiff, prolonged by
rigor mortis that it took more than two days before the
coroner could perform the
autopsy. When the body is frozen, the time of death is made impossible to calculate by
forensic scientists. When searching the body of personal belongings they found a phone book that had Jimmy Burke's name and personal telephone number of his home in
Island Park, New York in Eaton's coat lining. At the time of his death, Richard had just returned back from a trip to
Fort Lauderdale, Florida where he was suspected to have laundered huge amounts of money. The money the authorities thought was supposedly from the
Lufthansa heist. After searching a
safety deposit box registered under a false name by Eaton, the
FBI were still unable to locate the proceeds that Eaton allegedly laundered.
Two weeks later, Eaton's girlfriend and mob mistress
Theresa Ferrara was found dismembered on
February 10,
1979. Her murder is alleged to have been connected with Eaton's. Nobody was ever convicted of her murder.
Jimmy Burke's murder trial
Mobster and silent business partner
Jimmy Burke was later charged with the murder of Richard Eaton, based on evidence Henry Hill gave to authorities. At the trial, Hill took the stand and testified against his former friend. Hill tesified Eaton had convinced Burke to invest $250,000 in a cocaine deal that promised immense profit. However, depending on the story (either kept the money for his own use, or, this could also be the 1978 drug bust that was faultered with the help of
Theresa Ferrara), the drugs were seized by the
DEA. When word reached
Paul Vario of the drug shipment's fate, Paul said Monteleone, the actual exporter of the cocaine would pay for the shipment and the lost earnings as well. Following the incident
Henry Hill asked Burke about Eaton's whereabouts, observing that he hadn't been seen around at
Robert's Lounge for a while. Hill said Burke replied
"Don't worry about him. I whacked the fucking swindler out". With only the evidence of Burke's private
Island Park, New York home address and phone number found in Eaton's coat lining when his body was found and Hill's testimony, Burke was convicted, and on
February 19,
1985, he was given a
life sentence, protesting "
the bastard died of hypothermia!". At the same time that Burke was being tried for the murder of Richard there was an attempt by
Henry Hill and Eastern District of New York Special Assistant United States Attorney Edward McDonald to convict Burke of accessory to murder for his participation in the previous
1970 murder of
Gambino crime family street soldier
William Devino, but
Henry Hill was the sole living
witness after murder accomplace
Thomas DeSimone was killed in a gangland execution in
1979, so the
District Attorney had the charge dropped due to insufficient evidence.
Jimmy Burke was serving his
life sentence for the murder of Richard in
Wende Correctional Facility in
Alden, New York, when he developed
lung cancer. He died from this disease on
April 13,
1996, aged sixty-four, while being treated at
Roswell Park Cancer Institute in
Buffalo, New York. Had he survived his prison sentence Jimmy would have been eligible for parole in the year
2004.
In popular culture
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