Boston Mobster Enrico “Little Rico” Ponzo
Nampa, Idaho • Burglars targeted the former home of fugitive Boston mobster Enrico Ponzo , a New England Mafia associate who hid out in Idaho for more than a decade before his February arrest, authorities say.
A friend and neighbor of 42-year-old gangster Enrico Ponzo is among three men who face felony conspiracy, burglary and grand theft charges.
The Idaho Press-Tribune reports Ponzo’s close friend, Kelly Verceles of Marsing, and Robert Corson, of Meridian, are accused of stealing cash and valuables from the southwestern Idaho home Ponzo left empty after his capture.
The Idaho Statesman reports a third man, Corson’s son Nicholas, was also charged in the Owyhee County case.
A preliminary hearing for all three men has been set for May 2.
Ponzo lived under the assumed name of “Jeffrey Shaw” in Marsing, a farm town west of Boise, before he was caught earlier this year and brought back to Massachusetts to face almost a dozen federal charges, including plotting to kill a former mob boss. He was described by neighbors as hardworking and a proud father of two children, but to the FBI, he was a New England mobster who vanished in 1994 after a botched attempt to whack his boss.
Ponzo faces charges from a 1997 indictment accusing him and 14 others of racketeering, attempted murder and conspiracy to kill rivals. He is also charged in the 1989 attempted murder of Frank Salemme. Known as “Cadillac Frank,” is the ex-head of the Patriarca Family of La Cosa Nostra. Ponzo has pleaded not guilty.
After Ponzo was caught, the FBI said a search of his Idaho home turned up 38 guns, $15,000 in cash and at least 50 books and manuals describing ways to create aliases.
