From the Projo:

The Rhode Island State Police yesterday unearthed what they believe are the remains of Joseph P. “Joe Onions” Scanlon, the onetime hood, police informant and victim of an infamous Rhode Island gangland slaying….In April 1978, Pari and Andrew Merola were arrested for whacking Scanlon in Merola’s Federal Hill social club in Providence. Scanlon’s girlfriend, a prostitute named Sandra Surprise, later testified that Pari punched Scanlon in the face to distract him, while Merola pumped a single shot into the back of his head. She was holding the couple’s three-month-old daughter as she watched.

Read the entire piece here. Photo, Bill Murphy, The Providence Journal

On my way to work each morning, I walk past the Attorney General’s office on South Main Street, and I never tire of giggling at the building’s inscription:

With great power comes great responsibility. — Stan Lee

Yesterday, it seems, this motto received more than mere lip service when special assistant AG Molly K. Cote managed to prove two ACI guards—Former Capt. Gualter Botas and former Lt. Kenneth Viveiros—guilty on charges of assaulting four inmates.

The ProJo reports:

Yesterday’s verdicts, which culminated an 18-day trial before Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Procaccini, came after jurors had deliberated for less than four hours over the course of two days.

Afterward, state corrections Director A.T. Wall issued a statement that began with a quote from former President Theodore Roosevelt: “No man is above the law and no man is beneath it.”

“These two former correctional officers have now been held accountable in a court of law for their abuse of inmates entrusted to their custody,” Wall said. “They do not represent the staff of this department. In fact, through their actions, they have dishonored the 1,500 men and women who perform their jobs with pride, professionalism and integrity every day. These men and women do a very difficult job, and they do it without breaking the law.”

Their charges are misdemeanors, carrying a maximum sentence of up to one year in prison. Can you imagine the fate of an inmate convicted of beating inmates? Botas and Viveiros have yet to be sentenced, but each, rightly, has been fired by the Department of Corrections.

And he made national news!

CRANSTON — Imprisoned mobster Frank L. “Bobo” Marrapese Jr. is scheduled to be released from prison this afternoon.

Tracey Z. Poole, spokeswoman for the Adult Correctional Institutions, confirmed yesterday that Marapese has a job and will leave the Pinel Building on the prison grounds sometime after 1 p.m. with an electronic monitoring bracelet attached to his ankle.

It will mark the first time that he will take a step outside the prison without handcuffs and leg shackles in 25 years.

Notorious mobster Frank L. Marrapese Jr. is getting out of the can:

Marrapese was convicted in 1987 of murdering mobster Richard “Dickie” Callei. who was shot five times in 1975. But he was acquitted of two other killings and was in and out of jail numerous times on various charges, from machine gun possession to bank robbery, that never seemed to stick.

“Just the word ‘Bobo’ would instill fear,” retired State Police captain Brian Andrews, former commander of the detective division and intelligence unit, told the Journal. “He was a major player as far as we were concerned, and he was into everything.”