Patrick Joseph Nee (born December 22, 1944) is an
Irish-American
, image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png
, image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state
, caption = Notable Irish Americans
, population =
36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
former
mobster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...
and
Irish republican sympathizer. A former member of the
Mullen Gang
The Mullen Gang was an Irish-American gang operating in Boston.
Gang members
Paulie McGonagle (died November 1974) was a Boston mobster and onetime leader of the Mullen Gang, a South Boston street gang involved in burglary, auto theft, and a ...
and the
Winter Hill Gang
The Winter Hill Gang is a loose confederation of organized crime figures in the Boston, Massachusetts, area. The gang members and leadership are predominantly Irish-American and Italian-American descent.
The organization itself derives its ...
, he is a
Vietnam War veteran
A Vietnam veteran is a person who served in the armed forces of participating countries during the Vietnam War.
The term has been used to describe veterans who served in the armed forces of South Vietnam, the United States Armed Forces, and ot ...
, and author of ''A Criminal and an Irishman; The Inside Story of the Boston Mob-IRA Connection''.
Early life
Nee was born in
Ros Muc
Rosmuc or Ros Muc, sometimes anglicised as Rosmuck, is a village in the Conamara Gaeltacht of County Galway, Ireland. It lies halfway between the town of Clifden and the city of Galway. Irish is the predominant spoken language in the area, with ...
, an
Irish language
Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...
speaking village in
Connemara
Connemara (; )( ga, Conamara ) is a region on the Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The area has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and contains much of the Connacht Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, ...
,
County Galway. He has recalled:
Our family had it tough in Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, sure, but I'm not going to tell you any of that ''Angela's Ashes
''Angela's Ashes: A Memoir'' is a 1996 memoir by the Irish-American author Frank McCourt, with various anecdotes and stories of his childhood. The book details his very early childhood in Brooklyn, New York, US but focuses primarily on his life ...
'' crap to try to gain your sympathy. We might not have had many good clothes, but Ma washed them every day. There was always good food. In fact, Ma never let my brothers and I go to bed hungry. And I remember falling asleep every night to a penetrating fire that burned until early morning.
Nee's four maternal aunts had already emigrated to the US, three to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and one to
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
, influencing the Nee family's decision to settle in Boston. Nee's father emigrated to the U.S. in 1952 and for a year worked as a laborer. He got a house together for his family and sent his wife the passage money a year later. Their cousins drove them down to
Cork
Cork or CORK may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
***Wine cork
Places Ireland
* Cork (city)
** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
, where they boarded an
RMS Britannic for the trip to America, settling in
South Boston, Massachusetts
South Boston is a densely populated neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located south and east of the Fort Point Channel and abutting Dorchester Bay. South Boston, colloquially known as Southie, has undergone several demographic transformati ...
.
Nee became a member of the
Mullen Gang
The Mullen Gang was an Irish-American gang operating in Boston.
Gang members
Paulie McGonagle (died November 1974) was a Boston mobster and onetime leader of the Mullen Gang, a South Boston street gang involved in burglary, auto theft, and a ...
at the age of 14 and fought in several
turf battles. He has recalled,
My progression to crime was as easy as a baby's transition from crawling to walking. I didn't have an epiphany; I never sat down and had a soul searching experience in which I decided that being a criminal was my goal in life. It just seemed natural - there was a lot of money to be had if you spent the time planning the jobs right. The more I hung with the Mullens, the easier it was to go out on jobs. I'd simply ask if they needed another guy.
Upon reaching adulthood, Nee enlisted in the
U.S. Marine Corps.
Criminal career
Not long after coming home from
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
, his brother Peter Nee was gunned down by Kevin Daily outside a bar. Months later, Nee found the man who killed his brother. He waited outside his house late one night. He approached Daily, shooting him several times with a pistol blowing out his right lung, then he kicked him in the face and spat on him. Kevin Daily survived the attack and Patrick Nee was arrested for
attempted murder. Upon seeing Patrick Nee in court, he claimed Nee was not the man who shot him. Nee was released. After his return to South Boston, in October 1966, he rejoined the Mullen gang and became one of its leaders in a
turf war
A turf war is a fight over territory or resources, or may refer to:
Music
* ''Turf Wars'', a 2007 album by the Canadian band Daggermouth
* "Turf War", a song on the 2001 album ''Filmtracks 2000'' by American composer Bill
Television
* '' Turf W ...
with the
Killeen Gang. He relates, in his memoirs, that his mother would henceforth regret not throwing him off the back of the immigrant ship in 1952. In 1972, South Boston gang boss
Donald Killeen
Donald Killeen (September 14, 1923 – May 13, 1972) was an American mob boss who controlled criminal activity, primarily bookmaking, loansharking, and numbers in South Boston, during the late 1940s to the early 1970s.
Early life
Donald Killee ...
was shot to death by Mullen gang enforcers Jimmy Mantville and Tommy King, outside of his home, in suburban
Framingham, Massachusetts
Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a pop ...
. The leadership of the Killeen faction then devolved to
James J. "Whitey" Bulger.
However, Bulger and the Killeens fled the city after the murder of their boss, fearing they would be next. Instead of killing Bulger, however, Nee arranged for the dispute to be mediated by
Howie Winter
Howard Thomas Winter (March 17, 1929 – November 12, 2020) was an American mobster. He was a leader of the Winter Hill Gang.
Early life
Winter was born in Boston, Massachusetts on March 17, 1929. He was of German and Irish descent. Winter die ...
and
Patriarca crime family
The Patriarca crime family (, ), also known as the New England Mafia, the Boston Mafia, the Providence Mafia, or The Office is an Italian-American American Mafia, Mafia crime family, family in New England. It has two distinct factions, one based ...
captain Joseph Russo. After a meeting at Chandler's restaurant, in the
South End, Boston, the two gangs joined forces, with Winter as the overall boss.
According to Nee,
Nobody talked fault, although at first it was tense while we ran down the 'who killed who' list. Whitey was a defeated warrior looking to keep as much honor as possible. He knew the Mullens had courageous, fierce men willing to die for theirs, and he was perceptive. Deep down, Whitey knew that he couldn't take over for the Killeens without cutting the Mullens in on their bookmaking and loansharking. Tommy ing
Ing, ING or ing may refer to:
Art and media
* '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film
* i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group
* The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes''
* "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 1992 ...
and I felt victorious, but we didn't want to gloat. The meeting lasted for six hours. We ate good steaks, chasing them down with nothing stronger than ginger ale
Ginger ale is a carbonated soft drink flavoured with ginger. It is consumed on its own or used as a mixer, often with spirit-based drinks. There are two main types of ginger ale. The golden style is credited to the Irish doctor Thomas Joseph ...
. It was business, and contrary to media stereotype, we weren't a bunch of lowlifes who sat around drinking beer all day and all night.
Also according to Nee,
The balance of the meeting was spent forming an alliance, and by far the hardest part was deciding whom to protect. After a war, each side usually gets to protect so many people from harm. Those who aren't protected are fair game for retribution and 'shake-downs.' Everything was split down the middle. All the horses, dogs, bookmaking, and loansharking were now going to be under our mutual control. This was the beginning of our relationship. Whitey and I were now officially partners and nobody at that table could ever have possibly imagined how this treacherous f--- would treat his partners.[Patrick Nee, ''A Criminal and an Irishman'', p. 132.]
After Winter was convicted of fixing horse races in 1979 the leadership of the gang fell on James "Whitey" Bulger. Nee responded by relocating to
Charlestown, Massachusetts and concentrating his energy on raising money and smuggling guns to the
Provisional IRA
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, fa ...
. He has written that Bulger frequently urged him to cut his links to the IRA, saying that it was too great a risk for not enough profit. On July 26, 1983, Nee participated in the homicide of Arthur "Bucky" Barrett with his criminal associates at Nee's family's house at 799 East Third Street in South Boston. Barrett was a bank robber who was believed to have large amounts of untraceable cash and valuables that Nee and his gang wanted to extort from him. Barrett was good friends with brothers James and John Martorano. James Martorano used his friendship with Barrett to convince his friend to come to Nee's house to look at some stolen diamonds. Instead of diamonds, Barrett walked into Nee's house and encountered Nee and his associates armed with machine guns. Barrett gave Nee and his associates the location of some of his stolen cash. Then Barrett was led to the basement and shot in the head.
Nee and Kevin Weeks buried Barrett's body in Nee's dirt cellar. Between 1999 and 2003, US Attorneys in Boston immunized two of Nee's associates who were present with him at his house that day and thus learned the details of Barrett's murder. Despite relying on these witnesses to indict other associates who were present, the US Attorneys decided not to indict Nee or Martorano. The US Attorneys' willingness to ignore Nee's involvement in Barrett's murder has fueled speculation that Nee is a protected federal informant.
Nee remained an occasional associate throughout the years and masterminded a 1984 attempt to smuggle seven tons of
AK-47
The AK-47, officially known as the ''Avtomat Kalashnikova'' (; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is a gas-operated assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian small-arms d ...
assault rifles to the Provisional IRA. With Bulger's assistance, the guns were loaded aboard the ''Valhalla'', a
fishing trawler
A fishing trawler is a commercial fishing vessel designed to operate fishing trawls. Trawling is a method of fishing that involves actively dragging or pulling a trawl through the water behind one or more trawlers. Trawls are fishing nets th ...
from
Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, the Irish Government had learned of the scheme via
Sean O'Callaghan
Sean O'Callaghan (10 October 1954 – 23 August 2017) was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s worked against the organisation from within as an intelligence agent for the Irish Gover ...
, a police informant in the IRA's Southern Command. As a result, the cargo was intercepted by a combined force of the
Irish Navy
The Naval Service ( ga, An tSeirbhís Chabhlaigh) is the maritime component of the Defence Forces of Ireland and is one of the three branches of the Irish Defence Forces. Its base is in Haulbowline, County Cork.
Though preceded by earlier m ...
and the
Garda Síochána. The ''Valhalla's'' crew was arrested by
U.S. Customs agents immediately after returning to Gloucester. The failure of the mission led Bulger to torture and murder John McIntyre, an American member of the ''Valhalla's'' crew who had purportedly informed on the scheme to
U.S. Customs agents and had agreed to wear a wire on Bulger and Nee. Nee admitted to bringing McIntyre to the South Boston house where Bulger,
Stephen Flemmi
Stephen Joseph Flemmi (born June 9, 1934) is an American gangster and convicted murderer and was a close associate of Winter Hill Gang boss Whitey Bulger. Beginning in 1975, Flemmi was a top echelon informant for the Federal Bureau of Investig ...
, and
Kevin Weeks
Kevin Weeks (born March 21, 1956) is an American former mobster and longtime friend and mob lieutenant to Whitey Bulger, the infamous boss of the Winter Hill Gang, a crime family based in the Winter Hill neighborhood in Somerville, Massachuset ...
were waiting for him. He claims that he believed they were only going to talk to him and that he was disgusted to return later and find the trio about to bury McIntyre's corpse in the basement.
On November 30, 1984, Nee picked up McIntyre from a bar and lured him to his house with a case of beer and a promise of a party. At this time, Nee knew that McIntyre was cooperating with federal law enforcement in re the smuggling of 7.5 tons of automatic weapons, machine guns, rocket launchers, plastic explosives, bullet proof vests, and ammunition aboard the Valhalla. 17 months prior, Barrett had been lured to Nee's house and killed there. McIntyre was killed in Nee's house and buried in the cellar next to Barrett's corpse. Nee fled Boston after being informed by Bulger that federal agents were looking for him. After several years in hiding, he was arrested in 1987 and served an 18-month sentence in Federal prison. The statutory sentence he faced for possessing and smuggling those 7.5 tons of armaments was life imprisonment.
After his release, in 1989, Nee was motivated increasingly by
Irish republicanism
Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate.
The develop ...
, to cut his links to Bulger. He put together a crew of his own and began planning
Armored car robberies to raise money for the IRA. He was arrested by the FBI during an armored car robbery in
Abington, Massachusetts
Abington is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, southeast of Boston. The population was 17,062 at the 2020 census.
History
Before the Europeans made their claim to the area, the local Native Americans referred to the area ...
on January 13, 1990; he was masked and in possession of another machine gun, which again carried a mandatory life sentence. He was sentenced to 37 years in federal prison (Register Number: 15909-038) but released on April 25, 2000.
Federal sentencing guidelines prohibited early release or credit for "good behavior" in a federal prison. The US Attorney's Office in Boston has refused to explain Nee's early release and why they failed to oppose it.
In 2003, US Attorneys Fred Wyshak and Brian Kelly immunized Nee's associate
Steven "The Rifleman" Flemmi and participated in Flemmi's debriefing. At that time, Wyshak and Kelly learned from Flemmi that Nee had participated in another homicide in January 1985. The victim, Deborah Hussey, was lured to Nee's house at 799 East Third Street in South Boston. She was strangled to death and buried in Nee's cellar, alongside Barrett and McIntyre. Wyshak and Kelly learned Nee had participated in burying another murder victim, Deborah Davis, in 1981. Wyshak and Kelly did not charge Nee in any of these crimes, nor in the Donohue and Halloran murders.
Current status
Patrick Nee currently works as a union laborer in Boston.
References
Resources
*T. J. English, ''Paddy Whacked; The Untold Story of the Irish-American Gangster'', 2005.
*Patrick Nee, ''A Criminal and an Irishman'', 2006.
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nee, Patrick
1944 births
Living people
American gangsters of Irish descent
American gangsters
Gangsters from Boston
Irish emigrants to the United States
Irish gangsters
Irish republicans
People from County Galway
People with acquired American citizenship
United States Marines
Winter Hill Gang
Writers from Boston
People from South Boston
Writers from County Galway