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Angelo "Sonny" Mercurio (1936 – December 11, 2006) was an Italian-American mobster and a member of the Patriarca crime family who became an FBI informant that recorded for the first time a mafia induction ceremony. This recording led to the incarceration of family boss Raymond Patriarca Jr. and several other high ranking mafioso. It also became a source of embarrassment for the organization. Subsequently after incarceration Mercurio was entered into the Witness Protection Program.
When he came out of prison, Mercurio was disgruntled with the Patriarca family because they had not helped his family with money while he was incarcerated. Meanwhile, the Irish American Winter Hill gangsters and FBI informants Whitey Bulger and Steve Flemmi gave his girl money every week. They got along since he was the go between for Gennaro Angiulo, the boss of Boston's mob that had suzerainty over Winter Hill.
Mercurio was soon working for the Patriarca family, serving as a liaison between them and the Irish Winter Hill Gang in Boston. Bulger and Flemmi thought they might be able to flip him for their handler, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent John Connolly. During the 1980s, the FBI obtained incriminating evidence on Mercurio by electronic surveillance at his food shop.
After Anguilo was sent to prison, the new leadership of Boston's mob thought they had a perfect meeting place at Mercurio's shop. An underground parking garage and a freight elevator led to the room where they conducted business. They figured that they could not be followed, and therefore could not be bugged. The only problem was that Steve Flemmi was invited up to discuss business. He drew FBI agent John Connolly a map of how to get there, so he could bug the place. The FBI gathered enough evidence to indict Mercurio and others for extorting a couple of elderly for a quarter of a million dollars. Because he was being pressured and threatened by opposite forces, Mercurio became an FBI informant, in 1987.
In 1989, Mercurio informed the FBI about an upcoming family induction ceremony at a home in Medford, Massachusetts. Mercurio surreptitiously recorded the ceremony, the first time in U.S. history that a mob induction was taped. Attendees at the ceremony included Raymond Patriarca, Jr., underboss Nicholas Bianco; consigliere Joe Russo; and Biaggio Digiacoma, Vincent Ferrara, Matthew Guglielmetti, Dennis Lepore, and Robert Carrozza. While the ceremony was taking place, Mercurio even turned down the television volume in the home to improve the recording. Mercurio's recordings led to the prosecution and conviction of dozens of criminals. In 1991, Patriarca pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiracy charges and was sent to prison for seven years. After Patriarca's indictment, Mercurio disappeared from New England to avoid indictment himself.
Mercurio said he innocently met FBI special agent, John Connolly, in the Prudential Center in the fall of 1987, after Vanessa's had been searched. He was still disgruntled from the humiliation of being successfully bugged, accused the FBI of trying to plant evidence during their secret forays into the store and bragged that the Mafia had outsmarted them. He was trying to best John Connolly in a battle of insider information. Connolly calmly rattled off the name of the Patriarca crime family's inside source for law enforcement information. Mercurio had unknowingly confirmed that the Patriarca crime family had a law enforcement source, and he knew what it meant if the FBI exposed his Top Echelon Informant status. Angelo's conversation restored Stephen Flemmi's Top Echelon Informant status in November 1987. In less than a year, Mercurio had joined Flemmi as a Top Echelon Informant, and was constantly feeding the FBI inside information on his associates in the Patriarca crime family. In some ways he even supplanted Bulger and Flemmi in importance- the FBI and the Organized Crime Strike Force were targeting the Patriarca crime family, Robert Carrozza, J.R. Russo and Vincent Ferrara, and as a member of their inner circle, Mercurio was privy to information that even Flemmi could not obtain. He threw himself into his informant role enthusiastically- even though he had been the best man at Vincent Ferrara's first wedding, this did not stop him from thoroughly informing on the illicit activities of his old friend. Mercurio's value as an informant made protecting him a priority.
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