The letter from Nick DiSarro, who attended DeLuca’s emotional sentencing hearing in US District Court in Boston with his brother Michael and mother, Pamela, echoed many of the themes Michael touched on when he addressed the court before the 73-year-old gangster learned his fate.

Former Mafia capo Robert P. “Bobby” DeLuca, sentenced to 5 ½ years Tuesday for lying about his role in the burial of slain club owner Steven DiSarro in 1993, “should be held accountable to the greatest extent possible for his actions,” one of DiSarro’s children said in a letter submitted to the judge.

Nick DiSarro wrote that in DeLuca’s prior letter to the judge, “he apologizes for lying repeatedly, but he did not mention being remorseful for the crime he lied about? The crime he’s already gotten away with? His role in the murder of my father? Arranging to have my father’s body put in the trunk of a car in some back alley after being strangled to death by his friends? Having the body dumped in a hazardous waste pit in the back of some old mill? Sending his brother back to dig the body up and remove a tarp covered in forensic evidence?”

In addition, Nick DiSarro related the wrenching of experience of attending the June trial of former mob boss Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme and Paul Weadick, who were convicted of killing Steven DiSarro to keep him from cooperating with the FBI.


DeLuca was a key prosecution witness.

“Your honor, I sat in the courtroom just a few months ago and watched [DeLuca] and his brother testify about what they did as if it was just another trip to the store to pick up groceries,” Nick DiSarro wrote. “Bobby has already had leniency in that he hasn’t had to suffer the consequences of the crime he actually committed due to the statute of limitations running out. He has already had a pass on his role in the murder of my father. Should he get a pass on how he lied about it as well?”


Like his brother Michael did during Tuesday’s hearing, Nick DiSarro requested that DeLuca be sentenced to the “maximum time allowed by law,” about 12 ½ years, according to court records.

DeLuca received the lighter sentence as part of a plea deal with the government, which credited him for his extensive cooperation with investigators after initially lying in 2011 about his involvement in Steven DiSarro’s burial.

“DeLuca lied repeatedly,” Nick DiSarro wrote. “The fact that he’s remorseful after having been arrested and spending time in jail, does NOT change the fact that he knowingly covered up the murder, participated in the barbaric burial of my father and remained silent all these years. His silence has cost OUR family more than you will ever know.”

Steven DiSarro was strangled in Sharon and later buried behind a Providence mill building, where the FBI unearthed his remains in 2016.

DeLuca was indicted after authorities concluded he lied to investigators in 2011. After his arrest, DeLuca decided to cooperate with authorities, admitting he played a role in disposing of DiSarro’s body and was involved in the 1992 slaying of mob enforcer Kevin Hanrahan in Providence.

During Salemme’s murder trial, DeLuca testified Salemme complained in May 1993 that DiSarro was stealing money from the Channel nightclub, which Salemme and his son, Frank, had a stake.


The elder Salemme also expressed concern that DiSarro was cooperating with the FBI, DeLuca said.

DeLuca testified that Salemme delivered DiSarro’s body to Providence, and DeLuca arranged for his brother and several other men to bury it behind the mill.

In his recent letter to Casper, DeLuca wrote that he initially lied “because I couldn’t bring myself to put my brother in trouble,” he said. His brother, Joseph, was also a key witness at Salemme’s trial.

DeLuca wrote that he also misled authorities because he didn’t want to leave his wife and two young children alone, nor did he want to leave his two elder children from a prior marriage, who have cerebral palsy.

The gangster, who earned notoriety as one of four soldiers who pricked their fingers, burned holy cards, and were inducted into the Mafia during a 1989 ceremony in Medford that the feds bugged, conceded during Tuesday’s sentencing that he was wrong to lie.

He also apologized to DiSarro’s family and said he’s turned away from a life of crime.

That was small comfort to DiSarro’s sons, as evidenced by Michael DiSarro’s remarks in court.

“My family suffered for years wanting to know the truth of what had happened to our dad. I believe with every part of my being that if Robert DeLuca hadn’t lied in 2011 about his knowledge of my father’s murder my brother Steven DiSarro Jr. would be alive today and my family would not have suffered another tragic loss,” Michael DiSarro said.


He said Steven Jr. “passed early in the morning on the same day our father’s remains were found, March 30, 2016. My brother, more than anyone was never able to recover from the loss of his father and his pain and suffering ultimately lead to his untimely death at 33 years old. Had the truth come out earlier he would have had the answers he spent his entire life searching for.”

Michael DiSarro also said that his father had left Steven Jr. a note on the day he was summoned to meet with the gangsters who killed and later buried him.

“My father had left him a letter, ‘Be strong for our family, take care of your brothers, sisters, and mother,’ ” he said. “This letter he kept to himself for a decade and it tore him apart inside and out. I know that if he had closure like our family does today he would have been able to conquer his addiction and begin to heal his pain. In 2011 if Mr. DeLuca had cared about anyone but himself he would have done the right thing and come forward with the TRUTH. He took my brother’s life that day when he lied and didn’t give Steve the answers he was seeking his entire life.”

Shelley Murphy of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.