Gerard Ouimette

Ouimette died on April 19, 2015, aged 75, at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina, a medium-security prison where he had spent the previous 19 years. He died in his sleep 10 days after being diagnosed with lung cancer. He had also suffered from heart disease and other health issues.

In autumn 1995, Ouimette and Deluca were convicted on both counts of extortion. At the sentencing on February 1, 1996, U.S. District Judge sErnest C. Torres said, "There is no suspense left here," and sentence Ouimette to life imprisonment without parole. Ouimette was the first criminal in New England, and the fourth in the United States, to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, the mandated sentence for criminals convicted of three or more violent offenses under the "three strikes and you're out" provision of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Deluca was sentenced to 10.5 years for his role.

At the trial future U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse represented the government as prosecuting attorney. Ouimette was the first criminal from New England to be prosecuted by Whitehouse as U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island. At trial, the federal government presented evidence that in early 1995, Ouimette was involved in two acts of extortion: the first involved efforts to collect a loan made to Paul Calenda and the second was an attempt to receive money from David Duxbury. The government presented as evidence several recorded conversations in which Ouimette threatened to commit violence against Calenda. As Whitehouse put it: "A couple of Rhode Islanders were told that they would need to pay money and if they didn't they would be hurt fairly severely."

In addition to the recordings, a variety of witnesses, including some of Ouimette's former mob associates, showed up to testify. The case involving Calenda included testimony from Paul Copolla, who claimed to have overheard a conversation between Ouimette and Calenda in which Ouimette demanded a payment of $125,000 and threatened to commit a variety of violent acts against Calenda. James Gellerman, an alleged co-conspirator in the Calenda crime, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government. He testified that one time at St. Rocco's Club in Providence in February 1995, Ouimette had instructed him to "crack" Calenda to get him to repay the alleged loan, and that Paul Parenteau was present for this conversation.

Ouimette was released on parole on October 28, 1994, and moved to Fall River, Massachusetts, but was tracked daily by local, state, and federal law enforcement. Less than five months later, Ouimette was arrested yet again, charged with having extorted $125,000 from Paul A. Calenda, a Cranston restaurant owner, and for attempting to extort $5,000 from Providence car dealer and mob associate David Duxbury. Ouimette was charged alongside fellow mobster Robert P. Deluca Sr.

In 1981, Ouimette was charged with the murder of John Barbieri, an East Greenwich businessman with mafia ties whose body was found in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, with a bullet in the back of the head. He was acquitted. A year later, he and three other men were arrested for assaulting Douglas Gomes, a convict, at a café in Providence. Police said that Ouimette dropped a .38 caliber revolver on the floor when he saw them. The weapon had an obliterated serial number. In February 1984, he was convicted of weapons charges and sentenced to 18 years in federal prison.

In 1980, Ouimette had a falling-out with Charles Kennedy, one of his enforcers. Kennedy claimed Ouimette told him, "You want to be your own fucking guy? Let's see how long you last," and organized a hit squad to kill him. Around the same time, Vincent Vespia, the state police detective, also claimed that Ouimette had a contract out to kill him. Ultimately, neither Kennedy nor Vespia were harmed.

Ouimette was not a made member of the mob because he was not Italian, but an FBI report from April 16, 1979, reported that he was the leader of a non-Italian faction within the Patriarca crime family:

Ouimette had a telephone installed in his cell, which was supposed to be used for his work with National Prisoners' Reform Association, but in reality was used to continue managing his organized crime from within the prison. In March 1977, Ouimette called Vincent Vespia, a state police detective sergeant, at his home and threatened to break his jaw. Vespia got dressed, drove to the prison and ripped the phone from the wall. Vespia said, "I was incensed that he had a phone. He had no reaction. What was he going to say? I think he was surprised to see me." Ouimette was convicted for threatening Vespia and was sentenced to an extra 36 days, though the conviction was later overturned on appeal.

Due to a reduced sentence, Ouimette was released from prison on 29 October 1977. However, he was rumored to be a "marked man" by rival organized crime groups, placing his life in danger upon his release. A source speaking to the Associated Press said that Ouimette was targeted for execution while in prison, but was never "hit." The source explained that the reason was because some mob leaders believed Ouimette had a tendency to get "too big for his britches." One Providence Journal reporter even prepared an obituary, convinced Ouimette would be killed. Ultimately, nothing came of it and he was never harmed.

Ouimette's position within the mob was secure, even after five years in prison. In 1977, Gerald McDowell, the head of the US Department of Justice's Boston-based Organized Crime Strike Force, told a gathering of local businessmen that Rhode Island organized crime is controlled by two men, one in "Federal Hill," (Raymond Patriarca), and the other "in the ACI" (Ouimette). State police detective Captain Brian Andrews described Ouimette as the "Prince of Atwells Avenue," the stronghold of organized crime in New England.

On July 9, 1972, while still in prison on the gun possession charge, Ouimette was convicted of conspiracy to kill Michael Greene and Homer Perkins, career criminals who had been found murdered three years prior. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, and was sent to the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI), a maximum security facility in Cranston. There, operating out of the prison's North State Wing, where the mafiosos lived, Ouimette continued to lead his gang from behind bars, and had enormous influence and freedom within the prison. There, he even had influence over the warden. According to state police, he essentially "ran the place." Patriarca was in and out of prison, and Ouimette served as his second-in-command at the ACI, which they used as a recruiting ground for the mob.

Ouimette first met mob boss Raymond L. S. Patriarca in the mid-1960s, when a friend brought him around to Patriarca's cigarette store, his mob headquarters. Soon after, he carried out his first task for Patriarca: acquiring stolen Cadillacs. His mob activities only escalated thereafter. On January 24, 1969, Ouimette and his brother John were arrested on charges that they shot a Pennsylvanian mob hitman outside a Cranston restaurant. At that time, Ouimette was already serving a five-year sentence for possession of a gun after a crime of violence. The brothers were ultimately acquitted after the victim told the jury that the Ouimettes were not the ones that shot him.

The 1960s also saw Ouimette gain his famous nickname "The Frenchman." It may have originated in the Ouimette's unique ancestry in a mostly-Italian American mob. Ouimette himself credited police with the name, writing in his 2012 memoir:

In 1956, when Ouimette was 16 years old, he was given a series of psychological tests. The psychiatrist who conducted them concluded:

Ouimette's criminal activities began in the 1950s. After his father died, he and his brother would shoplift to make some money. His first court appearance came when he was ten, when he was charged with criminal possession of a firearm. He was arrested in an alley, holding a gun, which he claimed he picked up after it was dropped by a man fleeing law enforcement. Nevertheless, his mother could not afford an attorney, and he was sent to the Sockanosset School for Boys, a reformatory in Cranston, Rhode Island. There, after several fights with other boys, some school teachers took him around to boxing clubs to perform. After ten months, he was allowed to return home.

In the late 1950s, he did a stint of service in the US Army. In 1959, two months after turning 18, he was sentenced to six years in prison for robbing, at gunpoint, a South Providence jewelry store. During his third year in prison, his two oldest brothers, Alvin and Billy, both in their 20s, died in a construction accident. A few months later, he was granted parole, and moved in with his mother in East Providence. Soon after, he was sent back to prison for a parole violation.

Gerard Thomas Ouimette (March 6, 1940 – April 19, 2015), commonly known as The Frenchman, was an American mobster and author from Providence, Rhode Island who was a prominent associate of the Patriarca crime family. He served for years as one of Raymond L. S. Patriarca's lieutenants, and also headed his own faction of the Patriarca mob.

Ouimette was born on March 6, 1940, in Providence, Rhode Island. His parents were both of French descent. His father worked as the Governor of Rhode Island's chauffeur. He had to resign when he contracted tuberculosis, which is contagious, and found work as a taxicab driver. As his illness progressed, he eventually had to go live in a sanatorium. The family would visit him there once a month, followed by routine exams to make sure they did not contract the disease. His father died in 1948, when Ouimette was seven.