Salvatore Sperlinga
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Salvatore "Sal" Sperlinga (d. January 4, 1980) was a bookmaker and member of the Winter Hill Gang who was a close associate of mobster Howie Winter. He and Winter were both convicted on extortion charges during 1977 and, due in part to influence from Winter, Sperlinga was out on work release by 1980 and employed at the Magoun Square print shop owned by Somerville alderman Peter Piro (a brother of state representitive Vincent Piro).
However, while playing cards in the back room of a local Somerville social club, he was shot three times and killed by local hoodlum Daniel Moran after Sperlinga had warned him to keep out of Somerville's Union Square. Arrested and convicted soon after, despite contacting the Patriarca crime family and Boston mobsters James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi while imprisoned at Worcester County Jail, Winter was unable to retaliate against Moran.
His son, drug dealer and ex-con Richard Sperlinga, would later die from a drug overdose on October 15, 2005 [1].
