Eumenides

When I picked up the newspaper in June of 1988 and read of Joe's latest antics. I shook my head in disbelief. Like Eric Moynihan and Dan Gearan I had hoped the $15 million would have made Joe a different person.

I had considered writing about Joe's battle with Key Bank, but soon realized there was a whole lot more to the Joe Ricci story, and that putting the puzzle together wouldn't be easy.. But I had no idea in the spring of 1988 what I'd find out from nearly three years of research, what pieces would come from Joe's relatives and childhood chums, his ex-wife, and sons, former lovers, employees, residents of Elan and especially from his own business partner, Gerry Davidson. I also didn't realize that Joe's story wasn't frozen in time, that as I researched his past, and wrote about those events, new dramas would be unfolding before my eyes, and I'd have to keep up with them.

I hadn't heard from Joe in more than a year and a half when he called me out of the blue in August of 1987, just ten days after his settlement signing with the bank. He surprised me then by revealing that Eric and Dan had returned to Scarborough Downs, and asked if I'd be interested in doing "some public relations " for his center for constitutional law which he was founding. I wished him success, but remembering my experience in 1986, declined. He called a few more times, and I finally agreed to have lunch with him to at least hear his proposal. (He had just won a lot of money, though he owed me none, having paid me through my contract period) We met at Sapporo, a Japanese restaurant in Portland soon after the 1987 President's Pace. At the time I had no inkling that he had just finished terrorizing Eric whom I hadn't talked to in many months, and I didn't even know April Bishop existed.

I listened over sushi as Joe told me how much he had changed. I wanted to believe him, but something didn't ring true. During lunch he declared: " I am the victm of hedonistic women," and seemed strangely unsympathtic to Linda's injuries which occurred only a few weeks earlier. In fact he seemed annoyed that her auto accident, had disrupted their plans to separate.

Talking to my husband after our lunch, I told him there seemed to be "something more insidious " about Joe, though I couldn't put my finger on it.

Reading a paper the following spring about his latest outbursts at the track, I was grateful that I had declined to go back to work for him, and felt sorry for those who did. I wondered aloud if others could be forewarned.

News of my impending book soon spread. John Campbell called and warned me that I was " walking a fine line" and should be careful. He was calling in the official capacity of Joe's lawyer, but joked that he and Linda Smeaton ( who both spent many a night drinking with Joe ) could write a book of their own.

Surprisingly, the first call of support came from Joe's partner Gerry Davidson. It was late one May evening when the phone rang. "You've created quite a stir..." Gerry said with a chuckle, observing that if Joe wanted a book written about him, he would write it himself, or pay someone else to do it the way he thought it should be done.

Getting more serious, Gerry stated that "...a book about Joe could be extremely important in helping people understand the amount of damage that can be done by a psychotic person, or a person driven by rage..." He said "Joe is a genius. He could have been a great person." He described him as "very methodical" and " crazy like a fox." Little did I know then how much this psychiatrist would reveal in the coming months about the underpinnings of his partner's personality.

After a newspaper article stating that I was writing a book about Joe Ricci appeared, I began getting eerie phone calls with nobody on the other end of the line. Several times when driving in my car, I realized that I was being followed. One time when my husband and I were out, we confronted a person in a car who had trailed us for more than two hours. When we aked why he had been at all our stops during a single afternoon, he simply smiled and sped away.

I soon received phone calls and letters from ex-Elan residents, and employees of Joe's businesses who made chilling accusations about Joe...some for the record, others not. Many were afraid to speak on the record, fearing reprisals from him.

When I began to realize the extent of Joe's influence over so many lives, I felt the need to get away from Maine to write the book safely without feeling fearful. We sold our house in the summer of 1988, put many items in storage, and moved secretly with our son to Montreal. We told nobody except close relatives where we were, and pretended to others that we were living in Massachusetts.

From our little apartment in Montreal, I made bi-weekly junkets to Maine, slipping in and out for interviews. Twice I traveled to Joe's hometown of Port Chester, New York, and spent thousands of dollars on telephone calls throughout the U.S., tracking down former Elan residents, employees, and others in at least ten different states.

***

The 1988 season at Scarborough Downs was one of the worst ever. Bobby Leighton was too ill to return, so Joe decided to run the show himself, with a little help from his crew at Elan.

Marty Kruglik who had been a long term staffer at Elan dating back to the 1970’s was appointed director of operations for the track, but it was Joe who clearly ran the show. Though Llyod Johnson was not licensed as a race secretary, he nevertheless ran the racing office, much to the chagrin of all the horse men and women.

It was a season marked by utter chaos, and many of the regular fans, vowed to stop going to the races, saying they preferred instead to watch baseball on TV. Problems plagued nearly every department. Just a couple of weeks before The President’s Pace, the premier race of the season, Joe claimed he was canceling it. But then a week later decided to reinstate it causing more confusion. By closing night in September, the total handle (that season had fallen sharply.

April Bishop had to work two jobs during the summer of 1988 in order to pay off some of the debts she accrued before being fired from Scarborough Downs. She worked as a secretary at a Portland law office by day and a group residence for people with disabilities at night. Without a car she was forced to move to downtown Portland from Scarborough where she had moved in the spring to be closer to Joe and the track.

Joe hadn’t spoken to April in the three months since he fired her. But she thought about him often, lamenting what had been the love of her life. Despondent over financial problems, and her soured relationship with Joe she sought the help of a psychiatrist to lessen the pain, but had to stop the session, because she didn’t have the money to pay for them.

One night, after a bout of drinking, and talking about Joe to anyone who would listen, she attempted suicide by slitting her wrists. Fortunately a friend discovered her, and managed to stop the bleeding.

I traveled to Maine in mid August of 1988 to interview April at Horsefeathers restaurant in the Old Port, just a hundred yards from the law offices of Poulos and Campbell. We had lunch and talked intimately with a small tape recorder placed on the table.

What had been scheduled as an hour interview became three hours. She said she had never told anyone except her psychiatrist about Joe's affect on her, and he thought she was being melodramatic. On that hot August afternoon, she looked tired, much older than her 19 years, and explained that she hadn't slept the night before, and had come to meet me directly from her second job. She said she still felt bitter about being fired, though slowly she was begining to realize it was not her fault. She said she'd like to see Joe one more time, just to clear the air, though she hadn't heard from him for five months. When we parted she held my hand, and thanked me for listening.

Strangely enough within two days of meeting me in a public place she received a late night call from Joe, identifying himself as “Frank” (his father’s name) to her roommate who answered the phone. He was conciliatory, and told her how much he missed her.

“We talked for a couple of hours...” April recalls, revealing that Joe claimed he was ready to settle down, and wanted to move with her to Long Island, get married and have children. He said he was sorry that he had to have her fired, but it was the only way to wake her up. She says: ”He told me that Eric Moynihan and Dan Gearan had me under their spell....and that I deserved what I got because I was becoming a bad person.”

The next day Joe called April again, and invited her to have dinner with him that night at the track. He instructed her to take a $20 taxi to Scarborough Downs and, said he would pay for it. Anxious to see Joe again, and at least resolve the relationship, she went to the track . But she ended up paying for her own cab, and had to have Joe paged after she arrived. Dining together in the clubhouse, Joe once again told her that she had deserved to be fired because she had been conspiring with her coworkers, Dan and Eric, and had not been kind enough to the other employees, especially Bobby Leighton. He told her that it was her fault that Bobby‘s health had failed. Then employing the peer pressure techniques he often used at Elan on other teenagers like April, he had her former co-workers come to the table, and tell her about her mistakes. He sent Llyod Johnson over, and later Howie Banforth. (himself an ex-Elan resident, well over six feet tall, a menacing looking professional wrestler type, and now reportedly security guard at Joe's home)

Later she and Joe walked around the track, and she decided to tell him how miserable her life had been. “I told him I would’ve done anything for him, and that I felt abandoned....“ She says.: ”I explained that I had no skills, and spent money, only to be fired, have my car repossessed, and my credit ruined.” She also showed him the marks on her wrists where she had tried to kill herself. She says he seemed sympathetic, and promised to give her $5,000 to help her out. She went home, and waited, but the check never came.

On September 17th, 1988 Bert Fernald, the president of Maine Harness Horsemen’s Association (MHHA) wrote a letter to George McHale, Chairman of the Maine Harness Racing Commission (MHRC) informing him of the problems the association’s membership had with Scarborough Downs. It asked that the commissioners intervene to see that the problems be corrected, and to make the assignment of the track’s 1989 racing dates in October provisional pending such corrections.

The date hearings were always a big thing for Joe, but in October 1988 he also had other things to think about. Dick Herman, Scarborough Downs' presiding judge who was fired in 1986 had the trial date set for his $650,000 suit against Joe.

I spoke to Dick on the phone a few days before the trial, and asked him whether it looked like he and Joe would settle out of court. He assured they wouldn't. This crusty New York lawyer said he was going to stand up to Joe, the way others who were economically dependent upon him couldn't afford to do. He declared: "The problem in our society is that a person like Joe Ricci has the means to control so many people's economic destiny. They work for him, need the money, and are afraid. One reason that I've been able to fight back is that I've had the means to pursue justice."

I traveled to Maine for the trial, but when I got there only a few reporters were milling around. The jury had been chosen, but before opening arguments even got underway a recess was called. Joe and Dick's lawyers were talking settlement at Poulis and Campbell's office down the street.

In the afternoon the jurors were filing back to the second floor courtroom when a very happy Dick Herman arrived. I didn't need to ask, I knew the trial was off. Dick grinned, and told me: " Joe finally made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Under the terms of the agreement I can't tell you how much, but I'm very pleased." He shook my hand and said he and his lawyer were going to file the settlement papers with the judge. I smiled, and noted that Joe fancies himself a better plaintiff than defendant.

I later talked to those familair with the case who told me that Dick's settlement was "six figures." It was` reported that Joe paid "with a personal check" the amount not covered by the track's insurance policy because Dick had some stuff that Joe didn't want publicized...When Dick and I talked before the trial he had hinted this. He said: " Joe Ricci wrecks havoc with people's lives, and I want what I've got on him to be part of the public record..."

But that was when he didn't think the case could be settled. Part of Dick's agreement called for his reinstatement as presiding judge at the track during the next race season. Dick got his six figure settlement money, and his job back because he was a savvy New York lawyer who had resources to hire counsel and pursue the case through depositions.

Others were not so lucky.

Eric Moynihan gave up his weekly pay check when he walked away from Joe for the second time the previous May, after the bizarre midnight meeting in which Joe proclaimed " I'm a fucking animal..." He had three young children to support, but he and his wife Debbie talked it over, and felt they could survive without Eric selling his soul and surrendering his self esteem.

Dan Gearan got his bonus, but still lost his job, so he and Eric started M&G Builders, a small home remodeling business, and hunkered down for a lean winter.

Martha Amesbury, fired a year earlier had been paid for a while according to her five year contract, but without warning Joe pulled her checks so she also filed a lawsuit, seeking $127,000.

The race date hearing during the last week in October was a pressure cooker. Unaccompanied by his usual entourage, Joe drove himself alone in Linda’s new Mercedes to Augusta. He and his attorneys Claudia Sharon and Stephanie Anderson, and Llyod Johnson presented a weak case before the commission as they struggled to explain the disastrous season at the Downs.

After the hearing Llyod conceded to an associate that the outlook did not look too good for his team to get awarded the May dates that had traditionally gone to them. Referring to the management team at the track, he reportedly observed “There's simply nobody left on the bench.”

The commissioners decided to take the date assignments under advisement.

On November 6, by a vote of 3-2, the racing commission granted most of the May 1989 race dates to Lewiston Raceway. Commissioner James Begert who made the motion to award the dates to Lewiston said his motion was based upon the 11 criteria for awarding dates which included profitability, financial health of a track, the quality of the race programming, facilities, and the licensee ‘s observance of the commission rules. In discussing the commission’s decision chairman McHale said: “We have to look at the entire picture. And that includes financial stability. Lewiston is a rule abiding, profitable operation.”

Strangely enough nobody mentioned another criteria listed under section 271 harness racing rules and regulations which states that the licensee should be of ‘good moral character.' Given Joe’s alleged flagrant use of cocaine on the track’s premises, the after hour parties there, and his propensity for carrying firearms, it is a wonder that the track’s license wasn’t revoked. (Losing three weeks of May dates was really just a slap on the wrist)

***

Westchester County, New York, with its posh shopping centers, and arts organizations, is corporate heaquarters for some of the nation's giants like PepsiCo, NYNEX, Readers Digest and Texaco. Nearly half of the land is rolling hills, green pastures, and perfectly manicured lawns. Only four percent of the terrain is used for factories, stores, and offices.

Port Chester,where Joe grew up, is a small factory town within this county. Bordering the affluent town of Rye, it cradles the shores of Long Island Sound. Port Chester and the town of Rye form the bedroom community for New York City with nearly 100,000 residents, making the 32 minute daily commute to work in Manhattan.

The main street in Port Chester still has the feel of the 1950's when Joe was growing up there. There are many faded facades and shabby storefronts that seem frozen in another era.

Neilsen's luncheonette which has been a town landmark for decades still sells cherry cokes and banana splits at its soda fountain. The town also has its share of seedy bars where you can shoot pool, but a few expensive restaurants like Pastore's Due Fratelli on North Main Street offer upscale entrees such as fresh snapper for $23.95.

Many residents of the predominately Italian community have lived and worked in Port Chester all their lives. Arnold Bakery, and the Life Saver candy factory on Westchester Avenue. (which is now condominiums) employed generations of workers from the same families.

Many of Joe's relatives, both Riccis and Santoros still live in Port Chester and the surrounding towns of Mamaroneck and White Plains.There are 114 Riccis in the Westchester County phone book, and many say they are related in some way, either by blood or by marriage.

Joe's aunt Josephine Martello "Chubby" who is his mother's sister, and her husband Vinnie still live on Fox Island Road across from the modest little house at 44 where Joe grew up. "Chubby," now in her 60's, lived in that house and remembers that everything was always kept spotless by her mother.

Frank Salvatore, a general contractor, who is 51 years old now occupies that house. He's been in the neighborhood his whole life, and remembers Joe Ricci as " ...the guy who made it big in Maine." Frank who is nicknamed "The Hawk" is just six years older than Joe, but recalls drinking at the age of 18 with Joe's father, Bamboo. He says Bamboo was a regular at the Blue Rail a reputed mafia hang out.

Frank tells me where to find Chubby who works at Antonio's Pizza Parlour in a little shopping mall in town. She's in the tiny kitchen in the back, banging heads of iceberg up against a steel counter, and spreading the lettuce leaves into plastic salad bowls when we meet. A gracious woman she gives me her sister Ann's address and phone number. She speaks openly about her famous nephew, and suggests I call her after she gets off work.

Joe's mother, Ann Kent, lives just a few minutes from Antonio's and a couple of blocks from Fox Island Road. She isn't home but her daughter, Michelle, who lives across the street, tells me that two days a week Ann works "helping a woman out."

Speaking with me by telephone Ann is cautious. "I don't want to talk to you without checking with Joe..."But when pressed to sum up her son she says: "He is a very compassionate human being who has been generous to me and his sisters. If people could really get to know Joe, and not believe all the awful things about him they would see what a kind person he is."

She says she was wary about talking to anyone from Maine because Joe's had too many strikes against him, that everybody in that state had crucified him, and she "...doesn't want to be responsible for any more hurt in his life."

When I call "Chubby" later, she tells me she is sorry, but she can't talk "My sister told me to shut up..." she declares saying Joe claimed he didn't know anything about the book, and Ann forbade her from saying another word. But says:" I wish I could talk to you...People have misconceptions about who Joey is, so maybe if somebody talked to his relatives, talked to his friends, and really learned about the trouble he had, they would appreciate who he is now."

She says:" I'm sorry, but I have to live in the same town as my sister...and I guess Joe told her that if anyone is going to write a book about Joe Ricci, it will be Joe Ricci. " Pausing for a moment she states: "Joey certainly wasn't in the mafia, but I kinda wish some of my family had been..." Then with a short sigh she adds: "Maybe then I wouldn't be stuck at my age in some crummy kitchen making salads..."

I say nothing, but wonder to myself if she knows how much money her nephew has, and how lavishly he spends it on his own extravagant lifestyle. I realize with a tinge of sadness that this simple woman probably could never even imagine spending $100 for a bottle of wine or would be horrified at dropping $10,000 in one night at a roulette wheel in Las Vegas as Joe's ex-wife recalls he did. How far had the apple fallen from the tree?

Chubby's daughter Andrea, who is eight years younger than Joe, says still looked up to her famous cousin. She recalls: "Anyone who ever knew Joe Rich remembers him. You don't forget Joe Rich. He played a large part in my life. He would always make me laugh, and explain things to me when I was feeling down. We'd go up to the attic-that was his room- and we'd play records. Joe was a really hip dude. He was cool when cool was cool."

She's never visited Joe in Maine, and with a slight trace of bitter sadness she says: " We've never been invited. He doesn't call us. He went away, and that was it. I think when he left he wanted to leave Port Chester where Port Chester is...." Hesitating a moment she reveals: " I think everybody is afraid to talk to you.. You know they're not going to say bad things...They don't want to get into trouble. They don't want to hear nothing from him....But I have all good memories of Joe. Maybe I had a crush on him even--my cousin was really good looking... " she reveals with a little giggle, noting that she hasn't seen him recently except on 60 MINUTES. Before hanging up she asks me for a favor: "If you ever get through to Joe, tell him Andrea says 'hello-I'm still alive.'"

Joe's union card signed on February 3, 1966 is still on file at Arnold Bakery, but union president Felix Bakija who has been with the company for many years insists that Joe wasn't especially active in the union whose memebership was mandatory for all employees. He stresses that Joe Ricci certainly didn't start the union as stated in one of his newspaper ads when he was running for governor. The Brick Oven Associaton was founded in 1947 when Joe was just two years old.

At the Don Bosco Community Center just a block from Fox Island Road, old photo albums of basketball games and other community events turn up no pictures of young Joe. Victor Donato, a sturdy man in his late 30's wearing a Don Bosco T shirt and a whistle around his neck, offers me stacks of scrapbooks with yellowed newspaper clippings to look through... photos of banquets and award ceremonies dating back to the 1940's.

Giving them to me Donato says he sure remembers "Joe Rich..." At 38 years old he is a few years younger than Joe. He now runs his father's tailor shop in the neighborhood and coaches a new generation of kids at the center.

He says he and Joe hung out at "The Dons" back in the late 50's and early 60's "...but Joe wasn't around all the time like some of us...He was into bigger things even then...When we were playing basketball, he was more interested in stealing cars... " he notes with humor, a little in awe of the success Joe had found far from home. He says he missed seeing him on 60 MINUTES, But says some of the guys taped it.

He recalls Joe as being: "... a tough guy, who always looked over his shoulder..." He says: " Joe would have someone else take the blame..." observing that Joe seemed to have nine lives, with the uncanny ability (like his father Bamboo) to always bounce back.

Donato was curious about Joe's success. He wants to know if he married a girl named Dana, more about his lawsuit against the bank, and the place called Elan. He is impressed with Joe winning $10 million from the bank, but says it really issn't shocking: "Joe was always very convincing... " he recalls, "...It shouldn't have been too much trouble for him to convince 12 people he should get $10 million..."

More surprising than anything else to Donato is that Joe made his fortune helping troubled adolescents. He says It would be great to get him back to the community center for a visit and he wonders aloud whether Joe might want to help out some of the current kids at Don Bosco, by making a little contribution to the place that benefitted him in his youth...

***

On December 7th, 1988 Joe filed a lawsuit in Cumberland County Superior Court asking that the date decision by the racing commission be overturned. What happened thereafter is still unclear. A series of events was set into motion that could confuse the most level headed arbiter.

One fact that everyone agrees on is that meetings took place during the next two days between Joe’s attorneys, Claudia Sharon, Stephanie Anderson, and Lewiston general manager, Bob Dow. Some of these meetings occurred at J’s Oyster Bar on Portland's waterfront, a frequent watering hole of Joe’s. Dow attended the meetings with his friend Michael Milton.

Just who initiated the meetings or their stated purpose is anyone’s guess. One need scrutinize the events very closely to make an educated one.

After these meetings between Dow and Joe's attorneys, Scarborough Downs filed an affidavit by Claudia Sharon stating that Dow offered to sell her inside information concerning improprieties between Lewiston Raceway and the harness racing commission. She alleged that Dow had contacted her, and “made repeated requests” to be paid for information. (allegedly concerning meetings between the commissioners and representatives of Lewiston raceway to discuss the racing dates before the Commissioners made their decision) Joe told reporters that Dow sought $250,000 for the information and declared: “We quickly just reported it to the FBI and the Justice Department.”

Later, however, it was reported that Joe himself and Sharon Terry had also somehow run into Dow and Milton at the Ramada Inn in Portland after their meeting with his attorneys who had tape recorded their conversation. It was also revealed that Dow was given $1,000 by the attornies.

In papers filed in court to amend Joe’s original challenge against the commission it was also alleged that Eric Moynihan said he was contacted by Dow to arrange a meeting with Ricci “in an effort to sell information to Mr. Ricci. regarding the improprieties in connection with the race date hearing...” But when Eric picked up the morning paper and read that assertion, he was aghast. Dow had indeed called him the previous month, but never said he wanted to sell information to Joe. Eric says that Dow (whom he didn’t know too well) seemed bewildered and wanted to get in touch with Joe. Dow only told him that he had a previous meeting scheduled with Joe, but when Joe showed up to meet him he was drunk, and incoherent. Dow also said something to Eric about a good looking female attorney of Joe’s whom he was going to meet for drinks. Eric had mentioned this call in passing to John Campbell with whom he still occasionally talked, and was appalled that John had falsely extrapolated that Dow had told him he was going to "sell information to Joe." Later John called Eric and asked him to sign an affidavit to that effect, and Eric refused because he said it simply was "not true."

During the ensuing months the Bob Dow incident was the subject of much speculation. Dow refused comment because it was part of litigation in connection with Joe’s appeal of the May assignments to Lewiston.

I spoke with Eric two weeks before Christmas of 1988 . He told me that times were tough for him and Dan Gearan and their new business that winter. He had made repeated calls to Joe asking for the two year end bonuses that had been promised. He finally reached him one evening at home, and said they had an 'emotional ' conversation. Joe accused him of 'abandoning' him, and being in cahoots with Charlie Day and the people of Lewiston Raceway. "He finally agreed to pay me the money he promised...he told me he'd send me $2,000 a week for five weeks...I've already gotten $2,000..." Eric explains adding: "...and I fully expect I'll never hear from him again. (Two and a half years later, Eric has not received any more money)

Gerry Davidson had called Eric and said he was considering taking some sort of legal action against Joe. He asked for his cooperation as he had two years earlier. The psychiatrist observed that if Eric didn't reveal the improprieties at Scarborough Downs, people would think he was part of the shenanigans with "women and things." But Eric says his conscience was clear, he had no shame. "There's maybe a couple of things I'd have done differently, that I'm not too proud of... " he reveals, "...but certainly none of those involve women, and there's no woman alive who could say it did." Becoming more somber, maybe because of the approaching holidays, Eric says that he had put his name in for substitute teaching during the winter when he had no remodeling jobs. " I figure during this slow time I can make $50 a day substituting... " he says with a sigh : " You know the other day I was looking through my papers from grad school ...I was into my second year, getting all A's and on my way to beoming a secondary school principal, but I've had all that swept out from underneath me. I left to be general manager at Scarborough Downs and I did a good job. The place was one of the most successful tracks in the country and then I had to leave twice through no fault of my own. I guess I'm bitter...I feel cheated...I think my wife feels cheated too..."

On January 24th,1989 Dow made a sworn statement to his attorney Coleman G. Coyne of Lewiston. In this affidavit he answered some of the questions concerning the charges against him by Joe's lawyers. He denied having any knowledge of bribes, payoffs, or promises of anything of value, extortion nor any knowledge of any threats or assaults or similar conduct on the part of any member of the Maine State Harness Racing Commission or any of the employees or officials of Lewiston Raceway... .. He also said that he had neither been offered, promised nor given any inducement for submitting the signed affidavit which he eventually presented to the FBI.

On March 1, 1989 a hearing was held in Cumberland County Superior court before Judge Kermit Lipez during which Joe’s attorneys were to present evidence to substantiate their claim that wrongdoing occurred in the awarding of the 1989 racing dates. Downs’ attorneys Campbell and Axelrod (lawyers Sharon and Anderson withdrew from handling the case since they were witnesses) submitted audio tapes of the meeting that had taken place between Sharon, Anderson and Dow. They stated that the tapes would demonstrate that Dow possessed and was willing to sell information. Yet these tapes were mostly unintelligible.

According to Judge Lipez just two things could be heard. One was a man’s voice that said: “This can save you a lot of time and money...” and: ”I can’t tell you what I know...” After attorneys for Lewiston, the commission and Scarborough Downs had all made their arguments Lipez (citing the seriousness of the charges) ruled that Scarborough Downs had made a sufficient prima facie presentation and that a further investigation was warranted.

”We do not have the specifics...” he said adding: “It appears that the central information that could provide the specificity that is lacking is possessed by an individual (Bob Dow) who continues to be an employee of Lewiston Raceway.” Lipez said that although Joe’s attorney’s allegations were vague the case presented “special circumstances.” His ruling allowed Joe’s attorneys to question Bob Dow under oath about his knowledge of alleged criminal activity by Lewiston Racetrack employees and state racing officals.

In early February I received word that Gerry Davidson was in Florida getting treatment for cancer, and was trying to find a way to get in touch with me. Rather than give him my number in Canada, I called him on February 7th.

He seemed pleased to hear from me , said he'd been thinking about my book, and told me: " Joe is a very good example of a psychotic person who is not too delusional wrecking havoc in society." He said: "The reason Joe can wreck so much havoc is because he is brilliant, capable, and very charming when he wants to be."

During the course of a half hour conversation he called Joe ' a prototype" and said his brand of insanity is something " the public and the law doesn't recognize. They understand some little guy living above a shoe store who thinks the communists are broadcasting in his head , but not a person who has smarts, and is capable."

He observed: " Joe's delusions are getting stronger and stronger, but he's not delusional enough, not the kind where he thinks he's Napoleon or the King of Sweden."

"Let me give you an example..." he said. "Someone who is psychotic, for all practical purposes has mental mechanisms or defenses--the way a person relates to the world we call mechanisms...A psychotic person defends himself by using denial...He denies something happens, refuses to see it ,which is very charactristic of Joe. He also distorts what other people say, and do...And then there's projection. Joe projects all over the place. In fact he does all of these...Another aspect is a terrible aggression and hatred for everyone around him including the person he dominates."

Davidson noted that Joe was getting " worse and worse," declaring: "It's compounded by the cocaine. Even though he stopped using it temporarily the mental state remains...You just don't get rid of it that fast."

He talked about Joe's narcissism,and said that it precipitated delusions regarding arch enemies Cianchette, and governor Brennan. " Cianchette is the prototype successful businesman and he hasn't befriended Joe, so in Joe's mind he becomes the enemy " he observed. Likewise he noted that Brennan once gave Joe some attention at a reception, but never called him and catered to him, so he too became a foe in Joe's mind conspiring against him. "The sun has to rise and fall on Joe." he said... "And if anything goes wrong. It's alwys somebody else's fault."

Gerry explained that he was going to be staying in Florida a month longer, but would like to get together and talk a bit more when he got back to Maine in early April when his and Joe's suit against their former law firm was set to go to trial. Before hanging up he stressed how valuable a book that captured the essence of a person like Joe, could be. He said: "It's really important for people to understand the pathology."

On March 6th, Bob Dow took a leave of absence from his position as vice president and general manager of Lewiston Raceway. During a press conference in which he made the announcement that he would be taking an indefinate leave from the job he had held for nearly six years, he said he had watched the transformation of Lewiston Raceway during his tenure, but that “...throughout all the growth, one element that refused to go away, was the constant controversy with Scarborough Downs.” He said: “From nonstop allegations to a truce (between Ricci and Day in the winter of 1987) that was broken quicker than any mile ever raced, it has been a negative to all the positives...”

Observers hint that Bob may have had a drinking problem, and been overly distraught after the allegations Joe had made about him in court and in the press. They suggest that Charlie Day pressured him to take his paid leave. After Dow's announcement the harness racing community was awash with speculation about what had really happened during those two days in December. Bob had been like another son to Charlie, and many believed that he would never doublecross him, assuming he even had any information worth selling Scarborough Downs.

On St Patrick's weekend Dan and I traveled to Maine to review records at the state capital in Augusta regarding Elan and Scarborugh Downs. I had contacted various state offices and spent about a half hour on the phone from Montreal with Sylvia Lund from the Office of Drug and Alcohol Protection.(ODAP) She told me that I could come in anytime and see the public records. When I arrived they pulled the files regarding Elan, but after just five minutes office manager Neil Miner bolted into the alcove where I was reviewing the documents and demanded that I stop. When I explained that I called in advance for clearance, he called Department of Human Services Director of Social Services, Peter Walsh, and Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes at home for their opinions.

After waiting for a half hour, I was told I had to put the request in writing, and lawyers would have to look over all the documents before sending them to me. (These materials contained information about Elan's loss of licensing during 1985, and 1986. There was also the whitewashed ODAP report issued after the Chicago investigations into Elan)

" We can't be too careful when it comes to protecting Joe's Ricci's rights..." Miner declared, seeming oblvious to the arrangements I had made with a member of his staff, and indifferent to the 260 miles I traveled based upon her representations.

That night my husband and I were in Portland having dinner at Alberta's Restaurant when John Campbell and his new wife Alison walked in. On our way out, we stopped by their table, and exchanged pleasantries. I hadn't seen John in about two years, but had written him a few letters months earlier. I had asked for an interview with Joe for this book, and the names of some Elan success stories. The letters were ignored.

John and I had been friendly when I was working for Joe, but that night he had a nasty edge. Undaunted, I asked him about the Dow affair, referring to Stephanie Anderson's barely audible tape of her meeting with him at J's Oyster Bar. John lightened up and said he had been talking with Joe Thornton (a private investigator his office uses) who observed that: "Stephanie makes a better attorney than a P.I."

Getting suddenly serious he mentioned the affidavit concerning Dow that Eric refused to sign. "Eric lied to me..." he sputtered. "I'd like to see him in jail..." I was astounded. "Eric told me he couldn't sign it because it wasn't accurate..." I answered. John grumbled, and for the first time I looked at him as someone who had been swept away by a revisonist Ricci reality. He had always been the first one to joke about Joe's exaggerated claims, or distortion of fact.

Three days later on March 20, 1989 I sent John a letter following up my request for an interview with Joe for this book. I also expressed my interest in getting some positive perspectives about Elan from some success stories. I said I wanted to be fair and was interested in speaking with some Elan graduates who were leading productive lives.

It wasn't until six weeks later that I received a response from John dated May 2nd... He wrote Joe would not talk to me in person:

"In view of the fact that your apparent biography is unauthorized, Mr. Ricci cannot take any action that could be construed as encouragement of your writings."

***

On March 22nd Bob Dow was deposed by Joe’s attorneys and refused to answer many questions.

Bob’s friend who had accompanied him to the alleged incident with Joe’s lawyers the previous December was also questioned under oath. He said the meetings were held to discuss "a business proposition“ but were also partly social. He stated: “Dow said he had met a good looking attorney and she had called him one night, and she was friendly, so he thought he would call her up and ask her if she wanted to have a drink."

While depositions in the Dow case were going on, Joe was gearing up for the much publicized sequel to his Key Bank lawsuit, the lawsuit against his fiormer attornies Burnstein, Shur, Sawyer, and Nelson. Both he and Gerry stood to win big again.

I spoke with Gerry Davidson at his Portland condo on the evening of March 28th. He had left a message with my service, asking for me to call him. He seemed in good spirits, but weak still recuperating from his illness, and said he tired easily. He told me that he had come to Portland earlier in the day to sign the complaint his lawyer, Tom Cox, had prepared against Joe. He said he was charging mismanagement of their enterprises, but was keeping it in his pocket until after the Burnstein Shur trial.

I asked to schedule some time in the next weeks to interview him, and we agreed to meet in Maine during the trial. Meanwhile he suggested I read MASK OF SANITY by Hervey Cleckley, M.D., to gain some insight into Joe. He said the book was the study of the psychopathic personality...."You got to know what makes up the psychopathic personality." he declared.

I remarked that I was finding discrepencies about Joe's version of his past and what it was eally like. " He was a drug addict like I was a drug addict..." he chuckled, and said: "Apparently Joe had broken into a mailbox and stolen Social Security checks...pleading addiciton to heroin was a good way to stay out of jail."

Chapter Thirty One

Cult Of Personality

Joe and Gerry's $25 million conflict of interest trial against Burnstein, Shur, Sawyer, and Nelson was slated to be the media event of 1989. It had been delayed a number of times, but was finally set to begin on April 4th at the Saghadahoc county courthouse in Bath, Maine, about a half hour from Portland. (This location was chosen because the trial was expected to last at least four weeks, and there was no court space available in Cumberland county)

I traveled to Maine, arriving in time for opening arguments from Joe's attorney, Bob Axelrod, who was hoping to win another fortune for his client.

I arrived late, thinking I could slip in the back, and keep a low profile. But just inside the door in the basement lobby, I met face to face with a pacing Joe Ricci. He spotted me immediately, and declared aloud to some spirit in the ceiling: "Now they're all here."

I found a little guest house, Lady and The Loon, on nearby Bailey's Island and planned to divide my time in Maine between the drama in the Bath courtroom, and interviews. I was a little uneasy about being followed, so kept my guard up, trying to be as cautious as I could without giving into fear. My husband stayed in Montreal with our son, but insisted I check in every night to verify my safety. It was a tense time.

Stephen Smith, an inmate at Maine State Prison in Thomaston, had been one of the first people to write me with accounts of his experinces at Elan. We exchanged several letters, and I decided to interview him at the prison when I was in Maine.On the second day of the trial I left early and set out to see Stephen. The warden had arranged a private space where we could talk with some degree of privacy, and I could use a tape recorder.

I had never been to a prison before, but prepared myself for the stares from the all male inmates, and tried not to wince at the sound of steel doors banging behind me, as I was escorted through narow passageways, up and down flights of stairs.

Stephen had written detailed accounts of his isolation at Elan, his rape, ditch digging, attempted runaways, and subsquent punishments. But when I met him face to face, I really felt his pain.

At 27 years old he looked still kiddish with long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. His blue eyes welled with outrage, as he revealed that Joe Ricci was "worse than Satan." " I don't understand how he gets away with

what he does, how people can legitimize his actions, how he can grow rich from the pain he inflicts..." he says shaking his head, telling me again what he had told me in a letter: that his stiff sentence at Thomaston was handed down by a judge who chastized him for "not taking advantage of the opportunity at Elan."

Stephen said he was attending college at the prison, reading constantly, and learning to express himself verbally. He promised to send me some of his writing.

The following poems arrived in the mail a few days later with a note saying : "Writing a poem about Joe Ricci is like pulling barbed wire through my heart...He's a Mengele, a sick and insane god gone mad..."

Mengele of Auchwitz

Mengele of Auchwitz

left a disciple in the woods of Maine,

Saint Snake, Joe Ricci...

The wicked always seek,

obscure woods far from decent people,

where they can cause innocents to scream

and laugh at their futility.

Self Made

Joe Ricci, Master, God, King

Ruler of a world called Elan;

His heart runs on Mercedes tires;

His throne is millions made on self's,

Yet he'd say:

"I'm a self made millionaire."

When I returned from Thomaston there was a message from Gerry. He wanted to meet for breakfast before court the next day.

At 7:30am when I arrived at the Freeport Cafe, his BMW was already in the parking lot, and he and his wife Rosalie were inside. I hadn't seen either of them for at least two years before spotting them across the aisle in court the day before.

Gerry had been quite sick that winter in Florida, but he looked healthy and fit that day. Once again he reiterated how important it was for people to understand the methods of people like Joe, "who can be enormously damaging to those around him."

He asked if I'd read FATAL VISON , the story of Dr. Jeffrey Macdonald who had been convicted of brutally murdering his wife and young daughters. Sipping coffee I listened to this psychiatrist (who had taught at Harvard) talk about his psychopathic partner, explaining to me how on the surface "these people can be very charming, charasmatic, and mimick emotion they are really incapable of feeling."

Rosalie listened to her husband, and nodded in agreement, while carefullly wiping all the oil from her bacon with a napkin. (When she was finished with her plate, she reached over and degreased her husband's plate as well) I declined to eat, somewhat stunned by Gerry's candid characterizations of Joe.

I asked him about his quote in a 1975 article in CORRECTIONS magazine in which he compared Elan to a concentration camp, and Joe Ricci to the gestapo where residents take on the personality of the aggressor. He stopped chewing for a minute, swallowed hard, and then with the palm of his hand chopped at the air in front of my coffee cup. "Don't pay any attention to that piece... " he instructed, acting like the learned doctor, talking to one of his charges.

But I pressed, asking him whther Joe was always a psychopath, or developed into one. "He's been getting worse..." he observed, "and now I think he poses a real threat to Elan. That's why after this trial is over, I'm going to try to get him out of there for everyone's sake."

The proceedings in court were slow that day with lots of interuptions, and I left to get back to my room and answer some calls. That evening I had scheduled dinner with John Day, a reporter for Bangor Daily News, who had just arrived in town to cover the trial. His editor wanted him to write a profile of Joe, and asked to chat with me about my observations.We shared a leisurely dinner and notes at the Great Impasta restaurant in Brunswick.

When I got back to my room my husband was on the phone from Montreal. WMTW, the Maine channel we picked up there reported that after just three days of testimony Joe's case was settled that afternoon. I immediately called Gerry who confirmed that it was true. He said he was "relieved" revealing Joe and his lawyers agreed to settle "for a bit more than $1 million" when they realized how well prepared the Burnstein Shur defense team was. He said Joe's case was unravelling. "They learned not to make the same mistakes the bank did..." he observed, claiming that he was " very worried about somethings that might come out."

The next morning the front page headline in the paper proclaimed : Ricci Settles Suit Against Lawyers . The accompanying story and TV news accounts differed dramatically from Gerry's report of the events. Joe told reporters he decided to settle because he felt sorry for Lenny Nelson, and Greg Tselikis who had been friends sayinghe couldn't bear to see the pain on their faces. Yet many people close to the courtroom noted that the first seven witnesses called by Joe's own attorneys seemed to damage his case.

After the settlement he told reporters he was going to spend time with his two teen age sons, try to quit smoking, and taking sleeping pills. (Two years earlier he said he was also going to repair his relationship with his sons, but never went to see them...He hadn't seen them in nearly five years)

When questioned whether he settled because his case was not going well, Joe disagreed and told a reporter for WMTW news that the sheriff had conducted a poll of the jury after the settlement was announced, and it showed that the jurors would have found in his favor.

Yet the sheriff at the office at Sagahdoc County Superior Court says he never did any poll of the jury, informal or otherwise.

On the night of April 14, 1989 while Joe and his legal hit squad were celebrating their latest conquest, I met April Bishop in Portland for a quiet dinner. It had been a year since she was fired from Scarborough Downs, and had her car repossessed. She still hadn't been able to save enough money to get even a new car. She was moving to Florida the next week to be with her high school sweetheart, whom she hadn't seen in four years.

He had called her "out of the blue" a couple of months earlier, after his divorce. She told him about Joe and she said he was giving her a chance to get away from Maine and Joe. She told me he was the first love of hr life before Joe, but she was getting cold feet. "I just hope Joe hasn't changed my life so much that I can't relate to him anymore," she declared.

April talked about her meeting with Joe that September when she had dinner with him at Scarborough Downs, where he promised her money and help getting a new car, and then let her down again. "I was under his power one more time, and felt worse than I ever felt", she revealed. "But I finally just thought about all the other people he hurt, and how they were also trying to get their lives back together. " She said she was anxious to leave the state, because "That's the only way I'll ever be able to get away from Joe Ricci."

She told me that a month earlier she, Eric and Debbie had an appointment with Gerry Davidson's lawyer, Tom Cox, to draft affadavits for some kind of legal challenge Gerry was trying to mount against Joe. She had never met Davidson, but agreed to meet with Cox. She said that she and Eric talked to Cox at his office, while Debbie waited in the reception area. "I told him my story, and taped the whole meeting..." she explained, adding: "The tape with a copy of my statement is at my parent'shouse along with a letter in case anything happens to me."

April revealed: "We talked about Joe's cocaine use, and I told him I'd seen him use it between 20 and 30 times (up until she was fired in 1988) and how it totallly changed his personality. He became hyper, more paranoid, started distrusting people more than usual."

Cox didn't ask April whether or not she used cocaine with Joe, but she told me she had been unfamiliar with it, before working as a receptionist

After the settlement he told reporters he was going to spend time with his two teen age sons, try to quit smoking, and taking sleeping pills. (Two years earlier he said he was also going to repair his relationship with his sons, but never went to see them...He hadn't seen them in nearly five years)

When questioned whether he settled because his case was not going well, Joe disagreed and told a reporter for WMTW news that the sheriff had conducted a poll of the jury after the settlement was announced, and it showed that the jurors would have found in his favor.

Yet the sheriff at the office at Sagahdoc County Superior Court says he never did any poll of the jury, informal or otherwise.

On the night of April 14, 1989 while Joe and his legal hit squad were celebrating their latest conquest, I met April Bishop in Portland for a quiet dinner. It had been a year since she was fired from Scarborough Downs, and had her car repossessed. She still hadn't been able to save enough money to get even a new car. She was moving to Florida the next week to be with her high school sweetheart, whom she hadn't seen in four years.

He had called her "out of the blue" a couple of months earlier, after his divorce. She told him about Joe and she said he was giving her a chance to get away from Maine and Joe. She told me he was the first love of hr life before Joe, but she was getting cold feet. "I just hope Joe hasn't changed my life so much that I can't relate to him anymore," she declared.

April talked about her meeting with Joe that September when she had dinner with him at Scarborough Downs, where he promised her money and help getting a new car, and then let her down again. "I was under his power one more time, and felt worse than I ever felt", she revealed. "But I finally just thought about all the other people he hurt, and how they were also trying to get their lives back together. " She said she was anxious to leave the state, because "That's the only way I'll ever be able to get away from Joe Ricci."

She told me that a month earlier she, Eric and Debbie had an appointment with Gerry Davidson's lawyer, Tom Cox, to draft affadavits for some kind of legal challenge Gerry was trying to mount against Joe. She had never met Davidson, but agreed to meet with Cox. She said that she and Eric talked to Cox at his office, while Debbie waited in the reception area. "I told him my story, and taped the whole meeting..." she explained, adding: "The tape with a copy of my statement is at my parent'shouse along with a letter in case anything happens to me."

April revealed: "We talked about Joe's cocaine use, and I told him I'd seen him use it between 20 and 30 times (up until she was fired in 1988) and how it totallly changed his personality. He became hyper, more paranoid, started distrusting people more than usual."

Cox didn't ask April whether or not she used cocaine with Joe, but she told me she had been unfamiliar with it, before working as a receptionist at Scarborough Downs. She revealed that she felt "a lot of pressure" from her millioniare boss, who was double her age. "He never gave me a choice...It wasn't like 'Do you want to?' It was just 'shut off the phones come into my apartment, and bring a credit card.'"

After their meeting with Cox, Eric, Debbie and April had dinner at Dimillo's restaurant on Portland's waterfront, and then went to Panda Garden restaurant in the old port for drinks. Eric and Debbie drove April home about 11 :30pm.

An hour and a half later when she was asleep her roommate was awakened by a call from Joe who had made no contact with her for the past six months...Her roomate said she couldn't wake her.

At 4am Joe called again, and insisted April be awakened, saying it was "a life or death matter." April said she was sleeping soundly so her roommate returned to the phone and said so. Joe hissed: "Well I guess it's death then." Her roommate became alarmed, and finally woke her.

When April answered Joe said he was just calling "to talk," but April didn't buy it. "I said"It's 4 o'clock in the morning, and we haven't talked for six months, what do you want..." She said then Joe became nasty. "He called me a cunt, and said 'I know what you did. I'm going to get you for that. You play dirty, now I'm going to play dirty.'"

The next day April complained about Joe's call to the Portland police. She went in person to the police station that afternoon, and ten minutes after she returned home Joe was on the telephone again. He said he was glad they had a "heart to heart" conversation the night before, and invited her go with him to New York. She declined, and hadn't heard from him again.

***

On April 14th Judge Lipez upheld the 1989 racing dates allocation that awarded the month of May to Lewiston Raceway. In his ruling the Judge stated that attorneys for Scarborough Downs had failed to produce evidence that the racing commission was biased or prejudiced in arriving at its decision to award May racing dates to Lewiston Raceway. The judge termed Dow ‘s actions erratic and troubled, but said his involvement with Joe’s atorneys “offers little illumination on the allegations of improprieties." (regarding Lewiston Raceway officals and the commission)

Lewiston Raceway raced during May of 1989 without Bob Dow at the helm. His meetings with Joe’s attorneys had created a cloud over his head. Charlie Day had lost confidence in his manager who had without his knowledge met Joe’s attorneys. Though his intention may not have been to sell incriminating information, the damage had nevertheless been done. At the very least Dow had been guilty of incredibly poor judgement by even stepping into the lion’s cage.

Back in Montreal I continued to make calls and set up interviews to corroborate information I was getting. I made several calls to Father Bob Allananch with whom I had traveled to 60 MINUTES when Joe was running for governor. Gerry Davidson had told me that Bob had fallen out of favor and Joe ceased paying the Oblate order for the priest's services, canceled his credit card, stopped making payments on his car, and made life generally miserable. Father Bob had finally ended his relationship with Joe, and his positon at Elan, and was working at a small counseling center mid state.

I hadn't talked to Bob since Joe's campaign in 1986, but his name came up a few times during my conversations with others. Joe's former wife, Sherry, remarked that Father Bob and another priest Gerry Bolduc knew Joe when they first came to Maine in the late 1970's , and I wanted to ask Bob about his impressions of Joe in those early days of Elan. I also wanted to ask him about a letter Stephen Smith said he got from a priest at Elan, claiming Stephen had never been a resident.

I made several calls to Father Bob's new office and left messages on his home answering machine, but he never returned any of my calls. Finally, I reached his friend Father Bolduc at a prison in upstate New York where he was working as a chaplain.

Father Bolduc said that Joe had a lot of religious feeling and " superstitions," but was very guarded about talking with me. He told me he wasn't being paranoid, but realistic because he knew "what Joe does in terms of going after people." He said that he would like to talk to me, but not on the phone, and suggested I set up a meeting in New York with him and Father Bob.

But 24 hours later, Father Bolduc told me they couldn't meet because Bob had been forbidden by the bishop in Maine to talk to me...He said that Bob had told him he had received a call from the Chancery, and been instructed not to cooperate.

Having a brother who is a priest, this explantion just didn't ring true. My book had not been widely publicized, and Father Bob wasn't a big player.

Father Bolduc later told me that Bob wouldn't take any of my calls. " He won't talk to you. " he said. When I acted surprised, he became more confidential and observed " Bob's tired...He's had a lot of stress working for Joe...Sometimes it was hard to know the demands from one week to the next....He's tired of people screaming, and needs some peace."

The next week I made calls to the Chancery, and explained to the bishop's aid what Father Bolduc had told me. I wanted to confirm whether the Bishop had indeed called Father Allanch and instructed him not to talk to me in reference to my book about Joe Ricci.

A few days later Sister Rita Mae called to tell me that the bishop never made such a request...She explained that she had contacted Father Bob herself. "he doesn't wish to speak with you..." she said kindly . We both agreed that his silence was "certainly his perogative," but not at the Bishop's request as I had been previously told.

***

On May 15, 1989 Gerry Davidson finally filed his complaint against Joe in Cumberland County Superior Court charging that Joe had wasted more than $500,000 of their company's money.

He charged that Joe had "regularly engaged in the use of cocaine while performing or attempting to perform his function as chief managing officer for Scarborough Downs Racetrack, and Elan One ..." The suit also charged that Joe had attempted to cause "a racing judge at Scarborough Downs to alter the actual order of finish of a horse race, and then fired the official which action has resulted in a lawsuit and caused the corporation to pay a substantial settlement to avoid an adverse judgement." It also alleged that Joe failed to adequately report the use of company assests and employees used in conjunction with his campaign for governor.

The eleven page suit asked the court to liquidate the assets of Golden Ark, and order Joe removed from any management function of the corporation prior to commencement of the 1989 racing season. It also requested from the court a receiver to take charge of Golden Ark, or require Joe to purchase his shares of stock in the company, allow Davidson to purchase his shares, or order sale of all property.

Joe called the suit "a slam job," and said Davidson just wanted to be bought out of the company.

In reponse to the allegations that Joe made business decisons under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Joe admitted, as he had during the Key Bank trial, that he used the drug in the early 1980's, but claimed he "stopped using it several years ago." Joe told the press: "After vindicating myself (via the Key Bank trial ) here I am back in the news as a coke-using crook. I find that criminal."

On May 30, 1989 I spoke with Gerry from Montreal, after he called my answering service in Maine. We talked for about twenty minutes, and he said he hoped he'd be able to get a receiver "within a week" because "everything is falling apart."

He said that the company airplane was being repossessed by the bank, that Joe had borrowed $300,000 to open the track, but couldn't make it with that little, and was probably facing bankruptcy.

He noted that Joe had invested heavily in gold and silver futures, that most of his money was probably gone. He said: "I'm terribly worried about Elan...that Joe might do something drastic."

"What about your book?" he asked abruptly explaining he had recently spoken with his friend, Jerry Harcovie, "the guy who runs the AP office in Portland." He told me Harcovie was wondering why I was pursuing a story about Joe Ricci and said: "We had quite a discussion... I told him it was an extremely important book because it can outline the amount of damage that can be done by a psychotic person, or a person driven by rage, and the law has no way of really controlling that, or taking it into account. I told him your book is as important as Shana Alexander's, NUTCRACKER, the story of that woman who persuaded her sons to kill their wealthy grandfather..."

Chapter Thirty Two

"...like clapping at a funeral..."

After the school year ended in Montreal my husband and I decided to move back to Maine for our son's sake. Going to school in French speaking Quebec wasn't easy, and the strain of commuting from Montreal to Maine for interviews was also taking its toll physically and financially.

During the Fourth of July weekend Gerry called. He said that he and his lawyer Tom Cox were still preparing their case against Joe in case it had to go to trial. He told me he had been in touch with former track controller, Martha Amesbury, who also had a suit pending against Joe, and were comparing notes.

As usual he wanted to know about the book, and pressed to learn its contents. I explained that I could not share my sources and research information to help him in his legal challenges because it would be unethical. My interviews were conducted for journalistic purposes only.

He didn't seem to mind, and told me "something had to be done to make the book of interest to people who don't even know of Joe Ricci." He talked about the mask of sanity that people like Joe wear, and said "I hope you clarify for people what these characters are like...people have to become enlightened about the dangers of dealing with someone like Joe."

Later in the month the MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM featured a series of stories regarding the harness racing industry. Telegram reporter, Roberta Scruggs, interviewed Bob Dow and wrote a brief story regarding the debacle that spring.

Her article, printed in the July 16th issue of the paper, almost three months since Judge Lipez’ ruling was headlined: Caught in the middle: Dow Confused, Scared. Scruggs mentioned mystery writer Agatha Christie’s contention that "suspicion is a lethal weapon," and compared Dow to "nurses who inherit from elderly patients, and unhappy spouses unexpectedly set free who are not officially guilty, but never really considered innocent."

She explained that Dow had “entered a state of limbo “ earlier in the year when “he ventured too close to the front lines in the war between his boss, Charles Day, and Scarborough Downs owner, Joseph Ricci.”

Dow told Scruggs that he hadn’t slept for seven months since the allegations, calling Joe's lawyer's story “a complete fabrication from one end to the other.” He claimed he had been under the impression they wanted to talk to him about the vacant general manager’s position at Scarborough Downs. Reflecting upon his meeting with them he told Scruggs ”I was gullible," and said he believed the the whole incident was orchestrated to get him into court so Ricci’s attorneys could grill him about what he’d witnessed at Lewiston during his tenure there.

”What they wanted to do was get me mad, I think.. call them liars and all that, that’s what they wanted to hear...and then be able to get me into court and ask a million questions about the operation of Lewiston, operations of the commission.” He said: "You sit back and it’s very frustrating...I know what the truth is...I know Charlie and Joe. I’ve been there.”

He hinted to Scruggs that he had a story to tell, but couldn’t talk for fear of risking a lawsuit by Joe Ricci, that he thought he’d file regardless of whether (the lawsuit) was justifiable or not, He noted that Ricci’s pockets were deep enough to survive a lengthly legal challenge, while his were not.

Scruggs ended her article by writing that Dow( who was then still on a paid leave of absence from Lewiston ) ”...had a paycheck...but no job, a title, but no trust. “ I don’t know what I'll do next...“ Dow told her. “It’s very confusing to me...I’m scared to death.”

In speaking to the reporter at all, Dow had once again underestimated Joe.

After reading Dow’s comments he ordered his lawyers to draft a suit charging him with causing intentional infliction of emotional distress, interference with contractural and advantageous relations, defamation and fraud, seeking $20 million in damages.

When asked why he was bothering to sue Dow for such a sum, that he was clearly incapable of collecting, Joe smiled, and said that it had little to do with Dow himself, and everthing to do with discovery process. He wanted Dow on the witness stand to get the goods on Lewiston Raceway and the commission.

Ironically, Dow’s theory regarding Joe’s motives back in December during the infamous meetings had not been too far fetched in light of the latest maneuver. But, naively, Dow never dreamed that Joe would sue him for just talking to Scruggs.

***

During the summer of 1989, I had numerous conversations with people who wanted to talk mostly off the record about their dealings with Joe Ricci. I juggled my research into Joe's past while trying to keep abreast of what was happening around me. Most of what I heard didn't make me laugh, but the 'groundhog conspiracy' was an exception...

In July Eric received a call from a national racetrack consultant, Dan Coons, with whom he had become friendly when Eric was general manager of Scarborough Downs. Dan called from the airport on his way back to Chicago. He said Joe had summoned him to Maine one night in a panic. When he got there he was rushed into the track's conference room to consult with two mamologists who had just been flown in from New York. The group was taken to the infield, to determine whether the groundhog holes in the track's surface might in fact have really been dug by humans who wanted to undermine the operations of the racetrack.

Eric said Coons was in tears on the phone from laughing so hard. He explained that groundhogs were everywhere, like cats. Yet, incredibly, the mammologists finally told Joe what he wanted to hear, that maybe some of the holes weren't really made by the groundhogs.

***

One day in late July I received a letter from an inmate at Maine State Prison. It was from a person Stephen Smith had mentioned s known as "the enforcer " at Elan. The letter written in childish penmanship read: My name is Norberto R. Brice. Come up hear and visit me, and we will talk. They call me Raymond. Bye.

On August 9th I made my second visit to Maine State Prison to meet Norberto, who is half white and half black, and was nicknamed 'milkbone' at Elan. He seemed tougher, more rough around the edges than Stephen Smith. And unlike him, he harbored no feelings of hatred for Joe who was "like a father to me." He said: " Joe liked me a lot...and I wanted to be like Joe Ricci. I looked up to him because he grew up on the streets in the Bronx, was into heroin and stuff, and completely turned his life around."

Norberto was sent to Elan by his social worker in Rhode Island when he was about 13 or 14, and moved quickly up the hierarchy, becoming a chief expeditor, the head of Elan's internal police force, who successfully pursued and brought back those who tried to run away." I was fast..." he recalled with a chuckle. "...there was nobody I couldn't get... I had a lot of status."

At 30 years of age, Noberto had been out of Elan then for 15 years. He had been at Thomaston for just two months, and told me he was "set-up by the attorney general's office "because they wanted me off the streets real bad." He said he was dealing cocaine: "Drugs aren't my thing I was just selling the stuff. They think they beat me, but I beat them. I just got a year here."

Asking me to turn off my tape, he talks about his past, all the money he's made, and his future when he gets out of prison.

Later with the tape recorder whirring he explained that in the years since leaving the strange place in the woods of Poland Spring, he had all kinds of diferent jobs including selling drugs, pimping females, and has also fathered seven children.

Norberto admitted that he had some bad experiences at Elan, but called them " a learning experience." He mentioned Peter, Joe's right hand man, who beat him up, and humiliated him. He said Peter and another guy punched him unmercifully, after a girl he was friendly with ran away. They thought he had conspired with her. "We were tight but I didn't know she was splitting." he said. The girl eventually returned and insisted she hadn't told Brice she was leaving. "They knew then they were wrong for torturing me... " he said."But no apology no nothing...They said 'That's just the way injustice is in life.'"

Norberto graduated from Elan when he was about 16 years and said he was doing all right back in Connecticut when his social worker suggested he return, and said Elan's private plane came and picked him up. "When I got back Joe Ricci shook my hand, and told me he was putting me in re-entry status, making me a big shot in Elan 3." he explained. But his nemesis Peter was in charge of that house, and immediately shot him down putting him in the ring every day. "Peter said I still had a tough guy image, so he made me scrub floors with a tooth brush, and he and another guy used to jump me in the livingroom and beat me up." he declared.

"I wanted to tell Joe about it...But Joe wasn't around. There's no way in the world Joe coulda known about it, because Joe ain't gonna give nobody a status, and then have him go get that just taken away for no reason" he declared. He said he tried to get word to Joe that he was "being fucked with," but figures he didn't get the message stating: "It wasn't Joe, but the people he had working for him, that fouled that program up."

Talking a breath he looked upset talking about his experiences even after all the years that had elapsed.He declared: "I can't say Joe Ricci never did nothing bad...But he did a lot of good. He did a tremendous good by starting the program Elan. A lot of people died. But let me tell you why I think a lot of people died. It was because they didn't know how to apply what they learned when they hit streets."

He rattled off names of former graduates I should talk to, from about a dozen, half were in prison, or on the street, others dead. He told me the wherabouts of one graduate, Don H., who is a pimp, but warned me to be careful if I went to see him "because you re a good looking woman, and he'll take what he wants."

Becoming more introspective he admitted that there "...are not too many success stories from Elan." and says "It's because people return to where they came from...I probably could have been more successful, if I stayed on as a staff member there...But you know the people that stay on can never leave, because if they leave they'd be lost.They just can't make it on their own." he observed.

Norberto observes " It's a place (Elan) that turns a person from negative into positive. " He says it helped him become more aware of the world, and declares: "When I think about selling drugs to make money, that's not negative stuff. A sin is only something you feel guilty about..."

Stopping for a moment and musing Noberto observed: "But I think there was one thing that Joe Ricci never really saw: a lot of people looked up to him, a lot of people wanted to be close to Joe, and I don't think Joe knew that he broke a lot of hearts. You write that in your book. You just say it like I said it. I don't think Joe knew that he was breaking these hearts."

Speaking about Joe he declared emphatically: "Joe is successful, and nobody can take that from him. People can call him a mobster or they can call him a druggie, but they can't hurt him. You know why ? He's got the bank account, and he can beat anyone. Joe is the smartest man I know. You can write a book about Joe, but he might write a book to undo whatever you say."

***

The dispute between Joe and Gerry waged on during the summer of 1989 with Tom Cox reviewing the track's financial records, and assembling affadavits that would substantiate claims. They even hired a private investigator who conducted interviews with former employees and others.

Joe hired the law firm of Friedman and Babcock to represent him, but the relationship allegedly lasted only three days before he moved on to a different law firm." I think they (Friedman and Babcock) canned him..." observed Cox "because he wouldn't let them do what they promised me they'd do."

Yet in mid August, Gerry dropped the suit he filed against Joe in May, but hinted in the press that he might file other charges if a settlement with Joe did not occur.

By the summer of 1989 I had interviewed hundreds of people who knew Joe Ricci, and decided it was time to talk to Joe himself. Letters to both Joe and John Campbell proved fruitless, so I decided to make a trip to Scarborough Downs.

On September 22nd, the second last night of the 1989 racing season, I went to the track, accompanied by my husband and Eric Moynihan. I wanted to go quietly in a non-confrontive manner, and see if Joe would consider speakingwith me. I knew it was a risky proposition, that he could become agitated, and have us escorted off the premises.

The prospect of seeing both the track, and Joe in a different context nearly two and a half years after walking away at the convention in Waterville was interesting. Previously I only had my own experience as a frame of reference. But by then I was beginning to piece together the many elements in the peculiar puzzle.

Soon after we took a seat at a table in the upper clubhouse, Joe arrived at the bar, and began shaking hands with some of the patrons. Then he headed our way, leaned over the railing that separated our table from the bar, and greeted us with a nod of the head, declaring: "The story never ends."

Looking directly at me he said: "I like the title of your book. (mentioned in MAINE TIMES that March ) It took me a couple of weeks to figue out what it meant, but it's very creative. You write the book, and Davidson will pay for it." "Not a penny." I answered, thinking he thought Davidson was a funding source. "I'm not talking dollars and cents," he said, and walked away.

Five minutes later Joe appeared on the otherside of the railing, direcly in front of our table. Pulling up a chair, he asked if we'd mind if he sat down.

During the course of the next hour and a half, he left the table, and returned three times, expessing a full range of emotions, though all seemed a bit suppressed. First and foremost he wanted to know about Port Chester, and I didn't pull any punches.

" Nobody would talk to you..." he declared triumphantly, but I countered with questions, about his life, relating what I'd learned from interviews. At times he became conversational asking me questions like whether I knew he worked at Neilsen's Luncheonette one summer.

When I relayed Victor Donato's comments at Don Bosco, and asked whether he had indeed dated his social science teacher, he smiled.

But he frowned when I mentioned Arnold Bakery, and the union president who mantained he did not start the union there: "That's not true." he said.

Eric, who later told me he had trouble containing his anger in Joe's presence, asked him about his suit against Bob Dow, and how he expected to get $20 million from him. "I don't... " Joe answered calmly." The suit is not about money...I want to have him on the stand and tell all he knows."

I decided to ask about Dr Pet who gave him his first job at DARTEC 20 years earlier, even though Joe hadn't even graduated from his rehabilitation program. He declared: "I never said I graduated to anyone." (Elan promotional materials refer to Joe Ricci as a graduate of Daytop, and Joe told reporters he "graduated with flying colors")

I mentioned that Dr. Pet had observed that he had a way of "being extremely convincing, making others see his way and do his bidding. Joe's eyes, narrowed and he declared: "I've always pulled my own wagon."

When Eric went to the restroom, just Joe, Dan and I were left at the table, and Joe turned to Dan and said: "We never got along. I don't know why. But I want to say when I ran for governor -- no matter what happened before or after-- that was a highlight of my life."

Remembering Joe's first cousin's request (if you ver get through to Joe tell him Andrea said 'Hi, I'm still alive' ) I relayed her message, and expressed her fond memories of playing music with him in the attic.

Rather than enjoying this recollection, he emphatically denied it. "It's impossible..." he pronounced. "Andrea is much younger than I am. She was only about two when I was a teenager." Then with a nasty look on his face he referred to her as a 'junky' who didn't know what she was saying. (Andrea is exactly eight years younger than Joe. She was 11 years old when Joe was still at Port Chester High.)

During the last trip to our table Joe was accompanied by a woman he introduced as Katherine Ralston, an employee of Scarborough Downs who had also acompanied him to the Burnstein-Shur trial that spring. He identified her as a former journalism major at Marquette University, and said that they were writing a book together called A Matter Of Convenience that would depict the terrible injustices in the world. Katherine seemed extremely tense. When I asked her how she met Joe he interrupted, and instructed her not to answer my question.

Before leaving the table for the last time he told all of us that the track had been sold. When we observed that we hadn't read anything about it in the papers he simply stated: "Trust me...It's a done deal." He also said that he was leaving Maine the next week, and moving to Long Island. Bidding us farewell he wished me well with the book saying he hoped I'd make a lot of money (I told him it was not written for cash, but "for the enlightenment of the people of Maine") He said he'd do an interview after the book was out "to help sales" and urged me to " use a good picture on the cover. "

***

Bob Dow was reportedly devastated by Joe’s lawsuit against him. His relationship with Charlie Day also deteriorated, and it was agreed he would not be returning to Lewiston Raceway in the fall. The prospect of having to face a legal battle wih Joe was emotionally and financially terrifying.

Realizing Bob’s fragile state, Joe stepped in and offered him a deal he could hardly refuse. He told Dow he would drop his defamation suit if he provided information that would help him nail the racing commission. Dow accepted the offer, and agreed to meet with a represenative of the attorney general’s office and give testimony about his relations between commissioners and Lewiston Raceway.

On November 3rd he agreed to three hours of videotaped questioning by John Campbell in an Augusta hotel room. While sucking a lolipop Dow appeared on camera and did a surprising about face totally changing his previous testimony. This was oddly reminiscent of Anthony 'Toy' Fischer. Fischer told state police in 1985 that he had been hired to transport an Elan file taken from the Department of Human Services to Joe's attorney's office for copying. But in spring of 1986 he changed his story, and underwent audiotaped questioning from John Campbell saying people out to get Joe gave him the file. He also told his second story to Allan Maraynes, and the 60 MINUTES camera. But his about face never aired, because Maraynes received conflicting testimony from the Maine State police, and was troubled by it.

Dow talked into the camera about the on going feud between Lewiston Raceway and Scarborough Downs, observing that Charlie Day, and Joe’s partner Gerry Davidson thought Joe was crazy, and wanted him to be sent to a sanitarium.

Two weeks later, armed with a cardboard box full of copies of Dow’s tape, Joe railed into a meeting of the racing commision and said he wanted to present evidence of improper conduct between present and former members of the commission and Maine racetracks. He asked the five commisioners to review the tape made by Dow, but the commission refused. They said it would be improper of them to review the tape since the attorney general’s office had already been called in to investigate. Joe, who had been savoring this confrontation was incensed that he could not play the tape for the commsisioners.

”Please be a gentleman and don’t embarrass yourself and this commission.“ chairman McHale told him. But snarling Joe responded: “You can’t embarrass yourself fighting for your civil rights.“ He declared: “I’ll see you in court, I’ve got the videotape and nothing can prevent it from coming out.” He called the commission “a travesty" and “a disgrace.”

Later talking to the press Joe stated that he had given copies of the infamous Dow tape to the attorney general's office, and to the FBI.

Joe’s latest bombshell achieved the desired results. Pending the attorney general’s investigtion the race date hearings for the 1990 harness racing meet were indefinitely put on hold. During the ensuing weeks, Joe was as vocal as ever keeping the story alive.

Lewiston was scheduled to open in February but in Janaury the 1990 racing dates had yet to be assigned. Behind the scenes Joe had initiated a movement that would have the legislature assign the dates rather than the racing commission. He was in touch with a state senator, Bonnie Titcomb. She was a senator from Casco who had catapulted to the legislature after her involvement with C.A.N.T (Citizen's Against Nuclear Trash) which in 1986 opposed the D.O.E.’s site selection process for a waste dump in Maine.

Joe had gotten to know her during his gubernatorial campaign, having attended a few C.A.N.T meetings at her home. And in the midst of all this controversy she sponsored a bill that called for a special commission to study the harness racing industry.

Meanwhile Dow, who had asked the attorney general’s office for immunity from prosecution, submitted sworn statements saying that he had called racing commision chairman George McHale at Charlie Day’s request to discuss the race date allocations prior to the hearing. (Ex partie communications among commissioners and or track officials to discuss commission business is prohibited.)

By January the 1990 dates, were in limbo, and the attorney general’s office stated that its investigation was still not complete. In a move that surprised everyone, Charlie Day threatened that if the matter wasn’t soon settled, he wouldn't open for the Feburary 1990 meet.

Soon he stunned everyone on January 12th when he withdrew his application for his track's 1990 dates stating, "an increasing crescendo of intimidation tactics on the part of Scarborough Downs" made operation of Lewiston Raceway no longer feasible because of the costs associated with fending off attacks by Joe.

Joe was ecstatic, and said he’d salvage the industry by racing year round. Subsequently, on January 23rd one of the most lowkey date hearings of the decade was finally held at the Augusta Civic Center, awarding dates spanning March 3rd to December 16th to Scarborough Downs.

Joe was triumphant. After ten years of fighting with Lewiston Raceway, he had finally worn Charlie Day down enough to drop out of the business.

Horsemen were relieved that they at least knew when they would be racing, but many felt leaving the $40 Million harness racing industry in Joe Ricci’s hands might signal the end of racing in Maine.

After the dates were announced those present applauded. But one horsemen observed: “It was like clapping at a funeral.”

Chapter Thirty Three

Psychopath

It wasn’t until after February of 1990 that I got time to pore over Gerry Davidson’s recommended reading that he said would provide the necessary insight into his partner’s personality. CULTURE OF NARCISSISM, By Christopher Lasch, MASK OF SANITY, by Hervey Cleckley M.D., and a medical text titled, THE CRIMINAL PERSONALITY, all delved into the study of the psychopathic personality disorder.

Published in 1982, by the Mosby Medical Library, the back cover of the MASK OF SANITY alone was ominous. It read:

“Arrogant, shameless, immoral, impulsive, antisocial, superficial, alert, self assured, boastful, callous, remorseless, charming, irresponsible: This is the poisonous mix of traits that make up the psychopathic personality...” (This Book ) “...stands as the definitive presentation of all we know and can do about this disruptive, destructive, alarmingly widespread personality type." “For everyone who must deal with such human beings in hospitals or courts of law, and for all whose lives are grieviously affected by them, THE MASK OF SANITY is essential to understanding their mystery, their power, their menace.”

THE MASK OF SANITY is full of case studies, yet the author laments this method of transmitting information about this personality disorder. Cleckley maintains that the most satisfactory way the material could be presented would be ”...in a series of full length biographic studies, written by one who had full access to the life of the subject.” He writes: “...that no brief case summary or orthodox psychiatric history can succeed in portraying the character and behavior of these people as they appear day after day, year after year...The impersonal and necessarily abstracted picture of these psychopaths in a purely clinical setting fails to show them as they appear in the flesh and blood, and in the process of living...To know them adequately one must try to see them not merely with the physician’s calm and relatively detached eye, but also with the eye of an ordinary man on the streets, whom they confound and amaze."

Reading this I began to understand why Gerry was so enthusiastic about a portrait chronicalling Joe’s dealings with people since he was a youth in Port Chester. Davidson was also a fan of psychodramas like FATAL VISION, and THE NUTCRACKER.

***

THE CRIMINAL PERSONALITY, a medical text Davidson loaned me, lists what researchers consider the ten most prominent features in the diagnosis of a psychopath:

1. does not profit from experience

2. lacks sense of responsibility

3. is unable to form meaningful relationships

4. lacks control over impulses

5. lacks moral sense

6. is chronically or recurrently anti social

7. fails to have punishment alter behavior

8. is emotionally immature

9. is unable to experience guilt

10. is self centered

It further describes psychopaths as "sensation seekers” who do not respect the laws, manners or mores of society. It says that their irresponsibility becomes apparent everywhere the better one knows them, and that “even actions that appear responsible are often means to self serving ends.”

This book focuses heavily on the insincerity and lack of truthfulness among psychopaths, and quotes Cleckley's view: “During the most solemn perjuries he has no difficulty at all in looking anyone tranquilly in the eyes...” It says a psychopath’s lying "...is so pervasive that some observers have characterized him as being “unable” to tell the truth.

In describing in detail other traits of the psychopath, this medical text cites a person who “...requires immediate gratification...has a high degree of egocentricity, lack of empathy and downright callousness toward others.” Another well agreed upon characteristic is that they “...fault others when held accountable...They are masters at rationalizing, which often takes the form of casting blame...”

It explains that people with this personality disorder often are above average in intelligence, have rapidly changing moods, and “emerge from pessimism to buoyancy by setting out on yet another “adventure.”

Of special interest, this book notes that people from other groups who are not necessarily pschyopaths exhibit some of their traits. These two groups were identified as assassins, and allienated youths.

Reading this information provided by the psychiatrist about his partner—a man who is the executive director at a school for troubled adolescents--was astounding, especially in view of Elan's promotional materials which have stated:

The most important thing residents can take away from Elan is the improvement of interpersonal relationship skills...The Elan resident is ready for graduation from the program when it has been demonstrated that he or she can consistently be productive, honest, and non-exploitive. We expect Elan graduates to behave with self control, even when frustrated, and to use their new knowledge to solve the problems of living.

***

Many former Elan residents from Illinois mentioned Dr.Marvin Schwartz as the doctor responsible for their time spent there. Ken Zaretsky, a graduate and former staffer, refers to Schwartz as “Mr Adolescent Illinois," and says that he believes Schwartz benefited from his referrals to Elan, and singlehandedly was responsible for its success.

Schwartz, who is now president of AAP Mental Health Resources in the Chicago area, is both a psychiatrist and an attorney, who has appeared on the Phil Donahue Show. Most of his comments concerning Joe and Elan were for the record, but this doctor-lawyer says he doesn't feel comfortable having some tements on the record.He repeatedly searched for what he terms “safe quotes,” remarking that it is a bit difficilt to talk as both a physican and lawyer, occupations that can be at odds.

Schwartz explains that he and Gerry Davidson went to medical school together, and that he initially lent Joe and Gerry the money to keep Elan going. He admits that his practice group was a major referral source, and his relationship with the Illinois school districts helped Elan secure additional referrals from that state.

But he denies he benefited financially from the referrals he made to Elan, and says: “Accepting any form of payment would have been unethical...” He did, however, receive some "small consulting fees...but nothing proportionate to the large amount of referrals..."Basically...“ he says, “Gerry was a friend.”

But for Schwartz becoming “disenchanted“ with Elan is “sort of an understatement...” and reveals that he no longer refers anyone there. He said following the charges of abuse by the Illinois Divison of Child and Family services, he ”certainly had concerns as to the need for responsible behavior. Let’s leave it at that.”

Describing the program to which he referred so many teenagers he observes: "When it started it presented reasonably high quality care...it was an interesting example of a horizonatal peer treatment model...” But he adds: “It never developed adequately, from my standpoint, the type of professional staffing I would have preferred...If all staff are former patients, this develops problems with professional training.”

Despite Elan’s astounding financial successes, Schwartz states that there was “nothing creative and certainly nothing new about Elan...” declaring: “The question is whether the essentially modified AA self help model is sufficient to deal with the complex issues of children and families...certainly the need to simultaneously introduce professionalism would have been appropriate.”

Speaking about Joe and Gerry, and why the partnership endured for so long, Schwartz says emphatically: “I never understood that.”

Talking about Joe personally, and his being a role model for young boys and girls, Schwartz carefully chooses his words, explaining again his difficulties in speaking. He says: ”The tragedy is that Joe is a very bright guy...I had hoped that the two of them (Joe and Gerry) would develop something that could continue to be quality. I’m not sure what happened.”

When I mention the MASK OF SANITY, Schwartz seems very relieved and says: “Ok...then you understand.” We talk more about role models, and I ask whether he thought Joe was a positive role model for adolescents in the early days when he was helping build the place. His intial answer, and future statements, are telling. He says: "Joe was a good role model to the degree that he was an individual who had been in difficulty and rehabilitated himself. He conveyed the potential for rehabilitation.” But when I point out that Joe never graduated from his own rehabilitation program he declares: ”Well that’s the interesting issue....You’re raising the question with me as to 'what degree was he rehabilitated?’ to which I could not comment could I?”

I received a flurry of phone calls from Gerry Davidson during the first two months of 1990. The calls would come at the oddest of hours as early as 6am, and at night after 10pm. He would ask me to call him as soon as possible. But when I returned the calls, he was often initially apprehensive about talking on the phone, and suggested we get together in person at a later date. Despite any trepidations about tallking, some of these calls were lengthly, as Gerry detailed the current status of his battles with Joe, and offered insight into Joe’s actions.

During the first week of January, Joe sent Gerry a letter on racetrack stationary firing him as Elan’s Medical Director, a positon he held since Elan’s beginning in May of1971. The letter directed Gerry “not to set foot on corporate property without first making an appointment.”

Purportedly Joe had the authority to do this, based upon his controlling share of Golden Ark Enterprises which encompassed the various houses at Elan-two through eight, established as separate corporations for tax purposes. Elan one, the administrative center, had been the owner of Elan’s physical plant.

On January 16th,1990 Gerry filed another suit against Joe, this one in U.S. District Court, stating that his negotiations to resolve their disputes had broken down. He charged that Joe was redirecting some of Elan one’s assets, primarily the student contracts, to the other corporate entities under his control, while burdening Elan one with expenses which should be charged to the racetrack, and Joe personally. It stated that because of these actions Elan one was no longer able to pay its debts as they became due. The suit asked that Joe account to Elan one, and make restitution for all the monies properly belonging to it.

The suit also put forth a series of options for intervention by the court which included directing the sale of Elan one to either partner at fair value of the corporate shares, or a single puchaser, removing Joe as executive director of Elan, and appointment of a receiver or trustee to take control of the corporation “not only for the protection of Davidson’s financial interests, but for the protection of the students enrolled at the Elan School.”

During this period Joe allegedly instructed Elan employees not to furnish Gerry with any corporate information.

On January 24th Gerry sent the following letter on Elan letterhead to parents of Elan students, employees, and state and private referral sources:

Dear Elan Parent, Staff Member and Referring Source:

There have been ongoing disagreements between me and Mr. Ricci about matters at Elan One. We have been negotiating for more than four weeks to resolve this. Until a few weeks ago we seemed to be reaching an agreement whereby I would become sole owner on December 1 and, indeed, I had been arranging financing, staffing, and affiliations with other institutions for the school.

Unfortunately, negotioations appear to have totally broken down, and Mr Ricci has announced that he has fired me as Medical Director. Thus, I have been left with no choice but to seek a judicial resolution.

The point of this letter is to inform you that I and my attorneys are trying to resolve this problem as soon as possible without needless worry from you. I will not give newspaper interviews, and will carefully try to avoid publicity, and the trading of accusations in public, because I believe that such actions can only harm Elan and all of its people.

One of the factors which has led to my disagreements with Mr. Ricci is my feeling that Elans' ”concept” is becoming progressiviely diluted under his management and that as a result the school’s singular advantages over other programs are being diminished. Elan has the potential to and should be the leader in its field. I want very much to see that potential realized through the restoration of the school’s program to its former vitality. That can only happen if the present issues are resolved.

Whatever happens, I want to let you know that my first concern is for the integrity, and continuation of the Elan philosophy and technology. I do not want twenty years of uniquely creative work, work that never was accomplished anywhere else by anyone else, to be lost. I intend through my efforts in court, and otherwise to do everything possible to continue the important work of Elan One, and ask you to continue to have faith in our efforts while the present difficulties are being resolved..

Sincerely,

Gerald E. Davidson MD

Medical Director.

About two weeks later on February 9th Gerry spoke about his frustrations on the phone. He said he had been working at Elan up until that day when he filed another action asking for a temporary restraining order from Joe. He told me that Joe had sent out a letter to counter his correspondence which read in part:

I apologize for the fact that Dr Davidson has inappropriately chosen to involve you in Elan’s financial matters. Dr. Davidson and I ocassionally have, and are currently having disagreement, but these do not and will not be allowed to affect the quality of care. Dr. Davidson will continue on the Board of Directors, but will no longer act as Medical Director, in large part due to his failing health. An announcement will be made in the near future regarding the new Medical Director for the Elan school.

I personally assure you that I intend to maintian the integrity and philosophy of Elan as I have done for the past twenty years. Again, Dr. Davidson’s choice of involving you in this matter is unfair to you, and I sincerely apologize for any anxiety this may have caused...”

During this conversation Gerry called Joe “a bonafide psychopath,” and said he was “crazy as a coot.”

He talked a bit about the Bob Dow affair, and the on going investigation by the attorney general's office. He said he was enraged by the tape John Campbell had released of Dow which among other sweeping allegations said that Gerry was conspiring with Charlie Day to get Joe committed. He said: “I called Poulos and I said I want this nonsense stopped. I don’t mind Campbell pimping for Joe, but I certainly want him to stop doing things which cause me trouble.” He indicated that Poulos was “furious“ at John Campbell for some of his antics.”

Davidson observed: “Campbell knows Joe is crazy. He’s said it many times. He laughs at him. When he used to talk to me, he’d laugh about the plot of stealing the Downs for the ethanol plant etc, but when Joe wants him to do something, he panders to Joe’s insanity, and I think that is reprehensible in a professional man.” He said he was considering making a complaint to the bar association.

"I think Campbell gets caught up in Joe’s reality..." he said, observing that "Joe has a mesmerizing folie a` deux...” He explained that this psychiatric disorder is an interaction between two people: “One of them is crazy and very domineering, and then you get someone else who is relatively passive but sane, and believes the fantasies of the domineering crazy person...” "When you get a whole band of people who get caught up in a domineering crazy person’s reality..." he said, “...then you get the Nazi party, or Jim Jones and things like that.”

Gerry mentioned this book and said it should focus on: “...the perversion of professional standards by lawyers dealing with people like Joe.”

Listening to Gerry I couldn’t help but wonder if he didn’t realize that he may have been guilty of the very ’perversion of professional standards' and 'folie a' deux' he accused John Campbell of.

How could he have allowed the man he called “a bonafide psychopath” to continue as a role model for impressionable teenagers for nearly two decades?

Liz Mendez* was a resident at Elan from 1981 until she left in 1984. It wasn’t until February of 1990 that she contacted me, an hour after I finished speaking with Gerry. She told me she had been in Boston for the past year and a half to “get away from Joe Ricci because I thought he was going to come after me.”

She said her therapist had been involved in “debriefing some ex-Elan residents” and told me: “she gets really fired up about what I tell her about the place... but even if she went to check out what goes on there it wouldn’t work. Anybody who drops in without notice, won’t be allowed in, and if you go as a guest, they’ll change everything around so that nobody will see what normally goes on. You’d have to be a fly on the wall .”

She observed: “At Elan Joe is like God. He’s got all his staff like Sharon and Alice running around kissing his feet... “ Liz says she didn’t have an intimate relationship with Joe. (She stated that with short black hair and glasses she wasn’t his type. She noted he went for the tall blondes who would drive the sports cars he bought for them) Instead she calls Joe her ‘sugar daddy’ who would buy her things, like the $120 pair of designer boots she still had.

She said he also paid for her tuition at Andover College, but was angry with her for not pursuing business instead of the psychology courses which she preferred. She observed: “He thought all this psychiatric psychologcal stuff was a piece of crap.”

She hated the business courses, but after leaving Elan still went back twice a month to talk to Joe or Sharon about her progress at college. Finally, she had enough of business, and decided to drop out which made Joe furious. She said during one phone conversation he accused her of ‘hustling‘ him saying: “If you actually think that someone who took on a multi-million corporation like Key Bank, is a self made millionaire, and who can deal with the wheeler and dealers of the world, can be hustled by a puny 21year old girl, then you’re wrong.”

*not real name

After leaving college she said she began fearing for her life, because she thought he would track her down, like he did the Elan residents who dared to run away.

Summing up her relationship with him she said: “For a while I thought Joe was just everything. I thought he was this benevolent, caring rich sugar daddy...But I think he had motives for what he did.”

Referring to Elan as being “like a cult," she noted that ”...literally you don’t get to see people from the outside world for months and months on end. It’s like brainwashing. You begin to think that’s all there is, because you either do what they want to survive, or you don’t make it...Getting on Joe’s good side was the whole name of the game...Joe had favorites, and if he liked you you’d get anything you want, cars, clothes, you name it. But the flip side of that coin is that it takes the slightest little thing to piss him off, and if he gets mad at you, forget it, because he just doesn’t forgive.”

Pausing for a moment in her narrative, Liz declared: “I just wish I could stop other people from being sent to Elan, I really wish I could...But it all seems a little hopeless.”

***

Gerry Davidson’s phone call woke me before 7am on February 27th. Wide awake he wanted to get together that evening to chat and get back the book he lent me. When I arrived at his Portlandbrownstone condominium that night, he was alone and seemed tense, anxious to listen to what my research had revealed about his partner. My purpose was to return his copy of THE CRIMINAL PERSONALITY, and find out what was happening in the ongoing dispute with Joe. I wanted to determine if Gerry could really wrestle Elan from Joe as he told me repeatedly he was trying to do “for the good of everyone. “

At the Hi Bombay Indian restaurant around the corner we engaged in small talk, and eventually I learned that Gerry and Joe had met earlier that afternoon to try ”one last ditch effort at settling the dispute” but that it had not gone well.

I asked about Joe’s use of drugs particularly prescription ones, and if Gerry prescribed them. “Some...” he answered volunteering nothing. We talked again about psychopathic behavior. I asked how he could have justified staying with Joe as long as he did. Didn’t he as a psychiatrist who had taught at Harvard know better? He stared at me, and changed the subject, talking about his favorite Indian food, and the art work of Jackson Pollack, comparing it to the music of John Cage.

Finally, toward dinner's end I realized why he wanted to meet me when he asked if I’d mind visiting Tom Cox within the next couple of days, before a scheduled court hearing set for March 6th. “just to talk to him” But I explained that as a journalist I had to remain an observer.

He blinked, but seemed to take my comments in stride. As he drove me back to my car, he repeated much of what he had said during the past year about my impending book, calling it "an important project" that he hoped would "illustrate the dangers of a person like Joe” so people could be “forewarned.”

***

There were numerous other meetings and phone calls in February of 1990. One evening was spent at the home of Joe’s ex-wife Sherry. It became a visit which lasted until 3am in which many ghosts were resurrected. In respect for her family’s privacy (and her fear of reprisal from everything we discussed that evening) the conversations will remain off the record.But I must say I had some chilling realizations heading home on the still streets of Falmouth.

I thought about Joe's actions that over the years have affected so many people, like an insidious virus.

On March 7th I hadn’t heard from Gerry, and decided to find out directly from Tom Cox how the hearing in court had gone the previous day. Tom was genial, and calm over the phone, explaining that there hadn’t been a hearing.

He happilly relayed that Joe finally agreed to a settlement. (I was under the impression that Gerry had gotten Elan to reshape as he wanted, with Joe having Scarborough Downs) Tom said it was some of the toughest negotiations he had ever gone through, but it was finally over.Then he remarked that he wasn’t certain what Gerry was going to be doing in the future. It was then that I learned the surprising turn of the tides.

Somehow Joe had come up without enough money to buy rather than be bought out by Gerry. He was becoming the sole owner of both Elan and Scarborough Downs.

Dumbfounded I hung up the receiver, realizing that in just two months, Joe had gotten the complete autonomy he wanted over Elan, Scarborough Downs, and over Maine’s harness racing. I started to call Gerry but hung up, trying to make some sense from the bizarre turn of events.

***

Gerry and I never talked again...Instead I received a certified letter in the mail the next day. It read:

Ms. Maura Curley

M. Curley Communication

Route 321 Box 9715

Portland, Me, 04104

March 8, 1990

Dear Ms. Curley,

I hereby request that you not publish any book concerning Mr. Joseph Ricci. I further hereby state that I have not told you that Mr. Ricci is a psychopath, and I demand that you not publish any such statement as attributable to me and that you immediately retract any such statement previously made by you.

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation in this regard.

Very truly yours,

Gerald E. Davidson M.D.

cc: Edward S. MacColl Esq.

The notation at the bottom of the page that a carbon copy of the letter had been sent to Edward S. MacColl Esq, Joe’s attorney (who had been handling his dispute with Gerry) was revealing.

Apparently Gerry’s letter to me was part of the deal in which, for the agreed upon price, he handed over full control to Joe.

Epilogue: A few final words

Over the years, Joe Ricci has proven himself to be a far better plaintiff than defendant.

A lawsuit against Elan, Joe, Gerry and the state of Maine brought by former Elan resident Betheny Berry was finally settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Berry filed her civil suit charging abuse in 1987 after an earlier investigation by the state of Maine ( stemming from her 1983 complaint) showed no evidence of wrong doing. This 26 year old woman was 16 years year old when she claimed she was abducted and taken to Elan where she remained for nearly two years until her 18th birthday. She charged a repeated pattern of physical and emotional abuse which included deprivation of food and sleep, and assault and battery.( Former Elan resident and staff member, Tom Agos remembers Betheny as having been treated “very badly”, and says he’s not proud to have played a role in that treatment).

Former controller Martha Amesbury’s suit, like that of former Scarborough Downs judge Dick Herman,was settled at the 11th hour on the day it was scheduled for trial. In a pre -settlement conversation with me, Martha revealed she was devastated by the lies Joe told about her in his countersuit, and said: "Joe would just be cutting his own throat to get me on the stand and say all the dirt tht I’m going to say about him.” This 'dirt' allegedly included information that might be of interest to the IRS.

His much preferred role as plaintiff netted Joe $1.2 million from his former lawyers Burnstein, Shur, Sawyer, and Nelson. It also allowed him to extract testimony from Robert Dow which contributed to the closing of Lewiston Raceway. (It should be noted that in separate subsequent investigations both the law firm, Lewiston Raceway and the racing commission were cleared of wrongdoing by state authorities.)

Joe’s shenanigans with Dow caused his former lawyers, Claudia Sharon and Stephanie Anderson to be investigated for misconduct for meeting with Dow and offering him money, without contacting his attorney. Both lawyers were eventually cleared and Stephanie Anderson went on to be elected District Attorney for Cumberland County in the fall of 1990.

In January 1991 a complaint detailing threats of physical violence by Joe was made by Rick Kane, former race secretary and the former stall manager, Howie Manoian at Scarborough Downs. The Scarborough police investigated the charges via trips to the track, took affadavits from witnesses and believed the allegations were serious enough to forward them to Anderson’s office for possible prosecution. Yet no further action was ever taken.

Anderson maintains that her office had no conflict of interest in handling this case, though Joe is a former client and contributed money to her campaign for district attorney. She explains that her office is frequently in the position to prosecute former clients, relatives or friends. When a conflict occurs “a Chinese wall” is put up which means the person with the conflict is not involved in any decisions concening the case in question.

In the instance of the recent complaints from the former Scarborough Down's employees, Lawrence Gardiner, who has worked in the district attorney's office for eight years, said he chose not seek an indictment for criminal threatening, or terrorizing because he believed the liklihood of getting a conviction in front of a jury (his criteria for indictment ) was remote. He felt a jury would have found Joe’s comments just an example of his hyperbole which has become legendary in the Portland press. What tipped the scales in his decison not to prosecute was a customer who witnessed Joe ‘s threats made in the clubhouse bar and thought the scene had a “humorous element." He believed the jury would view it the same way, and says: " You can't ignore his persona."

District Attorney Anderson says she “ still considers Joe a friend” but is furious at those who charge her friendship with Joe would prevent her from prosecuting him for illegal behavior if it was warranted. She hopes that people won’t believe that Joe Ricci (who she says just contributed $900 to her campaign) can control the district attorney’s office.

In a lengthy conversation Anderson seems candid in her observations of Joe who admittedly could be a difficult client. Regarding her role in the Dow affair she says: “ To this day I don’t know if Dow was set up, or I was set up, or what.”

She said she was surprised to learn that Joe and Sharon Terry somehow met with Dow at the Ramada Inn after she and Claudia Sharon had their meeting at J’s Oyster Bar, remarking: “The whole thing was very bizarre.”

***

During the course of writing this book many people have charged Joe with a pattern of drug abuse which reportedly continues. Some have said they’ve made similar charges to public officials overseeing drug investigations in this state. Yet conversations with U.S. Attorney Richard Cohen and former District Attorney Paul Aranson indicate no knowledge of such complaints. Aranson recalls just dealing with the Scarborough police regarding “security issues” at Scarborough Downs, but admits: "When you’re dealing with someone like him you have to to be careful how you proceed, make sure you dot your I’s and cross your T’s.”

Despite Joe’s allegations that state officials, have been “out to get” him with a wide ranging conspiracy, research for this book reveals quite the contrary...The extensive investigations into Elan in 1983 were the results of individual complaints, and were warranted, though the attorney general's office found no wrongdoing.

Gerry Davidson contended that Joe was responsible for the “perversion of professional standards” by the varied lawyers he hired to do his bidding. But can’t it be argued that Joe has demonstrated the ability to have others pervert their professions as well?

What about medical school classmates psychiatrists Gerry Davidson and Marvin Schwartz who provided credibility to a ‘therapeutic community’ for which Joe Ricci was the role model? What about the judges, and parole officers who gave kids ‘their last chance’ at Elan, or risk going to jail, a fate inmate Stephen Smith said is far preferable to Joe’s Ricci’s bunker in the Maine woods? And what of social workers who sentenced kids to Elan whose only crime was being orphans, and thereby wards of the state.?

Finally, what of the normally vigilant press who simply printed sweeping statements from Joe as if they were based in fact? Even the veritable NEW YORK TIMES was not imune when it stated in 1987 that Joe’s philanthropic center for consitutional law was already operational. All it ever had was an empty office with a phone that rang and rang.

60 MINUTES, thought to be the premier investigative news show in the world, told an accurate enough story of Joe’s suit against the bank. But weren’t there serious errors of ommision? And what about the reference to Elan as one of the most prestigious adolescent programs in the country? Just Joe saying it didn’t make it any truer than Elan's inflated claims of a 80 % success rate which was disproven by the state of Rhode Island..

Advertising, marketing, and public relations is in itself a profession dedicated to putting things in their best most possible light. In that sense, during my stint working for Joe, I did what I was paid to do. But the truth wasn't served by making sure Joe Ricci told his story of victimization on 60 MINUTES. Like the Elan staffers (who admitted to abusing residents, saying they didn’t realize what they were doing at the time) I, too, plead ignorance.

In light of all the above it should not be surprising that the movie industry with its penchant for making things larger than life has been targeted for the making of a myth about Joe Ricci.

Just as this book was scheduled for publication Judge Watson, who presided over Joe’s multi million dollar lawsuit against Key Bank, sent me a copy of a screenplay titled : A MAN CALLED JOE which had been sent to him for his comments. This script depicts Joe Ricci as a quintessential crusader for justice.

Judge Watson and Bob Axelrod (Joe’s attorney for the Key Bank trial) who spent days with the scriptwriter at Joe’s request, both indicated that the "60 MINUTES people" were involved in this screenplay.

Recalling Allan Maraynes comments in the cafeteria of CBS when he joked about getting the film rights to Joe’s story, I attempted to contact him at ABC’s 20/20 show where he now works as a producer.

Ironically more than two hundred people including Joe’s relatives, his ex wife, employees, lawyers and even a federal judge have willingly talked to me for this book, yet Maraynes who himself is an investigative journalist refused to let me know whether Watson's and Axelrod's observations were accurate.

Numerous calls to his office asking about his involvement in this film project resulted in only a terse letter that stated he was not interested in being interviewed for a book concerning Joseph Ricci. In a letter to the publisher he wrote:

...”I shall take very seriously any portrayal of me , either as a reporter while at CBS, or as a private individual in the years after I left CBS. I will take very seriously any impression left by the book that the relationship I had with Mr. Ricci or any of his associates... was anything other than ethical or legitimate while as an employee or CBS or again in the years after I left.”

(Ironically, this is the same producer who told me that people who refuse to appear on the 60 MINUTES camera or submit to an interview look guilty of something even if they are not)

In researching and writing this book there have been surprises around many corners, and receiving a copy of a ficticious script about Joe with the news that it may be sanctioned by a former producer at 60 MINUTES was just another one .

What surprises me more than anything else is that Elan will be celebrating its 20th anniversary this month, and Joe Ricci is still functioning as a role model for troubled adolescents, and growing richer doing it.

Perhaps state prison inmate, Norberto Brice, was right when he said: “ You can do what you want, but Joe Ricci has money in the bank.... He’ll beat anybody. Joe Ricci is the smartest man I ever met..”

Maybe the observations of Joe’s attorney, Bob Axelrod, are more omininous. He predicts that in five, ten , fifteen or more years down the road: ”If Joe is still alive, he’ll be doing exactly what he’s doing today.”

Maura Curley

May, 1991

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