November 8, 2020 – Springfield mob figure Frank (The Shark) Depergola walked out of prison four months early on a compassionate release issued by U.S. District Court Timothy Hillman out of Worcester, Massachusetts last week. Hillman believed Depergola had age and health issues that placed him at an increased risk of contracting COVID-19.
The 64-year old Depergola was scheduled to be released from his four-year sentence as a result of a 2017 racketeering conviction in March. He did federal prison time in the 2000s on an extortion case.
Depergola, a longtime bookie and loanshark in the Western Massachusetts’ underworld, was close to slain Springfield mob boss Adolfo (Big Al) Bruno and was acting as Bruno’s driver the nigh he was gunned down in November 2003 at the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Society Social Club in the city’s South End. Bruno had been feuding with subordinates in his crew and mob leaders in New York City.
Several of Bruno’s former men have ascended to the higher ranks of the Springfield mob crew, a decades-old faction of New York’s Genovese crime family, in the years after his assassination. The social club remains the epicenter of the city’s mob crew, per sources.
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