Where’s Mary?

Mary Tassone has attended court every weekday for the past 10 years, but for more than two months now her reserved seat in Judge Lageux’s courtroom has been empty.

“Court room Mary, we call her,” said Special Deputy U.S. Marshal Tony Medeiros while monitoring the sidewalk. “She hasn’t been around at least a couple months.”

Medeiros and the other marshals patrol the perimeter of the federal courthouse in downtown Providence. None of them remember a day without Mary until this past holiday season, when she stopped coming. She had been attending court before any of them started working there.

“I heard she had a few heart attacks,” said one marshal who would declined to give his name. “She’s alright though,” he added with a smile.

“She’ll be back on the courthouse circuit in a few weeks,” said Stu Kenett, a marshal who confirmed that Mary has reserved seating in multiple courtrooms. “She’s a nice old lady,” he said.

Tassone, a retired floral designer, was admitted to the Emergency Room on February 12^th of this year when she went in complaining of a stomach pain.

“They was tellin’ me I had a mini heart attack,” said the 73-year-old mother. Tassone had three subsequent surgeries—they removed gallstones, her gallbladder and a part of her liver.

“Believe me, the condition I was in, I didn’t wanna make it either,” she said. “But I feel wonderful now.”

Tassone was hooked up to IVs and bags and a tube ran out of her mouth. After two months at the hospital, she returned to the Elmhurst Nursing Home in Providence, the building converted from a hospital where Tassone was born in the 1930s. Already fairly limited in her motion, the elderly woman was given a cane when returning to her apartment in late April.

WALKING USED TO be easy for Tassone, but she started having trouble with her soft feet a few years back. Now, the six blocks that separate the Grace Church Apartment and Kennedy Plaza, where the courthouse is, is traveled by bus. If you peer down Washington Street from the apartment, you can make out the massive gray building, with the canal and the bottom of College Hill just behind it.

She used to cross Memorial Boulevard too, to attend Superior Court. “Before I get clipped, I better stop,” Tassone said, “I says, lemme just go to one court.” Memorial Boulevard, a simple cross-walk to most is a bit more ominous for a shuffler.

MARY’S FAVORITE CASES usually involve murder or drug trafficking, but it was during Operation Plunder Dome that she began attending every moment for nine weeks. Former Mayor Buddy Cianci’s was tried in 2002 for corruption and eventually indicted.

“The first I met him, I told him he looked like Little Caesar,” Tassone said with a giggle. That was long before Cianci fell into trouble.

During the case, she ate lunch with a high profile U.S. Attorney, Richard Rose. He payed for her meal at Tommy’s Restaurant on Westminster Street for eight weeks. Her friend Peggy Hewitt, who attended the trial as well, bought her lunch for the final week.

Tassone makes an appearance in Mike Stanton’s book The Prince of Providence about Cianci. “I’m on page 341 and 342,” she said. But she didn’t even know she was until a friend called her. She shuffles through a cabinet and pulls out an unopened copy of the book. The author describes her as a courtroom regular and had even pulled a quote from her that was printed in the Providence Journal.

“I couldn’t believe it, I pinched myself,” she said. Tassone has had her 15 minutes of fame.

She was occasionally seen exiting the courthouse on television after Cianci’s trials. Star and Time magazines both did stories on her. She’s been in the Providence Journal numerous times. In fact, Tassone is such a prominent figure in the Providence judiciary system, that many of the attorneys ask her how she thinks the jury will swing.

“You can never estimate a jury, believe me,” she said. Don’t be fooled, she’s usually right when she predicts the winner.

She boasts that all the judges know her by name. “I like them all, they’re not stuck up even though they’re high up.” Ronald Lageux is her favorite (he presided over Operation Plunderdome).

“If I ever have to get a lawyer, the judges told me I can’t go to Federal Court, because they all know me,” she said. “It’s a conflict of interest.”

ENTERING TASSONE’s three room apartment, it is easy to see where her interests lie. Taped to her kitchen cabinet is a series of photos of Channel 10 news anchors, each photo with a personal message written to Mary. “I see them all the time at the courthouse,” she said, “especially Jim Taricani.’ The same reporter received six months house arrest for declining to give sources during Plunderdome.

Also scattered about the apartment are pictures of the Pope and JFK. More importantly, however, are the pictures of her daughter Melissa. “I wanted to give her a good life,” Tassone said. She refused to send her daughter to Central High School or Hope High, instead rounding up money to send her to the private LaSalle Academy. She even sent her to the Holy Ghost School for grade school.

Understanding the effort Tassone put into her daughter’s life becomes more surreal when you consider that she raised her daughter by herself on welfare. Tassone herself was orphaned at a young age and grew up in Providence, eventually going to live by herself when she was 21. She had been through Stay at home schools and foster homes and lived with her grandmother for a short period of time before finally settling down by herself and getting a job at Calart where she made artificial flowers.

When she became pregnant, she stopped working, and raised Melissa by herself. “He drank, smoke, gambled and never had anything,” she said of the father. “I would never bring him in the house when she was there.” Tassone refused to let the man ruin Melissa’s life. She had always wanted a baby girl, and she would make sure that Melissa got all the opportunities she didn’t.

Melissa is now in her 30s, working the night shift at the Post Office after attending Rhode Island College. When Tassone became ill she told her daughter not to visit all that much. “When you’re sick you don’t feel like having lots of company anyway.” She was more worried about her daughter when she was on her death bed.

BUT MARY IS HOME now, and counting down the days until she can return to her daily form of entertainment. “It’s something to do,” Tassone said, shrugging her shoulders, “It gets you out of the house. I’m surprised more seniors don’t go. They’d rather spend their money at the casino. Sometimes I just go in the morning, and if it’s a case I enjoy I stay all day.”

Sometimes she is the only viewer in the courtroom. She used to watch Perry Mason all the time, the fabled television lawyer, but found live court to be a great replacement. “I’ll be glad to get back,” said Tassone who likely has to wait another week or two before she has the strength to board the bus to Kennedy Plaza.

The one thing she is not looking forward to? “It’s cold in there,” she said, “I think they do it to keep the defendants awake. I always have to bundle up though.”

Until then she’ll settle for Cianci’s radio talk show on WPRO and Judge Judy at 4 o’clock. “I get a kick out of her,” she said.

TASSONE has always dreamed of being on a jury. The one time she was called for jury duty they asked her what she did. “I like to go to court,” she said. They asked her to leave. “Next time I’ll just keep quiet.”

Note: This story was researched in spring 2009, and so some facts may not be up to date.