In the 1990's Lawrence Ricci was whacked by the Genovese family for refusing to take a pleas deal.
I believe the newer generation who had at the time taken over for the previous heads of the families just witnessed their predecessor's get sentenced to in some cases to 50-100+ years.
This was also after Gene Gotti and guys in his crew got hit with 50 years after turning down please for about 10 years.
Based on original Omerta all of these guys broke the code and could have been killed for it:
1) Carmine Persico.
2) Joseph Bonanno.
3) Vincent the Chin.
Every boss of the five families today at one point took a plea and they too would be part of that list.
The bosses would rather have guys plead out than risk long sentences. They know long sentences make some men flip.
Plus if key guys are serving long sentences, they are not our making the family money. And when certain guys get locked up for extended periods of time, they could lose control of their rackets or turf to other gangs or Families, or even other guys inside their own Family.
And like Furio said, everyone today knows who the Mob and LCN is, and the case evidence is typically pretty strong for guilty, so what are the defendants really saving by not taking the plea and admitting their involvement?
I am all for these guys pleading out and getting back on the street asap. hell, do a group plea and get even shorter sentences yet.
In my city of Pittsburgh, when Chucky Porter, Louis Raucci, and Geno Chiarelli were sentenced to 28,27 and 22 years, if they all pled out together, they could have probably cut those in half. There were 12 other defendants in the case, all with different charges, some much less serious, and only 1 pled guilty I believe. Imagine if they worked a group plea deal? Raucci died in prison, Chiarelli got out with 5 years left to live, and Porter had to become an informant in prison to get out after 10 years served.
As forum readers like all of us, the more guys on the streets, the more we have to talk about.
