http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-...ticle-1.2607234Authorities followed an old man around town in a bid to paint him as the head of a mafia gambling, loan-sharking and drug-peddling crew, Nicholas (Nicky Cigars) Santora’s lawyer argued Monday.
Santora, 73, Vito Badamo, 53, Anthony (Skinny) Santoro, 52, and Ernest Aiello, 36, have been on trial for over two months in a Bonanno family enterprise corruption case brought by the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
The defendants each face up to 25 years behind bars for the alleged enterprise which prosecutors say involved peddling Viagra and Cialis.
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But in closing arguments, Santora’s lawyers said authorities’ surveillance showed him going about his mundane daily life — including visits to a restaurant for coffee and to Petco, where he bragged about his dogs to staff.
"They want you to believe this is a functioning crew, this well-oiled machine," Santora’s lawyer Michael Alber argued.
Alber said that between Jan. 1, 2011 and July 1, 2011, a significant part of the investigation, there was "zero interaction surveilled between Mr. Santora and the gentleman at that table."
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Aiello's lawyer, Stacey Richman, claimed that the charges were fabricated, in part, by cooperating witnesses who were working the system.
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Nicholas "Nicky Cigars" Santora, Anthony "Skinny" Santoro and Ernest Aiello (seated left-right) and Vito Badamo (not pictured) face up to 25 years behind bars for an alleged enterprise which prosecutors say involved peddling Viagra and Cialis.
"Only you stand between these men, wrongly accused, and the cliff of wrongful conviction," Richman argued to the jury.
She said that groups of young black men are labeled gangs but "when Italians get together they call them the mafia."
"These are four people of Italian-American descent who know each other," Richman said. "They know each other but they're not criminal."
Santoro's lawyer Adam Konta, who was the first to address the jury Monday, echoed that argument.
"You cannot railroad these men just because they are Italians," he said.
Konta said that police surveillance of thousands of calls and other parts of the investigation amounted to nothing.
"From the very beginning this was just not the case they told you it would be or even close to it," he said.
The prosecutor's summation was set to start Tuesday, along with the closing argument from Badamo's lawyer.
