if u have aol check it out he is testifing aganst a hit man who wanted to use a land mine to kill

Yeah, I saw that when I logged on this morning. Wonder how many security guys he'll have surrounding him to prevent him from dodging a bullet.

I thought he was in jail?? If so, is he testifying to save his skin or what?


TIS

[img]http://cdn.news.aol.com/aolnews_articles/03/05/20030927132409990001.3f770e67-002e0-0436e-6e89bccd[/img]

Gravano to Take Stand at New York Mob Trial
'Sammy the Bull' Will Be Reputed Hit Man's Defense Witness
By TOM HAYS, AP

NEW YORK (Sept. 27) - For years, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano was the government's star cooperator against the likes of late mob boss John Gotti.

Now, in perhaps the strangest twist in a tortured relationship with prosecutors, Gravano has reinvented himself as a defense witness for a reputed hit man.


'Sammy the Bull'



AP file
Gravano admitted to 19 murders as a mob hit man, but served only five years in prison on racketeering charges.

Lawyers for the defendant, Thomas "Huck" Carbonaro, say Gravano has agreed to help their client fight charges he plotted to silence a boastful mob turncoat in 1999 with a land mine.

The alleged target: Gravano himself.

The defense says Gravano will testify that Carbonaro was a loyal friend who was indebted to him. After all, they claim, Gravano persuaded prosecutors not to bring murder charges against Carbonaro and other Gambino crime family members more than a decade ago.

"That's precisely why Carbonaro would never hurt Gravano," attorney John Jacobs told a judge at a pretrial hearing last week.


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Gravano, then a Gambino underboss, claims that as he was helping prosecutors bring down Gotti in 1991, he cut an informal deal with prosecutor John Gleeson in which the government agreed not to prosecute Carbonaro and others.

Gleeson, now a federal judge, has not commented on the claim, although prosecutors say such a deal was never made. Still, Jacobs argued, prosecutors "had direct evidence that Carbonaro and his crew participated in six murders. They chose not to prosecute and honor Gravano's request."

Gravano's motive for agreeing to testify in Carbonaro's case remains unclear, but it could be payback.

Last year, prosecutors successfully sought the toughest punishment possible - 20 years in prison - for Gravano's conviction in a multimillion dollar Ecstasy ring in Arizona. They argued that the former cooperator betrayed the government by dropping out of the witness protection program and returning to a life of crime.

Gravano, 57, had admitted to 19 murders as a mob hit man, but served only five years in prison on racketeering charges under a deal with prosecutors to testify against mobsters including Gotti, who died in prison last year.

Gravano had lived openly in Arizona after he dropped out of the witness protection program, and even taunted the mob in a series of 1999 interviews.

"They send a hit team down, I'll kill them," Gravano said. "They better not miss, because even if they get me, there will be a lot of body bags going back to New York."

Prosecutors allege the Gambino family offered Carbonaro and others cash and promotions to kill him.

The men allegedly hatched a plot to blow up Gravano with a land mine, or shoot him with a hunting rifle. Authorities say Carbonaro dropped 50 pounds and grew a beard so he could stalk Gravano without being recognized.

Gravano was arrested before the hit was carried out, authorities say. He is now serving his drug-trafficking sentence at "Supermax" in Florence, Colo., the federal government's most secure prison.

Carbonaro has pleaded innocent to murder conspiracy and racketeering charges. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

I'm with you TIS - I thought Sammy was serving 15-20 years for his drug involvement stemming from the 2000 ecstasy arrest in Arizona. Talk about wasting a golden opportunity to turn your life around. Then again, maybe testifying is part of another deal he has struck to reduce his sentence significantly.

I wish Kay Adams could say her line from GF3 to Sammy: "I preferred you when you were just a common Mafia hood."

This is old news footage from 2001 I pulled up. Maybe he was charged in prison. It seems to me he'd still be in jail.

In the plea agreement, Gravano admitted to drug conspiracy, money laundering and eight other felonies. Most of his 45 co-defendants signed plea deals and received probation or light prison terms.

Gravano's state prison time will run concurrently with a federal sentence of 20 years and is to be served at an unnamed federal facility.

Napolitano said those terms mean Arizona wins twice: Gravano cannot be freed until he is 77 years old, and state taxpayers don't have to pay for his incarceration.

The latest wrinkle in Da Bull case: Thomas "Huck" Carbonaro, one of his former subordinates now charged in the plot to kill him, has a tattoo on his back, saying: "Good Men Die, Rats Get Fat" with a big drawing of a rat. Prosecutor in the case wants to photograph the tattoo and use it as evidence; defense is objecting.
Ever get the idea that the total I.Q. of all of Da Bull's crew, including him, is less than the temperature of the room you're in now?

Turnbnull, you hit the nail on the head.

We tend to dramatize mafia types, and endow them with characteristics we see in mobsters in the movies.

Vito is smart and cunning, and seems to know what moves his enemies make before they make them.

Mike is cold and calculating, and also able to play three moves ahead of the game.

The old dons, because of the status they have achieved in the media, with programs like biography, and different web pages, seem to be Machiaveli like.

In reality, most of these bums are stupid beyond belief. Henry Hill? John Gotti? Sammy the Bull?

All three don't have the IQ of an ashtray.

Good point. If I recall from Sammy's biography, I don't think that he even made it to high school. I want to say he dropped out in 8th grade, but that may be inaccurate. Needless to say, he never wrote for the Harvard Review.

By Associated Press
December 15, 2003, 5:12 AM EST
HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Former Mafia turncoat Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano has been charged in the 1980 murder of a New York City police detective.
Gravano, serving a 20-year sentence in Arizona for running an Ecstasy ring, pleaded innocent Thursday to the murder of Det. Peter Calabro in Saddle River.
Earlier this year, convicted murderer Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski told authorities that he shot Calabro on orders from Gravano, 57. The highly decorated officer was suspected of having damaging information about an auto theft ring run by the Gambino crime family.
Kuklinski, 67, told investigators that he and Gravano drove around northwest Bergen on the night of March 14, 1980, waiting for the 36-year-old detective to return home from work in Queens.

Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said Gravano supplied the murder weapon and three or four accomplices.

Gravano confessed to 19 murders nearly 10 years ago as part of a deal with federal prosecutors to implicate his longtime friend and mentor, mob boss John Gotti, and more than three dozen other mobsters.

He was freed from prison in 1995 and entered a witness protection program in Arizona. A few years later, he was convicted of running an Ecstasy network with his wife, children, and a group of white supremacists.
Two months ago, reputed hit man Thomas "Huck" Carbonaro was convicted in Brooklyn of trying to kill Gravano with a remote-control bomb. Authorities have accused Gotti's brother, Peter, of ordering the hit.
Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press