Are their any online transcripts available?

Nothing on line in terms of testimony. News accounts are what exist so far

well i have a good account of his testimony on my blog do a search for massino

fivefamiliesnyc.blogspot.com

Joseph Massino told of a life of crime that began as a teenager. For the entire day, Massino, looking like he put on more weight despite a prison diet, dropped a few interesting tidbits which readers of The Last Godfather and other Mafia fans would appreciate.
** As a bookmaker in the 1960s Massino paid one NYPD detective $500 to get out of gambling case and another detective $10,000 to get out of a burglary case.
** Massino committed his first homicide in the 1960s, the killing of one Tommy Zummo, a Bonanno associate who he said was killed in the lobby of a Queens building. Massino said he feared getting caught when the clip fell out of the handgun which had his fingerprints. Nothing happened. The late Philip Rastelli one day told Massino he was looking into who killed Zummo and if he discovered who did it would kill the person. Rastelli never found out and ironically became Massino's protector and mentor.
** Massino said he set up Joseph "Do Do" Pastore to be murdered in 1976. Tutti Franzese did the killing, said Massino.
** Massino was made on June 14, 1977 in a bar in Queens. The late Anthony Spero, Joe Chilli and three others were made in the same ceremonoy prssided over by Carmine Galante. It was Galante who was considered the street boss at the time, although the incarcerated Rastelli was the official boss.
** John Gotti Senior carried out the shooting of Vito Borelli, the old boyfriend of Paul Castellano's daughter. Borelli had joked about Castellano looking like chicken grower Frank Perdue.
Prosecutors also played tapes Massino made of Basciano while both were in jail.


When Joe Massino was about to get arrested he took one final shopping trip with his daughter Joanne in Howard Beach, a scene described in King of The Godfathers. But there was one more trip Massino took two days before he was arrested on January 9, 2003. That was when he met Vincent Basciano at a diner on Rockaway Avenue in Queens on January 7, 2003. In his testimony, Massino described telling Basciano that he was going to get arrested very soon and that if they had to kill anybody it could be done. The code word for a hit was to be the word "Jocko" which was to be said in conjunction with the name of the target, said Massino. Basciano also wanted to kill the family underboss, Sal Vitale, but Massino said he told him not to, that he needed facts and not mere suspicion that Vitale was an informant. [Vitale didn't turn government witness until a month later, after he was arrested on the same day as Massino] "Take care," Basciano wished Massino.
According to Massino, he set up a panel to run the family while he was in jail that includeed Anthony "TG" Graziano, a capo named "Peter Rabbit" and the another named " Joe Saunders" otherwise known as Joseph Cammarano. Vitale was to be removed as underboss,which he was.
Massino also testified that while he was in the federal detention center with Basciano, that his young captain told him he had Randolph Pizzolo killed because he was a "bad kid, a jerk off." This conversation wasn't recorded but prosecutors are using it as a piece of evidence in Basciano's racketeering case. Basciano faces the possible death penalty for the Pizzolo slaying in late 2004


Former boss Joseph Massino ended his time on the witness stand in the trial of Vincent Basciano at shortly after Noon, on April 21 in Brooklyn federal court. Massino was a pretty straightforward witness in his five days on the stand and wasn't really shaken in the cross examination by the defense team. Readers of King of The Godfathers would have heard alot that was familiar. But the heart of Massino's testimony had to do with the audio tapes he made of Basciano while both were in jail together in January 2005. Basciano indicates on the tapes that he wanted murder victim Randolph Pizzolo to be killed, but isn't sure of the details. However, the whole point of the defense is that Basciano is actually lying to Massino on the tapes because he feared Dominick Cicale would be hurt for taking part in an unsanctioned murder. Massino admits that unsanctioned murders and other kinds of actions which go against mob rules can get the culprit killed. But such a penalty wasn't automatic, said Massino. It isn't clear how the jury took to Massino, who admitted time and time again that he played a role in 10 gangland hits. The defense may use that fact if the case goes to the death penalty phase as an example of mobsters who did far worse than the one homicide charged against Basciano.
After Massino left, the next big witness was James "Big Louie" Tartaglione, who was also a cooperator against Massino in 2004. Tartaglione will be on the stand April 25 as well.

http://fivefamiliesnyc.blogspot.com/2011/04/tidbits-from-joseph-massinos-testimony.html

Nothing available on line in terms of Massino testimony. There are some news accounts of what he said which give the essence but not everything.

Thanks Dapper nice

i hope massino never gets out . but i can see him gettin out as time served for his work asa snitch.

Capeci wrote the following on his wepage about his testimony. I love the way Massino debunked Joe "Donnie Brasco" Pistone"s myth as one big lie
Week In Gang Land April 14, 2011
By Jerry Capeci
Massino: As Mafia Boss I Had The Power Of Life & Death


Siskel and Ebert gave Donnie Brasco “two thumbs up.” But when a prosecutor asked Joseph Massino for his take on the classic gangster movie, he grimaced and held his hand in front of his face. Then he wiggled his fingers back and forth in that shaky motion that most closely translates as “Mezza-mezza.” Or perhaps, “Eh.”

“Objection!” thundered the defense attorney. “Sustained,” said the judge, ending Joe Massino’s career as movie reviewer.

Jurors were instructed to ignore this part of Massino’s historic appearance as the first official New York Mafia boss to testify for the government – in this case, against a fellow former Bonanno crime family big, onetime acting boss Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano.

Thankfully, Gang Land is not required to adhere to the trial judge’s admonitions. For that matter, it’s hard to fathom how jurors will get it out of their heads since Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis was forced to repeat the shaky hand motion when he ruled it off-limits. At any rate, let it be officially recorded here that the first movie review by an ex-mob chieftain delivered from the witness stand was “No Stars!”

Not that the 68-year-old Massino lacked for insight about the inner-workings of the Bonanno family of that era. In fact, he is presumably better-equipped than anyone to pass judgment on the accuracy of the big-screen portrayal of FBI agent Joe Pistone’s undercover work against the crime family from 1976-to-1981.

In any event, once his movie review was over, the burly ex-Mafia boss proceeded to deliver several new revelations, each of which partially explained why he might think the movie version of the Brasco affair was no great shakes.

First, he debunked a long-held theory that a pair of mob murders of that era stemmed from anger at mobsters who were hoodwinked by the FBI agent. Under questioning by assistant U.S. attorney Taryn Merkl, Massino said that he was “made” on June 14, 1977 – a year after Pistone began his undercover role – and learned about the agent’s work soon after the FBI disclosed it in the summer of 1981 to Dominick (Sonny Black) Napolitano, the wiseguy who wanted to sponsor Pistone for induction.

Contrary to what prosecutors alleged at Massino’s 2004 trial – and what was implied in the 1997 movie – Sonny Black’s murder in August of 1981, a month after the feds pulled the plug on Pistone’s sting operation, was not payback for Napolitano’s role in vouching for Donnie Brasco, the jewel thief that Pistone pretended to be for five years.

Massino said that Sonny Black had told him that three FBI agents had alerted Napolitano that the “knock-around guy” he had known for several years as “Donnie Brasco” was really an FBI agent. Napolitano said the agents warned him that “if anything happens to [Brasco], we’re going to have a lot of trouble,” said Massino, adding that Napolitano’s sudden problems were unrelated to the Brasco fiasco.

“Sonny Black threatened to make a move on the family,” said Massino, recalling that he took part in the slaying and was part of a three-capo panel that was running the crime family for then-imprisoned boss Philip (Rusty) Rastelli that authorized the rubout. (Sonny Black looks into the camera as he and "Donnie Brasco" catch some rays at a Florida pool in 1980.)

Massino also dismissed reports that the demise of Bonanno wiseguy Anthony Mirra, whose February 1982 murder was long linked to his own Donnie Brasco dealings, was related to Pistone’s undercover work. Instead, Massino testified, that slaying stemmed from a belief that Mirra, a longtime drug dealer had become a secret “cooperator for the DEA.”

Massino, who is expected to face stiff cross-examination today about his assertion that Basciano ordered the 2004 murder of mob associate Randolph Pizzolo, stressed during his direct testimony that he was an all-powerful crime boss who had the power of life and death over wiseguys years before he took over the crime family in 1991.

He also explained the rationale behind another mob rubout: Disrespect. While he was on the lam in 1984 – ducking trial for the murders of three capos in 1981 – Massino said he learned from Rastelli’s brother and his own brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale, who was then a capo, that Rastelli was planning to whack Cesare Bonventre, a member of the family’s Sicilian faction who had extorted about $600,000 from a drug dealer who was close to Rastelli.

When Bonventre was called on the carpet about it by Rastelli, (right) not only did he deny the allegation, “he got insulted” by the inquiry and “got up and walked away,’ without so much as a polite good bye to his already steaming Mafia boss.

“You can’t do that with bosses,” said Massino. “That’s why he died.”

Rastelli also wanted to whack Bonventre’s long time buddy and partner in the crime and the insult, Baldo Amato – the duo played key roles in the 1979 rubout of wannabe Bonanno boss Carmine (Lilo) Galante – but Massino thought that was a bad idea, he testified.

“I saved him,” he said. “I sent word to the old man. I said, ‘Listen, he’s listening to his captain. We can’t just keep going on killing and killing and killing. He’s following orders just like I follow orders.’ He said, ‘You’re right,’ and he gave him a pass.”

Yesterday, prosecutors played tape recordings of jailhouse talks that Massino had with Vinny Gorgeous in January of 2005 – which Gang Land first disclosed that September – in which Basciano admits ordering a close associate to whack Pizzolo.

In his opening remarks to the jury, defense lawyer George Goltzer conceded that Basciano admitted ordering Pizzolo’s slaying while he was behind bars but insisted that his client was lying to his all powerful boss in order to save the life of Dominick Cicale, a close associate who had whacked Pizzolo on his own.

Goltzer conceded that Basciano was a powerful mobster who had committed numerous crimes, but insisted that he had nothing to do with ordering the December 1, 2004 murder of Pizzolo. His purpose in telling his mob boss he ordered the slaying was solely to protect Cicale from retaliation from Massino for having acted without prior approval.

The defense lawyer implored jurors to listen to the tapes “as many times as you want” during deliberations, assuring them that when all the evidence is in, “the only fair inference is that Vincent Basciano is saying what he has to say to save Dominick Cicale.”

It’s hard to determine what the jury will ultimately decide, but one irony of the defense lawyer’s words is that if Vinny Gorgeous was indeed trying to save Cicale from Masssino, his old pal hasn’t expressed much gratitude. He has already testified against him twice, and is slated to follow Massino to the stand.

A second irony is that no matter what the outcome of the trial, Vinny Gorgeous, who is serving life without parole for one mob murder, will leave prison in a body bag some time in the future

Maybe Massino will screw up and Vinny will get this last trial reversed on appeal