Former crime boss Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano was convicted of capital murder Monday - only the second mobster to face death for a gangland rubout in 30 years.

The jury of seven men and five women will return Monday to decide whether Basciano should die by lethal injection or get life in prison for ordering the murder of mob associate Randolph Pizzolo.

"I think we're all disappointed," defense lawyer Richard Jasper said outside court.

Basciano, 51, is already serving a life sentence for the shotgun murder of Bronx junkie Frank Santoro in 2001.

The flamboyant gangster was buried under the weight of testimony from six cooperating witnesses, including another former Bonanno boss, Joseph Massino, the highest-ranking New York gangster to sing for the government.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Taryn Merkl and Stephen Frank told jurors Basciano's big mouth proved he was a murderer.

Basciano - who was in jail when Pizzolo was executed Nov. 30, 2004, on a deserted street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn - told Massino in a taped jailhouse conversation he gave the order to kill Pizzolo.

"His own words are on tape telling you the murder was his idea, he selected the hit team and explaining why it had to be done," Frank said in closing arguments.

Pizzolo had committed numerous mob indiscretions and the hit was meant to send a "wakeup call" to the rest of the Bonanno crime family, already reeling from the defections of several high-ranking gangsters.

"Even though justice has been served, there isn't anything that can or will replace the lifetime sentence of emotional void my family and I serve, without my dad," Pizzolo's daughter Connie told the Daily News.

"If capital punishment is what is next for Vinny, then my father's death will not have been in vain," she said.

The feds are seeking the death penalty under the statute of murder in aid of racketeering. There is no death penalty charge in New York.

Last fall, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder reaffirmed the government's intent to seek the death penalty against Basciano after the judge had asked him to reconsider the decision.

In 1992, Bonanno soldier Thomas (Tommy Karate) Pitera was convicted of six murders and faced the death penalty, but the jury opted for life in prison.

Federal prosecutors may seek to introduce evidence in the death penalty phase that Basciano plotted from jail to kill Garaufis, Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Andres and several mob rats who were part of the earlier Santoro murder case.

They will argue that Basciano should be executed because he remains a grave danger to the outside world and prison personnel.

Defense lawyers will counter that Basciano will be totally incapacitated serving a life sentence at the supermaximum security federal penitentiary in Florence, Colo.

jmarzulli@nydailynews.com

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Joseph Basciano (left) and Vincent Basciano Jr., sons of imprisoned Bonanno family wiseguy Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano, leave Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday after posting bond. They were charged in connection with a marijuana trafficking ring. Their brother Stephen was, too, but he was ordered held by a judge.


Like mobster father, like sons, the feds said Wednesday.

Three offspring of a notorious mafia boss were busted on drug trafficking charges in connection with a cross-country marijuana distribution scheme that moved thousands of pounds of the funky green stuff, authorities said.

Vincent Jr., Joseph and Stephen Basciano pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to narcotics conspiracy charges that could put them in prison for up to 40 years.

Their father, the fashion-conscious but bloodthirsty former Bonanno crime family head Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano, is serving two life terms at a supermax prison in Colorado for murder convictions.

Gorgeous’ three boys and two other men, George Kokenyei and Elon Valentine, were undone by an FBI informant, according to their indictment.

The takedown came after Kokenyei arranged for weed to be shipped from California to New York, where Vincent Jr. ran a distribution route in the Bronx, the feds said.


“We have seized evidence, recordings and compelling witness testimony,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Mermelstein said in court Wednesday.

Vincent Jr., 32, of the Bronx, was released on $500,000 bond, and brother Joseph, 27, also of the Bronx, was sprung on $250,000 bond. But Stephen, 29, a Bronx resident like his brothers, was held pending an additional hearing after prosecutors said they have tapes of the middle brother bragging about owning firearms and shooting at people.

Kokenyei was also held, and Valentine was already in state custody. Stephen Basciano has a prior conviction for assault, in 2007.

“The evidence is incredibly strong against him and he has a demonstrable history of violence,” Mermelstein said.

Joseph Basciano is facing separate charges in Queens in connection with marijuana smuggling.

In other collars by the feds, Pasquale Falcetti, a reputed “capo” in the Genovese crime family, and Thomas Joy, were busted Wednesday and charged with conspiring to make extortionate loans in the Bronx and in other areas, the feds said. Both men pleaded not guilty and made bail.

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Mobster Vinny (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano has a skin-flaunting female (paralegel)pen pal while he's locked up for life in Colorado's Supermax prison




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Vinny Gorgeous has a very perky pen pal who sends him scantily clad shots of herself to please his locked-up libido.




Ex-Bonanno crime boss Vincent Basciano has made the most of serving two life sentences at the nation’s toughest penal institution by corresponding with raven-haired paralegal Belinda Rossetti, the Daily News has learned.

Rossetti seems like the perfect gangster groupie — she helps him with the hopeless appeal of his conviction, and she has sent him a sexy photo of her wearing a G-string.

Basciano was grateful for the glossy of her goods, but in a handwritten missive to Rossetti he sounds like the control freak he was during his brief reign running the crime family.

“I liked my birthday pic,” Basciano wrote in the letter last month.” But you’re not smiling. … So you have to retake it. LOL Nice body!

“The G-string pic . . . was great! You’re facing the wrong way though! LOL. Your butt needs to face the camera!! me! LOL.”

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Rossetti confirmed sending the photo.
“Oh dear,” Rossetti sighed. “I was chunkier then.”

Rossetti, 47, claims she was Vinny’s secret mistress a decade ago.

More recently, she showed up occasionally at Brooklyn Federal Court for Basciano’s last trial, in which he was convicted of ordering the murder of mob associate Randolph Pizzolo. The jury could have sentenced him to death, but he got life instead — on top of a life sentence he was already serving for whacking a junkie in the Bronx.

“She just popped up and was hanging around with Vinny’s family, but they didn’t know her,” said a source close to Basciano.

Rossetti claims she made an unrequited offer of her legal assistance during the trial. Basciano’s defense lawyer George Goltzer declined to comment.




The reputed mob moll is cryptic about her continued ties to Basciano.
“There’s a couple of things I promised him I’d do,” Rossetti told The News. “I kind of owe him.”
Basciano, 52, now spends his days in the company of terrorists and killers at Colorado’s Supermax prison, but he hasn’t lost the charm that made him a legendary New York wiseguy.







In 2006 the feds released a correspondence from the then-married Basciano to mistress Debra Kalb, with whom he fathered a love child. The mob boss is consistent with what he likes.

“You could send me a picture of you in a G-string you know,” Basciano wrote to Kalb at the time. “I’m so in love with you do ya know that you little f---.”

Rossetti said she has been cleared for a “legal visit” at Supermax but isn’t sure when she’ll make the trip. Her former paramour still has a couple of appeals of his convictions pending.

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http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-release...d-loan-sharking

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; George Venizelos, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and Raymond W. Kelly, the Police Commissioner of the City of New York (NYPD), announced today the unsealing of charges in Manhattan federal court against seven additional alleged members and associates of the Genovese and Bonanno organized crime families, including a Genovese capo, for offenses including narcotics trafficking conspiracy and loan sharking. Five other defendants, including a solider in the Genovese organized crime family, were charged in a prior Indictment with narcotics trafficking.


Narcotics Trafficking

Vincent Basciano, Jr., Stephen Basciano, George Kokenyei, Joey Basciano, and Valentine conspired to distribute hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of pounds of marijuana. For example, Kokenyei arranged for large shipments of marijuana to be sent from California to New York, while Basciano, Jr. ran a marijuana route in the Bronx, New York, that distributed hundreds of pounds of marijuana.




Loan Sharking

Pasquale Falcetti, a capo in the Genovese crime family, and Thomas Joy conspired to make extortionate loans to victims in the Bronx, New York, and elsewhere.