is 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.
Vinny Still Looks Gorgeous
Say what you will about Vinny Gorgeous, the perfectly coiffed salt and pepper gray-haired wiseguy doesn’t look any worse for wear after two racketeering trials and six-plus years behind bars. As one wag in the courtroom said the other day, “He looks great.”
(It also doesn’t hurt the defendant’s image that Joe Massino, his ex-boss and the chief witness against him, looks like a portly schlub whose idea of dressing up is a two-tone windbreaker, gray pants, and bright white sneakers.)
Gang Land doesn’t know how Basciano does it, but from a highly credible source we can report that he has somehow overcome Bureau of Prisons rules banning hair gel for inmates by concocting his own – apparently without violating any of the myriad of BOP rules by which inmates reside and despite spending most of his time in a Segregated Housing Unit.
This information comes exclusively from mob prince Chris Colombo, who spent a couple of days next to Basciano two years ago when he was busted for violating the terms of his release. Before being shipped out to his assigned prison, Colombo was placed in the SHU as a possible “communications threat” because he had taken part in a 2004 HBO special titled House Arrest.
“First thing he says to me is ‘Bo, how do I look?’ I say, ‘Great, fantastic,’” said Colombo, recalling that he then became a victim described in the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished.
“So I say, ‘How do I look?’ He says, ‘You look like Lou Costello.’ I says, ‘You mutt, I wish I would have asked you how I look before you asked me how you looked. I would have told you something different,’” laughed Colombo, who said he doesn’t see any resemblance between him and the short and stocky half of the legendary Abbott and Costello comedy team.
These days, says the 49-year-old Colombo: “I am pursuing an honest living and the American Dream.”
Convicted Mob Associate: My Lawyer Stuck Me Like A Pig
Did a prominent Gang Land defense attorney stick it to his own client?
That’s what mob associate John Matera is claiming about his former lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, in court papers that appeal his conviction and 20-year prison sentence for a 1998 murder.
Matera cites Lichtman’s less-than-admiring speech to the judge at his 2004 sentencing for taking part in the rubout of FBI informer Frank Hydell.
“You can put a dress on a pig, Judge, and it’s still a pig,” Lichtman told the judge, according to a transcript.
Lichtman, who gained fame by winning a deadlocked jury for John (Junior) Gotti, says he played square with Matera, as he does for all his clients. But Matera’s new lawyer, Seth Ginsberg, says in court papers that Lichtman worked a good deal harder to win a lesser sentence for another client he represented at the same time who was also charged with taking part in the Hydell slaying.
That client was Gambino associate Thomas Dono, who wound up with a better deal, and a 15 year sentence. Lichtman used remarkably different language to describe him to the judge.
At Dono’s sentencing last year, Ginsberg wrote, Lichtman told the judge that Dono was the only one of his many clients to express any concern about a personal crisis in Lichtman’s own life after his twin boys were born premature in August, 2004 and nearly died.
“When my kids were born ten weeks prematurely five and a half years ago there was only one client of mine, and I represent a lot of people judge, and a lot of people that should have cared more, there was one person that called me constantly,” Lichtman told Judge Colleen McMahon.
“I’ve gotten to know his family,” Lichtman continued. “I’ve met his children. I’ve gotten to know him very well. I feel certain that when he gets out of prison he will be a much better person (than) the way you are seeing him today. He is a father that cares about his kids. This is somebody I have spoken to about his children.”
Since the personal crisis occurred while Lichtman was negotiating Matera’s plea deal, the speech suggests that the lawyer was upset with those who didn’t show adequate sympathy, says Ginsberg who writes that Lichtman had an “actual conflict of interest” regarding Matera at the time.
Matera, wrote Ginsberg, also “has children he undoubtedly loves, but Lichtman made no mention of that fact.” The omission, suggests Ginsberg, was because the lawyer resented the idea that Matera (right) did not “demonstrate appropriate concern for Lichtman” during the lawyer’s “crisis with his children.”
Ginsberg has asked the court to set aside Matera’s guilty plea and allow him to go to trial on the murder charge.
Lichtman, who hosts a a two-hour Saturday morning talk show at 10 AM on 970 AM The Apple, told Gang Land he handled Matera’s case straight up: “As John well knows, I’ve always wished him the best and still do. I got him a great deal in a tough case, and he deeply appreciated it at the time … I represented John zealously and single-mindedly, as I do all my clients.”
