Massino Helped Lock Up Mafia Associate
The former head of the Bonnano crime family who later became a witness for the prosecution in the trial of an ex-associate may have his stay in prison cut short.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday, June 11, that federal prosecutors filed a motion the day before requesting that Joseph C. Massino, 70, of Howard Beach-currently serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2004 for seven previous murders-be re-sentenced to a lesser jail term following his cooperation with authorities in the trial of Vincent (a.k.a. Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano.
Basciano was convicted in May 2011 of murdering an associate in the Bonnano family, Randy Pizzolo, in December 2004. Massino reportedly became the government’s star witness in Basciano’s trial by offering prosecutors his testimony in exchange for avoiding the death penalty for his own crimes.
Massino-also the former owner of the Casablanca restaurant on Eliot Avenue on the Maspeth/Middle Village border-was indicted in January 2003 for the seven murders he committed but remained the defacto boss of the Bonnano family. In that capacity, it was reported, he allegedly secretly recorded conversations with Basciano regarding a plot to assassinate a federal judge, Nicholas Garaufis, and a government prosecutor.
As part of his deal with the government, Massino reportedly provided prosecutors with the information he gathered, then took the witness stand against Basciano in April 2011. It was considered to be the first time such actions were ever taken by the leader of one of New York’s five organized crime families.
In his testimony, Massino admitted to participating in the “Three Captains” murders in 1981, the orchestrated assassination of three members of a rival mob faction- Dominick Trinchera, Alphonse Indelicato and Phillip Giaccone. All three men were shot to death after being lured to a Brooklyn social club for a meeting.
Massino also reportedly admitted to ordering the murder of Dominick (a.k.a. Sonny Black) Napolitano for inadvertently allowing an undercover FBI agent-Joseph Pistone, who went by the name Donnie Brasco- to infiltrate the crime family. The investigative work conducted by Pistone-made famous by the 1997 film Donnie Brasco starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino-led to the arrest and prosecution of numerous captains, underbosses and associates of the Bonnano family.
Basciano had been serving time in federal prison for a previous 2006 conviction on racketeering and attempted murder. As a result of his conviction of the Pizzolo murder, he is now serving a life sentence.
According to The New York Times report on Tuesday, prosecutors stated in their motion, “Massino’s cooperation was an important milestone in the decades-long effort by the Department of Justice to dismantle and uproot La Cosa Nostra,” the Italian term for the American mafia.
In addition to testifying against Basciano, as previously reported in this paper, Massino’s deal with the government also included further details on the Bonnano family’s inner workings and the forfeiture of $7 million in cash and gold bars hidden in his Howard Beach residence.
The motion to reduce Massino’s sentence will be heard in a June 20 hearing-ironically before Judge Garaufis- at the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, The New York Times reported.
