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 Seven Guilty In Racket Case At Mob Trial

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vinny nip

vinny nip


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PostSubject: Seven Guilty In Racket Case At Mob Trial   Seven Guilty In Racket Case At Mob Trial Icon_minitimeSun Mar 29, 2009 8:33 am

Seven Guilty In Racket Case At Mob Trial


By WILLIAM GLABERSON

Published: Thursday, June 29, 1989




Ending a 17-month racketeering trial, a Federal jury yesterday convicted seven men of being members or associates of a murderous crew of the Gambino crime family that operated out of a Brooklyn apartment.

The verdict in Federal District Court in Manhattan gave prosecutors a sweeping victory in the second of two trials stemming from a 1984 indictment that originally included charges against the man prosecutors said was then chief of the Gambino family, Paul Castellano, who was killed in 1985.

Month after month, the prosecutor, Walter S. Mack Jr., brought the jury often gruesome evidence that the crew had murdered scores of people, often dismembering them. In all, the case included evidence of 25 murders.

Benito Romano, the United States Attorney, said yesterday that prosecutors believe the crew's murders numbered in the dozens. The bodies of many of the victims were never found. Testimony From 207 Witnesses

In its verdict, which came in the 13th day of deliberations, the jury found the defendants guilty of all the charges presented in a 21-count indictment.

Five of the defendants were found guilty of racketeering acts that included participating in the murders of 11 people. The men were also convicted of charges that their racketeering included loan sharking, drug trafficking, car thefts and other crimes.

The trial, which included testimony by 207 witnesses for the Government, was the last of a series of large criminal cases begun by former United States Attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani against people prosecutors have called major figures in the Mafia.

Although they began with what were billed as major Mafia defendants, the prosecutors have said that the people convicted yesterday were low-level mobsters. Mr. Castellano was killed during the first trial, and another defendant, Anthony F. Gaggi, died of natural causes during the second.

Prosecutors said Mr. Gaggi was a captain of the Gambino family. Roy DeMeo, identified by the Government as another Gambino family member who ran the crew, was killed shortly before the Government filed its sprawling case five years ago.

The seven men convicted were Joseph Testa, 34 years old; Anthony Senter, 34; Ronald Ustica, 44; Carlo Profeta, 46; Salvatore Mangalino, 52; Douglas Rega, 39, and Sol Hellman, 63. Mr. Testa and Mr. Senter face possible prison terms of life imprisonment. The others face possible sentences of more than 20 years.

Judge Vincent L. Broderick said prosecutors had established that the defendants were responsible for so much violence that they could not be permitted to remain free.

''The story of systematic murder that has come before the jury in this case is something that I assume was beyond the ken of any member of the jury, and it certainly was beyond my previous ken,'' said Judge Broderick, a former New York City Police Commissioner.

He revoked the bail of five defendants. They were taken into custody immediately by Federal marshals.

One defense lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said appeals were likely by all the defendants. He complained bitterly about what he said was the injustice of a prosecution tactic of bringing huge cases against people it believes are involved in organized crime and deluging the jury with so much evidence of chilling crimes that jurors lose sight of an individual defendant's guilt or innocence.

''This verdict points out the patent unfairness of this concept of trial by avalanche,'' Mr. Brafman said.

In addition to the seven defendants, who prosecutors said were crew members or associates, two other people who were not tied to it, Judith and Wayne Hellman, were convicted of mail- and wire-fraud charges that could subject them to 10-year jail terms. They are the son and daughter-in-law of Sol Hellman, who prosecutors said was an associate of crew members.

The case began with a 78-count indictment filed by Mr. Giuliani in 1984. Because there were so many charges, the original judge assigned to the case, Kevin Thomas Duffy, divided it in two. In the original trial, which focused on a car-theft ring accused of stealing hundreds of cars in New York, six of the eight defendants were convicted.
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