Judge Allows Alleged Colombo Mobster Out Of House Arrest To Coach Little League

Judge Allows Alleged Colombo Mobster Out Of House Arrest To Coach Little League

  March 06, 2011    Dapper_Don

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Reputed Colombo associate Anthony Colandra is the coach of his son's baseball team. A judge modified his bail terms to allow him to attend games and practices.

A judge has gone to bat for a reputed mobster suspected of being the gunman in a double murder - springing him from house arrest so he can coach his son's baseball team.
Reputed Colombo crime associate Anthony Colandra's alleged participation in a gangland double homicide apparently doesn't preclude him from teaching kids how to turn a double play.
Brooklyn Magistrate Ramon Reyes agreed to modify Colandra's $500,000 bail conditions so he can leave his upper East Side home for two hours on Sundays and Mondays.
"My client is a baseball coach of his 9-year-old son's baseball team in the Catholic Youth Organization," lawyer Paul Madden told the judge.
Colandra works full-time as a janitor at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church on the upper East Side, and a priest from Yonkers vouched for him at his bail hearing in January.
The church baseball team practices and plays on a field down the block from Colandra's apartment on E. 93rd St.
Reyes also approved a request for Colandra to marry his wife at the church last month. It does not appear the couple asked for permission to go on a honeymoon.
"It's disgraceful how he's using the Catholic Church to make it look like he found God," a law enforcement source said. "But his past is catching up to him."
Colandra, 41, is charged with lying to federal agents when he denied gunning down Colombo soldier John Minerva during the crime family's bloody civil war in 1992. The other victim, Michael Imbergamo, was not a target but was killed because he was in the car with Minerva, prosecutors say.
At a recent hearing, the judge noted that Colandra is charged only with lying. Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes stressed that the false statement was specifically about his involvement in a violent crime.
Madden said his client is just trying to stay involved in his son's life.
"He's doing good things for kids," Madden said. "He's doing a very kind act and in no way should other people be concerned about their safety."
The CYO athletic program emphasizes a code of ethical conduct and urges all members to "remember that a contest is only an activity and not a matter of life or death for player, coach, school, parish, official and fan."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/03/06/2011-03-06_judge_rules_alleged_mobster_anthony_colandra_allowed_out_of_house_arrest_to_coac.html