Updated news on the Gambino, Genovese, Bonanno, Lucchese and Colombo Organized Crime Families of New York City.

Monday, June 27, 2011

'Vinny Gorgeous' lawyers file to have conviction overturned


Former mob boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano's lawyers have filed court papers seeking to overturn his recent conviction for ordering the fatal hit of a mob associate.
The defense team for the former Bonanno crime family boss argues that the wiseguy should be acquitted on a legal technicality because the jury at his capital murder trial last month should have been briefed more broadly on how the law defines conspiracies.
The attorneys - George Goltzer, Richard Jasper, and Ying Stafford - say several other mobsters participated in a plot to kill Bonanno associate Randy Pizzolo in 2004, which represented "multiple conspiracies."
But jurors only heard of a single conspiracy - Basiciano's order to underlings that they should rub out Pizzolo - and this was unfair to the former boss, his attorneys argue.
The jury convicted Basciano of ordering the hit but chose not condemn him to death by lethal injection. Instead Basciano must serve life in prison. He is already serving a life sentence for an earlier mob murder.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn federal court has not yet ruled on the new defense argument.


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