Boston mobster Darin Bufalino sentenced to another seven years in Suffolk Superior Court
Just days after he was ordered to serve a seven-year prison term for armed robbery, New England mobster Darin Bufalino today was sentenced to another seven years for his role in an organized crime ring allegedly led by Mark Rossetti, who has been identified in court records as both a top Mafia leader and an informant for the FBI.
A prosecutor said Bufalino was an “assistant and an associate” of Rossetti and collected gambling and loan debts, as well as protection money, for him.
Bufalino was sentenced by Suffolk Superior Court Judge Linda Giles after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit extortion and attempted extortion, charges that grew out of an investigation by State Police, along with prosecutors in the offices of Attorney General Martha Coakley and Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett.
Giles sentenced Bufalino to seven years and a day for conspiracy to commit extortion, a sentence that will run concurrent to the seven-year sentence he received last week for armed robbery in an Essex County court. She also sentenced him to five years of probation on the attempted extortion charge. Bufalino will get credit for 604 days he had already spent in jail awaiting trial.
Bufalino, whose alleged criminal career spans several decades, was given the seven-year sentence as a result of his decision to admit his guilt in the case.
In the Essex case, Bufalino pleaded guilty to armed robbery charges stemming from an incident in Middleton in which he robbed a landscaper of $11,000 in cash, according to court records.
Bufalino has been described by law enforcement officials as a “long-term, well-known organized crime figure.” He allegedly worked as an enforcer for former New England Mafia boss Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme in the 1980s and allegedly was inducted into the Mafia within the past several years.
In the 1980s, Bufalino was charged with armed robbery and with the murder of a Revere drug dealer. He hid in Ireland for several years, working as a model and at a pub, then moved to Spain where he was captured and returned to the US.
The murder charge was later dismissed, but Bufalino later faced prosecution for a 1993 bank heist, a crime that landed him in federal prison until 2005.
In the prosecution that led him to the Boston courthouse today, Bufalino was identified as the right hand man of Rossetti, who is facing charges that he was the leader of a sprawling criminal organization whose membership included 30 people.
During the investigation, police executed 30 search warrants seized $1.3 million in cash from extortion cases, $120,000 in alleged drug money, more than a kilo of heroin, a heroin press, 200 pounds of marijuana, a pipe bomb, two bulletproof vests, a rifle, a loaded handgun, and five motor vehicles, prosecutors have said.
Citing records provided to them by law enforcement, defense attorneys for some of the men facing charges as alleged members of the Rossetti group filed court papers that they say show Rossetti was an FBI informant while he was leading the crime group.
The FBI has said they complied with their rules on the use of informants that were created after James “Whitey’’ Bulger was unmasked as a long-time informant who allegedly committed numerous murders. Bulger is awaiting trial on charges he murdered 19 people.
http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2012/04/darin-bufalino-alleged-mobster-gets-another-seven-year-sentence-suffolk-superior-court/r4JSTtCEfpH3auqcJGOjHL/index.html
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