Judge denies early release for feared Chicago mobster The Large Guy
Sarno, 67, a once-feared boss known for his impressive girth, was convicted of racketeering and sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in prison. He’s filed several motions seeking early release over the years, attacking his sentence as overly harsh, and citing exposure to COVID-19 and other health concerns.
The latest effort included a typed letter from Sarno himself, who told U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis that even though he walked into prison at 6 foot 3 inches and 400 pounds, he was working out “and was in good health.”
“However, while incarcerated, I experienced health issue after health issue,” Sarno wrote, describing his “2 frozen shoulders,” a long-delayed knee replacement, and being wheelchair-bound for the past six years and dependent on others to help bring him to the bathroom.
“When not in a wheelchair, I have laid in bed for weeks and months at a time,” Sarno wrote. “…This is very humiliating and this has humbled me as well. I walked into prison a healthy man and I am now a pathetic shadow of the man I once was.”
In her ruling Wednesday, however, Ellis noted Sarno “was the leader of a criminal enterprise that engaged in multiple ventures, escalating to the point of bombing a competitor,” and that there “remains a need to protect the public from Sarno committing further crimes.”
“Sarno remains a risk to the community because he remains capable of continuing his role in the criminal enterprise, despite his diminished physical health,” Ellis wrote in the four-page order.
Sarno, who is currently housed at a federal medical prison in Springfield, Missouri, is not due to be released from custody until May 2031, when he’d be 73, prison records show.
Sarno and four co-defendants were found guilty by a jury in 2010 on a total of 15 counts. During the five-week trial, prosecutors outlined how the Sarno crew ran a lucrative — and illegal — video poker racket, pulled off a string of armed robberies that spanned three years and four states, and protected their gambling franchise by planting a bomb in front of a Berwyn business that encroached on their turf.
Sarno’s crew also engaged in smash-and-grab robberies in which hundreds of thousands of dollars in gems were stolen from jewelry stores and then fenced at a Cicero pawnshop operated by the Outlaws motorcycle gang, according to prosecutors.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/judge-denies-early-release-convicted-154600250.html
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