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

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Colombo lawyers argue lack of physical evidence in cop slay


Defense attorneys for Colombo crime family soldier Dino Saracino argued in closing statements Thursday that despite sprawling investigations and forensic analyses, not a single shred of physical evidence links the mobster to the murder of NYPD officer Ralph Dols.
Defense lawyer Sam Braverman told a Brooklyn federal court jury that an extensive forensic search of the car used in the 1997 Dols hit uncovered many fibers, but contained nothing that points to his client.
"They don't come back to match Dino Saracino," Braverman said.
The attorney also emphasized that shortly before Dols succumbed to gunshot wounds, the off-duty officer told a New York City police investigator that he thought he had been ambushed by a total of three gunman in front of his Sheepshead Bay home.
Those were "the last words of a dying police officer," Braverman told the jury.
But Assistant US Attorney James Gatta offered a very different account, saying that Dols was gunned down by Saracino and his cousin, Dino "Big Dino" Calabro, who testified about the murder earlier in the trial as a government informant.
Calabro, a former Colombo captain, told the jury that he used a .44-caliber Magnum revolver for the hit, while Little Dino packed a .45-caliber semi automatic.
The feds say Dols was targeted for the hit because he had married the ex-wife of then-Colombo consigliere Joel "Joe Waverly" Cacace.
The hit was ordered by Cacace because he was angry about the marriage, prosecutors say

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/colombo_lawyers_argue_lack_of_physical_wRGxm3gO0hNI2T5vVpPBjN#ixzz1tCX49iyc


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