Colombo consigliere lists reasons why he shouldn't go to prison
An elderly Colombo gangster — who whined he shouldn’t do any hard time because he has less than a year to live — may have gotten the last laugh.
Taking a page from “Junior” Soprano’s
playbook, reputed consigliere Richard Fusco, 76, pushed a walker into Brooklyn
Federal Court and cited a litany of maladies as reasons why he shouldn’t go to
prison for shaking down a rival crime family.
Prostate cancer. Three heart attacks.
Kidney failure. Claustrophobia. Depression. Early onset of Alzheimer’s, to name
a few.
Fusco insisted he was practically stone
deaf in the courtroom, repeatedly blurting out that he couldn’t hear a word
Judge Kiyo Matsumoto was saying. After the judge’s clerk outfitted him with
wireless headphones, Fusco continued to claim he still couldn’t make out
the words.
But after Fusco was sentenced to serve a
measly four months in a federal prison hospital — he faced up to two years — he
appeared to be a new man.
Miraculously, the wily wiseguy appeared to
be hearing just fine in the courthouse lobby as he chatted and joked for a half
hour.
Approached by a Daily News reporter, Fusco
displayed a pretty sharp memory. “You called me a geezer,” he snapped,
referring to a September 2011 article in The News.
Asked how his hearing appeared to be much
improved, Fusco shot back: “I read lips. I’m reading your lips.”
Why couldn’t he read the judge’s lips?
“She was sitting up there behind a desk,”
he said. “I’ve got nothing more to say.”
Earlier, defense lawyer Martin Adelman
argued passionately, even begged the judge, to show mercy for the ailing
mobster.
“I feel my client’s life hangs in the
balance,” he said. “I’m concerned about the box that will come out of the
Bureau of Prisons facility with Mr. Fusco in it soon after he arrives,”
referring to a coffin.
Adelman dismissed questions about whether
the hearing loss was an act. “He does read lips,” Adelman told The News. “And
we didn’t make the argument that he’s handicapped due to a hearing impairment.”
But Adelman actually did assert in court
papers that his client is partially deaf due to a “missile firing accident”
when he served in the Air National Guard, and suffers from chronic ringing in
his ears.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes
did not dispute that Fusco had significant health problems. But noted that he
was undergoing dialysis three times a week while serving as the crime family’s
consigliere, attending captains’ meetings, and sponsoring gangsters for
inductions.
In 2010, he presided over the extortion of
the Gambino crime family after an affiliate of that family stabbed a Colombo
associate. Fusco pressed for a six-figure settlement that would come from the
Gambinos’ cut of the 18th Ave. street feast in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, according
to court papers.
“To come in here today and suggest these
medical conditions are so serious that he shouldn’t be punished for his crimes
is hollow,” Geddes told the judge.
Matusmoto said the defendant was entitled
a break because he’s so sickly, but concluded that he had to serve some jail
time, albeit in a prison hospital, because he had returned to the mob life
after completing his previous sentence for racketeering.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/colombo-gangster-whines-litany-maladies-article-1.1199306#ixzz2BjhWt6Ey
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