Aging Lucchese captain is given house arrest
Carmine Avellino, a 72-year-old capo in the Lucchese crime family, was sentenced to the year of home confinement and five years of probation for a shakedown scheme seven years ago.
Judge Ann Donnelly noted Avellino's ailments, including heart attacks, a mini-stroke and progressing Parkinson's Disease.
Though prosecutors were recommending an approximately two-year sentence, Donnelly said she weighed Avellino's age and health.
Avellino also apologized Tuesday and begged to stay out so he could be treated on the outside. "At this point in my life, I know what's important. My family, and only my family," he said.
Avellino's lawyer, Scott Leemon, said his client's situation was worsening and prison wasn't the place to get the treatment he needed. "We don't need this man dying in jail," Leemon said.
About seven years ago, Avellino doled out a $100,000 loan to a man. But the guy fell behind on his payments. Prosecutors said when the recipient's friend tried to talk to Avellino about the loan — knowing about Avellino’s gangland rep — the mobster also put him on the hook for repayment.
Avellino dispatched his cousins, Michael and Daniel Capra, and another man, to make sure the recipient and his friend made good on the loan.
The feds said they had recordings of Daniel Capra, 59, talking about the deadbeat, telling his brother to “shake him up a little bit.”
Days later, Michael, 52, called his brother to say he slapped the shaking guy five times.
The Capra brothers were arrested in 2013 and Avellino was arrested a year later. Avellino pleaded guilty to conspiring to use extortionate means to collect credit in August 2016.
In February, Donnelly hit Daniel Capra, 59, with an 18-month sentence and gave his younger brother, Michael, 52, five years of probation.
On Tuesday, Leemon said his client was a changed man since the offense. He was an early riser who worked at his kids' business, saw his doctors and went to bed at 8 p.m.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez said Avellino was a “high-ranking member of an organized crime family” and noted his 1996 racketeering conviction in Brooklyn federal court. She asked Donnelly to treat Avellino like any other person convicted of the same crime and similar facts.
Leemon gave Avellino a hearty hug when the sentencing was over.
Avellino declined to talk with reporters, but Leemon said, "We think the sentence was fair and just under the circumstances.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/aging-mobster-house-arrest-ordering-loan-shakedown-article-1.3189341
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