Jailed for life Bonanno mobster wants sentence tossed saying he had bad attorney
A mobster convicted of murdering a potential homicide witness four decades ago was back on the stand Monday, arguing that his life sentence should be tossed because his attorney misled him — and others who committed more vile crimes got a slap on the wrist.
Stephen LoCurto — known in the Big Apple’s seedy underworld as “Stevie Blue” — told a federal judge in Brooklyn that he would have taken a plea deal during his 2006 trial if his attorney hadn’t misled him about the amount of jail time he faced.
“These guys all had two and three murders, and they were getting 10-year pleas!” the 62-year-old grinning killer told the judge, referencing other mobbed-up murderers who he claimed had more bodies on them than he did.
But his old trial attorney, Harry Batchelder, never told him that he was facing life in prison, LoCurto said in his erratic, meandering testimony.
The Bonanno crime family mobster said he thought he only faced 20 years in jail — or about the same as what the feds offered in their plea deal.
Batchelder should have grabbed him by the collar, shook him and said he was risking life in prison by rejecting the deal, LoCurto said.
Thinking the deal was no better than what he faced at trial, LoCurto said he told his lawyer to tell prosecutors what they could do with the deal.
A mobster convicted of murdering a potential homicide witness four decades ago was back on the stand Monday, arguing that his life sentence should be tossed because his attorney misled him — and others who committed more vile crimes got a slap on the wrist.
Stephen LoCurto — known in the Big Apple’s seedy underworld as “Stevie Blue” — told a federal judge in Brooklyn that he would have taken a plea deal during his 2006 trial if his attorney hadn’t misled him about the amount of jail time he faced.
“These guys all had two and three murders, and they were getting 10-year pleas!” the 62-year-old grinning killer told the judge, referencing other mobbed-up murderers who he claimed had more bodies on them than he did.
But his old trial attorney, Harry Batchelder, never told him that he was facing life in prison, LoCurto said in his erratic, meandering testimony.
The Bonanno crime family mobster said he thought he only faced 20 years in jail — or about the same as what the feds offered in their plea deal.
Batchelder should have grabbed him by the collar, shook him and said he was risking life in prison by rejecting the deal, LoCurto said.
Thinking the deal was no better than what he faced at trial, LoCurto said he told his lawyer to tell prosecutors what they could do with the deal.
Batchelder confirmed that Monday.
“I would call this a letter of proposal,“ he testified. “They had 25 defendants. It was a plea proposal.”
https://nypost.com/2023/11/06/metro/convicted-mafia-killer-wants-life-sentence-chucked-over-claims-he-got-bad-attorney-advice-during-trial/
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