Showing posts with label Vic Orena. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vic Orena. Show all posts
Saturday, August 12, 2023
Dementia stricken and deteriorating former Colombo Acting Boss appears in the NYTimes
At Federal Medical Center Devens, a federal prison in Massachusetts, there is a prisoner who thinks he is a warden. “I’m the boss. I’m going to fire you,” Victor Orena, who is 89, will tell the prison staff.
On some days, Mr. Orena is studiously aloof — as if he were simply too busy or important to deal with anybody else. On other days, he orders everyone around in an overwrought Mafioso tone: a version of the voice that, perhaps, he used when he was a working New York City mob boss decades ago, browbeating members of his notorious crime family. This makes the real prison warden laugh.
On a recent morning, Mr. Orena sat in his wheelchair beside a man with bloodshot eyes. I asked them if they knew where they were.
“This is a prison,” Mr. Orena said, brightly.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I don’t remember,” he frowned. “I don’t know.”
Timothy Doherty, a senior officer specialist at F.M.C. Devens, which houses federal prisoners who require medical care, estimates that 90 percent of the men he oversees “don’t know what they did. Some of them don’t even know where they are.” Mr. Doherty helps to run the Memory Disorder Unit, the federal prison system’s first purpose-built facility for incarcerated people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
Down the hall from where Mr. Orena was sitting — past the activity room with the fish tank, where a cluster of men were watching “King Kong” on TV — there is a cell belonging to another man who wakes every day to discover anew that he is in prison. Some mornings, the man packs up his belongings and waits at the door. He explains that his mother is coming to get him.
“She sure is,” a staff member might say, before slowly leading him back to his cell.
In recent years, I have reported on many aspects of life with dementia. One image has especially haunted me: that of a prisoner who, as a result of cognitive impairment, no longer remembers his crimes — but is still being punished for them.
We don’t know exactly how many people in American prisons have dementia because nobody is counting. By some estimates, there are already thousands, most of them languishing in the general inmate population.
Older adults represent one of the fastest-growing demographic groups within American correctional facilities. Between 1999 and 2016, the number of prisoners over 55 increased by 280 percent, according to a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts; over the same period, the number of incarcerated younger people grew by just 3 percent. This trend is largely attributed to “tough on crime” reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, which lengthened sentences and ensured that many more people would grow old and frail and then die behind prison walls.
Incarcerated life is also thought to accelerate the aging process, such that many longtime prisoners appear more than a decade older than their chronological ages — and are considered “elderly” at 50 or 55.
Early on, a prisoner’s dementia might go unnoticed. Federal prisons do not routinely screen older people for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia unless they exhibit symptoms. And the rigidity and monotony of institutional life can often mask them: A person can get by, for a while, just by following the man ahead of him.
But later, things will start to fall apart. At first, a person with dementia might struggle in the normal way that other aging prisoners do: to walk long distances for meals or medication, to get up from a low-lying toilet without a handrail, to climb a bunk bed on command. Over time, he might start to pace or repeat phrases over and over. He might have hallucinations or delusions or paranoia. He might fall. He might be incorrectly medicated by a doctor who does not understand his condition. He might struggle to distinguish between items of similar color — mashed potatoes on a white plate, say — and so have trouble eating. Or forget to eat at all.
A prisoner with dementia might wear slippers outside his cell, even though this is against the rules. Or wander somewhere he is not supposed to go. He might have trouble judging the distance between things and bump into people who might, in turn, mistake the stumbles for deliberate affronts. He might begin to smell, because he can’t remember how to wash his body — and he might expose his body to others, because his disease leaves him sexually disinhibited. He might get hurt by another prisoner who takes advantage of his impairment and then forget that he was hurt. He might hurt someone else. He might become incontinent. He might grow afraid of shadows because he perceives them to be holes in the ground.
Eventually, the man will find himself living inside an unyielding system whose boundaries and principles he can no longer see or interpret or remember. And because he can’t stop breaking the rules, he might be punished — in some cases, with solitary housing. There, his condition might worsen. “Noncompliance with correctional rules and directions is often treated as a disciplinary issue rather than a medical issue,” explains a 2022 report, “Persons Living With Dementia in the Criminal Legal System,” copublished by the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging. Because the prisoner has nowhere else to go, he might muddle along as best as he can until he becomes so impaired that he is transferred to a medical center, where he will spend the rest of his incarcerated days lying in bed.
The Memory Disorder Unit at F.M.C. Devens, which opened in 2019 and was designed to resemble a memory care facility, offers an alternative path for such a prisoner. Its correctional officers have received training from the National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners and currently supervise around two dozen men with an average age of 72. These officers have been given a tall task: to bend an institution designed to punish and sequester into a place that can provide care to some of the most vulnerable people in the system.
In the end, they are proud of what they have built. Why else would they let a journalist come to see it? And still, the M.D.U. seems to challenge several of the classic justifications for the prison system itself: to segregate the dangerous, for instance (many M.D.U. residents are weak and unthreatening), or to reform the morally corrupt (many M.D.U. prisoners don’t remember doing wrong).
Amy Boncher, who was the warden of F.M.C. Devens when I visited in May (she is now the Bureau of Prisons’ Northeast regional director), told me that when she first met the residents of the unit, it was hard to make sense of the entire project. “I looked at them. And I’m thinking: Why haven’t we released all of them?”
“Do you know history?” An M.D.U. resident shuffled toward me. I could only make out bits of speech: “Fidel Castro” and “revolution” and “United States took over Cuba.” This man was born in Cuba and now spends his days reliving its past. As he moved closer, I noticed the smell; since arriving at the M.D.U., he has generally refused to brush his teeth.
I’m told that he’s a “big teddy bear” — though he can get agitated if, say, another prisoner gets annoyed by his revolutionary babble and tells him that Fidel Castro is dead and that nobody liked him. When this happens, a staff member will play the man some old Cuban music, and he will weep as he listens to it.
Most days, he doesn’t seem to know why he is in prison, though sometimes he will allude to a past transgression. “I was a young man,” he will insist. “I told them who did it.”
After a few minutes, an “inmate companion” named Oswaldo Ornelas put his arm around the Cuban man’s shoulders and led him down the hallway. Mr. Ornelas is one of four cognitively healthy prisoners, men without dementia, who are trained to live and work in the M.D.U. in exchange for $30 to $100 a month in wages and, possibly, time off their sentences. The companions are selected based on criminal history — they can’t have been convicted of a sex crime or another violent crime — and temperament. “You’ve got to make sure they won’t take advantage of the men in any way,” Mr. Doherty, the senior officer specialist, said.
Mr. Ornelas told me that a few years ago, while incarcerated, he received a kidney transplant and that he wanted to work in the M.D.U. “to give my life back.”
When I arrived at the unit, Mr. Ornelas was on duty with another companion, Richard Lotito, and the two men had just spent three hours waking, showering and dressing the other prisoners. Their work is physically demanding and exquisitely intimate. Several of the men need help with the toilet and wear diapers. Over many months, the companions have learned their individual needs and tempos. “One guy poops every other day, another poops all day,” Mr. Lotito said. Another gets confused and urinates in the trash cans. “The key to this job is patience.” (Mr. Lotito and Mr. Ornelas were both released in July.)
The M.D.U. is made up of two long hallways that are lined with cells and several common rooms. Unlike standard prison units, the M.D.U. has a kitchen filled with snacks, because sometimes the men forget that they have just eaten and insist that they are starving — and then one of the companions can make them peanut butter sandwiches.
Across most of the unit, the walls are painted a pale pink. In the world of dementia care, pink is sometimes thought to be a calming color that reduces combative behavior. Two officers and one nurse are walking the floors at any given moment, but they do not carry guns, and they are not everywhere. Near the entryway, the prisoners’ artwork is displayed on the wall: paper lanterns, painted tiles, flowers made of pipe cleaners. On the doors to the cells are pictures of favorite objects that help the men to locate their rooms: a Cadillac, the Red Sox logo, an umbrella. Most of the time, the doors inside the unit are unlocked, and the prisoners can come and go as they please. If the whole place weren’t locked down and made of windowless concrete, it would almost look like a day care center.
During the day, there are activities. Trivia, with questions about events from the ’50s and ’60s. Bocce ball. Music therapy. Outside of scheduled time, the men are encouraged to be active. One folds laundry. One sits on the patio on a metal rocking chair and watches birds fly by. Another is given a paintbrush and a can of washable paint so that he can paint the walls all day — “because he gets upset when he’s bored and doesn’t know what to do with himself,” Mr. Doherty said.
As I was led around the unit, I heard screaming. I was told that the screaming man had suffered a brain injury and that he screams often, sometimes because of pain from the spots on his legs where he has rubbed the skin raw. Alexandra Kimball, an occupational therapist, rushed to his side. “Do you like Tom Brady?” she asked gently, referring to the former N.F.L. quarterback.
The screaming stopped. “I love Tom Brady.”
The staff members of the M.D.U. maintain a binder with profiles of the prisoners, including information on how to soothe them. The binder entry for the screaming man advises officers to reference Tom Brady.
Compared to officers in the rest of the prison, M.D.U. staff members can exercise a bit more discretion when it comes to rule breaking. Ms. Boncher, the former warden, told me that the M.D.U. has its own unique “disciplinary procedures.” Her staff members, she explained, are skilled at deciding which prisoners should be disciplined for bad behavior, which she says involves a psychological determination about whether the offending man knew that he was doing something wrong and did it anyway and is therefore responsible and worthy of punishment or was simply acting on impulse, a victim of his own damaged mind. This approach assumes that it is even possible to deduce the mental state of a man who only sometimes or partially understands himself.
But sometimes the M.D.U. residents will fight in the TV room. Or someone will spit on someone else — or walk into the wrong cell and get punched in the face. In most cases, a man who acts out will be “redirected” to a new activity. In other cases, he will lose his commissary or phone privileges for a few days. In rarer cases, he will be locked alone in his room until he calms down, an approach that would not be used in a typical nursing home.
A few men are only allowed out of their cells for two hours each day, with supervision. This includes someone whom Mr. Doherty describes as “absolutely the nicest of inmates” until he starts hearing voices. Some of the men understand that they are being punished and some don’t, and some understand but then forget.
“All the prisons need this,” Mr. Doherty told me, gesturing around him. “What do other places do with these guys?”
On the day I visited the unit, a few of the medical staff members told me that they previously worked in community nursing homes and that the M.D.U. prisoners are probably receiving better care than they would on the outside, in whatever Medicaid-subsidized beds they were likely to find themselves. Behind bars, the men have easy access to psychologists, social workers and a pharmacist with a specialty in geriatrics. Perhaps that’s true. And yet, the existence of the M.D.U. seems to impugn the basic logic of the carceral system or at least its classic rationales.
For some, the point of prison is chiefly to incapacitate dangerous people. The men inside the M.D.U. vary in their physical abilities, but many are very sick and confused and use wheelchairs or walkers, and they probably couldn’t hurt anyone if they wanted to. With them, appeals to public safety fall short. More broadly, the Department of Justice has concluded that “aging inmates are generally less of a public safety threat.” And researchers have found that recidivism rates drop to nearly zero for people over 65.
For others, prison is meant to offer retribution for wrongdoing. In this view, if a person does something wrong, he deserves to be punished in proportion to his crime — and justice depends on it. Dementia tests this logic in different ways. Proponents of this view might decide that even a just act of punishment becomes unjust if the offender no longer understands why he is being condemned. Alternatively, they might conclude that those who are ailing and weak deserve mercy. Many of the M.D.U. residents have already served several years of their sentences.
Some believe that incarceration is an opportunity for rehabilitation. “But with dementia, there is no rehabilitation,” says Lynn Biot-Gordon, of the National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners, the organization that provided training to M.D.U. staff. Moral education is impossible for a person who cannot be educated. And a prisoner cannot reflect on his crimes — and then maybe regret them or feel ashamed of them or be repulsed by them or resolve to do better in the future — if he does not even remember them or feel responsible for them.
Kelly Fricker, a psychologist at F.M.C. Devens, told me that she can’t do much in the way of talk therapy for her M.D.U. patients. “An inherent part of mental health therapy would be to remember from session to session. Many guys here don’t even know who I am.”
But what if the point of imprisoning people for decades is to deter others from committing crimes? Arguably, this rationale survives. Letting the M.D.U.’s prisoners go would, in this view, weaken the overall deterrent effect of criminal law. To hold this view, however, you would have to hold the unlikely belief that a person’s decision to commit a crime would be affected by the knowledge that prisoners with advanced dementia are sometimes released from prison early.
Of course, dementia is not the only medical condition that casts doubt on the principles of incarceration. A prisoner who is very old but cognitively healthy might be similarly frail and unthreatening — or might have changed in drastic ways since his incarceration. A person with a severe mental illness might similarly forget his crimes — or feel psychically disconnected from them or be incapable of thoughtfully reflecting on them later. But dementia might pose the paradigmatic challenge.
Within the philosophical literature on cognitive impairment, there is a debate about whether a person with advanced dementia is even the same person as he was before it. If he cannot be considered the same person, then the men of the M.D.U. are, in an important sense, being punished for someone else’s crimes.
At one point during my visit, I spoke with a white-haired man who had a large nose and reddish skin. “I want to go home like anything,” he told me softly.
“What brought you here?” I asked.
“What brought me here?” The man paused. “Hmm. I don’t know.”
As we walked away, Mr. Doherty shook his head. “He remembers,” he said. Then he told me that the white-haired man had raped his granddaughter.
Later, I wondered how much it should matter whether the old man remembered what he did. And what if he remembered sometimes but not other times? Many people with dementia exist in a kind of middle ground of partial comprehension or have memories that surface and then disappear.
“We get into difficult metaphysical questions about personhood here,” said Jeffrey Howard, a professor of political philosophy and public policy at University College London, when I told him about my conversation with the white-haired man. “But you might think that there are two versions of the man: One of them deserves the punishment, and the other doesn’t. In order to punish the version of him that deserves it, you have to take along this hostage for the ride. It’s hard to see how that sort of collateral damage could be justified.”
There is, technically, a way out. A few of the M.D.U.’s residents have received so-called compassionate release, which allows prisoners with extraordinary or compelling reasons, such as severe illness, to be released early from their sentences. The Federal Bureau of Prisons and most state systems have a version of it. But compassionate release, according to the 2022 American Bar Association report, is “rarely used,” and many prisoners die over the months it takes for their applications to be reviewed. Release is especially rare for people with dementia, because the Bureau of Prisons has historically misinterpreted the federal statute to mean that only prisoners who are terminally ill and very close to death are eligible.
State programs are also limited. Lilli Paratore, the director of legal services at UnCommon Law, which offers pro bono legal representation to incarcerated people in California, told me about representing a woman with Parkinson’s disease and dementia who applied for medical parole. Parole board members looked at her client’s memory gaps with suspicion, Ms. Paratore told me. “Your lack of memory appears to be selective,” one commissioner said. (The client was eventually released.)
Even people with dementia who do obtain early release can find themselves stuck in prison, because they can’t be released without a plan and there is nowhere else for them to go. Some have lost contact with family members. They don’t have anyone on the outside who is able to provide or fund round-the-clock care. And nursing homes usually won’t take them, particularly if they have violent histories — which some but not all of the M.D.U. residents do. “Some people get released but we can’t find them a spot,” Christina Cozza, a social worker in the unit, said.
Within the medical field, there has been very little research on how a history of violence might present itself in the context of dementia. Would a violent impulse be heightened or diminished as the brain it dwells in grows more impaired?
Patricia Ruze, the clinical director of F.M.C. Devens, does not believe that the men of the M.D.U. pose a threat to anyone. “They are probably better behaved than most patients in dementia units generally, because a lot of them have spent many, many, many years in custody and so are rule followers.” Dr. Ruze thinks it would be “totally appropriate” to release the whole unit on compassionate grounds and relocate the men to community nursing homes, which already have experience dealing with aggressive behaviors brought on by cognitive impairment — and which cost much less than operating a prison unit.
“It doesn’t make sense for our country to pay so much to house 15, 20 guys,” Dr. Ruze said.
Ms. Boncher, the former warden, is now equivocal. “They’ve done some horrific things. They’ve been abusive to other humans.” Collectively, the men of the M.D.U. have murdered, attempted to murder, stabbed, kidnapped, extorted, swindled and brought fear to entire cities. There were victims of these crimes, and some of them are still living. They will have their own opinions about the need, or not, for mercy.
Within the M.D.U., staff members believe that the future of the correctional system lies in more M.D.U.s. “This is the future,” one unit nurse told me.
“Have people from other institutions visited, to learn about the model?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Doherty said. Then he turned to his colleagues. “Didn’t we have people from Guantánamo?”
In the meantime, some researchers are proposing a more modest approach: building more “dementia-friendly prisons.” Such prisons might have cell doors painted in different colors to help confused inmates orient themselves — and handrails, nonslip floors and accessible showers. They might guarantee that prisoners with dementia get bottom bunks and a bit more time to drop to the floor during drills. They might have pictures above the sinks to remind prisoners how hand-washing works and “scheduled toileting” for people who are incontinent. They might permit a person to wear Velcro clothing if he can no longer manage buttons or clasps. They could give him longer to finish his dinner.
Dr. Ruze, the clinical director, is skeptical of all of it. “In this country, we incarcerate way too many people for way too long. We give people life sentences. And then they turn 90, they’re in diapers, they get demented. We have to ask ourselves, what are we accomplishing?”
Whatever we are currently accomplishing or mean to accomplish, it seems to require that America’s prisons undergo a strange and maybe absurd conversion: into something that more closely resembles a locked-down, fenced-off, barbed-wire-enclosed nursing home.
As I left the M.D.U., a man was moving slowly down the hallway in a wheelchair, his head wrapped in a thick bandage — because, I was told, he bangs his head on the concrete walls when he gets frustrated. In the common room, another man was helping the person beside him to open a plastic container holding his lunch, a hamburger. Another man sat to the side.
“Do you like it here?” I asked him.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” he said. “But I’d rather be in … oh, what’s it …?” Then he forgot where he wished he could go.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/11/opinion/dementia-prisons.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share
Saturday, July 8, 2023
Lawyer launches new bid to release dementia stricken 90 year old former acting Colombo Boss
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The one-time head of New York’s notorious Colombo family won’t rejoin the criminal underworld if he’s released as he doesn’t even remember who he is — sometimes mistaking himself for the president of the United States — his lawyer argued Thursday.
The attorney for the 88-year-old Victor “Little Vic” Orena, serving three life sentences for one of the bloodiest mafia wars in New York City history, is taking a new approach to getting his client free.
At a Brooklyn Federal Court hearing, Orena’s lawyer David Schoen said that were his client to be re-sentenced and ultimately released, there’s no chance he’d reconnect with his old allies, as prosecutors have argued is a risk.
“My client is suffering from advanced dementia. He, at times, does not know who he is and assumes that he is the president of the United States,” Schoen said. “Sometimes he thinks he is the president. How will he even introduce himself to these people?”
Earlier this year, an appeals court panel found that a judge may re-sentence a prisoner when a count against them is overturned.
Arguing that that scenario applies to Orena, who’s expecting one of nine counts he was convicted of to be overturned, the retired mob boss’s lawyers want him to get a new sentencing and ultimately be released so he doesn’t die behind bars.
Prosecutors, who have fought against Orena’s release, objected to the maneuver. They say there’s no need to re-sentence him for the whole case and that the judge should simply vacate his conviction on the one count to be thrown out — using and carrying a firearm concerning a crime of violence — which carried five years.
In the early 1990s, Orena served as the acting head of one of two factions battling for control of the Colombo family, waging a bloody war against imprisoned family boss Carmine Persico that led to a dozen deaths and injuries to 28 people.
Orena was convicted and slapped with three life sentences plus 85 years in federal prison three days before Christmas 1992.
The patriarch with five sons and 20 grandkids has already seen multiple requests for release on compassionate grounds denied by appeals courts, most recently in August last year. The court found that Orena’s medical issues were “extraordinary,” as prosecutors agreed, but not enough to spring him loose.
Among multiple arguments, Schoen, in court filings, said his terminally ill client was wrongly convicted. He cited Orena’s rehabilitation behind bars, “model inmate behavior for during the more than 30 years he has served,” service to others and spiritual development, among reasons the judge should revisit his punishment.
“Mr. Orena stands before the Court today on the eve of his 89th birthday a very different man for all purposes relevant to sentencing,” Schoen wrote.
At Thursday’s hearing, Judge Eric Komitee said the probation department should speed up paperwork on their recommendations so he can take steps to make a ruling on Orena’s request.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-victor-little-vic-orena-colombo-release-20230706-w3i7wlecnjfs3iujdy35wu6ih4-story.html
Thursday, November 3, 2022
Federal judge orders release of aging Colombo Captain convicted of ordering murders during bloody civil war
Two convicted killers — together with mob capo Anthony Russo, who ordered murders in the course of the bloody Colombo crime household civil warfare — are being released from jail by a federal decide.
Russo and Paul Moore, a drug trafficker who fatally shot a rival, got diminished sentences Wednesday by Judge Frederic Block below the First Step Act.
The felons utilized for compassionate launch below the prison justice reform invoice, which was signed into law by Donald Trump in 2018.
Block famous that Russo and Moore have been mannequin prisoners, and that they have been punished with life sentences for exercising their proper to trial.
“I am letting two murderers sentenced to life out of prison,” Block wrote Wednesday. “But I have painstakingly endeavored to explain why it is the appropriate thing to do under the First Step Act.”
The two males will be sprung instantly, however Block minimize each their jail phrases to 35 years.
That means Russo, 70, nonetheless owes six years of his sentence, whereas Moore, 56, has about three years to go, although each may probably get credit score for good time.
Russo and two others have been convicted in 1994 of conspiring to homicide John Minerva and Michael Imbergamo in the course of the battle between Colombo boss Victor Orena and Alphonse Persico — the son of jailed Colombo head Carmine “The Snake” Persico. A dozen killings have been linked to the bloody battle.
Russo served as a captain below Orena, however when the warfare broke out in 1991, he sided with Persico. On March 25, 1992, Russo’s subordinates stalked Minerva and Imbergamo — who sided with Orena — to a restaurant Minerva owned on Long Island, and shot them dead as they walked to their vehicles.
In his memo, Block praised the First Step Act, which has led to the discount of greater than 4,000 jail sentences. Russo and Moore’s instances “reflect the broad range of issues” that Block believes judges ought to take a look at whereas weighing compassionate launch requests,” he wrote.
“The Act was a remarkable piece of bipartisan legislation by an otherwise divided Congress and reflected the realization by lawyers on both sides of the aisle that sentencing reform of the judicial system was sorely needed,” Block stated.
Block, 88, has served on the federal bench since his appointment by President Clinton in 1994.
Prior to that, on the retrial within the slaying of a Hasidic man in the course of the 1991 Crown Heights riot, Block requested a Black witness to outline the slang time period “‘chillin’ for somebody who is not a brother.”
He has a repute for taking pictures from the hip, and was ripped on the front page of the Daily News in 2007 with the headline “Judge Blockhead” after he ridiculed prosecutors for looking for the dying penalty towards a drug kingpin throughout a racketeering homicide trial.
Russo “has clearly demonstrated that he has achieved extraordinary rehabilitation” when he utilized for compassionate launch in April and pointed to his well being issues and his danger of catching COVID-19, Block wrote.
He additionally contends that Russo shouldn’t be penalized for selecting to go to trial.
“Russo exercised his constitutional right to trial. Of Russo’s 14 co-defendants, seven went to trial. Six received mandatory life sentences under the then-mandatory sentencing guidelines. The seventh was acquitted,” he wrote. “In contrast, the remaining co-defendants received sentences ranging from time-served, equating to approximately four years, to 270 months.”
Those different defendants have been accused of actions “no less violent or destructive than those who received life sentences,” he stated.
Federal prosecutors opposed Russo’s early launch, arguing that he confirmed a “disregard for the law and human life,” and that he may nonetheless grow to be a participant within the Colombo crime household.
“Russo rose through the ranks to serve as a captain of the Colombo crime family, a position from which he gave direction to the ‘made men’ who reported to him,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Devon Lash wrote to the decide. “His risk he poses (even at an advanced age) comes from the influence he has over others in the enterprise.”
The decide made comparable arguments about Moore, a Jamaican immigrant who served as an enforcer for drug boss Eric Vassell, and was tasked with increasing his gang’s affect from Brooklyn to Texas. Moore and an confederate shot and killed a rival drug vendor in 1991, and he shot one of his personal gang members within the leg to self-discipline him for disrespecting Vassell, Block wrote.
“Like Russo, Moore has also been the victim of sentencing disparities. Only Moore and one of his 46 co-defendants are serving life sentences,” Block stated. “Eric Vassell, who accepted a plea deal, murdered two people and ordered the murders of several others. He is scheduled to be released from prison in December after serving approximately 25 years.”
Moore, who utilized for compassionate launch final November, has agreed not to combat deportation after he’s freed.
A spokesman for Eastern District of New York U.S. Attorney Breon Peace declined remark.
Lawyers for Russo and Moore didn’t return messages looking for remark.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-nyc-mobster-drug-gang-killer-released-early-judge-20221103-52zenynwgvfrld5yeael63ehem-story.html
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Compassionate release request denied for ailing former Acting Colombo Boss
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Alzheimer’s-stricken ex-Colombo crime family boss Victor Orena’s latest appeal for compassionate release was shot down by a federal appeals court.
The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, in its 11-page decision, found no grounds for freeing the mob veteran once involved in a bloody internal battle for control of the crime family. Orena, who turned 88 this month, is serving a mandatory life sentence for federal racketeering and murder convictions tied to the Mafia war.
“We have considered Orena’s remaining arguments and find in them no basis for reversal,” the decision concluded. “The district court’s order denying compassionate release is confirmed.”
His lawyer previously said Orena was confined to a wheelchair and battling dementia that left the former gangster convinced he was the president of the United States. The ailing mobster was behind bars in the Federal Medical Center Devers in Massachusetts.
Orena headed one of two warring factions for control of the Colombo family in the early 1990s, taking on supporters of imprisoned family boss Carmine Persico in a bloody fight in which 12 people were killed and another 28 injured, authorities said.
The lethal conflict ended with Orena’s Brooklyn Federal Court conviction three days before Christmas 1992, when he was slapped with three life sentences plus 85 years in federal prison. The mobster is patriarch to a large extended family, with five sons and 20 grandkids.
Messages left with his attorney and one of his sons for comment on the decision were not returned Wednesday.
Orena’s compassionate release motion dates to July 2021, an appeal that was rejected when a judge ruled his “undeniably serious” medical problems did not outweigh the factors favoring his continued imprisonment.
The 2nd Circuit echoed the lower court rejection of Orena’s argument that his life sentence created a disparity with the jail terms given to other organized crime defendants, noting most of the cases cited involved mobsters turned cooperating witnesses.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-colombo-mobster-orena-denied-compassionate-release-20220831-ypr6h4swo5e4rjay5qaocao3tm-story.html
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Federal judge rules that former Colombo Street Boss Tommy Shots must use lawsuit proceeds to pay restitution to victims
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A clumsy Colombo mobster who famously scored a $250,000 settlement for a Brooklyn federal jailhouse Ping-Pong injury won’t be able to keep his slip-and-fall windfall.
A federal judge ruled that Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli will have to use his portion of the lawsuit cash, more than $182,000, to pay restitution to his victims as part of his 18-and-a-half year prison sentence.
Gioeli argued in recent court filings that the federal government was trying to “claw back” the settlement money so it could be “rewarded for the fruits of its own bad behavior.” Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Brian Cogan disagreed.
“The only thing of which defendant is being deprived is the unrestricted decision on how to apply this newly acquired asset,” Cogan wrote in a July 5 ruling. “What defendant really wants to do is stiff the government on his forfeiture obligation and spend the money on something he would prefer. But the law doesn’t permit that.”
The murderous street boss was playing Ping-Pong in an open area at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on Aug. 29, 2013, when the ball got away from him.
He went to retrieve it in an area close to shower stalls and a leaking slop sink, slipped in a puddle and fractured his kneecap. He filed a $10-million lawsuit after the injury.
Cogan had earlier ruled that Gioeli’s $360,000 restitution bill should go to compensate a Chemical Bank branch and a business named Furs by Mina.
Gioeli tried to convince the judge to let him keep the settlement cash to help pay for his cancer treatments after he finishes his prison sentence.
Gioeli, now 70, was convicted at a 2012 federal racketeering trial for conspiring to kill supporters of then-family boss Victor “Little Vic” Orena during a war for control of the Colombo family.
He headed a faction loyal to imprisoned head Carmine “Junior” Persico, and was bumped up to street boss during the bloody conflict, which claimed 13 lives, including a teen bagel shop worker gunned down in a case of mistaken identity.
Cogan has twice denied Gioeli, who suffers from bladder cancer, compassionate release from prison — first in May 2020, when the ailing gangster feared catching COVID at the height of the pandemic, and again in March.
According to court papers, Gioeli was diagnosed last year with a recurrence of bladder cancer followed by surgery and receives weekly hormone injections. The cancer’s return followed an 18-month stretch where Gioeli received no follow-up medical treatment behind bars, court papers said.
The judge ruled in March that Gioeli’s Mafia resume was so “heinous” that it outweighed any request for compassionate release.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-mobster-loses-fight-ping-pong-settlement-thomas-gioeli-tommy-shots-20220712-j7tn2cyktfdh7abknzo5nk6y7q-story.html
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Panel rejects compassionate release for former Acting Boss of the Colombo Family assuring his death behind bars
A one-time notorious Colombo family mob boss who is now gravely ill with dementia was denied release from prison by a federal appeals court Wednesday — all but assuring he’ll die behind bars.
Victor “Little Vic” Orena’s appeal for compassionate release was slapped down by a three-judge panel from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with a lower-court jurist in affirming his life sentence.
Orena, once the acting boss of the Colombos, was sentenced to life in prison in the early 1990s after his conviction in Brooklyn federal court on murder, racketeering and other Mafia-related crimes.
The former shot-caller, now 87, asked a Brooklyn federal judge to free him in 2021 because of his deteriorating health — and because his lawyer discovered new evidence that allegedly casts doubt on his conviction.
On Wednesday, the appeals court panel wrote that while even federal prosecutors agree his health issues are “extraordinary and compelling,” the district court judge correctly ruled they do not outweigh the need for a life sentence.
The judges also ruled that if there is indeed new evidence that proves Orena’s innocence, it should be raised in a separate appeal — not one for compassionate release.
The wiseguy’s crimes that put him away for life related to a murderous, intra-family Colombo war that pitted factions loyal to Orena against those who backed the late Carmine “Junior” Persico. More than a dozen people were killed in the beef.
“The five Families’ criminal activities and the war between the competing Colombo factions resulted in multiple assassinations and attempted assassinations and billions of dollars of economic impact on the city,” the appeals court panel wrote in the decision Wednesday.
Orena is serving time in FMC Devens, a federal medical center with an attached minimum-security prison.
In an email, Orena’s attorney, David Schoen, called the decision “very disappointing” – and blasted the prosecution as the most corrupt in the history of the DOJ.
“It is absurd and completely unfair to deny a trial court judge the discretion to at least consider whether new evidence since the trial ought to be relevant to the appropriateness of a terminally ill defendant,” he said.
https://nypost.com/2022/06/15/colombo-family-boss-victor-orena-denied-compassionate-release/
Friday, May 20, 2022
Sunday, April 17, 2022
Federal judge denies latest compassionate release request for cancer stricken former Colombo street boss Tommy Shots
A one-time Colombo crime family street boss’ violent life of crime could end with his death behind bars.
A Brooklyn federal judge rejected the latest appeal from cancer-stricken mobster Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli for a compassionate release from prison, declaring the inmate’s murderous Mafia career outweighed any arguments for his freedom.
“The unfortunate fact in this case is that the defendant’s crimes were so heinous and the nature of his leadership role so dangerous that release would not be appropriate,” wrote Judge Brian M. Cogan in the Wednesday decision. “The motion is therefore denied.”
Cogan previously shot down a May 2020 appeal for Gioeli’s freedom based on the ailing gangster’s fears of contracting COVID-19. The judge, in his latest ruling, acknowledged Gioeli’s health woes but declined to set him free.
“I find the defendant’s medical status has deteriorated to the point where he has satisfied his burden of showing extraordinary and compelling reasons (for release) under the statute,” he wrote in the seven-page decision.
“However, the assessment of the sentencing factors has not changed and that assessment precludes release.”
Gioeli, 70, was convicted at a 2012 federal racketeering trial for conspiring to killer supporters of then-family boss “Little Vic” Orena during a lethal war for control of the Colombo family. He was sentenced to 18½ years behind bars.
The family capo, heading a faction loyal to imprisoned head Carmine “Junior” Persico, was bumped up to street boss during the bloody battle where 13 victims were killed — including a teen bagel shop worker gunned down in a case of mistaken identity.
Cogan, in his decision, noted Gioeli and his crew “committed multiple murders that I know of from the evidence at trial ... The evidence of these murders was again detailed, grisly and left me with no doubt as to the defendant’s involvement.”
According to court papers, Gioeli was diagnosed last year with a recurrence of bladder cancer followed by surgery and now receives weekly injections of hormones to battle the illness. The cancer’s return followed an 18-month stretch where Gioeli received no follow-up medical treatment behind bars, court papers said.
“We will never know if his bladder cancer could have been caught earlier, and perhaps treated more effectively,” wrote Cogan.
Gioeli famously collected a $250,000 settlement after an August 2013 slip and fall during a prison ping-pong game left him with a fractured kneecap. The mobster needed surgery and spent a month in the hospital after the accident.
But Cogan, in a November 2019, ruled the financial windfall should go for restitution to a fur store and a bank robbed by the gangster and his crew back in the ‘90s.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-tommy-shots-colombo-mobster-compassionate-release-20220324-f6vkcmqpjrgpfihqm2jjnxs2aq-story.html
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Aging Colombo Boss posts $10M bail while another is denied compassionate release
The wheels of justice spun in different directions Wednesday for a pair of octogenarian Colombo crime family bosses.
Current leader Andrew “Mush” Russo, charged in a lucrative and long-running mob union shakedown, won his freedom with a $10 million bond while his long-imprisoned Colombo predecessor Victor “Little Vic” Orena was denied compassionate release despite his fast-deteriorating health in separate Brooklyn Federal Court rulings.
Russo, 87, secured his home detention from Chief Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak in part with properties worth $7 million, although his earliest taste of freedom would be Thursday once the paperwork is complete and a prosecution doctor conducts an evaluation, officials said. Pollak found Russo posed no threat to the community due to his health issues, including some form of dementia.
“If they want to get some more doctors to reach the same conclusion, they’re certainly welcome to do that,” said defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman. “He’s also been shackled by both ankles to a bed 24 hours a day and the government told the judge that Andrew was receiving ‘excellent around the clock care.’
“That didn’t fly either.”
Orena, the family boss during a bloody internal family war where 15 people died in the early ‘90s, was kept behind bars by Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Eric Komitee despite the 87-year-old gangster’s myriad health woes — including dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, glaucoma and heart problems.
Orena will remain inside the Federal Medical Center Devers in Massachusetts after the judge’s 10-page Wednesday decision.
“A strain of cases ... has emerged in which the offenders’ criminal history is so long, and their victims so numerous, that even serious health conditions do not suffice to merit relief,” the judge wrote. “This case falls squarely in that category.”
One of the those slain during the mob war was an innocent 17-year-old
shot six times while working behind the counter of a Bay Ridge bagel
shop.
The Orena faction battled forces loyal to then-jailed Colombo boss Carmine “Junior” Persico, with Russo moving into the top spot after Persico’s death in 2019. Orena’s attorney, in a hearing earlier this month, said the deranged ex-boss was now convinced that he was president of the United States.
Russo, under terms of his release, would remain under home detention, GPS monitoring, phone monitoring and a ban on contact with his 13 co-defendants or anyone else affiliated with La Cosa Nostra.
Prosecutors were permitted to have one of their doctors evaluate Russo in hopes the judge will reverse her decision. In court papers opposing his release, the feds cited Russo’s appearance last year at a gathering of the family hierarchy and his hosting of a meeting with two Colombo co-defendants this past March in his Long Island home.
“Releasing the defendant on the terms proposed by defense counsel would return him to his home, from where he carried out much of charged conduct, and give him the full resources of the Colombo crime family,” prosecutors argued in court papers.
In the Orena case, his history of failing health fell far short of swaying Komitee.
“I have considered Orena’s arguments ... (and) I am left with the inescapable conclusion that any sentence short of the life term imposed ... would insufficiently reflect the seriousness of the offense conduct here and fail to provide just punishment,” he wrote.
Orena’s son Andrew said the family’s attorney would appeal the decision, while acknowledging his sickly father was running out of time.
“Yes, he’s in bad shape,” said Andrew Orena. “So we’re forced to do it this way. So we’ll see. We have to push.”
Komitee described Vic Orena as “a singular figure in the annals of the Colombo family” — which traces its roots to the legendary boss Joe Colombo.
“He rose to a leadership role, becoming acting boss in 1988, and his efforts to cling to power triggered a bloody war,” the judge wrote. “Orena oversaw a campaign of violence that resulted in a swath of death and serious injury.”
And he noted the difference between Orena and other mobsters granted shorter sentences despite their roles in organized crime violence, including Colombo capo Greg Scarpa and Bonanno family boss Joseph “Big Joe” Massino.
“These cases generally involved high-ranking defendants who elected to cooperate with the government, at serious risk to themselves,” Komitee found.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-colombo-mob-boss-orena-compassionate-release-20211027-p4alrthlkbgh7f7rhr2pevs3h4-story.html#nt=pf-single%20chain~top-left-chain~flex%20feature~curated~colombo-212p~P4ALRTHLKBGH7F7RHR2PEVS3H4~1~1~2~5~art%20yes
Thursday, October 14, 2021
Alzheimer's has former Acting Boss of the Colombo family thinking he is the President of the United States
Vic Orena went from leading the Colombo crime family to thinking he’s the president of the United States, his lawyer revealed Wednesday.
The lawyer for the Alzheimer’s stricken ex-boss of the crime family called for the mafioso’s compassionate release from prison, revealing the mobster sometimes believes he’s the commander-in-chief or running the military because of the degenerative disease.
Orena, who now uses a wheelchair and turned 87 in August, is “a shell of a man,” his attorney David Schoen said at a Brooklyn Federal Court hearing.
“Mr. Orena is completely unable to self-care. The delusions have been there for quite a while. Mr. Orena does not know who he is or where he is.”
When not laying claim to the White House, said Schoen, the octogenarian Orena — known during his reign as acting boss of the Colombos as “Little Vic” — believes he is the warden of the facility where he remains imprisoned, the Federal Medical Center Devens in Massachusetts.
According to Schoen, Orena contracted COVID-19 in prison and then declared the pandemic was a conspiracy conjured up by President Biden. Orena is now unable to walk on his own or use the bathroom without help, the lawyer said.
While federal prosecutors did not dispute Orena’s myriad health issues, they argued that the venerable gangster should remain behind bars because he could still pose the threat of violence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Devon Lash referenced the bloody Colombo family war of the early 1990s, with the Orena faction squaring off with supporters of imprisoned boss Carmine Persico.
“He instigated a conflict that injured 28 people and claimed 12 lives,” Lash said about the mob war that ended with Orena’s Dec. 22, 1992, conviction for racketeering, murder and other charges. He was hit with a staggering three life sentences plus 85 years in federal prison, with family members fighting in recent years for his release as Orena’s health continued to fail.
Judge Eric Komitee did not rule from the bench on the appeal for compassionate release for the frail Orena, head of a large family with five sons and 20 grandkids.
Schoen, in addressing the judge, claimed his client was drawn into the mob war that landed him behind bars through the efforts of allegedly corrupt FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio, who was reportedly aligned with the Persico loyalists.
“In the history of the FBI and the Justice Department, the misconduct in this case was unprecedented. ... It’s as if we don’t have a fully developed record of what happened there. The agent who testified as the expert witness in the Orena case was indicted for murders,” Schoen said of DeVecchio.
“I think the judge is forcing us to put everything on the table. It needs to be exposed” said Orena’s son Andrew Orena, 59, who was in court Wednesday. “Unfortunately, it’s not the time frame we would want.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-orena-court-hearing-20211013-6pllg3cq6fhmpigvakm4fxj5re-story.html
Friday, August 20, 2021
Underworld in disbelief as news of legendary Colombo family Boss being a rat runs rampant
A mob war of words erupted Friday over court documents identifying infamous Colombo family boss Carmine “The Snake” Persico as a federal “top echelon informant.”
Lawyers for Persico blasted the charge leveled in a court filing Wednesday seeking compassionate prison release for one-time acting Colombo boss Victor “Little Vic” Orena.
“This story is BULL----!” tweeted defense attorney Matthew Mari. “Calling Carmine Persico a rat is like calling George Washington a British spy! Junior was a great client, man, and friend. The government railroaded him and he fought back like a MAN!”
David Schoen, representing Orena, delivered the bombshell Brooklyn Federal Court filing — including a 1971 law enforcement document identifying Persico as a member of the FBI’s “Top Echelon Informant Program.” The 50-year-old paperwork was revealed through a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed against the Justice Department.
Schoen said he hesitated to go public with the charge until doing some digging to verify the shocking story.
Carmine Persico, late boss of the Colombo crime family.
“Independently of this document, two lawyers who represented Mr. Persico in the past have said that they had solid reason to believe that this information is accurate, as did another cooperating witness who gave examples that he believed proved the point,” Schoen wrote in a Friday email to defense lawyer Anthony DiPietro. “I would never have filed such a document without having taken these steps.”
In another email, Schoen said he heard from a former Colombo associate declaring “the assertion is 100% right.” The mobster was a cooperating witness who testified against two of Schoen’s clients.
DiPietro, who fought unsuccessfully to win Persico parole before the mobster’s March 2019 death, dismissed the charge as ridiculous after The News published the exclusive scoop.
“Having served as Carmine’s lawyer and being his friend, I am very upset by this allegation,” said DiPietro. “What I know for fact is that this allegation is completely false and the 50-year-old document cited by Orena’s lawyer provides no support for this bogus claim. We fought the government until his last dying day and there wasn’t even a thought of cooperation.”
The revelation came as Schoen argued for the ailing, 87-year-old Orena’s early release from federal custody. Orena is battling senility, and Schoen argued that Persico’s cooperation was another factor in favor of turning the elderly mafioso loose.
The Colombo family famously went to war with itself between 1991-93, with factions loyal to Persico and Orena battling as 10 people were killed — including an innocent teen slain at a Bay Ridge bagel store during the bloody battle.
Schoen alleged Orena’s racketeering conviction and life sentence were the result of FBI misconduct. Orena has long argued that Colombo turncoat Greg “The Grim Reaper” Scarpa and his FBI handler Lindley DeVecchio instigated the mob war.
David J. Garrow, the author of a book on the FBI’s campaign to discredit Martin Luther King Jr., messaged the lawyers that the document indicated Persico and a handful of other gangsters were the targets of informants, rather than cooperators.
But Schoen remained adamant that he’d considered all these possibilities and ran them by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General during an in-person meeting.
Colombo crime family boss Carmine “the Snake” Persico's name in documents naming four turncoat mobsters.
“I met with the DOJ inspector General and two FBI agents. ... All agreed that the document reflected exactly what it has been represented to reflect,” he said. “I avoided filing this document for quite some time because of the seriousness of it and the implications.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-persico-informant-arguments-20210820-honciwioq5ggdo2nxdqyx44c5e-story.html#nt=pf-single%20chain~new-right1-chain~flex%20feature~curated~snake-5p~HONCIWIOQ5GGDO2NXDQYX44C5E~1~1~5~6~art%20yes
New documents reveal that notorious Colombo family Boss Carmine Persico was a Top Echelon informant
The Snake was a rat.
Colombo crime family boss Carmine “The Snake” Persico was a “Top Echelon Informant” for the feds, shocking new court papers reveal, adding a posthumous twist to the tale of an infamous gangster known for his ruthlessness and street smarts.
The revelation, which likely has implications for numerous Brooklyn mob cases, is contained in a government document from November 1971 listing members of a “Top Echelon Informant Program.” Persico’s name appears among those of four turncoat members of the Colombo family.
“I think it changes the entire dynamic of how this so-called Colombo war has been sold,” said attorney David Schoen, who submitted the document Wednesday in a Brooklyn Federal Court filing.
“I never wanted to disclose this document. I think it potentially puts people in danger.”
Ten people died in the city’s last major gang war, including an innocent teen killed at a Bay Ridge bagel store, as the Colombo factions battled between 1991-93.
The list emerged through a Freedom of Information lawsuit that pried confidential documents from the Justice Department. Schoen represents onetime acting Colombo boss Victor “Little Vic” Orena, who is 87 years old, senile and seeking compassionate release from prison. Schoen cited the stunning revelation as another reason to release the octogenarian gangster serving a life sentence, alleging his racketeering conviction was the result of FBI misconduct.
“There is no truth to this allegation and the supporting record is substantively worthless. Having served as Carmine’s lawyer, I can attest that he was not an informant nor did he provide information to the Government. Until this day, Carmine remains a giant among men, and I was honored to represent him in the many contentious legal battles he fought against the Government,” attorney Anthony DiPietro said.
In the popular narrative, Orena challenged Persico’s position atop the Colombo family around the early 1990s and sparked one of the bloodiest wars in mob history.
Colombo crime family boss Carmine “the Snake” Persico was a “Top
Echelon Informant” for the feds, shocking new court papers reveal,
adding a posthumous twist to the legendary gangster known for his
ruthlessness and smarts.
But Orena has long argued that Colombo turncoat Gregory Scarpa Jr. and his FBI handler, Lindley DeVecchio, set him up, fomenting the war with Persico.
“The ‘official boss’ of the Colombo family, on whose side Scarpa and DeVecchio were working, Carmine Persico, was himself, since decades earlier, in the government’s employ as a member of its ‘Top Echelon Informant Program,’” wrote Schoen.
“This explains a great many events, both directly related to Mr. Orena’s case and otherwise.”
Victor Orena in handcuffs leaves 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan in 2006.
DeVecchio’s messy relationship with mob snitches has been cited by gangsters in court since the 1990s.
Schoen said that Persico’s cooperation made the Colombo “war” more of a one-sided “attack.”
“It seems like perhaps it was being orchestrated from the top,” Schoen said.
DeVecchio was even indicted by the Brooklyn District Attorney for helping Scarpa kill four people in the 1980s and 1990s, but the case fell apart and was dismissed.
The feds have acknowledged that Scarpa “lied” and “misrepresented” his involvement in murders during the Colombo civil war while also feeding them information.
Schoen said the Persico paperwork was such a game changer that he made an appointment with Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and other federal agents to confirm the documents were legit.
“They did not indicate they had any reason to believe it was anything other than what it purported to be or that any information reflected on it is inaccurate,” Schoen wrote.
Carmine Persico, boss of the Colombo Crime Family, poses for a portrait
Sept. 15, 1986 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York
City.
Schoen acknowledged that the “top echelon informant” document left many questions unanswered. Persico does not seem to have benefited from his cooperation ― he died in prison in 2019 at age 85 while serving a 139-year sentence. Schoen noted that Persico’s son, however, had secured a plea deal recommending a sentence of around three years in 2017 despite a judge concluding that he participated in a murder.
The elder Persico took over the Colombo family after the 1971 shooting of boss Joe Colombo. He maintained control over the family despite frequent stints in prison, making millions through labor racketeering, gambling, loan sharking and drug trafficking around New York.
He was famously charged along with the heads of the other four crime families in the “Commission” prosecution led by then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Persico’s response was to propose putting out a contract on Giuliani’s life, though the other families disagreed.
Persico received a 39-year term in the first case. In the second, where he acted as his own attorney, Persico was hit with a 100-year term — ensuring his death behind bars.
Manhattan Federal Judge John Keenan described Persico as “one of the most intelligent people I have ever seen in my life” for his performance as a lawyer.
Persico’s attorney DiPietro said the Commission case was based on “false information” provided by Scarpa.
“This is ridiculous on its face. If this were the truth, Carmine Persico would have won compassionate release and not have died in prison like a dog,” DiPietro said.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-carmine-persico-the-snake-federal-informant-20210820-anhp4c4z2baxznj6dslyyropxa-story.html
Friday, April 30, 2021
Ailing former Colombo family acting boss who caused civil war seeks prison release durig upcoming resentencing
A murderous former gangland boss is wheelchair-bound and suffering from serious dementia — but he has a new shot at release, his lawyer said Thursday.
Victor Orena, the 86-year-old ex-acting boss of New York’s Colombo crime family, can no longer take care of himself in the federal prison he is being held at in Massachusetts, requiring a wheelchair and a full-time aide. But a tossed lower firearms charge in a 1992 case could get him one last shot at freedom because he has to be resentenced completely.
He was convicted of ordering a hit on mobster Thomas Ocera, who was suspected of skimming money off assorted capers. Orena was also convicted of conspiring to murder rivals in a warring faction of the Colombo family.
“An overriding factor here is Mr. Orena’s age and medical conditions,” said David Schoen, Orena’s lawyer, at a Monday hearing in front of Eastern District Judge Eric Komitee.
When Orena is resentenced, his lawyers will argue for his release saying he is rehabilitated and that newly discovered evidence in the case points toward the mobster’s innocence.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, asked in court papers for the judge to simply resentence Orena to life in prison.
Schoen told the Daily News that new evidence in the case includes previously unreported government misconduct related to the Ocera murder that a top-echelon confidential informant said permeated Orena’s case.
Schoen called the information “unbelievably shocking” and potentially dangerous if revealed publicly.
“It’s stuff we never knew about that happened back then,” he told The News.
Victor “Little Vic” Orena was the acting boss of the Colombo family in the 1980s and tried to take over as permanent boss in the early 1990s, leading to a bloody civil war between his faction and that of boss Carmine Persico, who was serving a life sentence at the time.
Orena’s son, Andrew Orena, pleaded for compassion for his father.
“His heart is weak. But his spirit is strong. We’re praying we can get some time with him. He has grandchildren that really don’t know him,” Orena told The News. “He’ll never be the man he was but he’s still our father and we love him.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-colombo-acting-boss-victor-orena-release-prison-20210430-yyycaqkn5vhs7mmjkwemz6k2di-story.html
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