Pyrrhic Victory: Judge Grants a Hearing, Cancer Cancels It

An ailing Colombo soldier, Joseph “Jo Jo” Russo, was on the verge of winning at least one little skirmish with the feds this week. The victory was going to taste sweet, coming as it did after Jo Jo’s mostly losing 13-year battle to overturn a murder conviction because of allegedly corrupt activities by a scandal-tarred FBI agent. Citing his rapidly failing health, the imprisoned Russo, 53, had won an unusual hearing on a possible medical furlough as the court weighed a motion to dismiss his 1994 conviction on the grounds that it was tainted by murders and other crimes allegedly committed by an ex-FBI agent, R. Lindley DeVecchio.Alas, it was not to be: Two days before the hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, Russo, who had won a reversal of his guilty verdict in 1997 only to have it reinstated the following year by an appeals court, succumbed to cancer at a maximum security federal medical center in Butner, N.C.A U.S. District Court judge, Charles Sifton, had given federal prosecutors in Brooklyn until August 30 to reply to a motion to set aside the conviction that was based essentially on charges in the pending murder case against Mr. DeVecchio and then agreed to the bail hearing because of Russo’s grave medical prognosis.His death triggered allegations by family members and his attorney that Jo Jo’s jailers had hastened Russo’s demise by ignoring — even ridiculing — his complaints about back pains for over a year. “They gave him Tylenol and told him his pain was psychological, and to just deal with it,” one family member said.“The way the Bureau of Prisons treats inmates and their families is an atrocity,” Russo’s lawyer, George Galgano, said. Prison officials neglected Russo’s ailments and totally disregarded concerns raised repeatedly by his family, Mr. Galgano said.It wasn’t until five weeks ago, after Russo had lost 50 pounds and his lawyer fired off a letter to the warden of the U.S. Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa., complaining that his client was getting substandard medical care at the facility, that Russo was first sent to a community hospital and examined by a doctor, Mr. Galgano said.After weeklong stretches at two community hospitals, where Russo’s family members were not permitted to visit or speak to his doctors, he was finally transferred to the Butner facility. He died there Sunday, as his family members waited to visit, the lawyer said.An executive assistant at the Lewisburg penitentiary, Scott Finley, would not discuss specifics. But he insisted that Russo received “appropriate medical care” at the prison until doctors felt the inmate needed more specialized treatment and transferred him to the medical center in Butner on July 12, just 17 days before he died. By July 25, according to a report by a Butner medical officer, Dr. Maitee Serrano-Mercado, Russo was diagnosed as having “widespread and aggressive” cancer, after doctors had found just renal (kidney) cancer less than a month earlier. The original cancer had spread to his liver, lungs, and spine. Russo had “an estimated three months or less to live,” the report concluded.Meanwhile, even though Russo’s death makes his appeal a moot issue, Mr. Galgano told Gang Land that he intends to continue the court fight to clear his client’s name.More likely, however, co-defendants Anthony “Chuckie” Russo, 54, a cousin, and Joseph “Joe Monte” Monteleone, 68, will take up the cause. Like Jo Jo, they also received life sentences after their convictions were restored by the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.ELDERLY, AILING SISTER IS ‘NOT LEGALLY RELEVANT’To look at him, it would be awfully tough to label Anthony “Fat Anthony” Rabito a danger to the community. He’s 73 and has diabetes, heart disease, ulcers, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. He can’t stand up for more than a minute or two, a result of knee surgery last year, and can hardly walk.A Korean War veteran and one of 11 children, Rabito sat in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn last week and listened as his lawyer asked that he be released on home detention so he could take care of his ailing 80-year-old sister, Angie, with whom he lived until he was arrested and jailed six months ago. His last surviving brothers, Sal and Joe, passed away in June, and Fat Anthony is the only sibling Angie has left, lawyer David Breitbart said.“The situation is a sad one. She’s very sick with cancer. We make this plea so he can help Angie in this end game. We’re not looking to walk the streets. He’s looking to help his sister,” the attorney said. No, Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Andres said.“Without sounding callous, Mr. Rabito’s family losses are simply not legally relevant in any way,” Mr. Andres, sounding awfully callous as he spoke, said. The prosecutor may have been thinking of other things, however. He is one of two prosecutors often mentioned as a possible successor to the departing U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Roslynn Mauskopf.No, agreed Judge Sandra Townes, who described herself to the Daily News as “a tough, but fair judge” in 2004, when she was elevated to the federal bench.Fat Anthony struggled to his feet. “Thank you, judge,” he said. He then hobbled out of court and back to jail, where he will await trial in October for racketeering charges of gambling, loansharking, and extortion, as his sister fends for herself.THE FIRST THING WE DO, LET’S OUST THE LAWYERIt’s déjà vu all over again for attorney Joseph Corozzo, one of the hottest mob lawyers in town in recent months.No sooner had Mr. Corozzo, the namesake son of the Gambino family’s consiglière, Joseph “Jo Jo” Corozzo, signed on to defend family soldier William Scotto in an upcoming racketeering trial in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn than the prosecutors were citing him as the family’s “house counsel” and looking to oust him from the case by alleging numerous conflicts of interest.Prosecutors charge that Mr. Corozzo allegedly engaged in conduct that “borders on” the crimes of “witness tampering and obstruction of justice” by taking up to $20,000 in what they characterized as illegal payoffs in a 1999 case, and so should be bounced from the trial of Scotto and John “Johnny G” Gammarano.In court papers, prosecutors state that a mob turncoat, Sal Romano, also paid for several lavish parties that Mr. Corozzo threw at Romano’s Staten Island restaurant in return for the lawyer’s help in ensuring that a “weak” stockbroker he represented at the time stayed strong and did not implicate Romano in a corrupt stock fraud scheme.“One party involved dozens of people and cost thousands of dollars,” said Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey Goldberg and Daniel Silver, who also cited Mr. Corozzo’s loyalty to his father and his uncle Nicholas Corozzo, a powerful Gambino family capo, as reasons why the lawyer should not be allowed to represent Scotto.His “familial loyalty” to his father and Uncle Nick would surely dissuade Mr. Corozzo from blaming them for the securities fraud and other crimes in the indictment, even though as family leaders they would have shared in the plunder and would be prime targets for a savvy defense, the prosecutors said.The trial is slated to begin next month.Mr. Corozzo, who did not return a call for comment, will surely oppose his ouster.VINNY GORGEOUS VERDICT ISN’T PRETTYBonanno gangster Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano was convicted of racketeering and a 2001 murder Tuesday after a six-week retrial that served as a costly warm-up for a capital murder trial that the imprisoned mobster faces next spring.“He was obviously upset,” defense lawyer James Kousouros said of his client, who could be heard grousing, “It doesn’t look good,” even before the jury announced its verdict.A spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn — who last month cited the ongoing case when he declined to respond to Gang Land’s assertion that the retrial was a waste of time and money, as Vinny Gorgeous faces possible execution for a December 1, 2004, murder cited in a pending indictment — again ducked that issue.This time, Ms. Mauskopf’s spokesman, Bob Nardoza, cited the fact that Basciano is awaiting sentencing for Tuesday’s conviction as well as “the pending capital proceedings.”It’s unclear whether Mr. Kousouros will represent Basciano in his next trial (the volatile gangster changed lawyers after his last trial). But at the just-concluded trial, the attorney seemed to undercut the government’s plans to execute Vinny Gorgeous during his cross-examination of a key prosecution witness, former capo Dominick Cicale.Cicale testified that after Basciano was arrested and jailed in November 2004, Cicale called off the murder of mob associate Randy Pizzolo. He set the slaying in motion later, he said, “from the order of Michael Mancuso,” who succeeded Basciano as acting Bonanno boss and is charged, but not facing the death penalty, in the same case.This column and other news of organized crime will appear today at ganglandnews.com.

Pyrrhic Victory: Judge Grants a Hearing, Cancer Cancels It

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