Skinny Dom Seeks Mafia Cops Treatment

What’s good for the Mafia Cops should also be good for an old-time wiseguy, Dominick “Skinny Dom” Pizzonia claims.The Gambino capo is looking for the same relief a maverick Brooklyn federal judge gave the murderous mob-cop tandem of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa last year when he reversed their murder convictions on statute of limitations grounds.Like the murders attributed to the ex-detectives, Pizzonia, 66, says, the 1992 slayings of a Bonnie & Clyde robbery team and a 1996 gambling operation took place too long ago for jurors to have convicted Skinny Dom of racketeering conspiracy charges in his 2005 indictment.In court papers, Skinny Dom’s attorney noted that his client was acquitted of five other so-called predicate acts in the conspiracy, including the only ones that occurred after May 26, 2000, five years before the indictment was filed, and asked Judge Jack Weinstein to toss the conviction.The lawyer, Joseph Corozzo, cited Judge Weinstein’s ruling that the murders the Mafia Cops committed as NYPD detectives were too old, and that their racketeering conspiracy had ended in 1996. Crimes they committed years later when they retired and moved to Las Vegas were not part of the charged racketeering conspiracy, and the conviction must be reversed, the judge ruled. Even so, Judge Weinstein ordered the ex-detectives jailed as dangers to the community while the government appealed his ruling.“According to the [Pizzonia] jury’s verdict,” Mr. Corozzo wrote, the racketeering conspiracy ended in 1996 and was “complete nine years prior to Pizzonia’s indictment … and must ultimately be dismissed” because “federal prosecutions must be brought within five years after the offense has been committed.”In his motion papers, Mr. Corozzo argued that the jury’s guilty verdict was inconsistent with its findings that the specific allegations in the indictment after May 26, 2000, two loan-sharking charges, were “not proven” and the conviction should be set aside.Prosecutors Paige Petersen and Joey Lipton are expected to argue that the racketeering conspiracy statute does not require prosecutors to prove any specific acts, merely that Skinny Dom was a member of the conspiracy charged in the indictment, the Gambino crime family, after May 26, 2000, and that the jury’s verdict showed that the government had done so.* * *As if being found guilty wasn’t bad enough, the timing of Pizzonia’s conviction for conspiring to murder Thomas and Rosemarie Uva — Friday, May 11 — had other repercussions.It also prevented a Mother’s Day eve visit that Skinny Dom was planning with his mother, Angelina, who is in her mid-90s and resides in an assisted living facility in Jamaica, Queens. In all likelihood, Pizzonia figures, he’ll never see her again.Shortly before the jury convicted him — and caused his bail to be revoked — Judge Weinstein had agreed to let Skinny Dom remove his ankle bracelet monitor and leave his home on Saturday, May 12, to visit his mother for about five hours.The verdict also ended the electronic monitoring that Pizzonia had agreed to pay for as a condition of his bail, triggering a request from Pretrial Services, which oversees bail conditions, that the agency take it on the chin and pay the $133.66 balance that Skinny Dom still owed the company that had kept tabs on him since December 2005.The judge had another solution, which he noted in a brief, handwritten order: “Let defendant pay it.”* * *Meanwhile, as both sides wait for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to schedule oral arguments for the government’s appeal of Judge Weinstein’s Mafia Cops case ruling, Mr. Eppolito is in Las Vegas, where he and his wife are set to stand trial for tax fraud in six weeks.The move to take him to trial in Las Vegas for tax fraud is hard to fathom. Even if Judge Weinstein’s ruling is upheld, Mr. Eppolito will face federal drug charges and a state murder trial in Brooklyn. The feds also have charged Frances Eppolito with tax fraud — essentially for simply signing joint tax returns with her hubby in 2000, 2001, and 2002 — and are threatening to bring her to trial along with her husband. This is the kind of thing that doesn’t do much for the Justice Department’s fairness reputation.Still, the prevailing wisdom is that common sense and fairness will ultimately triumph.Knowledgeable sources say the case — which has been adjourned six times in the hope of a negotiated plea deal, according to Las Vegas federal court records — should be resolved in a plea deal with Mr. Eppolito taking the weight and his wife getting a pass.* * *Bonanno wiseguy Nicholas “P. J.” Pisciotti was so bummed out by his own crime family’s reaction to the beating that he gave a Genovese family rival in a bloody brawl triggered by the city’s anti-smoking law that he turned on the mob and cooperated with the feds.P.J., whose remarkable, seemingly inexplicable good fortune with state assault and federal drug charges was disclosed last week by Gang Land, explained the reason behind those dismissals Tuesday by taking the witness stand at the retrial of a one-time acting Bonanno boss, Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano.Pisciotti, a former acting capo who admits killing a mob associate during a barroom brawl several years ago, began cooperating in an effort to lessen his exposure to a long prison stretch. But even before he signed up with the feds, he was trying to distance himself from his Bonanno cohorts, he testified.The reason? Soon after the September 2005 fisticuffs, P.J. learned from a Genovese family cohort that two Bonanno family leaders, Anthony “Fat Anthony” Rabito and Nicholas “Nicky Mouth” Santora, failed to back him up at a sit-down over the incident and gave their blessings to a Genovese associate who told cops about the punchout.“I felt betrayed. That was a rat move,” the 37-year-old turncoat said.Pisciotti, who seemed somewhat tentative and unsure in his prosecution debut, gave a powerful snapshot of the disarray in the Bonanno family when he spoke of his induction into the crime family in a hotel ceremony presided over by Joseph Massino.In addition to P.J. and Massino, the first New York Mafia boss to defect, almost every wiseguy whom he named as a participant or attendee at the initiation rites has turned his back on the mob, including a former underboss, Salvatore “Good Looking Sal” Vitale, and one-time capos Frank Coppa and Richard “Shellackhead” Cantarella.Perhaps the most telling illustration of the disorder and confusion that plagues the family came when Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Busa asked how P.J.’s duties changed when he was promoted to acting capo from soldier: “I’m still trying to figure that out,” he said.* * *A Colombo family gangster, John “Sonny” Franzese, got a break last week from a federal parole commission examiner who recommended that the legendary wiseguy serve 18 months for his fifth parole violation in the last two decades, Gang Land has learned.But when you’re 90, even 18 months — about half the time he likely would have gotten for the hour-long get-together Sonny had two years ago with other wiseguys at a New Hyde Park pastry shop — could easily be a life sentence.If Franzese survives his sixth separate prison stretch stemming from the 50-year sentence he received for a 1967 bank robbery conspiracy conviction, he will remain on parole until 2020, just before he turns 103.Sonny is believed to be the oldest of about 1,600 federal parole violators incarcerated under sentencing provisions for pre-1987 crimes, but the chief of staff for the U.S. Parole Commission, Tom Hutchison, told Gang Land he couldn’t be certain.“If he’s not, he’s pretty close,” Mr. Hutchison said.This column and other news of organized crime will appear today at ganglandnews.com.

Skinny Dom Seeks Mafia Cops Treatment

Skinny Dom Seeks Mafia Cops Treatment

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