Former Bonanno Boss Vinny 'Gorgeous' Gets Life -- Again

"Reputed mob boss Vincent 'Vinny Gorgeous' Basciano, who dodged the death penalty only weeks ago, was sentenced in a New York court to life in prison on Wednesday for ordering the murder of a mafia associate," reports Reuters .

Basciano is a former acting boss of New York's Bonanno crime family and is already serving a life sentence for a separate 2001 murder. The previous former boss, Joe Massino, flipped after losing his own trial and exposed Vinny as being the creator of a plot to kill a federal prosecutor, which many believe is the reason his earlier trial was a death penalty case.

"The court imposes consecutive life sentences in order to convey to Basciano, to other members of organized crime, to his victims and to the public, that while he has only one life with which to pay for his crimes, the debt he owes to society is far greater,' U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis said in last week's proceedings in federal court in Brooklyn.

Basciano appeared in a navy-blue prison jumpsuit and held forth with a rambling statement about the use of testimony of unreliable cooperating witnesses.




"He demanded the court turn over the name of a fellow inmate who told prosecutors that Basciano was assembling a hit list from within prison walls, targeting a federal prosecutor, among others," Reuters writes.

'What's to stop anyone from making an allegation?' Basciano asked. He did not address his conviction in May of the murder of reputed mob associate Randolph Pizzolo, the crime for which he received his most recent life sentence."

Read rest of Reuter's story: Mafia boss Vinny Gorgeous gets life sentence, again | Reuters

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