Pagan "Flipped" in 2005, Once Shot at Wife's Lover (Seek Tipster)

"Junior"
Hector Pagan, ex-husband of Renee Graziano, yesterday testified in Brooklyn Federal Court that he had become a government informant in 2006 — a full five years before he agreed to wear a wire against father-in-law Anthony Graziano and other Bonanno ranking mobsters.

Pagan also fired a gun at a presumed beau of Renee's while Pagan was married to her after he happened to view her getting out of the man's car. No details are available regarding whether the man was wounded or not, and we are not aware of his name. (If anyone is, we'd appreciate a tip!)

And Pagan had been a Luchese associate, as was victim James Donovan at the time of the murder, before moving to the Bonanno family after his engagement to Renee Graziano.

These are among the revelations to emerge from the trial of Luigi Grasso and Richard Riccardi for the killing of James Donovan. Grasso and Riccardi face life in prison if convicted.



The irony is that Pagan, the government's star witness, admitted to firing the fatal shot that actually killed Donovan during the Gravesend heist that netted the thugs $50,000 apiece.


This is "the first trial in history where the government sought to keep the jurors anonymous not only to ensure their physical safety, but also to protect the jury from (God forbid) ending up on a reality TV show," reported The Daily Beast.

“Members of the press or the producers of Mob Wives may attempt to contact jurors, if their identities are known, to generate additional stories surrounding the trial and [Pagan’s] testimony,” prosecutors said in court papers. “The expected media attention may put significant pressure on jurors to reach a verdict based on considerations other than the evidence presented at trial, for example to either avoid the notoriety associated with the show or to seek it out.”

Judge John Gleeson is a former prosecutor who along with fellow Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Giacalone back in 1987 first prosecuted Gambino boss John Gotti.Giacalone had been subject to horrific abuse from the defense, and lost the case, though it was later revealed that a juror had been bribed and that the Feds had their own evidence of Gotti's guilt which they were holding on to for their own subsequent case.

Gleeson had ruled that the jury in the present case would be granted partial anonymity, meaning their names would be known only to the prosecution and defense, but not to the media—including reality TV shows.

In the late morning, 47-year-old Pagan took the stand in and was ask: “What’s the most serious crime you have committed in your life?”

“Murder,” Pagan replied.

“Who did you murder?” the prosecutor asked.

“James Donovan,” Pagan said.

“I told him I did scores, sold some pot, gambling stuff like that,” Pagan testified. “He said he had a couple of scores lined up.”

Pagan kept in touch with Donovan using one of his two cellphones.

Pagan said that he subsequently met defendant Riccardi, who joined him and Grasso in robbing a pot dealer.

“The plan was to go by the house and wait for the guy and when he goes in, pop his door and rob him,” Pagan testified.

Weeks later, the three met up at a Brooklyn Dunkin’ Donuts. Pagan climbed into Grasso’s white Toyota and headed for a supermarket parking lot facing an auto body shop. Pagan said Riccardi arrived in his black Mercedes and walked over to the Toyota.

“What did he carry with him?” the prosecutor asked.

“A bag with guns in it,” Pagan said. “We took what we wanted. I had a 9 mm. I think the rest were .38s.”

Pagan briefly exited the car to buy a bottle at a liquor store. “Just to cool things off,” he testified.

Pagan said they soon after watched as a luxury car pull up the auto body shop across the street. Grasso was at the wheel.

“Ronnie said, ‘There he is,’” Pagan testified.
Renee Graziano, Pagan's ex-wife and star of
"Mob Wives."

Donovan was making a routine stop at his place of business, a check-cashing operation. He was just out of his car, when Pagan and the others pulled up.

Pagan said that his job was to hold Donovan at gunpoint while Ronnie grabbed the money.

“I put the gun to him and said, ‘Stay right here,’” Pagan told the jury. “He wiggled away from me and started running. I shot him.”

Pagan and the others drove off.

“There really was no getaway plan,” Pagan testified.

He said that one of the others claimed to have shot Donovan.

“I said ‘No, you didn’t, I did,” Pagan recalled.

In a Brooklyn basement, they counted their take and it came to some $200,000.

“Ronnie took the guns,” Pagan testified. “He said he was going to melt mine.”

Pagan reported that Ronnie later told him that Richie had been blabbing about the killing.

“I said, ‘You should kill Richie,”” Pagan said, explaining to the jury, “He’s going around saying things that should not be said.”

The prosecutor then led Pagan through a recounting of his decades-long career in the mob.

Pagan was first an associate of the Luchese crime family. The he got engaged to Renee Graziano, daughter of TG Graziano, a high-level Bonanno member since put on the shelf over the show "Mob Wives."

TG told him "if you’re going to do that, we have to transfer you,’” Pagan said.

Pagan then became an associate of the Bonanno crime family and participated in robberies, extortion, beatings, kidnapping and drug dealing.

Pagan said that one day he saw his wife Renee’s car parked by the side of the road with nobody inside. She then pulled up in a vehicle with another man.

“I started shooting at him,” Pagan testified. The man survived. Pagan and Renee subsequently separated and reunited several times, once during an episode of Mob Wive." That season ended with the revelation that Junior, as he was called on the show, had become “an associate of the government,” rather than face a lengthy prison term for the armed robbery of a card game.

He'd actually flipped years earlier, in 2005, according to the New York Daily News.

Presumably, the defense gets its crack today.

Comments

  1. Hi ed seems i seen these kind witnesses in the Joe ligambi trial he already got caught lying to the feds and there gonna use this guy is crazy

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    1. I cant fathom that Junior made the split decision -- on his own -- to needlessly shoot Donovan, yet he's the one testifying against his two former cohorts. Id lay odds the jury will let them off. This whole thing would be a joke -- only someone is dead...

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  2. So Renee was crying about Juniah's infedelities & here she is just as bad as he was. Pointing fingers while pointing back yourself'

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    Replies
    1. Bet she never saw this one coming back to bite her!

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  3. That show mob wifes is just a couple notches higher in class from the Jerry springer show may be they should rename springers mob girls lol

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  4. From what I've heard he isn't even protective custody.. he's just out roaming free to drop more dimes!! I agree with you whole-heartedly ... Hector/Junior/Rat.. obviously doesn't fully understand Omerta!!

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