Nov 17 2007
Mafia boss writes N.Y. judge to ask for parole
Vito Rizzuto, named as Canada’s most powerful Mafia boss, says he should already be eligible for release from his U.S. prison, where he is incarcerated for three gangland murders.
Rizzuto, 61, of Montreal, has written from his cell in Colorado to the New York judge who presided over his case asking that his release be handled the way it would have been 25 years ago, when his crimes were committed, rather than under the far stiffer regulations of today.
If he wins his argument, he could be eligible for immediate parole and a return to Canada, where he will be deported when released.
In a personal letter to U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, Rizzuto argues he was eligible for release on parole the same day he was sentenced in a Brooklyn courthouse on May 25 because of his lengthy pretrial custody.
“Under the [old] parole laws I would have been eligible for parole as far back as May of 2007,” Rizzuto wrote on Oct. 25.
It was before Judge Garaufis that Rizzuto admitted his role in the 1981 massacre of three mob rivals in Brooklyn, a messy crime famously recreated in the movie Donnie Brasco. He spent more than two years in jail in Canada fighting extradition to the United States and another nine months in detention in New York awaiting trial, all of which is considered
time served toward the completion of his sentence.
“May all be well for you at this time,” begins Rizzuto’s letter to Judge Garaufis, in the cordial manner he typically displays.
He then outlined his complaint with the way the U.S. Bureau of Prisons was calculating his release date. The bureau abolished parole in 1987 and now reduces prison terms slightly in return for good behaviour. Under these rules, Rizzuto is scheduled to be released after serving 87% of his sentence; the old rules could allow parole after serving as little as 33% of his sentence and almost certainly after 66% of it.
“I do not dispute the conduct of which I pled guilty, nor the sentence imposed, however, upon arriving at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons it was brought to my attention that I would not be eligible [for early release],” he wrote.
He argues his case should be handled under the rules in place when, clutching a pistol, he burst from a closet in a Brooklyn social club and confronted three rival mobsters who then died in a fusillade of gunfire.
Rizzuto appears anxious to return to Canada, where he has a wife, three adult children and five grandchildren.
The powerful Mafia organization that authorities say he heads is also in disarray.
A series of arrests in Canada and Italy since Rizzuto was turned over to the Americans have placed most of the alleged bosses and many of its underlings in custody. It has left the Montreal-based Mafia, Canada’s most powerful criminal organization, substantially weakened and in need of a strong leader.
When it was suggested to John Mitchell, Rizzuto’s U.S. lawyer, that maybe his client could have surrendered in 1981, he replied: “And maybe pigs should fly.”
Mafia boss writes N.Y. judge to ask for parole - Adrian Humphreys, National Post - Published: Saturday, November 17, 2007 - http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=8224b5ae-c0c3-40c0-875d-784e632bdc79
let him go