By Matt Monks
“This trial is about the vicious, vile, cunning and merciless rise to power of Joseph Massino,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Henoch told the jury Monday. “Eliminating your rivals means killing them. And that's exactly what the defendant did.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation contends that much of Massino's operation is centered in western Queens, where they say he is a partner in the Casa Blanca Italian restaurant in Maspeth.
The suspected mob boss's high-powered attorney David Breitbart said the prosecution's case was flawed because its turncoat witnesses – including Massino's brother-in-law Salvatore Vitali – are cold-blooded liars who were coerced into testifying.
“They seduce them, they bribe them, they torture them into becoming a witness,” Breitbart said in his opening argument. “I'm going to prove to you that the same methods that were used in Iraq are being used at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.”
Massino, 61, has been indicted on nearly two dozen charges, including seven counts of murder, racketeering, arson, loan sharking, gambling and extortion. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
He has been dubbed the “Last Don” because authorities allege he is the only head of the city's five crime families not behind bars. Weighing nearly 290 pounds, he is also known as “Big Joey” and “The Ear,” for once ordering subordinates to refer to him by touching their ears as a way to beat wire taps.
During the trial before Judge Nicholas Garaufis that is expected to last three months, Henoch said he will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Massino rose through the ranks of the Mafia by ordering hits on rivals, some of whom he said were left dead in the street, buried in shallow unmarked graves, or cut into little pieces.
He told the anonymous, 12-member jury that Massino earned his stripes as a Bonanno soldier in the mid-'70s on the streets of Maspeth, hijacking tractor trailers. The prosecutor contended Massino secured his power by ruthlessly slaying rival bosses or underlings who fell out of favor – like Dominick “Sonny Black” Napolitano and Tony Mirra, who Henoch said were both shot in the back of the head for letting an undercover federal agent infiltrate the family.
That case, which was dramatized in the book and film “Donnie Brasco” by former agent Joseph Pistone, led to the arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of gangsters.
Henoch said Massino took the reins of the Bonanno family in 1991, after late boss Philip “Rusty” Rastelli died of natural causes. Since then, his family has used “any and all means necessary to earn its illegal profits,” including extorting $650,000 from a Queens catering company, and running an illegal gambling ring with “Joker” slot machines and seasonal Baccarat games, the prosecutor said.
Massino's attorney conceded that his client may in fact be the head of the Bonanno family, but that does not mean he is guilty of seven murders, some of which are more than 20 years old.
Breitbart painted Massino as a family man who has lived in New York City for his entire life. He pointed out to the jury his wife of 44 years and two children sitting in the front row. Casually dressed in a navy blue suit and white shirt without a tie, Massino winked and smiled at them before the trial got under way.
Much of the evidence prosecutors will use has been collecting dust for 30 years, Breitbart said. They have thrown a “zillion” charges at him in the hopes that some of them will stick, he said.
“For 30 years they have no evidence for Joe Massino,” Breitbart said. “But there's no case. There's a case now because there are new informants.”
These informants, he said, have rap sheets as thick as phone books and were facing life in prison before agreeing to testify.
They were told that “if you give us Joe Massino, if you give us 'The Ear' you can go home.”
Reach reporter Matthew Monks by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 156.
