DEATH before dishonour.
Tattooed on his arm, it’s an ideal that mobster Vincent Asaro has lived up to his entire life. A member of the Bonanno crime family of New York, he wouldn’t dream of colluding with police.
Unfortunately for him, others in the family, including his boss and his own cousin, weren’t so committed to the code of silence that has allowed the Mafia organisation to exist and flourish for such a long time.
The 80-year-old mobster has been on trial in a Brooklyn court for the past three weeks, facing a string of charges. Among them was the murder of a man who prosecutors allege Asaro beat to death with a dog chain after a warehouse he owned, used by Asaro to store stolen goods, was raided.
The most notorious of the charges was his alleged role in the infamous Lufthansa heist at JFK airport in 1978, in which mobsters stole $US5 million (today $A25 million) in cash and nearly a million dollars worth of jewellery from a vault at the international airport. The heist has been immortalised in multiple films including Martin Scorsese’sGoodfellas.
Thrown in for good measure were other charges of racketeering and extortion. The cards were stacked against him and much of the prosecution’s case was built on the testimony of other members of the criminal organisation.
When the trial went to the jury earlier in the week, The New York Times painted him as a man brought down by violations of the very code of silence he so strongly embraced. “His is the story of the disappearing New York Mafia, and of a disappearing way of life,” they wrote.
The case seemed like slam dunk for the state. But when the verdict was read out by the jury on Thursday in the US, Vinny Asaro was smiling from ear to ear.
FBI agents flank Asaro. Photo: Charles Eckert/APSource:AP
The New York Post’s Lufthansa Heist front page from December 1978.Source:Supplied
Even Asaro first looked puzzled when the not-guilty verdict was read out, a courtroom journalist wrote for the New York Post. He then jumped up in excitement, hugged his lawyers and later exclaimed “I’m free!” to the throngs of reporters on the courtroom steps. Like many mobsters before him, he walked away without a single conviction.
It was a massive blow to federal prosecutors, who were seeking a landmark conviction for the legendary crime.
The case is considered to likely be the last great mafia trial. While New York authorities will be kicking themselves that they couldn’t reel in Asaro, the case serves as a strong reminder that the once impenetrable wall of silence has well and truly crumbled.
Vincent Asaro leaves Brooklyn federal court Thursday with a devilish grin. Picture: AP Photo/Bryan R SmithSource:AP
RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN
At one point during the trail Salvatore Vitale, a former Bonanno family underboss, explained to the courtroom the central rules of the crime family. Aside from the fundamental expectation to protect the family through a strict code of silence, members weren’t to sell any drug other than marijuana and weren’t to sleep with another member’s wife or daughter.
“Are the rules broken?” asked US assistant attorney Nicole M Argentieri.
“All the time,” he replied.
In a world of deception, money and ego, you’ve got to have your own back and breaking the code of silence for personal enrichment or self preservation has become commonplace for Mafia figures.
Vitale is far from the only senior member of the Bonanno crime family to “flip”. In the early 2000s, Joseph Massino was the boss of the organisation and was known as the The Last Don. He was the only boss from a major New York crime family that wasn’t in jail.
At the time he was considered one of the most powerful crime figures in the country but in 2004 he was convicted of murder and racketeering after fellow Mafia members testified against him. In 2011, he joined the club and gave evidence for the state against his acting boss Vincent Basciano.
Richard Cantarella was a senior member of the family (called capodecinas or capos) and, along with his wife and son, became an informant for New York police after being convicted of an array of crimes.
“The Cantarella family’s co-operation was, by any measure, substantial and extraordinary, resulting in the conviction of numerous members of the Bonanno family,” his lawyer Amy Busa told a court in 2013 while seeking a shorter sentence for the mobster and his family.
The experience for the other major New York Mafia families including the Gambinos, the Colombos and the Genoveses has been much the same in recent years. The list of snitches and turncoats is long.
Their stories have been lionised in countless movies such as The Godfather, Goodfellasand Donnie Brasco. Either inspired by, or based on real life characters and events perpetrated by New York crime families, Hollywood has certainly benefited from the breaking down of the Mafia’s code of silence.
Goodfellas featured the notorious Lufthansa heist.Source:Supplied
Johnny Depp and Al Pacino in Donnie Brasco.Source:News Limited
As for Asaro, his defence team managed to win the case by placing intense scrutiny on Gaspare Valenti, a cousin of Asaro’s who was the prosecution’s star witness.
“Gasper Valenti is an experienced liar,” defence lawyer Elizabeth Macedonio told the court in her closing argument. “He is a person who was able to lie to everyone around him. Everyone, including his family members, for years.”
While they successfully painted the informant as a liar desperate for money, they managed to portray Asaro as less of a long-time Mafia soldier and more of a sad old man.
“I don’t come out early no more,” he said in one recording secretly obtained by Valenti. “Where am I going? I got no place to go.”
In another he could be heard saying: “I can’t win. I can’t win. I just can’t win.”
The result of his trial may have proved otherwise. But as for the New York Mafia, the old grey mare, she ain’t what she used to be.
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