by Dellacroce » Thu Oct 20, 2016 3:17 am
October 20, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci
Jailed DeCavalcante Gangster: The Doctor Killed Joe Pitts
Gang Land Exclusive!Joseph BridesonJoseph (Big Joey) Brideson, a gangster serving life behind bars, says the feds withheld crucial evidence that could have cleared him of the 1998 murder of Joseph (Joe Pitts) Conigliaro, his wheelchair-bound DeCavalcante family superior. The missing info, he claims, would have fingered the real culprit in the death of Joe Pitts, an inept Brooklyn surgeon known as "The Terminator" by his medical colleagues.
Brideson was convicted in 2002 of supplying the gun that a hitman used to shoot Conigliaro. The badly wounded DeCalvacante gangster survived the hit, only to fall into the hands of a bungling surgeon at Brooklyn's Methodist Hospital.
In his novel claim, Big Joey argues in court papers that he should have been able to inform jurors who convicted him in 2002 that Conigliaro was "in serious but stable condition and not likely to die" when he got to Methodist. Brideson notes that Joe Pitts died hours later, after a routine operation by Dr. Paul Maghazeh, a doctor whose license was revoked a year before Brideson's trial.
Big Joey says prosecutors also withheld other "exculpatory evidence" that could have established his "actual innocence," including DEA files, statements by FBI informers, tape-recordings, and court documents that implicate others. He says the withheld evidence would have absolved him of the linchpin of the case against him: That Brideson supplied the gun used to shoot Conigliaro in January of 1998.
Americo MassaIn court papers, Brideson's attorney asserts that the government never informed his client or trial lawyer that the admitted architect of the murder plot, Conigliaro crew member Americo (Mike) Massa, told the feds that he had given the pistol to the gunman who shot Joe Pitts, contrary to trial testimony from a turncoat mob associate that Big Joey had done so.
Lawyer Anthony DiPietro submitted several court documents to back up his contention that Massa, who pleaded guilty on the eve of trial, had told the FBI during several interviews that he had given the murder weapon to a crony named Martin Lewis. That was "contrary to the evidence adduced by the government at Mr. Brideson's trial," wrote DiPietro.
At trial, turncoat crew member Thomas Ditorra testified that Brideson gave Lewis the handgun that he used to shoot Joe Pitts five times as he drove Lewis home on the evening of January 23, 1998, after the crew had spent several hours at Conigliaro's One Over Golf Club at 497 Court Street in Carroll Gardens.
Hit four times — in the face, arm, and upper body — Conigliaro managed to drive back to the social club to get help from Brideson, who drove him to nearby Methodist Hospital.
In a tape recorded conversation with Ditorra many months later, Lewis said he "couldn't believe" how the bloodied Joe Pitts, "drove to the corner, put on his blinker and got the hell out of there," according to a Gang Land source who heard the conversation.
Martin LewisDiPietro submitted a 2009 filing that the government used to counter a Massa motion to reduce his 35 year prison term. In it, acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin wrote that Massa admitted he had "assisted in obtaining and transferring a .25 caliber handgun to Lewis in order to carry out the execution on Conigliaro." Dassin also wrote that Massa had lied to the police and the FBI after the shooting.
When he pleaded guilty to racketeering, murder and the use of a firearm on December 2, 2002, Massa admitted giving the gun to "the person who used the gun … to shoot Mr. Conigliaro," according to a transcript of the proceeding that DiPietro submitted to Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rakoff, who is currently assigned to the case.
The lawyer contends that the "government's obligation to provide favorable evidence that was known to exist at the time of trial" didn't end with his client's conviction. He asked Rakoff to "compel the government to produce such evidence," known as Brady Material, to Brideson now.
"Here," wrote DiPietro, "the principles of fairness and justice strongly militate in favor of the court exercising its power in ordering the post-conviction disclosure of Brady evidence because (it) may exculpate Mr. Brideson of a crime for which he is currently serving a term of life imprisonment."
Anthony CapoA longtime mob associate, Joe Pitts was paralyzed in 1973 when he and a cohort mistakenly shot each other as they each fired at an extortion victim in a car. Joe Pitts went on to become a legendary figure in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn when he resumed his mob activities in a wheelchair. He was 67 when he was killed.
He was never "made," but the DeCavalcantes treated him as a wiseguy, and he had his own crew of associates who ran his loansharking and drug dealing business out of his social club, turncoat mobster Anthony Capo testified at Brideson's trial. By all accounts, Conigliaro, often called "Wheelchair Joe" behind his back, was an ornery, feared gangster with many enemies in 1998.
"He was a ruthless guy who abused and cheated his crew members, never dreaming that they would ever dare to cross him," recalled a former member of the prosecution team.
But, DiPietro argued in his court papers, the government's files contained many other possible suspects who had both the motive and means to whack Joe Pitts, information that was never turned over to Brideson.
The lawyer wrote that a "non-testifying cooperating witness" gave the feds "direct evidence" that an FBI informer named Luis Grullon had killed Joe Pitts in "a dispute involving drugs," and that prosecutors had "an audio recording from his cellphone capturing Grullon's wife speaking about her husband's involvement in Conigliaro's murder" that they failed to turn over before trial.
The witness, Joseph Ray, DiPietro wrote, "claimed that the audio recording captured Grullon's wife telling him 'not to mess with Luis anymore, because Luis was crazy and had just killed Wheelchair Joe' and that 'Luis should not have killed Wheelchair Joe, because they could have resolved their differences without resorting to violence.'"
Anthony DiPietroProsectors Lisa Korologos and Jonathan Rebold say that Grullon was in prison on the day that Joe Pitts died. DiPietro disputes that, but has argued that, even from behind bars, Grullon could have been involved in the plot. In any event, the lawyer wrote, the feds should have given Brideson that information before trial.
Records unearthed with a Freedom of Information Act request contain other "Brady evidence" in DEA files linking Joe Pitts to "longstanding narcotic sales" and the possibility that his murder was linked to heroin trafficking wasn't turned over, the lawyer wrote. A May 17, 1999 DEA file noted the date of Conigliaro's murder and stated that the FBI was "currently utilizing information contained in this case file to investigate that homicide."
"These documents also revealed," the lawyer wrote, "that Conigliaro was 'involved in the sale of kilo amounts of heroin' and had numerous confederates involved 'in his heroin trafficking activities.'"
Finally, the government knew, or should have known, and told Brideson before trial, DiPietro wrote, that "Paul Maghazeh, who had cared for Conigliaro in the hospital and was responsible for performing the medical procedure that resulted in his death, was disbarred from medical practice in 2001 … as a result of his numerous acts of malfeasance."
DiPietro wrote that Dr. Moshe Schein, a former Maghazeh colleague, told him that "Maghazeh had a longstanding history of engaging in gross medical malpractice," had "caused the death of patients," and "was known as the 'Terminator' by his colleagues." The attorney noted that Dr. Schein told him he had written several articles "based upon his eyewitness account of Maghazeh's gross medical malpractice."
Jed RakoffDiPietro argued that Maghazeh's suspension from the practice of medicine on May 4, 2001 "was material" information because Conigliaro's primary physician, Dr. Lawrence Melniker, had told police that Joe Pitts was "in stable condition and not likely to die" before Maghazeh performed the surgery "that resulted in Conigliaro's death."
According to court testimony, DiPietro wrote, Conigliaro died when Dr. Maghazeh "attempted to relieve air that was filling up in the sac (pericardium) of Conigliaro's heart."
Prosecutors Korologos and Rebald say the government did not know of Maghazeh's medical malpractice, and that even if Brideson had that information, it would not have changed the verdict because the "gunshot wounds were at least a contributing cause in Conigliaro's death."
They labelled DiPietro's contentions as "flawed and misleading" and asked Rakoff to deny his motion because he "failed to lay an adequate foundation for the review of alleged Brady evidence, and in any event, such evidence does not exist."
Manhattan DA Vance Throws In The Towel On Landmark Bookmaking Case
Cyrus Vance Jr.Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has folded his hand in a major mob bookmaking case that his office had vigorously pursued for years against Robert Stuart, an online sports betting guru who created the software allegedly used by mob bookies everywhere these days.
Vance quietly dropped all charges last month.
That move follows a very sweet $1000 fine plea deal Vance's office gave to a Gambino soldier charged with money laundering in connection with the alleged $5 million online betting scam involving Stuart, his wife, and his company, Extension Software Inc.
Vance also dropped all charges against Stuart's wife, Susanne, a company executive, and dismissed all charges against Extension Software stemming from a 2014 money laundering and gambling indictment. The indictment charged the Stuarts with laundering $5 million they obtained from the Gambinos and other mob-connected bookies from 2005 until 2013.
Robert StuartIn July, Vance dropped money laundering charges against Gambino soldier Joseph Isgro in return for a guilty plea to misdemeanor gambling charges and an agreed-upon sentence of a $1000 fine and a conditional discharge, meaning that Isgro's conviction will be expunged if he doesn't get in trouble with the law in the next few months.
Vance dropped all charges against the Stuarts after Patrick Read, Susanne Stuart's brother, a sales marketing representative for Extension Software, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor gambling charges in a plea deal that was approved by Supreme Court Justice Bonnie Wittner.
As part of the deal, Wittner sentenced Read, 54, to a conditional discharge and dismissed the indictment against Robert, 57, and Susanne Stuart, 53, and the company, which did business as Action Sportsbook International (ASI).
Susanne StuartIn admitting his guilt, Read told Wittner he "knowingly advanced the illegal sports gambling activity of a client, Elite Tech," a company controlled by Isgro and the late Gambino capo Joseph Giordano, knowing that Elite, which later became known as Cristal Sportsbook, "used the ASI software for illegal sports gambling activity in New York county."
As part of the plea deal, Vance also agreed to drop harassment charges lodged against Susanne Stuart in February 2013 for allegedly badgering a former assistant district attorney by sending dozens of emails to him and his co-workers that accused him of criminal, immoral and generally horrible conduct after the Stuarts were indicted. The original landmark gambling case against the Stuarts and their company went to trial that October, and ended in a hung jury.
Patrick ReadThe following year, the Stuarts and Read were indicted on upgraded money laundering charges along with Isgro based on hundreds of tape recorded conversations and emails that allegedly linked Isgro and Giordano, who had died in prison in 2013, to thousands of dollars in payments to ASI. The DA's office originally got wind of the Gambino family's links to the Stuarts and Extension Software in 2009 while investigating extortion allegations against Giordano.
The decision to drop all charges comes months after Judge Wittner and the Appellate Division in Manhattan each approved the upgraded money laundering indictment with ties to the Gambino crime family following extensive pre-trial efforts by defense lawyers to get the charges dismissed on numerous grounds.
A Vance spokeswoman declined to comment on why the office agreed to drop all charges against the Stuarts and Extension Software after waging and winning a long and costly legal fight about the validity of the indictment.
Feds Say Mark Reiter Should Stay Behind Bars
Mark ReiterThe feds say that 28 years after the fact, it's much too late for Mark Reiter, a drug-dealing pal pf John Gotti's, to contest two life sentences he got for heroin trafficking. But if it's not too late, prosecutors say, Reiter's claim that one sentence is "illegal" has no merits, and should be rejected. And even if the judge rules that Reiter's sentence was "illegal," he should still finish out the other life sentence he got for heroin trafficking and whacking two witnesses.
Responding to papers filed by Reiter's lawyer, assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Capozzi wrote that Reiter's claims that the late trial judge Richard Owen imposed an "illegal sentence" back in 1988 are so old and so "substantially similar" to prior legal arguments raised by Reiter over the years that they should be dismissed out of hand.
Earlier this year, appeals specialist Harlan Protass convincingly argued that one drug conviction for which Reiter received a life sentence requires a finding by either the judge or the jury that the "offense involved more than 100 grams of heroin," which neither Owen or the jury did when it convicted Reiter of numerous crimes, including the murders of two potential witnesses.
To stress the alleged illegality of the sentence, Protass noted that in two places during his instructions to the jury, Owen specifically told jurors that they "need not be concerned with the quantity" of drugs when deliberating that count.
Harlan ProtassAs a result, Protass asked Manhattan Federal Judge Vernon Broderick to resentence Reiter, 68, on all counts and impose a "fair, just and reasonable sentence" of 30 years because his client was now a loving grandfather of five who would never return to his criminal past if he were released.
In his retort, prosecutor Capozzi told Broderick that Reiter's contention that his prison term was "unlawful because neither Judge Owen nor the jury made an explicit finding regarding drug quantity" of more than 100 grams of heroin was essentially a distinction without a difference.
"The record shows," Capozzi wrote, "that Judge Owen found that Reiter distributed far more than the 100 grams of heroin required to support Reiter's life sentence" when he stated at sentencing that the "the trial record" showed that Reiter had "been a pipeline to New York for heroin for at least 1983 to 1986," and had sold "pure heroin over the years in massive quantities."
And if Judge Broderick were to find that Reiter's sentence was in fact illegal, he "should nevertheless reject his request for a resentencing hearing on all counts" and not upset the other legal life sentence that Judge Owen imposed, wrote Capozzi.
October 20, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci
Jailed DeCavalcante Gangster: The Doctor Killed Joe Pitts
Gang Land Exclusive!Joseph BridesonJoseph (Big Joey) Brideson, a gangster serving life behind bars, says the feds withheld crucial evidence that could have cleared him of the 1998 murder of Joseph (Joe Pitts) Conigliaro, his wheelchair-bound DeCavalcante family superior. The missing info, he claims, would have fingered the real culprit in the death of Joe Pitts, an inept Brooklyn surgeon known as "The Terminator" by his medical colleagues.
Brideson was convicted in 2002 of supplying the gun that a hitman used to shoot Conigliaro. The badly wounded DeCalvacante gangster survived the hit, only to fall into the hands of a bungling surgeon at Brooklyn's Methodist Hospital.
In his novel claim, Big Joey argues in court papers that he should have been able to inform jurors who convicted him in 2002 that Conigliaro was "in serious but stable condition and not likely to die" when he got to Methodist. Brideson notes that Joe Pitts died hours later, after a routine operation by Dr. Paul Maghazeh, a doctor whose license was revoked a year before Brideson's trial.
Big Joey says prosecutors also withheld other "exculpatory evidence" that could have established his "actual innocence," including DEA files, statements by FBI informers, tape-recordings, and court documents that implicate others. He says the withheld evidence would have absolved him of the linchpin of the case against him: That Brideson supplied the gun used to shoot Conigliaro in January of 1998.
Americo MassaIn court papers, Brideson's attorney asserts that the government never informed his client or trial lawyer that the admitted architect of the murder plot, Conigliaro crew member Americo (Mike) Massa, told the feds that he had given the pistol to the gunman who shot Joe Pitts, contrary to trial testimony from a turncoat mob associate that Big Joey had done so.
Lawyer Anthony DiPietro submitted several court documents to back up his contention that Massa, who pleaded guilty on the eve of trial, had told the FBI during several interviews that he had given the murder weapon to a crony named Martin Lewis. That was "contrary to the evidence adduced by the government at Mr. Brideson's trial," wrote DiPietro.
At trial, turncoat crew member Thomas Ditorra testified that Brideson gave Lewis the handgun that he used to shoot Joe Pitts five times as he drove Lewis home on the evening of January 23, 1998, after the crew had spent several hours at Conigliaro's One Over Golf Club at 497 Court Street in Carroll Gardens.
Hit four times — in the face, arm, and upper body — Conigliaro managed to drive back to the social club to get help from Brideson, who drove him to nearby Methodist Hospital.
In a tape recorded conversation with Ditorra many months later, Lewis said he "couldn't believe" how the bloodied Joe Pitts, "drove to the corner, put on his blinker and got the hell out of there," according to a Gang Land source who heard the conversation.
Martin LewisDiPietro submitted a 2009 filing that the government used to counter a Massa motion to reduce his 35 year prison term. In it, acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin wrote that Massa admitted he had "assisted in obtaining and transferring a .25 caliber handgun to Lewis in order to carry out the execution on Conigliaro." Dassin also wrote that Massa had lied to the police and the FBI after the shooting.
When he pleaded guilty to racketeering, murder and the use of a firearm on December 2, 2002, Massa admitted giving the gun to "the person who used the gun … to shoot Mr. Conigliaro," according to a transcript of the proceeding that DiPietro submitted to Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rakoff, who is currently assigned to the case.
The lawyer contends that the "government's obligation to provide favorable evidence that was known to exist at the time of trial" didn't end with his client's conviction. He asked Rakoff to "compel the government to produce such evidence," known as Brady Material, to Brideson now.
"Here," wrote DiPietro, "the principles of fairness and justice strongly militate in favor of the court exercising its power in ordering the post-conviction disclosure of Brady evidence because (it) may exculpate Mr. Brideson of a crime for which he is currently serving a term of life imprisonment."
Anthony CapoA longtime mob associate, Joe Pitts was paralyzed in 1973 when he and a cohort mistakenly shot each other as they each fired at an extortion victim in a car. Joe Pitts went on to become a legendary figure in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn when he resumed his mob activities in a wheelchair. He was 67 when he was killed.
He was never "made," but the DeCavalcantes treated him as a wiseguy, and he had his own crew of associates who ran his loansharking and drug dealing business out of his social club, turncoat mobster Anthony Capo testified at Brideson's trial. By all accounts, Conigliaro, often called "Wheelchair Joe" behind his back, was an ornery, feared gangster with many enemies in 1998.
"He was a ruthless guy who abused and cheated his crew members, never dreaming that they would ever dare to cross him," recalled a former member of the prosecution team.
But, DiPietro argued in his court papers, the government's files contained many other possible suspects who had both the motive and means to whack Joe Pitts, information that was never turned over to Brideson.
The lawyer wrote that a "non-testifying cooperating witness" gave the feds "direct evidence" that an FBI informer named Luis Grullon had killed Joe Pitts in "a dispute involving drugs," and that prosecutors had "an audio recording from his cellphone capturing Grullon's wife speaking about her husband's involvement in Conigliaro's murder" that they failed to turn over before trial.
The witness, Joseph Ray, DiPietro wrote, "claimed that the audio recording captured Grullon's wife telling him 'not to mess with Luis anymore, because Luis was crazy and had just killed Wheelchair Joe' and that 'Luis should not have killed Wheelchair Joe, because they could have resolved their differences without resorting to violence.'"
Anthony DiPietroProsectors Lisa Korologos and Jonathan Rebold say that Grullon was in prison on the day that Joe Pitts died. DiPietro disputes that, but has argued that, even from behind bars, Grullon could have been involved in the plot. In any event, the lawyer wrote, the feds should have given Brideson that information before trial.
Records unearthed with a Freedom of Information Act request contain other "Brady evidence" in DEA files linking Joe Pitts to "longstanding narcotic sales" and the possibility that his murder was linked to heroin trafficking wasn't turned over, the lawyer wrote. A May 17, 1999 DEA file noted the date of Conigliaro's murder and stated that the FBI was "currently utilizing information contained in this case file to investigate that homicide."
"These documents also revealed," the lawyer wrote, "that Conigliaro was 'involved in the sale of kilo amounts of heroin' and had numerous confederates involved 'in his heroin trafficking activities.'"
Finally, the government knew, or should have known, and told Brideson before trial, DiPietro wrote, that "Paul Maghazeh, who had cared for Conigliaro in the hospital and was responsible for performing the medical procedure that resulted in his death, was disbarred from medical practice in 2001 … as a result of his numerous acts of malfeasance."
DiPietro wrote that Dr. Moshe Schein, a former Maghazeh colleague, told him that "Maghazeh had a longstanding history of engaging in gross medical malpractice," had "caused the death of patients," and "was known as the 'Terminator' by his colleagues." The attorney noted that Dr. Schein told him he had written several articles "based upon his eyewitness account of Maghazeh's gross medical malpractice."
Jed RakoffDiPietro argued that Maghazeh's suspension from the practice of medicine on May 4, 2001 "was material" information because Conigliaro's primary physician, Dr. Lawrence Melniker, had told police that Joe Pitts was "in stable condition and not likely to die" before Maghazeh performed the surgery "that resulted in Conigliaro's death."
According to court testimony, DiPietro wrote, Conigliaro died when Dr. Maghazeh "attempted to relieve air that was filling up in the sac (pericardium) of Conigliaro's heart."
Prosecutors Korologos and Rebald say the government did not know of Maghazeh's medical malpractice, and that even if Brideson had that information, it would not have changed the verdict because the "gunshot wounds were at least a contributing cause in Conigliaro's death."
They labelled DiPietro's contentions as "flawed and misleading" and asked Rakoff to deny his motion because he "failed to lay an adequate foundation for the review of alleged Brady evidence, and in any event, such evidence does not exist."
Manhattan DA Vance Throws In The Towel On Landmark Bookmaking Case
Cyrus Vance Jr.Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has folded his hand in a major mob bookmaking case that his office had vigorously pursued for years against Robert Stuart, an online sports betting guru who created the software allegedly used by mob bookies everywhere these days.
Vance quietly dropped all charges last month.
That move follows a very sweet $1000 fine plea deal Vance's office gave to a Gambino soldier charged with money laundering in connection with the alleged $5 million online betting scam involving Stuart, his wife, and his company, Extension Software Inc.
Vance also dropped all charges against Stuart's wife, Susanne, a company executive, and dismissed all charges against Extension Software stemming from a 2014 money laundering and gambling indictment. The indictment charged the Stuarts with laundering $5 million they obtained from the Gambinos and other mob-connected bookies from 2005 until 2013.
Robert StuartIn July, Vance dropped money laundering charges against Gambino soldier Joseph Isgro in return for a guilty plea to misdemeanor gambling charges and an agreed-upon sentence of a $1000 fine and a conditional discharge, meaning that Isgro's conviction will be expunged if he doesn't get in trouble with the law in the next few months.
Vance dropped all charges against the Stuarts after Patrick Read, Susanne Stuart's brother, a sales marketing representative for Extension Software, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor gambling charges in a plea deal that was approved by Supreme Court Justice Bonnie Wittner.
As part of the deal, Wittner sentenced Read, 54, to a conditional discharge and dismissed the indictment against Robert, 57, and Susanne Stuart, 53, and the company, which did business as Action Sportsbook International (ASI).
Susanne StuartIn admitting his guilt, Read told Wittner he "knowingly advanced the illegal sports gambling activity of a client, Elite Tech," a company controlled by Isgro and the late Gambino capo Joseph Giordano, knowing that Elite, which later became known as Cristal Sportsbook, "used the ASI software for illegal sports gambling activity in New York county."
As part of the plea deal, Vance also agreed to drop harassment charges lodged against Susanne Stuart in February 2013 for allegedly badgering a former assistant district attorney by sending dozens of emails to him and his co-workers that accused him of criminal, immoral and generally horrible conduct after the Stuarts were indicted. The original landmark gambling case against the Stuarts and their company went to trial that October, and ended in a hung jury.
Patrick ReadThe following year, the Stuarts and Read were indicted on upgraded money laundering charges along with Isgro based on hundreds of tape recorded conversations and emails that allegedly linked Isgro and Giordano, who had died in prison in 2013, to thousands of dollars in payments to ASI. The DA's office originally got wind of the Gambino family's links to the Stuarts and Extension Software in 2009 while investigating extortion allegations against Giordano.
The decision to drop all charges comes months after Judge Wittner and the Appellate Division in Manhattan each approved the upgraded money laundering indictment with ties to the Gambino crime family following extensive pre-trial efforts by defense lawyers to get the charges dismissed on numerous grounds.
A Vance spokeswoman declined to comment on why the office agreed to drop all charges against the Stuarts and Extension Software after waging and winning a long and costly legal fight about the validity of the indictment.
Feds Say Mark Reiter Should Stay Behind Bars
Mark ReiterThe feds say that 28 years after the fact, it's much too late for Mark Reiter, a drug-dealing pal pf John Gotti's, to contest two life sentences he got for heroin trafficking. But if it's not too late, prosecutors say, Reiter's claim that one sentence is "illegal" has no merits, and should be rejected. And even if the judge rules that Reiter's sentence was "illegal," he should still finish out the other life sentence he got for heroin trafficking and whacking two witnesses.
Responding to papers filed by Reiter's lawyer, assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Capozzi wrote that Reiter's claims that the late trial judge Richard Owen imposed an "illegal sentence" back in 1988 are so old and so "substantially similar" to prior legal arguments raised by Reiter over the years that they should be dismissed out of hand.
Earlier this year, appeals specialist Harlan Protass convincingly argued that one drug conviction for which Reiter received a life sentence requires a finding by either the judge or the jury that the "offense involved more than 100 grams of heroin," which neither Owen or the jury did when it convicted Reiter of numerous crimes, including the murders of two potential witnesses.
To stress the alleged illegality of the sentence, Protass noted that in two places during his instructions to the jury, Owen specifically told jurors that they "need not be concerned with the quantity" of drugs when deliberating that count.
Harlan ProtassAs a result, Protass asked Manhattan Federal Judge Vernon Broderick to resentence Reiter, 68, on all counts and impose a "fair, just and reasonable sentence" of 30 years because his client was now a loving grandfather of five who would never return to his criminal past if he were released.
In his retort, prosecutor Capozzi told Broderick that Reiter's contention that his prison term was "unlawful because neither Judge Owen nor the jury made an explicit finding regarding drug quantity" of more than 100 grams of heroin was essentially a distinction without a difference.
"The record shows," Capozzi wrote, "that Judge Owen found that Reiter distributed far more than the 100 grams of heroin required to support Reiter's life sentence" when he stated at sentencing that the "the trial record" showed that Reiter had "been a pipeline to New York for heroin for at least 1983 to 1986," and had sold "pure heroin over the years in massive quantities."
And if Judge Broderick were to find that Reiter's sentence was in fact illegal, he "should nevertheless reject his request for a resentencing hearing on all counts" and not upset the other legal life sentence that Judge Owen imposed, wrote Capozzi.