Gangland December 5th 2024

[Dr031718]

Stevie Is Blue: He Got Bad Legal Advice, But It's His Fault He's Serving A Life Sentence For Murder

Two federal judges say Bonanno soldier Stephen (Stevie Blue) LoCurto "received objectively deficient (legal) advice" about "his sentencing exposure" when he opted to go to trial back in 2006 for the so-called "smoking gun murder." But he cannot now get a plea offer of 20 years because he "was committed to going to trial" even before he got the bad advice, Gang Land has learned.

"LoCurto has failed to establish that he suffered any prejudice" by going to trial on federal racketeering charges that included a1986 gangland-style slaying he was acquitted of in state court, stated another judge. LoCurto "never had — and still does not have — any legitimate willingness to plead guilty" to the murder, added the judge who conducted a full-blown hearing on the issue.

"The evidence shows that he was determined to proceed to trial" as soon as he was hit with federal murder charges and at that time, Stevie Blue "was fully aware" he could be sentenced to life "if convicted at trial," U.S. Magistrate Judge Sanket Bulsara stated in a 34-page decision denying the mobster's motion to vacate his conviction due to ineffective assistance of counsel.

In prior rulings in the case, Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who sentenced LoCurto to life, and former Magistrate Judge James Orenstein, each ruled that appeals lawyer Laura Oppenheim had wrongly informed LoCurto that if he were convicted at trial and sentenced to life, it would be reduced to 20 years because the murder took place in 1986, two years before the maximum penalty for a murder in a racketeering indictment was raised to life.

The killing was dubbed the "smoking gun murder" by Bonanno mobsters because LoCurto was arrested by police minutes after gangster Joseph Platia was shot to death on May 9, 1986 at 10th Avenue and 35th street in Manhattan with a still warm .38 caliber revolver in his pocket.

Despite the hard-nosed ruling, the judge stated it was "appropriate" for LoCurto to be able to appeal the denial of his petition to set aside his conviction and life sentence. That's because Stevie Blue is one of an "exceptionally small" number of inmates who've "received objectively unreasonable (legal) advice" from a defense lawyer that did not prejudice him.

Bulsara ruled that Stevie Blue's testimony at his hearing "was not credible," when he claimed that he would have accepted the offer to plead guilty to the midtown murder of Platia. The judge pointed out that "LoCurto made a series of astounding pronouncements suggesting that he was open to pleading guilty to any charge, for any murder, or any crime that would get him a 20-year sentence."

Bulsara wrote that "LoCurto’s testimony" at the two-day evidentiary hearing he conducted a year ago was "a bald and 'implausible' last ditch attempt to take any step to get a lower sentence and get out of prison" like many other Bonanno wiseguys and associates who accepted plea offers rather than take their chances at trial when they were indicted in 2004.

Under questioning at the hearing, Bulsara wrote, LoCurto blithely agreed to confess to any murder the government asked him about. On the stand, LoCurto said, "So, yes, even now, if the time comes, if you offer me a plea allocution to plead guilty for sure, Mr. AUSA, I will allocute to a homicide of anyone you particularly care for."

And LoCurto "seemed to say" he would have done that two decades ago if he had gotten good legal advice in another snippet cited by the judge: "I'm not looking to get a life sentence (then.) I might be the least educated person in the room, but I'm not stupid and I'm not gonna go gamble a life sentence where it's a guaranteed versus a 20-year where it's a possibility."

"But this testimony was not credible," Bulsara opinied. "His statements are not reflective of a willingness either to plead guilty now or credible evidence that he would have pled guilty in 2005 or 2006," the judge continued. "It is in tension with all of the objective evidence."

Stevie Blue's trial lawyer, Harry Batchelder, "was and has been consistent that he told LoCurto of the possibility of a life sentence, that he disagreed with Oppenheim's view that a life sentence could be reversed on appeal, and that he repeatedly told LoCurto that he would receive a life sentence," the judge wrote.

Batchelder stated that from the outset Stevie Blue wanted to go to trial. The judge quoted from the lawyer's testimony about his discussions with LoCurto:"One of the first things he ever said to me was, 'Don’t try to talk me into getting a plea; we are going to trial. And I beat a case in State (court),' which was the predicate act for murder here."

"In fact," the judge wrote, "even Oppenheim — whose deficient advice is the basis of his claim — points out that LoCurto was committed and determined to go to trial, and LoCurto was acting out of that impulse," noting that "she recounted" that in a 2010 letter to him that was introduced into evidence at the hearing.

"I never believed your case was triable," she stated. "You were so insistent that you 'could beat the homicide' because you had been acquitted in state court, you simply would not listen to anything I said about the strength of the government's case. You were, I remember, particularly dismissive when I tried to explain the difference between the federal prosecution and the state prosecution — especially the fact that the state prosecutor was barred from mentioning or presenting evidence of Organized Crime during the state case."

"His acquittal artificially inflated his hope of prevailing on the federal charges for the same event," Bulsara opined. "The acquittal long predated any of the misguided advice provided by counsel. In other words, his mind was made up long before Oppenheim provided her guidance."

In an appeal to Garaufis, LoCurto's attorney, Seton Hall professor Bernard Freamon wrote that Bulsara's conclusions are "bizarre" and contradicted by testimony. Stevie Blue may have been eager to roll the dice because of his 1987 acquittal in state court, but he isn't stupid, and he would have accepted a 20-year deal and not gone to trial in 2006 if he hadn't gotten lousy legal advice from the appeals lawyer that his client's trial lawyer had hired, Freamon argued.

"The fact that there is evidence that (LoCurto) was buoyed by the fact that he was acquitted of murder charges in state court does not change the reality that he was proceeding under an erroneous pretense," the lawyer wrote.

A tough break for LoCurto, but in Gang Land, second chances are usually hard to come by.

Bazoo Still Wants A Do-Over In The Naked City Loansharking Case To Prove His Innocence

In a request for a second chance to prove his innocence, Bonanno soldier John (Bazoo) Ragano accuses federal prosecutors with using "false testimony" from their key witness to spin a "false narrative" about his tape-recorded confrontation with the wiseguy in order to obtain a guilty verdict against him in the Naked City loansharking case.

In a new filing this week, Ragano's lawyers allege that's exactly what the prosecutors did when they allowed mob associate Vincent Martino to testify falsely in October about his July 5, 2023 confrontation with Ragano at the salvage yard where Bazoo worked.

On the stand, Martino accused Ragano of cooperating, and insisted that he truly believed Bazoo was a snitch. He said this was because he had "heard it on the street."

The July 5 discussion was tape-recorded — a recording that continued to run even after an angry Ragano ordered Martino to take off his clothes to prove that he wasn't wired.

Ragano's lawyers Joel Stein and Ken Womble have asked Brooklyn Federal Judge Hector Gonzalez for permission to use what they describe as "highly provocative" text messages between Martino and FBI agents in the weeks before the taped talk to prove that Martino lied when he testified that he believed that the Bonanno mobster was a snitch.

"In fact," the lawyers wrote, the "text messages" between Martino and several FBI agents in the case from June 20 to June 30, 2023, "reflect he went there to 'get this guy heated.'"

In the text messages, the lawyers stated that "the agents and Martino, with gallows, self-mocking 'humor,' refer to themselves as the 'Wolfpack,' and include an image of four individuals, which are followed by 'LOL' and 'Ha, ha.'"

"Their contemptuous, sneering tone underlying the agents' and Martino's laughter," the lawyers continued, "demonstrate that Martino's testimony was patently false and deprived the jury of important information (it should have had) to conduct its exclusive function of evaluating the credibility of an essential witness's testimony about a central event."

The "joking statements" by Martino and the agents also put the lie to what the "government has repeatedly emphasized in support of the verdict, that Martino feared the defendant's alleged violent tendencies," the lawyers allege.

Martino testified that all his decisions were driven by his fear of the defendant. But the lawyers argued that the texts show that "Martino was not at all afraid of the defendant" and they "undercut" a "critical theme of Martino's testimony and of the government's entire theory of their case."

Lawyers Stein and Womble say Martino showed his true intentions when he wrote the agents on June 20, 2023, stating: "I think we should call him. Let me get this fucking guy heated."

Joel SteinIn follow-up texts on June 29 and June 30, Martino joked that he would need "some muscle" from his G-men handlers "when this 350-pound gorilla jumps on me" because he would have no "energy left to fight John."

Prosecutors, however, turned a blind eye to those exchanges with the agents, ignoring altogether the lawyers' arguments citing the texts when they urged Gonzalez to deny the motion for a new trial that Ragano's lawyers filed a month ago.

The defense attorneys have argued that Ragano's angry reaction that day, in which he said, "You owe me my fucking money," was not a threat about the $150,000 loan that he had given Martino years earlier, but was an angry reaction to being falsely accused of being a snitch in the first words out of Martino's mouth.

"I gotta end this thing because you fucking snitched on me bro," Martino was recorded telling Ragano at the salvage yard.

At a retrial, the defense would be able "to confront (Martino) with the text messages" between him and the agents and "directly contradict" the witness's assertions that he "heard on the street" that Ragano was cooperating with his text to FBI agents in which he stated: "Let me get this fucking guy heated."

The lawyers asked Gonzalez "to reconsider" his pre-trial ruling to bar the defense from using the text messages "in light of the highly relevant additional circumstances arising from Martino's trial testimony" that he believed Ragano was cooperating, information that the defense knew nothing about because Martino raised it for the first time from the witness stand.

"That testimony is directly contradicted by the text messages," the lawyers argue, and they "give new meaning to the encounter of July 5, an encounter which is central to the government's case."

"The Court should grant the defendant's request for a new trial 'in the interest of justice' and rectify a decision (it) made without the benefit of all relevant information" it had before trial. This time, the lawyers argue, Ragano should be allowed to use the text messages to establish, if he can, that he is not guilty of the federal loansharking charges in the current indictment.

Big Joe DiNapoli Checks Out At 89

Scores of relatives, neighbors, and friends from all around the town said good-bye last week to Joseph (Big Joe) DiNapoli, a well-respected, former Luchese consigliere. The ailing old-school wiseguy died at Jacoby Hospital after he was taken there after a fall. He was 89.

The two rooms that were set aside for a long one-day wake last Friday at the Balsamo-Cordovano Funeral Home in The Bronx were packed all day as mourners — who included "friends" from all Five Families — paid their respects to his wife of 68 years, Loretta, and shared fond memories, and stories about Big Joe.

DiNapoli was indicted in 2017 with acting boss Matthew Madonna and underboss Steven (Stevie Wonder) Crea, but not charged with the murder of former Purple Gang leader Michael Meldish for which they were convicted and sentenced to life. Big Joe copped a plea deal to racketeering charges of gambling and loansharking calling for a maximum of 46 months.

Eighty-four years old and ailing when he went away on that conviction in February, 2020, DiNapoli ended up being sentenced to an even longer stretch — 52 months — than his plea deal had called for.

With mandatory good time and other Bureau of Prisons protocol, DiNapoli, who suffered from heart disease and a host of other ailments, was released from custody in January of last year. He had no subsequent problems with the law.

"Joe was an old and dear friend," said attorney Murray Richman, the veteran Bronx-based barrister known as Don't Worry Murray. "We've known each other since the beginning of time as I know it," Richman told Gang Land. "We played sandlot baseball together. He could hit; he was a first baseman. He was a great baseball player. He was a good friend. I represented him, and I respected him."

Richman had argued long and hard to White Plains Federal Judge Cathy Seibel in 2019 — to no avail — for home detention for his old friend. In addition to his numerous ailments, the lawyer noted that the loansharking and gambling offenses in the federal racketeering indictment were part of state racketeering charges in New York and New Jersey that Big Joe had pleaded guilty to and been sentenced for twice before.

In an emotional pitch, Richman invoked the Yiddish word, rachmones — he was not seeking mercy, but compassion, he insisted — in asking for a home detention sentence for his old baseball playing pal in the hope that a "friend whom I care for" is assured he will not die in prison.

But prosecutors were adamant that DiNapoli, who had no charged or suspected homicides on his mob resume, deserved the maximum sentence of 46 months behind bars that he had agreed to accept. Not only was he the consigliere, the number three mobster in the family "typically responsible for resolving disputes both within the Family and outside the Family," they argued.

Big Joe had served many concurrent sentences for eight prior convictions, the prosecutors said, and had received "a remarkably unwise act of leniency" when he paroled after serving only eight years of a 20-year sentence he received in 1974. What's more, the feds said, his plea agreement covered his participation in racketeering over what they called “a remarkable period of 22 years." Prosecutors recommended the octogenarian gangster get sentenced to 46 months.

Judge Seibel went even further. She meted out a prison term that was six months longer than what the feds had sought. She explained later that the plea agreement that Richman had worked out with the feds called for 37-to-46 months, but DiNapoli's sentencing guidelines based on his rap sheet, were 70-to-87 months.

Compared to that, her own sentence was generous, she said. "I imposed a sentence well below the low end of that range precisely because of his age and health" and "took into account the reality that prisoners do not receive the same kind of medical care that privileged persons on the outside enjoy," she wrote.

At his sentencing, Seibel placed the onus of the possibility that Big Joe could die behind bars on his shoulders, not hers.

"This is a problem that occurs when you get into your 70s and 80s and are still committing crimes," the judge said. "Mr. DiNapoli has never respected the law and he's not going to start now. If he stops committing crimes, it will be because he's unable."

Seibel conceded that the medical care that DiNapoli would receive "in the BOP will not be of the level he's getting outside" and that it was possible he could die behind bars. "That is a sad commentary," she said. "But it's also possible he won't. I certainly hope it doesn't happen."

In addition to his widow Loretta, DiNapoli is survived by brothers Louis, and Anthony, and five children, Louis, Robyn, Lisa, Danielle, and Guy, as well as 16 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

Following a funeral mass at St. Theresa's Church in the Bronx on Saturday, DiNapoli was laid to rest at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale.

Editor's Note: Gang Land is a taking a slide next week. We'll be back with more real stuff about organized crime in two weeks, on December 19.

[NYNighthawk]

was he the same person Fr. Gugante visited in prison and when the feds wanted to know what they discussed - Fr. Gigante was held in contempt and did a short stint? That was back in 1978?
Also, curious who was the Priest who said his funerla Mass?

[Tonyd621]

Thank for posting.
So, more then one judge agrees that LoCurto got bad legal advice, but they don't give a fuck and he will still serve life?
Am I getting that right?

[SonnyBlackstein]

Surprised no mention of friends who paid their respects to DiNapoli

[NYNighthawk]

Surprised no mention of friends who paid their respects to DiNapoli

Your'e right - was Barney there I wonder?

[johnny_scootch]

Surprised no mention of friends who paid their respects to DiNapoli

Your'e right - was Barney there I wonder?

Chance he was there is slim to none.