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Mobster Joseph Massino turned on his fellow mobster Vinny "Gorgeous" Basciano, below, in court today.So much for omerta.
Ex-Bonnano heavyweight Joseph Massino made Mafia history on Tuesday, becoming the highest-ranking organized crime figure in New York to take the stand as he testified against his successor.
"I was the boss, official boss," Massino said.
Prosecutor Taryn Merkl asked if there was anyone above him.
"Nobody," he said.
As mob legends must have turned in their graves, Massino fingered Vincent [Vinny Gorgeous] Basciano in the killing of crime family associate Randolph Pizzolo.
Asked if there was anyone in the Brooklyn Federal courtroom who was a fellow member of his crime family, the turncoat boss pointed at Basciano.
"That man in the gray suit sitting there," he said.
Basciano stared at Massino, then returned to jotting notes on yellow Post-its for his lawyers.
Secrets poured from Massino as he recalled a life of crime spanning more than five decades:
- Massino fingered John Gotti as the killer in a 1975 gangland hit of Vito Borelli never before attributed to the late Gambino boss. Borelli was whacked in a cookie warehouse because he said mob chieftain Paul Castellano resembled chicken king Frank Perdue.
- Massino's life of crime began when he was 12 and started stealing homing pigeons.
- The New York families were once renamed for Massino, Vincent Gigante, John Gotti and Carmine Persico but wiseguys still used the traditional names to deflect attention from the bosses.
- Basciano passed a jailhouse message to Massino on a scrap of paper hidden inside a can of Pringles potato chips. And Massino secretly taped Basciano in prison admitting to the hit on Pizzolo.
"He told me that he had him killed," Massino explained to the jury. "He said he was a scumbag, a rat, a troublemaker, a bad kid."
Massino, 68, wore a blue, two-toned warm-up jacket, unzipped to reveal a white undershirt and basketball-sized gut.
The ex-boss, who has been jailed since 2004 in eight gangland murders, said he was a member of the Bonnano family for 33 years.
Some gangsters, he said, were more inclined to make money than kill, but Basciano was considered both lethal and a good earner.
"It takes all kinds of meat to make a good sauce," said Massino, who blabbed in the hope of getting two life sentences reduced.
"I'm hoping that one day I'll see light at the end of the tunnel," he said.
If convicted, Basciano faces the death penalty.
Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/the_mob/2011/04/12/2011-04... 
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