Crime boss testifies in murder case

Joseph Massino, the former boss of the Bonanno crime family who once bragged that none of his members ever turned informant, Tuesday became the biggest public turncoat in mob history as he took the witness stand to try to sink a key associate in a murder case.

It was shortly after noon that the portly Massino, 68, who led the Bonanno family from 1991 until his 2004 conviction, raised his right hand in Brooklyn federal district court and swore to tell the truth in the death penalty trial of Vincent Basciano, the former Bronx beauty shop owner who is on trial for murder.

Never before in the history of the American mob had an official crime family boss ever turned cooperating witness and testified openly in court, admitting to not only being in the mob but also reciting a life of crime.

Under questioning by Assistant U.S. attorney Taryn Merkel, Massino got right to point and claimed that Basciano admitted to him that he orchestrated the murder of mob associate Randolph Pizzolo in November 2004 on a street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

"He told me that he killed him," said Massino of a conversation he had with Basciano while both men were in a federal custody in late 2004. Massino is serving a life sentence and in special protective custody.

Massino, of Howard Beach, testified without emotion and in a gruff voice about his long, steady rise from a small-time teenage thief who stole homing pigeons in Queens to a crime boss who by 2003 had remade the once weakened Bonanno family into a major force in organized crime. By the time he was convicted in July 2004 of racketeering, Massino had amassed a fortune of at least $12 million, mostly in cash and real estate that he turned over to the government. At that point in 2004 Massino made overtures to the government to become a cooperating witness, which he did in June 2005.

While in custody with his former acting boss Basciano, Massino secretly taped him making statements that prosecutors said implicated Basciano in the charged crime.

But in his opening statement Tuesday, defense attorney George Goltzer told the jury that the tapes actually show Basciano trying to give the false impression to his boss that he, Basciano, was in control of the man who killed Pizzolo. In fact, Goltzer said, Basciano didn't know what was going on and told Massino he had put out the word that Pizzolo wasn't to be killed. The tapes are expected to be played Wednesday.