It seems becoming a “mob informant” for the FBI can not only get you a get-out-of-jail-free card, but also put some bigtime money in your pockets.
Former Gambino Crime Family member Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo joined Team America in 2002. But now, after admitting a life of crime that included three murders, and “extorting everybody I could,” DiLeonardo is a free man. DiLeonardo served only three years in prison, under the Witness Protection Program, which means DiLeonardo didn’t do any hard time, but was mostly housed in a country club environment, while waiting to be the FBI’s dancing monkey numerous times on the witness stand.
On September 11, 2011, in Manhattan Federal Court, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl awarded DiLeonardo a sentence of “time served,” and praised DiLeonardo for his help in 14 organized crime trials, which resulted in the conviction of over 20 organized crime figures.
At DeLeonardo’s sentencing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elie Honig told Judge Koeltl that DiLeonardo’s cooperation with the government was “nothing short of historic.”
Historic – my Italian/American butt!
I can think of a lot of words to describe what DiLeonardo did, but none of them is “historic.”
And to add insult to injury, according to Jerry Capeci’s “Gangland” website, DiLeonardo is also being allowed to keep over $600,000, after he openly admitted, “Every dime of the money came from ‘criminal endeavors’ and could have been confiscated by the FBI.”
DiLionardo even bragged, “As a concession to him, the feds held onto the money while he awaited sentencing.”
What is going on here?
A guy becomes an informer against his closest friends. He is just as bad a criminal as they are, maybe even worse. And still, after the FBI uses his testimony (which may or not have been accurate) in 14 trials, they return to him his blood money, that he squeezed out of innocent people.
I can see the “time served” sentence. I don’t like it, but I understand why it happened. This is how the FBI gets people to turn state’s evidence. They promise bad people a light sentence, when they should be getting a life sentence, just so that they can imprison the “prize” mob figures they really want; in order to advance their law enforcement careers, of course.
But I don’t understand how a crook, murderer, extortion artist, and all around bad guy gets to waltz out of prison with $600,000 in his grimy pockets, which the FBI held safely for him while he was awaiting sentence. But I guess that was part of the dirty deal the FBI made with DiLeonardo.
Every minute, I’m losing more and more confidence in the integrity of our government.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The article below appears at:
Curtis Sliwa Reacts To Freeing Of Mob Rat ‘Mikey Scars’ DiLeonardo
September 12, 2011 11:00 AM
NEW YORK (AP / WCBS 880) – A former close friend of John Gotti Jr. who confessed to conspiring to kill three people was freed from jail after earning praise at his sentencing Friday for helping law enforcement jail 80 members of organized crime.
Authorities described the cooperation of 56-year-old Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo as revolutionary in the annals of mob history, saying it led to convictions that included 20 high-level, dangerous mobsters. He testified at 14 trials, including Gotti’s, and investigators praised his encyclopedic knowledge of mob life. Gotti remains free after the government dropped its charges when juries repeatedly deadlocked at trials over several years.
U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan cited the praise as he sentenced DiLeonardo to time served, freeing him after three years in custody, though he is likely to remain in the federal witness protection program for now.
Prior to the announcement of the sentence, DiLeonardo addressed the court, calling La Cosa Nostra a “living, breathing beast.”
“I was born into an ideology. … I was not a victim of it. I created victims for it,” he said. DiLeonardo also apologized to society for himself and his forefathers, saying his family’s life in organized crime goes back hundreds of years.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Elie Honig told Koeltl that DiLeonardo’s cooperation was “nothing short of historic.”
He said it was instrumental in bringing to justice “dangerous mobsters who had spent decades dodging the bullet of imprisonment.”
He said those mobsters included many of organized crime’s most influential leaders, forcing the Gambino family to scramble to refill its ranks.
Afterward, DiLeonardo shook hands and hugged law enforcement personnel throughout the courtroom. But he got a cold reception from Curtis Sliwa, the radio personality and Guardian Angels founder who was shot in a mob hit in 1992. The assailant was a masked gunman crouched in the front seat of a cab that was rigged to keep Sliwa from escaping.
“He could see I was cold as ice,” Sliwa said of DiLeonardo’s effort to include Sliwa in his celebration. “This guy had no problem planning a hit on me. … He murdered three people. … I will never forgive. I will never forget.”
But Sliwa did give DiLeonardo some grudging credit when he spoke to WCBS 880 reporter Irene Cornell.
“Without ‘Mikey Scars,’ that would never have happened. The gunman would never be doing twenty years for shooting me on Gotti’s orders,” he told Cornell.
Authorities charged that Gotti ordered Sliwa’s kidnapping to silence his daily on-air verbal assaults on Gotti’s late father, Gambino boss John Gotti.
During one of the younger Gotti’s trials, DiLeonardo testified that the elder Gotti had a child with a mistress, causing Gotti’s widow to blame the testimony about the man known as the “Dapper Don” on “dirty government politics as usual.”
He compared his relationship with the younger Gotti to that of the most notorious Gambino cooperator, Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, who had been Gotti’s father’s confidant and his enforcer before he became a government witness.
The grandson of a gangster, DiLeonardo testified at trial that he committed three murders and “extorted everybody I could.”
Gotti was in prison on a 1999 racketeering conviction when DiLeonardo was arrested and jailed in 2002. He testified that he was shocked to learn the Gambinos cut off his income and stripped him of his rank as captain.
After agreeing to cooperate and entering the witness protection program, he testified that he became so distraught by the thought of betraying his “brother John” that he tried to kill himself by overdosing on sleeping pills.
“John and I had a special bond in this life, and I always said I’d have undying loyalty to that man,” he said. “I love that guy.”
Joe Bruno on the Mob 