Bonanno soldier sentenced to 20 years in prison

Bonanno soldier sentenced to 20 years in prison

  September 08, 2009    Dapper_Don

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A Bonanno soldier who authorized a grisly mob hit at a “haunted” house on Staten Island was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for racketeering today.
Brooklyn Federal Judge Allyne Ross rejected Gino Galestro’s pleas for leniency after the victim’s sister told a courtroom packed with the wiseguy's supporters that her brother was a “stupid kid” who didn’t deserve to die.
Galestro, 41, who pleaded guilty to racketeering last year, was free on bail in a separate mob case when he gave the green light for his crew to kill mob underling Robert McKelvey, 39, in March 2005.

Robert McKelvey was killed inside the Kreischer Mansion.

“He got a slap. He had a chance,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Chan, noting that Galestro got a 1½-year sentence in the earlier case. “He decided to commit the worst crime he could possibly do, to become involved in a murder.”
Members of Galestro’s crew lured McKelvey to the notoriously creepy Kreischer Mansion when they learned he'd been boasting about his mob crimes. They stabbed and drowned him before dismembering his body and burning it in a furnace.
“Why, Mr. Galestro? It shouldn’t be. It doesn’t make any sense. He was a stupid kid,” McKelvey’s sister Donna Holtermann said during the sentencing. “My brother thought they were so cool. He wanted to be their friend.”
Galestro, a father of a three-year-old girl and who has worked as a delivery truck driver for the Post and the Daily News, wept as he begged for leniency in front of dozens of his relatives, friends and colleagues.
“I know I have caused more grief than anyone should bear,” Galestro said, after his lawyer Joel Rudin unsuccessfully argued for a sentence of 10 to 15 years behind bars. “I apologize to the family of Robert McKelvey, my family and the court.”
Galestro’s mother wailed uncontrollably as Ross imposed the 20-year sentence – a prison term that the judge said was “extraordinarily lenient” considering the crime.
Joseph Young, the mob associate who carried out the crime, went on trial and is serving a life sentence.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/brooklyn/bonanno_soldier_sentenced_to_years_HNsY5vhI6dkkDPphuNvo2M