Bonanno captain's attorneys fail to rattle turnocoat's testimony
Attorneys for accused Lufthansa heist mobster Vinny Asaro on Monday tried to punch holes in the devastating testimony of his turncoat cousin, portraying the Bonanno canary as a lying crook desperate for a government payday.
Lawyer Elizabeth Macedonio hammered away at Gaspare Valenti’s credibility, outlining his unsavory history of lies, unpaid loans, two-bit mafia crimes and the $178,000 in debts the feds have helped him pay for his cooperation.
But Valenti, who calmly told jurors last week that he and Asaro were deeply involved in the infamous Kennedy Airport score immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 movie “GoodFellas,” emerged mostly unscathed.
Macedonio reminded Brooklyn federal court jurors that the broke cooperator immediately began accepting payments of $3,000 a month from the feds as a reward for information that could solve one of the most iconic crimes in American history.
But Valenti maintained his composure on the stand, calmly copping to his long list of mundane crimes but remaining firm on facts related to the charges against Asaro.
At one point, Macedonio tried to challenge his assertion that he and the Lufthansa heist crew dumped all of their loot in his Brooklyn home in the early-morning hours after the robbery, insisting that his family dog, Beauty, would have barked and woken up his family.
But as he did with most of her inquiries, Valenti calmly parried the attack and said the mutt was actually sickly and docile.
“Beauty wasn’t a barker,” he maintained.
At another point, Macedonio challenged Valenti’s assertion that the bandits planned the heist at a bar owned by Lufthansa maestro James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke — the Lucchese associate played by Robert De Niro in the film.
“You didn’t read about that in the newspaper?” Macedonio asked.
Without missing a beat, Valenti fired back, “Read about it? I didn’t have to read about it. That was me.”
With Valenti’s critical — and largely effective — turn on the stand complete, the government plans to trot out former Bonanno family boss Joseph Massino later this week.
According to the feds, Asaro gave Massino, who was not yet don, an attaché case stuffed with jewels and valuables as tribute from the massive haul.
http://nypost.com/2015/10/27/attorneys-fail-to-poke-holes-in-cousin-vinnys-testimony-at-lufthansa-trial/
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