Turncoat Hector Pagan Jr is set to testify next month in trial of Bonanno underboss
The real-life drama on “Mob Wives” is again starting to outshine the stuff on TV.
The gangster ex-husband of the show’s undisputed star, Renee Graziano, is “likely” to take the witness stand in a Brooklyn mob trial early next month — his first appearance as a government informant — sources tell The Post.
Turncoat Hector “Junior” Pagan wore a hidden microphone to tape conversations with at least six organized crime figures after he agreed last summer — while taping the VH1 reality show — to flip.
Federal prosecutors, however, appear reluctant to actually put Pagan on the witness stand. They have been settling the cases Pagan helped to make before the trial by offering the taped gangsters less-than-usual jail sentences in exchange for guilty pleas.
But now it appears there is a holdout, a Bonanno crime family underboss named Nicholas "Nicky Mouth” Santora.
He has turned down plea offers, according to a report in the authoritative online Web site Gangland News, and is preparing to go to trial a week from Monday.
Santora, 70, who reputedly played a significant role in the famous mob murder of Bonanno boss Carmine Galante in 1979, is charged with gambling and extortion.
Pagan, who has complained he was facing 50 years in prison on drug charges if he didn’t agree to cooperate, may not be an ideal government witness.
According to a report last February in The Post, Pagan may have neglected to tell his government handlers that he was involved in a drug-related murder in 2010 — just as taping of “Mob Wives” had begun.
“Why don’t these guys take a plea,” Junior complained in a letter to an estranged family member, according to Gangland.
The turncoat mobster’s appearance at the trial will turn what would have been a relatively minor organized crime trial into a TV event.
Pagan has not been seen on Staten Island (where the show is filmed) since he flipped, though he continues to appear on the Sunday-night show in video footage shot last fall before the truth came out.
The show has devoted three episodes to how Pagan taped conversations with Renee’s father, a reputed mob captain who stayed close with Pagan even after the divorce.
The gangster ex-husband of the show’s undisputed star, Renee Graziano, is “likely” to take the witness stand in a Brooklyn mob trial early next month — his first appearance as a government informant — sources tell The Post.
Turncoat Hector “Junior” Pagan wore a hidden microphone to tape conversations with at least six organized crime figures after he agreed last summer — while taping the VH1 reality show — to flip.
Federal prosecutors, however, appear reluctant to actually put Pagan on the witness stand. They have been settling the cases Pagan helped to make before the trial by offering the taped gangsters less-than-usual jail sentences in exchange for guilty pleas.
FAMILY ISSUES: Renee Graziano’s (with fellow ‘Mob Wife” Ramona Rizzo) ex is at the center of a Mafia family scandal.
RAT TALE: Hector Pagan shown on show.
He has turned down plea offers, according to a report in the authoritative online Web site Gangland News, and is preparing to go to trial a week from Monday.
Santora, 70, who reputedly played a significant role in the famous mob murder of Bonanno boss Carmine Galante in 1979, is charged with gambling and extortion.
Pagan, who has complained he was facing 50 years in prison on drug charges if he didn’t agree to cooperate, may not be an ideal government witness.
According to a report last February in The Post, Pagan may have neglected to tell his government handlers that he was involved in a drug-related murder in 2010 — just as taping of “Mob Wives” had begun.
“Why don’t these guys take a plea,” Junior complained in a letter to an estranged family member, according to Gangland.
The turncoat mobster’s appearance at the trial will turn what would have been a relatively minor organized crime trial into a TV event.
Pagan has not been seen on Staten Island (where the show is filmed) since he flipped, though he continues to appear on the Sunday-night show in video footage shot last fall before the truth came out.
The show has devoted three episodes to how Pagan taped conversations with Renee’s father, a reputed mob captain who stayed close with Pagan even after the divorce.
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