Bonanno gangster says cache of guns dont belong to him
Anthony "Skinny" Santoro — the potty-mouthed alleged wiseguy at the center of a Manhattan mob extortion and corruption case — claims a cache of guns he’s charged with having were actually taken from a dead woman’s home.
The portly Bonanno bad boy was shacked up with a gal pal on the upper level of a Staten Island two-family home when authorities raided both pads and found seven guns in February 2012.
Santoro’s attorney argues, in court papers expected to be filed this week, that the weapons were actually found in the apartment of his late neighbor, Margaret Helbig, who died of lung cancer in January 2012 at 62.
The 5-foot-11, 300-pound accused Mafia tough, whose profanity-laced rants were caught on wiretap, hopes the woman will be his lifeline from beyond the grave.
But Helbig’s former boss, attorney Jonathan D’Agostino, said she was his hardworking office manager for a decade and “had nothing to do with guns — I can assure you of that.”
“In all the time I’ve known her, we’ve never talked about a gun. She’s not that kind of person and it’s not her home, so the story doesn’t make sense,” D’Agostino added.
Santoro’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, claims authorities executed “a defective search warrant.”
“There can be no mistake that the officers knew that this building contained two separate and distinct dwellings, yet the warrant utterly fails to identify which one is to be searched,” he added.
Because of the bad permit, the “fruits” of the search should be suppressed and counts related to weapons should be tossed, Parlatore argued.
Prosecutors “have no basis to charge Mr. Santoro with pattern acts related to weapons which were not found in his home, and have no connection whatsoever to him, other than the fact that officers found them while conducting an illegal search of his neighbor’s home,” he said.
Santoro, 50, is not charged with firing a weapon but was caught on wiretap wanting to browbeat foes.
“I’m gonna split his f---ing head with a hatchet, to be honest with you,” he allegedly railed in a recorded call.
Prosecutors will respond to Santoro’s motion at a later date. The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment.
Santoro, who is being held without bail and faces up to 25 years in the can, was busted with aging boss Nicky "Cigars" Santora and others in July.
They were slapped with a 158-page indictment that includes enterprise corruption, grand larceny, criminal usury and perjury.
They were allegedly peddling Viagra and other drugs.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mobster-skinny-denies-weapons-found-cops-article-1.1567117
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