Colombo soldier given time served for testifying against the crime family
A reluctant mobster got his reward Monday for airing dirty family laundry.
Years after Sebastian Saracino testified against his brother and mafia bigs, he received a sentence of time served for crimes that could have imprisoned him for up to 70 years.
“I never wanted this life,” Saracino told Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan. “Somehow, it seems like this life found me.”
The Colombo soldier said he could’ve been “perfectly fine being a nobody.”
Back in 2010, the feds busted Sicilian-born Saracino for lying in his immigration documents. They held him for a couple months and he quickly started talking about gangland mayhem that helped build cases against mafiosi like Colombo street boss Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioeli.
It culminated in Saracino’s explosive 2012 testimony against his brother, Dino "Little Dino" Saracino, while his brother and family watched. “Don’t call me your brother no more!” Little Dino, another reputed Colombo solider, barked.
Saracino received a sentence of time served for crimes that could have imprisoned him for up to 70 years.
Jurors convicted Gioeli and Little Dino on racketeering, but acquitted them in the 1997 murder of off-duty NYPD officer Ralph Dols, who married the ex-wife of another mobster.
One of the crimes Saracino admitted to himself was disposing a bag thought to have the clothes of Dols’ assassin.
Six years after his gut-wrenching testimony, Saracino said he’d “always love” his brother. “Will God be with you.”
Though mob turncoats can ask for waivers barring testimony against their flesh and blood, Saracino didn’t ask for one.
Cogan remembered Saracino’s testimony against his brother as the most tense courtroom scene he’d ever witnessed. “It was the stuff you think you’re going to only see in the movies,” he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Gatta said Saracino “turned his back on the mob. But he also turned his back on his family, and they turned their back really on him.” He noted Saracino, never a triggerman, faced future deportation.
Saracino was, and continued to be, a wellspring of information on the Colombos, according to Gatta.
Cogan said Saracino “took no glory” in mob life “and that makes him a better person.”
Saracino will have to forfeit two Brooklyn properties, pay $75,000 for an insurance-related arson and another $18,500 for the funeral expenses of a killed mob associate.
Saracino testified Little Dino shot the associate, Richard Greaves, in the back of the head in the basement of the 76th St. Brooklyn home owned by Saracino’s parents.
Saracino’s lawyer, John Jordan, said his client took big risks and paid dearly to help prosecutors. He cooperated, looking out for his wife and two daughters, according to Jordan.
Saracino said the irony is “I’m here because of my family and I’m here because of my family.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/mob-turncoat-time-served-testifying-mafia-bigs-article-1.3843236
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