This Week In Gang Land
Teenaged Mob Hitman Seeks Compassionate Release At Age 49
Can
John Pappa, a healthy 49-year-old gangster serving a life sentence for four
mob murders possibly deserve a compassionate release under the First
Step Act of 2018 after spending 26 years in prison when judges have
rejected motions from ailing wiseguys in their 80s and 90s who've been behind bars
longer than him for a single gangland-style-slaying?
Pappa, who was a teenaged mob associate when he killed the 12th and last victim in the bloody Colombo family war 31 years ago as well as three other gangsters before his 20th birthday, says he does. And so do 20 Bureau of Prison employees, including an associate warden, who submitted letters to the Brooklyn Federal Judge who sentenced him back in 1997.
Absolutely not, say the feds, and relatives of Pappa's victims. "He has no remorse" for his crimes, says assistant U.S attorney Raffaela Belizaire. He's a "coward" and a "savage killer" who deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars and die there, say relatives of two of his victims.
Feds Cite 'Media Interest' In Seeking 'Serious Sentences' In One-Punch Extortion Case
Federal
prosecutors in Brooklyn want 86-year-old Genovese mobster Anthony (Rom)
Romanello to celebrate his 91st birthday behind bars for his extortion
conviction of restaurant owner Bruno Selimaj who suffered a one punch
assault in his Manhattan steakhouse in May of 2017.
Wiseguy's 'Girlfriend' Gets A No-Jail Sentence For Their Labor Racketeering Scam
In
the old days, Erin Thompkins, a very close associate of Colombo capo Vincent
(Vinny Unions) Ricciardo, might have been dubbed a "moll." But prosecutors,
who probably never heard that term, just called the 56-year-old grandmother
the "girlfriend" of the mobster who orchestrated his crime family's 20-year
extortion of a construction workers union.
