Sept. 15, 1997 GASPIPE'S WORST ENEMY - GASPIPE
If nothing else, former Luchese underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso knows how to make a bad situation worse. Ever since he signed a cooperation agreement with the feds three and a half years ago, Casso has consistently shown a knack for making things worse for himself. His latest gaff is likely to earn him a life sentence, or something very close to it. The last straw for the feds came shortly after they convicted Genovese boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante of racketeering - without calling Casso as a witness. Once viewed as a key witness against Gigante, other top gangsters and corrupt NYPD detectives he dealt with, Casso had fallen out of favor for lying, bribing prison guards and assaulting rival mobsters - all while he was cooperating with the feds and housed in special prison units for turncoat mobsters. As a result, despite his first hand criminal dealings with Gigante, the feds felt Casso would have been more of a liability than an asset on the witness stand. A few days after Gigante was sent off to prison, Casso wrote a letter accusing two key prosecution witnesses, superstar mob turncoat Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano and onetime acting Luchese boss Alfonse (Little Al) D'Arco, of lying at the trial. After receiving Casso's allegations, prosecutors Valerie Caproni and Andrew Weissmann quickly labelled them as "untrue" and "spurious," declared that Casso had breached his cooperation agreement, and asked Judge Eugene Nickerson to sentence him. The feds felt pretty sure about their characterizations because one of the things Casso said Gravano did - fess up to ordering the January 1991 stabbing of activist minister and current New York City Mayoral candidate, Rev. Al Sharpton, the day after the attack while the two underbosses were standing around chatting in a Brooklyn schoolyard - was hard for them to swallow. Casso was on the lam and Gravano was in prison at the time. Among other things, prosecutors also charged Casso with bribing prison guards, and with beating a handcuffed inmate as he got out of the shower because the inmate had told authorities that Casso was smuggling contraband into his prison cell. Brought to court, Casso's lawyer charged federal prosecutors with not playing fair with Casso by deciding not to recommend leniency for him despite his more than three years of cooperation. Lawyer Matthew Brief accused the government of "bad faith" in its dealings with Casso, and asked for the opportunity to back up his claim at an evidentiary hearing. Nickerson scheduled one for early November but last week, after prosecutors reminded the Judge that Casso had once plotted to kill him, Nickerson decided he had seen enough of Casso and removed himself from the case. Details of the plot are sketchy, but sources said mobsters planned to execute Nickerson as he walked through Cadman Plaza park on his way to the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Brooklyn. Tomorrow, Judge Frederic Block gets his first crack at the somewhat bizarre feud between Casso and the feds. In his last court appearance, Casso, who reportedly has admitted taking part in 36 murders, let his lawyer do the talking to Nickerson. But on his way out of the courtroom, he turned toward me and said, "They're railroading me, Jerry." Gang Land figures it's hard to railroad a guy who's admitted 36 murders, Anthony, but we'll pay close attention from now on.
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By Jerry Capeci
