NEW YORK-
The note looks innocuous enough–five names written in a childlike scrawl.
But federal prosecutors alleged last week that a reputed gangster nicknamed Vinny Gorgeous scribbled the list while behind bars and wanted those on it, including a federal judge, killed.
Vincent Basciano insists the list was about mysticism, not murder–part of a religious ritual to bring him good luck.
The debate over the list was the latest twist in the colorful but largely overlooked career of Basciano, the one-time acting boss of the Bonanno organized crime family.
Basciano’s more infamous contemporary, John Gotti Jr., sought to dodge publicity and jail time by reinventing himself as a devoted family man disenchanted with La Cosa Nostra.
Basciano, however, has adopted an unrepentant swagger more reminiscent of Gotti’s crime boss father, the late Dapper Don–though some argue the list episode shows he’s clearly not as savvy.
“His name should be changed to ‘Vinny Knucklehead,'” said James Walden, a former organized crime prosecutor.
Basciano, 46, began attracting attention at a Brooklyn racketeering trial earlier this year by sporting finely tailored suits, a smirk and a healthy glow that defied months of maximum-security captivity.
He annoyed prosecutors during jury selection by joining lawyers at sidebars before Nicholas G. Garaufis, the judge he’s now suspected of plotting to kill.
Defense attorneys tried to portray the one-time owner of the Hello Gorgeous beauty salon in the Bronx as the Mafia’s version of an empty suit. But authorities insist Basciano was not merely role-playing.
Known within the Bonanno family as an egomaniac with an explosive temper, Basciano quickly rose to acting boss after a series of successful prosecutions decimated its leadership, Walden said.
“He’s a rash person who lucked into the job,” the ex-prosecutor said.
A jury heard testimony that in 2001, Basciano allegedly used a 12-gauge shotgun to kill a low-level mobster from another crime family, believing he wanted to kidnap one of his sons. Jurors failed to reach a verdict on the murder charge, but found him guilty of racketeering, attempted murder and gambling.
Because of a turncoat mob boss and a jailhouse snitch, that conviction is now the least of Basciano’s troubles.
The boss, Joseph Massino, broke ranks and began cooperating with investigators after his 2004 conviction for orchestrating a quarter-century’s worth of murder, racketeering and other crimes. While imprisoned together last year, the former Bonanno boss secretly recorded Basciano pitching a plot to kill a prosecutor, authorities said.
The alleged scheme resulted in new charges against Basciano. If convicted at a trial next year, he could face the death penalty.
In July, inside the same lockup, Basciano found himself in trouble again after he scratched out the list naming the judge, the prosecutor and three mobsters who testified against him. He gave it to another unidentified inmate, not knowing he was a cooperator, prosecutors said.
An FBI handwriting analysis compared the note to a letter–sprinkled with clumsy sexual innuendoes and smiley faces–written to a girlfriend by the married defendant. It concluded that Basciano was the author of both, the papers said.
Prosecutors offered no evidence that the scheme went any further. But they had Basciano placed in solitary confinement over the protests of his attorney.
Defense attorney James Kousouros claimed that the cooperating inmate set up Basciano by telling him that his mother was a priestess of Santeria, a faith blending African and Roman Catholic traditions.
Basciano was promised good luck if he could “make a list of everyone involved, put it in your right shoe (and) stamp five times everyday during the trial,” the lawyer said.
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