By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
Did fed prosecutors in a mob waste hauling case in Manhattan give two hold-out defendants a sweet plea deal to avoid putting on the witness stand a key FBI undercover operative who was convicted of soliciting sex from a teen girl?
That likely appears to be the case, according a story by mob expert Jerry Capeci of Gang Land News.
Capeci writes:
The gangsters got offers they couldn’t refuse: low-end guidelines of 15 months for one, a year for the other. The deals were cut last week, right after a Manhattan federal judge indicated he would give the defense some leeway in questioning witness Charles Hughes about his 2008 arrest for soliciting sex from a girl he believed to be 15-years-old.
The guilty pleas close out the first of three trials that were scheduled in the 29-defendant case alleging mob control over the private sanitation industry in five counties in New York and New Jersey. So far, 19 defendants from three crime families, including geezer gangster Carmine “Papa Smurf”
Capeci reports that U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel said he’d allow the defense to bring up some of the sexual allegations if the government witness took the stand.
Capeci describes the government deal as a “Macy’s bargain-basement-style sale of guilty pleas: Prosecutors suddenly reduced prison-term plea deals offered two Gambino family defendants by two-thirds.”
Gang Land News is a paid subscription site, but worth it.
