SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Joseph Bonanno Sr. was sentenced to prison for the first time Monday, ending an underworld career that saw him rise from an Al Capone bootlegger and gunrunner to the top of the Mafia leadership.
U.S. District Judge William Ingram sentenced Bonanno, 75, to five years in prison and fined him $10,000 but said that because of his failing health the sentence could be reduced to two years after an investigation into his condition.
In September Ingram found the former head of the New York City Mafia guilty of conspiracy to obstruct justice in a grand jury investigation of alleged laundering of money from organized crime activities.
During the 14-week, non-jury trial, the government used as key evidence trash -- which included letters and scribblings in Sicilian -- pulled from Bonanno's home in Tucson, Ariz., by FBI agents.
Before sentencing the judge asked Bonanno whether he would make a statement. The silver-haired ex-crime lord said in a soft voice: 'On account of my health I have nothing to say. Mr. (Albert) Krieger (Bonanno's lawyer) is speaking for me. Let it go at that.'
Krieger delivered an emotional, hour-long plea for a lenient sentence noting that Bonanno was suffering from cancer and heart trouble and that his wife recently died 'as a direct result of Mr. Bonanno's conviction.'
Krieger also said Bonanno faced 'another tragedy, an ultimate horror,' that will hit his family soon. He did not elaborate.
The defense lawyer said he would appeal the conviction.
Ingram, who raised Bonanno's bail from $25,000 to $75,000, set no date for Bonanno to report to the U.S.marshal's service and did not say where he would be examined.
Bonanno, a native of Sicily, was convicted on criminal charges only once but never went to prison. He was fined $450 in 1945 for violating the rent control subsidiy. He was said to have retired from the Mafia when he moved to Arizona, but some lawmen believe he still has a hand in underworld activities.
Bonanno left the courthouse without answering reporters' questions.
Krieger lashed out at the prosecution and law enforcement in general, accusing FBI agents and authorities in Tucson of trying to kill Bonanno. He said that in 1978 a bomb 'stamped U.S. government' was thrown over a fence surrounding Bonanno's home and nearly struck several of his grandchildren.
Krieger said outside the courthouse that he had been ready to introduce Jimmy 'The Weasel' Fratianno as a witness to show that Bonanno had no connections with the Mafia for the past 15 years.
But since the judge indicated that such testimony would not alter his decision, Krieger said, Fratianno, a mobster turned informant, was not called to the stand.
Prosecutor Michael Sterrett asked the judge not to be 'dissuaded by the defense tactic to turn attention from what's really at issue here.'
He said the heart of the case was that Bonanno headed one of five Mafia families in New York and showed 'absolute disdain for the law for decades' and in this case conspired with his nephew and codefendant, Jack De Filippi, a San Jose commodities broker, to mislead investigators looking into businesses run by Bonanno's two sons as fronts for mob-obtained income.
One son, Joseph Jr., was at the sentencing of his father and later told reporters, 'This is absolutely ludicrous and certainly unfair. It's the government who should be on trial here, not my father.'
Joseph Bonanno Jr. and a brother, Salvatore, are on parole from federal prison.
De Filippi was convicted on charges of conspiracy and perjury. In September on the conspiracy charge he was given a suspended sentence and placed on five years' probation. For perjury he was given two concurrent two-year prison terms.
Bonanno's reign in the New York Mafia was believed to have lasted at least until his 1964 'kidnapping' by gunmen in front of his Park Avenue apartment a day before he was to testify on Mafia opoperations before a grand jury.
He went into hiding for 19 months, emerging in May 1966 to surrender in New York. He never explained his absence but was acquitted of a charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice for failing to appear before the grand jury.
Bonanno then moved to Arizona.
