A mobster convicted of murdering a potential homicide witness four decades ago was back on the stand Monday, arguing that his life sentence should be thrown out because his attorney misled him — and that others who committed more heinous crimes got a slap on the wrist.
Stephen LoCurto – known in the Big Apple underworld as “Stevie Blue” – told a federal judge in Brooklyn that he would have accepted a plea deal during a 2006 trial if his lawyers had not misled him about the amount of prison time he was facing.
“They all had two and three murders, and they got a 10-year appeal!” the grinning 62-year-old killer told the judge, referring to another gang killer he claimed had more bodies than him.
But his old trial attorney, Harry Batchelder, never told him he was facing a life sentence, LoCurto said in his erratic and meandering testimony.
The Bonanno crime family mobster said he thought he only faced 20 years in prison — or about as much as the feds offered in their plea deal.
Batchelder allegedly grabbed his collar, shook him and said he was risking life in prison by refusing the deal, LoCurto said.
Thinking the deal was no better than what he faced at trial, LoCurto said he told his attorney to tell prosecutors what they could do with the deal.
Stephen LoCurto of the Bonanno crime family is trying to get a life sentence because of bad advice from his trial attorney.
“You didn’t tell me [Assistant US Attorney] Greg Andres that he can ‘remove a–’ with that letter?” Assistant Assistant US Attorney Andrew Roddin asked the wise man on Monday.
“I said something slang, I don’t really remember,” LoCurto replied.
Batchelder testified on Zoom that LoCurto’s story was false.
The lawyer brought what he called a plea offer to his client – who then told him that he could “get rid of my a–” with it.
“Steven was adamant that he wasn’t going to take 20 years,” Batchelder said. “He believed that he could testify on his own behalf and win the trial. I am trying to explain that this case is different from [an earlier state trial in which LoCurto was acquitted].”
LoCurto also admitted later that he had been given access to court documents that said he faced up to life in prison if convicted.
LoCutro was convicted of racketeering-related murder in July 2006 when a jury found that the 45-year-old soldier with the Bonanno crime family had planted a bullet in Joseph Platia – a potential witness in the murder – about two decades earlier, according to the New York Times.
Federal authorities said at the time that the mob targeted Platia because the mob thought he knew the Bonanno family mobster who had killed and dismembered one of his friends, mob partner Robert Capasio.
Shortly after the shooting in Manhattan, LoCurto was arrested a block away with a .38-caliber handgun still warm in his pocket, the Times said.
LoCurto told the court that he had heard gunshots, then only stumbled upon Platia’s lifeless body slumped in the car with a gun next to him.
LoCurto claimed he took the gun and put it in his pocket in self-defense, the Times said.
The mob has fought the conviction since it was handed down, including a failed appeal in 2009, according to Berita Harian.
Federal prosecutors insisted that the 20-year plea was never the real deal, the Daily News said.
Batchelder confirmed that Monday.
“I’ll call this a letter of recommendation,” he testified. “They have 25 defendants. It is a proposal of confession.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
