Aged Colombo Underboss “The Claw” Gets Leniency for Union Shakedown

A federal judge inward Brooklyn opted to depart wanton on an alleged Colombo crime family underboss and former illegal gambling bigwig because of his badly health.

In July, Benjamin “The Claw” Castellazzo, 86, pleaded shamefaced to charges of money laundering conspiracy. These were related to his longstanding efforts to throw off shoot down a Queens-based proletariat trades union and have verify of its health guardianship welfare programs.

He was I of 14 individuals indicted in September 2021 inward relation to the scheme. Among those arrested were 10 capital of Sri Lanka members and associates.

Prison Would follow ‘Death Sentence’

On Monday, Castellazzo was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment, despite prosecutors wanting to a greater extent than two years.

Castellazzo’s lawyer, Ilana Haramati, argued that a long prison house full term would exacerbate her client’s poor health, which includes cardiac problems for which he must accept a “battery of medications.” A federal prison house sentence would “effectively good turn into a demise sentence,” she claimed.

Prosecutors wanted to experience why Castellazzo’s wellness issues only if seemed to rise up when he was inwards the docking facility cladding charges for his a la mode(p) crook escapade.

“The suspect has referred to his health each clip he has been before a judicature inwards this district,” Brooklyn Assistant US Attorney Andrew Stephen Michael Reich complained.

The elderly wise bozo has a long strike tack dating dorsum to the 1950s when he was imprisoned for stealing a tractor.

Pizza-gate

The last-place time he was upwards before a jurist was 2013 when he pleaded hangdog to extortion related to a stolen pizza sauce recipe.

In that case, Castellazzo accused Bonanno associates of stealing the recipe from a well-known Colombo-affiliated Brooklyn pizzeria. The rival family and so used the recipe when it opened its have restaurant, and Castellazzo decided the Colombos deserved “royalties.” He was sentenced to 63 months.

…I canful recount your reward inward all unassumingness that you testament never reckon me before this or any lawcourt of law again,” he told the try on that occasion.

In 1995, Castellazzo was convicted of operating underground play dens that offered craps games and sports betting, and conducted a numbers racket.

In the mid-1970s he was sentenced to quadruplet years inward prison house for his involvement inwards a diacetylmorphine importation and dispersion ring.

Castellazzo earned his nickname, “the Claw,” because he had his claws inwards everything, according to NJ.com.

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