Ex-Mob Boss Tells Jury, Calmly, About Murders

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The cross-examination of a Mafia turncoat started quietly and predictably enough on Thursday. Joseph C. Massino, the former boss of the Bonanno crime family, spoke matter-of-factly about having to kill one of his closest associates, simply because he had disobeyed protocol.

“As much as I didn’t want to kill him,” Mr. Massino said of the 1999 murder of Gerlando Sciascia, “I had to kill him.”

Richard Jasper, a defense lawyer for the crime family’s former acting boss, Vincent Basciano, who is charged with ordering the murder of an associate, worked throughout the morning and early afternoon in United States District Court in Brooklyn to try to discredit the star witness, the first official boss of a New York crime family ever to cooperate with federal authorities.

In his low-key questioning, Mr. Jasper tried to conjure a portrait of Mr. Massino as a remorseless, calculating criminal who hoarded gold and power and would do anything to avoid being sentenced to death.

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/nyregion/ex-mob-boss-joseph-massino-details-a-few-murders.html