Anthony Casso rose to be underboss of the Lucchese crime family, one of the five organized crime families of New York City, in the second half of the 1980s. In March 1994, in the Eastern District of New York, he pleaded guilty to 70 offenses, among them substantive and conspiracy counts of murder and extortion. In his plea allocution he admitted to having conspired to commit 15 murders. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in Arizona on December 15, 2020, at the age of 78.
His case reached beyond the family. In 1987 he put two serving New York police detectives on a monthly retainer of $4,000 for confidential information, and for years afterward he drew on what they supplied. Those two men were convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn in April 2006 of racketeering conspiracy, murder and other crimes, and in 2009 each was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Casso was 52 in early 1993. In mid-1986 he was the acting underboss of the Lucchese family, and by the late 1980s he held the title of underboss, second in command. He was the main organized-crime figure for whom the detectives worked.
In September 1986 several members of the Gambino family made an attempt on his life. He sought revenge on those he believed responsible, and in 1987, the indictment of the detectives alleged, he put them on his payroll. The prosecution later tied him to a series of deaths between 1986 and 1991.
An intermediary carried the arrangement between Casso and the detectives. After one of the detectives' associates died in September 1987, one of the detectives proposed a standing retainer of $4,000 a month. Casso accepted on the condition that they work exclusively for the family. The payments ran from 1987 to January 1993, and they continued while Casso was a fugitive.
The prosecution case against the detectives was that in return they gave him information about investigations and about where certain men could be found. The evidence at the 2006 trial was that Casso asked the detectives for information about John Heidel, and Heidel died in October 1987. He asked them to locate Anthony Dilapi, and Dilapi died in February 1990. Casso received information about Bruno Facciola from one of them, and Facciola died in August 1990. For Edward Lino, Casso offered $65,000 through the intermediary, and the detectives were paid $70,000. The same evidence covered the death of a second Nicholas Guido, a man who shared his name with the intended target, on December 25, 1986, after wrong information was supplied.
The indictment announced in March 2005 listed the same men and added James Hydell in 1986, James Bishop on May 17, 1990, and Bartolomeo Boriello on May 13, 1991. None of these deaths was a count on which Casso himself was sentenced.
In May 1990 one of the detectives warned the intermediary that arrests of Casso and the family's boss were about to be made. Both men left, and the Second Circuit recorded that Casso "had become a fugitive in 1990." The warning concerned a federal indictment on the window-replacement industry, and the 2006 prosecutors' account said that he and the boss avoided capture for nearly two years as a result. The intermediary kept meeting him during this period and passed him information.
In February 1993 prosecutors alleged that he had ordered at least seven murders during his 32 months in hiding, most of them by telephone. He was arrested in New Jersey in 1993, aged 52, on federal racketeering charges.
In March 1994, in the Eastern District of New York, Casso pleaded guilty to 70 offenses, among them substantive and conspiracy counts of murder and extortion.
He signed a cooperation agreement at the same time. Under it the government could ask the court to reduce his sentence for substantial assistance under section 5K1.1 of the sentencing guidelines.
On August 8, 1997, the government told Casso that he had breached the cooperation agreement and that it would not file the motion for a reduced sentence. On October 9, 1997, the Bureau of Prisons removed him from the Witness Security Program, which had allowed him to live in a protective custody unit. The government said the reason was his continued criminal activity, which he conceded.
Casso asked the district court to enforce the 1994 agreement. In June 1998 Judge Frederic Block declined to order his return to the program, because he had not exhausted his administrative remedies, and denied the request pending administrative review.
Casso appealed. The Second Circuit heard argument on April 14, 1999. In an unpublished summary order of April 28, 1999, it affirmed the district court on the government's refusal to file the sentence-reduction motion. In a published opinion of August 9, 1999, a panel of Judges Van Graafeiland, Jacobs and Straub held that the court had no jurisdiction to review the Attorney General's decision to end protection under 18 U.S.C. 3521(f). The statute provides that the decision "shall not be subject to judicial review." The court vacated that part of the order and remanded with instructions to dismiss the motion.
On March 9, 2005, a superseding indictment in the Eastern District of New York charged the two former detectives with racketeering conspiracy, eight predicate murders, three predicate acts of attempted murder or murder conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and drug offenses. The racketeering charge carried a maximum of life imprisonment. The indictment alleged that Casso had paid them $4,000 a month from 1987.
The trial in Brooklyn lasted three weeks, and the jury deliberated for two days. On April 6, 2006, it convicted both men. It found that they had taken part in, or aided, eight murders, two attempted murders and one murder conspiracy, and that they had passed confidential information to senior Lucchese members. Casso did not testify; the prosecution and defense each considered calling him and decided against it.
The case then moved through the courts. On June 30, 2006, Judge Jack Weinstein granted a motion for judgment of acquittal on the racketeering conspiracy count, finding that the conspiracy had ended before the five-year limitations period began. On September 17, 2008, the Second Circuit reversed, finding the evidence sufficient for the jury to conclude that the conspiracy had continued into the limitations period, and sent the case back to reinstate the verdicts. On March 6, 2009, Judge Weinstein sentenced both men to "life imprisonment without the possibility for parole."
Casso was prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
His cooperation agreement of 1994 depended on section 5K1.1 of the sentencing guidelines, under which a sentence reduction could follow only if the government moved for one. The government's 1997 refusal to file that motion was the point on which the Second Circuit upheld the lower court. The Witness Security Program rested on 18 U.S.C. 3521, under which participants agree not to commit any crime and the Attorney General may terminate protection for a substantial breach.
The detectives' case turned on a five-year limitations period. Judge Weinstein held in 2006 that it had run, and the Second Circuit held in 2008 that the conspiracy had continued into it.
Casso was held in the federal system under a life sentence. In November 2020 his lawyers asked for compassionate release. Judge Frederic Block of the Eastern District of New York denied the request, finding in light of the nature and extent of his criminal history that he remained a danger to the community. He died on December 15, 2020, at age 78, in Arizona.
The number of killings with which Casso has been linked is larger than the number he admitted. His plea covers conspiracy to commit 15 murders, and he has been linked to as many as 36 killings in all; no court has adjudicated the difference.
He denied that the detectives took part in the killing of Edward Lino, and he wrote from prison that they were innocent of several of the acts charged. The jury convicted the detectives on the eight murders in the racketeering count.
His reliability as a witness was itself in doubt. His statements were inconsistent, though other evidence supported enough of them to build the case against the detectives.
1986: Attempt on Casso's life while he is acting underboss; James Hydell dies, a death named in the 2005 indictment.
December 25, 1986: Death of Nicholas Guido.
1987: Retainer of $4,000 a month begins; John Heidel dies on October 8.
February 4, 1990: Death of Anthony Dilapi.
May 1990: Warned of coming arrests, Casso becomes a fugitive; James Bishop dies on May 17.
August 30, 1990: Death of Bruno Facciola.
May 13, 1991: Death of Bartolomeo Boriello.
January 1993: Retainer payments end.
1993: Casso is arrested in New Jersey.
March 1994: Plea to 70 offenses; admits conspiring to commit 15 murders; cooperation agreement.
August 8, 1997: Government declares the agreement breached.
October 9, 1997: Removed from the Witness Security Program.
June 1998: Judge Block declines to order his return to the program.
April 28 and August 9, 1999: Second Circuit summary order and published opinion.
March 9, 2005: Two former detectives indicted.
April 6, 2006: Detectives convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn.
September 17, 2008: Second Circuit reinstates the racketeering conspiracy verdict.
March 6, 2009: Detectives sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
November 2020: Compassionate release sought; later denied by Judge Block.
December 15, 2020: Casso dies in Arizona, aged 78.