Vittorio Amuso was the boss of the Lucchese crime family, one of the five Mafia families of New York City, during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In June 1992 a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted him on all fifty-four counts of a superseding indictment. The counts included racketeering, a tax fraud conspiracy, and fourteen counts of murder, attempted murder or conspiracy to murder committed between 1988 and 1991. On October 9, 1992, Judge Eugene H. Nickerson sentenced him to life imprisonment.
The case rested on the testimony of insiders. Two former Lucchese captains and a long-time associate in the window replacement industry told the jury that Amuso had ordered killings of members and associates he suspected of informing, disloyalty or withholding money. At least five of the murder counts concerned deaths that occurred while Amuso was a fugitive, and the prosecution argued that he had approved them from hiding. The Second Circuit upheld the verdict in 1994, finding error in one jury instruction but holding that it did not change the outcome. In August 2023, when Amuso was 88, a federal judge refused to release him early, writing that his conduct was simply too serious.
Amuso led the Lucchese family with a second in command who stood beside him in the leadership. Beneath them the family had captains and soldiers and was divided into factions, among them a Bronx group led by Michael Salerno and a New Jersey group. Amuso was the family's boss and the principal defendant in the case.
His first federal indictment, returned on May 30, 1990, did not charge murder. It named Amuso and fourteen codefendants in a racketeering case over the window replacement industry in New York City. The government alleged that the defendants had taken control of an ironworkers' union, Local 580 of the Architectural and Ornamental Ironworkers, extorted payoffs from contractors, and rigged public bids, including bids for contracts of the city's Housing Authority. A former Lucchese captain later testified that from December 1989 he acted as Amuso's agent in the scheme.
Amuso left New York in May 1990, shortly before that indictment was filed. The windows trial of his codefendants began on May 8, 1991, without him.
Amuso remained a fugitive for about fourteen months. FBI agents arrested him in July 1991 in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Two months later, in September 1991, one of the former captains who would testify against him, by then the family's acting boss, began cooperating with the government. He was the first boss of a New York family to do so.
A witness at the 1992 trial said Amuso had told him he stood a better chance of acquittal if tried alone, which the government offered as part of its evidence that his flight reflected consciousness of guilt.
In April 1992 the grand jury returned a superseding indictment in the Eastern District of New York. It added a conspiracy to commit tax fraud and fourteen counts of murder, attempted murder or conspiracy to murder, alongside the racketeering counts under 18 U.S.C. sections 1962(c) and (d). Judge Nickerson granted a government motion for an anonymous and sequestered jury, on the ground that the charges were violent and that Amuso was alleged to have the means to interfere with jurors. The jury was told that it was sequestered because of pretrial publicity.
The trial began in May 1992. It covered the windows racketeering charges, the tax conspiracy and the murder counts together.
The murder counts name nine dead men, each set against a date. Sorecho Nalo died on October 25, 1988. Thomas Gilmore died on or about February 6, 1989, and Michael Pappadio on May 13, 1989. John Petrucelli died on September 13, 1989, and John Morrissey four days later, on September 17, 1989. In 1990 the counts concerned Michael Salerno, in early June, and Bruno Facciola, on August 24. In 1991 they concerned Al Visconti, in February, and Larry Taylor, in March.
Other counts concerned conspiracies to murder members of the New Jersey faction and a further man, and an attempt on the life of a Lucchese captain who survived and later cooperated with the government.
The cooperating witnesses gave the jury their own accounts of why each killing was ordered; none of those accounts was tested in a separate trial.
The key witnesses were Peter Savino, a long-time associate in the window industry who had recorded conversations over about eighteen months while cooperating, and two former Lucchese captains. One of the captains had been the target of the attempted murder count, had pleaded guilty in the windows case, and had agreed to testify for the government; prosecutors agreed to relocate him and to recommend a sentence of no more than twenty years. Both captains testified that Amuso had ordered the killings charged against him.
The government also introduced evidence of unreported income from racketeering. An FBI special agent testified as an expert on the structure and vocabulary of organized crime. The defense sought to impeach one of the former captains with documents showing that he had made false sworn statements in 1984, and the court excluded them.
The jury deliberated for less than a day and returned guilty verdicts on all fifty-four counts. The verdict came in June 1992.
On October 9, 1992, Judge Nickerson sentenced Amuso to life imprisonment, a $250,000 fine and a $2,700 special assessment.
Amuso appealed to the Second Circuit, which heard argument on September 20, 1993. Judge Walker wrote the opinion, issued on April 20, 1994, with Judges Van Graafeiland and Jacobs on the panel.
The court rejected most of his arguments. It held that evidence of his flight had been properly admitted to explain the context of murders ordered while he was a fugitive, and to bear on the windows charges. It upheld the exclusion of the documents offered to impeach the former captain, the admission of the safe deposit box contents, the expert testimony and the anonymous, sequestered jury.
On one point the court sided with him. The judge had told the jury that it could treat Amuso's continued absence as evidence of his guilt on the murder charges. The Second Circuit, ruling for the first time in the circuit on the question, held that continued absence is probative only where there is a factual basis to infer that the defendant stayed away because of guilt, and that the record contained none. The error was harmless, it concluded, in view of "overwhelming evidence of Amuso's guilt." Judge Van Graafeiland agreed with the result and said he was not convinced there had been any error. The court affirmed the judgment, finding "no reversible error."
In 2023 Amuso, then 88, asked the Eastern District of New York for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. section 3582(c)(1)(A), citing his age. He had served about 31 years. On August 10, 2023, Senior Judge Frederic Block denied the motion, writing that Amuso's conduct "was simply too serious" to warrant anything other than a life sentence. He remained in federal custody, and the life sentence stood.
The racketeering counts against Amuso were brought under 18 U.S.C. sections 1962(c) and (d). Because the murder counts were tried together with the windows evidence, the jury heard a body of testimony about how the family operated, and the court allowed an FBI special agent to explain the structure and terminology of organized crime as an expert.
The jury was anonymous and sequestered. The Second Circuit found a reasonable basis to believe the jurors needed protection, given the violent charges and Amuso's alleged means to interfere with jurors, and noted that telling them the arrangement was due to pretrial publicity protected the presumption of innocence.
The Second Circuit found the instruction on Amuso's continued absence wrong but harmless. The concurring judge doubted that it was wrong at all. The court also held that the defense documents about a witness's 1984 sworn statements were properly excluded because the cross-examination had already been thorough. The motives given for each killing are the accounts of the cooperating witnesses. Amuso denies that he continued to direct the family after his conviction, and the judge's refusal of release in 2023 rested on the seriousness of the offenses.
May 30, 1990: Amuso and fourteen codefendants are indicted in the windows case.
May 1990: Amuso leaves New York.
May 8, 1991: the windows trial of his codefendants begins.
July 1991: FBI agents arrest him in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
April 1992: a superseding indictment adds tax fraud and murder-related counts.
May 1992: trial begins in Brooklyn.
June 1992: the jury convicts him on all fifty-four counts.
October 9, 1992: Judge Nickerson sentences him to life imprisonment.
September 20, 1993: the Second Circuit hears argument.
April 20, 1994: the Second Circuit affirms.
August 10, 2023: Judge Block denies compassionate release.