Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno
SPRINGFIELD – A judge set a trial date for a defendant accused in an organized crime murder plot, though the question of whether he will face the death penalty hangs in the balance.
U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor set a Feb. 1, 2010 trial date for accused mob enforcer Fotios “Freddy” Geas. He is accused of recruiting a hit man to gun down crime boss Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno on Nov. 23, 2003.
Bruno was the longtime regional head of the New York-based Genovese crime family. Investigators have said the killing was a sanctioned mob hit, though no one higher up the ranks has been charged
A federal prosecutor estimated the trial will last approximately two months if the government decides not to pursue capital punishment.
“This case is going to be somewhat cross-examination intensive,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd E. Newhouse told Ponsor.
He was referring defense lawyers’ expected assault on the government’s main witness in the case, Frankie A. Roche, whom the prosecutor called “the cooperator.”
Roche, 35, a former Westfield resident with an extensive criminal re- cord, told investigators Geas paid him $10,000 to ambush Bruno after his regular Sunday night card game at an Italian-American social club.
After being charged in Hampden Superior Court in 2005, Roche turned government witness on the eve of trial in 2007.
Two men, including Geas and 30-year-old Brandon D. Croteau were subsequently charged in that court based on Roche’s testimony. Geas has been labeled by investigators as a henchman for Bruno’s reputed successor, Anthony J. Arillotta, while Croteau allegedly helped get Roche out of town after the shooting.
Last year, Roche admitted to murder in federal court under a plea deal that allowed him to skirt the death penalty and enter a witness protection program.
Read More STEPHANIE BARRY
Giovanni Strangio,
ANSA) – Amsterdam, May 13 – A Dutch court on Wednesday
gave its green light to the extradition of a Calabrian mafia
(`Ndrangheta) boss suspected of organising a massacre in
Germany two years.
Giovanni Strangio, 30, was arrested here March 13 along
with another of Italy`s 30 most wanted criminals, his
brother-in-law Francesco Romeo.
Strangio is believed to have set up and led the massacre
of six members of a rival family in Duisburg on August 15,
2007 in revenge for the killing of his cousin Maria Strangio
on Christmas Day 2006
A four-man hit squad from the Calabrian town of San
Luca, home to the feuding clans.
Read More ANSA)
Al Pacino and his girlfriend, Argentine actress Lucila Solá, at the Elliot Norton Awards in Cambridge on Monday. (Bill Brett for The Boston Globe)
Who was the young woman with Al Pacino at the Elliot Norton Awards Monday? That’s the 69-year-old Oscar winner’s new girlfriend Lucila Solá, an Argentine actress who appears in “Salomaybe?,” the movie Pacino just finished directing. Solá, 30, sat next to Pacino during dinner at Rialto, and later waited patiently while the actor signed autographs outside Sanders Theatre. After their appearance in Cambridge, the couple were hustled to the airport, where a private jet was waiting. read more AL Pacino
Pacino is a charming guy. We talked many times at the Playboy Mansion. He once said to me he wanted to work with James Caan and De Niro doing a Shakespeare style mob movie. Anthony Fiato
mob version
Hollywood goodfella 
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