Fusco's arraignment came slightly more than a month after three co-defendants -- Fotios and Ty Geas, and Arthur "Artie" Nigro -- were convicted at trial.
Emilio Fusco takes a smoke break during proceedings in 2001 at U. S. District Court in Springfield.NEW YORK - Emilio Fusco, a Longmeadow man and convicted loan shark accused in the 2003 murder of mob boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, was arraigned in federal court in Manhattan Monday morning after more than a year in his native Italy where he recently lost a bid to fight extradition.
Dressed in prison garb and pink slippers, Fusco, 42, denied charges of conspiracy, extortion and racketeering, including allegations he lobbied for a contract hit on Bruno and was among four men who killed and buried organized crime associate Gary D. Westerman, also in 2003.
Fusco's arraignment came slightly more than a month after three co-defendants, Fotios and Ty Geas, mob enforcers from West Springfield, and Arthur "Artie" Nigro, a former Genovese crime family boss from New York, were convicted at trial.
Federal investigators have said Fusco bought a one-way plane ticket to Italy last April, when FBI agents and Massachusetts State Police began digging for Westerman's remains in a wooded lot in Agawam. However, Fusco's lawyer, William Aronwald, said outside the courtroom on Monday that Fusco traveled there frequently to help his ailing mother and returned last year to attend his sister's 50th birthday party.
Fusco was arrested by Italian authorities in southern Italy in late July. With dual citizenship in Italy and the U.S., Fusco resisted extradition based on the fact that he may face the death penalty for capital murder allegations. Lethal injection is not on the table, however; he faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted.
"He went there to attend to legitimate issues with blood relatives. It had nothing at all to do with the criminal charges," Aronwald said, adding that rumors swirling around his client's predicted cooperation as a government witness are false.
"He is not cooperating. There have been no discussions or negotiations with the government about cooperation. There's nothing to cooperate about ... Mr. Fusco maintains that he is innocent of the charges."
NEW YORK - Emilio Fusco, a Longmeadow man and convicted loan shark accused in the 2003 murder of mob boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, was arraigned in federal court in Manhattan Monday morning after more than a year in his native Italy where he recently lost a bid to fight extradition.
Dressed in prison garb and pink slippers, Fusco, 42, denied charges of conspiracy, extortion and racketeering, including allegations he lobbied for a contract hit on Bruno and was among four men who shot, bludgeoned and buried organized crime associate Gary D. Westerman, also in 2003.
Fusco's arraignment came slightly more than a month after three co-defendants, Fotios and Ty Geas, mob enforcers from West Springfield, and Arthur "Artie" Nigro, a former Genovese crime family boss from New York, were convicted at trial.
Federal investigators have said Fusco bought a one-way plane ticket to Italy last April, when FBI agents and Massachusetts State Police began digging for Westerman's remains in a wooded lot in Agawam. However, Fusco's lawyer, William Aronwald, said outside the courtroom on Monday that Fusco traveled there frequently to help his ailing mother and traveled there last year to attend his sister's 50th birthday party.
Fusco was arrested by Italian authorities in southern Italy in late July. With dual Italian-American citizenship, Fusco resisted extradition based on the fact that he may face the death penalty for capital murder allegations. Lethal injection is not on the table, however; he faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted.
"He went there to attend to legitimate issues with blood relatives. It had nothing at all to do with the criminal charges," Aronwald said, adding that rumors swirling around his client's predicted cooperation as a government witness are false.
"He is not cooperating. There have been no discussions or negotiations with the government about cooperation. There's nothing to cooperate about ... Mr. Fusco maintains that he is innocent of the charges."
Aronwald said the alleged evidence against Fusco is weak, and consist primarily of verbal testimony from two admitted onetime ranking mobsters from western Massachusetts, Anthony J. Arillotta, of Springfield, and Felix Tranghese, of East Longmeadow, plus Bruno's shooter, Frankie A. Roche, of Westfield. The three helped the government enormously during the March trial with testimony about the Bruno and Westerman murders, plus a shakedown scheme of Springfield strip club owner James Santaniello, for which Fusco also is charged.
The trio all pleaded guilty to their roles in the Bruno murder in the hopes of getting reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony. Arillotta, who told jurors he was formally inducted into the Genovese crime family during a secret ceremony in the Bronx in 2003, also pleaded guilty to murdering Westerman, a drug dealer-turned police informant and his brother-in-law, at the Geases urging.
He testified that in early November of 2003, he and Fusco hid in a garage at a house in Agawam where the brothers had lured Westerman under the guise of a home invasion. Arillotta said he and Fusco bludgeoned Westerman with shovels after Westerman initially survived several gunshots at the Geases' hands, then helped bury the man in a makeshift grave in the woods.
The Geases later marveled at the teamwork involved in the killing, according to Arillotta.
He also testified that Bruno was killed both as part of an organized crime power play sanctioned by Nigro and other New York bosses, and because Fusco had discovered Bruno confirmed Fusco was a "made man" to an FBI agent in a court filing.
Fusco was being sentenced that year for a loan-sharking case; he was picked up on a state police wire threatening to put a debtor "in cement" if he didn't pay up. He served two years in federal prison for that conviction.
Fusco flew to Italy in April of 2010 as the dig for Westerman's remains unfolded in the media, according to federal prosecutors. Italian police said he was arrested in Sorrento, a small village in the southern part of the country, by law enforcement officials dressed as sanitation workers.
Aronwald said his client would have come back to the United States on his own, and dismissed the government's witnesses as "the three stooges" and career criminals looking for parachutes out of life sentences.
"It seems to me the government sort of cut a deal with the sharks to get the guppies," he said.
Aronwald added that he plans to argue Fusco be released on bail at his next court appearance, scheduled in U.S. District Court in New York on June 17.
The Geases and Nigro are currently set to be formally senteced to life prison terms on July 15.