12/9/99

By George Anastasia
Philadelphia INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Anthony "Tony Buck" Piccolo, one of the Philadelphia area's last gentleman gangsters, wants to go home from prison to die.

Piccolo, once a high-ranking figure in the crime family of jailed mob boss John Stanfa, has filed a motion in U.S. District Court asking for reconsideration of the 45-year prison sentence imposed in 1995 after his conviction in a multi-defendant organized-crime racketeering case.

Now 77 and in failing health - a prison hospital report filed in March estimated that he had "less than a year to live" - Piccolo has asked that his sentence be reconsidered because of medical reasons and because, he says, his defense lawyer did not adequately present the severity of his condition to the judge during the trial and at sentencing.

Federal prosecutors contend Piccolo's arguments are "without merit."

Judge Ronald Buckwalter, who presided over the case, has set Dec. 23 as the deadline for the filing of final papers in the dispute.

Under the strict federal sentencing guidelines that apply to criminal cases, the prospect of Piccolo's coming home is a long shot, say prosecutors and defense lawyers. But his family hopes that there is still room in the largely formulaic legal system for human emotion.

What the family members would like, they say, is some compassion.

"I just want my husband home," Marie Piccolo said as she sat at the kitchen table in her South Philadelphia home last week, talking about the man with whom she has shared a life for more than 30 years. "I don't care what the restrictions are. They could tie him to the bed."

As vivacious and outspoken as her husband is taciturn and low-key, Marie Piccolo laughed at the thought of "her Anthony" trapped in his bed.

"We talk on the phone all the time. He tries to keep it light, tells me not to worry. He's still got his sense of humor. But if I tell him how much I miss him, I start to cry. Then he starts to cry."

So instead, she said, she jokes with him about Viagra - "they waited till he went away before they came up with it" - and "threatens" him.

"I told him if he dies in that prison, they could keep him. We laugh. . . . I just want him home. . . . He's just got a few years left."

Perhaps not even that.

Piccolo has a severe heart condition that makes walking more than 50 feet a strenuous undertaking. He also has diabetes, hypertension and a sleeping disorder that causes him to pass out. He uses a cane to get around and takes "11 different pills a day," according to his wife.

He is imprisoned at the federal penitentiary in Springfield, Mo., because it includes a hospital.

"The medical attention he gets is good," said Salvatore "Sam" Piccolo, 75, sitting with his sister-in-law at the kitchen table.

"We're not knocking the prison system. . . . Or the judge or the prosecutors. We'd just like some consideration because of his health and his age. . . .

"The bottom line is, we're asking them to send him home to die."

Even those who investigated and prosecuted Piccolo during the last 20 years concede that he has always comported himself with dignity. He thanked the judge for a "fair trial" after his conviction on racketeering charges in New Jersey, and apologized to a state prosecutor for several verbal clashes that occurred during that trial.

During a federal racketeering trial in Philadelphia in 1995, Piccolo upbraided several codefendants when they got into a shouting match with U.S. marshals in an elevator while being transported from the courthouse. According to those familiar with the incident, Piccolo told the codefendants to behave themselves and act like gentlemen.

Still, in their response to the petition filed by Piccolo, federal prosecutors argue that his medical condition is not new, that it was considered at the time of sentencing, and that there is no reason for reconsideration.

What's more, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Mansfield, Piccolo's medical condition dates back more than a dozen years, and "it didn't stop him from committing the crimes for which he was convicted."

Piccolo was one of eight defendants found guilty after a two-month racketeering trial that included charges of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, extortion, gambling, loan-sharking and obstruction of justice.

Two other defendants, Stanfa and mob underboss Frank Martines, were sentenced to life. The rest received sentences ranging from 10 to 80 years.

The case was built around hundreds of conversations secretly recorded in the Camden offices of criminal defense lawyer Salvatore J. Avena between 1991 and 1993.

The jury found that Piccolo was guilty of plotting with Stanfa to murder a mobster and had taken part in plans to obstruct justice.

The fact that the mobster was not killed - a hit man showed up with the wrong size of shells in his shotgun and the gun misfired - carried little weight with the jury.

Piccolo, described by federal authorities as the consigliere, or counselor, of the Stanfa crime family, was picked up on dozens of recordings made in Avena's office, often waxing philosophical about the old days or complaining about the lack of honor, loyalty and respect in the younger generation of mobsters.

In one classic tape, he and New York mob leader Salvatore Profaci talked about the generational divide and about the bickering that was tearing apart mob families in Philadelphia and New York.

"In the Family, it's like a chain: If you keep breaking the peace, forget about it," Piccolo said in a conversation recorded Dec. 5, 1991.

"And it's no honor when we kill one another," said Profaci, adding that the only exception would be "if a guy's a rat."

"Course he deserves it," Piccolo said.

". . . In a minute," said Profaci.

While not part of the Stanfa case, another tape made by a New Jersey State Police informant was just as damaging to Piccolo.

On the tape, recorded in 1990 by mobster-turned-informant George Fresolone, Piccolo is overheard presiding over a mob "making" or initiation ceremony at a mobster's home in the Bronx.

Among other things, the soft-spoken mobster tells Fresolone and three others who were swearing their bloody allegiance to the mob that "this is a thing of honor. This is not a thing of business. . . . You've got to be an honorable person."

State authorities used the Fresolone tape to convict Piccolo of racketeering charges in New Jersey in 1994, just months after his indictment with Stanfa and 22 others on federal racketeering charges growing out of the Avena tapes.

Piccolo has been in jail ever since.

"He had conversations," said Donald Manno, Piccolo's former lawyer and longtime friend. "He never did anything. He never raised a hand to hurt anyone."

Manno was disqualified from representing Piccolo in the federal case because he was picked up on some of the conversations in Avena's office and was a potential witness at the trial. In August, Manno filed a motion asking for a sentence reconsideration for Piccolo.

He was subsequently disqualified from that proceeding for the same reasons. Piccolo is now filing papers in his own behalf, but the foundation of the appeal is Manno's motion.

In addition to the medical issues, Manno cited the sentencing of New York mob boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, a notorious mob leader from New York convicted of racketeering charges in 1997.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Gigante faced 22 to 27 years in prison. But a federal judge, pointing to Gigante's age and medical condition, sentenced the mobster to 12 years.

This, Manno noted, even though the judge described Gigante as "one of the nation's most notorious organized-crime figures."

Anthony Piccolo, Manno wrote in his motion, "has neither the record nor the severity of crimes" for which Gigante was convicted.

"It's too bad that the government sees fit" to push for the harshest possible sentence for Piccolo, Manno said recently. The only reason, he said, "is the mob brand that the government has put on him."

Manno, on the other hand, described Piccolo as "probably one of the kindest people I know."

"He's a consummate gentleman from the old school. He believes in honor and family and country."

Marie and Sam Piccolo roll their eyes, almost in unison, when the talk shifts to the criminal charges and investigations that dogged Anthony Piccolo through much of his adult life.

Sam Piccolo said his brother had run a construction and building maintenance company and for years had a contract to provide maintenance at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

"He had a government clearance," Sam Piccolo said. "At one time he had 400 people working for him. . . . I don't know anything about the other stuff, that craziness."

"My husband loved to talk," Marie Piccolo said of the tapes made in Avena's office, particularly the conversations in which Piccolo and Avena went on about the old days. "All they did was reminisce. . . . He was too old and sick to do anything."

She and Sam Piccolo emphasized that the current legal argument had nothing to do with the evidence or the conviction in the federal racketeering case.

The facts are what they are, Sam Piccolo said. "But the jury never got to know Anthony. . . . I can't explain it to you. If you know Anthony, you know what kind of a person he is. He is a good man. . . . I don't know how else to say it."

In a best-case scenario, the Piccolos hope Buckwalter grants the request for a new sentencing hearing and, after the medical facts are reexamined, sentences Anthony Piccolo to home confinement.

"The doctors say he has less than a year to live," Manno said. "He just wants to come home to die peacefully. . . . It doesn't seem like a lot to ask."

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