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News and Features about Organized Crime, Mafia and La Cosa Nostra taken from National and Local News Sources. In an attempt to get you this type of coverage in a timely manner we can not be responsible for the content of the following material. |
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7-18-00 Protection for mob turncoat is questioned. 07/18/00
By Guy Sterling CASALE In 1977, a 10-year-old Newark girl was sent by her mother on an errand to a nearby grocery store. On the way, she ran into a man who promised her candy if she would go with him into an abandoned building just off Springfield Avenue. Inside, the man wrapped a rope around her neck and twisted it until she passed out. He sexually assaulted her and beat her head with a brick. She was found unconscious by her mother and didn't wake up for four days. That's only one of the offenses on the long criminal record of Philip Casale Jr., 56. Now federal prosecutors want to give him a new name and a new life. Last fall, after Casale's latest guilty plea -- to two notorious mob murders -- federal prosecutors made a deal: In return for his help in going after members of the South Jersey/ Philadelphia Bruno crime family, they would sponsor his entry into the witness protection program and make his cooperation known to the judge when he comes up for sentencing. The prospect that Casale could be given a new identity and let go is repugnant to the law enforcement officials who know his record, and to independent legal observers and the family of his victim. ''The girl came within an inch of being murdered," said Jim Flanagan III, the former assistant Essex County prosecutor who handled the 1977 case. "I don't know what the government is getting for his cooperation, but this is one of the four or five cases I remember most vividly from my years as a prosecutor." The young victim, who was left partially paralyzed by the attack, took the stand to identify Casale, who denied any involvement in the crime despite being found with the girl's Mickey Mouse watch. He was identified by a security guard at the store and convicted of assault and battery, private lewdness, attempted carnal abuse and robbery. Since the assault, Casale's victim has been alcohol and drug dependent, unable to hold a job and has given birth to 10 children as a result of a series of abusive relationships, said her sister, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He messed her up real good, physically and mentally," said the sister. "To me, the man's a psycho." The outrage felt by people involved with the case illustrates the debate over whether it makes sense for authorities to strike a deal with a person with a record as heinous as Casale's to take down other members of a crime group, even one as notorious as the Bruno family. New Jersey defense lawyer Alan Zegas thinks Casale's treatment shows how the government sometimes goes too far in coddling hard- core criminals for their cooperation. ''You often see in New Jersey the most culpable offenders given a free pass while the least culpable get penalized the most," he said. "It leaves me feeling justice hasn't been served." Prosecutors, however, say all's fair when going after the mob. ''You have to start somewhere if you're looking to solve unsolved murders and other crimes," Laura Kaplan, an assistant U.S. Attorney in Newark who handles organized crime cases, said when asked about Casale. "Sometimes that means you have to deal with individuals who aren't upstanding citizens." Court records show that, at the time of the attack, Casale had other convictions, including one for a 1971 armed robbery of an Elizabeth bank and for a break-in at a doctor's house in Montclair. He was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison on the bank robbery charge, but had already been released on parole at the time he assaulted the 10-year-old. That conviction sent him first back to prison and then to the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Avenel, a state facility for sex offenders, before his release in 1985. After that, investigators say, Casale turned to the mob to make a living and kept a low profile. His name surfaced again in the mid-1990s after the gangland-style slayings in Newark of Joseph Sodano, a reputed captain in the Bruno family, and William "Crazy Willie" Gantz, Sodano's right- hand man. State and federal authorities looked into those slayings, concluded Sodano was killed for defying his superiors and focused on Casale as the shooter. Confronted with the evidence, Casale confessed, agreed to become a federal informant and tape- record conversations with other mob figures, investigators said. Last fall, Casale pleaded guilty in a closed-door court hearing to the murders of Sodano and Gantz, Kaplan said Tuesday. Meanwhile, the dozens of secret tapes he made began to pay off with the March arrest of Pete "The Crumb" Caprio, a Bruno family boss who rose to power in northern New Jersey after Sodano's death. Caprio, 70, of Union Township was charged with racketeering, murder, extortion, illegal gambling and loansharking. In pleading guilty, he told a federal judge he recruited Casale to shoot Sodano on orders from Philadelphia. In turn, Caprio is expected to provide valuable information about the Bruno family's inner workings. Like Casale, Caprio is awaiting acceptance into the witness protection program. Each man stands to be given a new identity and relocated at taxpayer expense. Caprio and Casale are still be sentenced, and in the interim they are expected to aid authorities in Philadelphia in their racketeering and murder case against Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, once the reputed boss of the Bruno family, and 10 others. How much of a break Casale ultimately gets will be up to a judge. For the time being, he's in custody while awaiting sentencing, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark said. But there may come a time when he's called upon to testify. That's a day prosecutors may regret, since a jury could hear the ugly details of his criminal history. "You put murder and child molesting together and it leads to enormous credibility problems," said Zegas. Meanwhile, the prospect that Casale may soon get out greatly alarms the family of his 1977 victim. ''My sister is afraid to live by herself because she fears this man may come back for her," said her sister. "Now that he's helping the government and getting a new identity, he may feel free to do anything he wants."
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