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US mobster, 96, pleads guilty
28/02/2007 21:58 - (SA)
Miami - A 96-year-old member of the Genovese crime family on Tuesday pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge and another of tampering with a witness.
A US court in Fort Lauderdale accepted Albert "the old
man" Facchiano's plea, finding him guilty of the two charges.
The charges carry a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, but as part of a plea deal, prosecutors recommended that because of his old age, he only serve house arrest.
He is accused of being a "soldier" in the Genovese Family that operated mainly in New York and Florida.
The indictment claims Facchiano - also known as "the Chinese guy" - "supervised and directed various criminal activities for the Genovese crime family in South Florida", including "loan sharking" and bank fraud from 1994 to 2006.
He was also accused with others of trying to locate and intimidate a government witness in a New York case against the crime family in 2005.
The leading organised crime families in the United States have been reduced to a shadow of their former selves in recent years by major crackdowns that have seen long-serving bosses jailed, along with hundreds of "capos" and "soldiers".
- AFP
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