The old mafioso stereotype is Vincent Gigante who spent his later years wandering around Greenwich Village in his pajamas and mumbling to himself. At least supposedly. At 96, Albert Facchiano is still threatening witnesses…
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Carlo Gambino are long gone. Murder Inc. is out of business. Las Vegas has been so cleaned up it resembles Disneyland. And Havana? Forget about it since Castro took over. But Albert “Chinky” Facchiano, at 96, is still standing. And like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather III,” he is still very much involved in the family business, according to the FBI.
At an age when most people are long retired and happy just to be alive, the reputed mobster was indicted earlier this year in Florida and New York. He is accused of trying to intimidate and possibly kill a witness against the powerful the Genovese family of New York in 2005. He is also accused of helping to run the rackets in Florida.
Charles “Lucky” Luciano convicted of vice charges, is leaving court on June 18, 1936 handcuffed to two detectives after a hearing in New York. Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Carlo Gambino are long gone. Murder Inc. is out of business. But Albert “Chinky” Facchiano, at 96, is still standing and is still very much involved in the family business, according to the FBI. At an age when most people are long retired and happy just to be alive, the reputed mobster was indicted earlier this year in Florida and New York. He is accused, among other things, of trying to intimidate and possibly kill a witness against the powerful the Genovese family of New York in 2005.
It was unclear whether Facchiano intended to break legs with his own gnarled, 96-year-old hands.
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He was a boy when Arnold Rothstein supposedly fixed the 1919 World Series. He was a young man during the Depression when he took his first arrest. He was entering middle age during La Cosa Nostra’s go-go years in the 1940s and ’50s, when the Mafia skimmed its share of America’s postwar prosperity. And he was a senior citizen in the 1980s and ’90s when John Gotti and other bosses were taken down by the FBI.
Couple weeks ago he pled guilty…
According to prosecutors, Facchiano supervised associates who committed robberies, money laundering, bank fraud and possessed stolen property from 1994 to 2006.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of 30-years in prison and $500,000 in fines, but under the plea agreement, prosecutors recommended Facchiano serve house arrest.
Prosecutors, defense lawyers and Mafia experts have said they can’t remember anyone that age facing crimes committed so recently.
“Is your mind OK?” Cohn asked Fracchiano, who will be 97 on March 10, in court at one point, a question Facchiano appeared to have trouble hearing.
“Oh, yes,” he eventually responded. “I can’t hear, but I can understand, your honor.”