H  JUDGE COMMUTES 2 LIFE SENTENCES FOR MOB BOSS WHO BECAME INFORMER 

S1  NEW YORK - When Joseph C. Massino took the witness stand in 2011, becoming the first official boss of one of New York’s five crime families to break the code of silence and testify against a former confederate, he offered a succinct explanation for his departure from mob tradition.

S2  “I’m hoping to see a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

S3  On Wednesday, the tunnel got a whole lot shorter: A federal judge commuted Massino’s sentence of two consecutive life terms in prison.

S4  Massino, the former boss of the Bonanno crime family, will be released from federal custody in 60 days, a period the government requested to put in place security arrangements to keep Massino safe from what are presumed to be a considerable number of enemies.

S5  Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had sought a reduction of Massino’s sentence, citing his extensive cooperation: While incarcerated, Massino had recorded conversations with a Mafia captain, and he has provided investigators with information about hundreds of people associated with not only the Bonanno family, which Massino took control of in 1991, but also the other crime families across New York.

S6  At a brief hearing in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn on Wednesday, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis credited the government’s arguments and decided to undo the sentence of two life terms that he had originally meted out to Massino.
S7 When that sentence was handed down, in 2005, clapping could be heard in his courtroom.
S8 But on Wednesday, the judge said that in deciding to free Massino after more than 10 years of incarceration, he had considered the aging mobster’s “extraordinary cooperation with the government and his willingness to place himself at grave personal risk.”

S9  Once released, Massino will probably receive a new identity and live elsewhere in the United States, his lawyer, Edward A. McDonald, said after the hearing.
S10 McDonald said that Massino could support himself on rental income from his property and that he was also eligible for Social Security income.

S11  Garaufis said that Massino, a rotund man of 70 whose health is failing, “may be the most important cooperator in the modern history of law enforcement efforts to prosecute the American Mafia.” He said that Massino’s assistance was essential in the investigations of the four leaders of the Bonanno family who followed him.

S12  The judge also noted that Massino’s willingness to turn informer “has almost certainly caused numerous other members of organized crime to cooperate with the government.”

S13  Massino’s own crimes received only passing mention on Wednesday.
S14 He has been convicted of eight murders, including those of several rivals in the Bonanno family.

S15  Massino, who wore a two-toned sweatsuit, said little during the hearing, leaving most of the speaking to his lawyer.
S16 But Massino did offer a brief statement of remorse, which he delivered standing in a single breath, and then quickly sat down.
S17 “I pray every night for forgiveness of everyone I hurt, especially the victims’ families,” he said.

S18  A prosecutor, Taryn A. Merkl, said that the government had reached out to the families of Massino’s victims to inquire if any wanted to make a statement in court, but had not received any responses.
S19 Merkl said that nothing about the government’s decision to take Massino’s side “apologizes or condones the life he led, yet at the same time he decided to make a change.”

S20  Details of the life Massino will lead after his release were scarce.
S21 Garaufis directed Massino to continue to cooperate with the government, noting that prosecutors had informed him that Massino was helping with a number of investigations that were still pending.

S22  Garaufis said Massino’s age and ill health reduced “the court’s concern about possible recidivism.” Nonetheless, he ordered that Massino not associate “for the rest of your life” with known organized crime figures.

S23  McDonald would not comment on the nature of his client’s health ailments, except to say that Massino often said he “had everything except cancer.”

S24  McDonald described his client as “a stoic guy,” but said Massino often told him that “if he had to make the decision again, if he was 18 or 19 years old, he wouldn’t go into the Mafia.”

