Mafia Turncoat Salvatore Vitale to be Sentenced in New York Today

(Oct. 29) -- UPDATED, 5:45 p.m. EDT -- An epic New York mafia tale came to its climax today when a Brooklyn Federal Court judge sentenced Salvatore "Good Looking Sal" Vitale, an underboss of the Bonanno crime family who turned FBI informant in January 2003, to time already served. He has been in prison since he was arrested in 2003.

Vitale, 63, pleaded guilty to 11 murders, but prosecutors asked Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis for leniency because of the extraordinary number of mobster convictions and law enforcement leads his cooperation has engendered.

"Quite simply, Vitale has likely been the most important cooperator in the history of law enforcement efforts to prosecute the Mafia," Garaufis said at his sentencing today, according to The New York Times.

Over the past seven years, prosecutors say Vitale identified more than 500 members of organized crime and their associates in the United States and abroad, provided information leading to the convictions of 51 mobsters -- including his brother-in-law and crime boss Joseph C. Massino -- and helped investigators uncover the hidden graves of victims killed and buried decades ago.

Vitale's cooperation effectively broke the back of the Bonanno crime family, which had been infiltrated in the 1970s by Donnie Brasco (immortalized in the film of the same name). His betrayal of Massino, an idol and family member who taught him to swim and to kill, led to an unprecedented event in the history of organized crime in the U.S.: Massino -- known as "the Last Don" for his old-school mafioso mentality -- turned informant for the FBI as well.

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"Mr. Vitale thus helped create such an embarrassment of riches for investigators that it prompted one FBI official to complain jokingly at the time that there were more insiders providing information on the crime family than agents on the squad assigned to investigate it," the Times wrote.

Vitale grew up in Queens, N.Y., and served in the Army as a paratrooper for two years in Germany before returning home to work as a UPS driver and a corrections officer. He eventually began working for Massino's catering business and was indoctrinated into the crime family by his brother-in-law.

Read more at The New York Times.

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