Reputed Mob boss Rizzuto released from U.S. prison

MONTREAL Vito Rizzuto has stepped into an unknown world after an eight-year prison stint, with his once-dominant alleged criminal empire decimated by setbacks and his own family devastated by tragedy.

The reputed Mafia boss was released from a prison in Colorado into the hands of American immigration authorities Friday.

A spokesman for the U.S. federal correctional institution in Florence said the 66-year year Rizzuto was freed at 7:07 a.m. Spokesman Kim Nelson said he was then handed over to a United States Immigration and Customs unit. Rizzuto’s subsequent whereabouts remained shrouded in mystery.

“Where they were taking him I don’t know,” Nelson said.

Carl Rosnok of U.S. Immigration and Customs said it could be “hours or days” before Rizzuto returned to Canada. If Rizzuto’s passport had expired the process would be delayed until travel documents were obtained.

Rizzuto’s palatial home on a Montreal street dubbed by police as “Mafia Row,” because several family members lived there, is on sale for $1.5 million. The home sale comes amid speculation in media reports that Rizzuto could be headed toward Toronto.

Rizzuto was deemed to be the head of a powerful criminal organization when he was arrested in 2004. But the organization was battered during Rizzuto’s years behind bars, which he spent mostly in the U.S. in connection with the three-decade-old murders of New York Mafia captains.

Scores of his associates were arrested. Many have been killed. The slayings have straddled three generations of Rizzuto’s own family, with his father and his son both gunned down.

Now the business dealings of the Rizzutos are under intense public scrutiny during a Quebec inquiry into corruption in the construction industry.