A BAD CALL BY ‘THUG’
Threat jails wiseguy
It’s legal to yell at someone over the phone — but you better not threaten them!
That’s the message Manhattan federal Judge Kevin Castel had for reputed wiseguy Anthony Bazzini Tuesday as he sentenced Bazzini to a year and a day behind bars.
“The important point here today is it’s not against the law to lose your temper and get angry — even if you’re a New Yorker,” Castel said.
But Castel added that “threatening someone with bodily harm” is a crime — and to think otherwise shows “a lack of respect for the legal system.”
Bazzini was one of 32 people busted by the feds in January 2013 for being part of a massive gangland effort to control the New York-New Jersey garbagecarting industry. He previously pleaded guilty to interfering with commerce by threatening bodily harm on a confidential government witness between 2011 and 2012.
In addition to the jail time, Castel hit Bazzini with a $3,000 fine and he faces three years of supervised release.
The 54yearold from Glen Head, LI — who tried in court filings to distance himself from comparisons to fictional TV mob boss Tony Soprano — had claimed he was provoked into threatening the witness over a phone call.
His lawyer, Raymond Perini, in seeking a nonprison sentence of probation for Bazzini, said the wirewearing witness went out of his way to “push [Bazzini’s] buttons” while beating him for thousands of dollars in business deals.
“This is New York, and when you [provoke] someone, you get yelled at,” Perini said.
Assistant US Attorney Brian Blais responded, “Being a New Yorker is not an appropriate justification for threatening someone over the phone.”
He also said Bazzini has a history of making violent threats, including a 2003 federal extortion conviction related to Bazzini threatening “to cut off his stockbroker’s mother’s hands,” put the broker’s “brother in four casts,” and kill the broker’s whole family.
The feds say Bazzini was the “ghost owner” of Galaxy Carting in Ronkonkoma, LI, which also did business in New Jersey. They had sought 12 to 18 months in jail for Bazzini.
He and 31 other reputed mobsters were busted for using strongarm tactics to shake down owners of legitimate companies and secretly assume control of their operations.