
Shanks for nothin’!
A mobster who lost 200 pounds for an alleged prison escape attempt was found not guilty of those charges Friday — but was convicted of more serious counts that could send him to prison for life.
Christopher Londonio, a reputed Lucchese crime-family soldier who graced The Post’s front page with the headline “Veal Shank Redemption” in October, was acquitted on the charge of attempted escape.
But a jury still found Londonio and three of his mob associates guilty on all other charges, including conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, after seven days of deliberation. He faces life behind bars.
Londonio’s defense attorney John Meringolo said he intends to appeal.
Federal prosecutors accused Londonio of plotting to escape Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center while awaiting trial — stockpiling dental floss and bedsheets to help break out of his eighth-floor cell.
He also shed 200 pounds from his giant 350-pound frame so he could shimmy out the window — but his attorney claimed “terrible conditions” inside the lock-up were the reason for his client’s dramatic weight loss.
Meringolo also told jurors last Tuesday that stockpiling sheets was not a crime after authorities found 17 bedsheets wadded under the mobster’s bunk bed in 2017.
“People have sheets,” Meringolo said. “I submit to you, bedsheets in his room, that’s not gonna cut it.”
Londonio was one of two dozen top-ranking members of the Lucchese crime family who were busted in May 2017 on federal racketeering charges, including murder.
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