Federal prosecutors declined Thursday to identify the law enforcement agent who’s worried that an aging mobster could seek revenge against everyone who helped put him away if he gets sprung from prison.
In court papers, Manhattan assistant US Attorney Timothy Capozzi said prosecutors wouldn’t submit an affidavit from the agent but maintained their position against the “compassionate release” being sought by reputed Gambino crime family associate Mark Reiter, 74.
Capozzi cited the “risk of recidivism” posed by Reiter, who’s serving a life sentence for running one of the city’s biggest heroin-dealing rackets during the 1980s.
“After convictions for a narcotics offense and attempted robbery in his 20s, the defendant did not stop his life of crime. Instead, he became the leader of a massive drug business, which he protected by ordering three murders in retaliation for cooperation with law enforcement,” he wrote.
“This type of crime — ordering murders — can be just as easily accomplished in one’s 70s as one’s 30s.”
Capozzi also urged Manhattan federal Judge Vernon Broderick to consider “the need for just punishment” of Reiter.
“Two lives were lost because of the defendant and his desire for retribution for cooperating with law enforcement, and a third life would have met the same fate had the defendant had his way,” he wrote.
Reiter is seeking to be freed from the low-security federal prison near Allenwood, Penn., because he’s suffering from health problems that include obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
But back in 1990, when he was locked up at California’s Lompoc federal prison, Reiter was all smiles while posing for a photograph as the singer in a mobbed-up rock band along with the late Colombo family boss Carmine “Junior” Persico, Gambino family hitman Anthony Senter and late Joseph “J.R.” Russo, an assassin for New England’s Patriarca family.
Capozzi’s Thursday letter followed a September court filing in which he recounted being “contacted by an agent who assisted with the investigation of Reiter, who expressed serious concern about the possibility of retribution against law enforcement and those who aided law enforcement in the defendant’s prosecution should the defendant be released.”
Broderick denied a defense request for a hearing with testimony from the agent but said prosecutors could submit an affidavit from the agent with “specific concerns about any individuals whom Defendant might harm, and how he might harm them, if Defendant were released.”
Defense lawyer Harlan Protass said, “The government blinked and abandoned the purported law enforcement concerns on which it previously opposed Mr. Reiter’s sentence reduction motion.”
Protass has previously said that he doesn’t believe Reiter “poses a threat to anyone, including law enforcement” because he’s “a different man than he was 35 years ago.”
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