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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Mob Boss ‘Capo’ With a Record Cops to RICO

MANHATTAN (CN) - A captain of the Genovese crime family pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal racketeering charge that occurred during his supervised release for a previous conviction.

The "wide array of crimes" that Rockland County-based Daniel Pagano, 61, committed between 2009 and 2014 included the operation of an illegal gambling business, according to a statement from the Justice Department.

Prosecutors added two criminal-history points to Pagano's record in contemplating his plea because the RICO conspiracy offense at issue occurred during Pagano's term of three years' supervised release from an earlier crime.

That matter involved Pagano's 1999 federal conviction for racketeering in New Jersey, which carried a sentence of 105 months in prison.

Prosecutors note that Pagano's record also includes drunken-driving convictions in both Westchester and Rockland counties.

Those convictions bookended Pagano's 1990 convictions in Rockland County for criminal usury and promoting gambling. Decades earlier, in 1974, Pagano was convicted in Manhattan Supreme Court of first-degree attempted robbery.

Pagano entered his plea Thursday, in which he admitted to being a leader of the criminal enterprise, before U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams.

Abrams is scheduled to sentence Pagano on July 10.

Prosecutors describe Pagano as a captain for La Cosa Nostra's Genovese crime family.

A capo, short for the Italian word caporegime, leads a crew for the Mafia, supervising the activity of so-called soldiers, according to a statement from the Justice Department.

Prosecutors noted that Pagano's conviction carries a maximum prison term of 20 years.

Pagano agreed not to appeal a sentence within or below a term of 27 to 33 months, according to his plea agreement.

He also faces a fine of $5,000 to $50,000.

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