BROOKLYN (CN) - The ex-husband of a "Mob Wives" reality star got a reduced sentence Wednesday in exchange for ratting out a pair of his Bonnano buddies who were with him when he fatally shot a man in the back during a robbery.
Even though Hector Pagan - who was known as "Junior" on the hit reality TV show - was the one who fatally shot check casher James Donovan in the back during a July 2010 robbery, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson today gave him just 11 years in the slammer.
Pagan's testimony against two of his mob associates, Richard Riccardi and Luigi Grasso, put them away for 30-plus-year sentences in August.
Before sentencing, Pagan expressed his remorse to the victim's sobbing family who packed one side of a heavily guarded courthouse. "Out of respect, I wanted you to know that," Pagan said.
Proceedings kicked off after the family played a slideshow, set to the tune of "My Way," filled with pictures of Donovan.
Janine Donovan, the victim's daughter, stood, faced Judge Gleeson and pleaded that he not give Pagan the freedom to "take and ruin the lives of others."
"I can still hear his voice coaching me," she said of her father through sobs. "I am no longer the same. I will never again know happiness without pain."
Donovan said previous deals that Pagan had swung with the federal government in exchange for leniency "is not justice."
"How many deals can one man get?" she asked. "It should stop here."
Her words hit the mark.
"What you said today would rip out any judge's heart," Gleeson said. "I would say the exact same things."
Gleeson added that if it were his daughter, he'd "melt the key to the jailhouse."
Pagan "hasn't changed his spots," Gleeson conceded, and law enforcement is "a pretty callous system," but he said the government needs cooperation of that nature.
Gleeson said he had no choice but to honor Pagan's agreement with the government to put away mobsters.
Pagan made the deal out of "purely selfish interests, of getting himself out of jail," Gleeson said, adding that Janine Donovan's words will "ring in my ears for years."
Nevertheless the judge said he "felt the need to award cooperation."
"He's going to walk out of jail, not be carried out," Gleeson continued.
Pagan sat motionless in a white button-down shirt and yellow-and-gray striped tie as the sob-filled scene played out.
Donovan's daughter rushed out of the heavily guarded courtroom crying, along with most of the crowd, when Gleeson issued the 11-year sentence and Pagan was escorted out of the room, without handcuffs.
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