Nicky Rizzo has been sentenced to six months in a medical facility on loan sharking and extortion charges from 2011. Now 86 the aging Colombo family mobster listed an string of medical ailments before he was sentenced including prostate and bladder cancer, anxiety and depression in hopes of getting a lighter sentence. It did the trick as the judge took it easy on the octogenarian racketeer as skeptical prosecutors were pushing for the maximum sentence of two years in prison. Judge Matsumoto when sentencing Rizzo said she also took into account the tragic string of misfortunes the mafioso had incurred which included the deaths of his three children. One of his sons died after being hit with a baseball bat , another fell down an elevator shaft and died, and his daughter died of a drug overdose.
“Nicky Rizzo (on left)”
But prosecutors paint a much different picture of Rizzo who has been a long time soldier in the Colombo crime family. He had a remarkable run being able to elude arrest up until 2011 despite his long history in the mafia. Rizzo is a former boxer and veteran of World War II and prosecutors claim he made millions over a decade running low key criminal activities using violence and threats of violence on behalf of the Colombo family. Prosecutors also stated that the shuffling into the courtroom and the groaning of Rizzo was a joke and there was no suggestion that he was close to death. Rizzo irked prosecutors right to the end as he asked if he could turn himself in to serve his six month sentence after the November wedding of his grandson.
