Former Colombo acting boss Victor Orena will attempt early prison release at resentencing
A murderous former mob boss is wheelchair-bound and suffering from serious dementia — but he has a new shot at release, his lawyer said last Thursday.
Victor Orena, the 86-year-old former acting boss of New York’s Colombo crime family, can no longer take care of himself in the federal prison he is being held at in Massachusetts, requiring a wheelchair and a full-time aide. But a tossed lower firearms charge in a 1992 case could get him one last shot at freedom due to his completely new resentencing.
He was convicted of ordering a hit on mobster Thomas Ocera, who was suspected of skimming money off assorted capers. Orena was also convicted of conspiring to murder rivals in a warring faction of the Colombo family.
“An overriding factor here is Mr. Orena’s age and medical conditions,” said David Schoen, Orena’s lawyer, at a Monday hearing in front of Eastern District Judge Eric Komitee.
When Orena is resentenced, his lawyers will argue for his release saying he is rehabilitated and that newly discovered evidence in the case points toward the mobster’s innocence.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, asked in court papers for the judge to simply resentence Orena to life in prison.
Schoen told the Daily News that new evidence in the case includes previously unreported government misconduct related to the Ocera murder that a top-echelon confidential informant said permeated Orena’s case.
Schoen called the information “unbelievably shocking” and potentially dangerous if revealed publicly.
“It’s stuff we never knew about that happened back then,” he told Daily News.
Victor “Little Vic” Orena was the acting boss of the Colombo family in the 1980s and tried to take over as permanent boss in the early 1990s, leading to a bloody civil war between his faction and that of boss Carmine Persico, who was serving a life sentence at the time.
Orena’s son, Andrew Orena, pleaded for compassion for his father.
“His heart is weak. But his spirit is strong. We’re praying we can get some time with him. He has grandchildren that really don’t know him,” Orena told Daily News. “He’ll never be the man he was but he’s still our father and we love him.”
Original article here
