Michael “Mikey P” Palazzolo an alleged member of the Genovese crime family cashed in on a government screw-up and will serve only 30 months in prison for racketeering. The sentence is 11 months less than the minimum sentencing guidelines recommended in his plea agreement.
Prosecutors made a mistake last year in calculating the sentencing guidelines for Genovese family captain and co-defendant Daniel Pagano and were forced to pay for it leading to a lesser term for Palazzolo. Pagano was sentenced to only 27 months behind bars as part of his plea deal, which prosecutors later admitted was in error in favor of the NY Mafia leader.
“Michael Palazzolo”
Palazzolo’s attorney argued that his client who prosecutors admitted was a New York mafia underling deserved at worse a comparable sentence to his mob superior. His plea deal called for a sentence of 41-51 months and prosecutors maintained that Mikey P’s sentence should remain the same regardless of the error because his propensity for violence which was evident during their lengthy probe into the Cosa Nostra family. But federal judge Ronnie Abrams disagreed with prosecutors noting a sentencing statute that calls for judges ”to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct.”
Mikey P was heard on tape recorded conversations flaunting this propensity for violence and Abrams did take that into consideration sentencing him to 3 months more than his mafia superior Pagano. Both mobsters will also have to serve three years of strict supervised release upon completion of their sentences.
The government sure has been taking some hits from mistakes like this to outright blowing some complete cases like they did with Asaro.