Bonanno crime family soldier turned rat Joseph Barone Jr filed suit against the feds for scheming to throw him in jail even though they knew he was innocent.
The New York mafia soldier became an informant back in 1992 after the mafia murder of his father, Joseph Sr. a member of the Genovese crime family. Barone Jr spent 18 years as a rat feeding the feds tons of information, including exposing a mob plot to kill a Brooklyn Judge until he was arrested as part of a murder plot in 2009. He was thrown into solitary confinement while in a federal prison only to be acquitted of all charges in 2010. According to Barone, the FBI orchestrated his imprisonment as punishment.
“Joseph Barone Jr”
Barone claims that once his value as an informant ran out and he refused to wear a wire his FBI handlers turned on him. He filed a malicious prosecution suit against his FBI handlers and the U.S. Government six years ago, which was recently greenlighted by Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan. Barone also known as “JB” also claimed in the lawsuit that the feds leaked his status as a Cosa Nostra informant along with charging him with crimes they knew he did not commit. Judge Kaplan wrote as part of his 11-page ruling that “Plaintiff alleges the defendants … deliberately and maliciously arrested and prosecuted him for serious felonies despite knowing his innocence,” Kaplan went on to say “The court cannot now say that a jury could not reasonably find the United States liable … if these allegations were proven at trial.”
Barone made a statement from an undisclosed location he moved to after his acquittal saying he was ready for trial and things were now going to move quickly and seemed delighted his long legal battle was finally moving ahead. The U.S. Attorney’s office had no immediate response to the decision and the FBI declined to comment on the ruling.
