Emiliano "Emo" Gonzales, aligning with state police in 2003 was a slippery slope.
He told jurors today in an extortion conspiracy case that his on-again, off-again relationship with investigators led him to the witness box in Hampden Superior Court, saddled with an unsavory label.
"What happens to rats?" Assistant District Attorney Carmen W. Picknally asked Gonzales during questioning.
"They get killed," Gonzales responded.
"And what are you, sir?" Picknally asked.
"I'm a rat," he said, after admitting he wore a body wire to record conversations with defendants Anthony J. Arillotta, 39, of Springfield, and brothers Ty C. Geas, 35, and Fotios "Freddy" Geas, 40, both of West Springfield. The three are standing trial for extortion conspiracy. Each has pleaded innocent.
The trial began Wednesday before Judge Constance M. Sweeney.
The defendants are accused of trying to shake down Carlo and Gennaro Sarno, cousins from Greater Springfield who once owned profitable - but illegal - video slot machines. The accused allegedly used Gonzales as a conduit to pitch a mandatory profit-sharing plan. He testified that he recorded three meetings on the subject in May 2004.
Video slots machines, or "fruit machines," have historically been vulnerable to "tribute" demands from mobsters, according to criminal investigators.
Arguments and testimony have portrayed Arillotta as an emerging organized crime leader attempting to trump other gangsters the Sarnos were paying in the wake of the fatal shooting of former boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno on Nov. 23, 2003. The Geas brothers were violent ex-convicts who Arillotta had recruited as his henchmen, investigators have said.
Gonzales told jurors he approached state police after a dust-up at his bar, Emo's Place, earlier that month. After the fight, one brawler, Frankie A. Roche, came back and trashed the bar - including three of the Sarnos' poker machines. Bruno reportedly ordered Roche to make restitution. Bruno was killed less than two weeks later.
Roche, Fotios Geas, and Brandon D. Croteau, have been charged in connection with Bruno's slaying. That case is pending, and has figured only subtly in the extortion trial.
Gonzales faces a 15-year mandatory sentence for drug trafficking after a 2005 arrest. He is testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors.
He told jurors today the "turmoil" on the streets after the Bruno shooting spurred him to approach law enforcement five years ago. He said he asked investigators to lead him in shackles to their first meeting in 2003.
"I had them handcuff me because the patrons that were there .¤.¤. I didn't want them to get any suspicions," he said.
Gonzales said he was a member of Arillotta's "crew" until he was arrested with drugs in 1992 and went to prison for a decade.
After being released, Gonzales said he began working as a collector for the Sarnos' poker machine business. He admitted under cross-examination that he also continued to dabble in drug dealing and fencing stolen goods.
With a foot in both worlds, Gonzales told jurors he agreed to pose as a conduit for the Sarnos, and wore a body wire for state police during discussions with the defendants in 2004.
The first audible recorded meeting took place on the morning of May 5, at the White Hut restaurant in West Springfield. Jurors heard a recording of the defendants' alleged plans to put 10 of their own slot machines in choice spots across the city.
The recorded talks included scornful references to aging mob soldiers Felix L. Tranghese and Mario Fiore mentioned during testimony as men who were offering the Sarnos protection. The Sarnos have refused to testify at the trial.
From the first May 5, 2004 meeting came these exerpts:
Fotios Geas: "And then you got these old timers that think they wrote the (expletive) book on being sharp, and they're (expletive) stupid. You know?"
And later, Arillotta: "It's the hard way or the nice easy way, OK? We are in the machine business. So we're going into spots .¤.¤."
After allegedly threatening to take sledgehammers to the Sarnos' machines and have 15 guys "run them over 85 times" with a car if the police interceded, Arillotta continued at another recorded meeting on the same day: "Those vending machines, those are ours. If we want, we'll take every single one of them. Felix ain't stopping us, and Mario Fiore ain't stopping us. But we don't want to do that. We're being (expletive) gentlemen about it."
Gonzales testified Arillotta pulled the plug on the entire plan after confronting him about cooperating with police on May 14. Gonzales was arrested on drug charges a year later and fled to Canada; he was apprehended three months later and remains held without bail.
He is due to continue testifying tomorrow. Gonzales will face cross-examination by defense lawyers Vincent A. Bongiorni, Daniel D. Kelly and Peter M. Murphy.
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