Judge Can't Be Fair, Lawyer Says; He's on Client's Claimed Hit List
A federal trial judge should recuse himself from her client’s case, a New York lawyer for a reputed mob boss has told a New York City-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel, because her client allegedly put him on a hit list that will be introduced in evidence.
Because of the claimed assassination threat, Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who sits in federal district court in Brooklyn, can’t be fair to Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano, contends attorney Jane Simkin Smith. However, a prosecutor says Basciano put the judge on the hit list at least in part to force him to step down from the case, reports the Associated Press.
Basciano, 48, who is already serving a life sentence in another case, faces another trial for murder and is suspected of plotting to kill a prosecutor, as well as a judge, the New York Daily News reported earlier this month.
Smith claims her client is innocent in the alleged plot, but “there is a serious question whether [Garaufis] has personal animosity towards a person who has allegedly sought to kill him,” she says. “We’ve argued from the beginning that there is no such plot to murder the judge but there’s never been an evidentiary hearing on that subject.”
