Bonanno Denies Contempt

Joseph Bonanno, the reputed elder statesman of organized crime, pleaded innocent today to charges of criminal contempt for refusing to testify about the mob’s ruling commission in a federal trial.

The 82-year-old Bonanno entered the plea through his lawyer, Ira London, who accused the government of persecution. He noted that Bonanno was freed Oct. 31 after serving 14 months in prison for civil contempt on the same matter. Though Bonanno, who lives in Tucson, was not charged in the commission case, prosecutors had sought his testimony to help them prove the existence of the mob commission, which Bonanno described in his 1983 memoirs, “A Man of Honor.”