Eldest Son of Ex-Mafia Boss Bonanno Ordered to Prison

Salvatore (Bill) Bonanno, the eldest son of a former Mafia leader, was ordered to state prison Friday after years of delays and appeals over his 1985 conviction for bilking four elderly women of $43,000 in a home repair scam.

After an emotional two-hour hearing, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Joseph Karesh denied Bonanno probation, which had been requested by his two defense attorneys.

“I don’t have the legal justification to set aside my order of 1986, in which I denied probation,” Karesh said. “I’ve already sentenced him to four years in state prison. Mr. Bonanno could have received seven years.”

Bonanno, 56, son of one-time New York crime boss Joseph Bonanno Sr., was convicted on eight counts of a grand jury indictment charging conspiracy and grand theft in a scam that involved persuading the elderly women to pay for home repairs that were unnecessary.

He has previously served a total of nine years in prison for mail fraud and perjury in New York and extortion and a probation violation in Northern California--far more time than his more famous father served.

The 84-year-old Bonanno attended the court hearing and slumped in his seat, looking saddened when his son lost his attempt to avoid prison. The former organized crime boss, known in his time as “Joe Bananas,” served 13 months in prison at age 81 for refusing to answer grand jury questions about other top mobsters.

Salvatore Bonanno was first charged in the home repair scam case in 1981 but fled to Mexico. His trial was long delayed. After conviction, sentencing was delayed during appeals and also to allow Bonanno to be tried in a federal mail fraud case involving his brother, Joseph Jr.

Bonanno was acquitted in the mail fraud case. He had been free on $50,000 bail on the home repair conviction but was taken into custody Aug. 18 when appeals ran out, Senior Atty. Gen. John Gordnier said. The Supreme Court refused this spring to hear his case.

Charles Garry, one of Bonanno’s attorneys, had earlier argued that state prosecutors framed his client in their eagerness to claim a successful conviction of a Mafia-related criminal.

Garry sought probation for Bonanno, arguing that he could remain under night house arrest, do clerical work for an AIDS researcher, give college lectures on crime and make restitution to the victims.

But Deputy Atty. Gen. Derald Granberg, who prosecuted the case, reminded the court of Bonanno’s long criminal record and opposed the house arrest proposal.

“He is at the doorstep of state prison and now acknowledges guilt and expresses contrition,” Granberg said. “This illustrated the opportunism exhibited by this defendant throughout the case.

“The judge did what he should have done a long time ago--put him in prison,” Granberg said after the hearing.