Member of Gambino crime family deported to Italy

A member of the infamous Gambino crime family who waged a long legal battle with U.S. immigration officials to remain in the United States was deported and turned over to Italian authorities, officials said Saturday.

Rosario Gambino, 66, a distant cousin of late mob boss Carlo Gambino, was put on a commercial flight in Miami on Friday, then flown to Italy, where he was taken into custody by local authorities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said.

Rosario Gambino was convicted in 1984 for trafficking heroin in New Jersey and served 22 years in federal prison. When he was released in 2006, he was turned over to immigration officials, who began proceedings to send him back to his native Italy, where he was wanted.

In September 2007, an immigration judge in Los Angeles ruled that Gambino should not be deported to Italy based on the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The judge found that in Italy, Gambino probably would be locked up in a prison system designed to physically and psychologically compel inmates to reveal information about the Sicilian Mafia.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement appealed the ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which ruled that Gambino could be deported. He went on to file a habeas corpus petition and had his case heard in front of at least three appeals courts before he was finally cleared for deportation earlier this week, Kice said.

Gambino has denied any connection to organized crime, but court documents from his criminal trial referred to him as a “soldier” of the Gambino crime family. The Italian government considers him a member of the Mafia and made an unsuccessful attempt in 2001 to extradite him.

His attorney could not be reached Saturday.

The Gambino family was one of New York City’s five Mafia families.

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victoria.kim@latimes.com