NEW YORK - An ailing 74-year-old Gambino crime family captain who recommended an undercover FBI agent for mob membership before he was arrested in a sting asked for leniency Tuesday but received more than 12 years in prison instead for racketeering.
"Give me one more shot," Gregory DePalma, who uses a wheelchair, asked U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein.
"If you were in my shoes," the judge replied, "I don't think you would."
DePalma was convicted June 6 by a jury in a case that featured the exploits of Joaquin Garcia, a rotund FBI agent who capped a career of disguises by posing as "Big Jack" Falcone.
DePalma believed Garcia's act enough that he recommended he be made a member of the crime family. Before that could happen, DePalma and 31 others were arrested.
DePalma's lawyers had protested the government's use of sophisticated bugging devices placed in their client's cellular telephone that enabled investigators to listen to conversations even when the telephone was off.
Lawyer John L. Pollok had accused the government of turning DePalma into a "human microphone" with the eavesdropping devices.
The judge said the government received proper approval from courts as it steadily increased the scope of its audio surveillance, trying to destroy the new leadership of the crime family during a three-year probe.
The ruling cleared the way for the government's use of parts of 5,000 hours of taped conversations showing DePalma working energetically from 2003 to 2005 extorting restaurants, construction companies and a Bronx topless nightclub, where he was introduced to the undercover agent.
Hellerstein said he could not be lenient because DePalma was "a man thoroughly immersed in criminal activity" after he was freed from prison in early 2003.
The judge rejected the Department of Probation's suggestion that DePalma receive less than the recommended minimum of 12 years.
"I'll be dead maybe in about five," DePalma said.
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