Pisello Sentenced to 4 Years in Tax Case

U.S. District Judge William J. Rea on Monday sentenced reputed mobster Salvatore J. Pisello to four years in prison for evading income tax on $382,000 that he earned through business deals with MCA Records in 1984 and 1985.

Before sentence was passed, prosecutor Marvin L. Rudnick told the Los Angeles court of information claiming that Pisello reports to Michael A. Rizzitello, a reputed organized crime figure in Los Angeles. Rizzitello, in turn, reports to the Gambino crime family in New York, Rudnick said.

He said the information was from Craig Fiato, a government-protected witness.

Rudnick, a special attorney with the Los Angeles office of the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force, also told the court that Pisello, 64, “was doing the work of evil people” and that the “real problem is corruption,” not income taxes.

Pisello’s attorney, David Hinden, earlier had said that the matter before the court was “not an organized crime case” and that Pisello had been caught up in “some kind of agenda in this case” by the prosecutor, who he said had been on “something of a crusade” against MCA.

Hinden added that at one time the prosecutor had posted pictures on his office walls of various MCA executives, along with their salaries.

Hinden said his client was a religious man and a family man who was not in good health. The events for which he was sentenced Monday all occurred before he started serving a previous two-year prison term for tax evasion, Hinden said, during which Pisello had learned his lesson.

Pisello, who did not testify during the trial, addressed the court briefly before sentencing. “I put myself at the mercy of the court,” he said. “If given the opportunity, I can show the court I am a responsible man. Thank you.”

Judge Rea did not comment on the case when he outlined his sentence on two felony counts, for which he found Pisello guilty after a non-jury trial in early April.

The court could have assessed a maximum prison term of five years on each count. However, Rea suspended sentence on one count, providing for probation after the conclusion of the term served on the first. He ruled that probation would be conditioned on Pisello’s payment of his federal income taxes owed.

Rea specified that Pisello should surrender to begin his sentence by noon May 31. At the request of the defense, the court set a hearing for May 24 on whether to grant Pisello bail while the case is appealed.

Rudnick’s prosecution of Pisello’s first tax-evasion case led to a two-year federal grand jury investigation into suspected payola practices and organized crime infiltration of the record industry. The latest Pisello trial proved to be unlike ordinary tax cases as it delved into the arcane practices of that industry.

Community Service Urged

According to the trial testimony, Pisello was a middleman between MCA Records and some smaller companies. He sought to conceal his earnings by converting them into cash and cashier’s checks, which then were passed through phony companies that he set up in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, according to the government’s case.

Defense attorney Hinden asked the court to limit Pisello’s prison time to a maximum of six months and then admit him to a community service program.

He recounted that when Pisello was serving his previous prison term at Lompoc, Rudnick had the institution cancel a three-day furlough on grounds that a new indictment would soon be returned against him. Hinden said that, shortly afterward, he got a letter from Rudnick offering Pisello an opportunity to waive immunity to testify against record executives before a grand jury. Hinden said his client did not have evidence to give against them.

Rudnick said in turn that the only reason he wrote the letter to Hinden was that Pisello had written to Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III saying that he wanted to cooperate with the Justice Department but that Rudnick would not let him, which Rudnick said was “absurd.”