2 try to save Basciano from death penalty

A hairdresser and a cousin testified Tuesday about Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano's good deeds and displayed childhood pictures of him as the onetime Bonanno family boss tried to fend off the death penalty in Brooklyn federal court.

Stylist Damarys Modica said that while she was working at Basciano's Hello Gorgeous beauty parlor in the Bronx in 1994, her teenage son needed expensive care for depression and her husband lost his job. Basciano lent her thousands, she testified, and never demanded repayment.

"Save your family," she said the future mob boss told her.

Basciano, 51, is serving a life sentence for one murder, and was just convicted of ordering a second -- the killing of mob associate Randy Pizzolo. In the death-penalty phase of the trial, the government presented evidence that Basciano also put out a hit on a federal prosecutor.

Prosecutors closed their case Tuesday with testimony from Pizzolo's daughter. "How has it impacted my life?" said the daughter, Connie Cordero. "It's impacted me in every possible way. I miss him very much."

No major mob figure has been executed in more than a half-century. Closing arguments are set to begin Wednesday, after Basciano decided late Tuesday not to testify on his own behalf after a tense standoff with presiding U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis.

Complaining that prosecutors were hiding some evidence that would help him, Basciano refused for 40 minutes to give Garaufis a yes or no answer on testifying.

Both men stared away from one another for long periods of silence while jurors waited outside the courtroom, until the judge gave Basciano a three-minute deadline -- and got an answer.

Earlier, jurors heard from a defense expert on the restrictive conditions Basciano will face at a federal "super-max" prison if he is not executed, and Basciano cousin Stephen DiCarmine testified about the mobster-to-be's childhood growing up in Yonkers.

DiCarmine, a successful lawyer, described Basciano as a charismatic "daredevil" who was a natural leader, always ready to take risks other kids wouldn't take.

Although his home life took a difficult turn when his father was blinded in an accident, Basciano took punishment for his younger brothers, protected an in-law in a bad marriage, and retained the devotion of his four sons and his ex-wife, DiCarmine testified.

"I don't want to imagine a world in which he doesn't exist," he said. "His wife and sons obviously feel the same way. They don't want to see their father die."