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Mafia underboss gets new chance for freedom

ADRIAN HUMPHREYS POSTMEDIA NEWS

An imprisoned Canadian who claimed he was the secondin-command of a New York Mafia family has won a new chance for freedom — after arguing he was never convicted of being a mobster and so he shouldn’t be considered one by the parole board.

Domenico Violi’s family has been an important part of Mafia history in both Canada and Italy for generations.

His father was Montreal Mafia boss Paolo Violi, who was killed in 1978 by members of the rival Rizzuto clan; his mother is the daughter of former Hamilton, Ont., Mafia chief Giacomo Luppino; and his namesake grandfather led a Mafia clan back in Italy.

In 2017, police wiretaps caught Violi boasting of making some Mafia history of his own, according to documents filed in court.

Violi, now 55, was caught in an unusual police probe that featured a made member of a New York City Mafia organization, the Bonanno family, working as a police informant for both U.S. and Canadian police. Because the Mafia is a secret society, recording what

alleged members privately said to each other offered a rare, insider’s view of the Mafia on both sides of the border, prosecutors said.

When the American informant met with Violi in 2017, according to court documents, Violi told him he had been made the underboss of the

Mafia organization based in Buffalo, N.Y. The underboss is the second-highest position in an American Mafia family.

If true, he would be the only person in Canada to ever be named to one of the top leadership positions in any U.s.based Mafia clan.

Violi was arrested at the end of the three-year probe.

At his trial in 2018, Violi struck a deal, pleading guilty to drug trafficking and possession of property obtained by crime while criminal organization charges against him were dropped. His guilty plea meant the veracity of the wiretaps were never tested in court.

He was sentenced to six years, four months and 21 days in prison.

The plea also meant Violi was never judicially deemed a mob member, let alone the underboss of a Mafia family, and that became important this month when Violi made his case for freedom.

OPINION

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2021-09-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

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