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Former New England Mafia captain Vincent "Vinny'' Ferrara said he didn't commit a crime when he borrowed money from a longtime friend who was under investigation for illegal gambling.
And yesterday, a judge agreed. After a half-day, jury-waived trial in Norfolk Superior Court, Judge Kenneth Fishman found 60-year-old Ferrara not guilty of a single charge of conspiring to use a telephone for gambling persons.
"I honestly didn't do anything wrong,'' Ferrara said afterward, during an interview in his lawyer's Boston office. He said he felt vindicated by the verdict because it showed he hadn't broken his promise to stay out of trouble after he was released from federal prison four years ago.
Ferrara, who served nearly 16 years in prison for racketeering, extortion, and gambling, was freed in May 2005, after US District Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf cut several years off his sentence because of government misconduct.
He was on federal probation when he was charged, along with a dozen others, with involvement in an illegal gambling ring that operated on the South Shore and around Boston.
Ferrara said he went to trial on the misdemeanor charge, rather than cut a deal that guaranteed him probation, because he wanted to prove his innocence.
"I didn't want Judge Wolf to think I reneged on my word,'' he said.
The state case hinged mostly on conversations between alleged bookmakers who were tapped by Massachusetts State Police. Ferrara was recorded calling the alleged bookmakers twice, according to his lawyer.
Ferrara said he was accused of taking $600 a month in gambling profits from the ring in 2007, but the money was actually a loan from a longtime friend to help his daughter make her monthly car payments.
During yesterday's trial, Boston lawyer Michael Natola, who represents Ferrara, argued that 17 telephone conversations that didn't include Ferrara should not be allowed into evidence because they were hearsay and prosecutors failed to prove the existence of a conspiracy.
Fishman agreed. He struck the conversations from evidence and found Ferrara not guilty.
David Traub, a spokesman for Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating, said prosecutors were disappointed that the judge had not allowed all of the tapes into evidence. But, he said, 10 of Ferrara's codefendants pleaded guilty to felony or misdemeanor charges and two others are awaiting trial.
"Overall, the case that the State Police Special Services Section put forward has stood up and been successful,'' said Traub.
While Ferrara was relieved yesterday over his acquittal on the state charges, new documents were unsealed in federal court in disciplinary proceedings involving the prosecutor accused of misconduct in Ferrara's past federal conviction.
In an order dated Sept. 1 and unsealed yesterday, US District Judge Joseph L. Tauro, agreeing with a petition from the Massachusetts Bar Counsel, found there is probable cause to believe Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Auerhahn engaged in misconduct in Ferrara's old federal case and should be disciplined. He gave Auerhahn 30 days to challenge his ruling. Auerhahn declined to comment yesterday.
In 2005, Wolf released Ferrara from prison after finding that Auerhahn had improperly and possibly illegally failed to tell defense lawyers in the early 1990s that a witness had tried to recant his claim that Ferrara ordered the 1985 slaying of Vincent "Jimmy'' Limoli in the North End.
Ferrara said he was innocent of the slaying, but pleaded guilty to murder, along with racketeering charges, rather than risk a wrongful conviction that could lead to life in prison.
Yesterday, Ferrara said he believes Auerhahn should be disbarred.
Shelley Murphy and Jonathan Saltzman, Boston Globe
