Blitzstein murder trial heads to jury

Closing arguments were scheduled today for two men charged in connection with the slaying of mobster Herbert "Fat Herbie" Blitzstein.

The prosecution on Tuesday called its last witness -- Ronald Fino, former business manager of the Laborers International Union Local 210 in Buffalo, N.Y., and the son of a late Buffalo Mafia boss. The defense rested without calling any witnesses in the two-week trial.

Summations and jury instructions were to begin this morning, and the jury in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Philip Pro was expected to begin deliberating the fates of Henderson residents Robert Panaro, 57, Stephen Cino, 60.

Panaro, a purported member of the Buffalo La Cosa Nostra, and Cino, a purported Los Angeles Mafia member, are charged with conspiring to kill Blitzstein so that they could take over his Las Vegas rackets, including more than $100,000 in loans he had out on the streets.

Blitzstein once was the right-hand-man of the Chicago mob's Las Vegas overseer, Tony Spilotro, who also was slain, presumably by his mob cohorts. That case was never solved. Blitzstein was killed in January 1997 in his home.

The majority of the 16 people charged in the 50-count indictment in February 1998 reached plea bargain agreements, leaving only Panaro, Cino, alleged triggerman Richard Friedman and a handful of defendants who are alleged to be involved in crimes related to the killing, but not the actual slaying.

Friedman goes on trial May 24.

On the final day of testimony, Fino said he knew both Cino and Panaro and he attempted to connect Panaro to the Buffalo La Cosa Nostra.

Fino testified that Local 210 was "captured" by the Buffalo mob, which forced him to find "plush" jobs for mob members -- jobs in which they made good salaries but were not required to work.

Fino said Panaro was a "no-show steward" when a worker was nearly killed on a job while he was out "doing business for (purported Buffalo mob underboss) Joey Tedaro" instead of supervising the job site. Fino said he was told by the late Daniel Domino, a business agent for the union and a member of the Buffalo mob, that Panaro was one of three men who "were either made or going to be made." A made member is a person who is approved by Mafia bosses to become a "soldier" in a crime family.

Fino, a union member from 1964 to 1988, said he was able to climb the ranks of the union because mob-controlled labor bosses helped him as a means of ingratiating themselves to his father. However, Fino testified that he was never a mob member.

Under cross-examination, it was revealed that between 1989 and 1995, Fino earned more than $6,000 a month in taxpayer money as an informant for the government. Defense attorneys said Fino earned about $540,000 working as a government informant during that period.