Wednesday, June 19, 2002 | 11:38 a.m.
A self-proclaimed mob associate likely will spend the rest of his life in prison after a jury Tuesday took just 20 minutes to reject his self-defense claim in the fatal shooting of a former New Yorker.
Anthony Cuccia Jr., 61, will likely die in prison regardless of whether District Judge Jeffrey Sobel gives him a no-parole life term or a life term with parole after 40 years.
Cuccia will be formally sentenced July 23.
Cuccia was found guilty of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon in the Feb. 7, 2000, death of Phillip Greenspan following a two-day trial. Jurors declined to comment after the verdict was read.
Sobel told jurors following their verdict that the Cuccia case was like no other in his 32 years as an attorney and judge.
Although there is no evidence to prove his story, Cuccia told jurors that he was forced to kill Greenspan because Greenspan was part of a plot to kill him.
Cuccia, his froggy voice thick with a Brooklyn accent, testified Tuesday that members of the Gambino crime family put a contract out on his life nearly 20 years ago after a vindictive DEA agent falsely identified him as a snitch.
By February 2000, Cuccia told jurors, he was tired of living his life on the run and decided to settle matters when Greenspan pointed him out to other mob members at the Stardust casino's sports book.
Greenspan identified him to the hit men by sitting down next to him and striking up conversations with the men, Cuccia said.
One week later, Cuccia said, he went to the Stardust with the intention of killing Greenspan, whom he described as a "director." Hit men, he said, can't act without the director's orders.
"You fear the shooter, but you've got to respect the director, too, because once he's out of the way, everything stops," Cuccia said. "If I just shoot the shooter, there'd be another shooter there in two minutes. Shooting the shooter don't matter, because they got dozens of them."
Cuccia said he went out of his way to avoid shooting Greenspan, noting he went to various law enforcement officers begging them for a new identity. They did nothing, he said, because he didn't know the names of the hit men.
"I killed him, but it's Metro's fault he's dead because they wouldn't help me," Cuccia said.
Later Cuccia was allowed to give his own closing argument. He insisted he had no other choice but to kill Greenspan.
"Where else could I go? A priest? What's he gonna do? Make the sign of the cross and the bullets will go away?" Cuccia said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Chris Owens reminded jurors during closing arguments that the evidence indicates Greenspan had nothing to do with the mob and was simply eating a bowl of Italian wedding soup when he was shot to death.
" 'He just looked at me and I hit him,' " Owens quoted Cuccia as telling police. "Poor Phil. How could he have known as he was sitting there eating a bowl of soup that a week earlier, where he sat had marked him as a dead man?"'
Cuccia overheard Greenspan offer money and the use of a motel room to two friends, not mark Cuccia for death, Owens said.
"The facts of this case are so far away from self-defense," he said. "We don't have Mr. Greenspan coming after Mr. Cuccia by any stretch of the imagination."
Owens suggested to jurors that Cuccia craved attention and, when he couldn't get it from law enforcement officers, he shot Greenspan in a crowded casino.
"In his mind you either recognize his brains and his importance or you're stupid," Owens said.
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