Copyright 1991 Globe Newspaper Company  
The Boston Globe
May 14, 1991, Tuesday, City Edition
SECTION: METRO/REGION; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 387 words

HEADLINE: Killing of a reputed mob leader;
at center of Mafia trial in 3d week

BYLINE: By Efrain Hernandez Jr., GLOBE STAFF

DATELINE: HARTFORD

BODY:
Testimony in the trial of alleged members of the Patriarca crime family at US District Court yesterday focused on the June 1989 murder of William Grasso of New Haven.

Government officials say Grasso, who allegedly was the second in command of the Providence-based Mafia family, was killed when he began organizing the killing of Boston-based Patriarca family lieutenant Vincent M. Ferrara.

As the trial of eight defendants began its third week yesterday, prosecutors and defense lawyers tried to establish for the jury when Grasso disappeared.

Grasso's body was found along the banks of the Connecticut River in Wethersfield on June 16, 1989, with a bullet wound in the head.

Key testimony regarding Grasso's murder is expected to begin today from John F. Castagna, who, along with his son, Jack Johns, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges and are to testify against defendants Gaetano J. Milano, Frank A. and Louis F. Pugliano and Frank Colantoni Jr., court sources said.

Much of yesterday's testimony was by Dr. Wayne Carver, chief medical examiner for Connecticut.

"The bullet entered the back of the left side of his neck," Carver said, pointing to an imprint of an X-ray of Grasso's head.

Carver added that small pieces of the bullet broke off as it traveled from the bump near Grasso's ear to a bone in the back of Grasso's throat, where the bullet was found.

Boston lawyer Anthony M. Cardinale, who is representing Louis Pugliano, pressed Carver on the estimated time Grasso was dead before being found, saying Grasso was seen at a New Haven restaurant a few nights earlier.

During a court recess, Cardinale said Grasso may have been seen at the restaurant many hours after Castagna is expected to testify he was killed.

Among the exhibits presented by prosecutors yesterday were five photographs taken by state police at Grasso's funeral in June 1989.

One of the men photographed, Matthew Guglielmetti of Providence, was among the nine defendants when the Hartford trial began April 30, but he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges May 1.

Guglielmetti is scheduled for sentencing July 8.

Ferrara, Joseph Russo and Robert Carrozza, who are charged with racketeering and other offenses in Boston, are named in the Hartford case as unindicted coconspirators in the Grasso murder plot.