CICUTO'S FAMILY, FRIENDS PLEAD FOR LENIENCY

Former New Westminster Businessman Faces Up to 10 Years in U.S.
Prison for Drug Smuggling

New Westminster senior Silvano Cicuto may have already spent a year
behind bars in New York on drug-smuggling charges, but the
72-year-old has no shortage of passionate defenders.

"Silvano Cicuto was a respected and hard-working business leader in
his community, recognized for his honesty, integrity, industry and
generosity," Vancouver lawyer Mark Cacchioni says in a letter of
support. "It came as a complete shock that Silvano had been charged
with a drug offence in the United States and that he had pleaded
guilty to the same.

"From what I have learned, Silvano fell in with an unscrupulous crowd
and they may have exploited his naive nature by bringing him in on
their illegal activity."

Friends like Cacchioni, who once did legal work for Cicuto's
business, neighbours, former employees and relatives have lined up to
file reference letters in advance of Cicuto's sentencing in U.S.
District Court Monday, after he pleaded guilty to smuggling hundreds
of thousands of ecstasy pills into the New York market.

His U.S. lawyer, Stephanie Carvlin, says it is a tragic tale of
failing fortunes and desperation; that Cicuto lost his construction
business of 30 years after a Vancouver telecommunications company
went belly up and didn't pay Cicuto the close to $1 million it owed
him for laying cable.

But court documents paint a picture of a savvy and streetsmart
operator, intimately acquainted with the mechanics of drug dealing,
who used sophisticated drug trafficking jargon and readily dispatched
a cadre of drug couriers to complete his deals.

Carvlin argues that Cicuto's declining health and advanced age mean
he should be able to return to B.C. and serve his sentence under house arrest.

He only got involved in the drug scheme after he "was confronted with
an almost unimaginable amount of pressure," she said in sentencing documents.

"It was truly extraordinary personal and professional reversals that
led this decent, industrious, community-minded man to become involved
in the instant offence."

Carvlin lays out Cicuto's life story for Judge Paul Crotty like an
historical novel. Born in Morsano, Italy in 1938, he went to work on
the family's subsistence farm at 11, then followed older brothers
Gino and Ennio to Canada at the age of 18, unable to speak English
and with a Grade 5 education. He worked in the gold mines for 92
cents an hour, where two co-workers were "killed before his eyes." He
was injured himself when rocks came crashing down on him, partly
severing his left foot. He spent six months in hospital.

After stints as a stone mason, and with a wife and three sons to
support, Cicuto started a construction company, eventually working
with Gino in Cicuto Brothers Contractors. When Gino retired, the
business morphed into Cicuto & Sons, which had its offices in Burnaby.

At the peak, Cicuto had 150 employees, who became his extended
family. He sent sick children to Disneyland; bought a wheelchair for
a disabled girl; sponsored soccer teams, helped in his church and
community, Carvlin says.

And then he lost everything. And he started drinking too much.

What Carvlin doesn't explain is how Cicuto, his son Robert, and a
Vancouver mortgage broker named Luciano Mannu ended up tangled in a
sophisticated cross-border drug-smuggling operation that ended with a
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration undercover sting.

Robert has not been taken into custody despite the U.S. indictment,
but both Cicuto and Mannu were nabbed in a Newark, N.J., hotel on
Jan. 22, 2010 and have been in custody ever since.

Cicuto has pleaded guilty, while Mannu is slated to go to trial in
New York later this month.

According to U.S. prosecutors, Cicuto is a member "of a drug
trafficking organization based in part in British Columbia," who,
with co-conspirators, arranged for large quantities of ecstasy and a
similar synthetic drug called BZP to be delivered to New York.

A DEAL GOES BAD

The DEA first got wind of the drug ring, according to court
documents, when a confidential informant told agents in June 2009
that "he had met and spoken with a Canada-based individual named
Shaun Sunduk who distributed large quantities of ecstasy pills." The
informant passed along Sunduk's number and the DEA called for some
sample pills.

They arrived on July 1, 2009 in a small package from New Westminster,
where Cicuto was living.

Through Sunduk, the DEA's agent ordered 100,000 more pills from the
B.C. drug gang. Sunduk referred to Cicuto as his "boss" in texts to
the agent. Cicuto called the DEA plant directly several times,
complaining in one call that his driver had been robbed of 100,000 pills.

Court documents say Cicuto, who the DEA agent called "the old man,"
used sophisticated drug trafficking jargon to describe the potential
of his ecstasy and relayed messages as to when his couriers would be
crossing the border.

After one driver was arrested in Minnesota, Cicuto complained to the
undercover agent that "Sunduk's people had lost the shipment of
100,000 pills and that he was no longer working with Sunduk."

But Cicuto was determined to complete the deal with his New York
buyers. He called the DEA agent on Sept. 21 to say his own son,
"Rob," was in Los Angeles and that the father-son duo could deliver
the ecstasy. The price would be between $225,000 to $235,000.

The DEA agent later called Rob Cicuto at the number his father had
provided. Court documents say the son bragged that he was "sitting on
one million ecstasy pills" of top-notch quality.

The DEA told the Cicuto crew to deliver the ecstasy to Manhattan Mini
Storage at 541 West 29th St. in New York and to call the agent an
hour before the couriers arrived.

At about 8 p.m., on Oct. 29, 2009, the shipment arrived. The couriers
were arrested and 150,000 ecstasy pills seized.

Despite the interception, Cicuto demanded to be paid, the U.S.
Attorney says. On Nov. 2, 2009, the agent got a text from a B.C.
number saying "Hey bud, send the money to Robert cicuto and silvano
cicuto at 1922 Edinburgh st New Westminster British Columbia Canada
send it through western union thanks let me know when done."

The Edinburgh address is Cicuto's house.

Several other text messages to the DEA followed with payment demands.
Finally, on Jan. 21, 2010, Cicuto's co-accused, Luciano Mannu, called
the undercover agent. At the time, Mannu was a licensed mortgage
broker running a Vancouver company called Rehab Capital Corp., though
his licence has since been suspended by the B.C. Financial
Institutions Commission.

Mannu told the agent he was in the region and he wanted a meeting to
discuss the missing money. "You received some goods .. and we in
Vancouver got f---ed," he is quoted in court documents as saying.
They agreed to sit down together the next morning.

CAUGHT IN A STING

While the B.C. men contemplated their payday, the DEA set up
surveillance on Room 233 of the Newark Ramada Plaza, in New Jersey.

The cops moved in Jan. 22 and arrested both Metro Vancouver men.

Since then, home for Cicuto has been the Metropolitan Correctional
Center in Lower Manhattan, a few blocks from city hall.

Last summer, he filed a motion to get the evidence that was seized at
the Ramada thrown out. He lost.

At the end of September, he accepted his fate and pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to import ecstasy and BZP and conspiracy to distribute
both illicit substances.

Federal prosecutors have not revealed what jail term they are seeking
for Cicuto, but the maximum is 10 years.

Prosecutors are seeking between four and six years for the two
American couriers busted at the mini-storage. According to court
documents, one of them told the DEA after his arrest that he had been
contacted by a B.C. man named James Mitford to pick up the ecstasy
and some marijuana in Boston and deliver it to New York.

He dropped the pot off in Brooklyn and then headed into Manhattan,
where he was arrested.

Neither Mitford nor Sunduk, both identified as Canadians in the U.S.
court papers, are facing U.S. charges in the case.

Neither have criminal records in B.C.

Robert Cicuto remains in Metro Vancouver, suffering from mental
illness, court documents say.

Details about who is behind the North America-wide drug ring are sketchy.

Insp. Murray Power, of the RCMP's Federal Drug Enforcement Branch,
told The Vancouver Sun he is not familiar with Cicuto or the others
charged and that there is no parallel Canadian investigation.

"We have no link or ties to that investigation," Power said.

New Westminster police continue to investigate the suspected arson
fire that severely damaged Cicuto's New Westminster house last March,
less than two months after his arrest in New York.

The house had been up for sale until recently, but realtor Geoff
Jarman said he had to de-list it until the insurance company
completes its investigation of the fire.

In the meantime, dozens of letters have been written to Judge Crotty,
asking for leniency for a man whose "life cascaded out of control."

'AN EXEMPLARY LIFE'

"For almost 70 of his 72 years, he led an exemplary life. Coming from
very little, he acquired the components of an honourable and
productive life: a strong family unit, a solid place in the community
and legitimate employment," Carvlin says.

"He has been incarcerated in the United States thousands of miles
from his family. No friend, family member or relative has been able
to visit him. He has been separated from his wife while she again
struggles with insurmountable financial problems."

Some friends recalled the good old days when the homemade wine flowed
freely in the "cantina" in the basement of Cicuto & Sons' Burnaby offices.

"I often visited his offices late in the day and more often than not
these business meetings were followed by an informal gathering of
some of his employees in his 'cantina,'" accountant Perry Munton said
in his letter to the judge.

"Early in 2010, I learned from the family that Silvano was in jail in
New York City. I do not know much about the charges to which he has
been convicted. I have not spoken directly to Silvano about his
problems. However, it is my guess that Silvano's actions and his trip
to New York were an act of desperation to help resolve his serious
financial situation."

Josephine Cicuto's hand-written letter to the judge about the man she
married 45 years ago is one of the most poignant in the batch.

"I cannot believe my husband is in jail. My family and friends are
shocked. This is not the man we all know," she wrote. "Your honour, I
know my husband did a terrible crime. Could you please find it in
your heart to send him home? If not for him, but for me and my family."