Former federal agent who aided organized-crime figure is sentenced to 10 years in prison for taking up to $100,000 from mob boss Vito Genovese.
September 16, 2011 — The federal trial ended Monday afternoon, with a jury delivering a guilty verdict for Stephen A. Resnick, an up-and-coming federal prosecutor, on charges of bribery and money-laundering.
But Monday night, the jury awarded an acquittal in part to the other defendant in the case.
Resnick, 56, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay more than $100,000 in restitution.
Resnick, it was disclosed in open court, had worked for decades at the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office as an agent, special agent and investigator.
In May 2010, former New York City police officer Thomas DiMaggio was charged with plotting to kill Genovese, the underboss of the notorious Genovese crime family and the most powerful criminal leader in New York.
Following an investigation into DiMaggio’s crime, federal officials charged Resnick with assisting Genovese in the cover-up of a scheme to bribe police and FBI personnel to look the other way when DiMaggio shot Genovese.
The two-week trial — which drew more than 1,500 spectators filling the courtroom — was a clash of personalities, with DiMaggio, a former NYPD officer, trying to prove that Resnick was a good guy with a conscience who did the job right.
Resnick, a former deputy U.S. attorney, defended his conduct, saying he was simply following orders from his boss at his home in the suburbs in New Jersey.
He said he had no idea that federal prosecutors were using him to dig up dirt on Genovese, who was known to be a member of the Sicilian mob.
“I’m not a dirty cop… I didn’t know what was going on
