The Supreme Court ruled Friday against an associate of the Genovese crime family who argued he didn’t use force against the targeted victim in a spoiled murder plot.
Salvatore Delligatti, who was convicted of several charges for a murder plan that was upset by police, coordinated with a gang to murder Joseph Bonelli, who the family believed was cooperating against bookies.
Delligatti was sentenced to 300 months in prison. At issue in the legal battle was a sentencing law that requires a mandatory minimum if a firearm was carried during a “crime of violence.”
Delligatti’s lawyers argued against the attempted murder charge constituting a crime of violence under the Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering statute. They said their client’s inaction shouldn’t constitute use of force to support the charge.
But in a 7-2 decision, the high court rejected that argument and said the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was right in deciding that knowingly causing bodily harm through omission constitutes the use of force.
“There is no exception to this principle when an offender causes bodily injury by omission rather than affirmative act. Delligatti’s [minimum term of imprisonment required by statute] challenge therefore fails,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority. “It is perfectly natural to say that a person makes ’use’ of something by deliberate inaction.”
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote a dissent, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, saying the statute at issue constitutes a crime of violence, hence shouldn’t include crimes of omission.
According to court documents, Delligatti is an associate of the Genovese family, one of a handful of major Mafia families operating in New York City and New Jersey.
The case is Delligatti v. United States.
In a separate opinion on Friday, the justices ruled unanimously that Patrick Thompson, who told the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that he borrowed $110,000 from the bank, made a misleading claim but not a false statement under the criminal code.
The justices said although his statement was misleading, it was not false under a criminal statute that criminalizes making false statements.
“The statute uses the word ‘false.’ It does not use ‘misleading,’” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the unanimous court. “Interpreting the word ‘false’ to include ‘misleading’ would make the inclusion of ‘misleading’ in those statutes superfluous.”
That case is Thompson v. United States.
