Informational Articals - Witness Protection Program - Known Government Witnesses
Individuals who enter a Witness Protection Program want their identities to be kept secret. This is for their own privacy as well as for their safety from retaliation of the person or organization that they have testified against. However there are plenty of known government witnesses who have offered substantial information in high profile Federal cases. In most of them these deals were cut to get them a lesser sentence for their own criminal activities.
Stephen Flemmi, known as Rifleman, was a mobster in the mid 1960’s. He became an FBI informant to avoid prosecution for his own criminal activities. In order to avoid suspicion from the gang he was affiliated with Flemmi continued engaging in criminal activities. He is known to have killed at least three people while being an informant for the FBI.
However he was also indited by the FBI for his crimes in 1975. After 10 years of being an informant this known government witness was offered a plea bargain that he quickly accepted – 10 years in prison and he would testify against the other members of the Winter Hill Gang.
There has been a great deal of information circulating over the years about the mafia boss John Gotti. Salvatore Gravano, known as Sammy the Bull, became a government informant in this underground world of drugs, crime, and murder. While he was the right hand man of Gotti for many years, Gravano gladly testified against this leader in order to cut a deal for himself. In fact his deal was so good that he only got five years in prison – even though he was linked to nineteen different murders in 1991.
Even though Gravano survived his prison term there were plenty of threats on his life. He entered a Federal Witness Protection Program upon his release. However he was released from the program in the late 1990’s due to his continued criminal activities. There are strict guidelines a person must follow in such a witness protection program, and Gravano choose not to follow them.
In 2000 he was arrested for an underground drug ring along with his son. He was sentenced to nineteen years in prison in 2002 and is currently servicing time for these crimes in a Colorado maximum security prison.
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