A Colombo family crime boss won’t be pulling a Tony Soprano when he is released for one day to visit a doctor this week, according to his lawyer.
An attorney for mobster Andrew “Mush” Russo promised a federal judge that his client won’t be re-enacting a scene from HBO’s “The Sopranos,” in which Tony Soprano and Uncle Junior hold secret meetings in a doctor’s office to avoid FBI scrutiny.
“To the extent that Your Honor has ever watched an episode of ‘The Sopranos’ . . . I ask that you do your best to extricate those fictional accounts when imposing a just and appropriate sentence,” defense attorney George Galgano said.
Russo, 78, then won permission to get out of jail on $1 million bond for a single day later this week to consult his personal physicians about a variety of health problems.
Still, Galgano said he is concerned about lingering misconceptions that grow out of pop-culture depictions of the Mafia.
“It dawned on me that even members of the judiciary are not immune from being influenced by stereotypical and fictional accounts of what the government has labeled ‘crime families,’ ” Galgano wrote to Brooklyn federal Judge Kiyo Matsumoto.
The judge will sentence the wiseguy on mob racketeering charges later this week.
Russo actually does have ties to the legendary HBO mob show. He struck up a real-life friendship with “Sopranos” actor Federico Castelluccio, who played the mob enforcer Furio.
Russo is facing 33 to 41 months in prison.