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Woman wants conviction vacated

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By Dustin Lemmon | Wednesday, December 06, 2006 |

The eldest member of a local family who has several of its members serving time in prison has filed a motion in federal court claiming she received ineffective counsel.

Celia Pizano is asking the courts to vacate her conviction on all drug and money laundering-related counts. She is serving time in federal prison until 2015 for misusing her Social Security number and several drug-related counts including conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

Pizano, 65, was sentenced last year and had her conviction upheld by the federal appeals court, but she claims in her latest motion that she wasn’t allowed to raise the issue of ineffective counsel in her direct appeal.

Pizano has two children serving time in federal prison on various charges tied to her own.

Her son, Mathias Pizano, 40, was convicted of distributing marijuana and cocaine from 1998 to 2002 and will not be released until 2028. Her daughter, Jessica Pizano, 42, is serving a federal sentence until 2012 for conspiracy charges similar to her mother’s.

Celia Pizano claims that she didn’t know about her son’s drug dealing and money laundering and the government didn’t have enough evidence to convict her on those allegations. She claims the only knowledge she would have was when police questioned the family about her son’s suspected drug use. However, she notes that her son was not arrested or charged at the time and gave him the benefit of the doubt.

According to the motion, her defense on the money laundering charges was compromised by the Social Security charges. She claims her attorney should have asked that she be tried separately on the Social Security charges or should have had her plead guilty to the charges ahead of time. As it turned out, the jury heard about them at trial.

She further claims that she could disprove the government’s claim that the money obtained from Social Security was laundered. She also argues that her attorney didn’t call witnesses who could have helped her case on the money laundering charges.

When given the opportunity to testify on her own behalf, Pizano claims her attorney told her not to do so because the government could then tell the jury of her prior felony conviction. She claims in the motion that during closing arguments the government mentioned the prior conviction anyway.

Dustin Lemmon can be contacted at (563) 383-2493 or dlemmon@qctimes.com.