NYC caviar fugitive, 69, is given leniency

— A 69-year old luxury-food distributor who was charged with unlawfully importing caviar but evaded arrest for nearly a quarter-century before being captured last year won’t have to spend any more time in prison after a judge sentenced him on Monday to time served, citing his age and the lack of victims.

Isidoro “Mario” Garbarino, who’s from Italy, smiled and shook hands with his defense lawyers after U.S. District Judge Kevin Duffy told him he could expect to be leaving the United States for his native country within days because deportation is automatic. His defense lawyers said he likely would live eventually in Argentina and the Dominican Republic.

The judge told Garbarino he “got a break” and warned: “God forbid you should ever screw up again.”

The judge said Garbarino’s main punishment will be to live with the shame he had brought upon himself and his family.

“The case is old and, more importantly, the defendant is old. I know what old means, perhaps more than anybody else in the courtroom,” said the judge, who turns 80 this week.

The sentencing in Manhattan came after Garbarino admitted he had unlawfully imported more than 100,000 pounds of Russian and Iranian caviar in the 1980s.

Garbarino was arrested by U.S. marshals after he was caught changing planes in Panama. He had been jailed since September. He was president of Aquamar Gourmet Imports Inc., a now-defunct company that supplied luxury-food items to gourmet stores, airlines and cruise lines.

Originally charged in a November 1987 indictment, he posted his Greenwich, Conn., home as bail and fled the country in July 1989. Prosecutors said he had spent time in Como, Italy. He has paid $3 million in restitution.

Business, Pages 26 on 01/08/2013

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