Uncle Joe Is Heading Home To An Unsettled Philadelphia Underworld

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

Mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi is being processed out of prison this morning, ending a two
and a half year stay as a "guest" of the government in the Federal Detention Center at 7th and Arch streets.

Judge  Eduardo Robreno dismissed the remaining counts pending against the 74-year-old crime leader after federal prosecutors filed a motion yesterday declaring that they would not retry Ligambi a third time on conspiracy and gambling charges.

Ligambi has been in jail since he and a dozen others were indicted on racketeering conspiracy and related gambling and loansharking charges in May 2011. He was twice denied bail.

But once federal authorities filed a motion to dismiss the remaining counts against him, bail was no longer an issue.

Most observers believe the U.S. Attorney's Office wisely opted to cut its losses and save the fight for another day. Whether that day is close at hand remains an open question. If the government comes again with a mob case, those in both law enforcement and the criminal defense bar believe, it will need a more substantial body of evidence than it had this time around.

... The two veteran mobsters returned to an underworld that is at best unsettled. Whether either will attempt to exert control and influence is a question being asked by both state and federal authorities.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2014/01/uncle-joe-is-heading-home-to-unsettled.html#more

Borgesi Acquitted, Jury Hangs On Key Charges Against Ligambi In Philly Mob Trial

 

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

 

In a stunning rebuke of the government's case, a jury today found mobster George Borgesi not guilty of racketeering conspiracy, acquitted mob boss Joe Ligambi of a witness tampering charge and hung on three other counts against Ligambi.

The panel of 11 women and one man had voted 10-2 to acquit Ligambi of a conspiracy charge and two gambling charges he faced.

Ligambi's lawyer, Edwin Jacobs Jr., said he would file a motion next week asking for bail for Ligambi, 74, who has been jailed since he was indicted in the case back in May 2011. Borgesi, 50, was released today. The South Philadelphia capo, who is Ligambi's nephew, has been in jail since his arrest in an unrelated racketeering case in March 2000 for which he subsequently was sentenced to 14 years.

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.bigtrial.net/2014/01/day-nine-in-mob-jury-deliberatoins.html#more 

Partial Verdict In Philly Mob Trial Remains Sealed

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

The jury has a partial verdict in the racketeering conspiracy retrial of mob boss Joe Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi.

But we don't know what it is.

And we will have to wait at least three more days before we have any chance of finding out.

The jury of 11 women and one man recessed early this afternoon after wrapping up a seventh day of deliberations that was marked by a mid morning announcement of the partial verdict.

http://www.bigtrial.net/2014/01/partial-verdict-in-mob-trial-remains.html#more

Deliberations Continue In Philly Mob Trial

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

No questions...and no verdict.

After listening to about 15 minutes of taped conversation this morning, the jury in the racketeering conspiracy retrial of mob boss Joe Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi hunkered down for a sixth day of deliberations.

The panel of 11 women and one man called it quits around 4 p.m. and headed home. They will be back at it tomorrow at 9:30. Looming is a three-day weekend (Monday is a federal holiday -- Martin Luther King Day), meaning that if there is no decision tomorrow, the case will go into next week.

While the group sent a note to Judge Eduardo Robreno Monday afternoon saying there was an "impasse" in deliberations, there has been no indication that the panel has bogged down since then.
Ligambi, 74, and Borgesi, 50, are both charged with racketeering conspiracy linked to what authorities say was an organized crime gambling and loansharking operation that ran from 1999 through 2011. Ligambi also faces two gambling charges and one count of witness intimidation.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2014/01/deliberations-continue-in-mob-trial.html#more

Do Tapes Hold The Answer In Philly Mob Trial?

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

It could be a tale of the tapes, and that might not be a good thing for the defense.

Jurors started their fifth day of deliberations in the racketeering conspiracy retrial of mob boss Joe Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi by asking to hear replays of several tapes introduced by the prosecution during the eight-week trial.

And they ended the day by asking to hear a half dozen more.

The panel of 11 women and one man is due to resume deliberations at 9:30 tomorrow morning. Whether they have overcome the impasse cited in a jury note on Monday remains an open question.

What does appear clear is that the panel is working.
Most of the tapes played today were used by the prosecution to support the conspiracy charge that is at the heart of the case.

But the panel also asked to rehear a now infamous tape picked up on a Pennsylvania State Police wiretap in the late 1990s in which Borgesi is heard boasting and cackling about how he beat up and knocked out mob associate Angelo Lutz.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2014/01/do-tapes-hold-answer-in-mob-trial.html

Jury Deliberations Set To Begin In Philly Mob Trial

 

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is coering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

 

A jury is expected to begin deliberating early tomorrow in the racketeering conspiracy retrial of mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his nephew and co-defendant George Borgesi.

The anonymously chosen panel of 10 women and two men heard more than two hours of closing arguments this morning and then sat through  two more hours of Judge Eduardo Robreno's explanation of the laws that apply to the case.

Robreno's methodical charge is expected to conclude tomorrow morning shortly after court is brought back into session at 9:30 a.m. Deliberations will begin once the judge completes his explanation.

Arguments today were a reprise of defense and prosecution positions outlined for the jury Monday.
Ligambi's lawyer, Edwin Jacobs Jr. continued with the two themes he had offered earlier --  the mob in Philadelphia no longer exists and the government failed to provide evidence to back up its charges.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor returned to the issues he had underscored in his opening statement back on Nov. 7. "What this case is about is how the mob makes money through crime," he said.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2014/01/jury-deliberations-set-to-begin-in-mob.html#more

Philly Mob On Trial: Closing Arguments Offer Differnet Stories In Ligambi Racketeering Trial

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

The federal government is still fighting a war it won more than a decade ago, the lawyer for mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi told a jury this afternoon while asking the panel to reject the prosecution's case against his client and co-defendant George Borgesi.

"There was a sea change in 1999," Ligambi's lawyer, Edwin Jacobs Jr. told the jury. La Cosa Nostra in Philadelphia, he said, "is a shell" (of what it once was). "It's every man for himself...The FBI won the war."

And the result, said Christopher Warren, Borgesi's attorney, is a case built around "a theater of the absurd."

Those were two of the high points of more than two hours of spirited closing argument by the defense today in the racketeering conspiracy retrial of Ligambi, 74, and Borgesi, 50.

The prosecution, to no one's great surprise, presented the anonymously chosen jury panel with a decidedly different take, painting the two defendants as leaders of an organized crime family that engaged in gambling, loansharking and extortion and that used its reputation for violence to further the criminal conspiracy at the heart of the case.

"La Cosa Nostra, This Thing of Ours, Our Thing," said Assistant U.S. Attorney John Han. "It was Joe Ligambi's thing. It was George Borgesi's thing."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2014/01/closing-arguments-offer-diffrerent.html

The Borgesis Rant On The Eve Of The Philly Mob Trial Rerun

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the Philadelphia organized crime trials in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

It could be a packed house for what basically amounts to a rerun.

Friends and family members of mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his nephew, mobster George Borgesi, are expected to fill the small, 15th floor courtroom tomorrow for opening statements in the retrial of the two South Philadelphia wiseguys.

Ligambi, 74, and Borgesi, 50, are facing a racketeering conspiracy charge, a leftover from a broader racketeering case that ended in February with both defendants acquitted of most of the charges they faced. Borgesi beat 13 of the 14 counts and Ligambi was acquitted of five of  nine.

The turnout in U.S. District Court at 6th and Market is expected to be a public showing of support for the two gangsters who have been held without bail since an indictment was handed down in May 2011. It also comes on the heels of a blistering attack by Borgesi's family in the Philadelphia Daily News last week in which they charged that George Borgesi was the victim of a government vendetta. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/11/retrial-rehash-for-ligambi-borgesi.html#more

It's Deja Vu All Over Again In Philly Mob Case

George Anastasia is covering the federal trials of reputed organized crime figures in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

Same case.

Different jury.

And, the government hopes, a different result.

The ground work for the retrial of mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his nephew, mobster George Borgesi, will be laid out tomorrow afternoon at a pre-trial hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Eduardo Robreno. The trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 15 and last from six to eight weeks.

Tomorrow, Robreno will hear oral arguments on a series of pre-trial motions that will set the parameters for what literally will amount to a life or death struggle for Ligambi. The 73-year-old mob leader could face from 10 to 20 years in prison if convicted of the racketeering conspiracy charge that is at the heart of the case that remains against him.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/09/by-george-anastasia-for-bigtrial.html