By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net

Will Kaboni Savage be the first defendant sentenced to death in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania since the federal death sentence was reinstituted in 1988?

That's the question the anonymously chosen jury that convicted Savage of racketeering and murder two weeks ago will begin wrestling with today. The nine women and three men are expected to start their life or death deliberations later this morning after being instructed by Judge R. Barclay Surrick on the legal issues that apply in the capital murder case.

The only two options for the panel are death or life without parole. The jury, which heard arguments and testimony for five days during the penalty phase of the trial, must first unanimously decide that the death penalty is warranted. The panel must then vote unanimously to impose it.

One juror's reticence would automatically result in a life without parole sentence, a point that Savage's defense attorney William Purpura emphasized during his closing arguments yesterday. Purpura asked the panel to end the violence by choosing a life sentence for the convicted drug kingpin.

Federal prosecutor Steven Mellin, on the other hand, argued that a death sentence was the only way to insure that Savage would not try to reach out from prison to murder witnesses or their families.

Savage was convicted of 12 counts of murder-in-aid-of-racketeering during the 13-week trial. Eight of the 12 murders were linked to witness intimidation, including the 2004 firebombing of a row house in North Philadelphia in which two women and four children -- family members of a cooperating witness -- were killed.

Savage ordered the firebombing while in prison awaiting trial on drug trafficking charges. He also ordered the murder of another witness while awaiting trial on a separate homicide case, according to trial testimony.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gallagher, another federal prosecutor in the case, had compared Savage to a "mass murderer" during the penalty phase of the trial. In fact, the 12 murders place Savage in the upper echelon of underworld gangsters in terms of murder convictions.

Mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, for example, was convicted in a federal racketeering case in 1988 that included nine murders and four attempted murders. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison. In 1995, mob boss John Stanfa was sentenced to five consecutive life terms after being convicted of racketeering charges that included five murders.

Neither Scarfo nor Stanfa faced a potential death sentence, but in recent years several drug kingpins have been tried in capital murder cases in the Eastern District (which includes Philadelphia and its surrounding counties).

In those cases, however, the juries opted to impose life without parole.

In 2010, Maurice Phillips,  a major cocaine trafficker who generated millions of dollars in a drug network that stretched from Texas to New York, was convicted of ordering the murder of a woman witness who had begun cooperating with authorities. Phillips was sentenced to life without parole.

In another capital murder case, three members of the notorious Boyle Street Boys, a Chester drug gang, were convicted in a 2006 case that included four murders. One of the victims was a woman, the mother of two young children, who had made straw gun purchases for the gang but had then begun cooperating.

All three gang members were sentenced to life.

In all, according to statistics gathered by the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organization that tracks federal capital cases, there have been 69 defendants sentenced to death in  since 1988. Three have been executed. The other defendants are either still appealing those sentences or have had those sentences overturned on appeal.

The only federal case in Pennsylvania came from the Middle District where David Paul Hammer was convicted of strangling to death his cellmate in the federal penitentiary at Allenwood. Hammer, a career offender from Oklahoma, serving a sentence of more than 100 years on an assortment of charges. He was sentenced to death, but has won an appeal overturning that sentence. The appeal has not yet been finalized.

George Anastasia can be contacted at George@bigtrial.net.

By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net

The jury voted for death.

Thirteen times.

After deliberating for about eight hours over two days, the anonymously chosen panel in the murder-racketeering trial of North Philadelphia drug kingpin Kaboni Savage announced late this afternoon its decision to sentence Savage, 38, to death by lethal injection.

The panel chose death again and again, imposing the death sentence once for each of the 12 murder counts in the case and a final time for a count of murder as an act of retaliation against a witness. Six of the murders and the retaliation count were related to the October 2004 firebombing of a home in North Philadelphia in which two women and four children were killed.

The victims were family members of Eugene Coleman, a Savage associate who had begun cooperating against him. The arson was considered one of the most horrendous examples of witness intimidation in a Philadelphia underworld where witnesses and their families have been described as moving targets by law enforcement and underworld sources.

Tapes played during the trial included a conversation in which Savage underscored that situation. "No fuckin' witness, no crime," he said.

Christian Hoey, one of Savage's two court-appointed lawyers, said last night that he was "disappointed" in the jury's decision, but respected the panel's work. He said both the conviction and the death sentences would be appealed, a process that could take years.

Hoey said his client had no reaction when the jury decision was read in open court. Savage, a former boxer who is already serving a 30-year sentence for drug trafficking, is the first defendant in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to be sentenced to death since the federal death sentence was reinstituted in 1988.

Judge R. Barclay Surrick is to formally impose the sentence on Monday. The jury will then begin hearing testimony and evidence in the death penalty phase of the trial for a second defendant, convicted underworld hitman Steven Northington, 41. Northington is charged with two murders unrelated to the firebombing.

Savage, his sister Kidada, 30, Northington and Robert Merritt, 32, were convicted following a 13-week trial. Both Kidada Savage and Merritt could be sentenced to life in prison.

Lawyers for Savage had argued for a life sentence, the only other option the jury panel had once it had convicted Savage of the capital murder offenses earlier this month.

Among the aggravating factors the jury weighed in arriving at the death sentence were the heinous and brutal nature of firebombing murders in which Coleman's mother, his step-sister, his 15-month old son, two nephews aged 12 and 15, and a niece, 10, were killed.

The trial included testimony from Eugene Coleman and from Lamont Lewis who admitted that he had thrown a gasoline can into the Coleman home on North Sixth Street, turning the house into an inferno. Lewis said he was acting on orders from Kaboni Savage that were relayed to him through Kidada Savage.

The victims, prosecutors said and autopsy reports showed, had been "cooked" in a raging inferno that quickly engulfed the house shortly before 6 a.m. on Oct. 9, 2004. The murders of children and helpless victims were aggravating factors cited by the prosecution in seeking the death sentence.

Lewis testified that Merritt was with him and helped set the fire. The jury found Merritt not guilty of the six murder-in-aid-of-racketeering charges, but guilty of the racketeering conspiracy that was part of the arson. He could be sentenced to life as a result, but avoided a death sentence hearing.

In voting for the death sentence, the jurors rejected the impassioned plea of defense attorney William Purpura who in his closing arguments on Wednesday asked the panel to end the violence by choosing a life sentence for the convicted drug kingpin. He also asked the panel not to impose a harsher sentence on his client than the sentence that will be imposed on Lamont Lewis.

Lewis, under the terms of his plea agreement, faces 40 years to life.

Federal prosecutor Steven Mellin, on the other hand, argued that a death sentence was the only way to insure that Savage would not try to reach out from prison to murder witnesses or their families.

Eight of the 12 murders listed in the case were linked to witness intimidation, including the 2004 firebombing. The jury also heard hundreds of secretly recorded conversation in which Savage ranted and raged against cooperators, threatening to kill them and their families.

There were also devastating tapes in which he laughed and cackled about the firebombing and about killing the children of other witness. (Six of those Savage tapes can be heard on Bigtrial.net.). On one he joked that Coleman should have been given "barbecue sauce" to take to the funerals of his family members and that the sauce should have been poured "on those burnt bitches."

Savage ordered the firebombing while in prison awaiting trial on drug trafficking charges. He also ordered the murder of another witness while awaiting trial on a separate homicide case, according to trial testimony.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gallagher, another federal prosecutor in the case, had compared Savage to a "mass murderer" during the penalty phase of the trial. In fact, the 12 murders place Savage in the upper echelon of underworld gangsters in terms of murder convictions.

Mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, for example, was convicted in a federal racketeering case in 1988 that included nine murders and four attempted murders. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison. In 1995, mob boss John Stanfa was sentenced to five consecutive life terms after being convicted of racketeering charges that included five murders.

Neither Scarfo nor Stanfa faced a potential death sentence, but in recent years several drug kingpins have been tried in capital murder cases in the Eastern District (which includes Philadelphia and its surrounding counties).

In those cases, however, the juries opted to impose life without parole.

In 2010, Maurice Phillips,  a major cocaine trafficker who generated millions of dollars in a drug network that stretched from Texas to New York, was convicted of ordering the murder of a woman witness who had begun cooperating with authorities. Phillips was sentenced to life without parole.

In another capital murder case, three members of the notorious Boyle Street Boys, a Chester drug gang, were convicted in a 2006 case that included four murders. One of the victims was a woman, the mother of two young children, who had made straw gun purchases for the gang but had then begun cooperating.

All three gang members were sentenced to life.

In all, according to statistics gathered by the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organization that tracks federal capital cases, there have been 69 defendants sentenced to death  since 1988. Three have been executed. The other defendants are either still appealing those sentences or have had those sentences overturned on appeal.

The only other federal death sentence in Pennsylvania came from the Middle District where David Paul Hammer was convicted of strangling to death his cellmate in the federal penitentiary at Allenwood. Hammer, a career offender from Oklahoma, was serving a sentence of more than 100 years on an assortment of charges. He was sentenced to death, but has won an appeal overturning that sentence. The appellate court ruling has not yet been finalized.

George Anastasia can be contacted at George@bigtrial.net.

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

In the last four years, Father Charles Engelhardt has lost 50 pounds.

But as his boss, Father James J. Greenfield, will tell you, "This is a weight loss program I wouldn't wish on anyone."

Four years ago, the 5-foot-11 priest weighed 220 pounds. He had a double chin and a pot belly. But last week, according to his family, when they visited him in jail, Father Engelhardt looked frail and barely weighed 170. His arms, sticking out of a bright-yellow jumpsuit, were skinnier than his baby sister's.

The priest wore a bandage from a recent blood test, his family said. A prison doctor told the family he ordered an EKG. The 66-year-old priest suffers from hypertension and acid reflex. When his family visits him in jail, he is often moved to tears.

It's stress, his family said, the cumulative toll of being unjustly accused of rape by somebody the priest can't even remember.

Father Engelhardt's family is braced for the worst. And yet from his cell at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Northeast Philadelphia, the priest remains hopeful.

"His faith is so strong that he truly believes that the truth will win out," says Elaine, his older sister.

His family, however, has doubts.

"I think God's taken a vacation on this one," Elaine said.

Jennifer, who married one of Father Engelhardt's nephews, tried to explain "Uncle Charlie's" role in his large extended Irish-Catholic family in Northeast Philadelphia.

Bigtrial.net reporter George Anastasia will be interviewed on WHYY's Radio Times (FM 90.9) from 11 to noon today about the Kaboni Savage trial and the broader topic of the Philadelphia drug underworld, its connections to government and what this case says about the city.

Bigtrial.net has provided extensive coverage of the Savage case and also has had exclusive access to audio tapes used as evidence during the trial. Six different tapes are available on the website as well as more than two dozen stories about the case.

George Anastasia can be contacted at George@bigtrial.net

In this tape, Kaboni Savage is speaking to inmate Dawud Bey about his desire to light a prison guard captain on fire.

About these tapes:

In 2004 the FBI secreted a listening device in the prison cell of Kaboni Savage at the Federal Detention Center.

Savage was awaiting trial on drug trafficking charges and was a suspect in several homicides. The North Philly cocaine kingpin was being held in the prison's Special Housing Unit (SHU) with limited access to other prisoners.

Dozens of conversations were recorded in which Savage ranted about former associates who were cooperating. Savage said he would kill the cooperators and their families.

The tapes were originally played at Savage's drug trial in 2005. He was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Many of these tapes have also been played at Savage's ongoing murder-racketeering trial in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Bernard Shero can be alone in a room with somebody, but he doesn't know who's there until he hears a voice.

"He can't distinguish faces," his mother Bonnie says. "He's done that all his life. He doesn't know it's them until they start talking."

"He has to get this close," his father, Bob, says. He's leaning on his wife's shoulder, peering over her at a menu she's holding inside a Bucks County diner. If Bernard was walking into the diner today, Bob says, he would have had to tell him, "Watch out, Bern, there's a step coming."

Bernard Shero was born with congenital cataracts. Between the ages of six months and seven years, he had 23 eye operations. He's worn glasses since he was 18 months old. He's legally blind in his right eye, and can't drive at night.

Bernard Shero has spent a lifetime peering at the world through thick lenses, and getting too close to people. That's why, Bonnie Shero is convinced, Billy Doe accused her son of rape.

"I think he was an easy target because of his handicap," his mother says of her son. After five years of legal drama, Bonnie Shero is worn out.

"It's been hell, it's been a nightmare," she says. "You wake up in the morning thinking about it. You go to sleep thinking about it. It's on your mind constantly."

And it's about to get worse. On Wednesday, June 12th, the 49-year-old Shero will be sentenced after being convicted Jan. 30 on five sex abuse charges. He's facing up to 57 years in jail.

Bonnie Shero says when Bernard was seven years old, she considered sending him to the Overbrook School for the Blind, but decided instead to mainstream him. Her thinking was, "he has to live in a sighted world."

"Now, I think I made the wrong decision," she says. Her son had a hard time as a kid in public school.

"Kids were cruel to him," his mother says. "They would take his coat. They would take his glasses. They would put thumbtacks on his seat. Lots of times he wouldn't tell us what was going on in school. I had no idea everything that was going on with him."

Bernie wanted to be a special ed teacher, to help kids like himself, but he couldn't find a job. He finally got hired as an elementary school teacher at St. Jerome School, in Northeast Philadelphia.

In 2009, when Billy Doe first made his accusation of sex abuse, Bernard Shero was speechless.

"He was shocked, he was dumbfounded," says his sister Robin. He had to dig out an old yearbook to remember who Billy Doe was, an 11-year-old kid in his sixth grade homeroom class during the 1999-2000 school year. "He didn't remember him off the top of his head," his sister says.

"When the charges hit, our world fell apart," his mother says. "Bernard's world fell apart."

His mom kept telling him, "We know you're innocent. We'll be there for you as long as you need it. We'll always be there for you no matter what."


His cellmate for the past four months has been his co-defendant, Father Charles Engelhardt. Both men are in protective custody. Once a week, one of Father Engelhardt's priest friends shows up to say Mass and serve Communion.

Shero sports a buzz cut from the prison barber. Twice a week, he is handed a disposable razor, so he can shave. At 5-foot-8 and 160 pounds, Shero is 30 pounds lighter than he was four years ago, when his legal troubles began.

"He has his good days and bad days," Robin says.

"We try to be optimistic with him," his mother says. "We do everything we can. He is optimistic that he will be coming home on June 12th, and be granted a new trial."

His mother doesn't share his optimism.

"I do not have faith in the justice system anymore," she says.

And even if some miracle occurs on June 12th, or he wins an appeal, Bonnie Shero still sees a bleak future ahead for her son.

"Bernard's life is gone," she says. "He'll never be able to get his job back. He won't be a teacher any more. He won't be able to get a job anywhere. Nobody's gonna hire him."

Bernard Shero has spent every dollar he had on his legal defense. His family plans to sell off his last remaining possession, a 1996 Suburu, to raise money for his appeal.

"Bernard has lost everything and he'll never be able to gain it back," his mother says.

Meanwhile, Billy Doe is a free man looking forward to a big pay day once his civil suit against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia gets settled. A civil suit that, according to Billy Doe's sworn trial testimony, was filed by a lawyer that the D.A.'s office hooked him up with.

With Seth Williams as our district attorney, this is what passes for justice in Philadelphia. Bernard Shero  will probably spend the rest of his life in jail. And Billy Doe will probably be a multi-millionaire.

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Assistant District Attorney Evangelia Manos

Judge Ellen Ceisler today gave onetime Catholic school teacher Bernard Shero a jail sentence of 8 to 16 years for raping a former altar boy dubbed "Billy Doe." The judge threw out one charge against Father Charles Engelhardt, a bogus conspiracy rap, as unproven, but still hit the priest with 6 to 12 years in jail for sexually abusing the former altar boy.

The judged handed out the sentences even though a mandatory Commonwealth psychological exam had determined that neither defendant was a sexually violent predator. The judge tacked on five years of probation to each defendant's jail sentence.

It was a bizarre day in court. The proceedings featured defendant Shero rising in an unsuccessful attempt to debate Assistant District Attorney Enangelia Manos. Billy Doe didn't show, but his brother finally did, via a letter to the judge read aloud by the prosecutor. [During the trial, the jury had sent a note to the judge inquiring about the whereabouts of Billy's older brother].

But the low light of the day came when prosecutor Manos began testifying about a decades-old unproven allegation against Father Engelhardt that never made it before the jury, and was not in evidence in the case. That didn't deter prosecutor Manos from using the sentencing hearing to charge Father Engelhardt with a new crime. The prosecutor shouted out what she claimed the priest had allegedly said decades ago to a male relative, namely, "I want to fuck you up the ass!"

Classy. No wonder the proceedings left several female relatives of both defendants sobbing in court. That came to the attention the court crier, who ordered the sobbing relatives to leave, thereby calling even more attention to the situation.

The sobbing relatives weren't the only spectators to leave the courtroom in disgust. One veteran lawyer left muttering he didn't know how the prosecutor could sleep at night. Father James J. Greenfield, head of the religious order that employs Father Engelhardt, described the proceedings as "a punch in the gut."

D.A. Manos appeared to be aiming even lower. But to District Attorney Seth Williams, this was justice.

"This prison sentence sends a clear message to sexual assault victims in Philadelphia," Williams said in a prepared statement. "If you come forward, you will be heard. I would also like to compliment the jury for its hard work in carefully sifting through the evidence and coming up with a just verdict."

Judge Ellen Ceisler

In order to get up to the 9th floor of the Criminal Justice Center, where Judge Ceisler was holding court, spectators had their choice of riding in suffocating, overcrowded elevators that left people fanning themselves. Or hiking up nine flights of stairwells past prominent no-smoking signs, clouds of nicotine, and smokers puffing away with impunity.

Courtroom 905 was packed. Sitting prominently in the front row were the parents of the victim, and their lawyer for Billy Doe's civil suit against the archdiocese. All three were wearing green ribbons in support of abuse victims. Billy Doe was conspicuous by his absence.

Burton A. Rose was the first lawyer to address Judge Ceisler. Rose, who represented Shero, and Michael J. McGovern, who represented Engelhardt, had notified the judge in advance that they were going to make oral motions for extraordinary relief.

Rose told the judge the verdict was not justified by the weight of the evidence. He cited an abundance of reasonable doubt in the case, and said the guilty verdicts constituted a "serious miscarriage of justice."

The victim's story "makes no sense," Rose lamented. Billy Doe told conflicting stories and there were no corroborating witnesses or evidence, Rose said.

The judge quickly notified Rose that his plea was falling on deaf ears.

"I don't want to relive the whole trial," she said.

Rose continued talking about the unreliable testimony of Billy Doe, and his 23 drug rehabs in the past 10 years.

"The jury for whatever reason ignored evidence of reasonable doubt," Rose said.

The defense lawyer brought up Father Ed Avery, and the guilty plea that the former priest testified during the trial was bogus. This case should be retried, Rose concluded.

Next it was McGovern's turn. He talked about the discrepancies between Billy Doe's various accounts of the rape by Father Engelhardt. How Billy Doe first told an archdiocese social worker that Father Engelhardt anally raped him for four or five hours in the sacristy at St. Jerome's Church.

And then how Billy Doe, in subsequent versions of his story, kept changing the details. It wasn't anal sex, it was oral sex,  then it was mutual masturbation. It wasn't one incident, it was four incidents. The discrepancies in Billy Doe's various versions of the alleged assault should "shock the conscience," McGovern told the judge.

The judge clearly wasn't buying it. But she did say that one of the charges against Father Engelhardt, that he conspired with Father Avery to rape Billy Doe, didn't appear to have any evidence behind it.

Manos got up to dispute that. "They worked together, they lived together," she said of the two priests who lived at St. Jerome's rectory. Manos brought up the code word "sessions," saying that only the two priests used that word to describe sex with Billy Doe.

It didn't matter to the prosecutor that the "sessions" story line was suspect from day one. Or that the district attorney's own detectives found a far more likely origin for the word sessions, a word that both priests claimed they never used.

The use of the code word sessions was direct proof of a conspiracy, Manos argued. The defendants had a fair trial, they got to cross-examine the victim, and they lost, Manos said.

"They just don't like the verdict."

It was the judge's turn to rule.

The judge said the jury took their job "extremely seriously" and "they believed the victim." There were discrepancies in the victim's stories, the judge agreed, but "that alone does not require reasonable doubt." Especially, she said, because the victim's initial account to the archdiocese social worker came when Billy Doe was "ambushed and under the influence of heroin."

The looks on the faces of Shero and Engelhardt's family members spoke of stunned disbelief.

The discrepancies in Billy Doe's accounts, the judge continued, "does not shock my conscience."

But regarding the conspiracy charge, the judge ruled that the jury had made an "error of law" by finding Father Engelhardt guilty of conspiring with Father Avery. There was no evidence to back the conspiracy charge, the judge said.

By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net

Mousie

Mobsters Joseph "Mousie" Massimino and Damion Canalichio have to wait at least another month before finding out their fate, but the convicted wiseguys are going to go down swinging.

Lawyers for both Philadelphia crime figures have filed motions challenging pre-sentence reports that suggest each should be sentenced to from 17 to 21 years in prison for their February convictions on racketeering conspiracy charges. Their lawyers argue the guidelines should be in the four- to six-year range.

Their sentencings, postponed for a second time, are now scheduled for July.

Two other defendants in that case, mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi, who are to be retried on those same conspiracy charges -- the jury hung on those counts against Ligambi and Borgesi -- are also in pitched legal battles that could set the tone for their retrial in October.

Ligambi's lawyer wants to insure that the criminal charges for which the jury found Uncle Joe not guilty in February can't be used to support the conspiracy charge central to the retrial that is to begin Oct. 15. Borgesi's lawyer, meanwhile, is trying to have the conspiracy count -- the only remaining charge against his client -- thrown out, arguing that since Borgesi was acquitted of 13 specific criminal charges in the first trial, there is nothing left to support the conspiracy count.

Georgie Borgesi and Damion Canalichio

Prosecutors this week asked for a second extension of the deadline to file a response. They now have until June 17 to reply.

In arguing that the case against Borgesi, 50, should be dropped, Christopher Warren wrote that the racketeering conspiracy charge is based on the same criminal allegations detailed in the 13 counts for which Borgesi was found not guilty.


As he had during the trial, Santaguida called the government's case "a cinematic fiction" built on the  the frustration of law enforcement for its failure to develop a more significant racketeering indictment despite a 10-year investigation.

Santaguida said the indictment was "nothing more than a glorified gambling case" and that the government was "forced to blow these acts out of proportion because they wasted millions of tax dollars and resources" in the decade-long probe.

Canalichio's lawyer, Margaret Grasso, offered many of the same arguments in contesting the high guideline range that her client faces. A twice-convicted drug dealer, Canalichio was tied to a low-level bookmaking operation, she argued, and at best played a minor role in the operation,

Both lawyers cited the lack of specificity in the jury's verdict to argue against a government interpretation that the two defendants were major mob operatives and part of a broad conspiracy.

Massimino, 62, is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. Battaglini, 52, will be sentenced on July 12; Canalichio, 43, on July 16, and Staino, 55, on July 17. In the latest development in the case, Robert Ranieri, 37, entered a guilty plea today to an extortion charge and avoided trial. He is to be sentenced in September.

Ranieri and Eric Espositio, charged with bookmaking, were severed from the original trial. Esposito is now scheduled to be tried with Ligambi and Borgesi in October, but several sources say he is likely to enter a plea.

While defense attorneys continue to tout the case as overblown -- Jacobs has referred to it as "racketeering lite" -- prosecutors point to the results. Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor noted at the end of the trial in February that most of the defendants in the case had either pleaded guilty or been convicted.

Of the 14 original defendants, six have pleaded guilty and four were found guilty at trial. Only Joseph "Scoops" Licata, 71, was found not guilty and is free. So while defense attorneys point to a jury verdict that they say "gutted" the prosecution's case, most of the defendants are in jail.

And in the cases of Massimino and Canalichio, they could be there for a very long time. 

George Anastasia can be contacted at George@bigtrial.net.

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Former state Senator Vincent J. Fumo sued the federal government today, alleging that the U.S. Attorney's office colluded with the IRS to seek revenge on him.

In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court's Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Fumo's lawyer, Mark E. Cedrone, charged that the IRS had no "plausible, legitimate justification supporting its decision to employ the draconian and infrequently used jeopardy assessment process" against Fumo.

On March 21, the IRS formally notifying Fumo in prison that he was being hit with the extremely rare "notice of jeopardy assessment and levy," which, including tax, interest and penalties, amounted to a bill for a total of $2.9 million.

Despite the feds' request for a longer sentence, on Nov. 10, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter re-sentenced Fumo to 61 months in prison. Ironically, the lawsuit filed by Cedrone was assigned to Judge Buckwalter.

"Specifically, [Fumo] believes the Department of Justice officials who prosecuted [Fumo] may have inappropriately influenced, or at least attempted to influence, the IRS," the lawsuit says. Fumo is "aware that IRS and DOJ [Department of Justice] officials have communicated by e-mail in relation to the IRS's decision to invoke the jeopardy assessment process," the lawsuit alleges.

Fumo is "in possession of some, but not all, e-mails between IRS and DOJ officials," the lawsuit says. Fumo "belief that the IRS has been inappropriately influenced is also supported by the absence of any legitimate factual basis underlying the jeopardy assessments."

The lawsuit does not quote any of the alleged e-mails between the Department of Justice, and the IRS. Fumo has long engaged in an acrimonious relationship with the prosecutors who put him away, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Zauzmer, and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Pease.

It would be quite a reversal if Fumo is successful in his attempt to use federal e-mails as evidence of collusion between the prosecutors and the IRS. Fumo's e-mails were famously used against him in his fraud case. The feds also spied on Fumo in prison, using his angry e-mails as evidence against him when they sought a longer jail sentence.

Before he filed the lawsuit in federal court today, Fumo exhausted his appeals to the IRS over the jeopardy assessment. Fumo is scheduled to be released this August.

According to the lawsuit, the IRS issued notices of levy on six financial institutions, freezing $2.7 million of Fumo's assets, including a $2.5 million tax-deferred retirement account held at United Savings Bank in Philadelphia.

After the IRS froze his assets, Fumo sought a "collection due process hearing," but was turned down by the IRS.

According to the lawsuit, a jeopardy assessment is only to be used if the IRS feels that the taxpayer is planning "quickly to depart from the United States or to conceal himself or herself." A jeopardy assessment may also be used if the taxpayer is attempting to place property "beyond the reach of the Government" by removing it from the U.S., concealing it, or dissipating it, or transferring it to other persons, the lawsuit says. The only other condition for levying a jeopardy assessment according to U.S. Treasury regulations is when the taxpayer's "solvency is or appears to be imperiled," the suit states.

"None of the three conditions precedent to a jeopardy assessment or jeopardy levy is present here," the suit says. Fumo remains in prison, and has no plans to leave the country. In the lawsuit, Cedrone describes the jeopardy assessments as "illegal and invalid."

In addition, the suit attaches as an exhibit an affidavit from Michael F. Rogers, a Blue Bell tax lawyer who represented Fumo in recent property transfers that attracted the attention of the feds. In the affidavit, "Mr. Rogers confirms that [Fumo] transferred the real estate to 'take advantage of the expiring approximately $5 million exemption' " for existing estate tax credits.

"Clearly, [Fumo] did not transfer any real estate as a part of any plan to design to place property beyond the reach of the government," the lawsuit says.

By Ralph Cipriano

The District Attorney's Star Witness

for Bigtrial.net

Judge Ellen Ceisler just sent two innocent men to jail.

Even people inside the district attorney's office know that Father Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero are innocent.

It should have never gotten this far. Billy Doe told an unbelievable story about a former altar boy being passed around like a pinata among three rapists. It's an x-rated fractured fairy tale that makes no sense in any of its various versions. Billy Doe should have been laughed out of the D.A.'s office.

Instead, when Billy told his improbable tale, the D.A. and a couple of gullible prosecutors bought it. Whether they were blinded by misguided empathy, political ambition, or hatred of the church, it doesn't really matter. It was as if they all got high on whatever Billy was peddling.

It was a story with no corroborating witnesses or evidence, just the tales of a drug-addled goofball who had been in and out of 23 drug rehabs in the past 10 years and had once bragged to a drug counselor that he was a natural salesman. In court he proved his point; perhaps he'll switch from selling drugs to selling used cars.

The end result is that two innocent men are sitting in jail today. When a travesty of this magnitude occurs, there's always plenty of blame to go around.

In today's post-mortem, we're going to try not to miss anybody.

THE FORMER D.A.'S OFFICE

There is circumstantial evidence that indicates the regime under former District Attorney Lynne Abraham took a look at Billy Doe's story, realized it was nonsense, and decided that the Billy Doe file should be thrown in the trash can where it belonged. But that never happened, and we don't know why.

There is a puzzling year-long gap in the official record of the case between Jan. 30, 2009, the day Billy phoned in his report of abuse to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and Jan. 28, 2010, when Detective Drew Snyder drove out to Graterford prison to yank Billy out of jail, and bring him down to the district attorney's office for questioning.

How can this gap be explained? The people who know this back story continue to remain silent. That's how this kind of travesty can happen. And how two innocent men can wind up in jail.

Maybe somebody should put them all under oath, and ask what happened.

THE CURRENT D.A.

Seth Williams is responsible for this travesty of justice. We have been trying to get some answers from him, but so far he's stonewalled. Three key questions remain unanswered.

As chronicled on this blog, the district attorney's self-described "historic" prosecution of the church was flawed from day one. On Jan. 28, 2010, Detective Drew Snyder drove Billy Doe to the D.A.'s office for questioning. Assistant Mariana Sorenson was on hand, eager to begin her work.

Billy Doe's parents, a Philadelphia police sergeant and a nurse, were allowed to sit in on that interview. The usual practice of the district attorney's office, and the Philadelphia police department, would have been to interview an adult complainant separately. Who knew, on day one of the investigation, if one of the parents may have been abusing the boy? People I trust in law enforcement say interviewing the victim in the presence of his parents, in violation of the usual procedures, is indefensible.

For months, the district attorney has refused to discuss this breach of procedure. It can't be explained. That's why the D.A. remains silent on this topic. He hopes that people will stop asking the question.

The "investigation" of the church was also a travesty. The suspects were rounded up, and the facts of a kangaroo court known as the grand jury were rewritten to fit an official story line. An intellectually dishonest and error-filled grand jury report was then trumpeted as gospel by the press.

That grand jury report still sits online at the D.A.'s website, riddled with more than 20 factual errors. It's still the only official version of what happened.

On Wednesday, when Engelhardt and Shero were sentenced, I asked a smiling Assistant District Attorney Manos how she could explain away all those errors in that grand jury report. Didn't the D.A. have a responsibility to tell the truth? Manos kept smiling and walking and saying nothing. Meanwhile, Tasha Jamerson, the D.A.s spokesperson, kept telling me  my time was up.

At the district attorney's office, they can't answer that question about all those mistakes in the grand jury report. That's why they hope it all goes away.

One other question remains: how could one district attorney, Lynne Abraham, and the 2005 grand jury look at the state's child endangerment law, and put in writing that Msgr. William Lynn, or any Catholic official at the archdiocese, could not be prosecuted for child endangerment because the law didn't apply to them.

And how could another district attorney, Seth Williams, and that 2011 grand jury, look at that exact same child endangerment law and decide that Fathers Lynn, Avery, Brennan and Engelhardt, and former teacher Bernard Shero, could be prosecuted?

I posed that question in National Catholic Reporter a few weeks ago. The district attorney refused to answer. What's amusing is that both contrary opinions issued by the D.A.'s office probably came from the same appeals lawyers adept at legal gymnastics.

They need to explain how this flip-flop occurred and why.

 OFFICIAL SECRECY AND A PASSIVE PRESS

The early judicial proceedings in the investigation of the church were shrouded in secrecy. A grand jury did their work behind closed doors. Judges issued a series of gag orders trampling on the rights of the defendants and their lawyers to freedom of speech. The press corps employed a discriminatory self-censorship policy that allowed the accused to be hung out to dry and have their character assassinated on a daily basis, while the alleged "victims" were granted a cloak of anonymity, all in the name of fairness.

It's a misguided policy that needs to be re-examined.

The press didn't protest one gag order after another. The result was only one official version of the "historic" prosecution of the church, namely that stinking grand jury report that was dishonest, and riddled with factual errors.

We in the press also didn't protest when the judge in this last case, Ellen Ceisler, ramped up the level of secrecy, by sealing all pre-trial motions and closing all pre-trial hearings. So we could have even more secrecy. That's how people get railroaded. Most of it takes place under the cover of darkness.

 THE SINS OF THE CHURCH

 As rightfully exposed by the 2005 grand jury report, the Catholic Church in this town has blood on its hands. The secret archive files of the archdiocese contained so many revolting deeds covered up by two corrupt archbishops, that people rightfully wanted to see some men in collars wind up in jail.

Sadly, they got the wrong guys.

During jury deliberations in the Lynn trial, one TV reporter amused the press corps by loudly proposing that a search party with shovels be sent down to the cemetery to dig up the body of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, and drag His Eminence to court, so he could finally be brought to justice.

As one detective told the mother of Bernie Shero the day he was arrested, I didn't want to arrest your son, I wanted to arrest Cardinal Bevilacqua.

There are some conspiracy theorists who insist that District Attorney Seth Williams must have struck some kind of a deal with church leaders, that if they handed over Msgr. Lynn, the prosecution of the archdiocese would cease.

It's an interesting theory that makes some sense. At one point, all the air did go out of the prosecutorial bandwagon, with no explanation. If men in collars were going to be prosecuted for boundary violations, no bishop was safe. They were all at risk.

Then, the witch hunt suddenly ended. Maybe there was a deal. Sadly, we may never find out.

THE VICTIMS' LOBBY AND THE CULT OF VICTIMIZATION

It's time to deal with the victim's lobby. You know, the folks from SNAP, the guys and gals who show up at every abuse trial with ribbons pinned on their chests. The people who comment so often on this website.

I am actually fond of some of them. They include men and women who have suffered real abuse, or have loved ones who have suffered. Nothing any of us can say or do can make it right. When I hear their stories, who cannot be moved?

However, every "victim" who tells a tale of abuse is not necessarily sainted the minute he opens his mouth. Every new abuse trial is not a forum for victims to relive their ordeals, and root against the men in collars, like a roving lynch mob, so they can extract some misguided measure of revenge on somebody they don't even know.

The cult of victimization is a mob mentality currently sanctioned in this country, and alive and well in Philadelphia. It's the reason the press won't print the names of sex abuse "victims" while they systematically destroy the reputations of the accused. It's a new sacred cow that will only produce more Billy Does.

It's why innocent men wind up in jail.

Father James J. Greenfield, a man who has settled 39 complaints of sex abuse, talked about that sacred cow  in court Wednesday. Greenfield is the head of the regional province of the Oblates of St. Francis De Sales, of which Father Engelhardt is a member.

He talked in court about how in a country where we just elected an African-American president, a new prejudice has been born, against every man wearing a priestly collar. The presumption with priests is, guilty until proven innocent. Judge Ceisler, of course, instantly shut Greenfield down. She didn't want anybody talking truth on a day she was dispensing justice.

So, to all you victims out there, you've won the war. The abusers will never again get away with it the way they used to, and neither will their employers. But the pendulum has swung so far the other way that now they're putting innocent men in jail when a junkie criminal poses as a victim.

Enough already.

THE PROSECUTORS

There was an ugly edge to this trial. Prosecutors know how to destroy ordinary citizens who didn't go to law school. They know how to win every argument. They know how to make the rest of us look stupid.

In this case, the lead prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti, used those tactics against a hapless archdiocese social worker, and a bunch of veteran Catholic elementary school teachers who had no reason to lie. He was a trained legal pugilist beating up a bunch of middle-aged women. It was sickening to watch.

The prosecutors played a brutal game here. They know how to shred a witness. When the evidence is lacking, they know how to invent a story-line in a closing, like a grooming campaign by the defendants,  out of thin air. Prosecutors also know how, when you don't have the facts, to put a picture up there of a helpless 10-year-old altar boy, and then appeal to raw emotion.

In this case, those tactics were misplaced. I saw a prosecutor playing games with people's lives.

The lead prosecutor in this case, and the district attorney both expected to lose. It was a throwaway, so why not go for broke, push the edge and see what happens?

What happened, to everyone's shock, was the jury bought it. And lives were destroyed, and innocent families devastated, while prosecutors played their law school games under the watchful eye of a judge overly concerned about breaking for lunch at the right time, and sending the jury home at a reasonable hour.

Sickening.

THE JURY

The jury in this case was simply watching a different trial than the one I saw.

I've got to say as a group they did not impress me. Many times, members of that panel seemed to be dozing or nodding off during the trial. The one time they did pay attention though was when Billy Doe took the stand. I saw grown men wipe away tears.

I, however, had dry eyes; I did not believe Billy Doe. I felt the same way when I heard him at the Lynn trial. At that time, I had no reason to believe he was a stone-cold liar.

At the Lynn trial, I heard real victims of abuse tell their stories. A doctor, a detective, and a nun stand out in my mind.

As you listened to their stories, you felt the pain. When Billy Doe spoke, you felt nothing, and you saw an immature con man trying to pull off a hustle.

At the Lynn trial, after Billy Doe left the stand, one of Billy's civil lawyers asked me what I thought of his boy.

You want to know the truth, I said. I don't believe a f--ing word he just said.

It was just a gut feeling from a guy whose heard stories all his life, and tried to figure out which ones were B.S.

But whether you believed Billy Doe was telling the truth or not, you could not convict Engelhardt or Shero based solely on Billy Doe's story. It defied logic and common sense. There were far too many factual discrepancies in the various versions he told to send anybody to jail.

There was no evidence or witnesses that supported any of Billy's stories. In fact, almost all of the evidence that I am aware of gathered by the district attorney's own detectives contradicted Billy and his stories. The defense case was based almost entirely on the findings of the district attorney's own detectives.

The jury, however, bought it.

To prove I didn't lose my mind, I will reprise the comments of an alternate grand juror, a young woman in her 30s, who saw exactly what I saw. And what other reporters saw. She also had some insight the rest of us missed.

"I was like, 'Are you serious?' I couldn't believe it," the alternate juror told me when she heard the verdict. "I thought for sure they were going to vote not guilty because there was absolutely no proof that these men had done that." To the alternate juror, the guilty verdict was "incredible, "insane," and a "tragic miscarriage of justice."

But to the people on the jury, thanks to the media and that 2011 grand jury report, it was an existing story line that they all knew.  Innocent victims; predator priests. So they chose to buy into the prevailing wisdom. Who needs evidence? Guilty as charged.

The one juror that I did get to talk offered a frightening look into the jury's mindset.

Their silence was unusual. I stopped by the home of the jury foreman last weekend to see if she could shed any light on what went down in that jury room. The foreman came to the door scowling. She muttered that I had no business being on her property. Then, looking away, she closed the door. I left wondering what her problem was.

You were the foreman on a high-profile Philadelphia jury trial. Why can't you talk?

THE DEFENSE LAWYERS

Here's the scouting report on Billy Doe. When he is caught in a lie, he has a habit of lowering his head, and mumbling before he shuts down. That's the behavior Michael J. McGovern, Father Engelhardt's lawyer, saw on the witness stand on Jan. 16th when he confronted Billy Doe about his claim to have been a member of the bell choir maintenance crew back when he was a fifth grader at St. Jerome's.

This matters. Billy Doe claimed Father Avery accosted him because he was the lone member of the bell choir maintenance crew left in church who was putting the away the bells after a concert. In this excerpt, we see Billy on the ropes before he is saved at the bell by a timely objection from the prosecutor:

Q. I thought your testimony was that he [Avery] came up to you when no one else was around?

A. Yeah. He pulled me over to the side. There were still people in there but no one around in earshot distance.

Q. Mr. [Doe], would it surprise you that there were no fifth grade members of the bell maintenance crew, none, zero? There never was. Would that surprise you?

A. A little bit.

Q. Would it surprise you there was never a sixth grade member of the bell maintenance crew?

A. Kind of.

Q. Would it surprise you there were no seventh grade members of the bell maintenance crew?

A. Somewhat.

Q. You know, Mr. [Doe], don't you, that your testimony is completely false because there were only eighth grade boys who were members of the bell maintenance crew?

A. No, my testimony isn't false.

Q. Your version of what happened with that bell choir practice could not possibly have happened. Do you understand that?

A. How couldn't it have ...

Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti: Objection, argumentative.

Judge Ceisler: Objection sustained. It is argumentative.

McGovern cut short his cross-examination that day, possibly because he didn't feel the jury was with him. Prosecutor Cipolletti was happy the cross from both defense lawyers only lasted two hours. "There was just so much more," he said with a big smile.

When your opponent is that happy, you just made a mistake. McGovern and Shero's lawyer, Burton A. Rose, should have kept on punching. That cross should have gone on for days until they got what they needed. Who cares whether the jury was with your or not? They would have had to notice if Billy kept shutting down, after being caught in more lies.

Hindsight being 20-20, the defense should also have fired every weapon they had in their arsenal that went unused.

The meticulous monthly calendars kept by Billy's mother that didn't show any early Masses the entire fifth-grade year when Billy claimed he was raped by Father Engelhardt after serving as an altar boy at an early morning Mass at St. Jerome's. The church's register of funerals that showed Father Avery didn't say a funeral Mass at St. Jerome's during Billy's entire fifth grade year, when Billy claimed Father Avery assaulted him after a funeral Mass. The police statement Billy's older brother gave that contradicted Billy's testimony.

The defense also should have called to the stand the drug counselor who told police that victims of abuse don't usually open up the way Billy Doe did, and that the word "sessions" was drug rehab lingo. It was not, as Billy claimed, a code word used by priests when they're talking about raping an altar boy.

THE DEFENDANTS

Ok, we're trying to leave no stone unturned here. After the trial, there was plenty of criticism that the defense lawyers made a mistake by not putting the defendants up on the witness stand to tell the jury they didn't do it.

From what I saw on sentencing day, those defense lawyers made the right call. Both defendants were not-ready-for-prime-time players.

Father Engelhardt, a priest who took a vow of poverty, lives in a different world than the rest of us. With his life on the line, he spoke in the quiet, unexcited tones of a former history teacher and priest. He talked about his career and his faith. Some of it was moving. It was a few points of light, when what was needed was a lighting bolt from the sky. But you can't be anybody but who you are.

Bernard Shero made the mistake of trying to debate the prosecutor. Wow, did that not go over. The judge slapped him down. "I'm frustrated," he told the judge. In his defense, sending a guy to jail for a crime that never happened will probably do that to you.

Shero wound up telling the judge about his post-teaching career as an Avon salesman, and about a note he got from a couple he befriended who still believe he's innocent.

Very underwhelming.

THE JUDGE

The trial went bad during the first few moments for the defendants when the court crier had them stand while she read an extra offense for each man that they weren't charged with.

The judge's response: hey, no big deal, we'll get it right eventually. Let's keep it moving.

Throughout the trial, the judge seemed far more preoccupied with keeping things on schedule, rather than worrying about whether a couple of notorious defendants who had already been tarred and feathered by a grand jury report and the media were getting railroaded or not. She wouldn't delay the trial to bring Billy's older brother in to testify. The jury wanted to hear from him, according to a note they sent the judge.

The judge had to see the trial I watched. She had to see all of the reasonable doubt. It would have been a courageous call to say sorry, this conviction is just not supported by the evidence.

What was needed was the wisdom of Solomon, not the prevailing wisdom.

In this case, a politically correct judge bowed to the official story line, and to all those people with ribbons in the crowd. It was the easy way out.

Judge Ceisler, the trial I witnessed in your courtroom shocked my conscience. Especially the final moments of the sentencing.

The judge had just hammered the defendants with long jail terms. The families of both men, still convinced of their innocence, were sobbing in the courtroom.

The court crier, previously noted for her inaccuracy in reading charges against the defendants, went over to the grieving relatives. She walked through the aisles, and one by one, she ordered every sobbing woman to leave.

"We're not allowed to cry?" asked Tracey Boyle, Father Engelhardt's niece.

No Tracey. In the courtroom of Judge Ellen Ceisler, when she sends your beloved uncle the priest off to jail for a crime he didn't commit, you're not even allowed to cry about it.

Does that shock anybody else's conscience?

Further

Uncle Joe

By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net

Federal prosecutors want to retry mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi on racketeering conspiracy charges built around the same evidence that a jury largely rejected in the mobsters' first trial.

In a motions filed late yesterday, prosecutors argued that the issues of collateral estoppel and double-jeopardy do not apply to the conspiracy charge that is at the heart of the case. A jury in February could not decide on that charge against Ligambi and Borgesi.

Four other defendants were found guilty and one was acquitted.


U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno is expected to hold a hearing on motions filed by lawyers for both defendants seeking to limit or eliminate charges that can be used in a retrial set for Oct. 15. In fact, Borgesi's lawyer, Christopher Warren, has argued that the conspiracy charge against his client -- the one remaining count for which he is to be retried -- should be dismissed.

Borgesi, 50, was found not guilty of 13 counts related to gambling and loansharking. Warren argued that the jury verdict on those counts undermined the remaining conspiracy charge.

Borgesi

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor, in briefs filed literally at the 11th hour -- yesterday was the deadline for the government to respond and the motions were filed close to midnight -- argued that both Warren and Ligambi's lawyer, Edwin Jocobs Jr., had misconstrued the legal issues in the case.

The doctrine of collateral estoppel "does not bar the admission of evidence of other offenses, including acquitted conduct, to prove the manner and means of a RICO conspiracy," Labor wrote.

The prosecution contends that it can use the same evidence that was presented in the first trial, including evidence tied to counts that resulted in not guilty verdicts. While layered in legal citations and Appellate Court decisions, the prosecution is arguing in essence that conspirators don't have to commit the crimes in order to be found guilty of conspiring to commit those crimes. 

In asking that both Ligambi's and Borgesi's motions be denied, prosecutors said what the government has to prove is that both defendants played in a role in a racketeering conspiracy in which:

(1) Two or more persons agreed to conduct or participate in the conduct of the affairs of the Philadelphia (La Cosa Nostra) Family through a pattern of racketeering activity or the collection of unlawful debt.

(2) The defendants were party to the agreement.

(3) They joined the agreement knowing of its objective of conducting the affairs of the Philadelphia LCN Family through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt and with the intent of joining with one other conspirator to achieve that objective.

A court ruling in the government's favor would allow prosecutors to use basically the same evidence and the same witnesses in the retrial that the government used in a three-month trial that began last October. Those witnesses would likely include Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello, 43, a key Borgesi associate who testified at length about a gambling and loansharking operation he said he ran for Borgesi after Borgesi was jailed in 2000 in an unrelated racketeering case.

Monacello also testified that Ligambi was the boss of the operation.

Bent Finger Lou (R)

In fact, Borgesi was behind bars serving a 14-year sentence during most of the period covered by the conspiracy charge. Warren had argued that the jury's not guilty verdicts on specific gambling and loansharking charges showed that the jury had rejected the prosecution argument that Borgesi had conspired with Monacello. 

Labor argued that the verdict did not necessarily support that argument. He said that Borgesi also had conspired with Ligambi and Anthony Staino, another mob leader. 

The prosecution contends that it should not be precluded "from introducing evidence relating to the offenses charged in the substantive counts as circumstantial proof of the manner and means, or overt acts, of the RICO conspiracy," even if a jury returned not guilty verdicts on those substantive counts.

It appeared the jury at the first trial wrestled with the conspiracy charge. The panel deliberated for a staggering 21 days before bringing back a mixed and confusing verdict. Only five of the 61 counts in the case resulted in guilty verdicts. Three of the seven defendants were convicted of racketeering conspiracy. (A fourth subsequently pleaded guilty). 

The jury found the defendants not guilty of 46 other counts and was undecided -- on hung -- on 11 charges. 

Two of the charges on which the jury could not decide were the racketeering conspiracy counts against Ligambi, 73, and Borgesi. In addition, Ligambi faces two gambling counts and a tampering with a witness charge on which the jury also hung. He was acquitted of five other criminal counts.  

Both Ligambi and Borgesi have been denied bail pending the retrial.

Four other defendants in the case, Staino, mob underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino, mob soldier Damion Canalichio and mob associate Gary Battaglini are to be sentenced in July before Robreno.

Joseph "Scoops" Licata, a North Jersey-based mob capo, was found not guilty and released after the trial. Six defendants in the case pleaded guilty prior to trial. 

George Anastasia can be reached at George@bigtrial.net. 

Here is the victim impact statement submitted to Judge Ellen Ceisler by Billy Doe, as read in court by Assistant District Attorney Evangelia Manos:

Dear Your Honor,

My name is [Billy Doe]. I'm the victim of these horrendous men. My life and childhood have been destroyed by these men and the things they did to me. I went through something no child or anyone should go through. They have taken from me, and I will never get back, a lot of those things. For the past 14 years, I have tried to numb the pain and forget what they did to me.


Constant depression, anxiety, flashbacks, and reminder of the hell that I was dragged through. I quickly found myself spiraling out of control and getting into trouble, desperately trying to stop the pain. I tried to commit suicide numerous times, and had years of suicidal ideation. I spent years going to sleep, hoping I did not wake up. And in the mornings, I would dread living through another day. By 11, I was smoking marijuana, trying to stop my suffering, but it never seemed to go away.

I fell quickly into a life of addiction, and, as I got older, it got worse. It led me to a life of heroin addiction, jail, and many institutions. I tore my family apart and disappointed them for many years. Only after I got clean and brought this to light, we started to rebuilt our relationship, and it finally feels good to make my family proud of me. Even though I am a victim, I am now a survivor.

I survived what I went through, and exposed these men and this cover-up, and this has been going on for years. I plead, please give these men the maximum sentence for the horrendous acts that they did to me. Let them feel a lifetime of pain, like what they brought upon me. And thank you for your consideration.

Here is the victim impact statement of Billy Doe's older brother, as read in court by Assistant District Attorney Manos:

I'm [Billy Doe's] brother. I am writing to respectfully request that the maximum sentence be imposed upon defendants Engelhardt and Shero. This request comes not only at the revelation of such heinous criminal conduct, but also upon the following background.

Through the criminal conduct of the defendants, my brother has not lost not just a sense of peace and security and innocence as a direct result of the abuse he was subjected to, but also a whole host of indirect and long-lasting effects felt after the initial incidents until today. For his part, my brother may never fully recover. However, the effects of the sexual abuse he suffered that did present themselves, were severe and caused significant collateral damage.

In his attempt to forget and numb himself from the atrocious acts committed by Shero and Engelhardt, my brother turned to narcotics. The use of those substances devastated my family and countless holidays were ruined. I watched patiently as my parents were pushed to their limit, again and again, without reluctance, to try and save their son. 

My brother was in contact with law enforcement frequently during this period in his life, and attempted several times to rid himself of these narcotics in rehab facilities, only to fail in each instance. At the time, none of our family knew the underlying cause of his addiction and the root cause of all his suffering that [was] left to fester for so many years.

For nearly five years of these tragic events, I could only listen and offer consolation to my parents while I was away at college. However, I continually saw the toll it was taking on the life of my parents, and my brother. I was told how he was, [and] on several occasions, [he] attempted, threatened to take his life.

He has stolen from my parents on numerous occasions. More importantly, however, is what was stolen from all of them, a relationship with my brother, [Billy]. Due to Shero and Engelhardt's sexual abuse of my brother, my parents had, at best, a tenuous and grief-filled relationship with my brother for nearly eight years. After witnessing the low that my brother had reached, I had no relationship with [Billy] for almost the entire period of his diseased mental and physical state.

Now that he has confronted the demons that haunted him for a decade, I see a brand new individual; some one I never knew before. We have been developing our relationship as brothers. My parents have a much stronger and loving bond with him. He has a fiancee, and [is] working a steady job. None of this would have been possible in the height of his misery. For nearly a decade, my parents did not have a son, and I did not have a brother.

The heinous crimes committed by both of these men against [Billy] were the catalyst to the nightmare that was to follow. And I'm glad to see my brother beginning to flourish as a human being. But as to the defendants' abuse of my brother, he lost such a significant part of his life, and so many opportunities that the average teenager is, in this day and age, expected to experience.

At first, I could not stop blaming myself with being so harsh with him, but now I recognize the true blame rests with these defendants, and I will never be able to forgive the disgusting acts that were committed against my brother. And I ask Your Honor to punish the perpetrators accordingly.

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

On June 20, defense lawyers for Father Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero filed motions to appeal Judge Ellen Ceisler's "excessive and unreasonable" sentences.

On June 21, Judge Ceisler denied both motions. The defense can now appeal the judge's decisions to Superior Court.

The court documents, however, lay out for the first time the details on how brutally the judge clobbered the defendants.

Let's start with Engelhardt.

The jury convicted Engelhardt on three charges: endangering the welfare of a child, indecent assault, and corrupting the morals of a minor. The jury convicted the priest of a fourth charge, conspiracy, but the judge said the jury made a mistake on that one, and she tossed the conspiracy charge as unproven.

According to the defense motion, the applicable sentencing guideline range for a defendant with no criminal record for endangering the welfare of a child was 3 to 12 months plus or minus 6 months. The judge sentenced Engelhardt to 3 1/2 to 7 years.

For indecent assault, the sentencing guideline range for Engelhardt was probation to 9 months, plus or minus three months. The judge sentenced Engelhardt to 2 1/2 to 5 years.

For corrupting the morals of a minor, the sentencing guideline for the priest was probation to 9 months, plus or minus three months. The judge sentenced the defendant to 5 years probation.

The sentences were to be served consecutively.

Engelhardt could have walked out of Judge Ceisler's court with a sentence of probation on all three charges. Instead, the judge gave Engelhardt 6 to 12 years, plus five years probation. According to the motion filed by defense lawyer Michael J. McGovern, the judge's sentence "far exceeded the aggravated range of the applicable sentencing guidelines, and was, in fact, the maximum permissible sentence for those offenses."

When she sentenced Engelhardt, Judge Ceisler said the sentencing guidelines applicable in the case "shocked her conscience." The judge disregarded the sentencing guidelines because of the circumstance of the case, which is why she considered sentences "in the aggravated range," according to the defense motion.

"In announcing its reasons for sentencing, the Court stated that the standard range of the sentencing guideline for this offense was not adequate because of the circumstances of this case and that a sentence would have to be considered in the aggravated range," the defense motion said. "Nevertheless, the Court proceeded to impose a sentence outside the entire sentencing guideline range."

After they were sentenced, Engelhardt and Shero spent a week in solitary confinement at Graterford prison. The two inmates were then shipped to the State Correctional Institute at Camp Hill, located in Lower Allen Township, Cumberland County. At Camp Hill, the prisoners will be classified and shipped to another prison to serve out their sentences.

When she sentenced the defendants, the judge approved a defense request to have Engelhardt and Shero serve their time at SCI Laurel Highlands, in Somerset, PA.

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Mariana Sorensen, author of two high-profile grand jury reports on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, has resigned from the district attorney's office. Her last day of work was Friday, June 21.

Sorensen, an assistant district attorney in the special investigations unit, declined to be interviewed. A polarizing figure, she was regarded by victims advocates as a champion crusader, and by church critics as a Catholic-hating zealot.


The 2005 grand jury report on the archdiocese was a ground-breaking document nationally that exposed sexual abuse of minors by the local clergy. This reporter hailed it as a "literary masterpiece." To the local archdiocese's lawyers, however, it was "a vile, mean-spirited diatribe" that sought to convict the Catholic Church in the court of public opinion, based upon "an unfair and inaccurate portrayal of facts."

Archdiocese lawyers may have argued over how the facts were portrayed, but they couldn't argue with the weight of the evidence. The 2005 grand jury report was based upon 45,000 documents subpoenaed from the archdiocese's own secret archive files. Those files, kept in a locked safe at archdiocese headquarters, catalogued the sins of priests over four decades.

Sorensen's subsequent work did not measure up. A 2011 grand jury report on the archdiocese was found by this reporter to be intellectually dishonest, and riddled with more than 20 factual errors.

A spokesperson for the district attorney's office, Tasha Jamerson, dismissed as "ridiculous" any speculation that the flawed 2011 grand jury report had anything to do with Sorensen's departure.

"Mariana Sorensen is an excellent ADA whose work is respected all over the country," Jamerson wrote in an email. "After working almost non-stop on the Kermit Gosnell and [Msgr. William] Lynn, [Edward] Avery, [Bernard] Shero and [Father James J.] Brennan Grand Jury investigations and trials for the past three years, Mariana is taking some much needed time off," Jamerson said.

"If Mariana decides to come back to the D.A.'s office she will always have a position waiting for her."

Jeffrey R. Anderson, a St. Paul, Minn., lawyer who had filed more than 1,000 sex abuse cases nationally against the Catholic clergy, told this reporter he was "riveted" when he read the 2005 grand jury report for the first time. Anderson called the grand jury report "a watershed" that exposed the depth of corruption in the clerical culture.

"This is the first time it has been comprehensively investigated and articulated," Anderson told National Catholic Reporter in 2005. "They did something here that nobody has really done before."

That 2005 grand jury report was hailed by victims' advocates around the country. In 2007, Marci Hamilton, a Yeshiva University law professor, convened a conference in New York City, "Call To Action," to promote legislative efforts in states around the country to lift statute of limitations regarding victims of sex abuse.

Hamilton introduced Sorensen at the conference by saying she was a member of "by far the best D.A.'s office in the country."

Hamilton did not respond to a request for comment; neither did officials for SNAP.

Dave Pierre writes The Media Report, which is dedicated to "separating fact from fiction" in the media's treatment of the Catholic sex abuse scandal. In his view, Mariana Sorensen is a bigot.

"Mariana Sorensen's decade-long, bigoted attack against the Catholic Church has now resulted in innocent men being sent to prison for crimes they didn't commit," Pierre wrote in an email. "Her grotesque characterizations of the actions by Church officials and priests have now led to the false public perception in Philadelphia that a pedophiliac demon lurks behind every man in a Roman collar."

Pierre also took a shot at the local media.

"I doubt that the media will make much, if anything, of Sorensen's exit," he said, "as the Philly media has been fully complicit in the shocking fraud and corruption that has taken place under Sorensen's watchful eyes for many years."

Pierre was right about one thing; Sorensen's departure from the D.A.'s office has gone unreported until today.

Hugh J. Burns Jr.

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

It's one of the enduring mysteries of the current district attorney's self-described "historic" prosecution of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

How could the former district attorney, Lynne Abraham, and one grand jury back in 2005 look at the state law for endangering the welfare of a child [EWOC], and decide it didn't apply to Msgr. William J. Lynn, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, or any other high-ranking official at the archdiocese?

And how could the current district attorney, Seth Williams, and another grand jury in 2011 look at that same exact EWOC law and decide it did apply, not only to Msgr. Lynn, but also to Father James J. Brennan, Father Edward V. Avery, Father Charles Engelhardt, and Bernard Shero?

In the appeals battle over the conviction of Msgr. Lynn, District Attorney Seth Williams finally had to answer the question that he had previously been dodging. The D.A.'s official explanation for the flip-flop was spelled out in a 63-page brief filed June 25th in Superior Court.

In the brief, written by Hugh J. Burns Jr., chief of the D.A.'s Appeals Unit, the author conceded that one Philadelphia district attorney got it right and one Philadelphia district attorney got it wrong.

The question is, did Burns prove that his current boss, Seth Williams, got it right?

Or did Burns, in the opinion of Msgr. Lynn's defense lawyer, Thomas A. Bergstrom, write a fatal flaw into his argument that finally exposed Seth Williams's tortured logic?

The decision may ultimately not only affect Msgr. Lynn, but also Engelhardt and Shero. All three men are now sitting in jail after being convicted of one count of EWOC each. The decision may also impact Father Brennan,  acquitted last year when a jury hung on two charges against him, one of which was EWOC. The priest is scheduled to be retried Oct. 21.

In his brief, Burns noted that Msgr. Lynn "complains that a 2005 grand jury report written by counsel for the prosecution concluded that high-level Archdiocesan officials could not be successfully prosecuted, and at the time the Commonwealth did not charge him; but a later Grand Jury that heard additional evidence recommended charging ..."

Burns wrote that Lynn "concludes ... these events establish that, in the opinion of the prosecutors (or at least those who wrote the 2005 report)" that the state EWOC law "does not apply to him."

"This complaint is illegally incoherent," Burns wrote. "An exercise of prosecutorial discretion in declining to charge at one point in time has nothing to do with a purely legal issue of statutory construction, which is for this Court to determine and is not controlled by the opinions of counsel."

In other words, the Superior Court can decide which D.A. got it right, and which D.A. got it wrong. In his brief, Burns conceded that one of the two D.A.s screwed up.

"Further, that one of the Commonwealth's two charging decisions was arguably wrong (albeit the latter was based on additional evidence) does not mean that the one [decision] defendant dislikes is wrong," Burns wrote.

It should be noted that the "additional evidence" that the 2011 grand jury heard, as mentioned by Burns, was the extremely suspect testimony of two drug-addicted criminals, Billy Doe and Mark Bukowski.

The state's EWOC law, which went into effect in 1972, says:

"A parent, guardian or other person supervising the welfare of a child under 18 years of age commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if he knowingly endangers the welfare of a child by violating a duty of care, protection or support."

In previous legal filings, Msgr. Lynn's lawyers have argued that state appeals courts have interpreted those "supervising the welfare of a child" to be people in direct contact with children, such as parents, guardians and teachers. Since 1972, defense lawyers argued, the state EWOC law has been applied in nearly 300 cases. Until Lynn came along, that 1972 EWOC law had never been applied to a supervisor.

Unfortunately, for Msgr. Lynn, it wasn't his only legal milestone.

On June 22, 2012, Lynn became the first Catholic administrator in the country to be sent to jail in connection with the church's sex abuse scandals when he was convicted by a Philadelphia jury on one count of EWOC. Specifically, Lynn was charged with placing Father Avery, a known offender, back in ministry where he raped a 10-year-old altar boy identified in the 2011 grand jury report as Billy Doe.

Lynn is now serving a 3 to 6 year jail sentence.

The D.A., in his brief, would like to forget that after no archdiocese official was charged with EWOC in 2005, the district attorney's office began campaigning state-wide for the EWOC law to be amended to include supervisors.

The D.A.'s office in its campaign admitted that even if the amended law was passed, nothing could be done retroactively under the amended law to charge any archdiocese official with a crime.

When the amended law was introduced in the state legislature, proponents claimed new language was needed to include supervisors, because the old law didn't apply to supervisors. This legislative history, the D.A. argued in its most recent filing, is "useless" and "legally inadmissible."

"Proceeding under the 2007 amendment would also have been impermissible as an ex post facto violation of the constitution," Burns stated on page 24 of the D.A.'s brief.

But two pages later, on page 26, Burns stated, "As Defendant well knows, he endangered the welfare of [Billy Doe] by breaching his duty to prevent priests under his supervision, such as Avery, from sexually molesting children. The evidence is sufficient because defendant was Avery's supervisor, with a specific duty to prevent Avery from doing exactly what defendant instead facilitated."

Thomas A. Bergstrom

That argument put a smile on the face of defense attorney Bergstrom.

"They've fallen into their own trap," Bergstrom said. "The old law requires that Lynn be the supervisor of the welfare of a child. That there be direct contact between Lynn and the child. The new statute doesn't make that connection. They [the D.A.] just ignore the fact that Lynn is not supervising a child."

Instead, the D.A. argued in their brief that Lynn's duty was to supervise Avery.

"That's the new statute," Bergstrom said. "That's absolutely fatal to them. Now if I can only get a judge to listen to me ..."

Elsewhere in the D.A.'s brief, however, Burns argued that the meaning of the amended 2007 law in effect was there all along in the wording of the original 1972 statute. It's a clever argument about semantics. In order to succeed, it requires that the history of the law and how it was applied by prosecutors and the appeals courts, as well as the legislative history of the 2007 amendment, disappear.

"While the defendant argues that the evidence failed to show that he was a 'supervisor of children' ... the plain language of the [original] statute applies to a 'person supervising the welfare of a child, not 'supervising a child,'" Burns wrote. "It is therefore not limited to supervision of a child but includes supervision of the welfare of children ..."

"Under the unambiguous language of the statute, defendant was a person 'supervising the welfare' of children, with a clearly defined duty to protect them from priests under his supervision who were known to have already sexually abused children and who presented a threat of similar conduct in the future," Burns wrote. "By doing just the opposite and exposing children to danger, defendant violated his duty of care, and thus the statute."

"In arguing to the contrary, defendant seizes upon anything and everything except the only thing that matters," Burns wrote, namely, "the plain language of the statute under which he was convicted."

Not exactly, Mr. D.A. Here's where the D.A.'s argument finally crashes and burns. It's the inevitable result of what happens when public officials take the meaning of a law and twist it into a pretzel, to suit their own political purposes.

If the D.A. is right, then he gets to wave a magic wand, and claim there never was a problem with interpreting the meaning of the original law.

If the wording of that original EWOC law was as plain and unambiguous as the D.A. claims, then why did they have to amend that law to include supervisors?

Why did two successive district attorneys -- and two grand juries -- take totally opposite positions based upon totally opposite interpretations of that same original law?

In the world of Seth Williams, where the only governing principle is political expediency, anything is possible. But at the end of the day, maybe an appeals court will finally expose this district attorney for what he's been able to get away with since 2011, namely a cheap magic trick worthy of a charlatan.

Msgr. William J. Lynn

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

It's the lawyer's version of yelling, "Gotcha."

In a 12-page reply brief filed today in Superior Court, defense lawyers for Msgr. William J. Lynn argued that District Attorney Seth Williams blew the entire case against Lynn by making a "single breathtaking admission."

The alleged admission: that the D.A. prosecuted Lynn "ex post facto," or after the fact, under the standards of an amended child endangerment law.

The district attorney's "single breathtaking admission" was contained in a 63-page brief filed June 25 in Superior Court. In the brief, the D.A. stated that Lynn had "endangered the welfare of" Billy Doe by "breaching his duty to prevent priests under his supervision, such as [Father Edward V.] Avery, from sexually molesting children. The evidence is sufficient because [Lynn] was Avery's supervisor, with a specific duty to prevent Avery from doing exactly what [Lynn] instead facilitated."

"This is unquestionably the standard set forth in the 2007 amendment, which the Commonwealth has plainly admitted would violate the ex post facto provision," the defense argued, namely that Lynn was responsible, not for supervising the welfare of a child, but for supervising Avery.

The state's 1972 statute that makes it a crime to endanger the welfare of a child [EWOC] applies to "a parent, guardian or other person supervising the welfare of a child under 18 years of age."


"By its own admission, it is evident that the Commonwealth did not even attempt to demonstrate that [Lynn] was a supervisor of a child," the defense lawyers argued in their brief.  The prosecution's "entire theory of the case and subsequent argument was geared to show that [Lynn] supervised Avery, who, in turn, allegedly supervised" Billy Doe, the defense lawyers wrote.

"By its own admission, the Commonwealth committed an unconstitutional ex post facto violation that merits the reversal of [Lynn's] conviction," the defense brief stated. "It was the Commonwealth's burden to demonstrate that [Lynn] was a supervisor of the welfare of a child ... This it could not and did not do under the law or on the facts."

Lynn is currently serving a 3 to 6 year prison term after his June 22, 2012 conviction by a jury on one count of EWOC.

The defense brief also took exception to the district attorney's characterization of the original 1972 EWOC law as being written in "unambiguous language."

The law is unambiguous "in that it did not cover individuals like [Lynn], the defense lawyers wrote. The defense lawyers pointed out that it was the district attorney's office that "unanimously spearheaded the effort to amend" the EWOC law, so that it would apply to "individuals like [Lynn]."

The defense brief refers to the "unprecedented flip-flop" of the district attorney's office over the interpretation of the meaning of the original EWOC law. In 2005, then-District Attorney Lynne Abraham and a grand jury concluded that the old EWOC law did not apply to Msgr. Lynn, Cardinal Bevilacqua, or any other high-ranking official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

In 2011, District Attorney Seth Williams and a new grand jury concluded that the old EWOC law did apply to Lynn, as well as Fathers Avery, William J. Brennan, Charles Engelhardt, and a lay teacher, Bernard Shero.

"As has been demonstrated before, the Commonwealth has been willing to change its theory of this case at every juncture to suit its thirst for a high-profile conviction," the defense lawyers wrote.

The district attorney has the option of responding in writing to the defense brief. Or the district attorney can respond when oral arguments are made in Superior Court later this fall on Lynn's appeal.

Meanwhile, Msgr. Lynn remains in jail at SCI Waymart, about 30 minutes north of Scranton.

Mousie

By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net

The party ended before it got started for mob underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino.

The 63-year-old mobster, who joked continually about a victory celebration during a racketeering trial that ended in February, was sentenced to 188 months in prison today for his conviction on racketeering conspiracy charges.

In a courtroom packed with friends and family members of the defendant, Judge Eduardo Robreno imposed the sentence of nearly 16 years after a two-hour hearing. The hearing included an impassioned and rambling statement by the defendant who denied he was a mob leader, questioned the draconian sentencing guideline system employed in federal cases and suggested that the country would be safer if the government focused on terrorists rather than La Cosa Nostra.

"I'm no boss of nuthin'," the thin, goateed wiseguy said while denying government accusations that he had extorted and threatened gamblers and the operators of a video poker machine company.

If the FBI used the money that the investigation in this case cost to track down and prosecute Al-Qaeda, he said, "The World Trade Center would still be there and those poor people in Boston would still have their arms and legs."

He also questioned sentencing guidelines that sometimes add up to 100 years.

"Those laws are for trees," Massimino said, his arms outstretched, his palms up in supplication. "Trees live a hundred years."

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor, the lead prosecutor in the case, said Massimino was a "career offender" with an arrest and conviction record dating back more than 40 years. His prior convictions included racketeering and drug dealing on behalf of organized crime, Labor said.

"Enough is enough," Labor said in urging Robreno to impose a 20-year sentence.

"Every day in jail is one more day he is less likely to commit a crime," said Labor who quipped that "it was more likely that the Tooth Fairy would walk through the door" than Massimino would be rehabilitated.

"He's not going to relent," Labor said.

Massimino, dressed in a green prison jump suit and white sneakers, showed little emotion when Robreno finally imposed the sentence at the end of the hearing. The judge had set the sentencing guideline range at from 151 to 188 months and sentenced Massimino to the top end of that range.

"Civilized society cannot tolerate" organized crime activities, the judge said, accepting the government's argument that Massimino was a leader of the mob family and a career criminal who would not change his ways.

Robreno said watching Massimino interact with others during the trial showed that he was a "gregarious and pleasant individual." But he told Massimino that his extensive criminal record indicated that, "You don't get it. You never have gotten it. You've dedicated your life to crime."

Several friends and family members privately praised Massimino after the hearing.

"He's a great guy," said one. "They (the government) don't know him. He's helped more people than he's ever hurt...He's paid his debt for his earlier crimes."

"He's a good man," said another friend as the crowd exited the 15th floor courtroom after the hearing. "He don't deserve this."

Massimino has been held without bail since his arrest in May 2011. As a result, he already has two years and two months prison time accumulated. With a federal standard of no parole, inmates routinely serve 85 percent of their sentence (with credit for good time). Under that scenario, Massimino would have to spend about 11 more years in prison before he could be released.

The wiry mob underwboss beat several gambling and extortion charges that were part of the case, but he was convicted of the overarching charge of racketeering conspiracy. In a 62-page memo filed yesterday, prosecutors say that conviction coupled with Massimino's "reprehensible criminal history" and status as a leader of organized crime warranted a 20-year prison sentence.

Defense attorney Joseph Santaguida had argued that the government turned a "glorified gambling case" into a mob conspiracy and that his client should be facing a sentencing range of 51 to 63 months. In a memo filed earlier this month, Santaguida wrote that the "defense would have no objection to a 63-month sentence."

During today's hearing, Santaguida challenged the government's positions on several issues, including the allegation that Massimino was the mob underboss. He said prosecutors had failed to establish that and, like several other issues in the case, had relied on news media reports to support their contention.

After Robreno rejected most of Santaguida's arguments, the defense attorney asked that Massimino be sentenced to the low end of the 151-188 month guideline range that Robreno had established. The judge, however, went in the other direction.

Massimino quietly nodded and told friends "don't worry" as he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. His mood was substantially subdued and unlike the jocular, quick-with-a-quip attitude he has displayed throughout the trial.

Day after day as the trial dragged on over a three-month period that included three weeks of jury deliberation, he predicted his acquittal and the acquittals of his co-defendants, telling friends and family members who gathered in the courtroom to "keep those martini glasses on ice." He talked about a big victory party and joked with Assistant U.S. Attorney John Han, one of the prosecutors in the case, chiding him about the evidence and asking Han "for a ride home" after the trial ended.

While friends and family members laughed at his antics (which occurred without the jury present), the government clearly did not see the humor.

"Massimino's character, revealed by his courtroom demeanor in this case, reflects his view that the rule of law is a joke," Labor wrote in his sentencing memo. Today prosecutors got the last laugh.

"Those glasses are going to be gathering dust before he gets out," said one law enforcement source.

Labor also argued that even though Massimino was acquitted of specific counts of gambling and extortion, his conviction for conspiracy made him accountable for the underling crimes committed on behalf of the crime family. Those crimes were detailed in an indictment handed up against him, acting mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and nearly a dozen others in May 2011.

Massimino, Labor wrote in his memo, "made money ... by leveraging the participation of other members of the racketeering conspiracy and the mob's well earned reputation for violence."

The memo detailed many of the charges from the case, including allegations that Massimino, Ligambi and Anthony Staino used implied threats to take over a video poker machine distribution network.

The government said Massimino ran a gambling operation out of Lou's Crab House, a South Philadelphia bar-restaurant that he operated. 

The memo also cited Massimino's attempt to collect a debt while serving a racketeering sentence in a New Jersey state prison in 2005. The memo quoted from a letter that Massimino wrote from prison asking a friend to help him collect the debt.

Santaguida pointed to the letter as just one example of the prosecution taking facts and distorting the issue. He said the debt Massimino was complaining about and trying to collect was a legitimate loan that he had made and had nothing to do with gambling or organized crime.

Nevertheless, the letter, which was introduced as evidence during the trial, was cited as an example of Massimino's threatening, violent manner.

"I don't care if he has to rob a bank, he fuckin' better get my money," he wrote of an individual who owed him  $35,000. "That bald-headed motherfucker, I'm tired of the stories and bullshit. He won't be able to hide anywhere in the U.S."

In the same letter, Massimino told his friend, "If you write me, watch what you say. They read everything that comes to me." Either Massimino believed only incoming mail was monitored or he didn't care about making threats in his own letter.

Stupidity or arrogance, law enforcement sources said. Both were traits that have marked Massimino's criminal career which, Labor wrote, "spans five decades." 

In his sentencing memo, Labor also addressed the ongoing defense argument in the case that the offenses charged were not crimes of violence and amounted to little more than petty gambling.

"Illegal gambling," Labor wrote, "provides a ready market for loanshark victims: once a gambler becomes indebted to the Philadelphia LCN Family bookmaker, the enterprise is ready, willing and able to extend credit through a `street loan.' The losing bettor becomes the equivalent of an ATM machine, from which the Philadelphia LCN can withdraw cash `juice' payments every week.

"Faced with the threat of violence if such payments are not made, the gambler must continue to generate cash from some source, such as looting family savings, the assets of legitimate business or from criminal activity.

"Gambling set in motion the cycle of criminality which enabled the racketeering enterprise to continue profiteering from crime."

Robreno's sentence was watched closely by several others in the case. Three other defendants are scheduled to be sentenced within the next week. In that light, what Robreno imposed on Massimino would likely be interpreted as the standard that will be applied to co-defendants Gary Battaglini, who is to be sentenced tomorrow, and Damion Canalichio and Anthony Staino, who have sentencing hearings next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Two other defendants, Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi, are to be retried on the same racketeering conspiracy charge that Massimino was sentenced for today. The jury hung on that count for both Ligambi and Borgesi. Their retrial before Robreno is set for October.
George Anastasia can be contacted at George@bigtrial.net.

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Dr. Anthony Repici was Vince Fumo's personal physician for 25 years. He's also taken care of Fumo's children.

"I've treated all three of them over the years," the doctor testified today about the Fumo kids in Philadelphia Orphans Court.

Dr. Repici seemed especially fond of Allie Fumo, the former state senator's youngest daughter, now 23.

"Allison called me Dr. Barbie," Repici testified. "I used to bring her Barbie dolls" when he visited the Fumos. "She was an adorable child who would run up to me and say, 'Dr. Barbie, Dr. Barbie,'" Repici recalled.

"The beneficiary doesn't want you to serve as trustee," Foster told Repici.

"This is the type of thing that a daughter should never have to go through," Heyman said. "Allison Fumo for good reason does not trust her father."

Next up was Timothy Holman, representing Thomas Myers, a carpenter and longtime Vince Fumo friend who is president of the Fumo Family Limited Partnership, the parent company of the trust fund. Myers also happens to be Allie Fumo's godfather.

"Thankfully for my client, I guess, we didn't really hear the character attacks against Mr. Myers that Vincent and Allison Fumo were willing to unleash on their father during this proceeding," Holman told the judge. "But it's clear that Allison is unhappy with some decisions made by her godfather, Tommy Myers."

"Despite the apparent belief on the part of Allison and her lawyers that everyone even remotely connected to Senator Fumo is a mindless stooge, I respectfully submit that a review of the evidence presented confirms that my client doesn't fit that alleged mold,"Holman said.

"He [Myers] is a friend of every member of the family, and Allison is his godchild," Holman said. He said when Allie and Vincent E. Fumo wanted to sue their father for violating the terms of the loan, Myers's advice to both was to go see their father in prison.

"Vincent and Allie said, No, I don't want to go see him," Holman complained. "Their father's sitting in a federal prison. Talk about kicking a man, their own father, when he's down."

And how did Vince Fumo default on the terms of his $1.4 million loan, Holman asked. Why Vince Fumo transferred to his son ownership of a 30-room mansion  on Green Street in the Art Museum section of Philadelphia. The son currently is listed as a 50 percent owner of the property along with his father. When Vince Fumo dies, his son inherits the mansion, Holman said. But according to the terms of the loan, Vince Fumo could not compromise the deed to the Green Street property, because it was collateral for the $1.4 million loan.

The Green Street mansion "is a very valuable piece of real estate," Holman said. "Although young Vincent protested that he had not requested to be added to the deed, he admitted that he neither rejected the gift by his father nor asked to be taken off the deed."

Holman told the judge that Tommy Myers was smart not to take the Fumo kids' advice and rush out and sue their father, and squander more trust fund assets on another court battle.

"If Tommy Myers sued Vince Fumo, you think he's gonna lie down?" Holman asked. "My guy, Tommy Myers, he looks smarter all the time."

Holman said besides the $1.4 million loan, the assets of the trust fund included $612,473.

In closing, Holman urged the judge to read all the emails and letters Vince Fumo sent out regarding his daughter and her trust fund. Those letters include the "rantings of someone who's been in prison for four years," Holman said, but those emails and letters also show "the soft side of Vince Fumo in regard to his daughter."

The judge gave both sides until July 29 to submit legal briefs, so he could decide on the matter.

After court was adjourned, Heyman was asked about Allie Fumo, and why she wasn't in the courtroom.

"It was very, very difficult to sue her father," Heyman said. Coming back to court today was "something she didn't want to do or need to do."

Damion Canalichio (right) with George Borgesi

By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net

They were both in the gambling business, but this time the odds don't appear to be in their favor.

Mobsters Damion Canalichio and Anthony Staino go in front of Judge Eduardo Robreno this week to find out how to plan the next several years of their lives. Both are going to be inmates in federal prisons.

The only question is for how long.

Lawyers for both defendants have filed motions challenging prosecution requests for lengthy sentences. For Canalichio, a brash-talking mob soldier with two prior federal convictions for drug dealing who was picked up on tape boasting about being an enforcer, the government wants from 17 to 21 years.

For Staino, a mob lieutenant and close associate of acting boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, the government is looking for about 10 years. Staino, unlike the other defendants in the case, has no prior convictions. But he was recorded on tape boasting about being the "CFO" and a "member of the board of directors" of the crime family. Those comments would seem to support prosecutors' arguments that he was a leader of organized crime, a designation that enhances federal sentencing guidelines.

Canalichio, of Turnersville, goes before Robreno tomorrow at 9 a.m.

Staino, who lived in Woolwich Township outside of Swedesboro, has a date with the judge at the same time on Wednesday.

The two South Jersey wiseguys already have a sense of where Robreno may be heading. On Thursday the judge sentenced mob underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino, 63, to 188 months (nearly 16 years). On Friday mob associate Gary Battaglini, 51, got eight years.

The smart money says that Canalichio and Staino will both draw sentences somewhere in between those two. Both are likely to receive double figures. Canalichio, however, already has two years and two months in. He and several other defendants in the case, including Ligambi, Massimino and George Borgesi, were denied bail after their indictment and arrest in May 2011.

That type of jail time is credited toward any sentence.

Anthony Staino (left) with his lawyer Gregory Pagano

Staino was free on bail until his conviction in February.

Canalichio's brash and arrogant manner during the trial and on the tapes that were played as evidence was in sharp contrast to the portrait painted of him by his court-appointed attorney Margaret Grasso in a pre-sentence memo filed last month.

She described him as a loving husband and father of three young daughters and said he had the support of family members and friends who have written letters to the court. The letters, she said, show that  he "has learned from his incarceration that his family is the most important thing in his life and that he would not do anything in the future to jeopardize his freedom to be with his family once given the opportunity to do so."

Grasso, like lawyers for Massimino and Battaglini, argued that the conspiracy conviction was difficult to analyze since the same jury acquitted the defendants of more than 40 charges tied to gambling, loansharking and extortion that were part of the case.

Canalichio, for example, was found not guilty of bookmaking and dealing in electronic video poker machines. But he was found guilty of racketeering conspiracy.

Grasso said her client should be sentenced under a guideline range of 57 to 71 months, rather than the 210 to 262 months the government is suggesting.

Her plea for a lenient sentenced also included references to Canalichio's difficult childhood where he was raised by his mother after his father abandoned the family and his past problems with drug use.
Prosecutors, however, have identified Canalichio as a mob soldier who has two prior convictions for dealing drugs. One of the tapes played during the trial included Canalichio going on a rant about a "fucking junkie" who was causing problems at a social club that he ran with mobster Martin Angelina.

Canalichio's underworld arrogance, say law enforcement sources, was captured in that conversation. Canalichio, who made thousands dealing cocaine, complaining about a junkie was the height of underworld hypocrisy, they said.

Staino (left) with Uncle Joe Ligambi

Staino will also be hard pressed to overcome tapes in which he was heard extorting an undercover FBI agent while bragging about his position as the chief financial officer and member of the board of directors of the mob.

His lawyer, Gregory Pagano, argued that his background and his decision to plead guilty to the racketeering conspiracy charge should mitigate against the 10 to 11-year sentence the government is seeking. Instead, Pagano argued, Staino should receive a sentence similar to the terms Robreno meted out to mobsters Louis Fazzini (55 months) and Martin Angelina (57 months) who pleaded guilty prior to trial.