NEW YORK -- The defense began its summation Monday in the racketeering trial of eight reputed organized crime leaders and said the government's case against the Mafia was not built on 'hard facts.'
Three reputed crime family kingpins and five of their associates are on trial for running 'the Commission,' a Mafia board of directors the government contends has ruled organized crime in America since the 1930s.
Robert Blossner, representing Anthony 'Bruno' Indelicato, charged with being one of the hit men in the 1979 slaying of reputed Bonanno boss Carmine 'Lilo' Galante, began delivering final arguments for the defense.
Galante, killed while still chomping his trademark cigar, was slain along with longtime friend Leonard Coppola and the restaurant owner, Giuseppe Turano, while dining in the rear patio of Joe and Mary's restaurant in Brooklyn.
Indelicato, 30, of Manhattan who is jailed on a weapons charge, allegedly was rewarded for the hit by being made a 'capo' in the Bonanno family of La Cosa Nostra.
'The government case cannot stand the test of hard facts,' Blossner, 45, a former Legal Aid Society attorney, told the seven-woman and five-man jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. 'The prosecution wants you to guess that young man into a conviction.'
The government said three men wearing ski masks brandishing shotguns and a handgun ran into the restaurant and fired away at point-blank range. Turano's son, John, was shot in the back but survived to reluctantly testify at the trial.
A fourth gunman waited outside as a lookout.
In a videotape made during surveillance of the Ravenite social club in Little Italy, a reputed mob hangout, Indelicato is seen about a half hour after the slayings.
The government contended the handshaking and pats on the arm he received were congratulations for the shootings. As Indelicato walked away, at one point he appeared to limp.
Blossner maintained his client could not possibly have been involved because Indelicato had been injured in a fight and could not have run in or out of the restaurant.
He replayed the tape and insisted the meeting outside the club was over another matter and it was Indelicato who initiated the handshakes. Blossner insisted Indelicato thrust his hand out seeking the handshake and that they were not congratulatory shakes.
The low-key Blossner was followed by the more flamboyant John Jacobs, 41, a 1970 St. John's Law School graduate, representing Ralph Scopo, 57, of Howard Beach, Queens, an alleged soldier in the Colombo family and former president of the Concrete Workers District Council. It controls the unions working on high rise construction.
He was charged with wielding his influence to allow the Mafia to dominate the concrete construction industry and extort from concrete firms, adding millions to the cost of construction.
Jacobs admitted his client was guilty of bid rigging and price fixing, but was not charged with that.
'Price fixing and bid rigging is not racketeering,' he said. 'Price fixing and bid rigging is not right. But price fixing and bid rigging is not extortion.'
He said all the contractors were fighting for customers, 'Was there one drop of blood shed? There was not!'
The trial is in its 10th week.
The trial was to resume at 10 a.m. Tuesday with lawyer Anthony Cardinale presenting closing arguments on behalf of Anthony 'Fat Tony' Salerno, 75, of Rhinebeck, N.Y., the reputed boss of the Genovese crime family who has been held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in connection with the racketeering conspiracy charge.
