PHILADELPHIA The racketeering scenario from the most respected leader connected with the Philadelphia mob and also six co-defendants is founded on half-truths and also fabrications out of cooperating witnesses, a safeguard attorney said within opening phrases Thursday along at the federal trial.
The circumstance typically entails banned gambling as well as loansharking with Pennsylvania along with New Jersey, and also there's little violence alleged, in addition to threats purchased upon FBI wiretaps. Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, this 73-year-old alleged leader involving Philadelphia's La Cosa Nostra, and lots of co-defendants have pleaded certainly not guilty and prefer to fight that premiums in the trial, that is certainly predicted for you to final two to three months.
Ligambi's lawyer, Edwin Jacobs Jr., reported while in best phrases there is certainly tiny of chemical compliment the government's allegations, saying the truth is developed to the tales of cooperating witnesses trying to get outside of their own problems.
"We're certainly not guilty, we have been victims," Jacobs said. "The serious premiums within the following circumstance will in no way produce a single event of 'The Sopranos.'"
Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor, however, reported within his starting terms of which Ligambi and his or her co-defendants used the particular Philadelphia mob's name to get violence to make dollars and to intimidate victims towards paying enemy shakedowns and also tribute payments.
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