Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Galati Switches Lawyers Amid Speculation And Temporary Delay In Mob Trial

By George Anastasia
December 18, 2013


The racketeering conspiracy retrial of mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his nephew and co-defendant George Brogesi was temporarily derailed this afternoon by a Philadelphia Daily News story about mob associate Ron Galati.

Meanwhile speculation mounted that the South Philadelphia auto-body shop operator and mob associate may be cooperating with authorities.

Galati, 63, abruptly replaced Joseph Santaguida as his attorney today with Anthony Voci, a criminal defense attorney and former Assistant District Attorney. Santaguida said he was informed of the change in a telephone conversation with Galati's son this afternoon. Santaguida had met with Galati at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Center this morning.

"He didn't say anything (about changing attorneys)," Santaguida said. "Then I heard from his son."

Santaguida said he wouldn't speculate about the change. Galati is scheduled for a bail hearing on Monday. Several observers say that if he is granted bail -- which was considered unlikely at the time of his arrest -- it could be a sign that he has cut a deal with the District Attorney's Office or is in the process of doing so.

Voci could not be reached for comment.

The impact on the Ligambi trial was temporary, but the Galati situation has added another twist to the ongoing saga of the mob boss and his co-defendant nephew. Both have been identified as friends of Galati's. Borgesi, according to testimony, has also been involved in scams run from the auto-body shop.

The Daily News article published this morning included a blaring front page headline that labeled Galati a "Wrecketeer." The piece, by William Bender, raised questions about how Galati, who was convicted of insurance fraud and racketeering in 1995, was able to obtain a contract to repair cars for the Philadelphia Police Department.

The article said that Galati's auto-body shop was awarded a city contract in 2011 that runs through June 2014. Last year he was paid over $400,000 for repair work for the Police Department, according to the story which also detailed Galati's mob associations to Borgesi and former mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino. (See Bigtrial December 17).

Galati was arrested Saturday and charged with attempted murder, solicitation of murder and witness intimidation for allegedly hiring hitmen to kill three different individuals who have testified against him in an ongoing grand jury investigation into insurance fraud.

The targets allegedly included the boyfriend of Galati's grown daughter. The victim was shot outside his Atlantic City home on Nov. 30 , but survived. Two gunmen, both Philadelphians, were arrested within minutes of the shooting and both, according to the Daily News, are now cooperating.

Members of the Ligambi jury panel were privately questioned by Judge Eduardo Robreno after defense attorneys, at the lunch break today, raised questions about whether exposure to the article could have tainted the panel.

The trial resumed around 2:40 p.m. after an hour-long delay. Apparently none of the jurors had seen or heard about the Galati piece.

"No one saw or read anything," said Christopher Warren, Borgesi's attorney, as he emerged from the judge's chambers prior to the start of the afternoon session.

Robreno made no mention of the issue as he called the trial back into session.

Despite the delay, Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor, the lead prosecutor in the case, said the government hopes to complete its presentation of witnesses and evidence by Friday. With a weeklong recess for the Christmas holiday, the trial would then resume on Dec. 30 with the defense calling its first witnesses.

Closing arguments and jury deliberation are likely the first or second full week in January.

Galati's situation, meanwhile, continues to cast a shadow over the trial. The wannabe wiseguy, according to people who know him, has said he does not want to go back to jail. Galati was sentenced to 37 months in 1995 after a federal jury convicted him of racketeering and fraud charges. In that case, he was found not guilty of threatening to kill a postal inspector who was part of an insurance fraud task force targeting him.

The current insurance fraud case is apparently built around the same kind of accusations that landed him in jail eight years ago. The murder threats and the hiring of hitmen, if proven, add a different dynamic to the case and bring substantially stiffer penalties if there is a conviction.

Galati's dealings with members of the South Philadelphia underworld and any role he may have played in an infamous shooting during the Stanfa-Merlino war in the 1990s could be information around which he could negotiate a deal.

Galati was targeted for death by mob boss John Stanfa because Stanfa believe it was Galati who aided the Merlino faction by cutting portholes into the side of a stolen van that was used in an ambush of Stanfa on the Schuylkill Express in August 1993. The shooting, in the midst of mid-morning rush hour traffic, resulted in Stanfa's son Joseph being wounded.

No one has ever been convicted for that crime. And while the statute of limitations has expired of the shooting itself, the act could be part of a broader racketeering case should federal prosecutors opt to go in that direction.

http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/12/galati-switches-lawyers-amid.html

Daveschratweisers twitter feed has a picture of Galatis mugshot..sorry still don't know how to upload..trial today was a bore - more undercover Feds on the stand in the afternoon talking about small time betting and mostly about bataglini and sheep. George A was in the seats and he posted (above). Uncle Joe and Georgie looking calm again today. All in all a snoozer today - reinforcing what a waste of money this trial is.

if he decides to cooperate, can the prosecution use him for this trial, or will they use him for a new trial?

I don't know either but I use screenschot capture tool called Lightshot(works for Chrome and Firefox)

Galati's mugshot
http://prntscr.com/2c817l

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

seems very doubtful he would testify at this trial. one, we dont even know if he has any knowledge relevant to this trial, and two, the prosecution seems pretty intent that they are very close to wrapping up their case.

ok thanks

Prosecution is looking to wrap their case by Friday - Han said it again today.

if anything it could bring down a new indictment

They hot nothing on joe Ligambis what a waste

Got nothing on Ligambi silly ipad

So many rats in Philly...

They wouldn't use him at this trial and wouldn't even "flip" him until after the trial because then, assuming a not guilty verdict at worst for the feds, they could retry citing new previously unknown evidence in the form of galati's potential testimony.

If they hypothetically flip him and send him out there next week and bombs and the defendants get an acquittal, the feds would have to eat it on these charges.

Plus they still need to gather all the information he knows, come up with a way to use it at trial and coach him on testifying on the witness stand.

Gotta wonder how Merlino feels, if Galati says how Schuylkill Expressway shooting went down then you have potentially huge guys from Merlino faction going down that are on the street now.

Plenty of other ways to whack a guy, Schuylkill Expressway shooting was fucked up end of story, innocent people in the way , a sign of the times…..

I agree , if that happens , the narducci brothers will be running the Philly mob

@Nickywhip

The link is here on the forum (posted last week) youtube. It's split into 4 parts. I think the thread title is "audio from philadelphia trial"

I think this is the ones your talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mwhitten77/videos

There's a stat of limitation on state attempted murder charge on stanfas kid. Thought Merlino beat the Rico predicit ATT. Murder on stanfa son. Bet Merlino ain't sweatin anything.

I agree. Not to mention the fact that most of the information he could have on Merlino (if any) would be almost 20 years old and would require corroboration.

Was there court today?

Merlino is laughing at all this and happy to be in Boca

thats if he is smart and i happen to think he is albeit devilish...where are the other crime bosses from his era? hes got an angel following him thats for sure


now he did do ten but thats peanuts compared to his contemporaries

now lets look at Georgie Boys luck lol

I'll be at trial tomorrow and posting - free Georgie

A Key Question For The Jury As The Government Wraps Up The Ligambi Case

By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net


The question went to the heart of the case against mob boss Joe Ligambi.

After verbally sparring with an FBI undercover agent over a $25,000 cash payment by Anthony Staino that was either a loanshark transaction or an investment in an illegal (and ficticious) money-laundering scheme set up by the FBI, Edwin Jacobs Jr. asked, "What does Joe Ligambi have to do with that?"

That's the question, applied on several different levels, that Jacobs hopes the jury in the racketeering conspiracy retrial of Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi takes with it when deliberations begin sometime next month.

Absent a smoking gun (literally and figuratively), the prosecution has built the racketeering conspiracy charge against Ligambi around the criminal activities of other mobsters. Some examples -- a sports betting operation run by Gary Battaglini for mob leader Steven Mazzone; the loansharking/extortion gambit for which Staino was convicted in the first trial earlier this year, and the operation of a video poker machine company (JMA) by Staino.

The prosecution says they support the conspiracy charge; that Ligambi as mob boss approved of and benefitted from the crimes committed by his underlings. The defense says the evidence, weak and circumstantial, does not tie Ligambi, 74, to the allegations.
What the jury thinks is all that really matters.

And the anonymously chosen panel probably won't get to debate those points until sometime next month. The prosecution was expected to conclude its presentation of witnesses and evidence today. After a one-week break for the Christmas holiday, the defense will begin calling its witnesses on Dec. 30.

The government has also used secretly recorded conversations, some dating back more than 10 years, to support the charge that Ligambi sat at the top of the Philadlelphia crime family.

There was the four-hour lunch meeting at LaGriglia, the North Jersey restaurant, in May 2010 in which Ligambi and three Philadelphia mobsters broke bread with leaders of the Gambino crime family. One of the Gambino soldiers, however, was cooperating and wearing a body wire.

There were tapes of Gary Battaglini discussing bookmaking and loansharking with a cooperating witness in 2002 and, on one tape, telling thecooperator that part of the payment he made each month was kicked up to Ligambi.

And there was Staino, on tape with undercover FBI agent David Sebatiani -- posing as a hustler and financial wheeler-dealer named Dino. Staino boasted about his ties to the mob, describing himself as the "CFO" and a member of the "board of directors" of the crime family.

While more focused that its prosecution in the first trial, the government's case against Ligambi is still largely circumstantial, a fact that Jacobs has alluded to again and again during the six-week trial. Despite an investigation that extended from 1999 to 2012, Ligambi's voice is seldom heard on tape.

And when it is, the mob boss's comments are often innocuous and open to various benign interpretations.

Frequently sarcastic and certainly profane, Ligambi largely kept his own counsel. Even at the LaGriglia meeting, his comments were less than incriminating. He joked about the father of an alleged member of as rival mob faction coming to his door after being told by the FBI that Ligambi planned to kill his son.

"I said, `What the fuck you talking about?'" Ligambi said, recounting the encounter which occurred on his South Philadelphia doorstep. "`Don't ever come around this house again. I don't know what you're talking about.' I mean, that's, that's the kind of nuts you're dealing with."

At another point he told a story about a mob associate who was so broke "the guy was selling cakes out of the trunk of his car." Ligambi also drew a laugh with a comment about the associate's girlfriend whom he described as "the broken down broad he was going out with in Florida."

He referred to Ralph Natale, a mob boss who had become a government witness, as "that rat motherfucker." And drew more laughter when he told the story about a phone call that came to his home from a North Jersey mob associate who had gotten Ligambi's number from Rita Merlino, Skinny Joey's mother.

"It was Joey's mother," he said. "I told her, what're you giving this guy my number for? What the hell's the matter with you?"

But there are other comments that support the government's position, including an introduction made by Joseph "Scoops" Licata at the opening of the LaGriglia meeting. Introducing Ligambi to the New York mobstes, Licata said, "Our acting boss, Joe Ligambi, Philadelphia."

It won't be Ligambi's words, but the words of others, that will determine his fate when the jury finally gets the case.

The same is true for Borgesi.

The case against the volatile 50-year-old mobster is built almost entirely around the testimony of two mob associates who became government witnesses.

If the jury believes the story Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello and Anthony Aponick told from the witness stand, Borgesi was running a mob bookmaking and loansharking operation from prison where he was serving a 14-year sentence for a 2001 racketeering conviction.

Borgesi's lawyer, Christopher Warren, has attacked the credibility and motivation of both witnesses, claiming they implicated Borgesi with lies and half-truths, presenting a story that curries favor with the government and gets them out from under their own criminal problems.

Several defense witnesses who are expected to be called after the Christmas break will offer testimony to back up that claim.

Who do you trust?

Who do you believe?

Reasonable doubt?

Those are the questions that Warren wants the jury to consider.

Both defendants have been in this situation before.

In the first trial, which ended in February, Borgesi beat 13 of the 14 counts he faced and Ligambi was acquitted on five of nine charges. But the jury hung on the other counts, leading to the retrial that began in November.

The jury in the first trial appeared to reject Monacello's testimony (Aponick was not called as a witness in that case) finding Borgesi not guilty of specific loansharking and sports betting charges but inexplicably hanging on the overarching racketeering conspiracy charge.

The jury hung on that same count against Ligambi as well as two gambling counts and a witness tampering count which are also part of the ongoing trial. (Overall, after three weeks of rambling deliberations, the jury in the first trial delivered not guilty verdicts on 46 charges, hung on 11 others and delivered just five guilty verdicts. Four of the seven defendants in that case, however, are now serving lengthy jail terms. One, Licata, was acquitted, and Ligambi and Borgesi are still fighting.)

With its convoluted verdict, the jury in the first trial apparently couldn't answer the key question posed by Jacobs earlier this week.

"What does Joe Ligambi have to do with that?"

We're not sure, the jury verdict seemed to say. Or, more to the point, we can't agree.

But this is a different jury. And it has heard a more focused government case. How it answers that question will determine Ligambi's fate. And what it thinks of Monacello and Aponick will go a long way toward determining Borgesi's future.

Read more at http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/12/a-key-question-for-jury-as-government.html#QYAmwdqU0oIxXeuh.99

Thanks. The Galati guy; is that a piece on his head? Looks Like it. hahaha

A Key Question For The Jury As The Government Wraps Up The Ligambi Case


Jacobs
By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net

The question went to the heart of the case against mob boss Joe Ligambi.

After verbally sparring with an FBI undercover agent over a $25,000 cash payment by Anthony Staino that was either a loanshark transaction or an investment in an illegal (and ficticious) money-laundering scheme set up by the FBI, Edwin Jacobs Jr. asked, "What does Joe Ligambi have to do with that?"

That's the question, applied on several different levels, that Jacobs hopes the jury in the racketeering conspiracy retrial of Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi takes with it when deliberations begin sometime next month.

Absent a smoking gun (literally and figuratively), the prosecution has built the racketeering conspiracy charge against Ligambi around the criminal activities of other mobsters. Some examples -- a sports betting operation run by Gary Battaglini for mob leader Steven Mazzone; the loansharking/extortion gambit for which Staino was convicted in the first trial earlier this year, and the operation of a video poker machine company (JMA) by Staino.

The prosecution says they support the conspiracy charge; that Ligambi as mob boss approved of and benefitted from the crimes committed by his underlings. The defense says the evidence, weak and circumstantial, does not tie Ligambi, 74, to the allegations.

What the jury thinks is all that really matters.

And the anonymously chosen panel probably won't get to debate those points until sometime next month. The prosecution was expected to conclude its presentation of witnesses and evidence today. After a one-week break for the Christmas holiday, the defense will begin calling its witnesses on Dec. 30.

The government has also used secretly recorded conversations, some dating back more than 10 years, to support the charge that Ligambi sat at the top of the Philadlelphia crime family.

There was the four-hour lunch meeting at LaGriglia, the North Jersey restaurant, in May 2010 in which Ligambi and three Philadelphia mobsters broke bread with leaders of the Gambino crime family. One of the Gambino soldiers, however, was cooperating and wearing a body wire.

There were tapes of Gary Battaglini discussing bookmaking and loansharking with a cooperating witness in 2002 and, on one tape, telling thecooperator that part of the payment he made each month was kicked up to Ligambi.

And there was Staino, on tape with undercover FBI agent David Sebatiani -- posing as a hustler and financial wheeler-dealer named Dino. Staino boasted about his ties to the mob, describing himself as the "CFO" and a member of the "board of directors" of the crime family.

While more focused that its prosecution in the first trial, the government's case against Ligambi is still largely circumstantial, a fact that Jacobs has alluded to again and again during the six-week trial. Despite an investigation that extended from 1999 to 2012, Ligambi's voice is seldom heard on tape.

And when it is, the mob boss's comments are often innocuous and open to various benign interpretations.

Frequently sarcastic and certainly profane, Ligambi largely kept his own counsel. Even at the LaGriglia meeting, his comments were less than incriminating. He joked about the father of an alleged member of as rival mob faction coming to his door after being told by the FBI that Ligambi planned to kill his son.

"I said, `What the fuck you talking about?'" Ligambi said, recounting the encounter which occurred on his South Philadelphia doorstep. "`Don't ever come around this house again. I don't know what you're talking about.' I mean, that's, that's the kind of nuts you're dealing with."

At another point he told a story about a mob associate who was so broke "the guy was selling cakes out of the trunk of his car." Ligambi also drew a laugh with a comment about the associate's girlfriend whom he described as "the broken down broad he was going out with in Florida."

He referred to Ralph Natale, a mob boss who had become a government witness, as "that rat motherfucker." And drew more laughter when he told the story about a phone call that came to his home from a North Jersey mob associate who had gotten Ligambi's number from Rita Merlino, Skinny Joey's mother.

"It was Joey's mother," he said. "I told her, what're you giving this guy my number for? What the hell's the matter with you?"

But there are other comments that support the government's position, including an introduction made by Joseph "Scoops" Licata at the opening of the LaGriglia meeting. Introducing Ligambi to the New York mobstes, Licata said, "Our acting boss, Joe Ligambi, Philadelphia."

It won't be Ligambi's words, but the words of others, that will determine his fate when the jury finally gets the case.

The same is true for Borgesi.

The case against the volatile 50-year-old mobster is built almost entirely around the testimony of two mob associates who became government witnesses.

If the jury believes the story Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello and Anthony Aponick told from the witness stand, Borgesi was running a mob bookmaking and loansharking operation from prison where he was serving a 14-year sentence for a 2001 racketeering conviction.

Borgesi's lawyer, Christopher Warren, has attacked the credibility and motivation of both witnesses, claiming they implicated Borgesi with lies and half-truths, presenting a story that curries favor with the government and gets them out from under their own criminal problems.

Several defense witnesses who are expected to be called after the Christmas break will offer testimony to back up that claim.

Who do you trust?

Who do you believe?

Reasonable doubt?

Those are the questions that Warren wants the jury to consider.

Both defendants have been in this situation before.

In the first trial, which ended in February, Borgesi beat 13 of the 14 counts he faced and Ligambi was acquitted on five of nine charges. But the jury hung on the other counts, leading to the retrial that began in November.

The jury in the first trial appeared to reject Monacello's testimony (Aponick was not called as a witness in that case) finding Borgesi not guilty of specific loansharking and sports betting charges but inexplicably hanging on the overarching racketeering conspiracy charge.

The jury hung on that same count against Ligambi as well as two gambling counts and a witness tampering count which are also part of the ongoing trial. (Overall, after three weeks of rambling deliberations, the jury in the first trial delivered not guilty verdicts on 46 charges, hung on 11 others and delivered just five guilty verdicts. Four of the seven defendants in that case, however, are now serving lengthy jail terms. One, Licata, was acquitted, and Ligambi and Borgesi are still fighting.)

With its convoluted verdict, the jury in the first trial apparently couldn't answer the key question posed by Jacobs earlier this week.

"What does Joe Ligambi have to do with that?"

We're not sure, the jury verdict seemed to say. Or, more to the point, we can't agree.

But this is a different jury. And it has heard a more focused government case. How it answers that question will determine Ligambi's fate. And what it thinks of Monacello and Aponick will go a long way toward determining Borgesi's future.

Read more at http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/12/a-key-question-for-jury-as-government.html#wcaA6JOuleSJmU7U.99

Todays witnesses were all about bookmaking, then that wedding photo of Stainos' that Joe told the photog not to give to the FBI. Suppose to be the last day for the goverment witnesses, but they aren't done. Goin back on the 30th to finish then the defense case starts. They said 3-4 days for them. So looks like it'll wrap up early January. Just in time for Nicodemos' and Galatis' trials!

Prosecutors in mob trial seek to show how Ligambi intimidated witness
Jeremy Roebuck, Inquirer Staff Writer
Friday, December 20, 2013

The photo of Joseph Ligambi, taken at a mob associate's wedding three years ago captured the reputed mob boss in less troubled times.

Decked out in a dark suit and tie and surrounded by a dozen close friends and family members at the Curtis Center, his face bore a smile not often seen in recent days in a Philadelphia federal courtroom.

But what that image meant and its potential implications for Ligambi's current criminal case became the subject of testimony Friday as his racketeering retrial ended its sixth week.

Prosecutors contend it shows the purported Mafia don alongside his network of loan sharks, bookmakers and mob enforcers. Ligambi's defense maintains the government has mistaken a simple family gathering for the wedding scene out of The Godfather.

In any case, Mark Louis Scoleri, the South Philadelphia photographer who captured that happy tableau, told jurors Friday he knew exactly which image the FBI was looking for when an agent showed up on his doorstep. Scoleri was presented with a subpoena for all of his photos from the 2010 wedding reception of Anthony Staino, a made man.

"I figured he was looking for that one photograph I took of the group," he told jurors Friday. "I knew he didn't want to look at no bride and groom photos."

Scoleri's testimony lies at the core of a witness intimidation charge against Ligambi. While jurors have spent weeks hearing of the 74-year-old's alleged involvement in loan-sharking, illegal gambling and extortion as part of the larger conspiracy case against him, prosecutors sought Friday to show Ligambi fought back as an FBI investigation closed in around him.

Agents who had surveilled Staino's nuptials were interested in the photo for the glimpse it provided into Ligambi's relationships with other made men and mob associates whose names had surfaced in their investigation.

Scoleri, who shot dozens of family events for the Ligambis over the past 20 years, said he immediately called his frequent client after that visit from the FBI. The reputed mob boss decided to pay the photographer a visit.

As soon as he arrived, Scoleri told the jury, Ligambi placed his hand on his shoulder and said, "Don't give them that picture."

"We were talking real close," the photographer said. "We were right next to each other."

At first, Scoleri did as he was told, but once investigators questioned him about the photo's absence, he turned it over.

Prosecutors contend Ligambi's instructions to Scoleri amount to an act of intimidation.

But despite what he described as a momentary lapse, Scoleri conceded under cross-examination from Ligambi's lawyer that he never exactly felt threatened by Ligambi.

"He was laughing and joking," the photographer said.

As for the mob figure's closeness during their conversation, Scoleri said, "that's just the way he talks. I'm not afraid of Joe."

Testimony in the trial is scheduled to resume Dec. 30.
↓http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20131 ... ClE2b2C.99

Prosecutors seek to show how Ligambi intimidated witness
PHILADELPHIA The photo of Joseph Ligambi, taken at a mob associate's wedding three years ago, captured the reputed mob boss in less troubled times.

If I was that photographer I would of told the feds to go f*** themselves! Not only did he lose some good clientele, now he has to watch his back.