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PHILADELPHIA (Associated Press) — They won’t be going home for Christmas, but several accused mobsters appeared upbeat Wednesday as their racketeering trial in Philadelphia nears an end.
After two months of prosecution testimony followed by two days this week from the defense, closing arguments are set for Jan. 3. The jury was sent home for the holidays, and five of the seven defendants returned to jail.
“Happy holidays! See you in about a month, three weeks,” defendant George Borgesi told supporters as he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. He even extended the greeting to prosecutors.
Prosecutors believe his 73-year-old uncle, lead defendant Joseph “Uncle Joe” Ligambi, quietly ran Philadelphia’s La Cosa Nostra for a decade, making money through sports betting, illegal poker machines and loan-sharking. There’s been practically no talk of any bloodshed, in marked contrast to the mob rule a generation ago.
But a gangland-style slaying in South Philadelphia last week may have shattered defense claims that the mob today uses neither handguns nor hollow-point bullets.
A man whose name had come up at trial was gunned down hours after the government rested its case. Court records show 50-year-old victim Gino DePietro forged a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in a 2008 drug case, but they don’t show if he was ever sentenced or sent to prison. That’s helped fuel speculation he was cooperating, although he was not one of the several mob turncoats who testified.
