Nothing but the Truth

By John Nicholas Iannuzzi

The information about the book is not available as of this time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664178366

John Nicholas Iannuzzi

In addition to being an author, John Nicholas Iannuzzi is a celebrated New York City trial attorney and an adjunct professor of law. He also breeds and trains Lipizzan horses.  

Book preview

NOTHING BUT

THE TRUTH

50 Years in the Well of the Court

John Nicholas Iannuzzi

A

MADCAN Book

Copyright © 2021 by John Nicholas Iannuzzi.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/29/2021

Contents

1 First Encounter With the Justice System

2 The Question

3 Commencement and Admission to the Bar

The 1960s

4 My First Homicide Trial

5 Passing Through Clanking Medieval Chains

6 A Punch in the Mouth

7 San Francesco

8 Where Does He Park His Car

9 Hell’s Kitchen

The 1970s

10 You Have to Play Chess

11 You Want Me To Be An Informer?

12 The Italian-American Civil Rights League

13 What’s Going On, Mr. Nunzi?

14 Losing Mr. Goodbar

15 Le Retour de Le Parrain

16 Take Your Tooth Brush and Surrender

17 Held in Contempt

18 The Man Who Was Never ‘Here’

19 A Legend or a Louse

20 Hey, Paesan

The 1980s

21 No Weapons In The Lineup

22 Big G - Pure and Simple

23 Nobody Talks to the Grand Jury

24 Finale

25 Windows on the World

The 1990s

26 I Heard It Coming

27 Come Fly To Me

28 Was Yours, Now It’s Ours

The 2000s

29 We Only Make the Spitballs

30 The World Will Never Be The Same

31 The Story Never Grew Old

32 The Life is Dead

The 2010s

33 Do They Want Me To Die In Here?

34 Even Lawyers Embrace the 2¹st Century

35 Another Window on The World

36 Any Good Trials Lately?

37 Passing the Torch

38 The Full Circle

To Andrea Marguerite Iannuzzi

my beloved Daughter

who shared and experienced

most everything that I recount herein

and who I shall miss forever

55438.png 1 First Encounter With the Justice System

I was 17 years old the first time I accompanied my father to 100 Centre Street, the Criminal Courts Building in Manhattan. We took the elevator to the 4thfloor, where outside of what was then known as Part 1-A, his clients, Joey Pata and Anthony ‘Figgy’ Figarotta, were waiting. The two men were cohorts, constantly together; if you saw one, the other would not be far behind.

Joey was accused of a daytime burglary of a woman’s apartment on Second Avenue. As I stood in the wide fourth floor corridor, my Father conversed with Joey and Figgy. Part of that whispered conversation was that it would be impossible for the Complainant whose apartment was burgled to identify Joey. She hadn’t been home while he was rifling the place. When Figgy, who was serving as the look-out, saw the woman who owned the apartment entering the lobby of the building, he gave a pre-arranged signal, and Joey fled with some loot via the fire escape.

Armed with that information, my Father was prepared to defend Joey against the charges when the Assistant District Attorney (ADA) in charge of the case came out into the hallway to advise my Father of his offer to permit Joey to dispose of the case by pleading guilty to a Misdemeanor now rather than having to go through a Preliminary Hearing and a Grand Jury presentation. My Father told the ADA no deal, that he didn’t think the Prosecution’s case would stand up, and that Joey wanted to go to trial.

At this point, let me quickly fill you in on a bit of family background. My Father was a fine and canny lawyer, admitted to the New York State Bar in 1930. He told me that originally he had wanted to be a medical doctor. His brother Charlie, known as Charlie Jones, was an entrepreneur who periodically owned dance halls, a chain of fast-food spaghetti houses called Romeo’s, where pasta was cooked in copper kettles in the front window, a business canning Italian tomato sauce in a day when such a process was relatively unknown, a motor launch with an automobile engine for a power-plant for rum-running purposes, a night club, and a string of motor-less open touring cars which were towed to populous city sites in order for celebrities to stand in the back selling First World-War U.S. War Bonds. Uncle Charlie, in his travails, became friendly with Caesar F.B. Barra, a well-known lawyer who represented a contingent of defendants who were emerging into the pantheon of organized crime: Salvatore Maranzano, Johnny Torrio, Joe Adonis, Lucky Luciano, Joe Bandi, Carlo Gambino, and a contingent of lesser knowns, whose names and legal quandaries filtered into my youthful brain through over-heard conversations.

First convincing Attorney Barra to take my father on as a law Assistant, then my father that such a path would be more lucrative than checking pulses and taking temperatures, Uncle Charlie financed Dad’s tuition to one year in Manhattan College (that’s all the schooling necessary to enter law school in those days) followed by Fordham Law School. Several years later, when Barra retired, my Father succeeded into his own private practice, continuing to represent criminal defendants, taking time out in 1944 and 1945 - being a married man with children, he wasn’t subject to the draft - to work as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted many a draft-dodger who had custom-made uniforms tailored to fool neighbors and people in the street into thinking they were in the armed forces. At the same time, Dad was also involved in politics, being a lawyer at Tammany Hall, providing service to indigents who could swell the voting ranks of the Democratic Party.

To understand what was happening in Joey Pata’s case that first day I accompanied Dad to court, you should know that a Prosecutor is solely responsible for the prosecution of criminal charges. Judges may hand down sentences, but it is the Prosecutor, in the first place, who decides which cases should be prosecuted, which should not, what charges should be lodged, which should not. It is also entirely up to the Prosecutor, if he/she thinks a case or the evidence or the witnesses to an incident are somewhat weak - to reduce a charge from a potential felony - in Joey’s case, a Burglary - to a misdemeanor, thereby permitting the Defendant to satisfy the charges against him by pleading guilty to a less serious crime. A misdemeanor, by the way, is a case for which the potential sentence is a year or less; a felony is any case for which the potential sentence is anything more than one year.

Before Joey’s case was called, my father had spoken to the Court Officer who was serving that day as the Bridge Man, the Officer who stands in front of the Judge’s bench and selects the cases from the day’s calendar to be called before the Court. My father told me that the Bridge Man gave my father permission to have me stand by a door that opened from the side of the courtroom into a corridor which paralleled one side of the courtroom. From that private corridor, which permitted access from the public hall to the witness room, the jury room, and the Judge’s robing room behind the courtroom, I was able to observe what was going on inside the court. When Joey’s case was called, I saw my father advise the Judge that he wanted a Preliminary Hearing as he intended to contest the charges and, if necessary, proceed to trial. The Judge told my Father that as soon as he finished the first call of the cases on his calendar, Joey’s case would have a second call and a Preliminary Hearing - probably at the beginning of the afternoon session.

The strategic disadvantage to undertaking a Preliminary Hearing - when such was available - is that when the Prosecutor is put to the trouble of going through a Preliminary Hearing, if he/she is successful in presenting a prima facie case, that is, the Judge rules there’s enough evidence to hold the Defendant further answerable for the charges, the Prosecutor may no longer be amenable to permitting a Defendant to dispose of his case by a plea to a lesser charge. Strengthened by surviving the Preliminary Hearing, the Prosecutor ordinarily thereafter requires the Defendant to dispose of his case as a more serious crime, a felony. After all, a Defendant has to pay rent in some fashion for the time he uses the courtroom.

I should note that in felony cases, by common practice that has been adopted in recent times by Prosecutors in both the State and Federal courts, Preliminary Hearings have virtually disappeared. Rather than have a Preliminary Hearing of felony charges in the lower courts during which a Prosecutor would be required to present (read reveal) his underlying case and present his/her witnesses for the pre-trial scrutiny and cross-examination by Defense Counsel, Prosecutors choose, instead, to forego the Hearing, permit the charges to be dismissed in the lower court without a Hearing, the facts and witnesses to thereafter be presented to a Grand Jury - a closed-by-law proceeding where the Prosecution’s witnesses are not subject to Defense Counsel eyes and ears. Once the Grand Jury indicts (charges) a Defendant on felony violations, the case is assigned to the Superior Court where the Defendant has to stand trial - without having the opportunity/benefit/preview of a Preliminary Hearing. The Grand Jury hearing the evidence, by operation of law, was that Defendant’s preliminary hearing.

At the beginning of the afternoon session, my Father again stationed me in the side corridor so that I could continue to observe the court at work. Dad waited inside the courtroom for the second call of Joey’s case. In that side corridor, as mentioned, there were doors behind me that led to a witness room, the jury room, and the judge’s robing room. As I stood there, the Judge was on the bench, the Bridge Man in front of the bench, the clerks and Court Officers were at their posts; but the Assistant D.A. in charge of Joey’s case was not in the courtroom.

After a few moments, the door to the witness room, right behind where I was standing, opened partially. A police officer started out of the room, then stopped, listening to something being said inside the room. Turning my head, I could see through the narrow door opening; I saw the A.D.A. in charge of Joey’s case; I also partially saw a woman. The Assistant was about to leave the room to join the police officer. I quickly looked away, pretending I was totally captivated by the courtroom proceedings in front of me.

The only way to stop these thieves, I heard the A.D.A. say back toward the woman as he held the door slightly open, is for victims like yourself to stand up and press the complaints. Otherwise, someone else will be their next victim.

I just really don’t know what he looks like, I barely heard the woman say. I mean, I opened door to my apartment. I knew that something was wrong; I heard a noise, perhaps, I don’t remember really, but there was no one there.

The arresting officer caught him running out of the alley behind your building. He had some of your things in his hands -

I understand, but, honestly -

You think mugs like this are concerned with honesty? They’re hoping that you react just the way you are. That’s how they get away with it so long. These are professional second-story men. This isn’t their first brush with the law. This defendant has a sheet - an arrest record - as long as your arm. This is the way he makes his living, preying on hard working people like yourself while you’re at work.

I was straining my ears to make out what the woman was saying as I pretended to be paying rapt attention to the proceedings inside the courtroom.

But will I be able to recognize him if I didn’t see him? the woman said.

The A.D.A. moved back somewhat into the room, still holding the door slightly ajar. Look, you want people like this going around stealing your things, and maybe worse? Who knows what would have happened if you walked in and surprised him, cornered him? You were lucky this time. If honest people like you don’t stand up for yourself, we might as well give the city over to the bad guys.

What if I make a mistake and don’t pick him out?

He’ll be sitting right there at the table with his lawyer, an older gent with a suit and tie. There are two tables. I’ll be at one. The Defendant will be the only other person at the other table except for his lawyer. You’ll be able to tell, believe me. I’ll ask you to look around the courtroom to see if you recognize anybody. He’ll be sitting right there in front of you at the table with his lawyer. You look around and there he’ll be.

I -

Look. You do the best you can, okay. I’m not telling you you have to recognize somebody if you don’t, okay? But this character would steal your eyeballs right out of your sockets if he had a chance. So I wouldn’t worry my conscience to death, like you are.

I suppose that’s so.

I know it is.

He’ll be sitting right at the table?

Right at the table. With his lawyer. You’ll be doing yourself and everybody else a favor.

She sighed deeply. All right, all right.

Good. Stay here. I’ll have someone come and get you when it’s time. The A.D.A. came into the corridor behind me - I continued to look straight ahead into the courtroom - walked behind me and entered the courtroom.

Immediately, in my head, I thought that what I heard the A.D.A. tell that woman, especially in light of her acknowledgment that there was no way she could identify the person who had been in her apartment, wasn’t right; actually, even under the circumstances, it was downright dishonest, twisting the system, cheating, whatever you wanted to call it; whatever, it offended my youthful sense of fairness and honesty.

As soon as the A.D.A. went out into the courtroom, I quickly moved through the corridor to the public hallway, turned left, and opened the main doors of the courtroom. Years later I would enter that very same courtroom many times and stand at the counsel table myself to note my appearance for the Record. John Nicholas - fully spelled out - Iannuzzi, I-a -n-n-u-z-z-i, for the Defendant. On that day, however, I rushed through the first set of courtroom doors, caught my breath, opened the second set of doors, and walked quickly up to the rail that separates the well of the courtroom from the audience. Joey’s case had just been called. My Father was just unhooking the velvet rope to enter the well of the court. Joey was standing right next to him. I went directly up to my Father and whispered She’s going to identify Joey.

My Father looked at me quizzically.

The witness - the woman - I just heard her talking to the D.A. through a crack in the door.

Dad stopped, the velvet rope still in his hand. He studied me. You sure?

I heard them talking, through a crack in the door. She said she couldn’t identify him. The D.A. said he’d be the only one at the table besides you. She said okay.

Some kid, Nick, Joey murmured from behind my Father.

Mr. Iannuzzi, is this your case? the Judge said impatiently. My Father nodded and smiled at me just before he turned forward. It is, Your Honor.

Are you ready for hearing on this matter?

No, sir, a misdemeanor plea, said my Father as he and Joey walked to the defense table.

The A.D.A., standing at the Prosecutor’s table, looked at my Father, surprised.

The Defendant has authorized me to offer to withdraw his heretofore entered plea of Not Guilty, my Father pronounced, and has further authorized me, in place and stead thereof, to offer to plead guilty to the crime of unlawful entry, a misdemeanor, that plea to cover all the charges.

I thought you wanted a Hearing, the A. D.A. whispered toward my Father.

We had a change of heart.

The Judge looked at the .D.A. Is that plea satisfactory to the People?

No hearing? the A. D.A. said softly to my Father.

Thought I’d save you the trouble.

The A.D.A. shrugged. Yes, Judge, he said toward the Bench, that was the offer.

Very well, said the Judge. Let’s take the plea. I’ve got a long calendar.

I didn’t realize it that day, but that was my first taste of what eventually became a life involved with the inner workings of the Justice System.

55438.png 2 The Question

Standing on the small balcony of an elegant Manhattan apartment filled with an eclectic collection of abstract paintings, African sculpture, and Remington bronzes high above the Manhattan end of the Queensboro Bridge, I could hear the continuous drone of car tires on the metal studded surface of the bridge below, and see headlights and taillights gliding fore and aft into the night. I was surrounded by the light-speckled panorama of the city’s skyline, the Bronx to the North, Queens, East. Inside, the hostess, Lynne Schwartz, the petite blond wife of Jack Schwartz, a client who became a friend, stood near a buffet table, smiling, anxious for everyone to enjoy.

Lynne tells me you’re involved in criminal law? said a fortyish man with red hair, highball in hand, snaring a canapé from the table.

Indeed.

Prosecute or defend?

Defend.

Must be very interesting. He sipped his drink. I’m Rob Wexler, by the way. He put out a hand.

Shaking hands, I said, John Iannuzzi.

You mind if I ask you something? he said after another sip of his drink.

Instantly, I knew I was going to be asked the question, a question that although it might be phrased differently, is posed to me, and to most criminal defense attorneys, time and time again.

Not at all. By the way, I added, the answer is yes.

Wexler pulled his chin in a notch. Yes to what? He chuckled. I didn’t ask you anything yet.

You were going to ask me: If I knew that a person I was defending was absolutely, positively guilty, would I still represent him anyway?

He pursed his mouth. Not exactly those words -

The answer is still yes.

How did you know what I was going to ask?

We - all defense lawyers - are often asked that question. People have difficulty understanding how a defense lawyer could even try to represent some loathsome dirt bag who committed some terrible crime and try to get him off.

Wexler nodded agreement.

"What people who ask that question don’t understand is that a defense lawyer’s job is not to get guilty people off, so to speak. Nor is it to make decisions or judgments - judges and juries do that. Our only function is to defend a citizen who is accused of a crime. Note, I said a citizen accused of a crime. No matter how much a dirtbag the person might be, my only job is to make sure the law is enforced properly, correctly, that every I is dotted, every T is crossed, that the presumed-innocent person isn’t over-indicted or over-charged, and make sure all of his rights are protected. After that, it’s up to the judge and the jury."

Wexler lifted his eyebrows slightly. He wanted more.

For example, if I were a doctor in an emergency room, standing over a bleeding patient who’s been brought in on a stretcher, should I consider before I stop the gushing blood whether I like the person on the table, or if I would like to have a drink with him, or if I approve of what the patient was doing before he got to the hospital?

Well, that’s a little different.

"Not really. Let me ask you a question a bit differently. If your son or daughter or niece or nephew got into trouble, whatever it was, you’d want someone protecting every inch of rights they had, so they wouldn’t get railroaded, be convicted, tabbed with a criminal record for the rest of their life unnecessarily, wouldn’t you?"

I wasn’t talking about some college kids who may get a snoot full and piss on the sidewalk or maybe even smoke a little pot on the weekend.

If you think about it, the more terrible the crime, the more socially unacceptable the defendant, the more protection he or she needs from all the righteous bastards ready to pick up the first stone - I don’t mean you, of course, I lied. All I do is slow the rush to judgment down a bit, so the judges and juries, the public, if you will, know all the facts before they throw that stone. Did you ever see the film My Blue Heaven?"

That with Steve Martin?

Exactly. And if you remember there’s a part where Martin, playing Vincent Antonelli, a Mafia turn-coat living in the witness-protection program is arrested for having a trunk-full of stolen contraband in the trunk of his car. Rick Moranis, playing an F.B.I. Agent asks the young and eager female prosecutor if she had had a search warrant to go into Antonelli’s trunk. She looks at Moranis non-plussed, and says, flatly, No! Then quickly adds: Thomas Jefferson never intended the Fourth Amendment to apply to a person like Antonelli. Immediately, Antonelli turns to her and says: You’re wrong. I am the worst case scenario of Thomas Jefferson’s dream. That’s what defense lawyers do. In empty courtrooms, representing sometimes despicable people, protecting them from police actions, possibly illegal searches or seizures, or coerced confessions, suggestive identifications, we’re actually helping to preserve Thomas Jefferson’s dream, hammering out the copper bottom of the constitution for the rest of the citizens. What kind of work do you do, Rob?

Manage a hedge fund.

The laws that Defense Lawyers hammer out while representing people that some might consider despicable dirt-bags are the same laws that keep the police from busting into your office, into your home, grabbing your son in the street, throwing him up onto the hood of the police car with his hands behind his back, searching him, grabbing you or your office papers whenever they want, questioning you without telling you you don’t have to answer questions. Nothing wrong with any of those things either, right?

You really like your work, don’t you?

It’s not bad, I smiled.

55438.png 3 Commencement and Admission to the Bar

I attended New York Law School, Fall, Winter, and Summer semesters at night, finishing my studies in December 1961. During the day, I was working as a law clerk in Harry Lipsig’s law office at 100 Church Street, which was not far from City Hall. New York Law School was then located on the east side of City Hall Park, on Williams Street, at the side of the Brooklyn Bridge where Pace University is now located. It was housed in an old building which had once served as living quarters for orphaned or abandoned newsies, boys who delivered newspapers for the nearby publications operating on Newspaper Row, now called Park Row. As there were no mid-year commencement exercises, I, and others who had completed their courses at the end of the Fall semester, were invited to participate in commencement exercises that would be held the next Spring for students scheduled to graduate in June 1962.

One afternoon in or about February after we completed our studies, however, my study-group class-mate, later State Senator, Joe Galiber told me that our diplomas had been prepared and could be picked up at the school Registrar’s office. I left Lipsig’s office a bit early one late-afternoon to walk over to the law school and pick up my diploma. When I arrived at the lobby of the school, however, the Registrar’s Office was closed. It must have been an early break, for I remember early evening sunlight filtering into the empty lobby.

Hey, how are you? said Dan, the short, portly, bespectacled chief of maintenance for the school. He was in a gray maintenance uniform with Dan embroidered in script on his left shirt pocket. He was a jack of all trades who knew where everything was, who everyone was, and where the bodies - if there were any - were buried or kept.

Hi, Dan. I was hoping to pick up my diploma. I called. The girl in the office said it was ready to be picked up. But I guess I’m too late, the office is closed.

They’re all gone for the day early, said Dan.

I’ll come back another time.

Nah, wait a minute, now that you’re here. Let me look and see if I can find it for you. He pulled a big ring of keys from a hook on his belt. I followed him into the Registrar’s office where he poked around behind the counter and found several rolled diplomas bound with little red ribbons in a bookcase.

What’s your last name again?

Iannuzzi. I-a-n-n-u-z-z-i.

No. No. No, he murmured as he read names penciled on the back of the diploma rolls. Hey, here it is. Here you go, he said, handing me my diploma. He smiled and stuck out his hand. Congratulations.

Thanks, I said. As I never attended the June ceremonies, Dan the school maintenance man presided at my one and only law school commencement.

I took the Bar Exam in February 1962, passed it, and was admitted to the New York Bar on June 18, 1962. My swearing-in ceremony took place in the magnificent stained-glass-domed courtroom of the Appellate Division, First Department of the New York Supreme Court, located at the corner of 25th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Present to celebrate this joyous day was my mother, my wife, and my two sisters. Conspicuously absent, however, was my proud lawyer-Father who had checked himself into Columbus Hospital the day before, not as a result of sickness or injury, but precisely to avoid sickness and injury at the hands of Carmine (Lilo) Galante, a diminutive alleged Capo of the Bonanno crew.

Two years earlier, in May 1960, Lilo Galante and twelve others had been indicted in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, charged with a conspiracy to import large amounts of heroin into the United States from Canada in conspiracy with a group of Canadians headed by brothers Vic, Pep, and Frank Cotroni. Galante was alleged to be the chief executive of this massive drug enterprise. None of the Cotronis were extradited down to join the bevy of Defendants who were assembled for that trial.

The trial of the Galante indictment began on November 21, 1960 before Judge Richard H. Levet and a jury¹. During the next six months, as a result of a series of bizarre misconducts and feigned illnesses, Judge Levet adjudged eleven of the thirteen defendants in contempt of court. On May 15, 1961, that trial came to an abrupt halt, ending in mistrial when, in the middle of the night before summations were to begin, the foreman of the jury broke his back in an unexplained fall down a flight of stairs in an abandoned building

On September 5, 1961, well before the beginning of a second Galante trial, Nicholas P. Iannuzzi, my Father, filed a Notice of Appearance on behalf of Defendant Galante.

The second Galante trial, set to begin on April 2, 1962, was transferred from the exhausted Judge Levet to Judge Lloyd McMahon, a taciturn, no-nonsense Irish disciplinarian, formerly the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. On the day before the trial was to begin, at the behest of Galante, my Father made an Application to Judge McMahon to be relieved as Galante’s trial counsel in favor of Ms. Frances Kahn. Miss Kahn, an attorney confined to a wheel-chair, advised the court that she had actually been retained by Galante some three weeks earlier but had been so busy preparing for trial that she had inadvertently overlooked filing a Notice of Appearance advising the court of the intended change of counsel. Ms. Kahn assured the Judge that she was fully prepared, that her substituting for my Father would not, in any way, delay the trial. With a deprecating frown, Judge McMahon, so long as there was not a minute’s delay, reluctantly permitted Ms. Kahn to appear as co-counsel to conduct the trial, explicitly refusing, however, to relieve my Father as Galante’s co-counsel.

The pandemonium that plagued the first trial resurfaced as soon as the second trial began. On one occasion a Defendant named Panico climbed into the jury box while the jury was actually seated there, walked along the inside of the front row from one end to the other, pushing jurors and screaming vilifications at them, at the judge, and at the other defendants. He was held in contempt. Some days later, while a defendant named Mirra was being cross-examined during a Hearing, Mirra stood, picked up the witness chair he had been sitting on and hurled it at the Prosecutor. Narrowly missing its intended target, the chair shattered against the front of the jury box. He, too, was held in contempt. Judge McMahon ruthlessly responded to these outbursts by having each of the offending perpetrators gagged and shackled in their chairs at the defense table throughout the balance of the trial.

In addition to the courtroom antics, the defendants engaged in a series of off-stage activities designed to delay or derail the trial. On April 16, another defendant, Sciremammano, fell or tripped down the stairs at the Federal Detention Headquarters on West Street.

Parenthetically, West Street was a small, five- story jail complex at the edge of the Hudson River in Greenwich Village. It housed all Federal detainees awaiting trial in both the Eastern (Brooklyn and Long Island) and Southern (Manhattan to Albany) Districts of New York. By 2015, Federal jurisdiction had been flexed and expanded to the point that West Street was inadequate to hold all the Federal detainees; it was replaced by three towering 12-story detention centers, one in Manhattan, the M.C.C. near the Federal courthouse in Manhattan, and two (the M.D.C.) in Brooklyn at the edge of that complex of factory buildings that, during World War II, became known as Industry City.

Because of Sciremammano’s accident, no testimony was taken on April 16 or the morning of the next day in order to permit a physician appointed by Judge McMahon to examine Sciremammano at the hospital. No objective signs of injury were found, the examining physician opining that the Defendant was feigning his agony. Nonetheless, Sciremammano refused to come to court thereafter and, when forced into a wheelchair and rolled into court by the Marshals, insisted that he was too sick to participate. A few days later, Defendants Struzzieri, Mirra, and Panico claimed that they had been drugged and were unable to remember anything that had transpired previously in the courtroom. In the early hours of June 7, Defendant Panico was found by a corrections officer hanging by the neck from a belt in a cell at the detention facility that he occupied with his brother and another prisoner. A court appointed psychiatrist found the ostensible attempt at self-hanging occurred under circumstances justifying suspicion as to its genuineness and Panico was brought back into the courtroom - neck welt and all - later that very day. On Monday, June 11, defendant Monastersky’s attorney informed the court that his client had fallen in the shower and had injured his arm. Monastersky later claimed that he was so affected by medication (aspirin) that he was groggy and unable to follow the proceedings.

On June 12, Ms. Kahn, Galante’s trial counsel, also suffered one of the calamities that plagued defense counsel during the trial - she and her wheel chair accidentally rolled down a staircase.

The Judge took the bench late on the morning that Ms. Kahn roller- coasted down the stairs, livid that Galante had the audacity to think he might halt the juggernaut of justice. The Judge glowered at the defense counsel tables in front of him which included an empty space next to Lilo Galante where Ms. Kahn’s wheel chair should have been.

Let me see the file in this case, the Judge said to his Courtroom Deputy who sat at a lower desk in front of the Judge’s bench. The Deputy handed a case folder up to the Judge.

Hmm, now I remember... the Judge murmured softly to himself as he began rummaging through the documents in the file.

The Court Reporter leaned closer to the mahogany bench to hear the Judge’s murmurings.

- - Nicholas P. Iannuzzi was originally your attorney for this trial, was he not, Mr. Galante? The Judge glanced over the edge of the bench.

Galante, short, sturdy, bald, with very dark eyes, glared back at the Judge without a word.

Isn’t that right, Mr. Galante? the Judge repeated, slightly louder.

Your Honor, said Silvio Cosentino, an attorney for one of the other defendants, rising. Cosentino had attended and been graduated from Fordham Law with my Father.

Are you now representing Mr. Galante? the Judge turned on Cosentino.

No, Your Honor, I...

Mr. Cosentino, the Judge leaned forward, stop winking at me when you speak.

I’m not winking Your Honor. Cosentino had a heart condition and high blood pressure, perhaps from too many years in the tracers of defense work. A tic caused his right eye to blink when he became stressed.

Of course, you are, Mr. Cosentino. I know a wink when I see one. I order you to stop winking at me.

Your Honor... Albert Krieger, a young defense counsel for another defendant, began to rise from his seat.

Do you think Mr. Cosentino needs a lawyer, Mr. Krieger?

Krieger, immobilized, half risen, sinking back down into his seat, shook his head.

Are you lawyers trying to lock horns with me this morning? The Judge’s eyes narrowed, his lips curled down at the corners. "I wouldn’t advise it. I really wouldn’t. Now sit down! Both of you. When I want to hear from either of you, either of you, I’ll tell you. Now both of you, stay seated!"

The Judge continued to sift through the file. He glanced up again, looking toward Cosentino. I suggest, Mr. Cosentino, that you find yourself a good doctor. Mr. Galante, would you mind standing.

Sullen, glowering, Galante rose.

May I just make a remark for the record, Your Honor, said Silvio Cosentino, daring only to half rise.

The Judge slammed the palm of his right hand on the bench. An exhalation of apprehension puffed out of the audience. Mr. Cosentino, the Judge virtually hissed. The routine that you’ve been using with success in the Municipal Court the last couple of decades, doesn’t work here. If you say one more word, any word at all, Mr. Cosentino, even Your Honor, I am going to hold you in contempt, and you will spend at least this evening on West Street with the Defendants. With that admonition, Mr. Cosentino, you are free to say anything you wish.

Cosentino lowered himself back into his seat.

Mr. Galante, I believe I asked you a question, the Judge said, his attention returning to Galante.

I really don’t want to say anything, Your Honor, Galante replied. I’d like Miss Kahn to speak for me. Lilo actually liked this violent turn in the weather of the trial. Anything was better than the course the Judge had been following. He was permitting every bit of harmful evidence, as well as the proverbial kitchen sink, in before the jury. Perhaps, with no lawyer, or with the judge forcing an unwanted attorney on him, the events would swell into a deprivation of constitutional proportion for appeal.

Miss Kahn, for some mysterious reason, which we will resolve very shortly, very shortly, isn’t here with us this morning, Mr. Galante, said the Judge.

We should wait, then, for my lawyer Miss Kahn so she can speak for me, Judge, Galante said.

I think we may have a solution for you, Mr. Galante. As I was saying, Mr. Iannuzzi was originally your attorney in this case, was he not?

Miss Kahn is my lawyer.

I don’t know how we ended up with such a miserable bastard as our Judge, Sciremammano whispered loudly to his attorney George Todaro. Glancing quickly, apprehensively, up at the Judge, Todaro moved to the far edge of his seat, as far from Sciremammano as he could.

When this trial was scheduled to begin, the Judge continued, I permitted Miss Kahn to be your trial counsel, but I did not relieve Mr. Iannuzzi, is that not correct? Galante remained silent. Yes, it is. I have Mr. Iannuzzi’s Notice of Appearance right here. And my notes indicate, just in case something untoward might occur to Miss Kahn, prudently, I did not relieve Mr. Iannuzzi of his responsibilities in this case. Call Mr. Iannuzzi’s office, the Judge directed his Deputy. Tell Mr. Iannuzzi, or anyone who answers, that I want Mr. Iannuzzi here this afternoon. This afternoon! the Judge repeated harshly.

The Court Room Deputy lifted the receiver of his phone and dialed.

If there is any method to, and I would call it madness, in this situation with Miss Kahn, the Judge continued, I am going to make sure you will not be without counsel, Mr. Galante.

I want Miss Kahn to speak for me.

Mr. Iannuzzi was your lawyer in this case before Miss Kahn, and Mr. Iannuzzi is fully familiar with the underlying facts, I’m sure he -- the Judge stopped