Colombo Mafia Bosses Get IPods From Feds To Listen To FBI Evidence
January 01, 2011 Dapper_Don
Two of the Colombo crime family's top leaders received coveted iPods in their Christmas stockings this year -- courtesy of Uncle Sam.
Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioeli, acting boss of the Colombo family, and Joel "Joe Waverly" Cacace, the family's consigliere, will both be getting specially outfitted, 160-gigabyte Apple iPods -- but they won't be downloading their favorite Frank Si natra songs or rockin' around the (cell) block.
The devices can be used only to review government audio evidence behind bars, part of an $8,700 experiment to help the mobsters speed up preparation for their upcoming racketeering trials.
Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioeli, acting boss of the Colombo family, and Joel "Joe Waverly" Cacace, the family's consigliere, will both be getting specially outfitted, 160-gigabyte Apple iPods -- but they won't be downloading their favorite Frank Si natra songs or rockin' around the (cell) block.
The devices can be used only to review government audio evidence behind bars, part of an $8,700 experiment to help the mobsters speed up preparation for their upcoming racketeering trials.
Each iPod costs $950, including the costs of putting the recordings on the device. Court documents do not explain why the iPods are much more expensive than the $249 price Apple advertises. Efforts to reach an Apple spokesman last night were unsuccessful.
Hour after hour of conversations secretly taped by mob informants wearing hidden "wires" or recorded by the FBI over tapped phone lines will be transferred in digital format to the iPods -- a labor-intensive process that accounts for the vast majority of the high price tag.
The idea to use the iPods to help Gioeli and Cacace prepare for trial was proposed by Gioeli's defense attorney, Adam Perlmutter, and approved by federal prosecutors overseeing the case.
People charged with crimes have the legal right to examine the prosecution's evidence against them. Most mob trials involve hundreds, if not thousands, of recordings that wiseguys must review before their trials can begin.
These days, such recordings are most commonly transferred onto CDs, and then defendants awaiting trial listen to them in specially designated rooms outfitted with computers or CD players.
With hundreds of prisoners waiting to use a limited number of trial-preparation rooms, the process bogs down.
Using the iPods will allow Gioeli and Cacace to listen to the recordings in their cells.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mob_pod_father_Y7tfEtB72Dgi8gJE83AK9K#ixzz19pTgKXzW
Hour after hour of conversations secretly taped by mob informants wearing hidden "wires" or recorded by the FBI over tapped phone lines will be transferred in digital format to the iPods -- a labor-intensive process that accounts for the vast majority of the high price tag.
The idea to use the iPods to help Gioeli and Cacace prepare for trial was proposed by Gioeli's defense attorney, Adam Perlmutter, and approved by federal prosecutors overseeing the case.
People charged with crimes have the legal right to examine the prosecution's evidence against them. Most mob trials involve hundreds, if not thousands, of recordings that wiseguys must review before their trials can begin.
These days, such recordings are most commonly transferred onto CDs, and then defendants awaiting trial listen to them in specially designated rooms outfitted with computers or CD players.
With hundreds of prisoners waiting to use a limited number of trial-preparation rooms, the process bogs down.
Using the iPods will allow Gioeli and Cacace to listen to the recordings in their cells.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mob_pod_father_Y7tfEtB72Dgi8gJE83AK9K#ixzz19pTgKXzW
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