Philly mobster calls US attorney a fucking punk after being denied bail
GEORGIE is not happy.
Neither is his mother, Manny.
Or his burly bro Anthony, who looks ready to throw down even on a good day.
The whole Borgesi clan is irate - because George isn't coming home, as they'd expected.
"F---in' punk," George Borgesi barked at Assistant U.S. Attorney John Han, who argued successfully on Wednesday to have the onetime mob consigliere kept in prison even though prosecutors failed to secure a single conviction against him following a trial that began in mid-October.
After 21 days of deliberation, the jury on Tuesday found Borgesi, 49, not guilty on 13 counts related to loan-sharking and deadlocked on the main racketeering-conspiracy count.
But Han said that Borgesi, whom the prosecutor described as an "active, robust member" of La Cosa Nostra despite being imprisoned since 2000, should remain incarcerated as the feds decide whether to schedule a retrial on the last count.
"This is a joke," Borgesi said in the middle of his bail hearing.
Han's statements to U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno set the Borgesi family off, creating an ugly scene in courtroom 15A as relatives who'd sat through a lengthy trial were pushed over the edge by the combination of a bizarre mixed verdict and the government's unwillingness to concede defeat.
"It's inhumane," said Manny Borgesi, George's mother and the sister of reputed mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi. "I hope your mothers feel what I feel. All of you."
"Do you have a mother, I'm wondering?" she later asked a prosecutor as he walked out of the courtroom. "Or were you found in the gutter?"
Borgesi was eligible for release last year after completing his prison sentence on a prior racketeering conviction, but he was jailed while awaiting trial on the most recent indictment.
Han told Robreno that Borgesi remained dangerous, even though he wasn't convicted of anything this time. "Imagine the harm he could do to witnesses who testified," Han said.
Borgesi's attorney, Paul Hetznecker, said that keeping his client in jail is "ludicrous."
"They were defeated on 13 of 14 counts," Hetznecker said outside the courtroom, adding that the Federal Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Pretrial Services Office had recommended Borgesi's release.
Ligambi, 73, who is in the same legal limbo as his nephew, is also seeking to get out of prison, but a hearing hasn't been scheduled.
Robreno on Wednesday revoked bail for reputed mob captain Anthony Staino, 55, and mob associate Gary Battaglini, 51. They were found guilty Tuesday of loan-sharking and racketeering conspiracy, respectively.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130207_Mobster_Borgesi_kept_in_stir__thus_causing_one_in_court.html
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