Turncoat mob associate expected to testify at Philly trial today
A mob associate who turned government cooperator
because he may have feared that Joseph Ligambi wanted him dead is expected to
testify against the reputed mob boss and other ex-associates for the first time
today.
Louis "Bent Finger
Lou" Monacello, 46, is likely to spend at least a day on the witness stand
describing for prosecutors what he knows and did for the Philadelpha mob. Then
he'll likely spend just as long fending off cross-examination by lawyers for
the 73-year-old Ligambi and six codefendants.
Monacello was on the
other side of the courtroom after FBI agents arrested him and the others in May
2010. That roundup capped a decade-long investigation into extortion,
loan-sharking and gambling by the local mob and set the stage for the
racketeering trial that began in late October and could stretch to the end of
the year.
Prosecutors once
described Monacello as a "high-ranking associate" and leader of a
crew run by one of the defendants, George "Georgie" Borgesi, a
49-year-old nephew of Ligambi's believed to run gambling and loan-shark
operations in Delaware County. When Borgesi was jailed in another case, they
said, Monacello ran his rackets and visited him in prison to deliver updates.
Monacello also
allegedly served as a collector for the mob, directed by Ligambi directed to
collect yearly "street tax" or "tribute payments" from
South Jersey bookies between 2000 to 2007.
Besides describing
those duties, Monacello, who began cooperating in 2010, could be asked to
recount for jurors a conversation in which Borgesi allegedly bragged about his
involvement in 11 murders.
Jurors are also likely
to hear about disputes within the crime family that may have led to Monacello's
decision to cooperate. In 2008, Monacello was convicted of solicitation of
assault for trying to hire someone to kill Martin Angelina, a reputed captain,
because he believed Angelina was collecting on debts owed to him.
Prosecutors have
acknowledged Monacello's role as a cooperating witness, but it's not clear yet
how he will benefit. He entered a guilty plea in July 2011, which for a time
was sealed from public access by the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Eduardo
Robreno.
Lawyers for all the
defendants have tried to challenge the case as flimsy - more talk that actual
violence, and much of it recorded by degenerate gamblers and informants trying
to wrangle out of legitimate loans or their own criminal cases. Monacello
inevitably faces those same accusations when cross-examination begins late
Friday or next week.
"Lou Monacello had
one thing in mind, and that was Lou Monacello," Borgesi's lawyer, Paul
Hetznecker, said during opening statements.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20121109_Mob_turncoat_Bent_Finger_Lou_to_testify_today.html
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