Schiro's opening

You have to be kidding me ! He's(Schiro) being put on trial for listening to police radios? DO they have to keep all the defendants in the case together because its a RICO charge or is this a strategic decision by the prosecution? Paulie doesn't belong there if the best they have is "monitoring police radios"...for this we should send him away for life??? I don't think so. How in the world can this jury put any of these men away when they're relying on liars like Cullotta and Calabrese to put them away, these men are cowards turned "witness" when thier scrawny little backs were put up against the wall....why should we believe them? Frank is selling a book of lies, glorifying himself to be ohhh sooo important , when he was nothing, and he knows it.Whats his motive to lie? Well, God knows the defense wont call him , HOW WILL HE SELL HIS BOOK OF LIES..oh right testify for the prosecution , and make it good to pique the interest in your fiction Mr. Cullotta.
and the other guy is looking at life in prison for the murders he DID commit.and they have the DNA proof to put him AWAY.uh..thats sort of a
no brainer isn't it? Its all nonsense if these are the best witnesses they can come up with.

WARMBIR NOTES: As a point of clarification, in case it wasn't clear before, the prosecution contends that Schiro was listening to a police scanner as part of the execution team that murdered Emil Vaci.

Another fact I would mention is that virtually all mob trials rely on informants with shady or criminal pasts.

In that regard, this trial is not unusual from the other mob trials in Chicago.

How can they put these men away based on the testimony of killers who are trying to get off the hook themselves. Whether they did it or not I just dont see how the "snitches" can be enough to put them away for life...thus far there doesn't seem to be much of a case ...i mean without calabrese they still have the same evidence they had for all these years..so whats changed?

Also who are the 2 people who were implicated but died before indictment? Thanks

WARMBIR RESPONDS: I can't speak for the prosecution, but I think I have a sense of their perspective.

The prosecution case adds up, so far, to the testimony of more than people who have killed for the mob.

For Lombardo, for instance, they have some physical evidence linking him to the 1974 slaying of Daniel Seifert.

They have a fingerprint of Lombardo's on the application for title on one of the cars involved in the Seifert hit.

They have two former employees of a CB radio store, who identified Lombardo soon after the killing as the man who bought a police scanner found in that same car - and as the man who was a frequent customer in the store.

They have the testimony of the widow of the victim, Daniel Seifert, who was there when her husband was killed and said one of the masked gunman was the same size and build as Lombardo, and was similarly light on his feet.

Remember, all we've really heard so far is the evidence against Lombardo involving his high-ranking status in the mob in the 1970s and 1980s and his alleged involvement in the Seifert murder.

I'm not making the prosecution's case for them. I'm simply recapping what they've presented so far. We've only heard a small portion of their case.

In fact, none of the witnesses, so far, has been anyone who has committed murder. It's been mainly current or retired law enforcement officers and informants.

It will be much easier to judge the relative strength or weakness of the prosecution's case once they have presented all their evidence over the next three months or so.

Also, keep in mind, in the case of one defendant, Frank Calabrese Sr., the prosecution will be playing his own recorded words to the jury, in which he appears to be describing his own role in mob slayings, as evidence against him.

Calabrese Sr.'s defense will argue the prosecution is either misinterpreting the conversations or that the chats are simply a father, long out of active mob life, bragging to his son about matters he wasn't really involved in.

Also, the lack of physical evidence in some of the cases is going to be the key point the defense is going to hammer home throughout the case.

That was the theme of the opening statement of James Marcello.

When you're dealing with 18 murders, some of the cases are going to be stronger - or weaker - than others, depending on your perspective.

As for the two men you're referring to, Frank Saladino and Michael Ricci were charged in the indictment but died before it went to trial. Saladino was an alleged Outfit killer, while Ricci was a former Chicago police detective accused of trying to illegally help his friend, Calabrese Sr., on mob matters while Calabrese Sr. was in prison.

Saladino and Ricci died of natural causes.

Thank you for clarification on my questions. I guess I;m confused, isn't all of this evidence they're producing something they have had possession of since they collected it years or even decades ago? It seems to me that if this was all supposed to add up and point to each individual, it would have done it long ago without the testimony of a man trying to save his own life...and join the ranks of the "witness protection program" only to return as an "author" ( very tongue in cheek ) to make millions of dollars on selling his books. Speaking of which , perhaps Cullotta should donate the money from his book to A. The families of the people he admits to killing or B. Back to the government for all the money they ( or we ) spent helping him hide.
But seriously getting back on point, beside Calabrese what else has been added? It seems to bring nothing more than they've had except the trickery of a son and friend and brother to get these guys to speak in "language" that can be slanted to work anyway one chooses to decipher . Thank you for you very articulate and informed answers.
Oh and one last thing, is there a place we can get the daily testimony of the trial?

WARMBIR RESPONDS: Lots of questions, which I like.

Let me tackle them in the order you asked them:

1. Much of the evidence is old, in the sense that it's been collected for years and in storage, while prosecutors apparently waited for more evidence to charge the various cases.

But you've got to remember what the case is all about. It's essentially charging the Outfit itself as a criminal enterprise over the last 40 years or so. Before, prosecutors in Chicago have charged various street crews, but never the entire organization.

By the indictment's very nature, much of the material at trial is going to be older stuff.

2. What else do they have besides Nick Calabrese and Frank Calabrese Jr.?

Much of what the prosecution is going to present has been kept under wraps from the public. You can check out the Santiago proffer in the case, which is often the best single document for getting the sense of the prosecution's case in a complex criminal trial like this, and see that much of it is blacked out.

Frank Calabrese Jr. secretly recorded his father while they were both in prison in 1999 on another case.

We'll start hearing those tapes as early as Monday. And we'll have the transcripts posted on our web site as soon as they're available.

But excerpts have already been released, and you can check those out on our web site.

Read the excerpts and judge for yourself. Not all of the chats are in code. In fact, in some of the conversatons, Frank Calabrese Sr. appears to be talking about killing people.

I think the defense strategy will shift in those instances and say Calabrese Sr. was just embellishing and bragging to impress his son over killings he had nothing to do with.

Again, you can judge for yourself, just as the jury will.

As for Nick Calabrese, I believe the prosecution will likely try to present as much evidence as they can to bolster his accounts of the murders he was involved in.

Take for instance the murders of the Spilotro brothers in 1986.

Nick Calabrese will testify that James Marcello drove him to the Bensenville area home where Calabrese took part in their murders.

Frank Calabrese Sr. is expected to be heard on one of the secret tape recordings his son made implicating James Marcello in the Spilotro murders.

One of Michael Spilotro's daughters is expected to testify that James Marcello called the house twice the day her father died, and after those calls, Michael Spilotro said he had to go to a meeting — one from which he never returned.

Also, there will be evidence that the FBI did surveillance of a meeting between Marcello and other top mobsters at an Oak Brook McDonald's the day before the Spilotros were killed.

So, the question for jurors will be is if this adds up to Marcello's participation in the murders or not? (Also, there may be more evidence to be presented. I've just summarized what's been made public.)

I think you're going to hear Marcello's defense hammer the point that there's no physical evidence linking Marcello to the killings.

3. As for Frank Cullotta, if he's still called as a witness in the case, I think the defense attorneys will have a lot to work with, thanks to his book.

4. I don't know of any site that's posting daily trial transcripts. If any one does, please post the link.

Thank you again for your insight. I can't imagine that Mr. Seifert's widowed wife was prepped to discuss how she thought it was Joey Lombardo because he was known to be "light on his feet" in his day. Mr. Scully must've cringed when he heard that slip out. Its not exactly incriminating and certainly gave the defense a smirk. . . I mean isn't moving quickly a necessity for ANY "killer" or "burglar" ? I find the comment to be a little discrediting.
Are there transcripts of the trial anywhere? While I appreciate the coverage you provide, it would be interesting to be able to decipher the daily testimony.

WARMBIR RESPONDS: I don't know of any web site posting the daily trial transcripts, but if anyone does know of one, feel free to post the link.