U.S. District Judge James Zagel won't sentence the main defendants in the Family Secrets trial until the spring of next year at the earliest.
Zagel said he would give federal prosecutors until the end of February next year to file their responses to the defense lawyers' request for a new trial for their clients.
Then defense attorneys will likely get a month or more to respond to the prosecution's arguments.
Sentencings also get delayed for a variety of reasons, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities that the main defendants could be sentenced in the summer.
The jury in the Family Secrets mob trial has reached a verdict on some of the 18 mob murders before them but appear deadlocked on others after eight days of deliberation, the judge in case said Thursday afternoon.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel appeared likely to take what verdicts the jury had reached a decision on and announce them publicly and then poll the jurors on the remaining counts as to whether further deliberation would do any good.
Last Friday, the jury sent the judge a note, asking if it could complete deliberations if it were unanimous on some counts but not on others, the judge revealed for the first time in court.
The judge replied that they could, but only if they had exhausted all reasonable efforts.
The jury is deliberating on which of four defendants — Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Frank Calabrese Sr., James "Little Jimmy" Marcello and Paul "The Indian" Schiro - are accountable for 18 previously unsolved murders.
All four men and a fifth defendant, crooked retired Chicago cop Anthony "Twan" Doyle, not accused of the murders, were previously convicted of racketeering for their roles in the Chicago Outfit.
If any of the four men are found to have committed a single Outfit murder by the jury, it will likely result in a life sentence for that defendant.
The jury in the Family Secrets case will be getting a transcript of testimony involving defendant Paul "The Indian" Schiro.
The move comes after the jury sent as note to the judge Thursday afternoon regarding the matter.
The judge, in a hearing Friday morning, didn't specify which testimony the jurors wanted but said he would send it back in its entirety sometime today.
Even though it's half a country away, the Phil Spector trial became an issue briefly Thursday in the Family Secrets trial.
Spector is the famous record producer charged with killing a restaurant hostess in his home. The jury in his case earlier this week informed the judge they were unable to come to a decision, sparking a firestorm of public criticism.
As the court clerk read out one guilty verdict against him after another, Frank Calabrese Sr. hid.
His lawyer, Joseph "The Shark" Lopez, had lifted a manilla folder in front of Calabrese Sr.'s face, so the people sitting in the gallery couldn't see the look on his face as the verdict was announced.
Robert Cooley reacts to the Family Secrets verdict
Robert Cooley, one of the most important federal witnesses against the mob in Chicago, praised the jury's verdict on Monday in the Family Secrets case.
"It’s a good thing," Cooley said. "Just as well to get those guys off the street. These guys hadn’t been the main guys for 20 years. These guys in their days were bad guys."
Cooley was instrumental in helping the feds shred the mob's political in the 1st Ward.
Earlier this week, the attorney for Joseph Lombardo, Rick Halprin, tried to anticipate an argument that he believed the prosecution would make in its rebuttal.
Halprin scoffed at the notion that the famous Last Supper photo of Lombardo, standing, with a group of mobsters sitting around a table, showed Lombardo's 1976 making ceremony.
In his closing argument, Rick Halprin, the attorney for Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, tried to get in front of a potentially interesting prosecution argument about an infamous photograph.
The photo, from 1976 and seen above, shows Lombardo around a table of mob leaders.
Halprin was concerned the prosecution, in its rebuttal argument, would contend the photo is of the making ceremony of Lombardo into the Outfit.
Anthony "Twan" Doyle, Michael Ricci, Frank Calabrese Sr.
Anthony Doyle this week tried to explain away portions of the above conversation he had with Frank Calabrese Sr. when he and a former Chicago homicide detective, Michael Ricci, visited the reputed Outfit killer in prison on Feb. 19, 1999.
Doyle, Calabrese Sr. and Ricci are talking in a visiting room about Calabrese Sr.'s current obsession:
Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo got a chance Wednesday to try to explain why his left middle fingerprint is on the title application for a car used in the 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert.
The explanation centers on his late friend, businessman Irwin Weiner.
Nicholas Seifert, a son of slain federal witness Daniel Seifert, has been checking out the Outfit on Trial blog, and some of the posts concern him, Seifert said in an interview Monday.
Several posters have questioned why federal prosecutors are going after Joseph Lombardo, who is now 78, for the Seifert murder in 1974 and other alleged misdeeds that are decades old.
"Lombardo may have supposedly changed his ways and everything else, it doesn't change any crimes he did in the past," Seifert said.
