The veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for www.bigtrial.net and in his latest piece he reports on Joseph "Scoops" Licata.
Licata's voice bounced all over the courtroom during the opening days of testimony back in late October. He was the principal speaker in a secretly recorded mob meeting at La Griglia, a North Jersey restaurant where members of the Philadelphia crime family met with leaders of the Gambino organization in May 2010 to talk business.
The taped conversation, made by Nicholas "Nicky Skins" Stefanelli -- a cooperator who later committed suicide -- was described by Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor as a meeting of "the board of directors of organized crime."
Licata's attorney, in his opening, begged to differ.
"This was just a bunch of geriatric gangsters talking about the old days," said Christopher Warren.
Licata, who got the nickname "Scoops" because of his penchant for spreading underworld gossip, had something to say about nearly every major player in the organization.
One of 10 mob figures breaking bread and drinking wine, he dominated the conversation. But while he joked, laughed and made asides about the violent history of the Philadelphia crime family, virtually nothing he said that day, Warren has agrued, had anything to do with, or was even remotely related to, the charges in the pending case.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
http://www.bigtrial.net/2012/12/the-forgotten-man-at-mob-trial.html
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