Mob Jurors Focus On Lunch

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

Lunch was clearly on the minds of jurors as they entered the 13th day of deliberations this morning in the racketeering trial of mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and six co-defendants.

Sticking with a routine established two weeks ago, the jury placed their orders shortly after arriving in court at 8:30 a.m. They also asked if Olive Garden and Red Lobster could be added to their luncheon options, according to several courthouse sources.

The answer was "no." Lunch is supplied by vendors who own businesses close to the courthouse at 6th and Market Streets.

Later the jury panel asked to rehear several tapes, including a 40-minute secretly recorded session from a mob lunch meeting at LaGriglia, an upscale -- this is no Olive Garden -- Italian restaurant in Kenilworth, N.J.

The lunch meeting, in May 2010, was recorded by Nicholas "Nicky Skins" Stefanelli, a Gambino crime family soldier who was wearing a body-wire for the FBI.

The LaGriglia tape was one of the first played for the jury after the trial began back on Oct. 18. That the panel has asked to return to that meeting now has raised eyebrows and questions about where the deliberations are heading.

Prosecutors have described the restaurant gathering of leaders of the Gambino crime family from New York and the Philadelphia branch of Cosa Nostra as a "meeting of the board of directors of organized crime."

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