NY Southern District Court Broke the Mob, Celebrates 225th
The Court That Broke the Mob Celebrates a Birthday | The Nation: "It is the court that convicted mafia figures of racketeering and conspiracy. It is the court where a defendant in a drug conspiracy case, while being cross-examined, threw his fifteen-pound wooden chair at the prosecutor, and spent the rest of the trial gagged and manacled.
It is the court where, in an overcrowded courtroom, Judge Pierre Leval presided over the longest trial in American history, the marathon “Pizza Connection” case, involving New York mafia kingpin Salvatore Catalano. The trial was a mammoth $1.6 billion narcotics conspiracy case lasting seventeen months. It was a daunting challenge to trial management, and the jury convicted eighteen men of over 100 acts of racketeering."
It is the court where, in an overcrowded courtroom, Judge Pierre Leval presided over the longest trial in American history, the marathon “Pizza Connection” case, involving New York mafia kingpin Salvatore Catalano. The trial was a mammoth $1.6 billion narcotics conspiracy case lasting seventeen months. It was a daunting challenge to trial management, and the jury convicted eighteen men of over 100 acts of racketeering."