cover image The Boys from New Jersey: How the Mob Beat the Feds

The Boys from New Jersey: How the Mob Beat the Feds

Robert Rudolph. William Morrow & Company, $22 (431pp) ISBN 978-0-688-09259-7

In November of 1986, the federal government brought to trial 21 members of the Lucchese crime family, regarded by law enforcement officials as the Mafia group in charge of activities in northern New Jersey. Held in the Newark court of Judge Harold Ackerman, the proceedings featured V. Grady O'Malley as chief prosecutor and Michael Critchley as coordinator of the defense. Each of the accused was represented by a different attorney. In August of 1988 all of the defendants were found not guilty. Why? Rudolph, a reporter for the Newark Star Ledger , suggests that too many defendants were tried at the same time; that the case went on so long that the jurors became restive; that the defense succeeded in discrediting many of the mobsters who had become informants; that the judge did not exercise proper control; that ``Fat Jack'' DiNorscio, who usurped his lawyer and called himself ``a comedian, not a gangster,'' turned the trial into a circus. Rudolph is a journalistic stylist of the highest order: his sentences and paragraphs are short, punchy and highly readable. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)