Jurors Acquit 20 Top Mob Figures After 21-Mo. Trial : Verdict Is Big Setback for the U.S.

A federal jury today acquitted 20 Lucchese family mob figures of racketeering charges, ending what is believed to be the nation’s longest federal criminal trial and handing the government a stunning defeat.

The jury, which had been selected 21 months ago, returned 77 separate innocent verdicts as the courtroom erupted in pandemonium. The defendants and their attorneys hugged and gave a standing ovation to the jury, which had deliberated just 14 hours. The jury forewoman wept.

Assistant U.S. Atty. V. Grady O’Malley sat grimly as the verdict was read.

Resentment Cited

“What’s there to say. Apparently the jury just resented the length (of the trial) and the breadth of the indictment,” he said.

The government had charged that Anthony (Tumac) Accetturo of Hollywood, Fla., and his co-defendants controlled a New Jersey faction of the Lucchese organized crime family that had illegal gambling, loan-sharking, drug-dealing and fraudulent credit card operations.

The defense tried to discredit government witnesses, many of whom had criminal records. The government contended that only such insiders could tell the story.

Defense attorney David Ruhnke said the verdict was a “complete rejection” of long government racketeering prosecutions against numerous defendants.

“I’m just glad it was everybody (acquitted),” said Michael Taccetta, a Florham Park resident charged with supervising the organization in New Jersey.

The 20 defendants reputedly constituted almost the entire New Jersey membership of the Lucchese Mafia family.

They allegedly operated from the Hole-in-the-Wall luncheonette in the Down Neck section of Newark, where pictures of gangsters graced the walls. FBI bugs in the luncheonette provided tape recordings of conversations that were central to the prosecution’s case.

Key Defendants

The key defendants were Accetturo, 48, a reputed underboss of the Lucchese family, and Taccetta, 39, who authorities charge ran the organization’s day-to-day operations in New Jersey.

Jury selection in the case began Nov. 21, 1986, and the first prosecution witness began testifying April 7, 1987. More than six weeks of closing arguments began July 8 of this year.

The jury began deliberating Thursday morning with a record to consider that included 40,000 pages of transcripts, testimony from 89 witnesses and 850 exhibits.

The jury worked quickly, sending out only two substantive notes to the judge and lawyers in its deliberation over two days.

The first note, issued a few minutes after deliberations began Thursday, asked for a copy of the indictment and the lawyers’ opening statements. As it turned out, the jury already had the indictment along with a number of exhibits in the jury room and later canceled the request for the opening statements.

At mid-morning today, the jury asked for a reading of about seven pages of testimony from a prosecution witness.

The star cooperating witness for the government was Joseph Alonzo, a diagnosed schizophrenic, admitted drug addict and alcoholic and convicted criminal who had shot one of the defendants--his cousin--five times.

Witnesses Called Liars

Defense attorney Robert L. Brown, elected mayor of Orange during the trial, criticized the government for calling as witnesses “liars, thieves, crooks and criminals.”

“American jurors realize that’s not enough under our Constitution,” he said.

According to the Administrative Office of the Courts in Washington, the trial surpassed in length the “Pizza Connection” heroin smuggling case, which ended after 17 months in March, 1987.