February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
And the judge in the case threw out the conviction partly on the grounds that some of the jurors appeared to have a hard time distinguishing between the real case they were hearing and episodes of the top television series “The Sopranos.”
Michael Forde, president of the New York District Council of Carpenters, and Clare native Martin Devereaux, business agent for carpenters union Local 608, were convicted just over a year ago of taking a $10,000 bribe from a mob-run firm in return for letting the company employ nonunion workers during the renovation of a Midtown Manhattan hotel.
The key prosecution witness in the case was Sean Richard, son-in-law of the imprisoned boss of the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante crime family.
Forde, 51, who lives in Queens, and Devereaux, 54, a New Jersey resident, were facing sentences varying from probation to seven years in prison after being convicted in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Defense attorneys Gino Lombardi, who represented Forde, and Mike Dowd, who defended Devereaux, appealed on the basis that the evidence in the case was insufficient.
Specifically they argued that during the trial no witness had actually admitted to passing cash to either union official.
The defense also appealed the case on the basis of jury misconduct, an allegation prompted by information obtained from a concerned alternate juror.
In setting aside the convictions, Supreme Court Judge Jeffrey Atlas rejected the motion based on evidence but granted the motion for dismissal based on the conduct of the jury.
“It is clear from the accumulation of hearing evidence in this case that the jurors flagrantly ignored my admonitions not to discuss the case,” Atlas wrote in his 26-page decision.
Atlas stated that it had been established that “there was considerable discussion between certain jurors, sometimes in the presence of all jurors, not only at recesses but during group lunches held in a public restaurant.”
Judge Atlas stated that he accepted the claim by the defendant that during recesses and other times “one of the most vocal and opinionated jurors” had openly discussed with other jurors the credibility of witnesses at the trial.
“The same juror and others discussed the defendants in negative and sarcastic terms,” Atlas wrote in his opinion.
He added that “a group of jurors” had appeared to have formed a “cheering section” for the prosecution during the trial.
Atlas also pointed to an apparent linking of evidence by some jurors in the trial to plots from the TV show “The Sopranos,” which is itself loosely based on the real life DeCavalcante crime family.
Based on statements by some jurors that they felt members of the audience in the courtroom reminded them of characters in the HBO series, Atlas wrote that this could “only be interpreted to mean that the jury believed that some union members who were in the audience, were, as they were on ‘The Sopranos,’ criminals.”
Atlas also cited one juror’s early announcement to fellow jurors that the defendants were guilty and indicated his concern that the jury’s deliberations might have been tainted by anti-union bias.
“We think a serious injustice was corrected,” attorney Gino Lombardi told the Echo Tuesday.
“Jury conduct had to be scrutinized in this case to make sure that it was above board,” Lombardi added.
Lombardi said he understood that prosecutors planned to appeal the judge’s decision to set aside the sentences on the basis of jury conduct.
He indicated that the defense was itself planning to appeal the judge’s decision to reject the motion to dismiss based on the actual evidence in the case.
The case against Forde and Devereaux arose in 2000 as part of a broader investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office into alleged Mafia corruption of New York’s construction business.
Forde, a prominent face in Irish-American circles, has a long history in the city’s labor movement. His father, also Michael Forde, immigrated to the U.S. from County Mayo and helped establish the Local 608 carpenters’ union — often referred to as the “Irish local” — as one of New York’s most prominent labor groups.