[illini43]

I actually sat in on this trial for 2 days this summer when I was interning at a law firm downtown.

The first day I went had some witnesses from the FBI, etc. talking about fingerprint detection methods, which was interesting and basically told me never touch anything you don't want to be connected with. Pretty crazy stuff.

The second day I went was when Nick Calabrese (brother of one of the defendents, aka the SNITCH who flipped) was on the stand. He was talking about all the different murders he helped with, how he was "made", stuff about the Spilatros in Vegas, then in Bensenville/cornfield in Indiana. It was like listening to a movie. In the early 80's they used a remote control to blow up a guys car when he was driving to work on I-294 in Hinsdale, IL. He also explained how he shot guys in the head, strangle people, etc. Picutres were also shown of the customized cards they had with polic sirens built-in to help run away from the cops. They even had a license plate 'flipper' that would change the plates of a car while you were driving.

Pretty sweet stuff. All of the guys are like 65+, so I don't think it's really that big of a deal that they are all guilty - the mob has found new leadership by now.

It was weird just sitting 50 feet away from these guys though, especially when they looked around the courtroom at the crowd and made eye contact with me. I'm sure I sat next to a few guys who are currently in the mob; there was quite an interesting crowd at the trial.