New tapes expected to affect mob trial

Ever since Frank Bruno died in Philly (he's buried in Yeadon..) it never stopped ...politics ??

A bail-detention motion filed against two North Jersey wiseguys last week in U.S. District Court offered up excerpts of conversations that prosecutors hope to introduce as evidence in the pending racketeering case against acting Philadelphia mob boss Joseph “Uncle Joe” Ligambi and a dozen associates.

The trial is set for September.

In a bizarre twist, the cooperating mobster — who law enforcement sources say made, and can be heard on, the tapes mentioned in the motion — will not appear on the witness stand. He committed suicide in February.

Stefanelli recorded dozens of conversations over two years in cases that stretched from Philadelphia to Providence, R.I., according to investigators. The tapes could figure in nearly a dozen prosecutions.

That, say individuals who knew Stefanelli, became too much of an emotional burden for the easygoing mobster.

“He couldn’t live with what he had done,” said one underworld source.

Rather than testify, Stefanelli killed himself. He checked into a Rutherford, N.J., hotel on Feb. 25 and was found in his room the next morning, dead of an apparent drug overdose.

“He didn’t want his legacy to be that of a rat,” said the underworld source. “This might have been his way of saying ‘F.U.’ to the feds.”

While defense attorneys have said little on the record about the latest government filings or the potential impact of the Stefanelli tapes, several noted last week that it technically is not illegal to belong to an organized crime family.