I missed this last week...

Juror dismissed from Family Secrets trial
By Chuck Goudie

August 15, 2007 (CHICAGO) - In a surprising development in Chicago's Family Secrets mob trial, late Wednesday afternoon, one of the jurors was dismissed by the judge. This comes on the second day of testimony from reputed mob boss Joey "the Clown" Lombardo.

Lombardo is one of five defendants being tried for racketeering charges that are linked to 18 murders.
The juror was there Wednesday morning hearing Joey Lombardo's testimony, but her chair was empty after lunch. There was no explanation, or even acknowledgement, from the judge and many people in court didn't even notice that there was one less juror. But late Wednesday afternoon, the I-Team confirmed that the woman was allowed to remove herself from the jury because of some personal situation that came up.

Lawyers representing the five accused outfit members were told very little about the jurors mysterious departure, and they declined to speak after court ended for the day.

After sitting in the jury box for about eight weeks, the middle-aged woman apparently notified Judge James Zagel Wednesday that she could no longer hear evidence in the case.

Although the juror was dismissed from the Operation Family Secrets trial, the first thing said on the record was this statement provided to the I-Team by Judge Zagel:

"The juror asked to be excused for personal reasons which, on a prior occasion, she had mentioned might impose too great a burden on her," the judge said. "Today she indicated that this eventuality had occurred and, in response to her request i excused her. In order to preserve the privacy of the juror I give no further details of her personal reasons."

Even that development could not overshadow Wednesday's performance by Joey Lombardo. During a spirited three hours of cross-examination, the 78-year old mobster known as "the Clown," proved that he could be a serious actor as well. In answer to rapid-fire questioning by assistant US Attorney Mitchell Mars, Lombardo reduced the government's case to a concoction of lies by informants, one-time friends and federal agents and to a series of coincidences, mistakes and misspeaking. Lombardo claims that he merely ran a dice game and made a few good investments financed by his friend, Alan Dorfman, who was later gunned down in a suburban parking lot.

As for Lombardo's appearance in a famous photo, known as "the mob's last supper," Lombardo told the jury that he happened to have dropped by the restaurant for a sandwich and ran into nine men who happened to be Chicago's leading outfit bosses.

Lombardo did admit to trying to shake down a St. Louis attorney in 1979, and that he threatened to murder him, a conversation captured on an FBI undercover tape:

"If they make a decision and they tell me to come back and bring you a message to pay, you can fight the system if you wanna, but I'll tell you one thing. You say you're 72, and you defy it...I assure you that you will never reach 73."

Lombardo told the jury that he didn't really mean the lawyer would died before his next birthday, that he was just play acting, following a script like Jimmy Cagney, who was known for playing mobsters in the movies.

Lombardo also said he had an alibi. In Wednesday night's I-Team report at 10 p.m., we'll take you inside the Lombardo file, unmasking the clown.