But you don't know any of this. Neither do I, for that matter. But the Feds have a 94 percent conviction rate for a reason. And please don't trot out that people are tired of rats and all that crap.

It's true that people are tired of rats, but the Feds stack the deck in their favor. Go ask guys like Tommy Gioeli and Little Dino, who are both going to die in jail, AFTER BEING ACQUITTED, if the Feds are pursuing Merlino just to give him two years.

And they'll always bat 90 percent. They've been doing so for two hundred years. Verdicts are cyclical. The wiseguys have had some success lately. But at the end of the day, the Feds will still beat these guys nine out of ten times. That's why the smarter guys have made an art of the plea bargain.