It sounds like a classic example of prosecutorial overreach, according to the reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer—and indeed, that's what Barry Gross, David Adler's lawyer, had been saying all along.
Adler was accused in 2011 by the FBI of conspiring with Philadelphia mobster Nicodemo Scarfo, son of the infamous former mob boss, to take control of and loot a Texas company.
The case in U.S. District Court in Camden, NJ ended July 3. Adler was acquitted.
In "Law Review: Nightmare finally ends for a lawyer wrongly linked to Scarfo," Inquirer Staff Writer Chris Mondics describes the FBI's insistence on taking Adler from his Chappaqua home in handcuffs, dispite his lawyer's request that he be allowed to turn himself in; and an indictment that cherrypicked phrases out of miles of wiretap transcripts.
But Adler was only handling legal paperwork in the company's transactions for Scarfo's associate, Salvatore Pelullo.
"The tapes even showed him pressing Pelullo for stricter controls on company operations and tougher leadership by the board," Mondics wrote in the article.
The whole article, and in fact the entire case, sounds like something out of Mafia movies. Juicy details of the Philadelphia mob scene were woven all through the indictments and the case the prosecution laid out for the jury, Mondics wrote.
Read the entire Philadelphia Inquirer article here.
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