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 U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel said that he would bring in the jurors to deliver the verdicts and then question them as to whether they might be able to decide on the others.
"From what I can tell from the demeanor of the jurors, they have done their best," Zagel said, suggesting the jury may be hopelessly deadlocked on some of the 18 murder allegations.
Four men already have been convicted by the jury of racketeering conspiracy and other charges involving illegal gambling, extortion, loan sharking and 18 long unsolved murders.
For the last eight days, the jury has tried to determine which murders, if any, are the individual responsibility of each defendant. If the jurors find that any defendant is individually responsible for a specific murder, that defendant faces a maximum life sentence.
Those convicted of racketeering conspiracy are James Marcello, 65, Frank Calabrese Sr., 70, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, 78, Paul Schiro, 70, and retired police officer Anthony Doyle, 62.
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 All but Doyle are accused in the indictment of having committed specific murders. Doyle is not accused of direct involvement in a murder.
The trial is the biggest organized crime case in Chicago in many years. The defendants were convicted of operating the Chicago Outfit, as the city's organized crime family is called, as a racketeering enterprise.
They allegedly squeezed "street tax," similar to protection money, out of businesses, ran sports bookmaking and video poker businesses,
and engaged in loan sharking. And they allegedly killed many of those who might have spilled their secrets to the government.
The oldest murder listed in the indictment, that of Michael "Hambone" Albergo, himself a loan shark, goes back to 1970.
[Associated Press; by Mike
Robinson]
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
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