First embedded link, extremely interesting:

After Claiming Ethnic Profiling, 2 Accused of Being Bonanno Mobsters Are Acquitted

By Victoria Bekiempis @ NYTimes.com, March 13

It was a novel defense for two men federal prosecutors had accused of being in control of one of New York’s oldest crime families: they claimed the Mafia had long ago been dismantled and they were being unfairly profiled as gangsters because of their Italian ethnicity.

But the strategy seemed to work. On Wednesday, a jury in federal court in Manhattan acquitted the men, Joseph Cammarano Jr. and John Zancocchio, of racketeering and conspiracy to commit extortion charges, after a colorful two-week trial.

Prosecutors had presented evidence that Mr. Cammarano and Mr. Zancocchio were the boss and consigliere, respectively, of the infamous Bonanno crime family, one of the five families that once controlled organized crime in New York.

Gina Castellano, the lead prosecutor, had said in her opening statement that Mr. Cammarano, 59, of Long Island, and Mr. Zancocchio, 61, of Staten Island, had “worked together and with other members of the mob to commit crime after crime — extortion, loan-sharking, drug dealing, assault and fraud.” [....]

But defense lawyers had argued that the Mafia no longer existed, and their clients merely looked and sounded like Italian mobsters portrayed in film. “Looking like he stepped out of central casting in a mob movie doesn’t make you part of one of these groups,” said Jennifer Louis-Jeune, one of Mr. Cammarano’s lawyers, during her opening statement.

During the trial, the defense several times suggested that the police had stereotyped the defendants. John Meringolo, one of Mr. Zancocchio’s lawyers, for instance, pressed a New York Police Department detective on whether cultural differences in body language led to an incorrect analysis of a surveillance videotape.

“It wasn’t angry but there was a lot of — there was some hand movements and physical touching,” Detective Anthony Votino had testified. “Not fighting. Just making sure that they got their point across.”

“And that’s because people like us, we talk with our hands and he was talking with his hands, right?” Mr. Meringolo said during his cross, prompting an objection from prosecutors. “And did they kiss each other when they departed?” Mr. Meringolo also asked, to which Votino responded “I don’t recall.” [....]

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