Defendants

DONTA CRADDOCK and Ivan Rodriguez were brought to tears Wednesday afternoon upon hearing that they had been found guilty of four counts of second-degree murder and would spend the rest of their lives in state prison. "Sorry, Mom, for letting you down and everything. Even though I'm going to be in for the rest of my life, I'm sorry," Craddock, 21, softly said from the wheelchair he has been confined to since the fatal car crash he caused while fleeing a robbery scene on June 10, 2009.

Three people from South Jersey were to be arraigned this afternoon in federal court in Camden in connection with a $2.6 million time share mortgage fraud scheme, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey said. Ashley Lacerda, 32, of Egg Harbor Township, Francis Santore, 52, of Northfield and Brian Corley, 27, of Egg Harbor, were among 16 defendants charged on April 17 with a variety of offenses, including conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Authorities said Lacerda, Santore and Corley worked for The Vacation Ownership Group and that the investigation revealed that from at least March 2009 to September 1, 2011, the defendants, often using false identities, telephoned owners of time-share vacation properties purchased through Flagship Resort Development, Wyndham Vacation Resorts Inc. and other time-share developers.

During 12 years spent in prison on racketeering charges, Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino continued to control the Philadelphia crime family, and despite the fact that he is now living in Florida, Merlino, 50, still sits atop the organization's management chart, according to a government document filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court. The surprising disclosures were contained in a 21-page detention memo filed by prosecutors seeking to deny bail to the two latest defendants in a racketeering case pending against Philadelphia mob leader Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and 11 others.

Five young men yesterday were sentenced to life in prison and two others received seven to 20 years for torturing Sean Daily with baseball bats and then fatally shooting him in the back. The seven were convicted in August 1990 of murdering Daily in his Port Richmond neighborhood in May 1989 to avenge an earlier insult. Daily was not involved in the original incident. Before sentencing, each defendant stood separately and asked Common Pleas Court Judge David N. Savitt for leniency, their families for understanding, and the Dailys for forgiveness.

Eugene Milano, who was to go on trial for murder yesterday with Nicodemo Scarfo and seven others, has said he wants to cooperate with authorities, law enforcement officials said yesterday. As a result, the Scarfo trial was postponed at least until today, and defense attorneys said the defection might lead them to ask for selection of a new jury - meaning an additional delay. Milano apparently telephoned authorities from prison on Tuesday. Scarfo, the other co-defendants and the defense attorneys - including Milano's own attorney - learned of his decision yesterday just minutes before opening statements were to begin in Common Pleas Court.

Philadelphia suffers from the highest per-capita fugitive rate in the country, with 47,000 defendants on the streets having skipped bail, as The Inquirer reported last year. There is a cheap, practical way to deal with this problem that has not been widely discussed: The city's judges should try in absentia all defendants who are freed on bail and deliberately fail to appear in court. Most of the defendants who have thumbed their noses at the system figured that, rather than appear, testify, and face cross-examination, they had better odds of beating the rap if they simply didn't show up. Despite Philadelphia's abysmal conviction rate, they were right.

Testimony in the murder trial of two Mount Airy men has lived up to the prosecutor's early billing that the evidence would be unusual and often hard to believe. A Mount Holly, N.J., jury considering murder charges against Dwayne Wright, 21, and James Clausell, 22, both of Temple Road near Upsal Street, has heard that: Edward Atwood, 37, of Willingboro, N.J., was ordered killed in 1984 because he filed a minor complaint against a neighbor for not cleaning up his dog's mess.

Witness intimidation has pervaded the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court trial of two men charged with a racially tinged double murder in the Tacony section in 2007. Now, a brother of one of the defendants has been arrested in connection with the intimidation. Michael Drummond, 24, allegedly threatened a witness last week in the hallway of the city's Criminal Justice Center. Charged Saturday, he remains in custody, with bail set at $250,000, pending a Dec. 29 hearing. Gerald Drummond, 26, and Robert McDowell, 28, both white, face possible death sentences if convicted of first-degree murder in the July 13, 2007, slayings of Damien Holloway, 27, a black landscaper, and his friend and worker Timothy Clark, 15, who was white.

Mob boss Nicodemo Scarfo and seven associates were sentenced yesterday to life in prison for the July 1985 slaying of bookmaker Frank "Frankie Flowers" D'Alfonso. The eight defendants crowded at the bar of the court with their attorneys standing behind them as Common Pleas Court Judge Eugene H. Clarke Jr. announced that he was imposing the mandatory sentence under the law. He then ordered each to a life term, consecutive to any other sentence already being served. Scarfo and the others were convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder, conspiracy and weapons offenses in the death of D'Alfonso, who was gunned down by two men as he paused to light a cigarette near his home in the vicinity of Ninth and Catharine Streets in South Philadelphia.

The welcome decision by the Philadelphia courts to dramatically boost the fees paid to lawyers appointed to represent indigent defendants facing the death penalty strikes a long-overdue blow for justice. As long as Pennsylvania maintains what Supreme Court Justice Harold Andrew Blackmun famously called "the machinery of death," the state cannot afford to scrimp on fairness. Yet, for decades, the legal representation provided the poor in capital cases has been called into question by the courts themselves.

Msgr. William J. Lynn began testifying in his own defense Wednesday, trying to counter prosecutors' contention that he was the Archdiocese of Philadelphia official most responsible for letting priests stay in parishes despite evidence they might sexually abuse children. Within minutes of settling in the witness chair, Lynn and his lawyer zeroed in on a critical pillar of their defense. Lynn said that during his 12 years as secretary for clergy under Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, he never had the power to assign, transfer or restrict priests in the archdiocese.

Kevin Wang swept through a pair of straight-set wins on Saturday, and his Conestoga boys' tennis team owns back-to-back PIAA state championships after the Pioneers handled Shady Side Academy, 4-1, in the Class AAA finals at the Hershey Racquet Club. Wang joined Jason Sutker and Brian Grodecki in winning straight-set singles matches, and Conestoga added a win at first doubles from Eric Yen and Josh Sutker to hand Shady Side (21-1) its first loss. Conestoga (21-4) beat Mount Lebanon, 3-0, earlier in the semifinals.

Lawyers for the state Department of Education began their defense Tuesday in a federal special-education lawsuit brought by the Chester Upland School District, saying that no law had been violated and that the district had done too little to solve its own problems. In testimony last week and Monday, Chester Upland's lawyers sought to show U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson that the district faces a large funding shortfall in providing legally required services for its 735 special-education students.

Three people from South Jersey were to be arraigned this afternoon in federal court in Camden in connection with a $2.6 million time share mortgage fraud scheme, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey said. Ashley Lacerda, 32, of Egg Harbor Township, Francis Santore, 52, of Northfield and Brian Corley, 27, of Egg Harbor, were among 16 defendants charged on April 17 with a variety of offenses, including conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Authorities said Lacerda, Santore and Corley worked for The Vacation Ownership Group and that the investigation revealed that from at least March 2009 to September 1, 2011, the defendants, often using false identities, telephoned owners of time-share vacation properties purchased through Flagship Resort Development, Wyndham Vacation Resorts Inc. and other time-share developers.

FREDDIE MITCHELL has filed a civil suit against his co-defendants in his federal conspiracy and tax fraud case. The former Eagles wide receiver brought a case in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania against Jamie Russ-Walls and Richard Walls, of Bensalem, alleging fraud, breach of contract and infliction of emotional distress. The suit cites that Mitchell, best remembered for his fourth-and-26 catch against the Packers in a January 2004 NFC divisional playoff game, has suffered embarrassment, lost business opportunities and required medical or psychological attention because of being implicated in the federal court matter in which the couple took advantage of him and defrauded him. An April 2011 federal indictment in Florida, which was unsealed last March, charged that Mitchell worked with the Wallses to bring pro athletes to their tax business, which the government says falsified wage and tax statements to make it seem their clients were owed refunds ranging from $170,000 to nearly $2 million.

WASHINGTON - The public should be allowed to hear the five alleged 9/11 conspirators describe what the CIA did to them in secret overseas prisons, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a motion filed at the Guantanamo war court late Wednesday. "The eyes of the world are on this military commission," the civil liberties group wrote in its motion. It was posted on the court website uncensored and included graphic references to water torture from a leaked International Red Cross report.

HARRISBURG — Jerry Sandusky's lawyer is defending the use of defense subpoenas and asking a judge to order prosecutors to provide more documents and other information as he prepares for trial on child-sexual-abuse charges. Sandusky's attorney, Joseph Amendola, made a pair of legal filings Thursday, one in response to attacks by the Attorney General's Office and others to defense subpoenas. The other is a "motion to compel" that asks Judge John Cleland to order the release of prosecution materials "forthwith.

During 12 years spent in prison on racketeering charges, Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino continued to control the Philadelphia crime family, and despite the fact that he is now living in Florida, Merlino, 50, still sits atop the organization's management chart, according to a government document filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court. The surprising disclosures were contained in a 21-page detention memo filed by prosecutors seeking to deny bail to the two latest defendants in a racketeering case pending against Philadelphia mob leader Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and 11 others.

The Philadelphia courts are plagued by one the nation's lowest felony conviction rates, often due to witness intimidation. City officials have neither the funding nor the resources to create new identities for people too scared to testify for the prosecution. But a proposal now gaining momentum to have the courts return to the use of secret, indicting grand juries in select criminal cases would provide witnesses with a much-needed measure of anonymity in the early stages of trial proceedings.

WHILE STATE POLICE and the FBI started a wiretapping probe into the New Orleans Saints and general manager Mickey Loomis, assistant head coach Joe Vitt called allegations that Loomis had his Superdome booth wired so he could listen to opposing coaches "ludicrous. " "It's absolutely ludicrous. It's impossible," Vitt said Tuesday. "When I first heard something about it being a wiretap, I thought they were talking about Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano or something. I didn't even know what they were talking about . . . And then to associate Mickey with that?