July 20, 1940 - Jackie DiNorscio
DiNorscio's place on this site rests less on the scale of his crimes than on the spectacle of his legal defiance — a career criminal who turned a landmark federal racketeering trial into a prolonged, often chaotic showcase of self-representation, ultimately contributing to the acquittal of all twenty defendants. His decision to act as his own counsel in one of the longest criminal trials in American history made him an unlikely figure in the legal record, and later the subject of a Hollywood film.
From Wikipedia
Giacomo "Jackie" DiNorscio (July 20, 1940 – November 14, 2004) was an American mobster who was a member of the Philadelphia crime family, and later the New Jersey faction of the Lucchese crime family. He acted as his own lawyer (pro se) in the United States v. Anthony Accetturo et al. RICO trial, famous for being the longest Mafia trial in American history at 21 months. This trial was conducted while DiNorscio was already incarcerated on separate drug charges. He was ultimately found not guilty (along with his fellow co-defendants) after a short deliberation of only 14 hours, by the jury. After the trial, DiNorscio went back to prison; he was released on November 23, 2002, after serving 17.5 years of a 30-year sentence.
The film Find Me Guilty, directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Vin Diesel as DiNorscio, is based on this trial. DiNorscio died in November 2004, near the end of shooting.
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