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Conflicting Detail. Actually, Wessel told the jury in summation, arrangements for the gathering had been made days ahead (Barbara had 200 lbs. of steak in his freezer for the "unexpected" guests); the meeting on the hilltop had begun the day before the "callers" said they arrived, and some who said they were not there were seen by police. Damned out of their own mouths by repetition of notably similar detail, the mobsters used the buttoned lip too late in the courtroom. They sat stony-faced for eight weeks as Wessel pulled apart their words.
The Government's cracking of this iron-clad conspiracy—by challenging the conspiracy itself rather than the illegal acts it covered—offered a new approach to the old problem of catching up with big-time hoods. But prosecutors would have to weave their legal nets with patient care.
* In all, 27 men were indicted; one was acquitted, two were granted separate trials because of illness, and four are fugitives. Thirty-six others, listed as "coconspirators" by a U.S. grand jury last spring, may be subject to future prosecution.