United States v. Persico, 646 F. Supp. 752 (S.D.N.Y. 1986)

Judge Keenan's ruling on sufficiency challenges after the 1986 Colombo family racketeering trial. On one defendant's loansharking count, the court says the jury was justified in rejecting his argument that "Arlyne Brickman, Frank Ancona and FBI surveillance agent Ronald Andachter should not be believed."

Date: 1986-09-25
Kind: court-opinion
Source: CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion
Retrieved: 2026-10-12
Docket: S 84 Cr. 809 (JFK)
Rights: Opinion of a United States court. Works of the federal judiciary are in the public domain in the United States. The text was read on CourtListener.

United States District Court, Southern District of New York, decided September 25, 1986, in the Colombo family racketeering case, S 84 Cr. 809. This is not the Commission case.

On defendant Anthony Scarpati, whom the opinion describes as a “Capo in the Colombo Family,” the court says his argument “is essentially a reiteration of his unsuccessful jury argument that Arlyne Brickman, Frank Ancona and FBI surveillance agent Ronald Andachter should not be believed. The jury was justified in rejecting that argument.” It continues: “With respect to the Brickman loan, the tape recordings, the surveillance, and the testimony were sufficient to sustain the jury’s finding that Scarpati was guilty of loansharking.”

The opinion says nothing further about Brickman: not her role, her cooperation, or anything about her life. This archive adds nothing to it.

itemUnited States v. Persico, 164 F.3d 796 (2d Cir. 1999)The Second Circuit affirmed convictions of Theodore Persico and others in the Colombo family war case. Under "The Scarpa disclosure," it records that after trial "the Government acknowledged that for many years Scarpa had been an informant for the FBI" and that Scarpa had lied about or misrepresented his involvement in some murders.