“You think his son bombed his house?” the judge asked, facetiously.
The government has information,” Phillips said, “that some of the business establishments that were bombed were bombed on orders of either Mr. Salvatore Bonanno or Mr. Joe Bonanno, Jr., or Mr. Bonanno, Sr.”
Krieger and Bill Bonanno were both shaking there heads now, and Krieger finally appealed to the judge loudly, “May I respond to something of my own knowledge, Your Honor?”
“Yes.”
“As far as this Tucson, Arizona, situation is concerned, an FBI agent by the name of Hale has been relieved of service as a result of charges leveled against him by two people who were arrested and indicted in Tucson, Arizona, who have also been charged with committing the bombings which Mr. Phillips just lavishly lays at the door of the Bonannos.” Phillips seemed puzzled by the remark, having heard nothing about the FBI’s involvement—that story, unlike the previous bomb reports from Tucson that held the Mafia responsible, had not been featured in The New York Times or other New York papers. Phillips was hearing this now for the first time, and he did not interrupt as Krieger explained, “Mr. Bonanno was home and Salvatore Bonanno was home when the Bonanno home was bombed. It just does not stand to reason that he is planting bombs in his own house to blow himself up.”
The judge listened patiently, though without great interest, to the story about the Tucson bombings; he had already made up his mind to free Bonanno and Notaro on bail until the day of sentencing, and merely wished to warn them that this temporary freedom would be reconsidered “if there comes to the attention of the court the slightest indication of any violence or harm to the community or threatening or intimidation or tampering with witnesses who are likely to appear in any other criminal proceeding.”
Bill Bonanno was released on $15,000 bail, Notaro on $10,000, and the day of sentencing was put off until after the Christmas holidays.
Before Bill and Notaro turned to leave the courtroom, which was now nearly empty, the judge turned to them and said, reassuringly, “Your counsel did everything that could possibly have been done on your behalf. I just think the government had a very strong case from what I see with respect particularly as to the defendant Bonanno. So I don’t think when you start second-guessing this you can say that your counsel moved the wrong way at some stage. They didn’t.”
The defendants nodded in agreement, and then, with Krieger and Sandier, they left the courtroom. Bill and Notaro, excited and relieved that they were out on bail, went directly toward telephone booths to relay the news of their conviction to their families, and then to check out of the hotel and fly home for the weekend. The attorneys planned to appeal the conviction and to remain alert for new evidence that might benefit their clients’ cause, although they did not anticipate anything specific, and they were both disappointed and dejected by the jury’s decision.
Then suddenly and unexpectedly, on the following Monday, their hopes were revived. Leonard Sandier, walking through the criminal courthouse on Monday morning, met a friend of his, a lawyer, who during a brief conversation about the Bonanno case asked if the witness, Don A. Torrillo, was the same individual who was a codefendant in another case in which this lawyer’s client was also involved. Sandler was surprised to hear that Torrillo had another case pending, and when he asked what Torrillo’s indictment was about, his friend said it concerned a “bucket shop”—a fraudulent brokerage house. Sandler quickly left to check the records, and he soon discovered that Torrillo had been named a year and a half ago in a 99-count indictment. The date on the indictment was May 25, 1968, which was a little more than two months after Perrone’s death; and it was obvious from the docket entries that little legal action had been taken on Torrillo’s case. If Sandler was prone to jumping to conclusions, which he was not, he might assume that the government had exhibited considerably less enthusiasm in prosecuting Torrillo than it had demonstrated in the Bonanno-Notaro case. Bonanno had been indicted for the credit card episode in early December 1968, six months after Torrillo had been indicted for federal securities violations; and, if nothing else, it meant that when the government was interrogating Torrillo during 1968–1969 about his credit card, it had more on him than the mere fact of his arrest