Merlino Jurors To Be Kept Secret

The names of jurors in the biggest mob trial in New Jersey in recent years will be kept secret by order of the presiding judge.

U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise said the purpose was to protect them from possible intimidation.

Jury selection began Thursday in Newark in the conspiracy and murder trial of Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, the reputed head of the Philadelphia-South Jersey crime family.

Merlino, 42, is accused of ordering the slaying of Joseph Sodano, a reputed capo in the Philadelphia-South Jersey crime family who once allegedly ran the organization's lucrative gambling operation in North Jersey.

Sodano, a resident of Montville, was found shot to death in his van in Newark in December 1996.

Authorities say he was murdered because he repeatedly failed to heed the orders of his mob superiors to drive to Philadelphia to talk about money matters.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Grady O'Malley also asked Debevoise for a "partial sequestration" of the jury, meaning jurors would be transported to the courthouse from an unspecified remote parking lot each day.

But Debevoise declined, saying it was enough that court officers escort the jurors to and from their cars in the lot near the court building.

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