By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com
Thanksgiving at the Gotti home may be filled with a little more laughter than at the homes of the New York prosecutors and FBI agents who worked his case.
That’s because the odds of a mistrial for John Gotti Jr. are improving by the day.
On Tuesday, for the second time during the 9 days of deliberations, federal jurors in New York let the judge know they were deadlocked and couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict in the racketeering trial that includes allegations of murder and drug trafficking, the Associated Press reported.
- John Gotti Jr./youtube photo
U.S. District Judge Kevin P. Castel rejected the defense request to declare a mistrial and ordered the jury to continue deliberating, AP reported.
“This trial has been conducted at considerable expense and human effort to both the government and the defendant,” the judge told them, according to AP. “If your deliberations do not end in a verdict, in all likelihood it would have to be tried again before another jury.”
The jury is expected to cut off at 2 p.m. Wednesday and return Tuesday. This is Gotti’s fourth trial. The other three ended in mistrials after the jury deadlocked.
