Stracco refused to tell them. A few days later his shop was burglarized and its fixtures destroyed. The men next approached Stracco in a bar and again asked him about Rigo's schedule. He still refused to tell them. A few days later a car pulled alongside of Stracco's and someone fired a shot over the roof, narrowly missing a school bus unloading down the street. At Stracco's next encounter with the thugs, one told him, "Forget about it. It's all a mistake. When we win, you're invited to Tony Boy's party."

Although the events had occurred months before, Judge Barlow revoked Boiardo's $50,000 bail and remanded him for the remainder of the trial. He was influenced by other developments. The New York City police got word - whether by "tip" or "tap" has not been disclosed - that Stern's life was in danger, and the prosecutor was placed under 24-hour guard for the remainder of the trial.

Boiardo's stay in the Somerset County jail was brief. On July 6 the 56-year-old mobster suffered a massive coronary. From past experience, the prosecution had predicted that one of the defendants would have a heart attack before the trial ended. But this time the illness was not a case of jury jitters. Boiardo had to be hospitalized and was severed from the case.

A second defendant was also eliminated. To save time, the government had Xeroxed the thousands of documents it planned to introduce in evidence and distributed copies to defense counsel.

"They document you to death," one defense attorney complained. "They made it appear that we got everything, and yet we got nothing. We had no idea of what half the documents were."

But the meaning of one was obvious. Government Exhibit Number 1 was a cashier's check for $1000 from Paul Riga to Councilman Callahan.

Throughout the trial Noonan kept needling Callahan's lawyer, Joseph Hayden: "What are you going to do when he puts Number One in evidence?"

Hayden would reply with something like "I'll think of something."

He did. When the check was introduced and Rigo testified that Callahan couldn't wait for his regular cash payment and accepted a cashier's check instead, the councilman copped out. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of income-tax evasion and was severed from the extortion case.

Of the original 15 defendants, only five remainedAddonizio, LaMorte, Gordon, Biancone and Vicaro. According to Noonan, Gordon was offered the same deal as Callahan, but the government insisted that he remain in the case until his grand-jury testimony could be read into the record; it was the key corroboration of Rigo, but it could be introduced technically only against Gordon. Stem denies that such a "deal" was offered.

Rigo continued his account of the payoffs. By 1968, he said, he was feeling their pinch. He padded his bills to get back the ten percent, but "I never quite made it." He started looking for work in other states, but Boiardo "informed me that . . . regardless of where we obtained work, he would expect his percentage." When Rigo fled to Mexico, the payoffs stopped. As a result, Addonizio received only $4000 of his expected $10,000.

Rigo's direct testimony ended on June 29. Hellring had insisted on first crack at cross-examination, but he was out of town on a civil matter that day. To save time, Gordon's grand-jury testimony was read into the record out of turnand Stern rested. According to Noonan, in an exchange that does not appear in the transcript, he sought to plead Gordon guilty to income-tax evasion. This time Edwin Stem, a junior in Hellring's office and no relation to the prosecutor, objected-and Judge Barlow sustained it. Gordon remained a defendant, sitting silently throughout the trial, his head buried in his hands-as one news story described it, "three feet and 10,000 miles from Mayor Addonizio."

The defense hammered at Rigo for a week-without denting his story. Judge Barlow later described him as an "extraordinary witness": "I've never seen a witness in ten years on the bench who was more difficult for defense counsel to handle."

Back in Newark, on July 1, Kenneth Gibson was sworn in as mayor. Among his first official acts was firing Police Director Spina. Although his administration quickly raised the level of civic virtue, there was little Gibson could do to save the city's sagging fortunes. Newark was near bankruptcy, and its property-tax rate was already at confiscatory levels. Worse, the population was polarized into black against white - a conflict symbolized in the persons of the white militant assemblyman Anthony Imperiale and the black nationalist poet-playwright LeRoi Jones, who had adopted the African name of Imamu Amiri Baraka. Between them, no compromise was possible or cooperation permissible.