Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1910-02-08
TOO BUSY MOTT
ALMOST |ND|CTS
MURDERED Man
Bungles Up Papers So That
Court Adjourns in Despair
and Witnesses Gr0wl.
WRIT MADE 1T APPEAR
THAT VICTIM WAS ACCUSED
! Prisoners Go Back to Jail, and
Prosecutor Is Given An
other Chance.

Because of a bungle in the too busy
prosecutors Office, the trial of Joseph
Maddaloni and Joseph Vella, charged
with the murder of Gaetano Ficaretti,
set for today before Judge Ten Eyck
in the Court of Oyer and Terminer, was
adjourned until February %. The net
result was that three-score witnesses,
many of them from out of town, came
to court for nothing, and the jurors
were out of a job, let alone the fact
that there was nothing doing for the
bench all day.
Z The two prisoners are charged with
having stabbed Ficaretti to death last
election night in Branch Brook Park,
as the outcome of feud. Maddaloni
lives in the Silver Lake section of
Bloomfield, and Vella in Seventh ave-
nue. while the home of the alleged VIC
tim was in New York. Maddaloni had
an uplifted knife in his hand over the
form of Ficaretti when the police
bounced upon him. The victim died be-
fore. he got to hospital
Frank M McDermit represents the
two prisoners, and ii was he who dis
covered the bungle that led to the ad-
iournment He found it in the indict-
ment against his client. This was so
loosely drawn that the pronoun theirs
instead of "hs" was used in a way that
it made it appear that Ficaretti was
the guilty man instead of the victim.
II move" said Mr.. McDermit, "that
the indictment be quashed, on the
ground that 1t is illegal and defective,
as the word theirs is used instead of
his" making it appear that the dead
man was actuared by malice afore-
thought This can hardly be true"
Mr. Mott admitted that the bungle
was a palpable one, and remarked:
LAS ! don't want to take any chances
on a defectively drawn indictment l
move that the case be adjourned SO that
can in the-meeasyi1fle have an indict-
nlent properly drawn up and presented
TO the grand jury at It's session this
afternoon"
Mr. McDermit expressed his regret
because so many of his witnesses came
from a distance, and so because so
much time had been lost, but Judge Ten
Eyck agreed that a new indictment
should be drawn. and the witnesses
went away grumbling.
Different in Hudson.
II was learned today that Supreme
Court Justice Swayze may not
charge the Hudson county grand
jury on the high cost OF living
and inquisition into the cold stor-
age situation in Jersey City when he
comes to Hudson on Wednesday to re-
ceiVe the jurors and get from them
any presentments they have to make.
1t Is said that Prosecutor Pierre p.
Garven is not ready with data he pro-
poses to give Judge Swayze.
When asked today what he had
to say regarding anything new in the
cold storage probe, Mr.. Garven de-
clared he is continuing along impor-
tant lines and has his detectives gath
ering some useful information that
will be impaired to the grand jurors
tomorrow.
This information will. include state
ments, written as well as verbal, the
grand jurors win hear concerning con-
tradictions made by retail dealers of
charges made by the cold storage men
that the retailers are responsible for
high prices of beef, eggs, poultry and
other provisions.
The prosecutor will probably confer
in few days with Assemblyman Mark
A. Sullivan to formulate bill to re-
strict the keeping of large quantities of
foodstuffs in cold storage plants longer
than three months.
When the news reached the ears of
several cold storage representatives it
was said that if such a law became
operative they would have to quit the
city.