Lawyers Strut Their Stuff at Hip Hop Trial

Assistant US District Attorney Dean Haran has his work cut out for him. He is prosecuting brothers Irv and Chris Gotti for using their famed music label, Murder Inc., as a money laundering venue for one of New York's most viscous drug leaders, Kenneth McGriff, better known as "Supreme."

Lawyer Career Defending Mafia

The brothers, Irv and Chris Lorrenzo by their real names, never hid that they built the Murder Inc. label around gangster imagery. But this was all show business, said lawyer Gerald Shargel, who has represented real mafia kingpins in the past.

"The image of the street is what sells records," said Shargel in his opening statement, claiming that the Gottis simply used drug thug Supreme as "a prop ... for the purposes of selling records."

Mafia Lawyers Go Hip Hop

Besides, added Gerald Lefcourt, the other defense attorney, Murder Inc. music wasn't even gangster rap, but "the kind of music that would cross over to all."

Hopefully demonstrating that to the jury, was Murder Inc. ing�nue Ashanti, who sat in the audience during the opening statements, flanked by another Gotti prot�g�, raspy rapper Ja Rule.

During the lunch break, Ja Rule praised Irv Gotti to journalists who hung on his every word. "He's a brother," he said. "He's my family."

Lawyer Career Defending War Against Hip Hop

This trial had nothing to do with drugs or criminal activity, Ja Rule claimed. "It's a war against hip hop. They don't like hip hop."

At the center of the case is the straight-to-video movie Crime Partners. Although the movie starred rap stars Snoop Dogg, Ice-T, and Ja Rule, it was "nothing more than a large-scale money-laundering operation," Haran alleged in court.

New York Law Degree

New York, including Brooklyn, is big for lawyers, especially the high-profile ones that attracts the insatiable appetite of the media. A lawyer degree, while often leading to mountains of office work, could get you into the exciting netherworld of mafia kingpins; both real ones and wannabes.

Sources:
New York Times
Village Voice