The defense lawyers attacked the government's star witnesses -- a series of flipped Genovese gangsters -- as not believable because they "admitted to murder and other misdeeds on the stand in exchange for lighter prison sentences." For example, Frederick H. Cohn, a lawyer for Freddy Geas, argued that "those slime bags who testified, they have no loyalty."
The defense strategy to attack the so-called rats typically fails in mob trials. Indeed, the flipped witnesses are credible precisely because they are "slime bags"; after all, who else would be involved with the Mafia to know where the proverbial bodies are buried? Moreover, although defense lawyers may not like rats, ordinary folks view their betrayal of criminal underworld values as a good thing which should be encouraged and not condemned.
