The screenwriters of “Find Me Guilty,” which opened this week in New York and Los Angeles, were faced with the Tony Soprano-sized task of writing a courtroom “dramedy” about what, in its day, was the longest criminal trial in American history.
U.S. v. Accetturo, No. 85-252, involved 20 defendants and as many attorneys, four prosecutors, more than 750 evidence exhibits and 40,000 pages of transcripts. But screenwriters T.J. Mancini and Bob McCrea chose to weave the story from the viewpoint of defendant Giacomo “Jackie Dee” DiNorscio, the trial’s biggest personality who fired his lawyer and represented himself.
