3 acquitted of lying conspiracy in bird-and-bridge case

A JURY yesterday acquitted three men accused of conspiring to lie to federal authorities in a case that involved birds, a bridge and an illegal immigrant.

As the jury forewoman read "not guilty" verdicts, the mother and sister of lead defendant Nikolaos Frangos wept in the gallery, and Frangos thrust his arm forward in a cheer.

His attorney, Bill DeStefano, said after the verdicts: "These guys did not do anything wrong or illegal. It's a shame they had to suffer through this trial."

Frangos, 38, was the boss of the Liberty-Alpha Joint Venture, which was refurbishing the double-decker Girard Point Bridge, which carries Interstate 95 over the Schuylkill in Philadelphia.

On trial with him before U.S. District Judge John Padova were George Capuzello, 43, a painting foreman, and Mikhail Zubialevich, 42, a worker.

On June 4, 2011, two workers were spotted in a restricted area of the bridge, near a nesting box of a pair of peregrine falcons. The workers so disturbed the birds, the feds said, that the falcons abandoned their nest, leaving behind an unhatched egg.

Peregrine falcons are protected under federal law and are on the state's endangered-species list.

Evidence in the case showed that the two workers near the nest were Zubialevich and Walter Morgan - also known as Walter Eduardo Morgan Gomez - an illegal immigrant from Honduras. Capuzello had admitted in the trial that he directed two workers to take a hose across the bridge, but said he did not know which two workers took up his order.

Prosecutors contended that after finding out that Morgan was one of the two workers, Capuzello and Frangos concocted a plan to have another worker "stand in" for Morgan so authorities wouldn't find out that an illegal immigrant was working there.

That "stand-in" worker was a man named Joseph Warren, the feds said. Evidence showed that Warren wasn't even on the bridge that day, but in Maryland.

Prosecutors contended that for the scheme to work, Zubialevich also had to lie about Morgan.

During the trial, defense attorneys attacked the credibility of Morgan and Warren, who both testified as government witnesses and received certain benefits.

DeStefano and Geoffrey Johnson, Capuzello's attorney, also told jurors that their clients didn't know that Morgan was an illegal immigrant because he had provided the company with a Social Security card and other documents. They also said their clients were led to believe that Warren, not Morgan, was one of the workers near the nest that day.

Mark Cedrone, Zubialevich's attorney, told jurors that his client admitted being near the nest that day, but when later asked by authorities, he could not recall with whom he was working that day.

Zubialevich thought he had been working with Warren because Warren had accompanied Zubialevich and Capuzello to a meeting with authorities on the falcon-nest issue, Cedrone said.

Besides a conspiracy charge, Frangos and Capuzello, both of Ohio, were acquitted of witness tampering and harboring an illegal immigrant.