August 12-18, 2004

cover story

Twists of Fate

Having stumbled into a high-profile mob trial, Chris Warren has become one of the city's go-to lawyers. Ron White couldn't be happier about it.

by Brian Hickey

Office of Christopher Duff Warren 1604 Locust St. Photo: Michael T. Regan

A framed copy of the U.S. Constitution hangs on one wall in this second-floor corner office of a Center City brownstone. On another, just above a green couch with busted arms, is a courtroom artist's sketch. It depicts a passable likeness of an attorney standing before a federal jury at Sixth and Market. The date was June 25, 2001, and Chris Warren was launching the defense's case in the little matter of the United States of America vs. Joseph Merlino, et al.

For Warren, that day was worth remembering because, from that moment forward, he'd no longer be referred to as one of the city's best unknown attorneys. His client, after all, was Angelo Lutz, and by the end of that case, everybody knew who he was.

But on this scorcher of a July day three years later, Fat Ange, Skinny Joey and the rest of the fellows aren't really on Warren's mind. There's a box from Kinko's sitting atop his desk, a couple of inches from the white binder that reads "Philadelphia Office of the Treasurer."

Inside that box are stacks of DVDs. And on those discs, there just happens to be every last bit of discovery evidence that the U.S. Attorney's Office plans to share with the attorneys representing one Ronald A. White, the current face of the city's pay-to-play disease.

As one of two men paid to defend White against charges that he treated the city treasury like a personal expense account, Warren is itching to dig in. Christ, there are some 25,000 wiretapped conversations to listen to and the judge recently said to be ready for trial in less than six months.

"Everybody," he says, holding up the blue-and-white box, "is just chomping at the bit to see what's on these things. They'll show exactly how [investigators] got from White to City Hall!"

There's only one slight problem: He can't do a damn thing for the time being.

"I got a three-year-old computer here. It can't read DVDs," he sighs. "I'm yesterday's news, man."

TEAMWORK: Warren and Jacobs started collaborating during Joey Merlino's 2001 trial. They're now defending Ron White. Photo: Courtesy of CBS-3

Almost on cue, the office secretary's voice emanates from the speakerphone. "Chris," she says, "Ed Jacobs is on line one." Warren spins around in his leather chair and picks up the phone to talk to the Atlantic City lawyer with whom he's working the case.

"Well, I have 400 discs here, but I have to get my computer updated just to read them," he tells Jacobs. "They tell me it's easy, and I'm sure it will be once I can see everything, but I don't know. Doesn't seem that easy right now."

On the other end, Jacobs alerts him to the fact that, luckily, his computers are up to the task. Breath of relief exhaled.

One of the biggest days to date in the City Hall corruption case won't be an utter disaster after all.

Watching the mob do its thing on the streets of South Philadelphia. Watching the ulcers of City Hall fester. In many ways, they're guilty pleasures for many Philadelphians. Neither is truly respectable, but as uniquely Philadelphian entities, we just can't tune them out. Instead, we often embrace the absurdity of both.

These days, though, it seems as if the feds are working overtime to sanitize things — with some success, too. Mob trial after mob trial has crippled La Cosa Nostra to the point that there are as many "made" guys in prison as there are on the streets. And when it comes to city government, well, that listening device in the mayor's office and the subsequent 18 indictments — with more likely to come — have shined a light on a pay-to-play system that everybody knew about anyway.

So, can the feds finally manage to cancel these long-running shows?

Not if Chris Warren has anything to do with it.

In just three years, the Texas native has claimed a rightful place on the shortlist of the city's most sought-after criminal defense attorneys. For proof, one needn't look further than the "Super Lawyers Poll" in the June issue of Philadelphia magazine. Warren was among eight locals honored in the non-white-collar criminal defense category. Not bad for a fellow who dropped out of high school not once, but thrice.

"You went to high school," he responds when asked to explain why he'd settle for a GED. "Did you find it intellectually stimulating?"

It's hard to question his dearth of respect for trivial matters. Sitting down in his office is the equivalent of locking yourself into a law-school primer. Warren, 44, blasts through legal issues as if there's an encyclopedia of 16-letter words in his head. It's a skill that had many in legal circles quick to toast him as a behind-the-scenes genius, one who could write legal briefs like nobody's business. But these days the secret is out.

Chris Warren is now the lawyer people are turning to when their ass is firmly seated on the line. And the only thing that matches the defense he's said to provide is the story of how he got to this point.

"Luck and happenstance. I needed both to get to where I am today," admits Warren. "Now, of course, you need to be good when you get them, but some people never get those breaks. Luckily, I did."

Eight stools line a short bar that's cooled only by a small fan on the floor. The taproom's attached to a Chinese restaurant that shares an intersection with two auto-body shops. Wild Irish Rose, Olde English and $3.25 bottles of Boones Farm get prominent placement in the fridge. It's a pay-as-you-go operation, or so says the handwritten "No Credit, No Loan" sign under the cash register.

This ain't the kind of place you'd expect to find a classic-rock-loving lawyer sporting a Rolex, but that's precisely what the afternoon crowd found there on that recent, sweltering afternoon after Warren's computer let him down. This place wasn't always Golden Kingdom. It used to go by the name Dominator's — and it's thanks to an arrest therein that Warren's career shot forward.

Nearly four years ago, two gentlemen from South Philly named Anthony DeFelice and John Wrightley were there kicking back with a couple of cold ones. The cops had been looking for Wrightley. They thought he shot somebody with a 9 mm for refusing to get out of his car a couple of weeks earlier. Well, bad luck be Wrightley's because another passenger who witnessed the shooting — call him "Vinnie Victim," as Warren does over a Bud Light — noticed him walk into Dominator's. Immediately, Vinnie calls the cops who told him to wait until they arrived, which he did. When officers arrive, they ask him to identify Wrightley. He complies discreetly, by opening the side door of the bar, pointing and running for cover.

"So, four heavily armed cops just blow into this place, right? They pat Wrightley down. No gun. So what do they do? They pat my client down and — what do you know? — they find a nine in his waistband," recounts Warren. "He's a one-time felon, so he's looking at 15 years."

Doubting that officers had the right to frisk DeFelice, Warren got to thinking about one important question: How'd they know to look in his waistband? He'd soon get his answer.

When the case wound its way to court before U.S. District Judge Herbert Hutton, the officers testified that DeFelice reached for his piece.

"He makes a move for his gun with four cops behind him?" asks Warren. "Death by cop, that's what they're saying he's trying to pull. No way."

Warren proffers an alternative theory: The cops saw Wrightley jam the gun into DeFelice's waistband after he realized the law was about to swoop down on him. The cops, not all that willing to lose the arrest on account of an illegal search, concoct their reach-for-the-gun story and roll with it.

COOL CUSTOMER: Warren says Merlino sifted through reams of documents and listened to countless tapes while preparing for trial. He unearthed some evidence that was used in his own defense. Photo: Courtesy of CBS-3

Warren calls on the bartender and another Dominator's patron who take the stand and say DeFelice — who had warrants on him at the time — didn't make any sort of move. About 45 minutes after starting their deliberations, the jury returned their verdict.

Not guilty.

In recounting the story, Warren's not afraid to show that ego-driven edge that many lawyers say is necessary for success.

"It was a brilliant defense!" he brags.

Brilliant or not, it was definitely attention-grabbing. Even though DeFelice didn't get up and fly straight — Warren thinks he's currently doing time for an alcohol-related offense — the lawyer's phone rang about six weeks later. On the other end with an intriguing offer was Steve Iannaccone, Hutton's courtroom deputy.

Coming soon to Hutton's courtroom would be a case involving an alleged mob boss and six co-defendants. One of those defendants couldn't afford to pay for representation. Iannaccone wanted to know whether Warren would be willing to become Lutz's court-appointed attorney.

"Are you kidding me? Of course I'll do it," Warren remembers saying.

"It was the hottest case in town at that point. How couldn't I take it?"

About an hour into his tenure as a mob lawyer, Warren's phone rang again.

This time the voice on the other end belonged to Angelo Lutz, a 400-pound alleged mob associate best known at that point as a Wing Bowl competitor and a Mummer who'd painted himself a dazzling gold and jiggled down Broad Street. Lutz had already done his homework. He knew about DeFelice and some of Warren's other cases. They set up an appointment for later that afternoon.

"He sat down in my office that first day and told me he had no interest in pleading out or cooperating," Warren recalls. "I can't tell you how happy I was to hear that."

His couch, though, wasn't all that pleased. Warren still hasn't properly reattached the arms that flew off when Lutz took a seat.

The year is 1986 and Warren, like many law-school grads, was trying to figure out what he wanted the future to hold.

Up until then, his whole life had revolved around the Lone Star state. He grew up in El Paso, a border town that made crossing the Rio Grande for a night of underage drinking irresistible. (He wasn't underage in Mexico, after all.) When Warren was 15 years old, and his sister 13, their father died in Beirut, Lebanon.

"This is right after the fall of Vietnam, and in his personal effects, they found a lot of names for, like, Vietnamese people. It looked like he was smuggling people out of Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. And he had picked up another wife. He had married a girl who owned a bar in Bangkok, Thailand," Warren said in a 2003 Details magazine story. "So God knows what he was up to — let me put it that way."

After bopping in and out of high school, Warren snatched up that GED and furthered his education — and partied respectably — at Cook County Community College and then North Texas State University (now called the University of North Texas). From there, it was off to St. Mary's, known to alumni as "Harvard by the Border."

There, he met the woman he'd later marry, Laura Feldman. Today, he and his wife of 15 years — an attorney at a firm where Warren's solo-practitioner office is also located — live in West Mt. Airy. They have a 9-year-old son, Jake, whose picture sits right next to the three-year-old computer.

"She was from [Philadelphia] and was moving back, so I did too," he explains. "Up to that point, the only thing I knew about the East Coast was seeing Buffalo [N.Y.] on the TV news, under feet of snow."

Feldman's father was a well-known personal-injury attorney in the city, but Warren figured he'd parlay his law degree into a teaching gig, and he was accepted for a program at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Then I realized that the worst professors I had were the ones who went straight from academia back to academia," says Warren, who was working part-time at a law firm while taking classes. "So I dropped out."

Warren passed the bar in 1987 and ditched all designs on the academic world. He got a job at DeStefano and Guernsey and earned his chops writing briefs at the firm that had Amoco as its biggest, most lucrative client. While working a lot of civil cases, he also got a taste of what it was like to be a criminal defense attorney. In 1992, he and another lawyer started their own firm, which broke up in 1999. It was at this phase of his career that he crossed paths with Dennis Cogan, a fellow "Super Lawyer" known around town as one of the best in the business.

Cogan defended Steve and Joey Traitz, whose father was the city Roofers Union boss until he was convicted of extortion. Though they were cleared of a 1987 gangland murder, they were sent up the river for peddling hundreds of pounds of meth. Just last year, they were on trial again as the feds said they continued to sell drugs, post-conviction. His clients facing life in prison, Cogan — who's currently representing Cassius Broaster, who Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson labeled one of the worst criminals in the city -- had them take 10 to 14 years instead.

A mutual friend mentioned Warren's name to Cogan. Said he was the kind of guy who could meticulously handle the behind-the-scenes side of the job, namely writing briefs that make appellate courts want to flip and flop. ("Well, I am a very good writer," says Warren, who'd earned that reputation by winning Third Circuit appeals.)

"I like to do my own writing and research, but I also make my living in the courtroom, " says Cogan. "This was a guy who could work at the standard I like. But to call him an appellate lawyer was to sell him short. When you're handling big-time cases, there aren't a lot of people who you'll trust to help. He could do it all."

With Cogan serving as his de facto mentor, Warren officially hit the big leagues. But soon, those bigs would get even bigger.

"Remember that phrase be careful what you wish for?" Warren asks. "Welcome to my world."

Lutz grew up near Shunk and Broad and was childhood friends with most of the fellas with whom he'd share a defendant's table. In 2001, he was staring straight down the barrel at extortion, loan-sharking and bookmaking charges; the feds claimed he and mob consigliere George Borgesi shook down area gambling operations for loot.

Before trial, the U.S. Attorney's Office said let's make a deal: Plead guilty to extortion, help us nail these guys and get four years. Hell no, said Lutz, who wasn't one to turn on his friends. Facing six years, he opted to roll his dice with a jury.

Before long, Warren was faxing officials at the holding facility to arrange meetings with the Merlino gang. In the law library, Warren sifted through wiretap recordings and documents with the alleged boss of the Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra and his co-defendants.

"So, that's how I meet Joey [Merlino]. I can't tell you how impressed I was. These guys were so up to speed on the evidence the government had against them," Warren recalls. "Joey and Johnny [Ciancaglini], they were asking relevant questions, they were going through the wiretaps finding evidence that we'd end up using at trial. They knew what they were talking about."

WHERE IT ALL STARTED: Warren takes a moment to think inside the Southwest Philadelphia bar that brought him his big legal break. Photo: Michael Koehler

Meanwhile, Warren was making quite an impression himself.

In Atlantic City, where locals joke that laws are merely guidelines, Eddie Jacobs has the reputation as the go-to guy. As in, you're in big trouble, you'd better go to him quickly or else you're done for. He's also known as one of the best when it comes to handling cases that involve droves of tapes of wiretap evidence. That, coupled with the fact that he used to represent a fellow by the name of Salvatore "Chuckie" Merlino (yes, Joey's pops), made him the logical choice to represent Skinny Joey. It also put Warren and Jacobs in a position where they'd be working closely together on a long, drawn-out trial process.

It was the start of a legal duo that, when the pay-to-play trial starts, will once again be all over the news as Philly's own "Dream Team."

Jury selection started in courtroom 9-A on March 20, 2001. Just like every Philadelphia mob trial, it proved to be a can't-miss spectacle, thanks in no small part to Warren's client.

As the lone defendant out on bail, Lutz took it upon himself to become a spokesman of sorts. Sports-radio listeners remember his daily "Mob Updates" on WIP's morning show. TV-news viewers probably still can't forget the image of him rolling out of the courtroom and offering a nightly quip. Even local cuisine aficionados were included; one of the dailies ran a recipe for "Angelo Lutz's Escarole Soup." ("Make sure you thoroughly rinse the escarole, because it's a very sandy vegetable.")

Rather than trying to muzzle his client — who'd often be espied playing solitaire on his laptop during testimony — Warren went about his business. That workmanlike approach landed him the honor of launching the defense's case once the prosecution rested.

"We're going to get through testimony and we're going to sit down," he told a jury that seemed tired after already having heard the government set forth a meticulous, months-long case.

Having promised the jury he'd complete the opening salvo quickly, he clocked in at 21 minutes. And then, he sat down at a table loaded with high-profile lawyers such as Jacobs, Jack McMahon, F. Emmett Fitzpatrick and Bruce Cutler, known around the underworld as John Gotti's guy. Although to the untrained eye Warren seemed to be outclassed, people quickly noticed this upstart attorney when his peers started turning to him for advice. No, they realized, Warren isn't a matter of style over substance. He knows the law inside and out and can hold his own with the best of 'em.

During breaks in the action, Warren would be outside the courthouse huffing down a Marlboro Ultra Light, mingling with attorneys, reporters and mob wives, mothers and brothers. Those new friends offered heartfelt support when the trial had to be postponed a couple of days on Warren's account. (He'd been briefly hospitalized after trying to save neighborhood dog "Petey" from the aggressive advances of a pit bull.) Later, some of those friends would show up at a Cinco de Mayo party at Warren's place, bearing cannoli.

Late in the afternoon on a Friday in July 2001, the verdict came in. When they found everybody guilty on the small stuff, but not guilty on charges of violence that could've brought life sentences, the families and attorneys claimed victory.

The braggadocio wouldn't last all that long though: When time for sentencing came around, Lutz got nine years in the klink, even though he was essentially a throw-in defendant. Merlino, the alleged boss, would be getting out of prison first.

But in legal matters, it's hard to define victory, and the experience bumped Warren up the food chain a couple of notches. Most legal observers didn't put the weighty sentence on his back. They figured Lutz got smacked on account of his willingness to speak about the case publicly (read: criticize the U.S. Attorney's Office).

"These prosecutors, they take it personally sometimes, and you really can't do that," Warren says. "But the truth is, I like these guys, so I guess I'm personally involved too."

About a month had passed since the Merlino verdict, but the U.S. Attorney's Office wasn't done with the flashy don. Though the local jury had deemed that the government didn't prove he'd ordered the 1996 hit of mobster Joseph Sodano in a Newark housing-project parking lot, the feds disagreed. They argued that a "not proven" finding in a racketeering count didn't translate into "not guilty" verdict, so they rang Merlino up again.

In a stroke of luck for Warren, Jacobs was unable to take the New Jersey case because he'd already signed up to defend another client involved in the same matter. So what does Jacobs do? He gives the appeals to Warren. Sure it'd only pay $7,500, but it'd become yet another opportunity to shine on a big stage.

Fast forward to October 2002. Warren's been fighting to have the case thrown out on double-jeopardy grounds and keeping in close contact with Merlino, who's been held up there for nearly a year already.

"Here's one of my favorite Joey stories: He's in the Newark jail on 9/11 and he can see everything that happened. They're rounding up all the so-called terrorists and bringing them to the same holding facility. One comes up when Joey's on the phone and wants to make a call on his time. Joey's like, "Are you nuts? You're gonna call bin Laden and I'll get jammed up on that," Warren says. "The thing is, he was right! If that call was on Joey's time, man. I'd have never thought of that, but he did."

As the case progressed, Jacobs and Warren cultivated a close working relationship, much in the mold he had with Cogan. ("I guess I was using him in some ways, but he was using me too," Cogan jokes.) In November 2002, the Third District Court of Appeals dismisses Warren's motion to throw the case out, but he keeps plugging away, ultimately taking it to the Supreme Court in March 2003.

"To say we're fighting an uphill battle is an understatement of biblical proportions," Warren said at the time, proving that his ability to give good quotes was catching up to his skill in writing them.

When the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, Warren became Merlino's in-court attorney, still working alongside Jacobs. This March, a jury found Merlino not guilty. Had he been convicted, it'd have been a life sentence.

"When he asked me about taking [the Lutz] case, I told him not to. Since he was court-appointed, I thought he'd take a financial bath. I also thought that it wasn't the kind of case that would help him in the future; representing [the mob] generally doesn't lead to anything more significant," says Cogan, whose protege could by now ask for considerably more loot to take on any particular case. "I was wrong on all counts. He had a chance to strut his stuff in front of the press, in front of other attorneys. People saw that he was something special."

"So Eddie Jacobs and Chris Warren just win a big, high-profile case. Around the same time, target letters [in the grand-jury investigation into City Hall corruption] go out. Ron [White] calls Eddie. And Eddie calls Chris. Before I got that call, I was just wondering when the phone was going to ring."

That's how Warren explains how he found himself entrenched in what promises to become the biggest trial in Philadelphia since the Merlino Family Hour.

The luck of the draw was again on his side this past March. The Newark case had just wrapped up around the time White got a letter saying that the U.S. Attorney's Office was targeting him. By then, Mayor John Street was already securely back in office, but the fact that Bug-gate didn't cost him City Hall sure didn't slow down the pressure on those whose names were being bandied about. On June 29, U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan summoned the media corps for a news conference.

Twelve people were being indicted in a case that would shake city government to its core. At the middle of that 150-page indictment were White and former City Treasurer Corey Kemp, who were alleged to have run a criminal enterprise bilking money from the taxpayers.

"This is an indictment not only of the defendants but of a "pay to play' culture that can only breed corruption," said Meehan, whose office had indicted six others as a result of of the wide-ranging probe. "In effect, the public trust was being bought and sold."

In a list of charges with words reminiscent of those listed in mob indictments, White, 54, was charged with conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, 22 counts of wire fraud, four counts of mail fraud, two counts of extortion and five counts of making false statements to the FBI. It's no wonder that White, facing 555 years in jail and an $8.25 million fine, called Jacobs.

"If I was indicted in a case that involved wiretaps, I'd go to Eddie too," Warren says. "When Ron hired Eddie, a lot of politicians breathed a sigh of relief. You don't hire us if you plan to plead out."

DOOR JAM: When Warren represented a South Philly man who'd been arrested as a felon carrying a firearm, something didn't add up. He figured the cops, looking into a bar from the door he's holding open, saw somebody put the piece on his client. The jury agreed, clearing the defendant in 45 minutes. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Though the charges were a foregone conclusion, Meehan's news conference set off a media bacchanalia. It wasn't only front-page news the following day, but there it remained for weeks as everybody was wondering whether the next shoe would drop on Mayor Street.

There was White, above-the-Inky-fold on the Fourth of July, under the headline "Impetus for Change?" Turn to page A8 and there's White walking away from the courthouse. In the background is Warren, wearing a gray suit and gold tie. Two microphones are in his face. A late addition to the defense in the Merlino case, he's in from the beginning of this one, and he's already sharpening his swords.

It's 4 p.m. and the happy-hour crowd has yet to arrive to swill a couple of Belgians. Down the end of the bar, an older gentleman reads the day's Daily News, with George W. Bush on the front page for snubbing the NAACP convention, which is in town this week.

Warren holds off on the Grey Goose on the rocks for now. A 25-ounce La Chouffe will do.

"This whole thing reminds me of Casablanca," Warren says, offering the bartender $1 million if he can give up Rick's last name on the spot. (He can't. It's Blaine.) "Remember when they're in the bar and the Germans start singing their anthem? All the French people rise up and start singing back.

"[The police officer] comes over and says to Rick, "I'm shocked that there's gambling going on in here!' Then, a guy comes over with his money, "Sir, you're winning.' It's a perfect analogy for all of this."

Although it's still early in the game, Warren's already working through defense strategies. He knows not too many people out there have much sympathy for his client, particularly after the once-over Meehan gave him. Then, consider the fact that a jury is going to consist of "the people who moved to the suburbs to get away from what they're saying [White] did," and he knows it's an uphill battle. (Because it's a federal case, the jury pool will be drawn from a nine-county area of Southeastern Pennsylvania, unlike Common Pleas cases, which cull jurors from within the city limits.)

"They could see this as an opportunity to pass a referendum on the way business is done in Philadelphia, but they shouldn't be legislating from the jury box!" he says as if there's jury on the other side of the bar. "The government will tell them to send a message. But no, campaign finance and the way contracts are handled, those are matters of legislation, not a verdict."

Warren says he isn't much of a conspiracy theorist — even though his first reaction after hearing John Edwards speak at the DNC was to think, "Kennedy got killed for talking like this" — but he says it's his job "to explore everything from every conceivable angle."

"Look at the big picture here. We're talking about a battleground state. Sure, they would have loved to have Street out of office, but they weren't really worried about that election. They're looking to win Pennsylvania in the presidential election," he says. "It's a weapon one political party is using to take out another one. How can I counteract it? I'm working on that, man. I'm working on that."

He doesn't mention George Bush by name, but while exploring the ins and outs of this strategy, neither Vice President Dick Cheney nor Meehan emerge unscathed.

"Why are they doing it? Well, I hear Arlen Specter may retire after his next term. That's a pretty good gig, isn't it? And what do you get if you convict Ron White? A nice little entry on the resume, isn't it?" Warren says, steering attention toward Meehan, a Republican stalwart who hasn't run from the fact that many think he has higher ambitions. "Is it Republican or Democratic fundraisers that are being targeted here? Hell, if that's the way they want to go, Dick Cheney and Halliburton should've been indicted a long time ago."

When it comes to Meehan, who served as Delaware County District Attorney before becoming the region's U.S. Attorney in September 2001, those who know him are quick to vouch for his integrity. Sure, he's plugged in politically, but that doesn't get in the way of his decisions. Even the city's Democratic boss, Bob Brady, backed off of similar allegations in a recent Philadelphia magazine story, saying, "I was just spinning that shit." ("That shit" meaning it was driven by the mayor's race.)

"To say Pat might want to run for governor one day, or for Senate, sure he does. Pat was a political person before he was a prosecutor but he's no different than [Montgomery County D.A.] Bruce Castor or [Philadelphia D.A.] Lynne Abraham," says political consultant Larry Ceisler. "I thought all the talk of this being political ended the day Sam Katz's candidacy died."

They can vouch all they want, as far as Warren's concerned. He still smells hypocrisy all over White's indictment. As he's been quoted saying a couple of times already, people are in City Hall doing the things White's accused of doing this very minute.

"It was here before we arrived," says Warren of the pay-to-play system, "and it'll still be here when we're dead and gone. You just have successful blacks who learned to play the system like the white guys did. Some people just don't like that."

"Why aren't they going after the other big bond firms, the Wolf Blocks, the Ballard Spahrs, the firms I consider political waystations. The thing about glass houses man, if you throw too hard, those shards can cut your throat," Warren says as the happy-hour crowd rolls in. "Why is my client, of all people, targeted and they're not? That's the question I don't know the answer to yet. But I will."

On July 23, U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson set a Jan. 12, 2005, trial date for all 12 defendants in Pay-to-Play-Gate. Well, make that 10 defendants, because two of them are taking a deal such as the one Lutz refused and will turn state's evidence. Not a problem, says Warren, who expected as much. He considers it a blessing, because turncoats are easy targets.

That doesn't change the fact that he and Jacobs now have some 25,000 wiretapped conversations to listen to between now and trial. The government says about 2,500 of them are pertinent, but Warren knows better. The good stuff is on the ones they don't want you to listen to, goes his philosophy.

Sitting back at his desk, he crunches the numbers. He figures the defense team will have to review roughly 166 conversations a day, and that doesn't even take paperwork or the time necessary to get client interviews transcribed into account. (Having already heard some of the tapes, he doesn't think the government has that "kill-shot evidence" that would scare his client off of taking it to court.)

Warren's likely to ask for an extension when the attorneys assemble for a pretrial status hearing later this month. June would be fair, considering the government had nine months to build its case. Maybe July.

Asked whether he has any reservations about representing clients that some might consider unsavory — mobsters and those who allegedly bilked taxpayers — Warren bristles.

"If you have that kind of moral dilemma," he says, "you're going to have problems being a defense attorney."

For now, Warren has other things to worry about, such as upgrading his computer. And even as he delves into the dirty underbelly of city politics, the mob just keeps calling him back. About four times a day on average.

It seems as if a June U.S. Supreme Court decision has cast doubt over the entire federal judiciary. In short, a ruling in a case in Washington state makes it unclear whether U.S. district judges can increase sentences above the sentencing guidelines dictated by law. Today, they can make "upward departures" to give defendants steeper sentences if they think facts in the overall case warrant more time. The question at hand is whether that's constitutional. The issue has special resonance for Warren: Both Merlino and Lutz got extra time in prison on upward departures. (Hutton thought Merlino's role as a boss and Lutz's perjured testimony on the stand warranted a steeper sentence, even though the jury neither convicted Merlino of being a boss nor found Lutz guilty of lying.)

Though Warren thinks the argument has legs, David Fritchey, an assistant U.S. Attorney, says he "isn't losing any sleep over it, but it's certainly a squirrely decision. If they were to make it retroactive, they'd basically be cleaning out the jails, and we don't expect that to happen."

At the behest of the federal Department of Justice, the Supreme Court earlier this month took the unusual step of fast-tracking its consideration of the matter, and Warren's already fielding calls from former clients who, from jail, want to know whether this is the break they need to get out early. If he wins, Lutz will instantly find himself en route to a halfway house and, after a brief stint there, back home at Broad and Shunk. True to form, Warren is already conversant in the entire matter — while still worrying about the White case. He's found the time to already ink a petition on behalf of Lutz. And as can be expected from a Warren brief, the writing style isn't missed on his peers, such as fellow lawyer Pauline Manos.

"You know, Chris, we need to find someone who will nominate you for the Supreme Court," she says, as Warren finishes a smoke on Locust Street. "Using fancy words like "tsunami' in a brief."

Warren laughs.

"Sure," he says. "Like I could really pass that background check."