The payments to the judges included $140,000 in cash stuffed into FedEx boxes, prosecutors said.
But postal employees became suspicious and refused to ship the boxes, prosecutors said.
"They were marched single file into a big freezer box," the prosecutor, Gregory L. Lasak, told Judge Michael Aloise of Criminal Court in a voice trembling with emotion.
In addition, the S.E.C. complaint said, "Amore and the day traders that he employed at Watley made secret cash payments to Casbarro and Mahaffy for providing access to their firms' squawk box". The prosecutor's indictment states that Mr. O'Connell lied to a United States postal inspector and encouraged his assistant, Ms. Santiago, to provide false testimony.
From December 2011 through October 2012, the Shayotas ordered more than 7 million counterfeit sleeve labels and hundreds of thousands of display boxes, federal prosecutors alleged. .
It was often covered in mustard to prevent detection, and both money and drugs crisscrossed the country in musical-equipment boxes, the prosecutor said.
"And then, as we're going through the boxes, the prosecutor and I pulled out an envelope, and it's marked 'vaginal swabs.' And you're, like, Oh — look at that".
But the case took a tragicomic turn when prosecutors presented box after box of everyday items and broadcast equipment as evidence of the defendants' alleged terrorism – many as innocuous as electric cables, a computer keyboard, and a bumbag belonging to Peter Greste.
After one mistrial in an insurance-fraud case against the boxing promoter Don King, federal prosecutors in Manhattan tried him and his corporation a second time, in 1998.
