Joey the Clown: They're all liars

According to Joseph Lombardo, there are a lot of liars and mistaken people out there.

Time and time again, Wednesday as he testified in his own defense, the accused mobster maintained witness after witness against him was wrong or making things up.

The clerk at the electronics store made a mistake when he identified Lombardo as the man who bought a CB police scanner used in the killing of Daniel Seifert in 1974, Lombardo said.

And Dr. Patrick Spilotro, brother to two slain mobsters, lied when he testified that Lombardo had talked about the Spilotro slayings with him, Lombardo said.

When former porn shop operator William Wemette testified he paid street tax to Lombardo, he was lying too, Lombardo said.

When mobster Alva Rodgers testified Lombardo told him, a day after Daniel Seifert was killed, "That son-of-a-bitch won't testify against anybody now," Rodgers was lying also, said Lombardo.

And when an FBI agent testified about Lombardo meeting with mob boss Tony Aiuppa and crooked businessman Allen Dorfman, he was lying, Lombardo said.

"I don't care if he was a super special agent, he's lying," Lombardo defiantly told prosecutor Mitch Mars.

And two juries who convicted Lombardo of trying to bribe a U.S. senator and then skimming profits from casinos were mistaken.

"I was convicted of them, but I did not commit no crimes," said Lombardo.

In fact, Lombardo even called himself a liar.

When confronted with recordings of Lombardo shaking down a 72-year-old lawyer to pay Dorfman or risk not seeing age 73, Lombardo told prosecutors he was only playing a role to try to scare the man into paying up.

"I'm lying to the guy. I'm playing a script," Lombardo said.

Despite brick after brick of evidence presented against him by Mars in cross-examination, Lombardo stuck to his story, maintaining he was not a mobster, doesn't know three of his four fellow defendants, and had nothing to do with the death of Daniel Seifert.

Mars asked Lombardo if he had killed Seifert after learning Seifert planned to testify that Lombardo had Seifert doctor up invoices at Seifert's company as a way for Lombardo to receive dirty money.

"You knew that he (Seifert) was going to testify that you had asked him to phony up that invoice," Mars charged. "You were concerned that Daniel Seifert was going to upset the apple cart."

"We didn't know that he was going to testify against us," Lombardo said.

Then why was Lombardo at Seifert's workplace -- the site of Seifert's demise -- a week before his killing?

"I would say it's a coincidence," Lombardo said.

In a somewhat chilling moment, when Mars asked another question about Seifert testifying, Lombardo smiled and replied, "He never testified against me, sir."

Once Lombardo got tangled in his own words and compared himself to "the president who couldn't make his words come out right."

"But he didn't have a (mob) crew," Mars said.

"The president has a bigger crew," Lombardo said slyly.

Also Wednesday, U.S. District James B. Zagel issued a statement saying a female juror who previously had indicated she may not be able to finish the trial "asked to be excused for personal reasons." The judge granted the request. Nineteen jurors chosen for the trial included seven alternates.