[6] DeCavalcante altered longstanding parts of the Mafia initiation ritual, abolishing the use of a gun, a knife and a burning holy card when "making" new members of his organization as "he did not feel it was necessary", according to Vincent "Vinny Ocean" Palermo.

[8] Living in the Lawrenceville section of Lawrence Township, but working in Newark, DeCavalcante commanded an organization of around 60 "made" members active in the tri-state area of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

[15] DeCavalcante's ownership of a plumbing supplies store earned him the nickname "Sam the Plumber", although his preferred sobriquet was "The Count", which derived from his claims that he was the son of an Italian marquis.

[18] The investigation confirmed claims by cooperating witness Joe Valachi, provided crucial information on La Cosa Nostra, and revealed the existence of the Mafia Commission.

[20] Among the eight murders discussed by DeCavalcante and his associates were the 1951 shooting of Willie Moretti in Cliffside Park, and the 1962 hand grenade killing of Charles "Cadillac Charlie" Cavallaro in Youngstown, Ohio.

[18] In another conversation in 1964, DeCavalcante and two others discussed methods of body disposal, with a car crusher, a garbage compactor and a device capable of turning a human corpse into a "meatball" being mentioned.

In January 1965, DeCavalcante, along with Joseph "Bayonne Joe" Zicarelli, met with Emanuel Riggi, a reputed Mafioso for whom the government was seeking deportation.

Mickey's "county level" contact was alleged to have been arranged by Dutch Mele, a former baseball player who operated taverns in Edison.

[6] On June 13, 1969, after transcripts of the recordings were unsealed in court, a reporter from The New York Times visited the DeCavalcante home in Princeton Township.

[24] DeCavalcante is reputed to have masterminded a plot to extort thousands of dollars over a six-week period in 1966 from the operators of an illegal dice game in the Philadelphia suburb of Trevose, Pennsylvania.

On September 28, 1966, he allegedly sent two Brooklyn Mafiosi, Daniel Annunziata and Gaetano "Corky" Vastola, to the game with the intention of feigning surprise at discovering that the dice were loaded, then staging a holdup, demanding $20,000 and suggesting that DeCavalcante arbitrate the matter.

[17] Alongside Philadelphia crime family boss Angelo Bruno, DeCavalcante appeared at Trenton Municipal Court on December 13, 1967, to answer to charges that they falsified applications for New Jersey driving licenses.

[27] In an effort to discover if his client's offices in Kenilworth were bugged by authorities in relation to the Trevose extortion case, DeCavalcante's attorney, Sidney "Chris" Franzblau, requested a discovery motion argued on January 17, 1969, at which Deputy Attorney General William J. Brennan Jr. was called to testify regarding any electronic surveillance that may have been utilized prior to DeCavalcante's arrest.

[28] At the request of Franzblau, 2,300 transcript pages of taped conversations compiled by the FBI in the "DeCavalcante Papers" were released to the public by David M. Satz Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, on June 10, 1969.

[16] DeCavalcante was among 55 men and women indicted by a federal grand jury on December 16, 1969, in connection with a $20 million-per-year interstate numbers racket centered in Newark and Troy, New York.

The following day, he attended the wedding of his son, Carl DeCavalcante, a senior at the University of Vermont, to Cynthia Ann Snyder at St Michael's Church in Trenton.

[9] The "DeCavalcante Papers" transcripts were physically released by Frederick B. Lacey, who succeeded David Satz as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, on January 6, 1970.

The beginning of DeCavalcante's extortion trial, which was initially scheduled to commence on February 16, 1970, was delayed when Brown notified the U.S. Attorney's office that he would require time to familiarize himself with the case.

[29] On September 24, 1970, following an eight-day trial, DeCavalcante was convicted by a federal jury in Newark of three counts of conspiracy to extort money from the operators of the Trevose dice game.

"[29] In January 1971, DeCavalcante pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to operate the Newark/Troy numbers racket at a secret federal court hearing in Newark.

[32] On March 10, 1971, DeCavalcante's 1970 extortion conspiracy conviction was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia after Judge Arlin M. Adams, acting on the opinion of a three-judge panel, ruled that the case against him, Annunziata and Vastola had been based on insufficient evidence.

The request was denied by Herbert J. Stern, the Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, who opposed releasing DeCavalcante because he was due to be sentenced in the gambling ring case.

[15] DeCavalcante was re-indicted by a Union County grand jury on August 17, 1971, on the state charges of receiving the stolen pistol which was seized by the FBI in 1968.

[10] According to a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., DeCavalcante was considered for release for good behavior and his work as an inmate nurse, and because he had served about half a year of his earlier conviction for extortion, which was subsequently overturned on appeal.

[34] In the spring of 1974, DeCavalcante was stopped by a New Jersey State Police radar unit while driving his Cadillac on Interstate 287 in Harding and charged with speeding at 77 miles per hour on a 55-mile-per-hour limit highway.