Joe Isgro

A federal judge in Los Angeles said Thursday that he will decide over the Labor Day weekend whether to dismiss the biggest payola trial in 30 years and bring an end to the government's case against former record promoter Joseph Isgro and two other defendants due to claims that prosecutors improperly withheld key documents. "What is clear is that there has been a violation," said U.S. District Judge James M. Ideman. "Material that should have been turned over long ago was not turned over. . . .

Reputed mob figure Joseph Isgro and two associates have agreed to plead guilty to federal loan-sharking and extortion charges, the U.S. attorney's office disclosed Wednesday. Isgro, 52, is accused of lending money at a weekly interest rate of 5% to people in financial distress and employing musclemen to collect the payments outside a swank Beverly Hills shopping center. In the 1980s, Isgro was the target of an unsuccessful payola and racketeering prosecution that lasted nearly a decade.

Citing "outrageous government misconduct," a federal judge Tuesday dismissed the biggest payola case in 30 years, abruptly ending the trial of record promoter Joseph Isgro and two other defendants after they successfully claimed that prosecutors had improperly withheld key documents. U.S. District Judge James M.

In the first payola indictment in a major recording industry investigation, a Los Angeles federal grand jury Thursday accused San Mateo record promoter Ralph Tashjian of giving money and cocaine to three radio station employees, according to Tashjian's defense attorney. Tashjian and his wife, Valerie, were also charged with income tax evasion.

The Justice Department has formally reprimanded a veteran prosecutor for failing to disclose critical information in a high-profile Los Angeles payola case, according to court documents obtained by The Times. Assistant Atty. Gen. Jo Ann Harris, in charge of the criminal division, criticized the actions of William S. Lynch, the lead prosecutor in the government's case against Joseph Isgro of Glendale, who was the nation's largest independent record promoter in the 1980s.

Record promoter Joseph Isgro, a reputed member of New York's Gambino crime family, pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court Thursday to conspiracy and extortion charges. Isgro, 52, was arrested in March outside a Beverly Hills shopping center where authorities said he ran a loan-sharking operation. Also pleading guilty to the charges were two Isgro associates, Anthony Saitta, 63, and Valentino Bartolone, 35, who served as collectors. All three will be sentenced Aug. 21 by U.S.

For the third time in seven years, a Los Angeles judge has thrown out a high-profile payola case against Los Angeles record promoter Joseph Isgro. In a nine-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall dismissed the case Monday, accusing prosecutors of violating the speedy trial act. The 57-count indictment against Isgro, which spurred grand jury investigations in five cities and cost an estimated $10 million to prosecute, was the biggest payola case in U.S. history.

Every man has his price. What's yours? --Jimmy Hoffa If Danny DeVito were a rubber band, he'd be ready to snap. For two days, the director has been trying to shoot a complicated sequence in "Hoffa," which stars Jack Nicholson as Jimmy Hoffa, dark prince of the American labor movement. Nothing is going right. The sound is garbled. Extras knock over chairs. A flock of pigeons flies across the sound stage's cavernous rafters, making a racket.

It's already being called the Ten Days That Shook the Record Business. Responding to a growing series of media reports that have pointed to possible ties between independent record promoters and organized crime, the music industry in recent days has hurriedly severed its longstanding ties with outside record promotion firms. The drama began Feb. 27, with the news that a New York grand jury had issued a subpoena to the Recording Industry Assn.