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Fabbri's house, a three-story pile of brown brick a block east of Tower Grove Park, is decorated with works by Cuban artists and appointed with fixtures its owner either researched ad nauseam or fashioned himself: a fiberglass-composite kitchen sink, a high-tech Japanese toilet, sconces crafted from Venetian Murano glass. Every Super Bowl Sunday, Fabbri throws a "chili party" for two dozen of his friends and shows off his latest gadget.

"He's a voracious reader, he's got a photographic memory and he's extremely generous with everything," says a close friend, Mike Devereaux, the jury supervisor for St. Louis Circuit Court. "He's so unbelievable sometimes – I don't even know if you see characters like him in movies."

At one time in his life, Fabbri was a specialist in cabinetmaking. In another era it was fountain pens. He has raced BMWs, toured the classic-Jaguar circuit and once completely refurbished a 1938 candy-apple-red Chevrolet coupe formerly owned by a convicted drug dealer (a client), which he purchased at a U.S. Marshals Service auction.

"God love Tony," observes Dan Stewart, the retired cop. "But he's a guy of excesses."

Fabbri's younger brother, Terry, brands him restless, irritable and discontent. "I've never seen him relaxed and happy," he says. "It was always about the next thing."

Fabbri formed a partnership with fellow attorney Nick Zotos in 1982. Despite the occasional high-profile client – like William Guthrie, a St. Louis boxer cleared for the Olympic trials after testing positive for cocaine, or Tom Cummins, an initial suspect in the infamous 1991 rape and murder of his cousins at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge – Fabbri & Zotos was anything but a silk-stocking practice. The partners, in Fabbri's words, did "guns and drugs" – street crime – and earned their pinstripe suits one stitch at a time.

Zotos handled the jury trials; they made Fabbri sick to his stomach. Instead he carved his niche by building a reputation for super-zealous representation.

"He pushed and pushed and pushed, trying to get the best deals for his clients," asserts U.S. District Judge Charles Shaw, a former assistant federal prosecutor and circuit court judge. "It was to the point of aggravation. Finally you'd give up and say, 'Oh my God, fine already!' – just to get him out of there."

Recalls Larry Borowiak, the former criminal docket controller for St. Louis Circuit Court: "I always said that Frank could drive the Devil out of Hell on a good day."

St. Louis attorney Douglas Forsyth puts it another way: "I think he actually believes the stuff we [attorneys] are supposed to believe."

Fabbri has been a vocal opponent of federal mandatory sentencing for crack-cocaine possession since the day the controversial guidelines were introduced in 1987. (Recently, the argument that the stringent requirements unfairly target African Americans has gained new currency; three bills pending in Congress would reduce or remove mandatory minimums for drug-possession charges. In the meantime, the U.S. Sentencing Commission changed its policy so that as of November 1, the average crack case will draw a sentence of eight years, down from ten.)

St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Jack Garvey, a former defense attorney, recalls Fabbri testifying on the issue before the Eighth Circuit, sporting African cowrie-shell beads in an effort to attract the attention of Judge Theodore McMillian, an African-American.

"Frank opened up his argument about the disparate treatment of blacks, and Judge McMillian said, 'We don't want to hear about this. Move on.' And Fabbri said, 'No, I want to talk about this. I put a lot of work into this argument, and I want to talk about it now.' So Judge McMillian turned his back on him – turned his chair around – during the whole speech." (McMillian died in 2006.)

For Fabbri, issues of race were personal as well.

"We were the first interracial couple in south city and it was holy hell," he says, recalling the early days of his twenty-odd-year marriage to Helen Fabbri. "We had to sit at the bank for three hours just to sign our names on the house papers. We'd drive around in the convertible and police would pull us over just to fuck with us. We'd go to the Chase for a drink and guys would come up to us thinking she was a prostitute."

The marriage, Fabbri's second, dissolved in 2003. He got to keep the house.

"I am not a thief."

In the weeks following his sentencing, the thought keeps Fabbri awake at night. He tries to counter the bad juju with his morning tai chi.

"I am not a thief. I want people to know that I have never stolen anything, from anyone. We had people die – one year we lost nine clients. Nine. We gave back every dollar we had."

Adds Fabbri: "The most irritating part of this whole thing is the inference that I ever took, or hid, a penny from anyone."

The feds arrested and jailed Edward Trober, Fabbri's fateful client, in June 2004. A career marijuana dealer, Trober faced at least 30 years in prison on charges of conspiracy and other felonies in southern Illinois. He was also charged in federal court in St. Louis for money laundering.

According to Fabbri, a well-known St. Louis defense attorney quoted Trober a price of $100,000 to take on both cases. Fabbri told Trober he'd do the job for $61,000.

Fabbri was well aware that Trober had a reputation for hiring numerous and various attorneys. He also knew that in 1997 a St. Louis lawyer had been sentenced to three years in federal prison after flying to Panama and Switzerland with $3.2 million in small bills linked to Trober's conspiracy and attempting to deposit the money in a bank.

In July 2004 Fabbri collected from Trober's family a down payment of $25,000. Three months later Fabbri and prosecutors agreed to let Trober provide investigators with information about his drug-dealing associates in exchange for less prison time. Specifics would be contingent upon Trober's truthfulness.

But the talks quickly broke down. The IRS and Drug Enforcement Administration agents on Trober's case wanted to know where Trober was hiding the $20 million in drug money that was subject to forfeiture. Trober said everything had already been seized, and Fabbri backed him up.

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