During the discovery phase, two of Flemmi's co-defendants, Boston mafiosi Frank Salemme and Bobby DeLuca, were listening to tape from a roving bug, which is normally authorized when the FBI has no advance knowledge of where criminal activity will take place. They overheard two of the agents who were listening in on the bug mention that they should have told one of their informants to give "a list of questions" to the other wiseguys. When their lawyer, Tony Cardinale, learned about this, he realized that the FBI had lied about the basis for a roving bug in order to protect an informant. Suspecting that this was not the only occasion that this happened, Cardinale sought to force prosecutors to reveal the identities of any informants used in connection with the case.