"This case was about greed, about control, about violence," Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Brady said today as he began his closing argument in the Pali golf course murder trial of Rodney Joseph Jr. and Ethan "Malu" Motta.

Brady spoke for nearly an 90 minutes in front of a packed courtroom before the trial stopped for a lunch break.

He methodically outlined the sometimes complex racketeering charges against the two defendants and cited evidence which he said supports conviction.

Joseph and Motta are accused of murdering two members of a rival gambling "protection" group and critically wounding a third man January 7, 2004 in an effort to maintain and expand their interests in illegal gambling in Hawaii.

The defendants also used other violent crimes, including armed robbery and extortion, as part of the racketeering conspiracy, Brady told jurors.

He began his final argument after presiding U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway took more than an hour to read dozens of pages of instructions to the jury about the elements of the racketeering charges and what the government must prove to convict Motta and Joseph.

Brady will complete his summation in the afternoon, followed by final arguments from Joseph's lawyer, Reginald Minn, and Motta's lawyer, Charles Carnesi.