Accent A-Ghoulish

But maybe in jail he can get the speech therapy he obviously needs:

A bouncer who studied sword fighting and ninjitsu, adopted a Japanese surname and urged himself to become a “monster in the most positive way” was convicted yesterday of two 2005 murders but acquitted of a third.

The bouncer, Stephen Sakai, 32, was surrounded by 16 court officers as the verdict was announced in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. He rose, thrust his arms back to accept handcuffs and paced to the holding pens, the picture of discipline.

The split verdict, one juror said, apparently reflected acceptance of some of Mr. Sakai’s testimony, a wide-ranging account of conspiracy by police assassins who coveted his private security business. Though he was born Stephen Sanders in Queens and has no passport, Mr. Sakai testified in a thick, wavering accent, transposing L’s and R’s.

“It was laughable,” said the juror, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I brought it up multiple times, and the rest of the jury really didn’t see it.”

The verdict closed the last chapter in the improbable history of the Sweet Cherry, a sleazy strip parlor that lasted a decade, in defiance of the authorities, on the docks of Sunset Park. The scene of various assaults and a documented in-house narcotics trade, the club closed last year after Mr. Sakai’s arrest.

. . .

Mr. Sakai’s bizarre performance on the witness stand captivated the courthouse. All week, lawyers and stenographers, clerks and officers argued: Was his accent real? Why wasn’t it shared by his mother when she spoke out from the gallery? How did he develop it without leaving the country? Plans to test him with a Japanese phrase or two were abandoned for lack of volunteers.