Robert Baer went to the mattresses. But he got iced by the godfather.

After less than two hours of deliberations, a federal jury in New Jersey dismissed the claims of the former prosecutor and aspiring screenwriter, who was seeking a minimum $150,000 payday for allegedly helping Sopranos don David Chase come up with key plot points for the HBO hit.

Attorneys for Chase hugged each other as the verdict came down on the fifth day of a trial that was nearly five years coming.

The 62-year-old Baer first filed suit against Chase back in 2002, only to see a judge twice toss the complaint. The judge said the supposed verbal agreement between the two men—in which Chase allegedly promised to "take care of" Baer should the show become successful—was too weak to hold up in court. An appeals court eventually allowed the case to proceed, albeit limited in scope.

The seven-woman, one-man jury, however, told Baer to fuhgeddaboudit.

Chase told reporters outside the U.S. District Court in Trenton that he wasn't worried about the outcome of the casein the trial. But a day earlier, he testified that at least initially the suit rattled him.

"I learned I was being sued for half of everything I ever made," he said on the stand Tuesday. "He claimed to be cocreator of the show. A man is not supposed to cry, but I felt like crying."

During the trial, Baer testified to being a key player in the development of the Emmy-dominating series. He said he arranged meetings between Chase and New Jersey policemen and prosecutors back in 1995, and gave Chase a three-day tour of the state's various mob sites. Baer, who is also a retired municipal judge, also claimed that a series of conversations he had with Chase played a major role in the development of the series.

While Chase never disputed that Baer facilitated some aspects of his 1995 trip, he said Baer's take on his significance in the development of the show had been "grossly distorted, petulant and self-aggrandizing." In court documents responding to the original filing, Chase dubbed Baer's contribution nothing more than a "modest service."

Chase told jurors it was his childhood love of the classic drama The Untouchables, as well as his own Jersey upbringing—not the Baer-helmed sightseeing excursion—that truly inspired the show.

"The Sopranos is me," Chase testified this week. "It was my life, it was me...to have someone say I'm not original, well, it made me sick."

Chase also testified that after Baer's so-called consulting services, the pilot draft of the would-be mob hit was roundly rejected by Fox and several other networks until he enlisted the services of a "true Mafia expert," former Manhattan District Attorney Dan Castleman.

Still, Chase nonetheless offered payment to Baer for his troubles on no less than three occasions, as well as extended a position on the series' writing staff to the out of work writer, all of which Baer himself acknowledged that he had turned down.

The Sopranos ended its eight-year, six-season run on HBO in June. With a freezer full of Emmys—three this year alone—and a slew of other industry accolades, it has since become the most honored drama in cable TV history.