$1 Million Will Get You Al Capone's Home

Friends of ours: Al Capone

For a former home of possibly the country’s most notorious mobster, the three-story building with beige siding at 21 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn, is totally unremarkable. Of course, the young Al Capone and his family moved there in the early 1900’s, long before he made his name as a murderous bootlegger in Roaring Twenties Chicago.

The house, one of at least two on Garfield Place where the Capone family lived after their move from Vinegar Hill, just east of the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, is for sale. The broker handling it, Peggy Aguayo of Aguayo & Huebener, said recently that a buyer was about to go into contract, for a little more than $1 million.

Ms. Aguayo, who lives in Park Slope, said she was unaware that the Capones had lived in the building, though she knew they had lived at 38 Garfield Place. At any rate, she said, she doubted that the building’s infamous former resident affected its value one way or the other for the buyers, who plan to maintain it in its current state, as a three-family house.

Capone stories still abound among old-timers in the neighborhoods where he spent his formative years. For example, Carroll Gardens residents will be happy to tell you that he was married at St. Mary Star of the Sea church on Court Street. But Laurence Bergreen, author of the 1994 biography “Capone: The Man and the Era,” said there was little at the time to distinguish the future Public Enemy No. 1 from his young compatriots in Brooklyn’s street gangs, which had names like the South Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors.

“Other people were doing those same things and went on to become mechanics or dentists, or nothing,” Mr. Bergreen said. “He did not come from a criminal background. His father was a barber, his mother was a seamstress, and those weren’t mob trades.”

Still, Mr. Bergreen said, the Al Capone of Garfield Place was no angel. He was often truant from Public School 133 on Butler Street, and he was finally kicked out of school for hitting a teacher (as the story goes, she hit him first). He also picked up a case of syphilis that incapacitated him later in life, probably while hanging out by the Brooklyn docks.

Today, even Capone might be impressed with the potential for legal moneymaking in Park Slope real estate. But Mr. Bergreen, who spent time on Garfield Place years ago researching his book, said some residents there had other treasure in mind. “People were wondering if there was cash stashed in the walls,” he said. “I heard that more than once.”

Alas, whoever buys 21 Garfield will most likely have to be satisfied with rental income, Mr. Bergreen said, adding, “Capone was poor then.”

Thanks to Jake Mooney

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The Godfather Comes Mob-handed to PSP

Listen up wiseguy, we're going to make you an offer you can't refuse: read the rest of this article and we'll agree not to make any more puns based around The Godfather universe.

Refuse this personal favour, and, erm, we'll weep.

Based on Mario Puzo's The Godfather novel and the subsequent Paramount Pictures film, The Godfather Mob Wars is – believe it or not – all about going up in the world. Because after a life of cheap criminal antics, illegally downloading MP3s and so forth, you've been accepted into America's most famous criminal organization, the Mafia.

Little does post-War New York know what's going to hit it. By carrying out orders and earning respect, you can rise through the ranks to eventually become a Don yourself. (Must... not... pun.)

Mob hits, bank heists and extortion are on the menu, and the police, businessmen, racket bosses and rival mobsters (the Tattaglia, Cuneo, Barzini and Stracci families from the novel) are mere appetisers at your table.

Just like Al Pacino in the movies, you'll have to choose between brutal violence and skilful diplomacy to best progress. Loyalty and fear are your best weapons and the ones that will earn you the most respect, and therefore power. But we're told the choices affect how the action plays out, so you'll have to choose carefully if you want to see a happier ending than The Godfather III.

As you'd expect, there are some gruesome-sounding actions in the mix, too. The so-called BlackHand Control combat system will enable you to punch, kick, grab, and even choke someone with a stranglehold.

But to pacify the censors, you can also use pressure point targeting, which enables you to get a less-than-lethal lock on your opponent so they're able to give you valuable information. (Okay, nothing to do with the censors – it's really that stiffs can't talk.)

Feeling squeamish? Maybe you're not made for a life in the front line of the family business? Well, as an alternative to all this blood and guts, the PSP exclusive Mob Wars mode will also give you the option to instead engage in strategy-based a turf war as you take over New York one territory at a time.

As well as original missions, the game also boasts scenarios lifted from the films, enabling you to interact with its classic characters. Actors lending their voices include (a recording, we presume of) the late Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, James Caan as Sonny Corleone, and Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen.

We weren't convinced by the home console version of the game, but as ever we'll take the PSP version of The Godfather Mob Wars on its own merits. There's no firm date yet, but EA has previously hinted it will be out before the end of 2006.

See, no more puns. Strictly a matter of business.

Thanks to Owain Bennaallack

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Truth About Sinatra Mafia Ties

Friends of ours: Lucky Luciano, Willie Moretti
Friends of mine: Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra biographers Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan have unearthed new evidence linking the late crooner to the Mafia, thanks to the confession of a dying mob boss. The husband-and-wife team published SINATRA: THE LIFE last summer and have since learned that claims they made in the tome about Ol' Blue Eyes' ties to organised crime were accurate.

In the hardback, the couple maintained the singing legend owed his career to the Mob, as Dons like American Mafia founder Lucky Luciano, whose family lived on the same street in small town Sicily as the Sinatras, gave him his first big break on the stages of the clubs run by the criminal masterminds. Summers and Swan's research also led them to believe that the Mafia continued to support Sinatra throughout his life - helping him reclaim his career when his popularity was waning in the late 1950s and 1960s - in return for his services.

Swan even spoke to comedian Jerry Lewis, who she claims told her that Sinatra once carried Mafia money for his mob boss pals. But it took the words of a dying man to help the biographers cement their claims, and they've added his testimony in the newly-released paperback version of their book. Summers explains, "To the Mafia, he (Sinatra) was an earner - they saw him as a potential earner and they helped him in special ways.

"Since the book came out I talked to a former journalist who remembered talking to one of the first mobsters to give Sinatra a hand, Willie Moretti. "He told our new contact, 'We made a good deal, we took good care of him.' That matches the things we've learned already and we put it in the new edition (of the book)."

Thanks to Contact Music

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Canadian Teflon Don Moves Closer to US Court Date

Friends of ours: Vito Rizzuto, Bonanno Crime Family

The man alleged to be the don of the Canadian Mafia came a leap closer to an American courtroom yesterday after two Supreme Court of Canada rulings on extradition cases that mirror his own legal bid to stay in Canada.

Vito Rizzuto, the so-called Teflon Don from Montreal, allegedly participated in the 1981 slayings of three New York mob captains who were plotting an underworld coup. He has been fighting extradition since his arrest in January, 2004.

The legal arguments in his case are similar to those in two others that were rejected yesterday by Canada's highest court. One involved Brantford, Ont., resident Shane Tyrone Ferras, who is wanted in the United States on fraud and money laundering charges. The other involved Canadian citizen Leroy Latty, a man wanted in the United States on drug-trafficking charges.

Both challenged the constitutionality of two sections of Canada's Extradition Act. In its decision, however, the court upheld rulings by the Ontario Court of Appeal and found that neither section of the Extradition Act infringed upon the appellants' rights and freedoms.

"It sort of tightens the noose around Vito's neck. It means that his options are narrowing and that he is a giant step closer to being sent to the United States, which is something that any accused criminal dreads," said Lee Lamothe, co-author of The Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia and the Rise of Vito Rizzuto.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the fall on whether to send Mr. Rizzuto, 60, to the United States to stand trial on racketeering charges. His lawyers did not return calls yesterday.

Mr. Rizzuto was the only Canadian arrested in the 2004 sweep that netted 27 alleged members of the Bonanno Mafia family, one of the notorious Five Families of New York.

U.S. authorities allege that Mr. Rizzuto was one of the hit men in the 1981 slaying of three rogue members of the Bonanno organization who were plotting to overthrow the head of the family while he was in prison.

Antonio Nicaso, author of several books on the Canadian mob, said the arrest highlighted the Canadian Mafia's cross-border reach. "His arrest changed the perception of the so-called Canadian Mafia . . . it showed there was a strategy that was going beyond the border."

A police report filed in Mr. Rizzuto's extradition case alleges that the Montreal resident, who has a penchant for Ferraris, Porsches and trips to St. Kitts, is considered a godfather in Canadian mob circles.

The report's allegations -- which have not been proved in court -- suggest his activities in the decade before his arrest included loan-sharking at the Montreal Casino, laundering money in Switzerland and ordering a hit on a Venezuelan lawyer.

Mr. Rizzuto earned the nickname Teflon Don because until the 2004 arrest, the only charges he had faced were for relatively minor offences, including disturbing the peace and impaired driving.

The Rizzuto name has popped up in many major U.S. drug busts over the thirty years, Mr. Lamothe said. "For the Americans, he is the face of the Sicilian Mafia in Canada . . . who helped flood America in the seventies and eighties with heroin," he said. "The Americans want him."

Thanks to Hayley Mick

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Mafia Cops Denied Bail

Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

Less than a month after he acquitted them of one of the most scandalous murder conspiracies in New York history, a federal judge denied bail today to the two retired detectives in the Mafia Cops case on a much less solemn charge: a plot to distribute less than one ounce of methamphetamine.

The drug charge was one of only two counts left from the original indictment of the men, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, who were found guilty on April 6 of taking part in at least eight murders for the Luchese family of the mob. Twelve weeks later, the verdict was reversed when the judge in the case, Jack B. Weinstein, ruled that the statute of limitations — five years for conspiracy charges — had run out.

Today, after he denied the two men bail, Judge Weinstein took them to task, as he did in his order of acquittal, calling them “dangerous criminals with no degree of credibility” and saying they had been “publicly shamed” at the very trial he had upended by tossing their convictions out. He said the drug charge — an alleged deal hatched over dinner in Las Vegas — was a “serious” charge and sternly ordered the federal marshals to haul the men off to jail.

Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa now inhabit a strange piece of legal real estate, one which might be labeled “guilty but acquitted.” After all both judge and jury in the case have found that there was ample — even overwhelming — evidence that they committed some of the worst official crimes since 1912, when a police lieutenant, Charles Becker, was charged with the murder of a two-bit gambler known as Beansie Rosenthal. Despite such evidence, the murder charges were effectively dismissed.

Although the government has said it will appeal Judge Weinstein’s order of acquittal, the judge himself said today that his decision to deny bail had nothing to do with the appellate case and was solely based on the fact the two men still have charges pending against them: the drug count (for both) and a count of money-laundering (for Mr. Eppolito alone). The government has said it will try the two men on the drug charge in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, though only after the broader appeal has been decided.

In the meantime, Mr. Eppolito (garrulous and portly) and Mr. Caracappa (austere and hatchet-thin) will return to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunnyside, Brooklyn, where they have been sharing a cell since their convictions. Daniel Nobel, Mr. Caracappa’s lawyer, asked Judge Weinstein if his client might be moved to a different jail, later saying, “I dare say most marriages would founder under similar circumstances.”

There were many reasons why Judge Weinstein could have granted bail — he did so before the trial began. At that point, the two men faced a damaging array of murder charges — which, by today, had been dismissed. Moreover, at the first bail hearing last July, the government itself had said that there was no “presumption” that the two detectives should be held on the methamphetamine charge, even though that charge was the very rationale Judge Weinstein offered today in denying bail.

Mr. Nobel and Joseph Bondy, Mr. Eppolito’s lawyer, said they were likely to appeal the judge’s ruling to a higher court. Mr. Bondy, in particular, said he thought Judge Weinstein might have kept the men in jail as way to offset their acquittals on what some saw as a technicality in the case. “I think there may have been a balancing aspect to the judge’s decision,” he said. “Perhaps from the judge’s point of view letting them go may have been inconsistent with his role pending a retrial.”

One of the arguments the prosecution raised against bail today was a concern that, if the men were freed, they might be tempted to threaten witnesses in the case. After all, having sat through an entire trial, they now know every witness by name.

In court papers filed last week, the prosecution mentioned one witness in particular — Steven Corso, a disgraced accountant, who told the court at trial that, in February 2005, Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had agreed to help him find some methamphetamine for some “Hollywood punks” who were coming to Las Vegas. “With their liberty at stake, the defendants have a tremendous incentive to attempt to harm Corso to prevent him from testifying against them,” the papers said. Nonetheless, Mr. Corso himself sounded only marginally worried when he called The New York Times last month to discuss the outcome of the trial. Although he said there were times that “he was looking out for bullets,” his main concern seemed to be the paper’s coverage — of himself.

Thanks to Alan Feuer

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Juror Rap Sheets, Tax Audits Requested by Lawyers in Mob Case

Friends of ours: James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro

Attorneys for a reputed mob boss asked a federal judge Monday to require the government to produce the rap sheets and tax audit information of prospective jurors as part of the jury selection process.

James Marcello's attorneys made no mention of the nasty legal bickering that erupted over the arrest records of several jurors at the close of former Gov. George Ryan's racketeering and fraud trial in April.

The attorneys merely said in a motion filed with U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel that a juror's failure to disclose his criminal record during the selection process could "give rise to an inference of bias."

"Such a juror could be motivated not to reveal his or her past because of a hidden agenda," the attorneys said. "In fairness, the parties ought to know it before or during jury selection."

Marcello is one of 14 defendants charged in a racketeering conspiracy indictment involving at least 18 long unsolved murders, including that of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, once known as the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas.

Marcello, 63, of suburban Lombard has been described by FBI officials as the leader of organized crime in the Chicago area. The case, stemming from a long-running FBI investigation dubbed Operation Family Secrets, is due to go to trial next May.

The request for a criminal background check of prospective jurors and information concerning tax audits of them is unusual. But the turmoil surrounding the Ryan trial has led to considerable discussion of the issue among defense attorneys, prosecutors and judges.

In the Ryan case, two jurors were dismissed by U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer after the jury already had deliberated eight days. The Chicago Tribune disclosed that they had failed to indicate on a required court questionnaire that they had arrest records.

Later, Pallmeyer declined to dismiss four other jurors who were found to have failed to indicate that they had experiences with the court system ranging from a divorce to a 23-year-old theft charge for purchasing a stolen bicycle. She said their omissions were not as serious. Intense legal infighting over the issue dragged on for weeks.

The attorney who filed the motion on behalf of Marcello, Marc W. Martin, represented Ryan's co-defendant, businessman Larry Warner, at the seven-month trial that ended with the former governor's conviction.

Martin did not immediately return a phone call Monday afternoon. His office said he was in a meeting. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, Randall Samborn, declined to comment but said prosecutors most likely would file a written answer with the court.

In the wake of the Ryan turmoil, federal prosecutors urged criminal background checks for prospective jurors at the next major political corruption trial to take place in Chicago - that of Mayor Richard M. Daley's former patronage chief, Robert Sorich, and three other men. But U.S. District Judge David H. Coar, who presided over the Sorich trial, ruled out criminal background checks for jurors.

The four defendants were convicted July 6 in what prosecutors described as a scheme under which political campaign workers were illegally put on the city payroll. There were no noticeable jury problems.

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Mafia Cops Request Bail

Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

It was a sensational case that seemed finished when guilty verdicts and life sentences were announced earlier this year against the defendants, both former NYPD detectives accused of moonlighting as hitmen for the mob. But a stunning ruling last month has made a new scene possible: The portly and talkative Louis Eppolito and his spindly and taciturn former partner, Stephen Caracappa, walking out of jail.

The defendants were due back in court on Tuesday, when their lawyers are expected to ask U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein to free them based on his decision to toss out the verdict finding them guilty of participating in eight murders while on the payroll of a brutal mob underboss. The judge found that the statute of limitations had expired on the slayings, which occurred between 1986 and 1990.

Papers filed recently by the defense note that Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 57, each were out on $5 million bail for nine months before their convictions and return to jail on April 3. They argue that the similar conditions should apply while they await the outcome of a government appeal of Weinstein's ruling or, if it's upheld, a retrial on lesser charges stemming from a 2005 drug sting in Las Vegas, where the partners both had retired.

Eppolito ``respectfully submits that a reasonable bail pending the highly likely retrial on allegations that he distributed a small quantity of methamphetamine and laundered a small amount of money is appropriate,'' his attorney, Joseph Bondy, wrote in a July 21 letter to Weinstein. Bondy said his client hopes to return to Las Vegas, where he would ``live with his wife and near his children.''

Prosecutors, calling the evidence that the defendants were killers ``overwhelming,'' have argued that they are too dangerous to go free. ``The fact that these men, who swore to serve and protect, were so willing to betray the public trust by committing unspeakable acts of violence for money is a testament to the serious threat of danger to the community their release constitutes,'' wrote prosecutor Robert Henoch.

In his ruling, Weinstein said he agreed with the jury that Eppolito and Caracappa were guilty of murder, kidnapping and other crimes, but the law compelled him to set aside the verdict. The decision came less than a month after he told the pair they would receive life in prison _ a sentence that could still be imposed if prosecutors win their appeal.

Caracappa retired in 1992 after establishing the police department's unit for mob murder investigations. Eppolito, whose father was a member of the Gambino crime family, was a much-praised street cop who went on to play a bit part in ``GoodFellas'' and launch an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter.

In a jailhouse interview following his conviction, Eppolito called himself ``the most perfect scapegoat in history.''

Thanks to WINS

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Bonanno Crime Family Linked to BetonSports

Friends of ours: Bonanno Crime Family

A newspaper in Costa Rica is reporting that BetOnSports is linked to the Mafia. They state, "a year ago, New York and federal officials busted a $360 million gambling operation linked to the mob and to a sports book in Costa Rica. It turns out the sports book, being used as a virtual wire room for persons linked to the Bonanno Mafia crime family, according to New York officials, was part of the BetonSports operation, using the name Safe Deposit Sports. The administrative contact for safedepositsports.com was Pablo Quiros Valenciano, who has a betonsports.com e-mail address, according to a lookup of the Safe Deposit Internet domain.

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Overheard: Mafia Weather

The Weather Channel reported a power outage in New York's LaGuardia Airport last week due to record-high heat. It's really bad back East. In New Jersey, three guys suffocated inside a car trunk before they could die of their gunshot wounds.

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Keep Family Business Out of Trial Say Reputed Mobster's Attorneys

Friends of ours: Frank Calabrese Sr., Nicholas W. Calabrese, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo
Friends of mine: Frank Calabrese Jr.

Attorneys for a reputed mobster said Friday it would be "morally repugnant" for jurors at his upcoming trial to hear about telephone conversations with his wife that were tapped by federal investigators.

"This case involves enough of a distasteful spectacle due to the fact that the defendant's son and brother may testify against him," attorneys for Frank Calabrese Sr. said in papers filed in U.S. District Court. Calabrese, 69, of Oak Brook is among 14 defendants charged in the FBI's wide-ranging Operation Family Secrets investigation of 18 mob murders that went unsolved for years.

Brother Nicholas W. Calabrese, 63, of Chicago also is charged and son Frank Calabrese Jr. may take the witness stand at the trial currently scheduled for May 2007. Calabrese Jr. is not charged in the case.

The court papers said it would be "morally repugnant to see the defendant's spouse on the witness stand and the government attempting to reveal confidences" that were exchanged in telephone talks between them while she was at home and he was in the federal prison at Milan, Mich. "These conversations revolved around family matters and other family business," the court papers said. One such discussion in May 2000 concerned an alleged break-in at wife Diane Calabrese's Wisconsin home.

The Family Secrets case is the result of the biggest mob investigation in the Chicago area in decades. Among the murders involved is that of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the Chicago "Outfit's" longtime man in Las Vegas, who was killed and buried in an Indiana cornfield in an act of mob vengeance.

Defendants include Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, the reputed mobster known for his zany sense of humor who went on the lam after the indictment was returned and became the target of an intense FBI manhunt. Agents captured him in suburban Elmwood Park in January.

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James Woods Inspired by Mafia

James Woods is using his childhood memories of Mafia negotiations to form his new hardball TV attorney character, Sebastian Shark. The revered movie star will portray the charismatic legal eagle fighting to bring Los Angeles' most powerful people to justice in new drama SHARK.

Woods admits he only had to recall secret FBI/Mafia meetings his aunt set up in his youth to prepare for the role. He explains, "When I was a kid, my aunt was secretary to the public defender for 28 years and I was around the legal system. "She was sort of the Switzerland of Rhode Island, and Rhode Island was what we used to call the parking lot of the Mafia. "Whenever the Mafia wanted to talk to the Feds (FBI) or the superior court judges, or whatever, they always did it through my aunt. "I learned early on that justice is a lot about negotiation. It's not dissimilar from our business in Hollywood. It's full of a lot of strange and scurrilously awful people who somehow manage to keep the wheel going. "That's how this character operates."

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Married to The Ice Man

Friends of ours: Richard "The Ice Man" Kuklinski

Barbara Pedrin was a naive 19-year-old Italian Roman Catholic girl who lived in West New York and rarely dated - until one night in the early 1960s.

That night, "I did a friend of mine a favor and went on a double date," she said last week. "He was seven years older and very good looking. He couldn't have been more of a gentleman. We went to the movies at Journal Square in Jersey City, then for pizza. I never thought I would see him again."

Little did Barbara Pedrin know that the 26-year-old man she met that night would later become her husband - and one of the most notorious murderers in United States history.

Because on that night, Barbara Pedrin went on a date with Richard Kuklinski, a man who would later be known as "The Ice Man," the famed Mafia hit man who reportedly killed as many as 200 people over the years, before he was apprehended in 1986 and died earlier this year.

Recently, a new book was released on the "Ice Man" by Philip Carlo: "The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer" (St. Martin's Press). The book has caused some controversy because of Kuklinski's boasts in it, including saying he was involved in the death of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.

In an exclusive interview last week, Barbara Kuklinski talked about living with her husband.

Barbara Kuklinski lived in North Bergen until she was 9. She moved to West New York, and today lives in Dumont in Bergen County. She still goes by her husband's name, even though she divorced the serial killer five years after he was convicted of a handful of murders.

One of his murders included a North Bergen ice cream salesman. That man and other victims were subsequently stored into a freezer, earning Richard the name "The Ice Man."

Barbara Kuklinski said that her controlling relationship with the Ice Man began on the day after the first date. "On the day after that first double date, my mother came to get me to say that the fellow I was with last night was at the door," Barbara Kuklinski said in an exclusive interview. "He was there with flowers and candy at about 1 p.m. that next day. We went to Journal Square again, and then all of sudden, he was there every single day. No one ever paid attention to me like that before."

However, it didn't take long for Barbara Kuklinski to realize that Richard was not your average paramour. "He stabbed me in the chest once with a little knife as a way to say that I was his forever," Barbara Kuklinski recalled. "He said, 'I know your mother doesn't want you to go out with me, but you're going to marry me.' He said that if I didn't marry him, he would kill my mother and sister. So I married him out of fear."

Once they were married, Richard and Barbara Kuklinski made West New York their home in a two-family house owned by her mother. All three of their children (a son and two daughters) were born while they resided in West New York. They moved to Dumont in 1971, where Kuklinski bought a home.

Barbara Kuklinski insists that she never had an idea that her husband was a mass murderer. "He always worked," Barbara Kuklinski said. "He always tried to provide for his family. He always had a second job, driving a truck, doing what he had to. He always aspired to make more money. In the early parts of our marriage, I got him a job with Twentieth Century Fox, where he carried a brown bag to work and he brought home the money." But she had no idea that he was making extra money as a paid hit man for the Mafia. "He was extremely private," Kuklinski said.

Her ex-husband died in a prison hospital earlier this year and is now the subject of a new book, "Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer," written by Philip Carlo and released by St. Martin's Press earlier this month.

"No one came to the house," she said. "He had his own telephone number. When he wasn't in the house, the door to his office was locked. He didn't call anyone his friend. When he got up in the middle of the night and left, I never asked him where he was going. He always had legitimate businesses, as a wholesale distributor, as an accountant. When he went to Europe, he said it was to do currency exchange deals. I never knew anything. He definitely kept his home and his family apart from what he did." But Barbara Kuklinski knew that something was not right with her husband.

"He was a raging psychopath," Kuklinski said. "That pretty much covers it. He would constantly abuse me, slashing me, throwing things at me. He was so huge, strong and frightening. But he loved me. I have no doubt about that. He never hurt my children. He was insane. Someone asked me why I didn't leave him early on, but there was no leaving. I wish there was some magic that would have made him go away. I know there are thousands of abused women who walked in my shoes and didn't walk away."

Added Kuklinski, "With Richard, it wasn't so much rage. It was control. He wanted to control everything. He was just a sick man and I have the scars to prove it."

Kuklinski said that she never had a clue that Richard Kuklinski was carrying out the assortment of murders, both for his own enjoyment and the paid ones for the mob, according to Carlo's book. "I didn't have a single hint that was going on," Barbara Kuklinski said. "Not a clue." However, Barbara Kuklinski got clues soon enough when federal officials moved in. Kuklinski was allegedly taped by an undercover police officer while trying to set up another contract killing.

In December, 1986, Richard and Barbara Kuklinski were grocery shopping after having breakfast, when the federal officials moved in to make the arrest. "We were driving down the street when a van came right at us," Barbara Kuklinski said. "I think they wanted to make sure I was in the car, so this way, he wouldn't do anything crazy. They came out of the van, some 30 or so officials. They jumped on the hood of the car and pointed guns through the windshield and each window. They got him out the car and put leg shackles on his wrists. They pushed me to the ground."

At first, Barbara Kuklinski was taken into custody as well, because there was a gun inside the car. "He remained silent while we were being arraigned," Barbara Kuklinski said. "He never said a word. I then heard from one of the detectives that he was being held for $2 million bail. I kept saying, 'What for? What did he do?' And one of the detectives said, 'Murder. We have him for murder.' I saw Richard as he was being brought to [Bergen County] jail and asked him what was going on and he said, 'Don't even worry. I'll be home soon.' " But Richard Kuklinski never came home.

He stood trial and was convicted for two murders and was sentenced to life in Trenton State Prison. While in prison, he confessed to the string of hired murders, complete with gruesome details that have been written about in Carlo's book.

"Richard never told me anything," Barbara Kuklinski said. "At first, he never admitted to anything. But when I heard the transcripts in court, I was mortified and couldn't believe them. I then asked him, 'Did you do those things?' and he said, 'Yes.' He said, 'I did things they'll never know.' Once I heard his voice, that's when I believed him."

Barbara Kuklinski said that she divorced the "Ice Man" in 1993, after he was in Trenton State Prison for six years. "Actually, he divorced me for money reasons," Kuklinski said. "Money is a wonderful thing. I actually [had] wished he had dropped dead when we were together. I still would go to see him in prison, but after we were divorced, I only went like once a year with my daughter."

When two HBO documentaries came out on the "Ice Man," with Kuklinski being interviewed about some of the gruesome murders he committed, Barbara Kuklinski was stunned. "It was incomprehensible to me that he could talk about all those things with no feeling and no remorse," Barbara Kuklinski said. "I really couldn't believe it."

She still keeps his last name. "I'm not going to change my name," she said. "Neither will my children. But we're known as Richard Kuklinski's family and now we're treated like dirt. My e-mail address starts 'Just me' and that's who I am and still who I am. I'm just me. I don't like confrontation and I don't like the publicity." She added, "Am I ashamed that I was married to him? No. I didn't do anything wrong. I wish people had sorrow for me and my children. Believe me, we cried for all his victims."

Barbara Kuklinski has not remarried since her divorce to Richard. She still resides in Dumont and has been trying to get on with her life. "It's taken a long time to heal," Kuklinski said. "I'm not totally over it and I still can't believe it. I still have nightmares about him. But I'm doing fine and the kids are all doing OK. I'm not afraid anymore, that's for sure. He's dead. He's gone. It's over. He can't hurt anyone else anymore."

Thanks to Jim Hague

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"The Unreformer"

Friends of ours: Joe "the Builder" Andriacchi

There's only one politician in Illinois who can make Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Barr Topinka look like a reformer: Gov. Rod "The Unreformer" Blagojevich.

Blagojevich, a Democrat, is also known as "Official A." But that one is on the tongues of rampant speculators who read federal court documents. I'd rather stick to "The Unreformer." It's folksier.

Topinka is looking better by comparison because Blagojevich is being pounded by a scandal a day, with federal investigations of state pension deals, patronage hiring and contract cronyism.

So Judy should be playing "Lady of Spain" on her accordion, waltzing nimbly toward the governor's mansion, correct? Perhaps not.

Blagojevich has entertained the taxpayers of Illinois since he took office as a reformer with the backing of his now estranged father-in-law Ald. Richard Mell (33rd). One of the governor's first reforms was to hire Joe Cini, a City Hall guy from the mayor's Department of General Services, as state patronage chief.

Cini came to my attention in those heady reform days when Blagojevich put Bill Fanning on the Illinois Gaming Board. In 2004, Fanning took part in a mysterious board vote to support a casino in Rosemont, something former Gov. George Ryan wanted as business as usual. But state and federal investigators said a Rosemont casino might not be prudent.

Some Rosemont casino investors were tied to Mayor Richard Daley's City Hall, like Sue Degnan, wife of Daley's political brain Tim Degnan. She was listed, most curiously, as a disadvantaged minority. But the reason the FBI didn't like Rosemont had to do with something else. Investigators believed some Rosemont casino investors had ties to the Chicago Outfit.

After the vote, I learned Fanning was a former shirttail relative of reputed Outfit boss Joe "the Builder" Andriacchi. When I started asking around, he quietly told board members he knew Andriacchi only slightly, then he was quietly let go.

The Blagojevich administration, in full reform mode, quickly fingered Cini as the one who recommended Fanning. And last year, when the indictments of Daley's patronage chief Robert Sorich made news, Blagojevich was asked about patronage armies and reform. He told reporters he called Cini "just to make sure" there was no patronage going on.

"I called up our patronage ... [here Blagojevich stopped in midsentence remembering that patronage meant `business as usual'] "He's not even that. He's intergovernmental affairs director, we even changed the name, and just to get some reassurance ... and his answer kind of summed it up: Of course we don't do those things," Blagojevich said in October of 2005.

Lo and behold, now Cini is under federal investigation for "those things." It was detailed in a fascinating Tribune scoop on July 2 by Tribune reporters Ray Long, Rick Pearson and John Chase. They reported how Blagojevich's own inspector general denounced the administration in a report for subverting state patronage laws, including violating provisions designed to give military veterans preference in winning state jobs. "This effort reflects not merely an ignorance of the law, but complete and utter contempt for the law," wrote Blagojevich's first executive inspector general, Zaldwaynaka "Z" Scott.

Since then it's been story after story, with Blagojevich on the defensive, desperately shaking hands at parades, head bobbing furiously like one of those dolls they give out to the first 10,000 fans at the ballgame, loudly insisting he's a reformer. He says he's glad to hear about the problems, because that way he can fix them. But while Rod is perceived as a phony, Judy can't seem to get much traction. Perhaps that's because Republicans know her too well.

More than half of all rank-and-file Republicans who voted in the primary voted for other candidates. They see Topinka as the handmaiden of the Republican side of the Illinois combine, a creature of party bosses. Included among these is "Big" Bob Kjellander, the Republican National Committee treasurer who scored millions of dollars in finder's fees from Illinois state pension deals under the Blagojevich administration. How's that for bipartisanship cooperation?

Folks trying to explain her problems with conservative Republicans often mention her liberal social views, her support of gay rights and abortion. That's part of it, but a small part.

The core Republican vote is angry over Illinois political corruption and the taxes and the Kjellanders. They know that Topinka, as chairman of the Illinois GOP, helped drive former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald out of politics. She refused to endorse him for re-election though he was the incumbent, because Fitzgerald had the audacity to bring politically independent federal prosecutors to Illinois.

Topinka's bosses didn't like that. But the rank-and-file sure did. So even though Blagojevich's troubles delight the Topinka camp, they must be haunted by this:

Rank-and-file Republicans aren't well organized. They allow themselves to be divided. But like elephants, they never forget.

Thanks to John Kass

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I Amuse You?

The famous scene from Goodfellas with Ray Liotta being asked by Joe Pesci if Ray thinks Joe is clown.

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Jerry Springer Object of Mob Hitmen?

Friends of ours: Tommy "Horsehead" Scafidi, John Stanfa

During a discussion with Fox News host Geraldo Rivera on the July 13 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly wondered aloud if Mafia hit man Tommy "Horsehead" Scafidi -- who was allegedly ordered to murder Rivera -- could "have killed [Air America radio host] Jerry Springer" instead.After laughing, Rivera responded: "I can name a couple of other people off the top of my head." O'Reilly then suggested another potential target: former MSNBC host Maury Povich. (Rivera recently interview Scafidi who claims that the hit was orded by Philadephia Mob Boss, John Stanfa, in 1991.)

From the July 13 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

RIVERA: Well, what "Horsehead" said he said was, "John, you can't kill Geraldo or any of these high-profile people. It will just bring down more heat on us."

O'REILLY: All right, but I've got a question. Couldn't he have killed Jerry Springer?

RIVERA: [laughing] I can name a couple of other people off the top of my head.

O'REILLY: Yeah, I mean, Maury Povich? All right. So they didn't kill you.

Video at Media Matters

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Freedom Will Be Brief for Mafia Cops

Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Steven Caracappa

My guess is that one way or the other the Mafia cops are going to the can.

For life.

Although the federal prosecutors put on a masterful RICO case against Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa, convicting them on 70 counts in a racketeering case involving eight mob murders, kidnappings, money laundering, bribery, betraying the badge, drug dealing and general felonious low-lifery, Judge Jack Weinstein warned from pretrial hearings on that the racketeering case was "thin." That the statute of limitations aspect of the prosecution, trying to tie together Mafia contract murders in Brooklyn in the late 1980s and early 1990s to a drug-dealing conspiracy in Las Vegas in 2004 as a single ongoing criminal enterprise, was a "ticking time bomb."

Bang!

On June 30, Weinstein's warning blew up in the faces of the prosecutors like a pre-Fourth of July cherry bomb. But it hardly signaled Independence Day for Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa.

In the end, all the prosecutors managed to accomplish by having a jury return a 70-0 rout of a scattered and lame defense was to remove the word "alleged" from any future mention of the Mafia cops. Eppolito and Caracappa can now until the end of time be legally called murderers, kidnappers, thieves, traitors, mutts, skels without the need of legal qualifiers. Just as we can now refer to Kerik the Krook, we can call them Killer Caracappa and Evil Eppolito, Mafia hit men. But what lies ahead?

Federal prosecutors filed an immediate appeal to have the verdict reinstated. But if you read Weinstein's beautifully written decision on the letter of the law, it's hard to see where any appeals court will find wiggle room. If the appeals court upholds Weinstein, all the feds can retry the Mafia cops for are the Vegas drug charges, which are no joke since Weinstein sentenced each of them to 40 years on those counts.

Still, retried without the spillover prejudicial evidence of eight murders, kidnappings and badge selling, those charges might bring considerably less time for first offenders. If they're convicted at all.

Which brings us full circle to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, where this Mafia-cops investigation was originally made as a murder case, before it was wrested from them in a superseding federal RICO indictment.

It's no secret that there has been a long-standing competition between the Brooklyn DA's office and the Brooklyn federal prosecutors who often snatch state cases and make headline federal cases out them. One insider tells of the day Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes pointed out of his window in the Metro Tech Center and saw the new headquarters of the Brooklyn prosecutor's tower being erected and remarked, "Look, they're even stealing my [expletive deleted] view."

The reason this case should have stayed with the Brooklyn DA's office all along is that there is no such thing as a federal murder charge. Murder is always a state charge. Murders can be used as tent poles to prop up federal racketeering cases. But racketeering cases have statutes of limitation. A New York state murder charge has no statute of limitations.

If Judge Weinstein's case is upheld on appeal, the Brooklyn DA will be waiting on the courthouse steps to indict Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa on state murder charges. One suspects that there might even be more than the eight murders charged in the federal case. Plus there is the case of Barry Gibbs, who served 19 wrongful years in prison after, he says, he was framed by Eppolito for the 1986 murder of a prostitute on the Belt Parkway.

New defense attorneys will try to make double-jeopardy arguments against retrying Eppolito and Caracappa for the same murders presented in Brooklyn federal court. But just as they were acquitted on a legal technicality in federal court, the Mafia cops can technically be retried for the same murders on a state level because in federal court they were not charged with murder but with racketeering, which is a separate crime.

So, judgment day will come for the Mafia cops because the technical letter of the law will cut both ways.

There is simply no way that Hynes will ever rest knowing that these two monsters with gold shields, who ran around his county kidnapping, murdering, burying bodies in cement, talking bribes, framing people, selling out fellow undercover cops, facilitating murders with NYPD computers, might walk around free.

As Eppolito and Caracappa sit in the Brooklyn federal lockup awaiting a bail hearing until after Weinstein returns from vacation on July 21, they should know that just as there was a ticking time bomb of statute of limitations ticking in their federal case, another time bomb tick-tocks in the Brooklyn DA's office where the Mafia-cops case was first triggered.

One way or the other, the Mafia cops are going to the can.

For life.

Thanks to Denis Hamil

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"Little Man" Working for the Chicago Mob

Sounds like this is one to skip.

Size does matter: "Little Man" is big on gross-out humor and slapsticky sight gags that appeal to the lowest common denominator, but small on genuinely clever laughs.

Marlon Wayans, technologically manipulated to play a pint-size jewel thief who pretends to be a baby, does look ridiculous in his onesies and matching beanies, which is good for a guffaw here and there. But you can only get so much mileage out of that image, even over a film that's under 90 minutes long (but still feels interminable).

Marlon and his brother/co-star, Shawn, co-wrote the script with brother Keenen Ivory Wayans, who also directs. So if you've seen any of the family's other films ("Scary Movie,""White Chicks"), you know exactly what you're in for: boob jokes, poop jokes, penis jokes, jokes about getting kneed/hit/kicked in the groin.

It's juvenile and repetitive but not all that offensive, until Marlon's character, Calvin Sims, gets pummeled during a beer-soaked arena brawl by a professional hockey player who truly believes he's a baby. That's when you can put away the cake and send home the dinosaur costume guy — the kiddie birthday party is over.

Calvin ends up in this infantilized state after pulling a jewelry store robbery with his partner, wannabe rapper Percy P (Tracy Morgan, making fun of Master P). The two have just stolen a $100,000 diamond at the request of a Chicago mob boss (Chazz Palminteri, eternally stuck in the same role), but with police chasing them, Calvin drops the stone into a purse belonging to up-and-coming ad executive Vanessa Edwards (Kerry Washington, a long way from "Ray").

Vanessa and her husband, Darryl (Shawn Wayans), had just been talking about whether they were ready to start a family, which gives Percy the idea to dress Calvin up as a baby and sneak him into the house to steal the diamond back. Logical, right?

We never see the transformation take place — and we should have, because it actually could have been funny — but all of a sudden, Calvin is lying in a basket on the front porch of Darryl and Vanessa's suburban home, dressed in a diaper and bonnet and swaddled in a pastel blanket. (Naturally, in the three seconds before Darryl steps outside and finds him, a dog lifts his leg to pee on Calvin.)

All the adults are complete idiots, of course, because no one seems to notice or care about how freakish baby Calvin is — the fact that he has a full set of teeth, for example — not even the doctor who examines him. The only one who's onto him is Vanessa's cantankerous dad (comedy veteran John Witherspoon), whom everyone assumes is senile.

Nonetheless, the couple takes him in for the weekend. Hijinks ensue, including nipple biting and violently soiled diapers. In one of the more disturbing sequences, Calvin not only watches Vanessa and Darryl having sex from the railing of his crib, he later joins them in bed.

In this instance, apparently size doesn't matter.

Reviewed by Christy Lemire

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Chicago Mob Hitman in Omaha, Ooops! It's the FBI Instead

A Plattsmouth man has been ordered to stand trial in District Court on a charge of Conspiracy to Commit Murder.

Thirty-five-year-old Robert Harden had faced three conspiracy counts in the case but the judge reduced that to one count on Wednesday. Prosecutors claim that Harden tried to arrange the murders of his wife and her parents. The man he tried to hire was an undercover FBI agent.

Prosecutors say that Harden, who worked in Omaha, asked a coworker to help him kill his wife. That coworker went to Omaha police who contacted the FBI. The coworker brought Harden to a motel at 84th and Grover to meet a hit man who claimed his family had connections with the mafia.

After his arrest last month, Harden talked with us from jail and said the coworker involved, "always talked about his connections that he had with the mafia; people in Chicago -- and how people from Chicago take care of business and get things done." (Strangely, my co-workers tell me that I make the same claims ;-))

Harden and his wife had a rocky relationship and she had left their Plattsmouth apartment with their daughter. She took out a protection order and moved in with her parents in Iowa.

Harden claims that meeting a mafia hit man at the motel was a joke to cheer him up. "All I know is I was there and I was talking to a supposed hit man," he said. "Like I said, Brent has always done stupid stuff to make me smile so I figured this was another way to make me laugh and giggle." But the FBI agent who posed as a hit man testified Wednesday that Harden wasn't kidding around -- that he even provided pictures of his wife and her parents, a map to their house in Mallard, Iowa, a diagram of the house, information on dogs and suggested a time to carry out the hits.

The agent said that during the meeting at the motel, he gave Harden chances to back out and the agent said those opportunities were refused. The agent testified that at one point he told Harden, "If I leave this room, it's a done deal."

Harden says, "There was never any money traded whatsoever, okay?" The agent says Harden agreed, "the murders would be considered a favor from the mafia." (A favor from the mafia?! That really does not need it's own joke.) But Harden claims, "You can ask any psychiatrist, if you are emotionally or mentally distressed, you can be talked into anything."

The FBI says that Harden, who has the initials of his young daughter tattooed on his arm, knew the child would be in the house when the murders were to have taken place.

Even though two of the three counts of Conspiracy to Commit Murder were dismissed, prosecutors say they have a strong case and they say that Harden could get 20 years to life.

Thanks to WOWT

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Overheard: Mafia Hit in North Korea?

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns declared Sunday the U.S. wants China to pressure North Korea. We could do it ourselves but we'd rather have China do it. Chinese hit men work for nine cents an hour and New Jersey guys get ten grand a day.

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Overheard: Mafia Senate Subcommittees

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig denied Jose Canseco's charge that Major League Baseball is run like the Mafia. Appearances are deceiving. It's just a coincidence that everyone in baseball has developed a short neck from shrugging in front of Senate subcommittees.

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Mafia Detectives Risks Mafia Cops Case

Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

Louis Eppolito may have written the book on being a "Mafia Cop" - but a soon-to-be released book could help write his ticket to freedom.

Michael Vecchione, chief of the Brooklyn district attorney's rackets bureau, has quietly signed a book contract touting "the full inside story of the investigation" into Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, the so-called Mafia cops. But there's one problem: Law enforcement and legal sources say Vecchione's book could jeopardize any state prosecution of Eppolito and Caracappa.

Right now, the case remains in federal court, as the feds are appealing Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein's decision to throw out racketeering convictions against the duo. If the feds lose the appeal, the ex-cops could be prosecuted in Brooklyn under state law.

Hofstra University law Prof. Monroe Freedman, an expert on legal ethics, said the American Bar Association's code of standards forbids prosecutors from entering into any media deal before a case is completely done. "It's really egregious judgment, because it's the kind of thing every prosecutor should know," Freedman said yesterday. "It clearly puts the prosecutor's personal interest in self-promotion and making money ahead of his obligations as a public official."

He added, "In my view, if this case is going to be prosecuted by the state, it would have to be by a different prosecutor's office or an independent prosecutor."

Vecchione's book, "Mafia Detectives," due out in January, promises to deliver "never-before-released documents and information" about the case, according to publisher Harper Collins' foreign rights guide.

A spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes refused to say when Vecchione inked the deal or how much he's getting paid. "It's a personal matter," said spokesman Jerry Schmetterer.

Vecchione is doing the book with retired Detective Tommy Dades, who broke the case as an investigator for Hynes' office and still works there.

Asked yesterday whether Hynes approved the book deal, Schmetterer replied, "Absolutely."

Thanks to John Marzulli

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What College Does Meadow Soprano Attend?

Several of you have emailed me that question in the last 24 hours and others have been searching for the answer. Since this gives me an excuse to run a photo of Jamie-Lynn Sigler, the correct answer is Columbia University.

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DeNiro Scares Stardust Actors

Director Matthew Vaughn had no need to instruct Charlie Cox and Claire Danes to "act scared" of Robert DeNiro's intimidating character in new movie STARDUST - because they were genuinely terrified of the star. Vaughn urged the stars to conjure an atmosphere of terror in a scene where De Niro takes the pair hostage, and this inspired the veteran actor to click straight into Mafia mode. Cox says, "Bob's a pirate and he has us tied up. He's doing his Mafioso intimidating stuff, and Matthew's going to us: 'This is scary, this is really scary.' "But by this time we're scared of Bob for real, so there's no need to act."

I had thought that this might be a movie about the soon to be extinct Stardust in Las Vegas. Instead it is about the award-winning fantasy novel Stardust by Neil Gaiman. The book tells the story of a young man who promises his beloved that he will bring her a fallen star. He goes into a magical realm and encounters all manners of mythic creatures.

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Feds: Indictment Targets Genovese Crime Family

Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family, Renaldi "Ray" Ruggiero, Albert "Chinky" Facchiano, Liborio S. "Barney" Bellomo
Friends of mine: Joseph Dennis Colasacco, Francis O'Donnell, Charles Steinberg, Mitchell Weissman

A federal judge considered Friday whether five reputed South Florida members of the Genovese crime family should remain in jail pending trial on charges of extortion, robbery, money laundering and other acts of racketeering.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Seltzer was expected to decide whether Renaldi "Ray" Ruggiero, 72, whom federal prosecutors identified as a Genovese capo or captain, and four of his co-defendants should be released before trial.

Ruggiero and Joseph Dennis Colasacco, 54, Francis O'Donnell, 47, Charles Steinberg, 30, Mitchell Weissman, 54, and Genovese "soldier" Albert "Chinky" Facchiano, 96, were arrested June 30. Facchiano, of Miami, was released on a $100,000 bond on Friday.

The case, considered the latest blow to New York's most powerful Mafia family, deals with 10 years of alleged criminal activity, including murder. The family's reputed acting boss, Liborio S. "Barney" Bellomo, and 31 others were arrested in February in New York.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Kaplan told the court the investigation of the group began in 2001 and lasted mainly through 2003, when Internal Revenue Service agents searched Ruggiero's home. More than 130 undercover recordings of the men's conversations "bought out the violent nature of the defendants," Kaplan said.

Prosecutors alleged that Colasacco beat a man with a gun while Weissman held a baseball bat over him. The victim eventually escaped, covered in blood, Kaplan said. The men later met the victim at Ruggiero's Palm Beach restaurant, aptly named Soprano's, to again threaten him, prosecutors said.

Ruggiero's attorney, Michael Salnick, repeatedly stopped prosecutors who claimed his client was connected to the Mafia or that he was a dangerous person. Salnick asked the court that his client be released before trial, noting that Ruggiero suffers from serious health problems. Salnick noted that Ruggiero has no passport and has left the country only once in 20 years.

The indictment covered alleged illegal enterprises from 1994 to the present, with a few specific examples. In one instance in 2003, Ruggiero allegedly gave approval to Colasacco to extort a man identified as "Victim-1."

Prosecutors claimed the victim was lured to O'Donnell's office, where a gun was held to his head and he was ordered to pay $1.5 million. Prosecutors said Ruggiero feigned innocence when confronted by the victim and promised to intercede, but later agreed to split the money with other defendants.

The group is also accused of laundering money through as many as six companies. An undercover agent gave O'Donnell $250,000 in cash to launder and "made it clear the cash was from drugs," Kaplan alleged.

If convicted under the racketeering charges, Ruggiero could face up to 120 years in prison and fines of up to $1.75 million. Convictions would result in slightly lower maximum sentences for the other defendants.

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2 Palm Beach County Men Among Mafia Suspects

Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family, Renaldi "Ray" Ruggiero
Friends of mine: Mitchell Weissman, The "Sopranos "

In the hunt to take down the legendary Genovese organized crime family, investigators nabbed two associates in Palm Beach County.

They found Renaldi "Ray" Ruggiero, a 72-year-old living in a modest suburban home in Palm Beach Gardens. He is described as the "capo" in charge of the family's South Florida operations.

They also found his alleged associate, Mitchell Weissman, 54, in Boca Raton. He is not a made man, but helped the mafia carry out its traditional work of extortion, robbery, money laundering, loan sharking, possession of stolen property and bank fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Both are transplants from New York.

The two men were arrested on Friday after a grand jury indicted them along with five others from Broward and Miami-Dade counties on multiple charges including racketeering.

Until now, Ruggiero had a clean criminal record in Florida. A woman answered the door at his home, but declined comment.

Weissman was arrested once in 1994 by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office on a domestic battery complaint by his wife, Sandra Weissman. At the time, she had an injured eye and told the deputy she feared violence would continue. The outcome of the case was not immediately available, but the couple is still married, state records show. Weissman did not return calls for comment.

The mafia's dealings in the indictment reads like a script for the mob drama, The Sopranos, except the scenes are set among South Florida's palm trees instead of northern New Jersey.

The cast of codefendants include those nicknamed "the Baker," "the Old Man," and "the Fat Man."

In one case, Ruggiero lured a victim to a codefendant's Coral Springs office, where a gun was held to the man's head in an effort to extort $1.5 million from him. Ruggiero later feigned that he was going to help the victim, even though he had already cut a deal to split the victim's money with the assailants, according to the indictment.

In another, Ruggiero was part of the conspiracy to rob a Boynton Beach bookie of $39,000, the indictment says.

The government is also trying to take up to $3 million of money and assets the seven men have acquired — including the three-bedroom homesteaded Palm Beach Gardens house Ruggiero bought in the Siena Oaks development in 1990 for $157,900.

Weissman lives at a house in Boca Raton he acquired from Ruggiero in 2003, county property records show.

Thanks to Rochelle Gilken

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'Mafia Cops' Judge to Rule on Bail After Vacation Cruise

Friends of ours: Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Lucchese Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

'Mafia Cops' Judge Jack Weinstein tossed the convictions of the two retired New York City detectives that have been dubbed the 'Mafia Cops' on Friday. But now, the judge may make them wait until he finishes his vacation cruise before allowing them to make a bid to get out of jail.

Ex-NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa will certainly file for bail but according to a report in Newsday - they may have to wait for an answer until the judge returns from a vacation cruise.

Newsday reports that along with his momentous ruling Friday, which overturned the conviction of both men for racketeering conspiracy, Brooklyn federal Judge Jack B. Weinstein issued a terse order that any requests for bail be made to him as "presiding" justice in the case.

That means that any attempt by Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, to win release from the federal detention center in Brooklyn won't be decided until Weinstein returns from a vacation cruise later this month. However, defense attorneys may file bail requests as early as this week for both men.

On April 6, a jury found Eppolito and Caracappa guilty of 70 counts of racketeering in one of the most sensational cases of police corruption in New York's history. In a month long trial, witnesses testified that the two friends had formed a partnership with Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, an underboss with the Lucchese family, reports the LA Times.

In exchange for a shared $4,000 monthly retainer, they would pass along police information about mob figures and occasionally act as hit men themselves.

The men were each sentenced to life in prison for their crimes.

The United States attorney's office in Brooklyn said it would appeal the judge's decision to overturn the convictions.

Thanks to Jim Roberts

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Mob Gal Pal Becoming Key Witness to FBI Case

Friends of ours: Gregory Scarpa Sr., Colombo Crime Family

When Linda Schiro was just 16, the Brooklyn teen was already a mistress to a hardened mobster. Her lover, Gregory Scarpa Sr., was a veteran of the Colombo crime family who eventually was convicted of murder and racketeering.

A dozen years later, Schiro has emerged as a key witness against a former FBI agent who allegedly fed Scarpa inside information that led to four mob slayings. But attorneys for R. Lindley DeVecchio say the longtime mistress lacks the credibility to implicate the ex-FBI agent. Her story has changed drastically over time, the defense says.

Authorities insist that Schiro's initial reluctance to detail the relationship between the agent and the mob capo was motivated by fears for her life. Only recently was she persuaded to tell the truth, they say.

Schiro met Scarpa in 1966 when she was 16. They quickly moved in together and shared the same home for 28 years -- except when Scarpa was behind bars. The couple had two children.

DeVecchio was the head of the FBI's Colombo crime family squad and became Scarpa's handler when the mobster turned informer. During Scarpa's time as a mole, DeVecchio put together a 700-page informant file detailing their relationship, court papers showed.

Allegations about possible leaks from DeVecchio to Scarpa first surfaced after the mobster's June 1994 death in a Minnesota prison from AIDS, contracted when he received a tainted blood transfusion. But the Department of Justice declined to prosecute DeVecchio following an internal investigation.

DeVecchio, now 65, retired to Florida in 1996. The former agent has pleaded not guilty to murder charges and is free on $1 million bond.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation remains open, said authorities approached Schiro two years ago after a private investigator turned up fresh evidence against DeVecchio.

Prosecutors persuaded Schiro to come clean about the relationship between the agent and Scarpa by promising relocation and police protection. "It was a matter of making her feel safe, telling her, 'You're not going to get whacked,"' the official said.

Court papers filed by the prosecution present a sinister relationship between Scarpa and DeVecchio. The pair met once a week at Scarpa's home, where the agent accepted a roll of bills bound with a rubber band -- the payoff for DeVecchio's tips from inside the FBI, according to an affidavit from Assistant District Attorney Ann Bordley.

The prosecutor maintains that Schiro has direct knowledge about the 1990 slaying of Patrick Porco, who with Scarpa's son Joey and two other suspects murdered a man outside a church in Brooklyn on Halloween 1989.

In May 1990, Schiro answered a phone call from DeVecchio, asking for Scarpa. The mobster had Schiro drive him to a pay phone, where he spoke with DeVecchio for about 10 minutes before returning to the car. "I can't believe this (expletive) kid," Scarpa allegedly told Schiro. "Patrick is going to rat on Joey. We got to do something about this."

Porco, 18, was found the next morning on a Brooklyn street corner with a bullet in his head.

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Mother of Mafia Cops Victim Pleads with Mayor Bloomberg

Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

The mother of a victim linked to the so-called "Mafia cops" case has addressed a letter to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg asking for his help. The 'Mafia Cops' convictions were overturned on Friday.

According to an exclusive in the NY Daily News the mother wants the mayor to stop fighting her wrongful-death suit, which she said is being delayed by technicalities.

The letter is written by Pauline Pipitone, the mother of 26-year-old Brooklyn man Nicky Guido. He was slain on Christmas Day 1986, a victim of mistaken identity in a rubout linked to the so-called Mafia Cops case, according to the Daily News.

The full letter to Mayor Bloomberg is here.

Jim Kouri reported in the National Ledger on Friday on that the judge had overturned the convictions of two former New York City cops accused of working for the Luchese crime family as mob hit men.

He writes:

Judge Jack Weinstein said that he still believes they are guilty, but the statute of limitations had run out. Besides, liberals always work overtime in order to avoid incarcerating criminals and terrorists, and Weinstein's judicial history strongly suggested he's on the left of the political spectrum.

Three months ago, a jury found former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa guilty of participating in eight murders while on the payroll of the organized crime underboss. But a lawyer in a black robe knows best, so dirty cops lucked out by having a Lyndon Johnson-appointed judge hear their case.

In his decision, Judge Jack Weinstein said he agreed with a jury that Eppolito and Caracappa were guilty of murder, kidnapping and other crimes, but unfortunately the law "compelled" him to overturn the verdicts on the most serious charges. Weinstein granted the former cops a new trial on drug charges and Eppolito a new trial on money laundering charges. It will be interesting to see how Weinstein handles the drug charges.

"The evidence at trial overwhelmingly established the defendants' participation in a large number of heinous and violent crimes," he said in his ruling.

"Nevertheless the five-year statute of limitations mandates granting the defendants a judgment of acquittal on the key charge against them -- racketeering conspiracy."

Less than a month ago, Weinstein sentenced the two disgraced law enforcement officers to life in prison.

Thanks to Jim Roberts

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Convictions Tossed in "Mafia Cops" Case

Friends of mine: Louis J. Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

A federal judge tossed out the convictions of two retired New York City detectives today on racketeering charges — including eight murders for the mob — because the statute of limitations had run out, even though there was overwhelming evidence the men had committed "heinous and violent crimes."

The ruling by Judge Jack B. Weinstein reversed in its entirety the conviction of the two detectives, Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, who were found guilty in April of some of the most stunning corruption charges in the city's history. Although a jury found that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had participated, as paid assassins, in killings for the mob, the judge's order vacated the convictions, though not on evidentiary grounds.

The ruling, in a 102-page order that touched upon Sir Thomas More and the sanctity of the Constitution, was the latest —and most severe — turn yet in the 15-month case. It sent shock waves through the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn, which said it would appeal. And it sent a crest of disappointment through the families of the victims in the case, some of whom had given heart-wrenching testimony at the two men's sentencing last month, where they were given life terms.

It sent a surge of joy through the offices of the defendants' new lawyers, one of whom, Joseph A. Bondy, called it "the most substantial legal victory" in recent history. Meanwhile, it threatened to disrupt the careers — and the book deals — of some investigators in the case. And it led to the bizarre prospect that the two detectives — whom Judge Weinstein outright accused in his order of being stone-cold killers — could walk free from a federal jail in Brooklyn as early as next week.

The judge was poetic in acknowledging that his decision might seem strange to some.

"It will undoubtedly appear peculiar to many people that heinous criminals such as the defendants, having been found guilty on overwhelming evidence of the most despicable crimes of violence, should go unwhipped of justice," he wrote.

"Yet our Constitution, statutes and morality require that we be ruled by the law, not vindictiveness or the advantages of the moment."

The judge also wrote that even though there was little doubt that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had "kidnapped, murdered, and assisted kidnappers and murderers," he had no choice but to let them because the five-year statute of limitations in conspiracy cases had run out.

His ruling was not the first time the statute had come up. Virtually from the outset of the case, Judge Weinstein had said that he was queasy about the legal connection between the eight gangland murders, all of which occurred in Brooklyn in the 1980's and 1990's, and a much more recent — and less serious — charge of selling a single ounce of methamphetamine in Las Vegas last year.

In October, the defense team seized upon the judge's qualms and filed a motion to quash the case before the trial, saying, in essence, that the government had bootstrapped the drug charge on to the murder charges so as "to freshen up" the case and to avoid the statute of limitations.

Judge Weinstein denied the motion, deciding instead to go to trial and to see if the government could prove, as it said it could, that there was indeed an "ongoing criminal enterprise" that stretched from the streets of Brooklyn to the casinos and subdivisions of Las Vegas.

Judge Weinstein's ruling drove a legal spike directly through that argument and no matter how pained he seemed to be in vacating the convictions, he took the government to task for pushing the boundaries of conspiracy law.

"The government's case against these defendants," he wrote, "stretches federal racketeering and conspiracy law to the breaking point."

There was a certain irony lurking in the fact that the statute of limitations was practically the first issue raised in pretrial hearings by the defendants' former lawyers, Bruce Cutler and Edward Hayes, who just this week were forced to appear in court to defend themselves against charges of incompetence filed against them by the two detectives. Judge Weinstein tossed those charges out.

Still, it was in keeping with the topsy-turvy nature of the case that the very argument that the fired legal team had offered in their former clients' defense was the one that was eventually successful.

In either case the judge's ruling provided a much more sweeping victory than the mere new trial that the defendants would have gotten with a finding that their lawyers were incompetent. Now there can be no new trial on the murder conspiracy charges, although a higher court could reinstate the convictions and the prosecution can seek to retry the defendants on the drug charge and Mr. Eppolito, alone, on a money-laundering count.

Reached at his office, Mr. Hayes was at first speechless — a rarity for a man who once sang "Danny Boy" aloud in open court. He said the prosecution had made a grave tactical error by not allowing the case to be tried in state court, which has no statute of limitations on murder. "But this is a Justice Department that more than any in my lifetime has shown a mad-dog desire to control everything and to ignore the law," he said. "And they paid the price in this case."

Mr. Cutler said it would have been difficult for a jury to acquit on what some might see as a technicality, but he praised Judge Weinstein for his independence. "I take comfort in the fact that there are judges who do what they think is right," he said.

Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn, released a terse statement today supporting the jury's verdict. "The jury in this case unanimously found Eppolito and Caracappa guilty of racketeering and murder based on overwhelming evidence," the statement read. "And based on the law that was given to them by the court, each of the 12 jurors specifically found that the defendants' heinous crimes were committed within the statute of limitations. We intend to pursue an appeal."

Thanks to Alan Feuer

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Sopranos Sign Two More

Two more members of "The Sopranos" cast have signed deals to appear in the show's final episodes, but two prime wiseguys are still holding out.

Lorraine Bracco, who plays Tony's (James Gandolfini) therapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, and Aida Turturro, Tony's sister Janice, have each agreed to return for the final run of episodes, which is scheduled to begin in January. The cast's first script reading is set for next week.

Both actresses will be receiving sizable raises for the final episodes, which HBO is calling a continuation of the sixth season (the first 12 episodes ended earlier this month). According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bracco will earn about $220,000 per episode, while Turturro will get $130,000.

The trade paper also reports that Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Robert Iler have also finalized their deals to return, with each getting a per-episode salary in the low six figures.

Meanwhile, two of Tony Soprano's prime lieutenants, Steven Van Zandt (Silvio Dante) and Tony Sirico (Paulie Walnuts), are keeping up their holdout and threatening to quit the show if their demands for a raise aren't met. The two actors, who have the same manager, are asking for pay in the $200,000-per-episode range, the New York Post says.

Both have been a major part of the show throughout its run, and should it come to that, writing Silvio and Paulie out would be a tricky task.

Steven Schirripa, who plays Janice's husband Bobby, also has yet to sign, but the HR says he's expected to work out a contract before the table read next week.

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Judge Throws Out Murder Conviction in NYPD 'Mafia Cops' Case

Friends of ours: Lucchese Crime Family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Gambino Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

A judge on Friday threw out a racketeering murder conviction against two detectives accused of moonlighting as hitmen for the mob, saying the statute of limitations had expired on the slayings.

U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein also granted a new trial to the defendants, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, on money laundering and drug charges.

Defense attorneys had argued that the five-year statute of limitations had expired on the most serious allegations against the pair — that they committed or facilitated eight killings between 1986 and 1990 while on the payroll of both the New York Police Department and Luchese crime family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.

Prosecutors had countered that the murders were part of an ongoing conspiracy that lasted through a 2005 drug deal with an FBI informant.

In a 77-page ruling, Weinstein agreed with a jury that Eppolito and Caracappa were guilty of murder, kidnapping and other crimes, but he said the law compelled him to set aside the verdict.

"The evidence at trial overwhelmingly established the defendants' participation in a large number of heinous and violent crimes," the judge wrote. "Nevertheless an extended trial, evidentiary hearings, briefings and argument establishes that the five-year statute of limitations mandates granting the defendants a judgment of acquittal on the key charge against them — racketeering conspiracy."

After the detectives retired and moved to Las Vegas in the mid-1990s "the conspiracy that began in New York in the 1980s had come to a definite close," the judge wrote. "The defendants were no longer in contact with their old associates in the Luchese crime family."

There is no statute of limitations on murder in the state of New York, but the men were prosecuted at the federal level because of the higher likelihood of a conviction for racketeering.

Eppolito, 57, whose father was a member of the Gambino crime family, and Caracappa, 64, were convicted in April in what was considered one of the worst cases of police corruption in New York history.

"It's exactly what we argued during the trial," said Edward Hayes, Caracappa's trial lawyer. "I am very happy for my client, and I do feel it is a vindication of our trial strategy."

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Reputed Head Of South Florida Mafia Crime Ring, Others Arrested

Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family, Renaldi "Ray" Ruggiero, Liborio "Barney" Bellomo

The alleged head of the Genovese crime family's South Florida ring and six others have been arrested.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Friday that the men are charged with extortion, robbery, money laundering and other acts of racketeering as far back as 1994.

Renaldi "Ray" Ruggiero, whom prosecutors identified as a captain of the family's operations in South Florida, was in federal court in Fort Lauderdale along with a half dozen co-defendants.

If convicted under the racketeering charges, Ruggiero could face up to 120 years in prison and fines of up to $1.75 million. The others could face slightly lower maximum sentences.

The arrests are the latest blow to New York City's most powerful Mafia family. The family's reputed acting boss, Liborio "Barney" Bellomo, and 31 others were arrested in February in New York on a host of charges including murder.

The indictment covered the family's alleged illegal enterprises from 1994 to the present.

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