Paris Hilton - 'Mafia Princess'

Paris Hilton is a singer, actress, accidental porn star - and, we now learn, a bit of a Mafia princess. The hotel heiress' parents almost didn't get married because her maternal grandmother was married to a mobster, a new book reveals.

Jerry Oppenheimer reports in "House of Hilton" that Kathy Richards - known as "Big Kathy" -was hitched to a notorious gangland figure when her daughter, "Little Kathy," fell in love with Paris' dad, Rick Hilton.

Oppenheimer, whose Crown book comes out in November, is withholding the mob guy's name for now. But he reports that federal prosecutors linked him to Mafia families in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago.

"Big Kathy used to boast to friends … that 'if you ever need someone taken care of,' her husband had the muscle to handle it." But Big Kathy got nervous when her daughter hooked up with Rick. "I can't have the Hiltons finding out what [my husband] does," she told a friend.

Big Kathy promptly divorced the potential wedding-spoiler, one of four husbands she collected. The gentleman later died of a heart attack - just before he was due to serve 15 years for counterfeiting, money-laundering and other charges.

Even so, Mama Richards was banned from the Hilton estate in Los Angeles unless the family patriarch, Barron Hilton, was out of town, according to Oppenheimer. "Barron couldn't stand being around Kathy's mother," a source told Oppenheimer. "He used to call her 'The Madam' - as in bawdy house madam."

Word is her mobster gave Big Kathy the same big honking diamond ring that he'd given earlier molls. "He'd always get it back from them," a source tells us. "But he never got it back from Big Kathy."

A spokesman for the Hiltons, who are said to be dreading the book, declined to comment. But Paris still cherishes the memory of her grandma, who died in 2002 at the age of 63. "We were, like, best friends," Paris says in September's issue of Blender. "She would say, 'You're my Marilyn Monroe. You're my Grace Kelly. You're going to be the most famous woman in the world.' … I feel like she made all this happen."

Thanks to Rush & Molloy

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Missing Mobster?

Friends of ours: Anthony Zizzo, Sam "Wings" Carlisi, Anthony Chiaramonti, Anthony Spilotro, James Marcello
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro, Phillip Goodman

Westmont police Wednesday asked the public for information about the whereabouts of Anthony Zizzo, an elderly organized crime figure who was last seen Aug. 31 driving away from his home in the suburb.

While the Police Department is taking the lead in the investigation, which was launched after Zizzo's wife filed a missing person report, federal authorities are now also participating in the investigation, law enforcement sources said.

Westmont officials confirmed Wednesday that Zizzo's vehicle was recovered Saturday in the parking lot of a restaurant in Melrose Park. Police said he suffers from kidney failure and did not take medication with him when he left home.

Zizzo's wife reported him missing Friday morning. She had last seen him the day before as he drove away from their home in the 5700 block of South Cass Avenue, police said. When last seen, Zizzo, who is 5-foot-3 and 200 pounds, was wearing a gray shirt, black pants, a black windbreaker and black athletic shoes. He has thinning gray hair, blue eyes and wears metal-rimmed glasses.

It is unclear what his plans were when he left home, but some sources familiar with the case said he may have been headed for a meeting in the Rush Street area of Chicago.

Zizzo, 71, was a major figure in the organization of mob kingpin Sam Carlisi and went to prison with his boss and several others in 1993. He was released in 2001.

Zizzo, who lived in Melrose Park before his conviction, was described as the No. 3 person in command of the late Carlisi's crew. He supervised loan sharking and gambling operations, prosecutors said.

According to court records, Zizzo was the former boss of a Carlisi crew enforcer and debt collector, Anthony Chiaramonti, who was gunned down outside a Brown's Chicken and Pasta restaurant in Lyons in November 2001. That killing was the last-known hit in the Chicago mob world.

At the time of Zizzo's conviction, federal authorities said he and some co-defendants were believed to have information about several unsolved mob murders. Each was named in connection with events that preceded the murders of Anthony and Michael Spilotro and bookmaker Phillip Goodman, according to a prosecution filing in the Carlisi case. It did not link anyone to the actual crimes, however.

Last year, federal prosecutors charged several reputed Chicago mob leaders in connection with a number of unsolved murders. Zizzo was not named, but one of his 1993 co-defendants, James Marcello, was charged in the massive federal conspiracy case.

Thanks to David Heinzmann and Jeff Coen

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Junior is Dopey

Friends of ours: John "Junior Gotti, Gambino Crime Family

The way John A. (Junior) Gotti sees it, if the feds were so convinced he was a dummy, how could he have run the city's most murderous crime family? In recorded prison chats played for jurors yesterday, Gotti mocks the tag he earned after government agents said he didn't have the smarts his father possessed to run the Gambino crime family.

"I'm the Dopey Don, remember?" he tells pal Steve Dobies during a July 2003 prison conversation intercepted by the feds. "That's what I was. I had no problem with that. But you can't just now say, 'Well, we thought now because we're gonna put him in jail for life, he wasn't really the Dopey Don. You can't do that. ... You gotta lock them into something."

The Dopey Don chat was among more than a dozen prison conversations played for jurors yesterday as prosecutors wrapped up their racketeering case against the 42-year-old mob scion by presenting evidence they say shows Gotti never truly renounced the mob life as he claims he did.

When Gotti's lawyers begin calling witnesses today, they may start with Curtis Sliwa, the radio host allegedly shot twice by thugs prosecutors say were sent by Junior. Sliwa testified for the prosecution at two previous trials but was not called this time.

On the tapes recorded in 2003 and 2004, Gotti weighs in on numerous topics, from "vulture" uncles to a "bum" brother to his interpretation of the Torah.

Among Junior's greatest hits:

Gotti told pal John Ruggiero during a 2003 chat that if uncles Peter or Richie Gotti turned up in the upstate New York prison where he was being housed, they'd suffer the consequences. "I swear it to you on my dead brother and my dead father, I swear to you, I will meet them by the [prison] door, with two padlocks in my hands, and I will crack their skulls."

On brother Peter, whom he crossed off his prison visitors list in 2003, he said: "I love him, but my brother's a bum. That's all he is. No more, no less. ... I have a hard time respecting any man who doesn't spend any time with his wife and kids at all. If Pete has an available moment he'll take whatever's in his pocket, like my father would have done, and go to OTB or go to Atlantic City."

Gotti's anxiety heightens throughout as it becomes clear the feds are preparing to indict him on new charges. He muses about leaving New York once his five-year prison hitch is over. And when Gotti lawyer Richard Rehbock complains about having to buy Dobies - who is Jewish - lunch every day, Gotti offered his take on the Torah. "Isn't that like supposed to be a Jewish pact or something that youse got with each other to feed each other to shelter them in their shelter or some s---?" Gotti asked. "Isn't that in the Torah?"

Thanks to Thomas Zambito

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Induction Nominees for Las Vegas Mob Museum

Friends of ours: Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, Bugsy Siegel, Tony Accardo

Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro

Known as the Chicago mob's overseer in Las Vegas, Spilotro, 48, was brutally slain in 1986 along with his brother, Michael. Their bodies were found in an Indiana cornfield and the slayings were part of the movie "Casino."

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel

The boss of West Coast gambling for the crime syndicate and an original member of Murder Inc., he came to Las Vegas in 1945. A year later, Siegel opened the Flamingo hotel on a dusty stretch of highway that soon would become known as the Strip. A shrewd businessman with an explosive temper, Siegel was executed in 1947 in Beverly Hills before he could see his Las Vegas dream come to fruition. More than 40 years later, Warren Beatty brought the gangster back to life in "Bugsy."

Anthony "Big Tuna" Accardo

Accardo rose from Al Capone's bodyguard to become the reputed boss of the Chicago crime syndicate. Under his leadership, the Chicago mob was the secret power behind Las Vegas casinos, skimming millions. He also was known as "Joe Batters," apparently a reference to his prowess as a mob enforcer. Though he had a long arrest record, he was never convicted of a felony and boasted that he had never spent a night in jail. Accardo died in 1992 at age 86.

Proposed by Michael Martinez

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