De Niro rejoins Mob

"Goodfellas" and "The Godfather Part II" star Robert De Niro is reportedly heading back to the mob.

Daily Variety reports De Niro's Tribeca Films is producing and he is expected to star in the film adaptation of Don Winslow's new novel, "The Winter of Frankie Machine." The yet-to-be-published novel is about a mob hitman who retires to run a bait shop. He jumps back into the fray, however, when he finds out he has been targeted for a hit.

Although De Niro once vowed to give up mafia-related roles, he found "Frankie Machine" too good to pass up, his Tribeca partner, Jane Rosenthal told Variety. "The lesson here is, never say never," she said.

Tweet

Reduced time for Loren-Maltese?

Friends of ours: Michael Spano Sr., Al Capone
Friends of mine: Betty Loren-Maltese

Defense attorneys are asking a judge to reduce the eight-year prison term he imposed on the former town president of suburban Cicero so she can be reunited with her young daughter. The request comes two months after an appeals court ruled that Betty Loren-Maltese and five others convicted in 2002 should be resentenced. Prosecutors want her sentence extended to more than 11 years. Keep in mind that Loren-Maltese only adopted her daughter at the urging of "Fast Eddie" Vrydolyak after she come under heavy scrutiny by the Feds. She specifically did this so that she could play this card and appear more sympathetic.

Loren-Maltese and her co-defendants were convicted of racketeering for using an insurance scam to bilk $10 million from the town. Prosecutors had spent years investigating the small, blue-collar suburb just outside the Chicago city limits that has been known as a haven for corruption since the 1920s, when Al Capone made it the hub of his bootlegging empire.

A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the trial judge, U.S. District Judge John F. Grady, made an error in imposing the sentences. The appeals court ruled that after Grady calculated the amount of the loss at $10.6 million he wrongly rounded the number down to below $10 million. Under federal sentencing guidelines, the greater the loss the harsher the sentence. Grady's decision cut 10 months or more off the sentences. Grady said he rounded the number down because it was merely an estimate and an estimate could be unreliable.

Court papers filed last week by Loren-Maltese's lawyers included a letter from her mother, Kitty Loren, who cares for her daughter, Ashleigh, 8, in Las Vegas. Kitty Loren, who turns 85 on Tuesday, wrote: "I do the best I can; however, no one can replace a mother's nurturing." The defense lawyers want Loren-Maltese's sentence reduced to four or five years, which could get her out of prison as early as 2006. They said that after nearly three years in prison, she's a changed woman.

Prosecutors, however, want to extend her sentence by three years. In court papers filed last week, they noted that Grady said at the original sentencing he considered putting Loren-Maltese away for longer. During that sentencing, prosecutors questioned Loren-Maltese's desire to be a parent by noting how often she gambled in Las Vegas and in the Chicago area. Apparently, this figure approached $18,000,000 over the years 2000 and 2001. Prosecutors said they also will seek to extend the sentences for her co-defendants.

Grady could set a resentencing date as early as this week. Among the others convicted with Loren-Maltese were alleged Cicero mob boss Michael Spano Sr. and Emil Schullo, one-time head of the Cicero police department.

Tweet

JOE BONANNO'S SON DIES

Joseph Bonanno Jr., younger son and namesake of the late mob boss who headed one of New York's five original crime families, has died. He was 60. The younger Bonanno died Nov. 2 at his ranch in Ione, Calif., of a heart attack, his older brother, Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno said last night.

Bonanno, the youngest of three children born to Joseph and Fay Bonanno, followed a different path than his father and older brother. Joseph Bonanno Jr., studied animal husbandry at the University of Arizona, and later owned a 20-acre ranch near Sacramento, Calif. He and his wife of 34 years, Karen, had no children.

Joe Bonanno Sr. died of heart failure in 2002 at age 97. Derisively nicknamed "Joe Bananas," Joe Bonanno Sr. had retired to Arizona in 1968 after allegedly running one of the most powerful Mafia groups during the 1950s and 1960s, though the family had lived in Tucson part-time long before that.

Tweet

Fergie Goes Mafia

Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family

This is mafia related since it involves The Soprano's. Plus, it gives me an excuse to run a photo of a hot chick on my site. It is the November sweeps month after all. Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie has been given an offer she can't refuse - to star in an episode of The Sopranos. Fergie - real name Stacy Ferguson - is swapping the music business for family business by playing an undercover cop working in Tony Soprano's seedy Bad-A-Bing strip club. She starts filming the episode early next year.

"Fergie can't believe her luck at landing this part - she's obsessed with The Sopranos," an insider told the Daily Mirror. "The producers thought she'd be perfect because she's got such a toned body and has no problems flaunting her flesh." She is also said to have been hitting the gym with a personal trainer to be "the hottest stripper Bad-A-Bing's ever seen".

Fergie apparently impressed Sopranos bosses after playing opposite John Travolta in the crime comedy Be Cool. She's also set to appear in the remake of 70s disaster flick The Poseiden Adventure, with Kurt Russell.

The TV role comes as the Black Eyed Peas - chart-toppers with Where is the Love? - tour their latest album Monkey Business in the US. Their latest single My Humps comes out in the UK next week.

There's also talk of Fergie going it alone next year and recording her first solo album. But will her Sopranos role prove to be a long-lasting career move? You'll have to tune in next year to find out...

Tweet

Anthony "Joe Batters" Accardo Index

Anthony Accardo (1906-1992): mob boss, The Genuine Godfather

He had the longest career of any U.S. mobster. Tony Accardo, aka "Joe Batters" or "Big Tuna," served as the boss or chairman of the board of the Chicago Outfit from 1944 until his death in 1992.

Accardo was born in Chicago, the son of Sicilian immigrants. His father was a shoemaker. He grew up at Grand and Ashland avenues and started as a common street burglar, involved mostly in petty larceny. This caught the eye of "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn. Accardo joined the Circus Gang, working his way up the ladder of minor league organized crime. Gradually he progressed from muggings and pocket picking to armed robbery and aggravated assault. He became a member of Capone's Gang after he successfully planned and executed the Hanlon Hellcat shootout in which he led the killing of 3 rivals. As a teenage hood with the Al Capone mob in the 1920s, he participated in lots of Prohibition-era violence. By age 16 he was a high-ranking bodyguard, gunman and "enforcer." In 1929 he participated in the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre of Capone rival Bugs Moran's gang on Clark Street.

Accardo received his nickname from his reputation for swinging a ball bat to mete out violence to rivals and others who'd displeased his bosses by failing to make their weekly loan-shark payments. After he killed two of those men, Capone is to said to have commented "This kid is a real Joe Batters".

By the '30s, with the end of bootlegging, the Mob turned its attention to even nastier stuff, like narcotics. During that era the Chicago Syndicate drove all the non-Italian gangs out of business until the Mafia was in complete control of the city's illegal activities. Accardo became Paul "The Waiter" Ricca's second in command. When Ricca went to prison from the Hollywood Extortion Case, Accardo stepped into the position of acting boss of the Outfit in 1944. He often visited Ricca in the federal penitentiary masquerading as his lawyer to obtain direction.

Eventually, around 1947, Accardo became the boss himself. Under Accardo's leadership, the Chicago Outfit expanded its dominion, taking Las Vegas away from the New York mob. This was first done through the Stardust Casino (which yours truly just visited as documented at the Vegas Syndicate and it is was I use the Stardust Odds for my NFL picks at the Sport Syndicate) and later expanded to several other casinos. Joe Batters also aggressively enforced a city-wide street tax, which ordered that the Outfit get a percentage of any money made illegally.

Around 1957, Accardo passed the leadership over to Sam Giancana. As consiglieri, Accardo removed Giancana in 1966 and named Sam "Teets" Battaglia top guy. This was the start of a "boss" merry-go-around that eventually led to Joe Batters assuming the role of boss again in 1971 and had him ordering the hit of Giancana in 1975 as he was cooking dinner in his basement after returning from Mexico.

Despite everything that went on in his empire, Accardo never spent a single night in jail. In the 1950-'51 Kefauver hearings, Accardo took the Fifth Amendment 172 times. In 1960 he was sentenced to six years in prison for income tax evasion but the conviction was later overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because of "prejudicial" newspaper publicity during his trial.

Accardo ran the Chicago Outfit for 40 years as boss and/or consiglieri until he died in his sleep due to heart problems at 86 in 1992.

In the past, I used to list all of the articles below in which Tony Accardo appeared. However, by clicking on the label with his name, you can find the same results.

Tweet