Putting the Muscle on the Sopranos

Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family

James Gandolfini, star of HBO's mob drama "The Sopranos," is muscling into a salary dispute between two of his castmates and the cable network before production begins on the show's last batch of episodes.

Gandolfini, whose own bitter contract squabble with HBO three years ago escalated into a court battle before it was settled, is hosting a sit-down this weekend with co-stars Steven Van Zandt and Tony Sirico, according to sources.

With less than two weeks until the scheduled production start of the show's last eight episodes, Gandolfini is said to be looking to intervene in the network's standoff with Van Zandt and Sirico over their demands for higher pay.

Only a handful of "Sopranos" actors -- including Emmy winners Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli and Vincent Curatola -- have closed deals to appear in the final installments of the HBO gangster drama.

Following the network's decision in the summer to extend the sixth season of "Sopranos" from 13 to 20 episodes -- 12 to air this year and eight in 2007 -- the cast of the Emmy-winning series began negotiations for substantial salary increases for the final batch of episodes.

With the first table read scheduled for July 5, several key cast members, including Lorraine Bracco, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Steven Schirripa and John Ventimiglia, have not signed on the dotted line to continue. But it has been Sirico and Van Zandt, who play iconic characters Paulie Walnuts and Silvio Dante, respectively, who have had the toughest and most publicized renegotiations.

With each of the two actors and HBO still more than $500,000 apart on the money, and Sirico and Van Zandt not budging on their $200,000-an-episode asking price -- more than double their most recent fee -- a conclusion of the groundbreaking series without Paulie and Silvio looms as a real possibility.

Talks between the actors and HBO are still ongoing.

"HBO has made generous offers to the cast, and, as always, we're confident that we will resolve all of these matters amicably," an HBO spokesperson said.

Bob McGowan of McGowan Management, who manages Sirico and Van Zandt, declined comment Wednesday.

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Dropping a Dime

Friends of ours: Joe "The Builder" Andriacchi
Friends of mine: Bruno Caruso, Ron Jarrett

Thanks to John Kass, today you're invited to participate in a time-honored Chicago political tradition.

It's called "dropping a dime." And everyone can play.

All you do is go to chicagotribune.com/clout, click on the "list of clout" and peruse Mayor Richard Daley's list of politically connected city payrollers and their clout-heavy sponsors that was introduced into evidence this week at the federal City Hall corruption/patronage trial.

Included among the sponsors were unions, tough guys and mayoral brains, including his brothers, like Bill Daley. (If Bill's picture keeps appearing on the front page in connection with stories about the federal trial, will he still become White House chief of staff under a President Hillary Clinton?)

There are so many intriguing questions associated with this list. One name is Andriacchi. There are many people with this name. But could this person be related to Joe "The Builder" Andriacchi, known to the FBI as a reputed boss of the Chicago Outfit? Or is it another, completely unrelated Andriacchi?

Another is Ronald Jarrett, sponsored for his city job by former laborers union boss Bruno Caruso, a reputed Outfit associate. Is this the same Ron Jarrett--the master jewel thief--who was killed in an Outfit hit in Bridgeport a few years ago? Or, is it just a typo?

If you know, then drop a dime and give a shout on city jobs clout.

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Judge Rules Alleged Mobster, Frank Calabrese, Should Stay Behind Bars

A federal judge ordered Monday that alleged mobster Frank J. Calabrese Sr. should stay behind bars while he awaits trial on murder conspiracy charges.

U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel said none of the suggested conditions for Calabrese's release "could reasonably ensure against attempts to obstruct justice and tamper with witnesses." Zagel sided with the prosecution, saying there was a "serious risk" Calabrese would attempt to prevent testimony from his brother and other potential witnesses "through intimidation, injury or bribery."

Defense attorney Joseph Lopez has argued that Calabrese is unlikely to flee if released on bond and won't obstruct justice by contacting witnesses. Lopez also has said Calabrese would be avoided by anyone connected with organized crime. Lopez said he does not know whether he will appeal the ruling. The U.S. attorney's office did not immediately returns calls for comment.

Convicted in a federal investigation of loan sharking and other crimes, Calabrese was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison and was due to be released this year before he was indicted on the murder conspiracy charges in April 2005.

Defense attorneys sought Calabrese's release on medical grounds. Calabrese told Zagel last year he suffers from an array of health concerns, including arthritis, nose problems and the loss of 90 percent of his pituitary gland.

During a hearing last week, prosecutors played a series of secretly recorded conversations between Calabrese and his son, Frank Calabrese Jr., that they claim show the elder Calabrese's involvement in several murders.

The government alleges Calabrese was a member of the South Side/26th Street crew and, with others, murdered 13 people in Chicago and surrounding suburbs between August 1970 and September 1986.

According to prosecutors, Calabrese's victims included reputed mob enforcer William Dauber and reputed mob hit man William "Butch" Petrocelli.

He is among 14 alleged mobsters and mob associates indicted in the federal government's Operation Family Secrets, a long-running investigation of at least 18 mob killings. Each of the men faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Calabrese's brother, Nicholas W. Calabrese, also was charged but has been cooperating with prosecutors.

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N.J. Mafia Family Gets New Boss

Friends of ours: DeCavalcante Crime Family, Joseph Miranda, Francesco Guarraci, John Riggi, John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato, Stefano "Steve the Truck Driver" Vitabile
Friends of mine: Joey Garafano

For years, the joke among New York mobsters was that you couldn't have a "sit-down" with a member of the DeCavalcante crime syndicate until after 4 o'clock. That's when the whistles blew and the job sites closed for the day.

Members of New Jersey's only homegrown Mafia family worked blue-collar jobs and shunned flashy cars and expensive suits -- a social camouflage that helped them quietly control labor unions and maintain a stranglehold on construction in the Garden State. "They were very proud of the fact that they held real jobs," said one former DeCavalcante associate.

Then, in the 1980s, the family began inducting aspiring wiseguys from New York City who loathed manual labor and preferred owning strip joints instead of plumbing supply stores. The move proved disastrous, leading to the conviction of more than 30 DeCavalcante mobsters, including seven with the high-ranking title of caporegime, as well as the family's longtime consiglieri.

In the wake of the turmoil, acting boss Joseph Miranda tried to rebuild the family, inducting up to a dozen new members, authorities said.

The 83-year-old Miranda's latest move involves quietly stepping aside and handing the reins to a new generation of old-school mobsters.

The family's new boss, two sources familiar with the inner workings of the crime syndicate told The Record, is a well-respected but little-known Sicilian immigrant in the mold of the group's forebears.

Born in the DeCavalcantes' ancestral home city of Ribera, Sicily, 51-year-old Francesco Guarraci lives in a modest Elizabeth home; runs the longtime family outpost, the Ribera Social Club, and drives to work each day to his job as a foreman in the historically family-run Laborers' Local 394, the sources said.

"He has very quietly become the top guy," one of them said. "We're not sure exactly when it happened, but Miranda seems to be completely out of the picture."

Telephone messages left at Guarraci's listed address were not returned.

Guarraci's name never surfaced in any of the myriad DeCavalcante indictments or government flow charts in the past few years. Then, in February, the parent union of Local 394 named him as a soldier for the DeCavalcantes, who they said were trying to wrest control of the local.

The local has been the "lifeblood" and "cash cow" of the family since the 1930s, the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) alleges. An investigation by the union found that the DeCavalcantes made hundreds of thousands of dollars each year by extorting money from contractors and engaging in labor racketeering, according to a legal brief filed in federal court that seeks trusteeship of the local.

Lawyers for the local dispute the allegations, contending that organized-crime control ceased years ago.

Imprisoned DeCavalcante boss John Riggi was the local's business manager from 1966 until 1988 and succeeded DeCavalcante as boss in 1976. He has been in prison since 1990 and currently is incarcerated in a federal medical facility in Massachusetts. But authorities say he has continued to run the family from behind bars, with the help of acting bosses. Riggi is believed to be the longest-serving mob boss in history, having run the family for 30 years.

In 2003, Riggi received an additional 10-year term after pleading guilty to ordering murders, including some while he was in prison. The 81-year-old boss is scheduled for release in 2012. The hole left by his absence has been filled by a string of acting bosses.

Since 1990, five of them have been jailed or murdered or have defected from the mob, including one, John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato, who authorities said was killed, in part, because he was reportedly bisexual and frequented swinger clubs.

Last Monday, the family's longtime consiglieri, Stefano "Steve the Truck Driver" Vitabile, was sentenced to life in prison for ordering the hit on D'Amato.

Guarraci had been eyed for years to eventually take over the top spot in the union, said a former associate now living under an assumed name after testifying against family members.

Guarraci doesn't top the DeCavalcante organizational charts at all of New Jersey's law-enforcement agencies. The state police, for instance, maintain that Miranda remains in control of day-to-day operations.

"We still have Miranda in charge," said state police Capt. Mark Doyle, who heads the organized crime unit.

Doyle conceded, however, that the state police aren't devoting a great deal of resources to investigating the DeCavalcante clan -- or the Mafia in general -- except in cases of public corruption. Corruption and street gangs are currently the top priorities for the state police, Doyle said.

"That's the big, big push," he said. "Right now, OC is not killing anyone on the street. These gang bangers are."

At the same time, Doyle called the DeCavalcantes "a bunch of weak sisters."

The bespectacled Guarraci was inducted into the crime family in 1989 during a ceremony led by Riggi, according to the former associate.

Guarraci wasn't scheduled to be "made," but was inducted in place of another associate, Joey Garafano. Garafano was killed after stealing the license plates from the car of a fellow wiseguy's wife and putting them on a "crash car" used in a high-profile mob hit, the former associate said.

"He would be a perfect fit for new boss: old-school, born and raised in Ribera," the former DeCavalcante associate said. "Frank would be a favorite, because he's tough and real low-key and very well-liked."

Guarraci has deliberately kept a low profile, said a law-enforcement source who would talk only off the record because he wasn't authorized to discuss the mob family.

"He really stayed under the radar for a long time," the source said. "Even when he was made boss, a lot of us didn't even know who he was."

Thanks to Tom Troncone

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Parents Complain about 'Mafia' Game at School

Some middle-school parents in Raymond said they are outraged that their fifth-graders have been playing a controversial game during school, reported WMUR-TV in Manchester.

The game is called Mafia, and the parents said it has given their children nightmares.

Parent Rae Coppola said she was disturbed to see the homework assignment her 11-year-old daughter was getting ready to turn in for her class at Iber Holmes Gove Middle School in Raymond. Coppola said her daughter's assignment was to list the rules for the game. "There's absolutely nothing fun about killing people and for these children to have to come up with ideas on their own about how to kill people," Coppola said.

According to Wikipedia, Mafia is a party game in which some players are "Mafia members" and others are "honest people." Each team tries to eliminate the other team, with the "honest" group trying to figure out who the Mafia members are.

Toward the beginning of the game, a narrator or moderator usually tells a story about how a player was eliminated, or "killed," by the Mafia.

Coppola said that her daughter was not having fun playing the game."I had noticed her acting weird," she said. "She was up to 11:30 at night. She couldn't sleep, had migraines, had a stomach ache."

Coppola said that after seeing the assignment, she went to the school the next day to complain."I was just absolutely mortified that they're teaching violence in schools," she said. "Teaching starts at home, and I'm trying to teach my child that certain things are not appropriate. I don't even let her watch PG-13 movies."

Coppola met with Principal Caesar Meledandri, who put a stop to the game. She also received a letter from the teacher apologizing, but she said it's not enough. "I want the school to notify the parents, because I know a few of her other friends have been having nightmares and been really upset about it, and parents probably have no idea what's wrong with their kids," she said.

Another mother told the televison station that her daughter was afraid to go to sleep because she was worried she would sleepwalk and act out the game.

Acting Superintendent Michael Shore said that he's looking into the game. "Immediately, with any type of complaint, we would investigate the situation," Shore said. "After the investigation is complete, we would be in a situation where we would consider reprimanding, termination or suspension."

Coppola said she wants the teacher fired. "I send my children to school to learn -- not learn how to play games to kill people, but to learn how to read and do math," she said.

Shore said the investigation should be finished by next week.

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