Sopranos Expand Empire

Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family

So "The Sopranos" is finally available on basic cable.

As Tony S. might put it in his new A&E vocabulary, it's about freakin' time.

The Emmy-winning Mafia saga is one of two HBO dramas coming to basic cable this week. The second is the less-heralded but often brilliant "The Wire," which starts its own run on BET the same night.

No doubt the formidable crime series, with its blunt language and seething violence, also will be cleaned up to meet the tighter standards of basic cable, but BET did not provide edited screeners.

A&E did, however, send along edited versions of two early episodes, which I'm glad to say suffer very little from the editing.

This is mostly because - like HBO's "Sex and the City," now enjoying a profitable, if slightly primmer, afterlife on TBS and in syndication - "The Sopranos" is produced with a collection of alternative shots and tidied-up dialogue loops for later use.

Where bleeps and blurs would be intrusive or even ridiculous, mobsters who seem overly fond of the epithet "jerk" and cameras that avert their gaze from the strippers at the Bada Bing club are the mildest of annoyances.

If anything, losing the obscenity, the occasional nudity and some of the gore only emphasizes how much else this extraordinary series has in its arsenal.

In the seven years since "The Sopranos" debuted, I'd forgotten some of the power of its early episodes: Tony's doomed attempts to reconcile with his epically awful mother (Nancy Marchand); the increasingly bizarre cast his dreams take on after he starts therapy; daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) showing kid brother A.J. (Robert Iler) the crime-watch Web site confirming that their cushy lives have little to do with the waste management business.

One reason that a few words snipped out of the series here and there hardly matter is that the rest of them are so richly colorful.

Who cares if A&E viewers won't get to hear what one of Tony's lieutenants disdainfully calls Starbuck's? They'll still get to listen in on conversations about children and parents, sex and psychoanalysis, Hasidism and the History Channel, God and "The Godfather," plus enough discourse about bracciole, grappa, osso buco and agita to send them to a Web site or an Italian-American friend.

A&E has promised to run the episodes at or near their original length, with minimal editing for violent or sexual content. That's good news for those who want to see the series relatively intact, but it also means that viewers who are easily upset may still want to give "The Sopranos" a wide berth.

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Did the Clown Leave a Fingerprint Behind?

Friends of ours: Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs

Jurors in the coming Family Secrets mob trial might hear newly revealed government evidence that a fingerprint of Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo links him to the slaying of suburban businessman Daniel Seifert in 1974.

Seifert was set to be a key witness against Lombardo in a Teamster pension fund embezzlement case when masked gunmen shot him down in front of his wife and young son.

In 2005, more than 30 years after the slaying, prosecutors charged Lombardo and another reputed mob hit man, Frank "the German" Schweihs, with killing Seifert. It's one of 18 Outfit rubouts the feds have charged in an indictment against some of the top alleged mobsters of Chicago -- all part of the Family Secrets trial set for May.

The fingerprint was referred to publicly, for the first time, in a court motion that Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, filed Friday. Halprin wants information on the methodology the government's expert used in linking the print to Lombardo so he can plan a possible challenge. Halprin said Friday he's interested in finding out whether any testing used on the fingerprint destroyed part or all of it. Still, Halprin dismissed the importance of the fingerprint Friday, arguing Lombardo has a strong alibi. Lombardo was at a Chicago police station making a report on another matter at the time of the Seifert slaying.

The print was on the title application for a Ford linked to the Seifert murder but purchased several months earlier, Halprin said. The masked gunmen drove the Ford to the Bensenville plastic factory that Seifert ran, police said.

Seifert's wife and 4-year-old son had accompanied Seifert to the factory that morning. The mother and son went into the factory first, where the gunmen accosted them, telling them it was a robbery and no one would get hurt. Moments later, Seifert came into the factory and was shot in the face.

Seifert ran for his life, blood streaming from his face. He was gunned down outside the factory in front of his family as his wife begged for mercy for him, press accounts say.

The gunmen fled in the Ford, which they soon abandoned for a 1973 Dodge. Police pursued the gunmen in a high-speed chase but eventually lost them.

The Ford was bought in the name of a fictitious security company with an address on Grand Avenue in Chicago. Notarizing the application was the secretary of Irwin Weiner, a mob-connected bail bondsman also charged with Lombardo in the pension embezzlement case.

Lombardo was convicted in 1982 in a conspiracy to bribe U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon, and the Seifert slaying came up as part of his sentencing.

A hoodlum associate of Lombardo's, Alva Johnson Rodgers, testified for prosecutors and told jurors of Lombardo's reaction the day after Seifert's murder. "That S.O.B. won't testify against anybody now, will he?" Lombardo allegedly boasted, according to Rodgers' testimony.

When given his chance to address the judge, Lombardo pleaded innocence. "I never ordered a killing, I never OK'd a killing, and I never killed a man in my life," he said.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

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Accused Heads of Chicago Outfit Due in Federal Court

Friends of ours: Frank Calabrese, Joseph Lombardo, James Marcello, Paul Schiro, Frank Schweihs, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro

Reputed leaders of Chicago's organized crime family have status hearings scheduled today in federal court. Frank Calabrese, Joseph Lombardo, James Marcello, Paul Schiro and Frank Schweihs (SHWYS) are charged with conspiring to commit 18 murders going back three decades.

They're among 14 reputed mob figures charged in a racketeering indictment stemming from the F-B-I's "Operation Family Secrets."

The murders include the June 1986 hit on Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the mob's man in Las Vegas for two decades.

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The Patriotic Don

The first book in a new saga by Allan Shiflet, "The Patriotic Don" is a mafia drama of international proportions. Shiflet twists the characteristic conflict between honor and prosperity, introducing the aftermath of 9/11 into a troubled criminal legacy passed on from father to son.

Shiflet is clearly unsatisfied with justifications used by current mafia fiction writers to address the internal struggle of crime lords. Religion plays a central role in the moral decisions of the main character, as does a sense of patriotic obligation. Shiflet's inclusion of Osama bin Laden and the poppy fields of Afghanistan add complexity and dimension to what was the tired world of mafia drug trafficking.

The world of "The Patriotic Don" extends far beyond New York City. With the death of a twentieth century mindset that struggled with its morality, the stage is set for a much more ruthless generation of drug lords that abandon morality altogether. Readers will be on the edge of their seats in anticipation of the sequel to this epic novel.

An on-and-off writer for over 30 years, Allan Shiflet has realized his dream with "The Patriotic Don," the first in a two-part mafia drama. Shiflet attended the University of Texas where he majored in business management and also played professional baseball. He has worked in a corporate setting since the 1970's, owning several businesses and traveling extensively. He and his wife, proud parents of five, currently reside in Texas.

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Former Sinatra, Giancana Playground Gets New Boss

Friends of ours: Sam Giancana
Friends of mine: Frank Sinatra

Tom Celani, a Bloomfield Township gambling executive who was instrumental in the successful statewide ballot that led to Detroit's three casinos, has received approval from Nevada authorities to run the Cal-Neva Casino, once owned by Frank Sinatra.

Celani, who at one time owned 10 percent of Detroit's MotorCity Casino, will run the Cal-Neva Casino through his company Luna Entertainment. The casino is on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. The Nevada Gaming Commission approved the gambling operating license late last month, and Celani plans to take over the operation within several days. He will spend up to $7 million to upgrade the 80-year-old casino resort.

Gary Burkart, chief marketing officer of Luna Entertainment, said the fact Celani received his first gambling license in Nevada is significant for his future development plans in Las Vegas. "Tom wants to do something big on the Las Vegas strip," Burkart said. "Without having an existing license, it takes a lot longer to get a new one." Celani wants to be able to move quickly when he spots the right property for sale in Las Vegas, Burkart said.

The Cal-Neva Casino has an interesting history. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the casino became a playground for celebrities and socialities.

Sinatra purchased the casino in 1960 and added the Celebrity Showroom and a helicopter pad on the roof for his friends and guests appearing on stage at the casino Visiting celebrities included Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Julie Prowse and Marilyn Monroe. In 1963, law enforcement officials spotted Sam Giancana, a Chicago mob boss, at the resort and yanked Sinatra's gaming license.

Celani has a long history in the gaming business. In 1988, he co-founded Sodak Gaming Inc., which distributed gaming devices like slot machines to Indian tribes in South Dakota. He built the company into a $150-million-a-year business before selling it a decade later.

In the mid-1990s, he developed and ran the Little River Casino Resort in Manistee for the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. Celani also owns the Red Dolly Casino in Black Hawk, Colo., about an hour's drive from Denver.

Thanks to Joel J. Smith

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