Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family, Mitchell Wiessman, Joseph Dennis Colasacco, Charles Steinberg
A federal judge has sentenced three reputed associates of the Genovese crime family to prison and supervised release, according to court documents.
Mitchell Wiessman, Joseph Dennis Colasacco, and Charles Steinberg were arrested in June 2006 and later pleaded guilty to RICO conspiracy, a charge designed to cut down on organized crime. Prosecutors said the men were involved in the Genovese family's South Florida operations.
Cases against several other men arrested with the three are still pending.
Wiessman, 54, was sentenced to approximately eight years of prison. Colasacco, 55, received approximately six years of prison and Steinberg, 31, was sentenced to more than three years. All three were also sentenced to two years of supervised release after they leave prison. They were sentenced Friday.
As terms of his supervised release, Colasacco must attend anger management courses. Wiessman has to seek help for substance abuse after his release, and Steinberg must undergo treatment for gambling.
Wiessman's attorney, John Contini, said he and his client were upset with the sentence. Describing his client as a "chubby little Jewish boy driving a used Hyundai,'' Contini said Wiessman's only crime was knowing members of the Genovese family.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Mob All-Star Lineup for Family Secrets Trial
Friends of ours: Frank "The German" Schweihs, Frank Calabrese Sr.. James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo, Nick Calabrese, Robert "Bobby the Beak" Siegel, Richard Mara, Daniel Bounds, Alfred Pilotto, Frank Cullotta, Tony Spilotro, James LaValley
Friends of mine: Frank Calabrese Jr., Michael Talarico
One man is a reputed Outfit killer and master thief who stormed jewelry stores with a crew so skilled it's been called "the New York Yankees of robbers." Another served as intermediary between illegal Asian gambling and an alleged Outfit hit man, Frank "The German" Schweihs. Still a third has run a well-known Bridgeport restaurant and was allegedly connected to the crew of brutal loan shark Frank Calabrese Sr. All three are expected to testify in what will be the most important mob trial in Chicago in decades.
Prosecutors have put the mob's top leaders on trial and tied them to 18 unsolved Outfit murders. Facing charges that could put them behind bars for life are reputed Chicago Outfit chief James "Little Jimmy" Marcello and top mobster Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo, among others.
The star witnesses at trial will be the brother and son of Frank Calabrese Sr. The brother, Nick Calabrese, has admitted to 16 mob hits, many committed with his brother, he says. Calabrese Sr.'s son, Frank Calabrese Jr., secretly recorded his father while they were both in prison.
Details of other key witnesses expected at trial are in a federal court filing that is under seal. But the Sun-Times has learned who some of those witnesses will be.
Among the top witnesses will be Robert "Bobby the Beak" Siegel. Siegel was part of a crew of mobbed-up robbers who hit jewelry stores across the country -- mainly in California and Florida -- taking in millions of dollars in loot over the years.
The robbers wore Halloween masks and body armor, used automatic weapons and performed their robberies with military-like precision, authorities said.
"We prosecuted them to the fullest. But we recognized they were the New York Yankees of robbers," said former Assistant U.S. Attorney Edmund Searby, who prosecuted Siegel and his cohorts in 1993 for a series of jewelry store robberies. A heavy prison sentence prompted Siegel to flip and spill all he knew to the feds, including several murders he allegedly committed or knew about, authorities said.
Another witness at the upcoming trial is expected to be Yu Lip Moy, a former head of the National On Leong Trading Association and a former Pittsburgh restaurant owner who was a key witness in the On Leong gambling case in Chicago the early 1990s. Moy has testified he paid off Schweihs as part of an agreement with the Outfit to allow illegal Asian gambling in Chicago to continue.
Another restaurant owner, Michael Talarico, is listed as a potential witness. Talarico has run the well-known Bridgeport restaurant Punchinello's for years and allegedly worked as a bookmaker. The Sun-Times has previously reported he was held in federal jail in Chicago for not testifying before a Family Secrets grand jury, but was later released.
While Talarico is still listed as the license holder for the restaurant, a phone message at the restaurant said it is under new management. Talarico is a part of the influential Roti family by marriage and once was married to Schweihs' daughter.
When asked about Talarico, Joseph Lopez, the attorney for Frank Calabrese Sr., said he expected Talarico's testimony to deal more with Nick Calabrese than Frank Calabrese Sr.
Lopez blasted Nick Calabrese as "a mass murderer."
"Instead of going after off-duty cops for fighting in bars, [Cook County State's Attorney] Dick Devine should be going after a mass murderer who has killed more people than the Brown's Chicken massacre and Richard Speck combined," Lopez said.
Nick Calabrese is cooperating with federal prosecutors but does not have a deal with them yet.
Prosecutors would not discuss witnesses, and defense attorneys declined to discuss the contents of the sealed court filing.
When asked about some of the potential witnesses, Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin said: "It's just round-up-the-usual-snitches, who have been telling the same stories for 20 years."
Other witnesses expected at trial include Outfit burglar Richard Mara; failed Outfit assassin Daniel Bounds, who turned himself into the FBI after botching the hit of south suburban mob boss Alfred Pilotto; Outfit killer and burglar Frank Cullotta, a close associate of Tony Spilotro; mob leg breaker James LaValley, and former adult bookstore owner, William "Red" Wemette, who was shaken down by Outfit thugs.
Thanks to Steve Warmbir
Friends of mine: Frank Calabrese Jr., Michael Talarico
One man is a reputed Outfit killer and master thief who stormed jewelry stores with a crew so skilled it's been called "the New York Yankees of robbers." Another served as intermediary between illegal Asian gambling and an alleged Outfit hit man, Frank "The German" Schweihs. Still a third has run a well-known Bridgeport restaurant and was allegedly connected to the crew of brutal loan shark Frank Calabrese Sr. All three are expected to testify in what will be the most important mob trial in Chicago in decades.
Prosecutors have put the mob's top leaders on trial and tied them to 18 unsolved Outfit murders. Facing charges that could put them behind bars for life are reputed Chicago Outfit chief James "Little Jimmy" Marcello and top mobster Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo, among others.
The star witnesses at trial will be the brother and son of Frank Calabrese Sr. The brother, Nick Calabrese, has admitted to 16 mob hits, many committed with his brother, he says. Calabrese Sr.'s son, Frank Calabrese Jr., secretly recorded his father while they were both in prison.
Details of other key witnesses expected at trial are in a federal court filing that is under seal. But the Sun-Times has learned who some of those witnesses will be.
Among the top witnesses will be Robert "Bobby the Beak" Siegel. Siegel was part of a crew of mobbed-up robbers who hit jewelry stores across the country -- mainly in California and Florida -- taking in millions of dollars in loot over the years.The robbers wore Halloween masks and body armor, used automatic weapons and performed their robberies with military-like precision, authorities said.
"We prosecuted them to the fullest. But we recognized they were the New York Yankees of robbers," said former Assistant U.S. Attorney Edmund Searby, who prosecuted Siegel and his cohorts in 1993 for a series of jewelry store robberies. A heavy prison sentence prompted Siegel to flip and spill all he knew to the feds, including several murders he allegedly committed or knew about, authorities said.
Another witness at the upcoming trial is expected to be Yu Lip Moy, a former head of the National On Leong Trading Association and a former Pittsburgh restaurant owner who was a key witness in the On Leong gambling case in Chicago the early 1990s. Moy has testified he paid off Schweihs as part of an agreement with the Outfit to allow illegal Asian gambling in Chicago to continue.
Another restaurant owner, Michael Talarico, is listed as a potential witness. Talarico has run the well-known Bridgeport restaurant Punchinello's for years and allegedly worked as a bookmaker. The Sun-Times has previously reported he was held in federal jail in Chicago for not testifying before a Family Secrets grand jury, but was later released.
While Talarico is still listed as the license holder for the restaurant, a phone message at the restaurant said it is under new management. Talarico is a part of the influential Roti family by marriage and once was married to Schweihs' daughter.
When asked about Talarico, Joseph Lopez, the attorney for Frank Calabrese Sr., said he expected Talarico's testimony to deal more with Nick Calabrese than Frank Calabrese Sr.
Lopez blasted Nick Calabrese as "a mass murderer."
"Instead of going after off-duty cops for fighting in bars, [Cook County State's Attorney] Dick Devine should be going after a mass murderer who has killed more people than the Brown's Chicken massacre and Richard Speck combined," Lopez said.
Nick Calabrese is cooperating with federal prosecutors but does not have a deal with them yet.
Prosecutors would not discuss witnesses, and defense attorneys declined to discuss the contents of the sealed court filing.
When asked about some of the potential witnesses, Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin said: "It's just round-up-the-usual-snitches, who have been telling the same stories for 20 years."
Other witnesses expected at trial include Outfit burglar Richard Mara; failed Outfit assassin Daniel Bounds, who turned himself into the FBI after botching the hit of south suburban mob boss Alfred Pilotto; Outfit killer and burglar Frank Cullotta, a close associate of Tony Spilotro; mob leg breaker James LaValley, and former adult bookstore owner, William "Red" Wemette, who was shaken down by Outfit thugs.
Thanks to Steve Warmbir
Monday, April 02, 2007
Strip Club Used to Train Mobsters
Two of New York's most high profiled mobsters Salvatore Scala and Thomas Sassano are accused of using a strip club to train new recruits into the mafia. According to U.S.Attorney Elie Honig "Scala and Sassano used that club as a junior varsity to groom future mobsters".
Scala and Sassano both face extortion charges in Manhattan federal court. If convicted on all counts, Scala will sit behind bars for 60 years, while Sassano does 40 years.
Frank Marcello who owned the club at one time got in touch with the Gambino's to help him protect himself and his club from other organized crime members. Sums of money in the amounts of thousands of dollars were paid on a bi-weekly basis. The bathroom being the place where business has been conducted. Marcello died of unknown causes in 2002.Defense attorneys for Scala and Sassano are arguing that the clubs financial status had nothing to do with the mafia instead large amounts of gambling debt that had been run up into the thousands.
Scala has been arrested prior to the extortion case, in 1983 he was arrested for heroin trafficking, the same time that Gene Gotti of the Gotti family was sentenced to 50 years in prison. As with most mafia trials, Scala's case was weak and all charges against him were thrown out and dropped.
Thanks to Jeanne-Marie Kerns
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Tony Soprano to be Whacked in Final Season?
IF any television character has a bullet, or meat cleaver, with his name on it, it's Tony Soprano.
As HBO's "The Sopranos" counts down its final nine episodes beginning next Sunday, the existential question hanging over the series is: Should Tony live or die? Given the show's bleak themes, anything less than killing him off could be construed as a miscarriage of justice — and a dramatic sellout.
After six seasons, even Tony doesn't seem to like his chances. In therapy, the married father of two admitted to his psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, that there are two outcomes for "guys like me" — prison or death.
The New Jersey don has meted out death to family (cousin Tony Blundetto), friend (Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero), and foe (witness protection turncoat Fred Peters) alike. He has sanctioned many more cold-blooded hits, of course, as on his daughter's boyfriend Jackie Jr. or on his nephew's fiancée, Adriana. He once even tried to snuff out his smothering mother, Livia, with, appropriately enough, a hospital pillow.
The crime boss' intuition is dead-on, argues Al Gini, who contributed an essay for the 2004 book "The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am." By summer, says Gini, whose essay was called "Bada-Being and Nothingness: Murderous Melodrama or Morality Play?," Tony will be sleeping with the fishes.
"Tony has got to be killed. It's the only satisfying ending," said Gini, a philosophy professor at Loyola University in Chicago who has incorporated Soprano's leadership traits into a business ethics course. "We're not talking about Robin Hood here, someone that takes from the rich and gives to the poor. We're talking about a hood. If Tony doesn't lose everything, what's the message? The bad guy gets away with it all?"
Gini isn't suggesting a Sgt. Joe Friday "crime doesn't pay" lecture as much as a dramatization of the biblical injunction that those who live by the sword, die by the sword. God's judgment may be evident, but a sudden, violent death for Tony would also have to do with probability. In other words, those who live with mobsters, drug dealers, loan sharks and waste management consultants are probably going to die like them.
But popular L.A. mystery writer Robert Crais still would find such a finale overly simplistic, out of sync with the complexity and sophistication that have been earmarks of the show's storytelling. There are things worse than death, after all. Tony should survive some type of mob conflagration, said the former writer for "Hill Street Blues," "Miami Vice" and "Cagney & Lacey," but not without dire consequences.
"I don't think the audience would be happy if Tony gets a bullet to the head," said Crais, who wrote the bestselling fictional thriller "The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel." "In the end, he should be promoted, but where the cost far exceeds the triumph."
When it comes to story lines, "The Sopranos" breaks all the rules, but that hasn't stopped oddsmakers from weighing in on how the show will end. The line seems to recommend not betting against the man with a back office at the Bada Bing! At an online gambling site based in Costa Rica called BoDog, the odds are running 1 to 2 against Tony's demise, according to Bodog.com founder Calvin Ayre. However, Tony's nephew Christopher Moltisanti is a 2-to-1 favorite to be a stiff before the final curtain falls. (Tony's son, A.J., is a 15-to-1 family long shot to die.)
Certainly, there are no shortage of "Sopranos" characters with the opportunity and motive to knock off Tony. Perpetually disgruntled Paulie Walnuts, rival mob boss and recently imprisoned Johnny "Sack" Sacramoni, even nephew Christopher all would be credible assailants to perform the foul deed. But perhaps there is someone closer still to Tony who would do him in.
"You see echoes of great Greek tragedy in all this," said Glen O. Gabbard, a psychiatrist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who has written extensively about the show. "I could see Carmela getting so furious that she killed Tony."
Long torn, as she once said, between doing what is right and doing what is easy, Carmela could become the fury behind Tony's death. All the goodwill built between the reunited couple could vanish in a flash if Carmela were to learn the truth behind Adriana's disappearance.
An equally powerful dramatic finish would be if the prone-to-depression mobster took his own life, contends Peter H. Hare, an emeritus philosophy professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo who also wrote an essay for "The Sopranos and Philosophy."
Tony's suicide should not be a personal moral reaction to his many evil acts but rather stem from a deepening melancholy that overtakes him as he realizes his life is without true meaning or purpose. The suicide can't be the result of a pill popping or a gun to the temple. Instead, in what Hare terms an "ambiguous suicide," Tony could deliberately maneuver himself into a heroic battle ostensibly for his Mafia family but actually meant as a way to kill himself.
"I don't want to imply Tony deserves to die," said Hare, whose essay is titled "What Kind of God Does This …?" "But the whole 'Sopranos' narrative has a great deal more meaning if it ends with his death."
SHOULD Tony die is one question. Will he die is quite another. Wrapping up any beloved and long-running television series is extraordinarily difficult, much less one that has drawn comparisons in breadth and depth to the works of Shakespeare and has so clearly stamped its brooding, darkly humorous soul onto the pop culture canopy.
Not surprisingly, series creator David Chase and his staff are in lockdown mode in their New York studios zealously guarding any hint over Tony's ultimate fate. Though the show's writers are renowned for their ingenuity and unpredictability, storytelling convention can still offer clues to the final days of Tony Soprano.
Endings typically hew closely to the logic established within a show's fictional universe while also resolving outstanding dramatic questions. This basic storytelling rule would, it is hoped, eliminate Tony's possible escape into the federal witness protection program, or worse, a "St. Elsewhere"-like scenario where the whole "Sopranos" pageant had been all in the mind of an autistic child. But memorable endings — Bob Newhart ending up back in bed with Suzanne Pleshette! — usually pack a surprise, and that as much as anything else could spare Tony.
"I watch shows like 'The Sopranos' for the unknown — the twists and turns and for the nice ride," said Saul Friedman, a writer for the website http://www.TVgasm.com. "We've all seen the mafia movies, and we know how they end. I want to see something different here."
It's worth noting the conclusions of "The Godfather" movies, which are frequently alluded to and even quoted outright in "The Sopranos." Mafia head Vito Corleone, after being nearly assassinated, turns over his empire to son Michael. Vito's brush with death seems enough punishment and he dies relatively peacefully in the family garden before his bewildered grandson.
Meanwhile, "The Godfather, Part II (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition)" would seem to offer an ending more in keeping with "The Sopranos" overall tone. There, Michael consolidates his rule, but it comes at the price of murdering his older brother and forever alienating his family. The final shot of a soulless Michael staring off at a frozen Lake Tahoe is more chilling than any murder could ever be. (Sorry, "The Godfather, Part III (Widescreen Edition)" doesn't count.)
From a strictly storytelling point of view too, killing off Tony now would seem repetitive and anticlimactic. It was only a handful of episodes ago that Tony escaped death after being shot in the belly by a senile Uncle Junior.
Another problem with killing Tony is how likable he is despite his pathologically long list of misdeeds and murder. We like him, that's why we watch the show, and doing him in may be more than the writers and the audience can bear. Indeed, they want to believe he can change.
"Arthur Miller used to say, 'You don't go to the theater unless you see yourself onstage,' " said Gabbard, who wrote "The Psychology of the Sopranos: Love, Death, Desire and Betrayal in America's Favorite Gangster Family." "The audience thinks that maybe, just maybe, this bad man can be transformed into a good man. That's what Melfi thinks, that's what the audience thinks."
And yet, something more powerful than the demands of storytelling may dictate Tony's final fate — Hollywood. Although Chase is ending the series because he's mined the show for all he can on television, rumors persist about a possible "Sopranos" feature film. A "Sopranos" movie without Tony? As the Bada Bing! boys might say, not going to happen.
Thanks to Martin Miller
As HBO's "The Sopranos" counts down its final nine episodes beginning next Sunday, the existential question hanging over the series is: Should Tony live or die? Given the show's bleak themes, anything less than killing him off could be construed as a miscarriage of justice — and a dramatic sellout.
After six seasons, even Tony doesn't seem to like his chances. In therapy, the married father of two admitted to his psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, that there are two outcomes for "guys like me" — prison or death.
The New Jersey don has meted out death to family (cousin Tony Blundetto), friend (Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero), and foe (witness protection turncoat Fred Peters) alike. He has sanctioned many more cold-blooded hits, of course, as on his daughter's boyfriend Jackie Jr. or on his nephew's fiancée, Adriana. He once even tried to snuff out his smothering mother, Livia, with, appropriately enough, a hospital pillow.
The crime boss' intuition is dead-on, argues Al Gini, who contributed an essay for the 2004 book "The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am." By summer, says Gini, whose essay was called "Bada-Being and Nothingness: Murderous Melodrama or Morality Play?," Tony will be sleeping with the fishes.
"Tony has got to be killed. It's the only satisfying ending," said Gini, a philosophy professor at Loyola University in Chicago who has incorporated Soprano's leadership traits into a business ethics course. "We're not talking about Robin Hood here, someone that takes from the rich and gives to the poor. We're talking about a hood. If Tony doesn't lose everything, what's the message? The bad guy gets away with it all?"
Gini isn't suggesting a Sgt. Joe Friday "crime doesn't pay" lecture as much as a dramatization of the biblical injunction that those who live by the sword, die by the sword. God's judgment may be evident, but a sudden, violent death for Tony would also have to do with probability. In other words, those who live with mobsters, drug dealers, loan sharks and waste management consultants are probably going to die like them.
But popular L.A. mystery writer Robert Crais still would find such a finale overly simplistic, out of sync with the complexity and sophistication that have been earmarks of the show's storytelling. There are things worse than death, after all. Tony should survive some type of mob conflagration, said the former writer for "Hill Street Blues," "Miami Vice" and "Cagney & Lacey," but not without dire consequences.
"I don't think the audience would be happy if Tony gets a bullet to the head," said Crais, who wrote the bestselling fictional thriller "The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel." "In the end, he should be promoted, but where the cost far exceeds the triumph."
When it comes to story lines, "The Sopranos" breaks all the rules, but that hasn't stopped oddsmakers from weighing in on how the show will end. The line seems to recommend not betting against the man with a back office at the Bada Bing! At an online gambling site based in Costa Rica called BoDog, the odds are running 1 to 2 against Tony's demise, according to Bodog.com founder Calvin Ayre. However, Tony's nephew Christopher Moltisanti is a 2-to-1 favorite to be a stiff before the final curtain falls. (Tony's son, A.J., is a 15-to-1 family long shot to die.)
Certainly, there are no shortage of "Sopranos" characters with the opportunity and motive to knock off Tony. Perpetually disgruntled Paulie Walnuts, rival mob boss and recently imprisoned Johnny "Sack" Sacramoni, even nephew Christopher all would be credible assailants to perform the foul deed. But perhaps there is someone closer still to Tony who would do him in.
"You see echoes of great Greek tragedy in all this," said Glen O. Gabbard, a psychiatrist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who has written extensively about the show. "I could see Carmela getting so furious that she killed Tony."
Long torn, as she once said, between doing what is right and doing what is easy, Carmela could become the fury behind Tony's death. All the goodwill built between the reunited couple could vanish in a flash if Carmela were to learn the truth behind Adriana's disappearance.
An equally powerful dramatic finish would be if the prone-to-depression mobster took his own life, contends Peter H. Hare, an emeritus philosophy professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo who also wrote an essay for "The Sopranos and Philosophy."
Tony's suicide should not be a personal moral reaction to his many evil acts but rather stem from a deepening melancholy that overtakes him as he realizes his life is without true meaning or purpose. The suicide can't be the result of a pill popping or a gun to the temple. Instead, in what Hare terms an "ambiguous suicide," Tony could deliberately maneuver himself into a heroic battle ostensibly for his Mafia family but actually meant as a way to kill himself.
"I don't want to imply Tony deserves to die," said Hare, whose essay is titled "What Kind of God Does This …?" "But the whole 'Sopranos' narrative has a great deal more meaning if it ends with his death."
SHOULD Tony die is one question. Will he die is quite another. Wrapping up any beloved and long-running television series is extraordinarily difficult, much less one that has drawn comparisons in breadth and depth to the works of Shakespeare and has so clearly stamped its brooding, darkly humorous soul onto the pop culture canopy.
Not surprisingly, series creator David Chase and his staff are in lockdown mode in their New York studios zealously guarding any hint over Tony's ultimate fate. Though the show's writers are renowned for their ingenuity and unpredictability, storytelling convention can still offer clues to the final days of Tony Soprano.
Endings typically hew closely to the logic established within a show's fictional universe while also resolving outstanding dramatic questions. This basic storytelling rule would, it is hoped, eliminate Tony's possible escape into the federal witness protection program, or worse, a "St. Elsewhere"-like scenario where the whole "Sopranos" pageant had been all in the mind of an autistic child. But memorable endings — Bob Newhart ending up back in bed with Suzanne Pleshette! — usually pack a surprise, and that as much as anything else could spare Tony.
"I watch shows like 'The Sopranos' for the unknown — the twists and turns and for the nice ride," said Saul Friedman, a writer for the website http://www.TVgasm.com. "We've all seen the mafia movies, and we know how they end. I want to see something different here."
It's worth noting the conclusions of "The Godfather" movies, which are frequently alluded to and even quoted outright in "The Sopranos." Mafia head Vito Corleone, after being nearly assassinated, turns over his empire to son Michael. Vito's brush with death seems enough punishment and he dies relatively peacefully in the family garden before his bewildered grandson.
Meanwhile, "The Godfather, Part II (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition)" would seem to offer an ending more in keeping with "The Sopranos" overall tone. There, Michael consolidates his rule, but it comes at the price of murdering his older brother and forever alienating his family. The final shot of a soulless Michael staring off at a frozen Lake Tahoe is more chilling than any murder could ever be. (Sorry, "The Godfather, Part III (Widescreen Edition)" doesn't count.)
From a strictly storytelling point of view too, killing off Tony now would seem repetitive and anticlimactic. It was only a handful of episodes ago that Tony escaped death after being shot in the belly by a senile Uncle Junior.
Another problem with killing Tony is how likable he is despite his pathologically long list of misdeeds and murder. We like him, that's why we watch the show, and doing him in may be more than the writers and the audience can bear. Indeed, they want to believe he can change.
"Arthur Miller used to say, 'You don't go to the theater unless you see yourself onstage,' " said Gabbard, who wrote "The Psychology of the Sopranos: Love, Death, Desire and Betrayal in America's Favorite Gangster Family." "The audience thinks that maybe, just maybe, this bad man can be transformed into a good man. That's what Melfi thinks, that's what the audience thinks."
And yet, something more powerful than the demands of storytelling may dictate Tony's final fate — Hollywood. Although Chase is ending the series because he's mined the show for all he can on television, rumors persist about a possible "Sopranos" feature film. A "Sopranos" movie without Tony? As the Bada Bing! boys might say, not going to happen.
Thanks to Martin Miller
A Tale of Two Mobsters
Two men with connections to Chicago organized crime, both of them believed to be outfit enforcers, one is dead the other is in court. In this Intelligence Report: the tale of two mobsters.
There are really only two ways out of the mob life and one is more permanent than the other. You are either murdered...or put in prison. This is...a tale of two mobsters-enforcers-with deep connections to the Chicago outfit. One was found buried in a suburban construction site. The other was found in court...extending his long criminal record.
We begin with Robert Charles " Bobby" Cruz...who spent 14 years on death row for a contract hit on an Arizona businessman and his mother-in-law, a conviction eventually thrown out. Cruz came to Chicago for the 1997 trial of his hitman-cousin, Harry Aleman. A few days after Aleman was convicted, Cruz vanished. Last week--ten years later -- Cruz' corpse was found by a sewer crew in DuPage County...minus his trigger finger and a few other digits...a subtle message that the assassin would never work again.
As authorities were identifying the remains of one mob enforcer...the i-team found another one walking to court.
This is long-time Chicago outfit enforcer Victor "Popeye" Arrigo, arriving with his daughter for a hearing in Maywood. Arrigo's rap sheet reaches back to 1956 and reads like a crime encyclopedia, but at age 70 he admits to be going soft.
On this day, he stood before criminal court judge William Wise on theft charges--but not the big jewel capers or cartage heists he and the outfit are known for. "They accuse me of taking salami, cheese...stuff like that," said Victor "Popeye" Arrigo.
One of the mob's toughest enforcers, Arrigo was hauled away by west suburban Berkeley police on charges that he stole $40-dollars worth of Italian and Hungarian salami from a grocery store.
Arrigo chalks-up the larceny up to old age. "When you hit 69, 70, you do goofy things...just to see if you can get away with it...i got caught. That's about it," Arrigo said.
Arrigo contends the grocery store plunder was not an outfit job--and authorities believe him.
Like many of the old time wise guys he grew up with, Arrigo's public demeanor could win him citizen of the year. "Nice talkin' to you. Anything else you want to say? Say hello to Chuck for me."
I met the mobster more than ten years ago--during his last run in with the law on gun charges...and at that time, learned the heritage of his mob nickname: "Popeye". It's for the detachable glass eyeball he wears as the result of barroom shootout.
When Arrigo is bellying up to the bar he says he enjoys popping out his eyeball and placing it on top of his beer money...then telling the bartender he is merely keeping an eye on his cash.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
There are really only two ways out of the mob life and one is more permanent than the other. You are either murdered...or put in prison. This is...a tale of two mobsters-enforcers-with deep connections to the Chicago outfit. One was found buried in a suburban construction site. The other was found in court...extending his long criminal record.
We begin with Robert Charles " Bobby" Cruz...who spent 14 years on death row for a contract hit on an Arizona businessman and his mother-in-law, a conviction eventually thrown out. Cruz came to Chicago for the 1997 trial of his hitman-cousin, Harry Aleman. A few days after Aleman was convicted, Cruz vanished. Last week--ten years later -- Cruz' corpse was found by a sewer crew in DuPage County...minus his trigger finger and a few other digits...a subtle message that the assassin would never work again.
As authorities were identifying the remains of one mob enforcer...the i-team found another one walking to court.
This is long-time Chicago outfit enforcer Victor "Popeye" Arrigo, arriving with his daughter for a hearing in Maywood. Arrigo's rap sheet reaches back to 1956 and reads like a crime encyclopedia, but at age 70 he admits to be going soft.
On this day, he stood before criminal court judge William Wise on theft charges--but not the big jewel capers or cartage heists he and the outfit are known for. "They accuse me of taking salami, cheese...stuff like that," said Victor "Popeye" Arrigo.One of the mob's toughest enforcers, Arrigo was hauled away by west suburban Berkeley police on charges that he stole $40-dollars worth of Italian and Hungarian salami from a grocery store.
Arrigo chalks-up the larceny up to old age. "When you hit 69, 70, you do goofy things...just to see if you can get away with it...i got caught. That's about it," Arrigo said.
Arrigo contends the grocery store plunder was not an outfit job--and authorities believe him.
Like many of the old time wise guys he grew up with, Arrigo's public demeanor could win him citizen of the year. "Nice talkin' to you. Anything else you want to say? Say hello to Chuck for me."
I met the mobster more than ten years ago--during his last run in with the law on gun charges...and at that time, learned the heritage of his mob nickname: "Popeye". It's for the detachable glass eyeball he wears as the result of barroom shootout.
When Arrigo is bellying up to the bar he says he enjoys popping out his eyeball and placing it on top of his beer money...then telling the bartender he is merely keeping an eye on his cash.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
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