John Travolta is set to play John Gotti Sr., the mobster known as the Dapper Don, in the indie pic Gotti: Three Generations.
Nick Cassavetes will direct the screenplay by Leo Rossi, which focuses on the relationship between John Gotti Sr., the head of the Gambino crime family who died in prison in 2002, and his son John Gotti Jr., who took over the family business for his father, served time in prison, but then successfully escaped conviction in four subsequent racketeering trials.
Marc Fiore is producing for his Fiore Films. Marty Ingels, the former comic turned talent broker, has come on board the project as executive producer.
Gotti Jr., who's given his blessing to the project, plans to join the producers, Travolta and Cassavetes at a press conference on April 12 at the Sheraton New York Hotel.
Travolta, repped by WME, last appeared in the action thriller From Paris with Love.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Top 10 Best Irish Mob Movies
You like your criminals bleeding green, pissing Guinness and eating a steady diet of catholic guilt, so you turn to the 10 best Irish mafia movies. Well done, lad. Here you will find some of the best crime films of our time, thrilling pictures with complex depictions of violence, morality and religion.
Thanks to Screen Junkies
- 1. “Angles With Dirty Faces” – This 1938 masterpiece is the original Irish mafia movie and surely one of the genre’s best films. “Angels With Dirty Faces” starts a volatile James Cagney and concerns the ultimate of all Irish moral battles: the church versus a life of violent crime, and the manner in which those two aren’t exactly mutually exclusive.
- 2. “On the Water Front” – Marlon Brando’s performance will wow you, but there’s more going on here than generation-defining acting. One of the best Irish mafia films, “On The Water Front” tells a tale of the Irish mob’s infiltration of unions and the influence organized crime had on the fates and fortunes of the American working class.
- 3. “The Departed” – Scorsese struck gold with this Irish mafia saga. An operatic film peppered with stellar performances and nail-biting intensity, “The Departed” digs beneath the skin of its characters like a tapeworm and doesn’t let up until the final shot is fired. This cat-and-mouse film details with mafia infiltration of the police and vice-versa.
- 4. “Miller’s Crossing” – This early Coen Brothers masterpiece is based on noir novelist Dashiell Hammett’s ground breaking early novel “Red Harvest.” The film tells the tale of prohibition-era Irish gangsters in a manner that is both hushed and menacing.
- 5. “State of Grace” – Opening opposite “Goodfellas,” this Irish mob movie didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of finding a broad audience. Despite this initial box office disappointment, “State of Grace” is easily one of the best Irish mafia movies. The film deals with the moral and religious turmoil of Irish criminals and features excellent performances from Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, and Ed Harris.
- 6. “Gangs of New York” –“Angels” is the original Irish mafia movie and “Gangs of New York” is a movie about the original Irish gangsters. Though Leonardo DiCaprio comes across like a high school actor who’s trying his best to be worthy of standing next to Daniel Day-Lewis, the grandiose scope of the film and Day-Lewis’ jaw-dropping performance makes this one of the best Irish mafia movies of all time.
- 7. “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” – This 70’s crime gem doesn’t laud or glorify the Irish mob as other films on this list do, but rather portrays with stark and very depressing honesty the way in which criminal organizations ruin the lives of well intentioned working class people with no opportunity for societal advancement beyond crime.
- 8. “The Road to Perdition” – Sam Mendes turned his attention to Chicago’s Irish mafia circa 1930 in this stately and elegiac film. The film concerns the nature of love and relationships, particularly those between father and son, and the manner in which familial duty and desire often conflict with disastrous consequences.
- 9. “The Public Enemy” – “Public Enemey” was James Cagney’s first film. The film is about organized crime and the American mafia underworld in a very board sense. It’s a great movie, and a number of colorful Irish characters drift in and out of its narrative.
- 10. “The Town” – “The Town” concerns small time Boston Irish hoods. For its empathetic portrait of working class depression, anger, alcoholism and violence and the mob’s role in all of that, it is one of the best Irish mafia movies.
Thanks to Screen Junkies
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Museums Worse than the Mob?
Frank Cullotta knows having his character assassinated isn't the worst thing that can happen to a guy with his pedigree.
In his former line of work, names could hurt you, but it's the sticks, stones and bullets that do most of the real damage. Cullotta, the former Chicago Outfit hitman-turned-government witness, just received word he's depicted in less than flattering terms down at the Tropicana's new Mob Experience. Specifically, he says, the exhibit devoted to the life and death of his childhood friend Anthony Spilotro portrayed Cullotta's defection in a negative light.
On Monday
, Cullotta tried not to weep openly and only briefly contemplated seeking therapy before thinking better of it. That plot line has already been used in "The Sopranos," and he probably didn't want to scare the psychologist. But that's the way it is these days in Las Vegas, where warring traditional mob factions appear to have been replaced by sparring mob museums. In this corner, wearing the black trunks, Jay Bloom's Mob Experience at the Trop. In that corner, wearing red trunks, the Oscar Goodman-inspired downtown Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, also known as the Mob Museum.
The Mob Experience has been faster on its feet and secured the cooperation and memorabilia of members of a number of mob families along with the faces of a number of gangster-movie stars. The Mob Museum, conversely, is focusing on creating a historically accurate depiction of the battle between organized crime and law enforcement. It also is gathering big-ticket items such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall and Albert Anastasia's last barber chair.
Cullotta, 72, could give a graduate seminar in the Chicago Outfit and its role in Las Vegas during Spilotro's era. He also knows something about making money from mob imagery, participating in Martin Scorsese's "Casino" and co-authoring his autobiography Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness, with Dennis Griffin. (Cullotta, Griffin, Henry Hill, Andrew DiDonato and Vito Colucci will sign books at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Royal Resorts on Convention Center Drive. Bring your own bulletproof vest.)
That's the challenge for reformed wiseguys, killers and other characters who used to carry shovels and rope in the trunks of their Lincolns. How do you go reasonably straight and still earn a living?
By telling and selling your story, of course.
So that's why Cullotta is keeping his sense of humor about getting the cold shoulder from the Spilotro family exhibit. Although, he reminds me, the worst thing Tony would have received from Cullotta's testimony was a prison stretch. It was Tony's supposed friends, headed by Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, who in 1986 murdered him and brother Michael and buried their bodies in an Indiana cornfield. "I didn't give him a death sentence," Cullotta says. "If he would have went to jail, he probably still would still be alive."
In case you're wondering, Cullotta is a cooperating witness for the downtown museum. He was interviewed by museum personnel for about four hours, he says. Although Cullotta figures his books will be on display in the gift shop, "I'm doing it for free. If you think you're going to make a million dollars doing this, you're kidding yourself." But he's not joking about the irony of living long enough to see the way Las Vegas is courting the mob imagery.
"Usually it's the mob making money off legitimate people," he says. "These are legitimate people making money off the mob. They're worse than the Outfit."
A Cullotta pal took one look at the Mob Experience and suggested Frank the former hitman sue for defamation. Cullotta just laughed.
"Sue? With my character and my reputation?" the mob survivor cracks. "Are you out of your mind?"
Thanks to John L. Smith
In his former line of work, names could hurt you, but it's the sticks, stones and bullets that do most of the real damage. Cullotta, the former Chicago Outfit hitman-turned-government witness, just received word he's depicted in less than flattering terms down at the Tropicana's new Mob Experience. Specifically, he says, the exhibit devoted to the life and death of his childhood friend Anthony Spilotro portrayed Cullotta's defection in a negative light.
On Monday
, Cullotta tried not to weep openly and only briefly contemplated seeking therapy before thinking better of it. That plot line has already been used in "The Sopranos," and he probably didn't want to scare the psychologist. But that's the way it is these days in Las Vegas, where warring traditional mob factions appear to have been replaced by sparring mob museums. In this corner, wearing the black trunks, Jay Bloom's Mob Experience at the Trop. In that corner, wearing red trunks, the Oscar Goodman-inspired downtown Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, also known as the Mob Museum.The Mob Experience has been faster on its feet and secured the cooperation and memorabilia of members of a number of mob families along with the faces of a number of gangster-movie stars. The Mob Museum, conversely, is focusing on creating a historically accurate depiction of the battle between organized crime and law enforcement. It also is gathering big-ticket items such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall and Albert Anastasia's last barber chair.
Cullotta, 72, could give a graduate seminar in the Chicago Outfit and its role in Las Vegas during Spilotro's era. He also knows something about making money from mob imagery, participating in Martin Scorsese's "Casino" and co-authoring his autobiography Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness, with Dennis Griffin. (Cullotta, Griffin, Henry Hill, Andrew DiDonato and Vito Colucci will sign books at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Royal Resorts on Convention Center Drive. Bring your own bulletproof vest.)
That's the challenge for reformed wiseguys, killers and other characters who used to carry shovels and rope in the trunks of their Lincolns. How do you go reasonably straight and still earn a living?
By telling and selling your story, of course.
So that's why Cullotta is keeping his sense of humor about getting the cold shoulder from the Spilotro family exhibit. Although, he reminds me, the worst thing Tony would have received from Cullotta's testimony was a prison stretch. It was Tony's supposed friends, headed by Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, who in 1986 murdered him and brother Michael and buried their bodies in an Indiana cornfield. "I didn't give him a death sentence," Cullotta says. "If he would have went to jail, he probably still would still be alive."
In case you're wondering, Cullotta is a cooperating witness for the downtown museum. He was interviewed by museum personnel for about four hours, he says. Although Cullotta figures his books will be on display in the gift shop, "I'm doing it for free. If you think you're going to make a million dollars doing this, you're kidding yourself." But he's not joking about the irony of living long enough to see the way Las Vegas is courting the mob imagery.
"Usually it's the mob making money off legitimate people," he says. "These are legitimate people making money off the mob. They're worse than the Outfit."
A Cullotta pal took one look at the Mob Experience and suggested Frank the former hitman sue for defamation. Cullotta just laughed.
"Sue? With my character and my reputation?" the mob survivor cracks. "Are you out of your mind?"
Thanks to John L. Smith
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Anthony Arillotta Details Cold-blooded Mafia Murders
Mafia turncoat Anthony J. Arillotta took the witness stand for a second day in an ongoing mob murder trial in federal court in lower Manhattan on Thursday, detailing for jurors two cold-blooded murders and a third attempt on a union official’s life in 2003.
Standing trial are Arillotta’s reputed henchmen and confidantes, Fotios “Freddy” Geas, 44, of West Springfield, and his brother Ty Geas, 39, of Westfield, plus New York’s onetime acting boss of the Genovese crime family, Arthur “Artie” Nigro, 66, of Bronx, N.Y.
Arillotta, 42, of Springfield, was in 2010 charged along with the trio in a wide-ranging murder and racketeering indictment that includes the 2003 murder-for-hire of former Springfield mob boss Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno, the slaying of low level operator Gary D. Westerman, and the attempted murder of union official Frank Dadabo in New York the same year.
Arillotta testified he decided to turn prosecution witness almost immediately after his arrest in February 2010, and has pleaded guilty to the murders and attempted murder, plus a laundry list of extortions and drug and gun charges, in the hopes of escaping a life behind bars.
On Thursday, Arillotta spent several hours under direct examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark D. Lanpher, calmly recounting first the attempt on Dadabo’s life in May 2003. He told jurors that Nigro ordered the hit on Dadabo over a union beef and gave him two guns fitted with silencers to do the job, which Nigro labeled in mob terms: “a piece of work.”
After waiting quietly on a city bench in the Bronx early that morning, Arillotta said he and Ty Geas ambushed Dadabo as he headed for his car. Fotios Geas was waiting in a nearby car to whisk the shooters away, according to the witness.
“As soon as we seen him, we jumped up, got our guns and started walking fast ... When we got into the street, the target was opening his car door ... Ty was right up in his window, firing his gun. He started emptying his gun and the window shattered. I went to the left and fired into the car,” Arillotta testified.
“How did he look?” Lanpher asked.
“He looked, uh, dead,” Arillotta answered.
But Dadabo survived. Lanpher asked how Nigro reacted during a later conversation when the two discussed the failed murder attempt.
“He said we had to get better at head shots,” Arillotta told the jury.
That shooting, however, propelled Arillotta to a secret induction ceremony into the Genovese crime family in August 2003. He was taken to a small, almost empty apartment in the Bronx, and asked a series of questions by Nigro to pledge his allegiance.
“He asked: if my wife was lying in bed dying and he called for me, would I come? I said yes. He said he comes first before anything,” Arillotta recounted, adding that he offered up his trigger finger to be pricked with a needle.
Nigro wiped the blood on a blank piece of paper Nigro then lit on fire, offering it to Arillotta to cup in his hands.
“He said I’m never to talk to law enforcement and if I did I would burn like the paper. I wiped my hands with the ashes,” he said.
Arillotta had begun his ascension. He had been made.
For Bruno’s part, his stock had been plummeting and the order came down from Nigro that Bruno had to be taken out, Arillotta told jurors. During dinners at a steakhouse in the Bronx in 2003, Nigro complained to Arillotta that Bruno wasn’t turning in enough crime revenue to his New York superiors and drank too much. The final breach came when Bruno’s name cropped up in a pre-sentencing summary for a fellow gangster, Emilio Fusco, who was readying to be sentenced for racketeering and loan-sharking convictions.
According to the report, Bruno had in 2001 casually confirmed to an FBI agent that Fusco had been made while Bruno was in prison, infuriating Fusco - who promptly circulated the paper in the underworld. Felix Tranghese, another made Genovese member from East Longmeadow, brought the offending document to Nigro in New York, Arillotta testified.
“They said to kill him,” Tranghese reported upon returning to Western Massachusetts, according to testimony.
“How did you react upon hearing Felix report the order,” Lanpher asked Arillotta.
“I wasn’t too surprised ... I mean, it’s kinda harsh but that’s a big no-no,” he responded.
But, Bruno proved to be a difficult target, ducking proposed trips to New York and dinner parties during which he was supposed to be killed. Ultimately, Freddy Geas recruited his friend and former prisonmate, Frankie A. Roche, of Westfield, a tattooed fringe player whom Geas referred to as his “crash dummy,” due to Roche’s reckless nature.
Conveniently, Roche and Bruno were embroiled in a pre-existing dispute over a bar fight and there was a fair amount of machismo being traded between the men.
Fusco, who also is charged in the case but is waiting extradition from Italy, where he fled before his arrest, provided Roche with a .45-caliber pistol. Roche waited for Bruno on Nov. 23, 2003, outside Bruno’s standing Sunday night card game and emptied the clip into him in the parking lot.
Arillotta then gave Freddy Geas $10,000 to give to Roche to get out of town, he testified.
Perhaps the most grisly killing he described for jurors was the fatal shooting of ex-convict and Arillotta’s brother-in-law, Gary D. Westerman. Westerman was regarded as a slippery thief even among thieves, a police informant and he had married Arillotta’s sister-in-law, 30 years his junior - creating an uproar in the family.
After the Dadabo fiasco, a series of failed attempts against other rivals’ lives and before the Bruno killing, Arillotta said Ty Geas exploded on Nov. 4, 2003, during a meeting among the brothers and Arillotta behind a cigar shop.
“(Ty) said ‘No one was getting killed! We’re about nothin,’ we’re weak. No one’s dyin’!’ He was all amped up, he got Freddy all amped up and he got me amped up,” Arillotta testified.
So, they set out to kill Westerman that night, the Geases luring him to a home in Agawam with a promise of cash and marijuana they could rob inside. Arillotta and Fusco waited in the shadows in the garage while the brothers led him around the house, according to testimony.
“I heard yelling and like, ‘Ouch! Ouch!” Arillotta told jurors. He had not heard the gunshots Ty Geas leveled at Westerman through a silencer, he later learned.
They leapt from the garage and saw the brothers dragging a seemingly unconscious Westerman across the grass toward a wooded area. Fusco grabbed a shovel and smashed it into Westerman’s face, Arillotta said. He responded in kind and began bludgeoning Westerman with a shovel from behind.
They dragged him toward an eight-foot hole that had already been dug, ironically, on Bruno’s orders weeks before because Bruno was mulling having Tranghese killed while the two were at odds. Fotios Geas checked Westerman’s pockets, took his watch and snapped his cell phone in half, according to testimony.
“Freddy pulled out a gun about five inches from Gary Westerman’s head and pulled the trigger, then Ty dragged him by his feet into the hole,” Arillotta testified, and the four began filling the hole. He added that the participants hardly spoke of the murder after, but that Freddy Geas once briefly marveled at the teamwork the murder required.
Seven years later, Arillotta led law enforcement officials to the spot where Westerman had been shot and buried, so a team of FBI agents and state police only had to dig one hole to unearth his remains.
Defense attorneys have not had a chance to cross-examine Arillotta, who will continue testifying in U.S. District Court on Monday. The trial was suspended until then.
Thanks to Stephanie Barry
Standing trial are Arillotta’s reputed henchmen and confidantes, Fotios “Freddy” Geas, 44, of West Springfield, and his brother Ty Geas, 39, of Westfield, plus New York’s onetime acting boss of the Genovese crime family, Arthur “Artie” Nigro, 66, of Bronx, N.Y.
Arillotta, 42, of Springfield, was in 2010 charged along with the trio in a wide-ranging murder and racketeering indictment that includes the 2003 murder-for-hire of former Springfield mob boss Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno, the slaying of low level operator Gary D. Westerman, and the attempted murder of union official Frank Dadabo in New York the same year.
Arillotta testified he decided to turn prosecution witness almost immediately after his arrest in February 2010, and has pleaded guilty to the murders and attempted murder, plus a laundry list of extortions and drug and gun charges, in the hopes of escaping a life behind bars.
On Thursday, Arillotta spent several hours under direct examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark D. Lanpher, calmly recounting first the attempt on Dadabo’s life in May 2003. He told jurors that Nigro ordered the hit on Dadabo over a union beef and gave him two guns fitted with silencers to do the job, which Nigro labeled in mob terms: “a piece of work.”
After waiting quietly on a city bench in the Bronx early that morning, Arillotta said he and Ty Geas ambushed Dadabo as he headed for his car. Fotios Geas was waiting in a nearby car to whisk the shooters away, according to the witness.
“As soon as we seen him, we jumped up, got our guns and started walking fast ... When we got into the street, the target was opening his car door ... Ty was right up in his window, firing his gun. He started emptying his gun and the window shattered. I went to the left and fired into the car,” Arillotta testified.
“How did he look?” Lanpher asked.
“He looked, uh, dead,” Arillotta answered.
But Dadabo survived. Lanpher asked how Nigro reacted during a later conversation when the two discussed the failed murder attempt.
“He said we had to get better at head shots,” Arillotta told the jury.
That shooting, however, propelled Arillotta to a secret induction ceremony into the Genovese crime family in August 2003. He was taken to a small, almost empty apartment in the Bronx, and asked a series of questions by Nigro to pledge his allegiance.
“He asked: if my wife was lying in bed dying and he called for me, would I come? I said yes. He said he comes first before anything,” Arillotta recounted, adding that he offered up his trigger finger to be pricked with a needle.
Nigro wiped the blood on a blank piece of paper Nigro then lit on fire, offering it to Arillotta to cup in his hands.
“He said I’m never to talk to law enforcement and if I did I would burn like the paper. I wiped my hands with the ashes,” he said.
Arillotta had begun his ascension. He had been made.
For Bruno’s part, his stock had been plummeting and the order came down from Nigro that Bruno had to be taken out, Arillotta told jurors. During dinners at a steakhouse in the Bronx in 2003, Nigro complained to Arillotta that Bruno wasn’t turning in enough crime revenue to his New York superiors and drank too much. The final breach came when Bruno’s name cropped up in a pre-sentencing summary for a fellow gangster, Emilio Fusco, who was readying to be sentenced for racketeering and loan-sharking convictions.
According to the report, Bruno had in 2001 casually confirmed to an FBI agent that Fusco had been made while Bruno was in prison, infuriating Fusco - who promptly circulated the paper in the underworld. Felix Tranghese, another made Genovese member from East Longmeadow, brought the offending document to Nigro in New York, Arillotta testified.
“They said to kill him,” Tranghese reported upon returning to Western Massachusetts, according to testimony.
“How did you react upon hearing Felix report the order,” Lanpher asked Arillotta.
“I wasn’t too surprised ... I mean, it’s kinda harsh but that’s a big no-no,” he responded.
But, Bruno proved to be a difficult target, ducking proposed trips to New York and dinner parties during which he was supposed to be killed. Ultimately, Freddy Geas recruited his friend and former prisonmate, Frankie A. Roche, of Westfield, a tattooed fringe player whom Geas referred to as his “crash dummy,” due to Roche’s reckless nature.
Conveniently, Roche and Bruno were embroiled in a pre-existing dispute over a bar fight and there was a fair amount of machismo being traded between the men.
Fusco, who also is charged in the case but is waiting extradition from Italy, where he fled before his arrest, provided Roche with a .45-caliber pistol. Roche waited for Bruno on Nov. 23, 2003, outside Bruno’s standing Sunday night card game and emptied the clip into him in the parking lot.
Arillotta then gave Freddy Geas $10,000 to give to Roche to get out of town, he testified.
Perhaps the most grisly killing he described for jurors was the fatal shooting of ex-convict and Arillotta’s brother-in-law, Gary D. Westerman. Westerman was regarded as a slippery thief even among thieves, a police informant and he had married Arillotta’s sister-in-law, 30 years his junior - creating an uproar in the family.
After the Dadabo fiasco, a series of failed attempts against other rivals’ lives and before the Bruno killing, Arillotta said Ty Geas exploded on Nov. 4, 2003, during a meeting among the brothers and Arillotta behind a cigar shop.
“(Ty) said ‘No one was getting killed! We’re about nothin,’ we’re weak. No one’s dyin’!’ He was all amped up, he got Freddy all amped up and he got me amped up,” Arillotta testified.
So, they set out to kill Westerman that night, the Geases luring him to a home in Agawam with a promise of cash and marijuana they could rob inside. Arillotta and Fusco waited in the shadows in the garage while the brothers led him around the house, according to testimony.
“I heard yelling and like, ‘Ouch! Ouch!” Arillotta told jurors. He had not heard the gunshots Ty Geas leveled at Westerman through a silencer, he later learned.
They leapt from the garage and saw the brothers dragging a seemingly unconscious Westerman across the grass toward a wooded area. Fusco grabbed a shovel and smashed it into Westerman’s face, Arillotta said. He responded in kind and began bludgeoning Westerman with a shovel from behind.
They dragged him toward an eight-foot hole that had already been dug, ironically, on Bruno’s orders weeks before because Bruno was mulling having Tranghese killed while the two were at odds. Fotios Geas checked Westerman’s pockets, took his watch and snapped his cell phone in half, according to testimony.
“Freddy pulled out a gun about five inches from Gary Westerman’s head and pulled the trigger, then Ty dragged him by his feet into the hole,” Arillotta testified, and the four began filling the hole. He added that the participants hardly spoke of the murder after, but that Freddy Geas once briefly marveled at the teamwork the murder required.
Seven years later, Arillotta led law enforcement officials to the spot where Westerman had been shot and buried, so a team of FBI agents and state police only had to dig one hole to unearth his remains.
Defense attorneys have not had a chance to cross-examine Arillotta, who will continue testifying in U.S. District Court on Monday. The trial was suspended until then.
Thanks to Stephanie Barry
Friday, March 18, 2011
Surviving Relatives of Mob Hits Feel Re-victimized by Mobster Books and Museums
The public's fascination with traditional organized crime didn't end with the Godfather movies, Casino, Goodfellas or the Sopranos on television.
Even after Chicago and New York crime families were decimated by federal prosecutions, there is a renewed public appetite for the mob. But some people aren't biting.
"It's something that never leaves your mind or your heart," said Bob D'Andrea whose father was killed by the mob.
"It destroys you, it destroys the inside of you, it destroys you as a person," said Joey Seifert whose father was also murdered by the mob.
Decades after their loved ones were murdered by the Chicago mob, sons and daughters and wives and parents say they continue to be victimized. Not by a pistol-whipping or the payment of protection money but by a new book by ex-Chicago Outfit thug Frank Calabrese Jr., who is beginning a promotional tour this week in the city where he turned on his own father and helped put him away for life. And they say they are revictimized by two mob museums opening soon in Las Vegas.
"What you see when you go there? You are going to see the mob guys laughing and holding their kids, like trying to humanize them. And they are not, they are monsters," said Seifert.
At age four, Seifert watched a masked mob hitman kill his father. It was Joey "The Clown" Lombardo.
Anthony Ortiz was 12 years old in 1983 when his father was killed in front of the Cicero tavern he owned, gunned down by the ruthless Outfit boss Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese Sr.
"To me, a mobster is just a glorified gangbanger, am I wrong or am I right? They beat people up, they take their money, they threaten them," said Ortiz.
It was the Calabrese crew that committed a 1981 hit on suburban trucking company owner Michael Cagnoni by a remote-controlled bomb on the Tri-state Tollway after Cagnoni refused to be extorted by Outfit bosses.
In her first ever interview, Cagnoni's widow, Margaret, says hoodlum-turned-author Frank Calabrese Jr. should not be turning a profit off victims' grief. "Frank [Jr.] was not an innocent person...To him, to go out and make money on our loses and our sorrow and profiting from victims' families is disgraceful. We suffered enough," Cagnoni told the I-Team.
"I didn't kill anybody. OK, so if they're mad that I'm going to profit off of my story with my dad, I don't know what to do. I feel bad for them. I feel sorry for their losses. I can relate to them," said Frank Calabrese Jr.
"If he is really sorry from what he did and wants to do good and show that he is making amends for his past. Why don't you show that you're sorry by donating, if you are going to write a book donate the profits to a worthy charity," said Cagnoni.
The I-Team asked Calabrese Jr. if he thought about donating his profits to a victims' fund. "I haven't. That's definitely a possibility. I talked to some of the victims' kids, and I'm trying to form a relationship with them because I want to hear their stories too," he responded.
"It would be nice if he did something nice like donate a part of the proceeds to the families, it's not like he wasn't in the business," said D'Andrea.
"His dad and his uncle are the ones who killed my dad. Why should anyone benefit from that?" said Ortiz.
"We all went through something similar, in different ways...Unfortunately all the mob that put us together," said Seifert.
And now, mob victim and mobster have something else in common; Joey Seifert has written his own book and screenplay. "It's more of a survivors' book, a family survival of this is what happened, how it shredded our family and how it brought us back together," said Seifert.
Relatives of several Chicago mobsters are paid consultants to the mob experience opening this month in Lase Vegas including such names as Spilotro, Giancana and Aiuppa.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
Even after Chicago and New York crime families were decimated by federal prosecutions, there is a renewed public appetite for the mob. But some people aren't biting.
"It's something that never leaves your mind or your heart," said Bob D'Andrea whose father was killed by the mob.
"It destroys you, it destroys the inside of you, it destroys you as a person," said Joey Seifert whose father was also murdered by the mob.
Decades after their loved ones were murdered by the Chicago mob, sons and daughters and wives and parents say they continue to be victimized. Not by a pistol-whipping or the payment of protection money but by a new book by ex-Chicago Outfit thug Frank Calabrese Jr., who is beginning a promotional tour this week in the city where he turned on his own father and helped put him away for life. And they say they are revictimized by two mob museums opening soon in Las Vegas.
"What you see when you go there? You are going to see the mob guys laughing and holding their kids, like trying to humanize them. And they are not, they are monsters," said Seifert.
At age four, Seifert watched a masked mob hitman kill his father. It was Joey "The Clown" Lombardo.
Anthony Ortiz was 12 years old in 1983 when his father was killed in front of the Cicero tavern he owned, gunned down by the ruthless Outfit boss Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese Sr.
"To me, a mobster is just a glorified gangbanger, am I wrong or am I right? They beat people up, they take their money, they threaten them," said Ortiz.
It was the Calabrese crew that committed a 1981 hit on suburban trucking company owner Michael Cagnoni by a remote-controlled bomb on the Tri-state Tollway after Cagnoni refused to be extorted by Outfit bosses.
In her first ever interview, Cagnoni's widow, Margaret, says hoodlum-turned-author Frank Calabrese Jr. should not be turning a profit off victims' grief. "Frank [Jr.] was not an innocent person...To him, to go out and make money on our loses and our sorrow and profiting from victims' families is disgraceful. We suffered enough," Cagnoni told the I-Team.
"I didn't kill anybody. OK, so if they're mad that I'm going to profit off of my story with my dad, I don't know what to do. I feel bad for them. I feel sorry for their losses. I can relate to them," said Frank Calabrese Jr.
"If he is really sorry from what he did and wants to do good and show that he is making amends for his past. Why don't you show that you're sorry by donating, if you are going to write a book donate the profits to a worthy charity," said Cagnoni.
The I-Team asked Calabrese Jr. if he thought about donating his profits to a victims' fund. "I haven't. That's definitely a possibility. I talked to some of the victims' kids, and I'm trying to form a relationship with them because I want to hear their stories too," he responded.
"It would be nice if he did something nice like donate a part of the proceeds to the families, it's not like he wasn't in the business," said D'Andrea.
"His dad and his uncle are the ones who killed my dad. Why should anyone benefit from that?" said Ortiz.
"We all went through something similar, in different ways...Unfortunately all the mob that put us together," said Seifert.
And now, mob victim and mobster have something else in common; Joey Seifert has written his own book and screenplay. "It's more of a survivors' book, a family survival of this is what happened, how it shredded our family and how it brought us back together," said Seifert.
Relatives of several Chicago mobsters are paid consultants to the mob experience opening this month in Lase Vegas including such names as Spilotro, Giancana and Aiuppa.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
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