Corruption Figures' Sentences Cut

Friends of ours: Michael Spano Sr.
Friends of mine: Betty Loren-Maltese, Michael Spano Jr., Charles Schneider

The son of a reputed mob boss and a former lawyer, both convicted four years ago of helping to bilk Cicero out of millions of dollars, have won lighter prison sentences.

U.S. District Judge John Grady reduced Michael Spano Jr.'s sentence by 14 months, to five years and four months. Former attorney Charles Schneider's sentence was cut by two years, to five years and three months.

The two men were convicted of racketeering in 2002 along with former Cicero town president Betty Loren-Maltese; Spano's father, alleged Cicero mob boss Michael Spano, Sr.; and two other co-defendants for using a bogus insurance company to bilk taxpayers out of more than $10 million from 1992 to 1996.

A federal appeals court in September ruled that the defendants should be resentenced because Grady, who presided over the three-month trial, made an error in imposing the original sentences.

Prosecutors argued Tuesday for a longer sentence for Spano and no change for Schneider, but Grady reduced both terms, saying the original sentences placed too much blame on the men for their roles in the scam.

Grady resentenced Loren-Maltese on Monday to eight years in prison - the same as her original sentence.

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Ben Kingsley associated with the Mob

OSCAR winner Sir Ben Kingsley is to star in the final series of The Sopranos - as himself. The 62-year-old was revealing nothing about the plot of the US Mafia series yesterday, only telling the BBC that the cast were a pleasure to work with.

James Gandolfini, who plays the head of the New Jersey mob family, was also keeping very quiet about the series. He told reporters: "I don't know what's going to happen and I don't want to know." But the show's creator David Chase told a US paper: "Ben Kingsley will star and he plays Ben Kingsley."

Yorkshire born Kingsley played English gangster Don Logan in the critically acclaimed movie Sexy Beast in 2001. He also starred as mobster Meyer Lanksy in the children's spoof gangster film Bugsy in 1991. He won a Best Actor Oscar for playing Ghandi in the 1982 film directed by Richard Attenborough.

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Apology Doesn't Sway Judge

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

Betty Loren-Maltese apologized in court Monday for allowing corruption to occur while on her watch as the former town president of the Chicago suburb of Cicero. But a federal judge determined her apology did not go far enough and resentenced her on a racketeering conviction to eight years in prison, the same jail term he doled out three years ago.

Loren-Maltese, 56, and five co-defendants were convicted of racketeering in 2002 for using a bogus insurance company to bilk taxpayers out of more than $10 million from 1992 to 1996.

A federal appeals court in September ruled that Loren-Maltese and her co-defendants should be resentenced because U.S. District Judge John F. Grady, who presided over the three-month trial, made an error in imposing the original sentences.

The appeals court opinion said that after Grady determined the amount of money Loren-Maltese and the others swindled from Cicero taxpayers to be $10.6 million, the judge wrongly rounded down the number to less than $10 million.

Prosecutors have spent years investigating the small, blue-collar suburb just outside the Chicago city limits that has been known as a haven for corruption since the 1920s, when Al Capone made it the hub of his bootlegging empire.

Among the others convicted with Loren-Maltese were alleged Cicero mob boss Michael Spano Sr. and Emil Schullo, one-time head of the Cicero police department. Schullo was scheduled to be resentenced today.

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