"McMafia" Nabs Movie Deal

"McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld," Mischa Glenny's sprawling book about organized crime around the world, has landed a movie deal.

London- and Los Angeles-based production company Working Title Films has acquired rights to the book.

Glenny, an expert on global affairs, focuses on the network of mob criminals in places as diverse as Mumbai, Johannesburg and Eastern Europe. These players, he writes, operate illegal businesses ranging from drug smuggling to human trafficking, in operations that account for roughly one-fifth of the world's economy.

With its globalist themes, the book is said to be something of an underworld equivalent of Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century.

Nonfiction fare that lacks a central character or story line typically has been considered difficult to adapt to the screen. Nonetheless, such tomes as Michael Lewis' baseball study Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game and Malcolm Gladwell's decision-making exploration Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking are in development at major studios and production banners.

Thanks to Steven Zeitchik

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Melrose Park Former Police Chief's Racketeering and Extortion Trial Begins

Former Melrose Park Police Chief Vito Scavo used "extortion and strong-arm tactics" to get local institutions—including bars and restaurants, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church, Navistar and Kiddieland amusement park—to use guards from his security firm for protection, a federal prosecutor charged Tuesday. But an attorney for Scavo defended his client's law enforcement record.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Stephen Andersson told a federal jury in his opening arguments in Scavo's racketeering and extortion trial that Scavo ran his private security firm out of the Melrose Park police station. He often used on-duty village police officers who were paid twice, once by the village and once by the client, for their service, Andersson said.

"You don't say no to the police chief," Andersson said.

Andersson asserted that a waste disposal company that was paying another security firm $17 an hour for a security guard was pressured into paying $45 per guard from Scavo's firm.

Andersson said that Scavo used the ill-gotten gain to buy a Florida condominium, lease a $60,000 Cadillac Escalade and pay for an $11,000 big-screen television.

Thomas Breen, Scavo's defense attorney, countered in his opening argument by saying that "police officers aren't terribly well paid, and many have side jobs."

"Melrose Park—Vito Scavo—extortion, sounds scary," Breen said. "But Scavo is a copper's cop and a darn good cop for 30 years."

Breen compared the Melrose Park Police Department to a social club and likened the village to television's fictional small town of Mayberry.

Scavo is on trial with former Deputy Police Chief Gary Montino, 52, and a part-time officer, Michael Wynn, 55, who the government claims assisted Scavo in the fraudulent scheme. The trial, presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Joan Gottschall, is expected to last a month.

Scavo, police chief from 1996 to 2006, is charged with racketeering conspiracy, extortion, obstruction of justice, mail and wire fraud and filing false personal and corporate federal income tax returns. Montino is charged with racketeering and mail fraud, and Wynn is charged with mail fraud.

Thanks to Art Barnum

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Secret Prison Video Highlights Testimony at Mob Leak Trial

Secretly-recorded video of two Chicago Outfit members discussing mob hit man Nicholas Calabrese's cooperation with federal investigators highlighted the first testimony in the trial of Deputy U.S. Marshal John Ambrose in local federal court today.

Grainy footage of James and Michael Marcello, taken from the waiting room of a Michigan federal prison in 2003, showed the brothers using code words, subtle gestures and whispers to discuss what information Calabrese was sharing on dozens of mob murders in the Chicago area.

"He admitted to being involved in 19 of them things," Michael Marcello told his brother in one recording, referring to Calabrese and the number of mob murders he had disclosed to authorities.

FBI Special Agent Michael Maseth said such discussions were the first clue to authorities of a significant leak about Calabrese's cooperation with investigators. "We were shocked," said Maseth, describing the response of agents when they heard specific information about Calabrese's disclosures being discussed by the Marcellos.

Prosecutors say Ambrose, who protected Calabrese during two visits to Chicago in 2002 and 2003 as part of his witness security detail, was the original source of the "highly sensitive" information that eventually made its way to the Marcellos.

Video recordings were also played of the Marcellos, seated side-by-side in a waiting room with their heads almost touching, discussing that the leak's source was the son of a figure arrested in the Marquette 10 police corruption trial in the 1980's. Ambrose's father, Thomas, was convicted on felony bribery charges in 1982.

Earlier, Maseth gave the jury a crash course in the Chicago Outfit, describing the structure of the organization and defining what made particular figures "made members." Maseth also described Calabrese as "the most important organized-crime witness that has ever testified in this district and perhaps in the United States."

Assistant U.S. Atty. Diane MacArthur asked Maseth what consequences Calabrese could face if his cooperation was discovered by members of the Outfit. "The level of risk was the ultimate level of risk. He could be killed," Maseth said.

Thanks to Robert Mitchum

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