Overheard: Mafia Hit in North Korea?

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns declared Sunday the U.S. wants China to pressure North Korea. We could do it ourselves but we'd rather have China do it. Chinese hit men work for nine cents an hour and New Jersey guys get ten grand a day.

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Overheard: Mafia Senate Subcommittees

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig denied Jose Canseco's charge that Major League Baseball is run like the Mafia. Appearances are deceiving. It's just a coincidence that everyone in baseball has developed a short neck from shrugging in front of Senate subcommittees.

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Mafia Detectives Risks Mafia Cops Case

Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

Louis Eppolito may have written the book on being a "Mafia Cop" - but a soon-to-be released book could help write his ticket to freedom.

Michael Vecchione, chief of the Brooklyn district attorney's rackets bureau, has quietly signed a book contract touting "the full inside story of the investigation" into Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, the so-called Mafia cops. But there's one problem: Law enforcement and legal sources say Vecchione's book could jeopardize any state prosecution of Eppolito and Caracappa.

Right now, the case remains in federal court, as the feds are appealing Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein's decision to throw out racketeering convictions against the duo. If the feds lose the appeal, the ex-cops could be prosecuted in Brooklyn under state law.

Hofstra University law Prof. Monroe Freedman, an expert on legal ethics, said the American Bar Association's code of standards forbids prosecutors from entering into any media deal before a case is completely done. "It's really egregious judgment, because it's the kind of thing every prosecutor should know," Freedman said yesterday. "It clearly puts the prosecutor's personal interest in self-promotion and making money ahead of his obligations as a public official."

He added, "In my view, if this case is going to be prosecuted by the state, it would have to be by a different prosecutor's office or an independent prosecutor."

Vecchione's book, "Mafia Detectives," due out in January, promises to deliver "never-before-released documents and information" about the case, according to publisher Harper Collins' foreign rights guide.

A spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes refused to say when Vecchione inked the deal or how much he's getting paid. "It's a personal matter," said spokesman Jerry Schmetterer.

Vecchione is doing the book with retired Detective Tommy Dades, who broke the case as an investigator for Hynes' office and still works there.

Asked yesterday whether Hynes approved the book deal, Schmetterer replied, "Absolutely."

Thanks to John Marzulli

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What College Does Meadow Soprano Attend?

Several of you have emailed me that question in the last 24 hours and others have been searching for the answer. Since this gives me an excuse to run a photo of Jamie-Lynn Sigler, the correct answer is Columbia University.

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DeNiro Scares Stardust Actors

Director Matthew Vaughn had no need to instruct Charlie Cox and Claire Danes to "act scared" of Robert DeNiro's intimidating character in new movie STARDUST - because they were genuinely terrified of the star. Vaughn urged the stars to conjure an atmosphere of terror in a scene where De Niro takes the pair hostage, and this inspired the veteran actor to click straight into Mafia mode. Cox says, "Bob's a pirate and he has us tied up. He's doing his Mafioso intimidating stuff, and Matthew's going to us: 'This is scary, this is really scary.' "But by this time we're scared of Bob for real, so there's no need to act."

I had thought that this might be a movie about the soon to be extinct Stardust in Las Vegas. Instead it is about the award-winning fantasy novel Stardust by Neil Gaiman. The book tells the story of a young man who promises his beloved that he will bring her a fallen star. He goes into a magical realm and encounters all manners of mythic creatures.

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