It’s bound to be a major dramatic moment at the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards: the announcement of the winner for performance by an ensemble in a drama series.
Contenders for the award are the casts of “Boston Legal,” “The Closer,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Mad Men” and “The Sopranos.”
“The Sopranos” closed its sixth and final season last year with the infamous “cut to black” ending, leaving it up to the viewer to decide what happened to Tony, Carmela, Meadow and A.J. Soprano.
“These are people who have become icons. They are legendary,” said Matt Roush, television critic for TV Guide. “There were so many great moments in the last season—Tony’s brush with death, Dr. Melfi firing Tony, Christopher’s death and Uncle Junior’s decline into dementia. A lot of great material sometimes got obscured by the final episode.”
“The Sopranos” won its second drama series Emmy last year. “It’s the last chance for the show to be honored,” Roush reminds.
“Mad Men,” an hour drama set in a Manhattan advertising agency in the early 1960s, scored major critical acclaim in its first season, winning Golden Globes this year for TV series, drama, as well as for star Jon Hamm, a winner as actor in a television drama. He is also in the running at the SAG Awards for his performance.
“Watching the show, you find it does resonate in your world,” said Mr. Hamm, who plays Don Draper, a dapper executive with a secret past at the fictional Sterling Cooper agency on Madison Avenue. “You work in an office with personalities and superiors and inferiors and people you have to manage and there are different rules, yet all the same stuff was going on in 1960.
“It’s a nostalgic and yet resonant sort of ethic. It’s not mean-spirited, and it depicts a world exploding into a modern aesthetic of midcentury ideas, with a very specific, very cool look and attitude.”
“The Closer” premiered in June 2005, and its star, Kyra Sedgwick, also is nominated for a SAG Award for her performance. “In some ways it looks like a star vehicle for Kyra Sedgwick, but the bench strength in all the other actors is amazing. They are almost overqualified and get to rise to the occasion,” said Mr. Roush. “There’s a lot of terrific, stylish acting, and so many colorful characters. There’s no question she’s the star, but there are a lot of meaty characters in and around her life.”
“Boston Legal,” spun off from “The Practice” in fall 2004, follows the personal and professional lives of the attorneys at the law firm of Crane, Poole & Schmidt.
“This is a show that Hollywood adores,” said Mr. Roush, pointing to its numerous Emmy Awards. “David Kelley writes colorful dialogue, and James Spader gets to wow everyone with Kelley’s writing. These are the most eccentric characters on television, and they milk those eccentricities, and the industry seems to love that. I guess it’s because they get those big scenes in the courtroom and get to indulge quirky characters.”
The cast of “Grey’s Anatomy” won the SAG Award last year for dramatic ensemble.
“What it has is charisma, and one of the sexiest casts on TV,” Mr. Roush said. “The ensemble is one of the most watchable. They play flawed characters set in a hospital with life, death and love commingled, and played in a way that draws people in. The show has made stars of a lot of people: Ellen Pompeo, Katherine Heigl, T.R. Knight and Chandra Wilson.”
Four of the five actresses vying for SAG honors for their performance in a drama series have impressive credits on the big screen, and one was the first actress to sweep all the major television awards in one season, winning a SAG, the Emmy and a Golden Globe for her performance as a mobster’s wife.
That would be Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano.
“Carmela is one of television’s great characters. She’s just as ruthless as Tony, but in a different way. She remained great through the end, even when her role wasn’t as central to the action,” said Mr. Roush.
Ms. Falco and “The Closer’s” Ms. Sedgwick as Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson are up against a pair of contenders in first-season dramas: Glenn Close, who plays attorney Patty Hewes on “Damages,” and Holly Hunter in her first starring TV role as Oklahoma City police detective Grace Hanadarko on “Saving Grace.” They’re joined in the category by Sally Field, who portrays Nora Walker, the matriarch on “Brothers & Sisters,” which premiered in September 2006.
“Glenn Close’s role fits her like a glove, and she is devilishly entertaining in a wonderful star performance in a twisty show,” said Mr. Roush. “Holly Hunter is allowed to chew the scenery, and playing a self-destructive cop in a flamboyant role is one anybody would be thrilled to have. Sally Field is the premier mom on television, warm, funny and charismatic, yet as crazy as the kids.”
The male actors competing for the SAG Award are Mr. Hamm, James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan on “Dexter,” Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House on “House” and James Spader as Alan Shore on “Boston Legal.”
“Jon Hamm as Don Draper is magnetic and at the same time troubled. You worry about him but realize he’s staring into the abyss. Mr. Hamm brings that alive, delivering a very deep performance. It’s a home run,” Mr. Roush said.
“James Gandolfini created a character of incredible depth, the role of a villain who is as human as he is monstrous. You root for him, yet you fear him,” Mr. Roush continued. “Michael C. Hall pulls off an impossible feat: He makes you sympathize for a serial killer. The potential for disaster is huge, but he makes it appealing and thoroughly original. Hugh Laurie as House is a great character, so enjoyable to watch as he confounds patients and frustrates the staff. He’s an impossible person but impossibly appealing. James Spader plays one of the quirkiest characters on TV. People are drawn to him because he is so unpredictable. He nails it.”
Thanks to Hillary Atkin
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The ABA Journal, Family Secrets Trial Appeals and Connie's Pizza Included in Shark's Tales
Attorney Joseph "The Shark" Lopez returns with more Shark Tales. The ABA Journal's January 2008 issue included an article titled Full Court Coverage. It is a very nicely done piece that addressed the question: "What happens when defense counsel and ordinary citizens blog about high-profile trials?". Both Joseph R. Lopez and The Chicago Syndicate were interviewed for perspective on this subject.
One clarifying comment on the article. There is a quote that references the movie The Funeral that is attributed to Joe Batterz. That quote was actually from an article by Josh Casey in a special report for The Chicago Syndicate. Long time readers will recognize that we have had several writers submit their original articles for posting. We actually have a few more under development and have been approached by other attorneys as well about sending their comments from time to time. Stay tuned for that.
Below, "The Shark" brings us up to speed on the next moves in the Family Secrets Case and he provides us a with a restaurant review of a place that he gives a thumbs down.
This months American Bar Journal has an article about this blog, me, and the Family Secrets trial.
Still no word on Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitch Mars who has been on sick leave since October. Mitch was a fixture in the U.S. Attorney's office and great opponent. We all wish him well and hope he can return for round 2.
Shark is preparing a motion to question the anonymous jury under oath and in court under rule 606 of the federal rules. It's clear that something happened in the jury room and the only to find out is to ask the jurors; this case will be in litigation for many more years.
A lot of people I know will not eat Connie's Pizza anymore including myself. I do not like beefer pizza. If you want to beef, you could have told the truth Mr. Stolfe about you and Frank being friends. Instead you were like a coward on the stand. - Jo Shark
One clarifying comment on the article. There is a quote that references the movie The Funeral that is attributed to Joe Batterz. That quote was actually from an article by Josh Casey in a special report for The Chicago Syndicate. Long time readers will recognize that we have had several writers submit their original articles for posting. We actually have a few more under development and have been approached by other attorneys as well about sending their comments from time to time. Stay tuned for that.
Below, "The Shark" brings us up to speed on the next moves in the Family Secrets Case and he provides us a with a restaurant review of a place that he gives a thumbs down.
This months American Bar Journal has an article about this blog, me, and the Family Secrets trial.
Still no word on Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitch Mars who has been on sick leave since October. Mitch was a fixture in the U.S. Attorney's office and great opponent. We all wish him well and hope he can return for round 2.
Shark is preparing a motion to question the anonymous jury under oath and in court under rule 606 of the federal rules. It's clear that something happened in the jury room and the only to find out is to ask the jurors; this case will be in litigation for many more years.
A lot of people I know will not eat Connie's Pizza anymore including myself. I do not like beefer pizza. If you want to beef, you could have told the truth Mr. Stolfe about you and Frank being friends. Instead you were like a coward on the stand. - Jo Shark
Friday, January 18, 2008
DEA Agents Say They are Not Villians, Sue "American Gangster" Filmmakers
A group of retired federal drug enforcement agents sued NBC Universal on Wednesday, saying the movie "American Gangster" falsely made them out to be villains in the story of a Harlem heroin trafficker played by Denzel Washington.
Shortly after the movie was released, the American Gangster Myth was brought to light and reporter Clarence Walker answered the question "What's the Real Story Behind Hollywood's Portrayal of Harlem Drug Kingpin Frank Lucas?".
The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, claims that the movie defamed hundreds of DEA agents and New York police officers by claiming at the end that Frank Lucas' collaboration with prosecutors "led to the convictions of three quarters of New York City's Drug Enforcement Agency."
Lucas became a government informant after his conviction in 1975, and his tips led to the prosecutions of several fellow drug dealers.
According to the lawsuit, no DEA agents or New York police officers were ever convicted as a result of tips provided by Lucas.
"This is absolutely off the wall," said Dominic Amorosa, who was a prosecutor in the federal case against Lucas in 1975 and now represents the DEA agents.
Amorosa said the filmmakers had unfairly blackened the reputation of agents who risked their lives to put away Lucas and other drug felons in the 1970s and 1980s.
"I don't know what these people were thinking, but they are going to pay for it," he said.
A Universal Pictures spokesman, Michael Moses, said in a written statement that the lawsuit is "entirely without merit."
"'American Gangster' does not defame these or any federal agents," he said, adding that the corrupt law enforcers depicted in the film were supposed to be New York police officers, not DEA agents.
In a Dec. 7 letter to Amorosa, NBC Universal Senior Vice President David Burg called the film a "fictionalized work," although at other times Universal spokesmen have said they have "every confidence that the material facts are conveyed truthfully."
A DEA spokesman in Washington, Garrison Courtney, confirmed that none of its agents were ever charged with wrongdoing in the case.
New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said he also wasn't aware of any NYPD officers ever prosecuted in connection with Lucas.
"Hollywood is famous for distorting reality," Browne wrote in an e-mail. He brushed off the idea that the department would get involved in the case. "If we sued every time the movies made reality unrecognizable, there would be time for nothing else."
Former DEA agents Jack Toal, Gregory Korniloff and Louis Diaz filed the class action suit on behalf of themselves and 400 other agents who worked in the city between 1973 and 1985. They asked for at least $50 million in punitive damages.
"Most of the movie is not true," said Toal, who identified himself as one of the agents who worked with Lucas after he became an informant. "If they had said, `this is based on a false story,' it would have been a lot better."
Korniloff said in the suit that he was a lead agent assigned to the case and was present when agents and police officers raided Lucas' home in Teaneck, N.J., in 1975 -- a scene depicted in "American Gangster."
In the Ridley Scott film, which was released in November and also featured Russell Crowe and Josh Brolin, corrupt narcotics agents shoot the drug dealer's dog, assault his wife and brazenly steal currency stashed in the house while making the arrest.
The suit said that in real life the search was carried out legally; nearly $585,000 in currency was seized in accordance with a valid search warrant.
Thanks to David P. Caruso
Shortly after the movie was released, the American Gangster Myth was brought to light and reporter Clarence Walker answered the question "What's the Real Story Behind Hollywood's Portrayal of Harlem Drug Kingpin Frank Lucas?".
The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, claims that the movie defamed hundreds of DEA agents and New York police officers by claiming at the end that Frank Lucas' collaboration with prosecutors "led to the convictions of three quarters of New York City's Drug Enforcement Agency."
Lucas became a government informant after his conviction in 1975, and his tips led to the prosecutions of several fellow drug dealers.
According to the lawsuit, no DEA agents or New York police officers were ever convicted as a result of tips provided by Lucas.
"This is absolutely off the wall," said Dominic Amorosa, who was a prosecutor in the federal case against Lucas in 1975 and now represents the DEA agents.
Amorosa said the filmmakers had unfairly blackened the reputation of agents who risked their lives to put away Lucas and other drug felons in the 1970s and 1980s.
"I don't know what these people were thinking, but they are going to pay for it," he said.
A Universal Pictures spokesman, Michael Moses, said in a written statement that the lawsuit is "entirely without merit."
"'American Gangster' does not defame these or any federal agents," he said, adding that the corrupt law enforcers depicted in the film were supposed to be New York police officers, not DEA agents.
In a Dec. 7 letter to Amorosa, NBC Universal Senior Vice President David Burg called the film a "fictionalized work," although at other times Universal spokesmen have said they have "every confidence that the material facts are conveyed truthfully."
A DEA spokesman in Washington, Garrison Courtney, confirmed that none of its agents were ever charged with wrongdoing in the case.
New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said he also wasn't aware of any NYPD officers ever prosecuted in connection with Lucas.
"Hollywood is famous for distorting reality," Browne wrote in an e-mail. He brushed off the idea that the department would get involved in the case. "If we sued every time the movies made reality unrecognizable, there would be time for nothing else."
Former DEA agents Jack Toal, Gregory Korniloff and Louis Diaz filed the class action suit on behalf of themselves and 400 other agents who worked in the city between 1973 and 1985. They asked for at least $50 million in punitive damages.
"Most of the movie is not true," said Toal, who identified himself as one of the agents who worked with Lucas after he became an informant. "If they had said, `this is based on a false story,' it would have been a lot better."
Korniloff said in the suit that he was a lead agent assigned to the case and was present when agents and police officers raided Lucas' home in Teaneck, N.J., in 1975 -- a scene depicted in "American Gangster."
In the Ridley Scott film, which was released in November and also featured Russell Crowe and Josh Brolin, corrupt narcotics agents shoot the drug dealer's dog, assault his wife and brazenly steal currency stashed in the house while making the arrest.
The suit said that in real life the search was carried out legally; nearly $585,000 in currency was seized in accordance with a valid search warrant.
Thanks to David P. Caruso
Thursday, January 17, 2008
$100,000 REWARD OFFERED IN MURDER OF MAYWOOD POLICE OFFICER
Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Elvia Williams, Chief of the Maywood, Illinois Police Department (MPD) are asking for the public's help in identifying the individual(s) responsible for the October 23, 2006 murder of MPD Officer Thomas Wood.
A nine year veteran of the MPD, Officer Wood was found shot to death in his marked patrol vehicle near the intersection of 6th Avenue and Erie Street, at the end of his scheduled afternoon shift. Officer Wood was shot multiple times and was pronounced dead after being transported to Loyola Medical Center. Officer Wood, who was a canine officer for the MPD, was seated in the driver's seat of his vehicle with the engine running and the vehicle in gear. Robbery did not appear to be a motive as Officer Wood's weapon and wallet were still on his person.
Officer Wood was active in the MPD's effort to investigate and eliminate gang activity within the village and it is believed that his murder was related to these efforts.
Officer Wood was 37 years of age and is survived by his wife and five children.
A reward of up to $100,000 is being offered by the Village of Maywood for information that leads to the identification and arrest of the person or persons responsible for this crime.
In addition to joining Chief Williams in publicizing this reward offer, Mr. Grant also wants to announce that the FBI will be assisting the MPD, not only with the investigation into Officer Wood's murder, but will also begin investigating gang activity and drug trafficking in the western suburb.
Anyone having any information about the murder of Officer Wood is asked to call the Chicago office of the FBI at (312) 421-6700
A nine year veteran of the MPD, Officer Wood was found shot to death in his marked patrol vehicle near the intersection of 6th Avenue and Erie Street, at the end of his scheduled afternoon shift. Officer Wood was shot multiple times and was pronounced dead after being transported to Loyola Medical Center. Officer Wood, who was a canine officer for the MPD, was seated in the driver's seat of his vehicle with the engine running and the vehicle in gear. Robbery did not appear to be a motive as Officer Wood's weapon and wallet were still on his person.
Officer Wood was active in the MPD's effort to investigate and eliminate gang activity within the village and it is believed that his murder was related to these efforts.
Officer Wood was 37 years of age and is survived by his wife and five children.
A reward of up to $100,000 is being offered by the Village of Maywood for information that leads to the identification and arrest of the person or persons responsible for this crime.
In addition to joining Chief Williams in publicizing this reward offer, Mr. Grant also wants to announce that the FBI will be assisting the MPD, not only with the investigation into Officer Wood's murder, but will also begin investigating gang activity and drug trafficking in the western suburb.
Anyone having any information about the murder of Officer Wood is asked to call the Chicago office of the FBI at (312) 421-6700
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Internet Group Fights the Mob
When it came down to business, Cosa Nostra could always count on fear.
No more.
In a rebellion shaking the Sicilian Mafia to its centuries-old roots, businesses are joining forces in refusing to submit to demands for protection money called "pizzo."
And they're getting away with it, threatening to sap an already weakened crime syndicate of one of its steadiest sources of revenue.
The Mafia has a history of bouncing back from defeat, but this time it is up against something entirely new: a Web site where businessmen are finding safety in numbers to say no to the mob.
At the same time, businessmen ranging from neighborhood shopkeepers to industrialists are being emboldened by arrests of fugitive bosses, and the discovery in raids of meticulous Mafia bookkeeping on who paid the "pizzo" and how much.
"This rebellion goes to the heart of the Mafia," said Palermo prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia, who has investigated extortion cases for years. "If it works, we will have a great advantage in the fight against the Mafia."
These latest gains build on other successes in the fight to break Cosa Nostra's stranglehold on Sicily. In the last two decades, the syndicate has been battered by testimony from turncoats, who helped send hundreds of mobsters to prison in the late 1980s, and a fierce state crackdown a decade later after bombs killed two Palermo anti-Mafia prosecutors.
The number of rebels on the Web site is still tiny compared to Palermo's businesses overall, but their movement has helped to chip away at the Mafia's psychological hold on Sicilians — long conditioned to believe that defiance would bring ruin or a death sentence. And any consistent crumbling of that culture of fear could ultimately lead to Cosa Nostra's undoing.
The businesses are openly defying the Mafia by signing on to a Web site called "Addiopizzo" (Goodbye Pizzo), which brings together businesses in the Sicilian capital that are resisting extortion.
The campaign was launched in 2004 by a group of youths thinking of opening a pub. They started off by plastering Palermo with anti-pizzo fliers, reading "An ENTIRE PEOPLE WHO PAYS THE PIZZO IS A PEOPLE WITHOUT DIGNITY," and eventually brought their campaign online where it struck a profound chord with Sicilians fed up with Mafia bullying.
Confindustria, the industrialists' lobby, has also boosted the movement with a threat to expel members who pay protection money. Its Sicilian branch has gone through a list of pizzo-paying companies found in a raid on a top Mafia boss' hideout, and this month began summoning heads of those companies to demand to know if they indeed had been paying and should be drummed out of the politically influential lobby.
In one case, the director of a private clinic said her institution wound up on Cosa Nostra's list because a mobster was treated there, although it apparently was unclear during his hospitalization that he was a Mafioso.
At the same time, authorities are ratcheting up the pressure on business owners, aggressively prosecuting those who refuse to testify against the Mafia in clear-cut cases of extortion. Under Italian law, a businessman who denies paying up despite flagrant evidence — such as being caught on a surveillance tape — can be charged with "aiding and abetting" Cosa Nostra.
"Now it is a bigger risk for us to pay than not to pay," said Ugo Argiroffi, an engineer who recently added his Palermo construction company, C.O.C.I. to Addiopizzo's list (http://www.addiopizzo.org in Italian with an English link).
While the nearly 230 businesses on the list are only a fraction of Palermo's thousands of stores, offices and factories, a similar group has sprouted up in Catania, Sicily's second-largest city.
Perhaps most significant, the rebellion has taken root in strongholds of the most ruthless Mafia clans — places such as Gela, a drab, industrial coastal town. Some 80 Gela businessmen in recent months have denounced extortion attempts.
It is a dramatic turn since the early '90s, when a Gela merchant who denounced extortion was slain by the Mafia, and a Gela car dealer, whose showroom was repeatedly torched, had to move his family and change his name after he testified in court.
In another prominent case, Libero Grassi, who had a Palermo clothing business, was gunned down by the Mafia in 1991 after he made a futile public plea for other merchants to join him in denouncing extortion.
Prosecutors trace the extortion rebellion back to the scramble for power after Bernardo Provenzano, the alleged "boss of bosses," was captured last year near his hometown of Corleone.
For years, Provenzano — who reputedly took the helm of Cosa Nostra in 1993 — had employed an extortion strategy of "let them pay a little but make everyone pay," according to Piero Grasso, a former Palermo prosecutor who is now Italy's national anti-Mafia prosecutor based in Rome.
The Mafia chief feared excessive greed and violence would draw a fierce police crackdown, Grasso said in an interview. But in the struggle to succeed Provenzano, Palermo area boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo ruthlessly dispensed with the low profile.
Under Lo Piccolo, according to Grasso, the small army of henchmen who shake down merchants was doubled, from 500 to 1,000 men, judging from entries in confiscated extortion ledgers.
The extortionists received monthly "salaries" worth $3,000, generous by Sicily's standards, plus an extra month's pay as a Christmas bonus, Grasso said.
A rash of arson attacks on businesses this past year apparently reflected Lo Piccolo's determination to press extortion demands.
The strategy appears to have backfired: The harder the Mafia squeezed, the more their victims resisted. Crucially, no businessmen or their relatives have thus far been killed for their defiance, although some may have lost Mafia-wary customers.
In one high-profile case, Vincenzo Conticello, owner of Antica Focacceria San Francesco, a landmark Palermo restaurant that specializes in sandwiches stuffed with calf's spleen and lung, spent $1.8 million buying supplies from "friends" of a gangster who had elbowed into his business.
Eventually the restaurateur got fed up and went to police. At the trial, he pointed out the three gangsters who had extorted him and in November they were jailed for 10 to 16 years. Conticello was granted police protection.
When Mafia boss Lo Piccolo was arrested in November outside Palermo, police found a list of hundreds of names of those who paid the "pizzo" plus a breakdown of how the money was divvied up — a treasure trove of information on how the mob operates.
In December, police scored another coup when they shot dead Daniele Emmanuello, the reputed boss of the Gela area's extortion rackets, as he fled from a farmhouse hideout.
Emmanuello didn't take time to change out of his pajamas, but he did swallow some handwritten notes. Authorities are examining them for more information on the pizzo racket.
Until now, the money figures had been largely guesswork. But taking advantage of the confiscated Mafia ledgers, Antonio La Spina, a University of Palermo sociology professor, has pieced together the clearest picture for a report given to The Associated Press before its publication this week in a book called "The Costs of Illegality."
His researchers calculate the pizzo payments averaging $1,200 a month add up to nearly $260 million in Palermo province alone.
"For a street vendor, 'pizzo' ranges from 50 to 100 euros a month, a neighborhood bread store 150-250 euros, a simple clothing store 250 euros, a jewelry store, 1,000 euros, your local mini-mart 500 euros," said Attilio Scaglione, one of the researchers. A euro is worth roughly $1.50.
These days, the Mafia appears to be trying to pick symbolic targets rather than punish the pizzo-refusers en masse.
At Rodolfo Guajana's company, a wholesaler for hardware stores across Sicily since 1875, attackers this summer punched a hole in the roof, poured in gasoline and torched the warehouse.
Guajana believes the Mafia attacked him because it was known that his family had a history of refusing to pay.
"What happened here was the Mafia was saying to all merchants: `What happened to Guajana can happen to you if you don't pay,'" said Guajana.
Across the island in Agrigento, industrialist Salvatore Moncada described himself as proof businessmen can stand up to mobsters.
He has repeatedly refused demands made of his 180-employee company, Moncada Costruzioni Srl, Italy's fifth-largest producer of wind energy. In one case, Moncada's testimony helped jail a mobster who demanded $7,500.
At one point, Moncada wore a wire to a meeting with a mobster. "I was sweating a little bit," he recalled. But no threats were made and the gangster wasn't arrested. But Moncada said he can understand why some businessmen decide it pays to pay off the Mafia.
A pizzo of 2 percent of a contract's value is a lot less than the price of a 24-hour guard, he said. "In the end you say, 'Sorry, I'll pay and that's that.'"
No more.
In a rebellion shaking the Sicilian Mafia to its centuries-old roots, businesses are joining forces in refusing to submit to demands for protection money called "pizzo."
And they're getting away with it, threatening to sap an already weakened crime syndicate of one of its steadiest sources of revenue.
The Mafia has a history of bouncing back from defeat, but this time it is up against something entirely new: a Web site where businessmen are finding safety in numbers to say no to the mob.
At the same time, businessmen ranging from neighborhood shopkeepers to industrialists are being emboldened by arrests of fugitive bosses, and the discovery in raids of meticulous Mafia bookkeeping on who paid the "pizzo" and how much.
"This rebellion goes to the heart of the Mafia," said Palermo prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia, who has investigated extortion cases for years. "If it works, we will have a great advantage in the fight against the Mafia."
These latest gains build on other successes in the fight to break Cosa Nostra's stranglehold on Sicily. In the last two decades, the syndicate has been battered by testimony from turncoats, who helped send hundreds of mobsters to prison in the late 1980s, and a fierce state crackdown a decade later after bombs killed two Palermo anti-Mafia prosecutors.
The number of rebels on the Web site is still tiny compared to Palermo's businesses overall, but their movement has helped to chip away at the Mafia's psychological hold on Sicilians — long conditioned to believe that defiance would bring ruin or a death sentence. And any consistent crumbling of that culture of fear could ultimately lead to Cosa Nostra's undoing.
The businesses are openly defying the Mafia by signing on to a Web site called "Addiopizzo" (Goodbye Pizzo), which brings together businesses in the Sicilian capital that are resisting extortion.
The campaign was launched in 2004 by a group of youths thinking of opening a pub. They started off by plastering Palermo with anti-pizzo fliers, reading "An ENTIRE PEOPLE WHO PAYS THE PIZZO IS A PEOPLE WITHOUT DIGNITY," and eventually brought their campaign online where it struck a profound chord with Sicilians fed up with Mafia bullying.
Confindustria, the industrialists' lobby, has also boosted the movement with a threat to expel members who pay protection money. Its Sicilian branch has gone through a list of pizzo-paying companies found in a raid on a top Mafia boss' hideout, and this month began summoning heads of those companies to demand to know if they indeed had been paying and should be drummed out of the politically influential lobby.
In one case, the director of a private clinic said her institution wound up on Cosa Nostra's list because a mobster was treated there, although it apparently was unclear during his hospitalization that he was a Mafioso.
At the same time, authorities are ratcheting up the pressure on business owners, aggressively prosecuting those who refuse to testify against the Mafia in clear-cut cases of extortion. Under Italian law, a businessman who denies paying up despite flagrant evidence — such as being caught on a surveillance tape — can be charged with "aiding and abetting" Cosa Nostra.
"Now it is a bigger risk for us to pay than not to pay," said Ugo Argiroffi, an engineer who recently added his Palermo construction company, C.O.C.I. to Addiopizzo's list (http://www.addiopizzo.org in Italian with an English link).
While the nearly 230 businesses on the list are only a fraction of Palermo's thousands of stores, offices and factories, a similar group has sprouted up in Catania, Sicily's second-largest city.
Perhaps most significant, the rebellion has taken root in strongholds of the most ruthless Mafia clans — places such as Gela, a drab, industrial coastal town. Some 80 Gela businessmen in recent months have denounced extortion attempts.
It is a dramatic turn since the early '90s, when a Gela merchant who denounced extortion was slain by the Mafia, and a Gela car dealer, whose showroom was repeatedly torched, had to move his family and change his name after he testified in court.
In another prominent case, Libero Grassi, who had a Palermo clothing business, was gunned down by the Mafia in 1991 after he made a futile public plea for other merchants to join him in denouncing extortion.
Prosecutors trace the extortion rebellion back to the scramble for power after Bernardo Provenzano, the alleged "boss of bosses," was captured last year near his hometown of Corleone.
For years, Provenzano — who reputedly took the helm of Cosa Nostra in 1993 — had employed an extortion strategy of "let them pay a little but make everyone pay," according to Piero Grasso, a former Palermo prosecutor who is now Italy's national anti-Mafia prosecutor based in Rome.
The Mafia chief feared excessive greed and violence would draw a fierce police crackdown, Grasso said in an interview. But in the struggle to succeed Provenzano, Palermo area boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo ruthlessly dispensed with the low profile.
Under Lo Piccolo, according to Grasso, the small army of henchmen who shake down merchants was doubled, from 500 to 1,000 men, judging from entries in confiscated extortion ledgers.
The extortionists received monthly "salaries" worth $3,000, generous by Sicily's standards, plus an extra month's pay as a Christmas bonus, Grasso said.
A rash of arson attacks on businesses this past year apparently reflected Lo Piccolo's determination to press extortion demands.
The strategy appears to have backfired: The harder the Mafia squeezed, the more their victims resisted. Crucially, no businessmen or their relatives have thus far been killed for their defiance, although some may have lost Mafia-wary customers.
In one high-profile case, Vincenzo Conticello, owner of Antica Focacceria San Francesco, a landmark Palermo restaurant that specializes in sandwiches stuffed with calf's spleen and lung, spent $1.8 million buying supplies from "friends" of a gangster who had elbowed into his business.
Eventually the restaurateur got fed up and went to police. At the trial, he pointed out the three gangsters who had extorted him and in November they were jailed for 10 to 16 years. Conticello was granted police protection.
When Mafia boss Lo Piccolo was arrested in November outside Palermo, police found a list of hundreds of names of those who paid the "pizzo" plus a breakdown of how the money was divvied up — a treasure trove of information on how the mob operates.
In December, police scored another coup when they shot dead Daniele Emmanuello, the reputed boss of the Gela area's extortion rackets, as he fled from a farmhouse hideout.
Emmanuello didn't take time to change out of his pajamas, but he did swallow some handwritten notes. Authorities are examining them for more information on the pizzo racket.
Until now, the money figures had been largely guesswork. But taking advantage of the confiscated Mafia ledgers, Antonio La Spina, a University of Palermo sociology professor, has pieced together the clearest picture for a report given to The Associated Press before its publication this week in a book called "The Costs of Illegality."
His researchers calculate the pizzo payments averaging $1,200 a month add up to nearly $260 million in Palermo province alone.
"For a street vendor, 'pizzo' ranges from 50 to 100 euros a month, a neighborhood bread store 150-250 euros, a simple clothing store 250 euros, a jewelry store, 1,000 euros, your local mini-mart 500 euros," said Attilio Scaglione, one of the researchers. A euro is worth roughly $1.50.
These days, the Mafia appears to be trying to pick symbolic targets rather than punish the pizzo-refusers en masse.
At Rodolfo Guajana's company, a wholesaler for hardware stores across Sicily since 1875, attackers this summer punched a hole in the roof, poured in gasoline and torched the warehouse.
Guajana believes the Mafia attacked him because it was known that his family had a history of refusing to pay.
"What happened here was the Mafia was saying to all merchants: `What happened to Guajana can happen to you if you don't pay,'" said Guajana.
Across the island in Agrigento, industrialist Salvatore Moncada described himself as proof businessmen can stand up to mobsters.
He has repeatedly refused demands made of his 180-employee company, Moncada Costruzioni Srl, Italy's fifth-largest producer of wind energy. In one case, Moncada's testimony helped jail a mobster who demanded $7,500.
At one point, Moncada wore a wire to a meeting with a mobster. "I was sweating a little bit," he recalled. But no threats were made and the gangster wasn't arrested. But Moncada said he can understand why some businessmen decide it pays to pay off the Mafia.
A pizzo of 2 percent of a contract's value is a lot less than the price of a 24-hour guard, he said. "In the end you say, 'Sorry, I'll pay and that's that.'"
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