Martin Scorsese Biopic on Frank Sinatra to Dismiss Mob Rumors

Martin Scorsese will direct a major biopic about the life of Frank Sinatra, according to film producer Tina Sinatra, Sinatra's youngest daughter. But it will not be a Sinatra version of GoodFellas, Scorsese's gangster classic.

Instead, the combative singer-actor, who did socialize with crime figures, will be shown as innocent of any true involvement with the Mafia or other gangsters.

"Marty has always wanted to do this," Sinatra told Sun Media during a phone interview from Los Angeles.

Sinatra, who also produced the 1992 mini-series, Sinatra, said Scorsese is in a reflective period and is willing to present the truth about her father, who died on May 14, 1998.

That means dismissing scurrilous rumours that Sinatra was a stooge for the Mafia, Tina Sinatra said. Borrowing a metaphor from her father's own words, Sinatra said, "He never drove the getaway car." So, in the forthcoming Universal Pictures film, "I don't want him to be driving the getaway car. That would not be fair. But I trust him (Scorsese) implicitly."

Sinatra admitted it is premature to officially announce Scorsese for the biopic. Initially, she referred to the director as "the most prominent Italian-American filmmaker" working today in Hollywood.

When Sun Media guessed Francis Ford Coppola, she said: "We adore him but he didn't step up to it."

When Scorsese's name followed, Sinatra offered this: "I can't tell you yet but you're warmer."

Laughing, Sinatra later confirmed it was Scorsese. "You'll be reading about it very soon ... oh, go ahead and print it, I don't care!"

Thanks to Bruce Kirkland

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Academic Conference - The Sopranos: A Wake

The Sopranos, the hit television series starring James Gandolfini that chronicled the lives of mafia members in New Jersey, is to be the subject of an academic conference for the first time.

Many viewers felt bereft when the last of the six series finished last year, but academics at Brunel University in west London and Fordham University in New York have found a way to commiserate. They will jointly host The Sopranos: A Wake in Manhattan from 22-24 May. Titles of the sessions include: 'Carmela Soprano as Emma Bovary' and 'Body of Evidence: Tony Soprano's Corporeal Struggle'.

The Observer's television critic Kate Flett said the series 'held a mirror up to America. It was not about the mafia, it was about the family and, in fact, it was not really about the family either, it was about America.'

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Part 2 of the Chicago Mob's Family Secrets Trial to Start by the End of the Year

Alleged mobster Frank "The German" Schweihs has eluded law enforcement officials twice but prosecutors said Thursday they are not through trying to bring him to trial.

Schweihs went on the run three years ago when prosecutors unveiled their sweeping Operation Family Secrets indictment against the top echelon of the Chicago mob.

He was missing for eight months before FBI agents swooped down on his hideaway nestled deep in the Kentucky hills.

Then he missed the Family Secrets trial due to a battle with cancer.

Federal prosecutors now say Schweihs is healthy enough to face trial. They have blocked out an early September date for his trial which they said could last as long as two months.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Markus Funk told U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel Thursday that the government could call as many as 110 witnesses.

Zagel said he didn't know if the September date would hold but added he would try to have the trial by the end of the year or soon after.

Schweihs is accused of a June 1986 murder in Arizona and squeezing "street tax" payments out of a suburban strip joint and an Indiana porn shop by threatening the owners with violence.

He's also accused of going on the run to avoid prosecution.

The Family Secrets trial ended in September with the conviction of five alleged mobsters in a racketeering conspiracy involving decades of extortion, loan sharking and murder.

One of the five Family Secrets defendants convicted in September, loan shark and hit man Frank Calabrese Sr., was in court Thursday to complain that he isn't getting enough time to study his case while locked up in the federal government's Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Calabrese, who according to witnesses strangled a number of victims and then slashed their throats to make sure they were dead, appeared before Zagel wearing orange prison coveralls and leg irons.

Federal officials said they had allotted extra time for Calabrese to have access to a computer and CD ROMs to study his case. But his attorney, Joseph Lopez, said the correctional officers on the floor where his cell is located haven't been honoring that order.

Zagel scheduled a hearing for next week and said he hoped the problem would be straightened out by then.

Thanks to Mike Robinson

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Rumored Mob Ties of Alleged Pizza Driver Killer Kept Witnesses Silent from 1981 Until Recently

The call came unexpectedly last August. The man on the line told Chicago Police Detective Salvador Esparza that his conscience was bothering him.

More than a quarter-century before, the man allegedly had witnessed the fatal shooting of pizza delivery driver Milton Rodriguez outside Bella's Pizza on Chicago's Near Northwest Side. The caller, a fellow driver, and several other witnesses allegedly did not come forward out of fear the killer was connected to the mob.

Time dulled the fear but not the guilt. Now, the witness was ready to talk.

Over the next eight months, detectives from the department's cold-case unit crisscrossed the country, finding other deliverymen from the pizzeria who worked that night and saw what happened. In questioning the men, Detectives John Pellegrini and Robert Rodriguez talked of Milton Rodriguez's daughter, just 3 at the time of the 1981 murder. They asked the witnesses what they would want done if it had been their families left behind.

"That was one of his last words," Pellegrini said of Milton Rodriguez. "He told one of the witnesses, 'What about my family?' as he was laying there dying."

On Wednesday, armed with the accounts of six eyewitnesses, authorities arrested Bella's Pizza owner Michael Cosmano, 56, in his Naperville home and charged him with Rodriguez's murder.

Sgt. Carlos Valez, who also worked on the investigation, said the witnesses were key.

"Sometimes that's all you need. Just one little piece," he said. "Then everything just fell into place."

Pellegrini called Rodriguez's daughter, who had been pressing police for years to solve her father's murder.

"She was ecstatic," he said.

On Thursday, Cook County Circuit Judge Donald Panarese ordered Cosmano held in lieu of $500,000 bail. Prosecutors at the hearing said Rodriguez was trying to organize his fellow pizza delivery drivers to carry out a work stoppage for better pay and working conditions. When he arrived for work, Rodriguez approached his manager first about getting pay raises, a conversation overheard by Cosmano, who then was 30.

Cosmano, whom prosecutors said had been using cocaine that day, became enraged and quarreled with Rodriguez. The manager had to separate them, telling Rodriguez to go outside, said Assistant State's Atty. Matthew Thrun.

Rodriguez allegedly walked out the back door and into an alley where the other drivers were, sat down on a short concrete wall and began drinking from a beer bottle another driver handed him. Inside the restaurant, Cosmano was talking to another employee, who told him that a few weeks earlier Rodriguez had argued with a cook close to Cosmano, Thrun said.

Cosmano flew into a rage again and went outside, yelling at Rodriguez, Thrun said. He then is alleged to have pulled a semiautomatic gun from the small of his back and pointed it at Rodriguez.

"What are you going to do, shoot me?" Thrun quoted the victim as saying. Cosmano fired a single bullet, piercing Rodriguez's heart, Thrun said.

Police found a .45 automatic shell casing at the scene and learned that at the time of the murder Cosmano had a registered semiautomatic pistol that fired a .45 bullet.

The witnesses didn't tell police what they saw back in 1981 "because they were intimidated by rumors of this defendant's ties to organized crime," Thrun said.

Police never determined any connections to the mob, said Cmdr. Ed O'Donnell of the central investigations unit.

Cosmano's wife, Nancy, said she was shocked by the arrest. She said her husband is not connected to the mob and is innocent of the murder.

Cosmano has five children age 14 to 29 from two marriages, she said. The oldest of four children, Cosmano started his pizza business 30 years ago with money he made on a real-estate deal. He also works part time as a security guard, she said, and the family regularly attends church. The family moved to Naperville 10 years ago.

"We do believe the truth will come to the surface," she said.

Cosmano was convicted of misdemeanor battery in Lombard in 1990 for which he received court supervision, according to court records.

His attorney, Anthony Onesto, said the rumors about Cosmano's ties to organized crime are unsubstantiated.

"It's unfortunate that anyone whose name ends in a vowel is connected with organized crime," Onesto said at the court hearing.

Onesto also said that Cosmano was included in a police lineup after the 1981 murder and that two eyewitnesses failed to identify him as the gunman at the time.

Thrun said the two witnesses who took part in that lineup are not among the same witnesses who came forward now.

Thanks to Robert Mitchum, Angela Rozas, James Kimberly

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Reputed High-Ranking Gambino Figure Among 23 Named in Racketeering Indictment

A man the feds call one of the highest-ranking members of the Gambino crime family in New Jersey was among 23 people named Thursday in a racketeering indictment.

Andrew Merola, 41, of East Hanover was arrested and charged in an 82-page indictment with more than 20 counts that include running an illegal gambling ring, racketeering and extortion, among other charges.

Of the 23 people named in the indictment, 10 were arrested Thursday; the other 13 were issued summonses to appear in court.

Weysan Dun, the special agent in charge of the FBI in New Jersey, said all 23 people named in the indictment are reputed members and associates of Mafia factions. Also picked up in the sweep were Charles Muccigrosso, 68, of Newark, whom the FBI also described as a high-ranking Gambino crime family member, and Martin Taccetta, 56, of East Hanover, a reputed Lucchese crime family member who was granted a retrial in state court over a brutal 1980s murder.

Dun said the arrests were the result of a nearly two-year investigation. He said the bust would deal a significant blow to the Gambino crime family, coming on the heels of a large bust in New York that netted dozens of Gambino figures in February.

"Those out there in the 'wiseguy' community that think that crime pays: Forget about it," Dun said.

Some of the alleged schemes outlined in the indictment include manipulating union contract bidding; defrauding the chain store Lowe's by manufacturing fake bar codes to buy expensive power tools for pennies on the dollar, and rigging union jobs and construction contracts to force coffee cart vendors to pay kickbacks for being allowed to park their lunch trucks at construction sites.

Dun said that although the charges didn't involve physical violence, they were serious crimes that hurt honest working people.

"The message I hope organized crime families take from this is if they think law enforcement's focus on organized crime has diminished, you can be assured that we'll come after you," he said.

Thanks to Samantha Henry

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