Junior Gotti Explodes in Court

And on the seventh day, he lost it.

An enraged John A. (Junior) Gotti exploded Thursday, fed up after a week's worth of damning testimony from his ex-best friend - reportedly threatening to murder the mob informant in a Manhattan courtroom.

"I'll kill you," Gotti mouthed at John Alite just before the once inseparable duo shared a high-decibel Mafia meltdown in front of a stunned audience.

Jurors didn't see Gotti send that silent message to Alite, and they were ushered out of the courtroom before the real fireworks minutes later.

As Alite stepped down from the witness stand, he slowed and snarled at Gotti.

"You got something to say to me?" the star government witness barked, later telling the judge about the threat.

"You fag!" Gotti shouted back. "Did I kill little girls? You're a punk. You're a dog. You're a dog. You always were a dog your whole life, you punk dog."

The ugly encounter in federal court came after Alite blamed one of Gotti's uncles for a murder in the early 1990s.

The testimony enraged Gotti, who shouted at Alite while court officers intervened.

"You want to strangle little girls in a motel?" Gotti screamed as Alite was led away. "You dog!"

Alite had just testified that Vincent Gotti had strangled a young woman in a drug-fueled fight and left her body in a Queens motel bathtub.

Defense lawyer Charles Carnesi suggested Alite was the real killer.

"Ridiculous," said Alite, laughing. "His uncle, yes, strangled somebody and killed her. ... I wasn't there."

Alite confirmed that Junior was later blamed for the slaying, infuriating the Gambino boss.

Gotti, 45, facing his fourth racketeering trial, apologized for mouthing off, but federal Judge Kevin Castel was not moved by the mea culpa and said another outburst would land him in contempt.

"You are not doing yourself any favors, and you violated my direction," said Castel, who had warned Gotti during jury selection to keep his mouth shut.

Castel said he did not see Gotti mouth the threat at Alite, but accepted Prosecutor Elie Honig's claim that a U.S. Marshal saw Gotti do it.

"He lipped to me, 'We're gonna kill you,'" Alite told the judge. "So I said, 'What?' And he said, 'We're gonna kill you.'"

Gotti's mother, Victoria, said Alite went after her son because Carnesi was getting too close to the truth. Carnesi had forced Alite to recount hundreds of lies he had made - to the government, lawyers, family and friends - as he tried to worm his way out of a life sentence.

"Alite is a pathological liar - a rat caught in a proverbial trap, caught in his own lies, and he lashed out," she said.

The ex-friends ignored one another when they returned to court later in the day.

Thanks to Alison Gendar and Larry Mcshane

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Honeymoon in Hawaii Ends with Arrest of Reputed Mobster

An alleged Mafia associate was arrested on racketeering charges while on his honeymoon in Honolulu.

Twenty-seven-year-old Vito Pipitone is in custody awaiting a federal judge's decision on whether he may return to New York on $50,000 bail or be extradited.

A grand jury returned a 33-count indictment last month charging 15 members and associates of the Bonanno organized crime family. It accuses them of various racketeering charges, including extortion, bank fraud, narcotics trafficking and assault.

Pipitone turned himself in Wednesday after learning his brother and others had been arrested.

Authorities say Pipitone, his brother and three others stabbed and beat two men in October 2004 whom they believed had broken windows of a protected restaurant in Queens.

Thanks to AP

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The Mafia Takes Over The Bank at Bellagio

The mob may no longer run Las Vegas but the mafia took over The Bank at Bellagio last night.

Three 6 Mafia, that is.

The Academy Award-winning group was at the glamorous nightspot Thursday night to shoot a music video for their upcoming single, “Feel It.”

Camera crews followed the rappers as they made their way through the crowd, singing along to the pre-recorded track.

Meanwhile, house DJ Eddie McDonald urged clubgoers to get in on the action and out onto the dance floor.

It all took place just after 12:30 a.m. this morning and, after a few takes, the Three 6 boys called it a wrap and retired to the VIP while Dutch DJ sensation Tiesto took over.

Three 6 Mafia will return to The Bank’s sister club at the Mirage, Jet, on Monday. Instead of shooting a music video, though, the group will kick-off the workweek with a live performance.

Thanks to Melissa Arseniuk

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The Making of "Chicago Overcoat"

Chris Charles says he warned his star up front: "But I don't think it really registered till his first day of shooting in downtown Chicago."

Charles had cast Frank Vincent as the lead in Chicago Overcoat, an independent drama that received its world premiere Saturday, October 10, at the Chicago International Film Festival. Known almost exclusively for playing gangsters—including New York crime boss Phil Leotardo on The Sopranos and Billy Batts, who ends up in a trunk in Goodfellas—Vincent, 70, got to the set in October 2007 and realized that most of the crew were in their early 20s. "He's looking around like, 'Where'd all these kids come from?'" says Charles, who's now 25.

Chicago Overcoat was the first full-length feature produced by Beverly Ridge Pictures, a company formed in 2005 by six Columbia College film students, including Charles. Writer-director Brian Caunter, now 26, and writer-producer John Bosher, now 25, developed a sideline producing promotional and music videos while roommates at Columbia. Their "booty video," as Caunter calls it, for Joe Glass & IROC's "Two" got heavy rotation on BET Uncut in 2004. The next year, Caunter and Bosher joined forces with Charles, Philip Plowden, Kevin Moss, and William Maursky to form Beverly Ridge, named after Moss's far-south-side neighborhood. "The name sounds Hollywood, but it's also kind of Chicago," Caunter explains. They used Givens Castle, a Beverly landmark, as their logo. Charles directed Beverly Ridge's first production, a short adaptation of the Ray Bradbury short story "The Small Assassin."

In 2006 the six friends worked on a low-budget thriller called The Devil's Dominoes, directed by Scott Prestin, owner of the now-defunct Wicker Park bar Ginbucks. "We realized from that experience that we were more prepared than we thought to make a feature," Charles says. They were all fans of gangster films and figured they could make one without incurring a lot of extra production costs by taking advantage of Chicago locations.

"For months all we had was a title," says Caunter. His grandmother in Ohio had suggested "Chicago Overcoat," Prohibition-era slang for a coffin. The Family Secrets mob trials were in the headlines at the time and wound up providing inspiration for the screenplay.

Vincent plays Lou Marazano, an old hit man for the Chicago Outfit, who accepts his first contract in years—going after witnesses in a union pension-fund embezzlement case—to finance his Vegas retirement. Another Goodfellas vet, Mike Starr, is the underboss who exploits Marazano's money troubles. Another Sopranos alum, Kathrine Narducci, plays Marazano's old flame and alibi. Armand Assante plays the jailed boss facing trial. Chicago-based actor Danny Goldring is the alcoholic detective who's been chasing Marazano since the 1980s. And Stacy Keach does a cameo as a retired investigator pulled off the case when he got too close to city corruption.

"We were huge fans of The Sopranos," Caunter says. "We decided to write the script with Frank Vincent in mind so when he read it he'd feel like the main character is Frank Vincent. His book A Guy's Guide to Being a Man's Man was our character outline." The partners figured that "if we could create roles from scratch for celebrities, knowing they'd want to play something different, something challenging, we'd have an easier time recruiting them," Charles says. "We usually see Frank as a high-rolling mobster, higher on the food chain. In this film he's very humbled, very flawed, taking orders from guys younger than him."

Charles got the script to Vincent's people, and Vincent responded even though it came from unknowns in flyover country. "What appealed to me was the sensitivity of playing the softer side of a mob guy," Vincent says, "a guy who's not in control, who's looking to get the control." Vincent says he met a lot of mafiosi while touring as a drummer for Del Shannon and Paul Anka in the 1960s, helping him perfect a persona he's portrayed in Scorsese masterpieces and B movies alike. "They all have a way of looking at you, of intimidating you," Vincent says. "They're all evil. I can give a look or a stare that people read as evil."

Caunter and Charles signed Vincent at a place called Goodfellas Ristorante near his New Jersey home. "Frank walked in in a jumpsuit with a gold chain, looking like he walked off the set of The Sopranos," Charles says.

Once Vincent signed on, the other leads followed. Joe Mantegna was cast as the detective but dropped out weeks before shooting to take a role on CBS's Criminal Minds. "That was tough," Charles says. "I'd worked very hard to cast Joe." Goldring, who played the last clown killed in the opening bank heist sequence of The Dark Knight, stepped in. "They're so young, but they really got the writing for old-timers down," Goldring says.

The mother of cinematographer Kevin Moss, JoAnne Moss, who runs a real estate title insurance firm, personally invested "hundreds of thousands of dollars" and helped raise the rest of the $2 million budget, according to a report in Crain's Chicago Business. "Originally it was a smaller film. But as we found some success attaching talent, the budget increased," Charles says. "The project just kept getting bigger."

The filmmakers' youth "concerned me, absolutely," Vincent says. "They were younger than my kids. I've never experienced that before in all the films I've done, such a young team. . . . I figured if they were going to screw up, they'd screw up right away. As we progressed into the shoot, it became clear that they really knew what they wanted, and that was enough to make me confident."

Caunter, who turned 24 during the shoot, says he felt like "a chicken with its head cut off. Most of the time you have no idea what's going on. You feel like the world is going to end. You shoot for 12 hours, you come home and feel like you failed. The next day you feel like you want to redeem yourself. I think that's what makes a good movie—the struggle. If everything went your way it might feel kind of washy. I never had that experience, so I don't know."

The biggest adjustment for Caunter was learning to adapt to each actor's approach. "Frank is quite easygoing," he says. "Armand is the polar opposite. Armand would scream obscenities at the top of his lungs before the take. That alone would scare half the set, and then we'd roll the camera."

"They turned me loose," says Goldring. "That can be a dangerous thing for any actor, but they also had the good sense to rein me in. I'm a passion merchant. Doing Chicago Overcoat allowed me to let my passions out. The [character] is . . . ornery. He likes to tip back a few. Even though I don't do that anymore, I can play one on TV."

Accusations of ethnic stereotyping have dogged many of Vincent's projects. Last spring, MillerCoors pulled a series of ads featuring Vincent and Starr as mobsters after complaints from the Order Sons of Italy in America. Chicago Overcoat is no exception. After principal photography wrapped in November 2007, Bosher got an e-mail from Bill Dal Cerro of the advocacy group Italic Institute of America. Dal Cerro wrote, "It saddens—and yes, sickens me—that you are reverting to the oldest game in the book in your quest for Hollywood fame: namely, stoking prejudice against Americans of Italian descent by producing yet another pointless Italian 'mob' movie."

"I told him they can't force us to stop making movies that people want to see," Bosher says. "They have to change people's minds." Let them protest, adds Vincent, who sells "mobbleheads" of his Goodfellas character on his Web site. "It'll do the movie good."

It's going to be tough to recover the $2 million budget in today's independent film market, which is arguably in a deeper slump than the rest of the economy. Todd Slater of LA-based Huntsman Entertainment is shopping the film to distributors. "We've had a lot of offers from smaller companies," Charles says. "We've been waiting patiently for the right buyer. We want an offer we can't refuse."

Thanks to Ed M. Koziarski

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"Chicago Overcoat" Film Locations

In "Chicago Overcoat," Lou Marazano (Frank Vincent), a has-been hit man who hung up his weapons in the 1980s, comes out of retirement 20 years later to resume his career as a triggerman for the Chicago Outfit. John Bosher, who co-wrote the movie with fellow alums from Columbia College Chicago, says they looked for locations that represented the gritty underbelly of Chicago. Here are descriptions of a few of the more than 50 locations of the film, which is being screened as part of the Chicago International Film Festival, gathered from a phone interview with Bosher.

--Franco's Ristorante, 300 W. 31st St.: This corner spot in Bridgeport is used for exterior shots of the place where the gangsters hang out.

Cobra Lounge, 235 N. Ashland Ave.: The filmmakers removed the modern-day decor of this late-night spot and transformed it into a gathering place for the gangsters that looks like a 1980s strip club. Additions included poles for the strippers and a stage with a glass floor lit from below.

La Villa Restaurant & Banquet, 3636 N. Pulaski Rd.: This Italian restaurant stands in for the interior of Franco's Ristorante.

Nicky's Carry Out, 3501 S. Western Ave.: Lou takes his young grandson to this small McKinley Park spot to introduce him to a Chicago-style hot dog and a serving of life's lessons.

George's Automotive Repair, 3209 W. Barry Ave.: Lou and a young member of his crew mosey in to this neighborhood shop to shake down the owner. They do a bit of damage when he refuses to pay a street tax.

Alley at Franklin and Superior streets: Dumpsters stand against the brick wall of this dark alley where Lou gets back to work as a hit man.

Under the Dan Ryan Expressway at Cermak Road and Halsted Street: Imposing columns tower over this secluded space where Lou has a rendezvous with disgruntled members of the Outfit. The filmmakers wanted to give the shoot-out the feel of a scene in a Hollywood Western.

Police station, 2259 S. Damen Ave.: An abandoned Chicago Police station was cleaned up, furnished and rehabbed as a room where Lou is interrogated and placed in a lineup. Windows that had been boarded up were opened, and a Metro Police station sign was put up so as not to confuse the fictional police officers who behave badly in the film with Chicago's finest.

Thanks to Nancy Maes

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