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.'
Monday, May 12, 2008
Friday, May 09, 2008
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
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
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
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
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
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
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Was Marilyn Monroe Whacked by the Chicago Mob?
The I-Team looked into one of Chicago's most feared mob hit men, Frank "The German" Schweihs and whether he was behind the mysterious death of Hollywood legend, Marilyn Monroe in 1962.
Frank Schweihs' cancer kept him from being tried with the rest of the family secrets clan last summer. But on Thursday morning in federal court, prosecutors will proceed with their plans to try Schweihs this fall on charges of mob crimes and murder.
There won't be paparazzi nor any mention of Marilyn Monroe
, even though her death and the death of a Chicago manicurist have been pinned on Schweihs.
In Chicago in 1962, the Dan Ryan Expressway opened. Mayor Richard J. Daley was in his second term. Integration started in the Chicago schools. The Cubs lost 101 games. And Frank Schweihs was a rising star in the Outfit, living in the west suburban home of his Outfit boss. By '62, Schweihs had been arrested as often as his age - he was 32 years old - for crimes from burglary to homicide. But he seemed to carry a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Even though he was German, Schweihs hung out in Greektown and it may have been during a night out there that he met a tall, slender 18-year-old manicurist, Eugenia Pappas. They called her Becca. They began to date to the dismay of her family.
"My sister came to see me eight days before she was murdered and I said, 'Please don't be involved with anyone like that because when you die, they just step over your body,'" said sister Diane Pappas.
It was advice not taken. Becca's body was found floating in the Chicago River. She had been shot through the heart, according to police, while sitting in the passenger seat of a car. Chicago detective Richard Cain, who led that investigation, was himself secretly on the mob's payroll. Schweihs was questioned but never charged.
Diane Pappas said she doesn't know what Schweihs' motive would've been.
"I wouldn't know. She was a naive 18-year old girl and that's all I know. She was smitten with him," Diane Pappas said.
The Pappas family cringed at reporting that Outfit bosses had ordered Schweihs to silence Becca because he had told her about his role in another murder.
A 1993 book about Marilyn Monroe, written by an L.A. private eye, concludes that "Eugenia Pappas found out about Marilyn Monroe," from Schweihs, who was then ordered to kill her. Whether that is true, Monroe's death was never officially ruled a suicide due to lack of evidence. Many investigators believe Monroe was *murdered* by the Chicago Outfit because of her connections to the Kennedy family and Chicago mob boss Sam "Momo" Giancana.
A police informant reportedly stated that Giancana deployed Schweihs and Anthony "Ant" Spilotro to kill Marilyn Monroe and make it look like a drug overdose.
John Flood spent 41 years in metro-Chicago law enforcement, most with the Cook County sheriff's police. He is now retired in Las Vegas and is considered an Outfit expert. Flood says there's a possibility they were involved because of the close relationship of Giancana, the Chicago boss, and Frank Sinatra. They would meet in Reno.
Flood says Schweihs, or Schways as he knew him, was the prime suspect in dozens of gangland hits.
"A cold-blooded, tough killer who would murder anyone if ordered to," Flood said of Schweihs.
In 1989, Schweihs was convicted of shaking down porno store owners and was recorded on an FBI tape boasting that he was the boss and no one else.
When the Family Secrets indictments were handed up in 2005, Schweihs went into hiding and was finally arrested in a Kentucky apartment house at age 76, living with a girlfriend, while his long-ago girlfriend can never rest in peace.
"How is that justice? Walking around for 45 years doing horrible deeds like he's always done? That's very unfortunate," said Diane Pappas. "I hope he goes to jail for the rest of his life and suffers pain with the cancer."
And after 45 years, Diane Pappas heeded the suggestion of her late husband, a career Chicago cop, not to be too public in accusing Frank Schweihs. A crotchety, bad tempered hoodlum, Schweihs has never buckled under the weight of authority and will likely take to his grave, whatever he may know about a Hollywood death that stunned the world and a Chicago murder that has divested a family.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
Frank Schweihs' cancer kept him from being tried with the rest of the family secrets clan last summer. But on Thursday morning in federal court, prosecutors will proceed with their plans to try Schweihs this fall on charges of mob crimes and murder.
There won't be paparazzi nor any mention of Marilyn Monroe
, even though her death and the death of a Chicago manicurist have been pinned on Schweihs.In Chicago in 1962, the Dan Ryan Expressway opened. Mayor Richard J. Daley was in his second term. Integration started in the Chicago schools. The Cubs lost 101 games. And Frank Schweihs was a rising star in the Outfit, living in the west suburban home of his Outfit boss. By '62, Schweihs had been arrested as often as his age - he was 32 years old - for crimes from burglary to homicide. But he seemed to carry a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Even though he was German, Schweihs hung out in Greektown and it may have been during a night out there that he met a tall, slender 18-year-old manicurist, Eugenia Pappas. They called her Becca. They began to date to the dismay of her family.
"My sister came to see me eight days before she was murdered and I said, 'Please don't be involved with anyone like that because when you die, they just step over your body,'" said sister Diane Pappas.
It was advice not taken. Becca's body was found floating in the Chicago River. She had been shot through the heart, according to police, while sitting in the passenger seat of a car. Chicago detective Richard Cain, who led that investigation, was himself secretly on the mob's payroll. Schweihs was questioned but never charged.
Diane Pappas said she doesn't know what Schweihs' motive would've been.
"I wouldn't know. She was a naive 18-year old girl and that's all I know. She was smitten with him," Diane Pappas said.
The Pappas family cringed at reporting that Outfit bosses had ordered Schweihs to silence Becca because he had told her about his role in another murder.
A 1993 book about Marilyn Monroe, written by an L.A. private eye, concludes that "Eugenia Pappas found out about Marilyn Monroe," from Schweihs, who was then ordered to kill her. Whether that is true, Monroe's death was never officially ruled a suicide due to lack of evidence. Many investigators believe Monroe was *murdered* by the Chicago Outfit because of her connections to the Kennedy family and Chicago mob boss Sam "Momo" Giancana.
A police informant reportedly stated that Giancana deployed Schweihs and Anthony "Ant" Spilotro to kill Marilyn Monroe and make it look like a drug overdose.John Flood spent 41 years in metro-Chicago law enforcement, most with the Cook County sheriff's police. He is now retired in Las Vegas and is considered an Outfit expert. Flood says there's a possibility they were involved because of the close relationship of Giancana, the Chicago boss, and Frank Sinatra. They would meet in Reno.
Flood says Schweihs, or Schways as he knew him, was the prime suspect in dozens of gangland hits.
"A cold-blooded, tough killer who would murder anyone if ordered to," Flood said of Schweihs.
In 1989, Schweihs was convicted of shaking down porno store owners and was recorded on an FBI tape boasting that he was the boss and no one else.
When the Family Secrets indictments were handed up in 2005, Schweihs went into hiding and was finally arrested in a Kentucky apartment house at age 76, living with a girlfriend, while his long-ago girlfriend can never rest in peace.
"How is that justice? Walking around for 45 years doing horrible deeds like he's always done? That's very unfortunate," said Diane Pappas. "I hope he goes to jail for the rest of his life and suffers pain with the cancer."
And after 45 years, Diane Pappas heeded the suggestion of her late husband, a career Chicago cop, not to be too public in accusing Frank Schweihs. A crotchety, bad tempered hoodlum, Schweihs has never buckled under the weight of authority and will likely take to his grave, whatever he may know about a Hollywood death that stunned the world and a Chicago murder that has divested a family.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
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