Martin Scorcese to direct Frank Sinatra biopic

Martin Scorsese, the Oscar-winning director, is to make a film about Frank Sinatra's life. After two years of wrangling with the singer's family on how to tell his colourful story. Sinatra has been portrayed several times on screen, including by Ray Liotta in the 1998 film The Rat Pack, but there has never been a feature film devoted to his life.
No actor has yet been announced for the lead role but initial speculation has focused on Leonardo Di Caprio, who has starred in four previous Scorsese films. Cathy Schulman, the co-producer of the new film, provisionally titled "Sinatra", said it would be "an unconventional biopic". It remains to be seen how Scorsese, like Sinatra an Italian-American, tackles the most contentious area of the singer's life – his reported links with the Mafia.While Scorsese has made several Mob-related films such as Goodfellas, the involvement of Sinatra's family – his daughter, Tina, is executive producer in the new project – has prompted speculation that it will steer clear of this area.
"In any family, you're dealing with a precious life, and in this case, you're dealing with an extraordinary life," said Miss Schulman.
"We knew Scorsese would lead the troops to a true, fair, exciting and entertaining portrait of the man."
A screenplay, based on 30,000 pages of research, has been written by Phil Alden Robinson, who won an Oscar nomination for Field of Dreams, the sentimental Kevin Costner film about an Iowa farmer who builds a baseball pitch in a field.
"It's not a cradle-to-the-grave traditional portrait of the consecutive events in a man's life," said Miss Schulman, president of Mandalay Pictures, which is making the film with Universal Pictures. "Instead, it's more of a collage and, in many ways, it will feel like an album itself. It's a collection of various moments and impressions in his life and together we hope they'll tell the full story and present full themes."
It took two years to secure the rights to Sinatra's life and music.
Warner Music Group and the Sinatra estate are partners on the project.
Sinatra's daughter, Tina, said it was "personally pleasing" to know Scorsese would oversee the celluloid version of her father's life story.
The FBI kept a file on Sinatra for decades, detailing his heavy drinking, bouts of depression, liaisons with prostitutes and his friendship with various Mafia bosses.
The singer and actor, who died in 1998, performed on more than 1,400 musical recordings, was awarded 31 gold records and earned 10 Grammys.
He made his first recording in 1939 and continued recording almost until his death, being responsible for such classics as "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way".
He also appeared in 58 films and won a supporting-actor Oscar for From Here to Eternity in 1953.

Compulsive gambler and loser may have lost his bet as FBI informant

Mafia Cops

Las Vegas has always been an attractive place for the hail-fellow, the hustler, and the man on the make.
With its shadowy history, seductive setting and proximity to a limitless river of cash, it brims with dreamers, scufflers and schemers. It's a spot where a guy who knows a guy can make a good living.

It was perhaps the ideal spot for the FBI to turn a man like Stephen Corso loose with a recording device. By all accounts, Corso was the street-wise guy Las Vegas tourists fantasize about and most locals rarely experience, the one who exists in dimly lighted bars and nondescript strip mall offices

Corso was an accountant by training, a salesman by calling, and a high-rolling degenerate gambler by compulsion when he got caught swiping clients' money to feed his blackjack Jones and penthouse lifestyle. He spent $5 million that didn't belong to him and was on his way to a prison stretch when he began cooperating with the FBI in 2002.

From what I've pieced together from public documents and street sources, the smooth-talking accountant found his true calling as an undercover informant. Reliable sources say Corso worked his way into the local mob scene and pulled the pants off some very experienced wiseguys.

According to a federal document from the Eastern District of Virginia, where Corso's efforts helped nail securities attorney David Stocker on a "pump and dump" stock manipulation scheme with connections reaching into the Securities and Exchange Commission, the accountant was a one-man La Cosa Nostra census worker.

"He provided information related to the activities of individuals with ties to several LCN organized crime families to include: the Chicago Outfit, Lucchese LCN, Bonanno LCN, Genovese LCN, Colombo LCN, Philadelphia LCN, Decavalcante LCN, and Gambino LCN," the document states. "Corso was also instrumental in providing FBI agents with information on individuals with ties to Russian organized crime, Youngstown, Ohio gangsters, and the Irish Mob which exists in the Boston, Mass. area."

Sounds like the guy did everything but dig up Jimmy Hoffa. Corso back-slapped his way into the Las Vegas underworld, then used his accounting and tax preparation skills to give the wiseguys a financial endoscopic treatment

He played an integral role in sealing the deal in the lengthy "Mafia Cops" case, in which Las Vegas residents and former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were found guilty of acting as contract killers for the Lucchese crime family. Corso's work in Las Vegas proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Mafia Cops continued their criminal conspiracy years after leaving New York.

Corso's testimony was critical to the ... conclusion that the conspiracy continued into the limitations period," one government document states.

It's as simple as this: No Corso, no Mafia Cops conviction.

And it will be intriguing to see whether the government gets a victory in a related drug case involving Eppolito's son, Anthony Eppolito, and Guido Bravatti now that Corso has been sentenced to a year and a day for his own transgressions.

It's also been reported Corso worked in connection with the Crazy Horse Too investigation. I imagine former Crazy Horse official Bobby D'Apice, who now resides at government expense, won't be sending his former tax consultant, Corso, a letter of reference

.
At his February sentencing in Connecticut, U.S. District Judge Janet Hall seemed almost apologetic. Although she called Corso's crime "an extraordinary violation of trust," she admitted, "I can't find the words to describe the value, at least in my judgment, of this cooperation."

thanks John L. Smith Las Vegas Review Journal

ADRENALINE RUSH- FBI Bob Hamer- LasVegas Review Journal

R-J columnist John L. Smith talks to author and retired undercover agent Bob Hamer about life in the FBI

EDITOR'S NOTE: This partial interview by Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith with retired FBI undercover agent and author Bob Hamerere http://www.lvrj.com/living/38776657.html . . Listen play first aired in its entirety Jan. 21 on KNPR-FM, 88.9 "KNPR's State of Nevada." A recording of the interview is available online at knpr.org.
JOHN L. SMITH: Thanks to television cop shows and movies such as "Donnie Brasco," the public has an image of the undercover investigator that borders on caricature. Hard-drinking, wisecracking, two-fisted and ready to shoot first and then start the interrogation

Bob Hamer shatters the stereotypes.

Hamer was a U.S. Marine and an attorney when he joined the FBI back before it was known as an agency that specialized in undercover operations. He soon found his niche and began working against some of the darkest forces in the American underbelly: the Mafia, violent street gangs, international money laundering rings and the North American Man/Boy Love Association.
Hamer has hammered them all, winning new convictions and carving out a career that is the subject of his new book, "The Last Undercover: The True Story of An FBI Agent's Dangerous Dance With Evil."
BOB HAMER: I was an attorney. I reluctantly say that. I spent four years in the Marine Corps. I went on active duty in the Marines after graduating law school, and I think I really saw myself after law school as being this high-powered trial attorney that was fighting crime and corruption at every turn.
I got into the Marine Corps, had 150 trials, everything ranging from unauthorized absence to murder, and really did not find any excitement at all in being an attorney. It didn't grab me. Probably for one I wasn't really as good as I thought I was. But every case came down to whether the confession was admissible, whether the case was legal. There were never any whodunits. (Hamer found a new home in the FBI as an undercover agent.)
SMITH: How did you get there and what did you find so fascinating about it?
HAMER: It is actually kind of a limited field even within the FBI. There are currently about 12,700 special agents in the FBI, and maybe only a couple hundred that are what they call certified FBI undercover agents, those that have been selected, have attended the school and have undergone all the psychological screening and then are dubbed undercover agents. So, you're right, it's a pretty limited field. I got into it well before they had all of the screening process. I'm not sure now if I went into it now I could even pass it. But back when I first started. I actually joined the Bureau in 1979, went through the four-month academy, and then reported to the San Diego office in 1980.
Within about six months I was already undercover. Now it requires several years of actual experience as a street agent before you can even apply to the undercover program. So I was there at a time you essentially raised your hand and said 'Yeah, I'll try this.' ... I think it just seemed like the excitement that I was looking for that I didn't find in the courtroom. And trust me after that very first undercover meeting that I had, that adrenaline rush was, I'm assuming, since I'm not a drug addict, that it's the equivalent of the heroin rush that people talk about. I mean I was chasing that adrenaline dragon the rest of my career. I loved it. I loved that rush. I loved that idea of going face to face with the bad guys, of convincing him that you are who you say you are and that you're playing this role. I really relished it. Very early in my career I got hooked on that and continued it throughout my career.
SMITH: Let's talk about one of those early stops. This is where our paths cross at some level.
I wrote a book called "The Animal in Hollywood" about a very tough guy in the L.A. mob, Anthony Fiato, and his experience both as a criminal and as a cooperating witness. You worked in the middle of his world. ... Can you talk a little bit about working La Cosa Nostra in those days in Los Angeles. L.A. is a very big place, but the mobsters weren't too hard to find, I assume, they were just hard to catch.
HAMER: The difference between L.A. and a lot of cities is we didn't have a Little Italy. L.A. had Little Tokyo, they sort of have a Little Saigon. There are a lot of different ethnic communities there, but the Italian family wasn't maybe as strong as maybe they were in other major cities. And as you well know they were sometimes dubbed as the Mickey Mouse Mafia. But they had some pretty significant key players that were involved. They reported to the Commission. They were legitimate La Cosa Nostra, Mafia guys as most of us refer to them. And Anthony Fiato was a major player in that whole organized crime scene.
I worked it both from a case agent perspective, when we were actually targeting Fiato, sat in on hours and hours of wiretaps when we were actually listening to his conversations. And then eventually, when we put together a pretty significant case, he decided to cooperate with the FBI and it was he and his brother Larry who actually introduced me into the L.A. Mafia family.
read full story here http://www.lvrj.com/living/38776657.html . . Listen play

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith/.

A Mob Sequel to film "The Departed "

By Suzanne Smalley and Evan Thomas NEWSWEEK


For many years, John Connolly was the FBI's most effective Mafia investigator in Boston. He has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard. He says his "hero" is Bobby Kennedy and points to his family's devotion to public service (his brother is a retired DEA agent, and his sister became a teacher). But when he met last week with a NEWSWEEK REPORTER at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami, he was wearing shackles around his ankles. Once dashing and athletic, the 68-year-old Connolly was stooped and pot-bellied in his bright-red prison jumpsuit. His skin was paper-thin and white from lack of sunlight. For the past three and a half years, he has lived in a tiny, 10- by 12-foot cinder-block cell; his food is slipped to him through a slot in the heavy metal door. He is kept in solitary confinement for his own protection: a few years ago, Connolly says, another former FBI agent was badly beaten by inmates in the same jail.

Speaking with the reporter in a holding room, Connolly was grandfatherly, intelligent, emotional. "Believe me, I am innocent!" he declared, pumping his fist in the air. "I'm a Catholic. I say the rosary every day and pray for my innocence. I pray to Saint Jude, the saint of hopeless causes, and to Saint Rita, the saint of the impossible." His cause is not entirely hopeless: last week the judge postponed his sentencing for murder in the second degree to next month to consider the defense's argument that the statute of limitations had elapsed. But there is still a chance that Connolly will never emerge from prison to see his wife and three kids.


If Connolly's story sounds like the stuff of movies, that's because it is. In Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning film "The Departed," Matt Damon plays the role of a cop who works as a mole for the mob; the Damon character is widely believed to be based on Connolly. Jack Nicholson plays a role loosely based on the life of James (Whitey) Bulger an Irish mob kingpin from South Boston who secretly cooperated with the FBI against his rivals in the Italian Mafia. The subtext—in fiction as well as in real life—is the sometimes fine line between power for good and for evil.



In 2002 Connolly was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison on racketeering and obstruction-of-justice charges stemming from allegations that in 1995 he had tipped off Bulger and one of his henchmen, Stephen Flemmi (nicknamed "the Rifleman" for his expert marksmanship in the Korean War), right before they were indicted for racketeering. Bulger vanished. (He was last reliably spotted at London's Piccadilly Circus in 2002.) Flemmi dallied and was caught. In return for avoiding a death sentence for separate murder charges, Flemmi ultimately began cooperating with the government.

According to the Feds, Connolly not only helped Bulger escape but was also a spider in a tangled web of gangland slayings. In 2005 he was charged with three murder counts in connection with the death of John B. Callahan, a Boston jai alai executive who liked to drink and hang around with mobsters. In 1982 Callahan's rotting, bullet ridden body was found stuffed in the trunk of his Cadillac at Miami International Airport. A dime was found on the body—a message, some speculated, to those who would think of "dropping a dime," street parlance for cooperating with the Feds. The government charged that Connolly had let Bulger and his crew know that the FBI wanted to question Callahan about the slaying of another jai alai executive, Roger Wheeler, who had been snuffed by a member of Bulger's Winter Hill Gang. At Connolly's trial this fall, the prosecutor argued that Connolly should have known that Callahan would be killed because something similar had happened at least twice before. The Feds assert that in 1976, after Connolly allegedly leaked to Bulger that the nightclub owner and bookie Richard Castucci was an informant for the FBI, Castucci was shot to death. In another case, Edward (Brian) Halloran and an uninvolved friend were slain, execution style, while standing outside a bar on Boston's waterfront in 1982—allegedly because Connolly had told Bulger that Halloran was cooperating with the Feds



The star witnesses testifying against Connolly in his murder trial were Flemmi and John Martorano, a mob assassin known as the Basin Street Butcher who has admitted to killing 20 people. He is out of prison after serving a 12-year sentence, shortened because he agreed to testify for the government. In his jailhouse interview with NEWSWEEK, Connolly claimed that Martorano and other mobsters turned government witnesses were lying: "They're trying to save their own skin. They're like trained seals … Martorano never met me, never spoke to me … Everything he says is hearsay." (Flemmi claimed he was at a meeting—attended by Connolly—at which Bulger announced that Martorano would "take care of" Callahan, the jai alai exec.) The government presented evidence alleging that Connolly had received bribes totaling $235,000 from Bulger's gang—enough, prosecutors say, to buy a boat that cost almost as much as Connolly's annual FBI salary. (Assistant State Attorney Michael Von Zampf told NEWSWEEK THAT Connolly was so close to Bulger that he vacationed with him in Mexico.) Connolly's lawyer, Manuel Casabielle, says the idea that his client took bribes is "absolutely, categorically untrue." He adds that the defense was able to document in court that all of Connolly's assets were purchased with legitimate earnings

In his conversation with NEWSWEEK, Connolly protested that government investigators have to get close to their high-level informants, who are typically bad people, because that is the only way to penetrate secret criminal organizations or terrorist cells. While the government portrays him as a single rogue agent, Connolly describes himself as a "scapegoat." Even Von Zampf admits the FBI's Boston office was permeated by corruption; he says he believes other agents knew Connolly was taking money from Bulger but didn't act. A former FBI agent testifying for the defense admitted that Connolly delivered Christmas gifts from mobsters to him—a black leather briefcase, an expensive figurine, a bottle of cognac. Connolly's FBI supervisor has admitted receiving $7,000, some of which was delivered in a case of wine from the mob via Connolly. (The supervisor, John Morris, was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying.) It is commonplace and necessary for federal agents to use criminal informants to crack criminal conspiracies. But "you don't have informants at the top of the food chain," says Rick Fraelick, a retired Massachusetts State Police major, who attended part of the trial because he said Connolly compromised his own probes of Bulger's gang. "The whole point of an informant is to get to the top of the food chain." Maybe so, but as "The Departed" portrayed, life in ethnic melting pots like South Boston can be complicated



Connolly grew up in the same grim housing project in "Southie" as Bulger did. As they rise out of poverty, proud and ambitious men can make different choices. Whitey Bulger's brother Billy became president of the Massachusetts state Senate and the University of Massachusetts. Connolly recruited Whitey on a beach in Quincy in 1975. At the time, Bulger was afraid he had been targeted by the Mafia and wanted some cover. In addition to a lot of useful tips about the Italian mob, Connolly seems to have gotten a charge from hanging around a colorful and smart (if wicked) character like Bulger. But the game turned ugly. Connolly said that the Feds made a deal with Bulger to turn a blind eye to his gambling and loan-sharking—but betrayed him by bringing racketeering charges in 1995. By then, Connolly says, he feared Bulger would come after his family. Connolly says he never crossed the line in helping Bulger. But in Boston's byzantine world of cops and mobsters, where morals are murky and tribal loyalties are strong, lines separating good from evil can be blurry indeed from Newsweek.com

Big Mob Boss

One of the world’s most feared mafia bosses accused of arms dealing, drug running, uranium trafficking and multiple murders has been captured by around 50 police commandos in Moscow

The pock-marked Semyon Mogilevich, known as the “Brainy Don” because of his economics degree, has reportedly ruled a powerful Eastern European organised crime ring since the 1990s.

He is thought to be worth around $100 million. He is wanted by the FBI, Interpol and the UK police for numerous international crimes including fraud, racketeering and money laundering

Police seized Mr Mogilevich, 61, and a large group of his bodyguards outside a Moscow supermarket on Wednesday night, Russian police confirmed today

State television showed footage of the alleged mobster as police held him and bodyguards against their luxury cars. They also broadcast film of the rarely photographed figure in custody, wearing jeans, a cap and leather jacket.

“Sergei Schneider has been arrested. He is better known as Semyon Mogilevich. He has several names, several nationalities and has been wanted for more than 15 years,” said Anzhela Kastuyeva, a Moscow police spokeswoman.

The arrest was made in connection with an investigation into an alleged $2 million tax evasion scheme run in connection with Arbat Prestige, a successful chain of Russian cosmetic stores. Vladimir Nekrasov, the owner of Arbat-Prestizh, was arrested in the same raid.

Monya Elson, a known associate of Mr Mogilevich, claimed in an interview given ten years ago that the Ukrainian was “the most powerful mobster in the world”.

An investigation by US newspaper the Village Voice, which apparently brought a death threat for its author, cited classified FBI and Mossad documents claiming that he was responsible for trafficking nuclear materials, drugs, prostitutes, precious gems, and stolen art. He was also said to have run a series of contract hit squads operating in the US and Europe.

Mr Elson claimed Mr Mogilevich, who was born in the Ukraine, controlled everything going in and out of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, which he called a ‘’smugglers’ paradise

The Mogilevich family were reported to live in two opulent villas near Prague where they reportedly operated torture chambers run by young enforcers trained by veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war.

In December 1994, British police officers, tipped off by their counterparts in eastern Europe, first began investigating allegations that the Mogilevich organisation might be laundering profits from arms dealing, prostitution, extortion and drug trafficking through a firm of London solicitors.

Detective Sergeant John Wanless, who investigated the Red Mafia’s role in the UK at the time told the Sunday Times: “Semion Mogilevich is one of the world’s top criminals, who has a personal wealth of $100m. As a result of the effect of his financial impact on the City of London, he clearly falls in the category of a core criminal.”

In 1999 London investigators attempted to question him once again, this time over a $10 billion money-laundering scheme that unwittingly embroiled the Bank of New York and a network of other leading financial institutions in the UK, America and six other countries

Mr Mogilevich is also included on the FBI wanted list for racketeering, securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. The Bureau warns that he should be considered armed, dangerous and an escape risk.

During a 2005 speech in Hungary Robert Mueller, then FBI director said: “Right here in Budapest, Ukrainian-born Semion Mogilevich established the headquarters of his powerful organized crime enterprise.”

The group engaged in drug and weapons trafficking, prostitution and money laundering, and organized stock fraud in the United States and Canada in which investors lost over 150 million dollars.”

UK authorities and the FBI are unlikely to ever get the opportunity to question the man even after his arrest as Russia has no extradition treaty with either country.

MOB INSIDER; Fiato focuses on FBI agent murder comviction

Las Vegas Review Journal
MOB INSIDER: Fiato focuses on FBI agent murder conviction
Posted by John L. Smith review Journal Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008

Anthony Fiato, the subject of my 1998 book “The Animal in Hollywood,” (at left) was the double-tough underboss of the Los Angeles mob in the early 1980s before he became ensnared in an FBI undercover investigation. Fiato was a made guy with criminal credentials in Boston and Los Angeles — and connections in Las Vegas and New York. When he decided to cooperate with the FBI, mobsters from Hollywood to the North End of Boston took a beating.


I spoke with Fiato recently about the conviction in Florida of former Boston FBI Agent John Connolly(at right), who was in connection with the mishandling of Irish mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Far from simplistically condemning “Zip” Connolly, Fiato said he understood how a dedicated FBI agent could get lost along the way while trying to put the mob out of business. The fact is, he says, the good guys have to be able to relate to the bad guys in order to gain their trust. Favors are common. Friendships form on both sides of the fence.

Here is an excerpt from that conversation.

“When you’re working undercover as an FBI agent, some of the mob guys rub off on you, and some of you rubs off on them,” Fiato says. “When Mike Wacks (a veteran FBI undercover agent who was a key player in the Bribery and Labor investigation known as BRILAB that nailed New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello) worked that BRILAB case, he told me they almost had to deprogram him for a year after he surfaced. Wacks told me it took him a year to get back to being himself. He was committing crimes along with them, getting to know them as people, getting to know their families.

These FBI guys will tell you anything to get you to do your job, but they also do things undercover that they wouldn’t normally do. People are people. The bad rubs off on the good and visa versa. That’s what I think happened in Connolly’s case.

“He was told to work those guys, make cases, get them to flip, nail the mobsters — and follow every rule or face the consequences. Well, life on the street is never that simple. Never. And I think it’s unfair to throw the book at a guy who was trying to do his job.”

More from Fiato soon.

DIRTY BUSINESS

He was dubbed the “trash czar” by the media—James Galante, businessman and majority owner of 25 trash companies that controlled about 80 percent of the trash, or carting, industry in Connecticut and parts of eastern New York.
But earlier this summer, Galante’s reign ended when he pled guilty in federal court after a long-term multi-agency investigation of wrongdoing in the waste-hauling industry. Thirty-two others—including Galante’s employees, his accountant, a silent partner with ties to New York organized crime, and a high-ranking member of the Genovese crime family—were also charged in the case and have all pled guilty.
Galante was operating what’s known as an illegal “property rights system”—when carting companies affiliated with organized crime groups assert they have a monopoly over certain “stops,” or customer accounts (mostly commercial and municipal customers in this case). These companies collude with one another to divvy up the stops, fix prices, and rig contract bids. They also pay a so-called “mob tax” to keep their piece of the action.
The result is a loss of competition and higher prices for customers. And woe to the carting companies that try to compete legally in this type of marketplace. They find their trucks and other equipment vandalized, their employees threatened or assaulted by mob muscle, and their economic livelihood at stake.

Our case began in February 2003, after Galante sent a threatening note to another trash company over a disputed contract. The company contacted our New Haven office, and we decided to introduce an undercover agent into the mix. Our agent started working as the victim company’s “strategic marketing planner,” with oversight over new trash hauling contracts that put him in direct contact with Galante and his people. Later, our undercover agent was actually hired by Galante as a salesman.


During the operation, which also included extensive use of court-authorized wiretaps, we discovered more than 40 refuse companies working within the property rights system. We identified links between Galante’s enterprise and organized crime. We collected mounds of evidence against Galante and other members of his criminal enterprise. And because we intercepted phone calls containing threats against individuals and companies, we were able to warn intended victims.

Public corruption also reared its ugly head. For a property rights system to work, a criminal enterprise needs the help of corrupt local government and/or law enforcement officials. And so it was in this case—also charged were a former mayor, a federal drug agent, and a Connecticut state trooper who unlawfully accessed our National Crime Information Center database to check a license plate for Galante.
Special thanks to our partners who worked with us on this case—the Ansonia, Milford, and New Haven police departments; the Connecticut State Police; the Connecticut Department of Corrections; the Internal Revenue Service; the Department of Labor; the Drug Enforcement Administration; and the Marshals Service.
Part of Galante’s plea agreement involves the full forfeiture of his companies, which were valued at up to $100 million. The federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies who worked with us will be receiving millions of dollars in forfeiture proceeds. And one other note: because of the case, a new state agency in Connecticut now oversees the refuse hauling industry and requires background checks on trash companies

FEDS THROW EX FED UNDER THE MOB BUS

Joe Pistone aka Donnie Brasco, was an FBI agent who worked undercover for six years as an associate of the Bonanno Crime Family. He also helped FBI agent.Zip Connoly with -Mob-informants, Whitey Bulger, and Stevie Flemmi.. Pistone had met and talked to Flemmi and Bulger at a social dinner with Connolly at another FBI agents home in a Boston suburb .
After Connolly was convicted of federal racketeering charges in 2002, Pistone wrote a glowing letter to the sentencing judge urging leniency for .John Connolly,saying, ” he should never have been singled out to take the hit for the admitted flawed policies of a government that benefited from his skills, courage and dedication . I thought that was a cool thing to do.
Pistone must have caught some flack from the feds because now Pistone came up with some lame excuse for not testifying for the defense at Zip’s Conspiracy to Murder trial.. Pistone claims he can’t, and won’t testify without wearing a disguise, which the judge won”t allow. This guy has had his puss shown on TV almost as much as Barack Obama. In my opinion, Pistone is keeping his big trap shut to stay golden with Uncle.Sam. I met Pistone doing a show in the late eighties We compared war stories about what it was like wearing a wire According to Pistone. his wire had malfunctioned many times, which made me wonder if he ever really put it on in dangerous situations, or did he just claim to his superiors that it didn’t work when the going got hairy and scary. I busted his balls about it for a few laughs.
I had flipped to informant and wore a wire on many of the Boston mob . . Something Flemmi and Bulger never really had to do, or they were to scared to do. Connolly’s goose is going to be cooked because of the raw deal he is getting from the deaf, dumb. and blind agents who have thown him under the bus. Pistone should believe his own glowing letter, and have the balls to testify for Zip Connolly . Man up Joe !!! .
Anthony “The Animal” Fiato