Real-Life Mafia Rivals 'Sopranos' Drama

March 8, 2006 — -- After nearly two years off the air, "The Sopranos" is set to return on HBO this Sunday. But why watch a fantasy mob family when you can see real-life alleged mafia intrigue in the news headlines?

John Gotti Jr., the son of the late mafia boss John Gotti, is being retried for racketeering and conspiring to kidnap radio host and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa. In 1992, Sliwa was attacked in a taxi and shot in the legs and back. He says Gotti Jr. orchestrated the attack in retribution for Sliwa's negative comments about Gotti's father on his radio show. Gotti's first trial in 2005 ended when jurors announced they were deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial.

Infidelity allegations added further intrigue to the retrial when a witness claimed the senior Gotti fathered a child with a mistress. Meanwhile, it appears the Gottis may be contradicting themselves on whether their family was still heavily involved in the mob life. Peter Gotti, the youngest son of "The Dapper Don," testified that his father was "boss" of the Gambino crime family. However, Gotti Jr.'s defense attorney said that his client was trying to escape mafia life to protect his family. Jury deliberations in Gotti Jr.'s case could begin today.

The Gotti retrial alone would be enough to pique the interest of New York mob watchers. But Gotti Jr.'s legal troubles have not been the only mafia-related headlines in the last month.

In February, a federal grand jury indicted former acting boss of the Genovese crime family, Liborio "Barney" Bellomo and 31 other reputed mobsters on charges ranging from drug dealing to murder.

Vinny "Gorgeous" Basciano, a former acting boss of the Bonanno crime family, is on trial for murder, attempted murder, racketeering and gambling charges. And jury selection in the trial of alleged mafia cops, Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, began last week. The former officers are accused of being hired hit men for the Lucchese crime family.

New Priorities

However, bringing alleged mob bosses and their officers to trial may no longer be a priority for law enforcement officials, despite the ongoing trials.

"The trials in the last month are the culmination of all the groundwork done in the 1990s," Sliwa told ABCNEWS.com. "But you will find because of all the focus on terrorism, you will see less and less of that."

The government's anti-mob effort reached a high point in 1992 when John Gotti, nicknamed the "Teflon Don" up to that point, was sentenced to life in prison for murder, conspiracy to murder, and tax evasion. He died of cancer in prison 10 years later.

But experts say that since the Sept. 11 attacks, resources have shifted toward combating terrorism. According to the mafia tome "Five Families" written by renowned mafia expert and veteran organized crime reporter, Selwyn Raab, the FBI has reduced the number of agents on mafia task forces by two thirds and beefed up its anti-terror units.

"One of the problems is, if you ask me as a citizen: 9/11 or the mob? 9/11," said G. Robert Blakey, who drafted The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which is credited for the bringing down several organized crime organizations . "I am not a fool. 9/11 took out the Twin Towers. The mob doesn't want to destroy our society. They want to join it and not play by the rules."

FBI officials have also conceded that they are more focused on other crimes.

"Terror is definitely our No. 1 priority," said Christine Monaco, a spokeswoman for New York City's FBI office. "Two is counter intelligence, three is cyber crime and No. 4 is public corruption," or organized crime.

"In New York, organized crime is still very significant," Monaco added. "They still engage in an array of criminal activity ... we're getting the significant leadership, the bosses."

Sliwa is one of many mob watchers who warn of a possible resurgence of the mafia, or Cosa Nostra ("our thing" in Italian). Led by New York's five infamous alleged mob families -- the Genovese, Gambino, Bonanno, Colombo and Lucchese -- the dilapidated mafia is eager to pick up where it left off before law enforcement decoded its slang and code words, bugged its homes and created a witness protection program that enabled formerly loyal wise guys to be "flipped."

RICO's Debilitating Blow

At the end of the 1990s, it seemed that law enforcement had caught up with the Italian mafia.

RICO, designed to break the backs of criminal organizations like the mafia by prosecuting other high-ranking officials for being involved in illegal enterprises, was finally being implemented successfully. In 1961, attorney G. Robert Blakey, who served as chief counsel on the Senate Subcommittee on Criminal Laws, drafted the RICO law. But Blakey said he spent a decade trying to convince law enforcement to use it properly. When they did, he said, criminal empires began to crumble.

"In the '60s there were 24 [mob] families and between 4,000 and 5,000 members," said Blakey, now a professor at Notre Dame Law School. "The 24 families were spread throughout the U.S. Because of RICO, there are [now] really only the five families in New York and the one in Chicago the rest are reduced to street gangs. It's down to maybe 1,500 members -- basically it's virtually decimated. New York has been substantially curtailed; the two that are the largest and most important are the Genovese and the Gotti family."

Cosa Nostra used to influence politics and run huge drug rings and extensive labor rackets. Today, it has been primarily forced back to its roots, Blakey said. Now the principal mafia activities are gambling and loan sharking. Cosa Nostra provides money to criminals. Today's mafia, he said, behaves like the bank of the underworld.

"Sometimes people that borrow from them [the mafia] can't get money from somewhere else," he said. "They can't offer their leg as collateral."

Truth vs. Fiction

Pop culture has long been fascinated with the mafia. Life in the mob has served as the inspiration for countless movies, books and music.

Scenes from "The Godfather" are quoted regularly. Rapper Irv Gotti adopted the notorious mobster's last name to convey street credibility and even named his record label Murder Inc. after a legendary crew of hit men. Posters of scenes from "Goodfellas" and other mob movies decorate college dorm rooms across the country.

Sliwa has called programs like "The Sopranos" disgraceful because they feed stereotypes about Italian-Americans and romanticize and humanize the mafia. To many Americans, mob violence is a fantasy concocted by "Hollyweird," he said.

Sliwa, 52, described his childhood neighborhood -- the Canarsie section of Brooklyn, N.Y. -- a "hotbed of mafia activity." He said living near the mob was anything but glamorous.

"They've never been subjected to this, shakedown, extortion," he said. "This is fantasy in La-La land. But if they grew up in it ... there is nothing funny about it."

"We would be playing and we would see men on stoops and they would just scheme all day about how to take money away from working people," Sliwa recalled. "By any means necessary: killing, burning down a person's business; they stopped at nothing."

The mafia founding fathers are descendants of a long line of organized crime that began in Italy -- especially the island of Sicily. They rose to power in the United States around or soon after Prohibition.

The members of the mafia see themselves as part of a special society that adheres to strict codes of honor and loyalty. Back in Italy, the mafia protected common people from the government, police or bandits in exchange for loyalty and above all, silence or "omerta." As demonstrated by the whacking of "flipped" "Soprano" associates, Big Pussy and Adriana, nothing in the mafia is worse than a rat, someone who cooperates with law enforcement.

"The biggest fear was that if you spoke up against organized crime, you would have the black mark put upon you -- the black hand -- and that could be hazardous to your health and your family's health and anything you possessed," Sliwa said. "It was very intense, because every time you would speak out, there was always a price to pay, some 'gabone,' some 'muscle head,' would say something to your sister, to your mother, to your aunt Mary on her way to the novena --'hey tell your nephew to wise up.'"

Blakey said the mob acts as a makeshift government. Its law trumps the law of the land.

"They deny us our constitutional right to due process," he said. "There is a sense that the most serious thing the mob does is compromise the rule of law."

However, as recent headlines indicate, the futures of alleged mobsters like John Gotti Jr. will depend on that same rule of law.