When Harry Met Blue Eyes: Reid and Sinatra

Original FReeper research | 2/15/2006 | Fedora

[Liz]

Speaking of the mob, this is my very favorite mob story: The feds had the goods on the mob boss including audio and video tapes, witnesses, the works, and were prepared to put the guy away for life. So the mob hires this nothing lawyer just out of law school as the defense.

At trial, the Feds laid out the case and it was dynamite.

In his summation to the jury, the prosecutor got up and said: "This guy was involved in prostitution, gambling, murder, theft. But the worst thing this guy did was refuse to get up in this courtroom and defend himself."

The little nothing defense lawyer was up on his feet in a nanosecond calling for a mistrial b/c you cannot impute a motive when a defendant takes the Fifth.

The mob guy got off and the little lawyer was so proud of himself. It was only much later that the nothing lawyer figured out the mob had paid the prosecutor to make the statement.

[Leisler]

The Italian mafia has it's roots back to the late Roman Empire. The "our thing" came with and was inseparable from Italian immigrants.

There is not one signer of the Declaration of Independence that would consider present government as anything but criminal.
Anyways, a physically weak person is almost able to know they are weak. However a person who is on the ascending slope of the Bell curve doesn't know, and in fact can't know they're mentally challenged. There's no there there. But, I wouldn't let what you can't change worry you.

[psinatra]

The biography by Anthony Summers and Robbynn Swann places a Lercara Friddi Sinatra in Luciano’s phonebook and in baptismal/marriage records at the local church. I wish those two would send me the documents. Those are MY relatives! I have been trying to locate documentation for my family tree.

Whether Frank Sinatra is related to me or not is another subject. According to A&E’s “Biography” on Frank Sinatra shortly after his death, they claim the singer had relatives in New Jersey which his family didn’t associate with because they were bootleggers! That’s my family. I guess it doesn’t make as sensational a story if you’re not famous or even acknowleged.

As for Summers and Swann, maybe some further fact-checking would be in order. It’s assumptions like this that create more misinformation. Perhaps Random House should be notified?

[Fedora]

Thanks for taking the time to comment, and good luck with your genealogical investigations. If you make any progress in factchecking Summers and Swann I would be interested in the findings. Summers definitely has a tendency towards sensationalism, which made me debate before deciding to include that sentence in the article. I ultimately decided to include it because he does claim to have documents supporting it. Presumably if he was able to obtain the documents, they should be available to other researchers as well. You might consider contacting church officials or local historians from the area to see if they can offer any assistance in locating the records.

[Fedora]

Thanks for taking the time to comment, and good luck with your genealogical investigations. If you make any progress in factchecking Summers and Swann I would be interested in the findings. Summers definitely has a tendency towards sensationalism, which made me debate before deciding to include that sentence in the article. I ultimately decided to include it because he does claim to have documents supporting it. Presumably if he was able to obtain the documents, they should be available to other researchers as well. You might consider contacting church officials or local historians from the area to see if they can offer any assistance in locating the records.