May 28, 2020
This Week in Gang Land
The Mikey Spat Case: 'It's Time For Judge Johnson To Do The Right Thing.'
In
the courtroom of Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Sterling Johnson, Michael
(Mikey Spat) Spataro feels like he gets no respect. Two and a half years
ago, the mob associate filed a motion with Johnson seeking to vacate the 24
year sentence Spataro got for being part of a murder conspiracy to kill a
turncoat mobster. Spataro made a basic claim in his appeal: He's innocent.
For two and half years, the 87-page pro se motion gathered only dust.
Spataro, 53, is used to being ignored by the senior jurist. Johnson took 32 months to rule on — and deny — an earlier innocence claim that Mikey Spat filed in 2010. That claim was notable for the fact that it was strongly backed by former U.S. Marshal Michael Pizzi, a legendary Brooklyn crime fighter who took on Spataro as a pro bono client when he became a private investigator.
COVID-19 Inmate's Song: I'm Still Sick; I Wanna Go Home,
Back Where I Belong
Gambino associate John Matera, who sent out a few nasty letters about his racketeering/murder case that he surely wishes he hadn't, has now penned a nice one — this time to a federal judge. Matera is asking the judge who denied his request to release him after he tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, to reconsider and find a way to send him home after 21 years behind bars.
Frankie Loc Reaches Out To Sammy Bull A Second Time In His
Fight For Freedom
It's the star mob witness versus the star ex-prosecutor, and lawyers for Frank (Frankie Loc) Locascio, who is contesting his 1990 murder conviction alongside late mob boss John Gotti, are hoping the next round will play out in court.
Read this week's column
Unless you get really lucky, and find a copy squirreled away in the
wrong section of your local bookstore, you won't be able to get a
first printing of Mob Boss: The Life Of Little Al
D'Arco, The Man Who Brought Down The Mafia. But there
are still some second print versions of the hardcover available
as gifts or for your own reading pleasure.
Because of the heavy demand, Thomas Dunne Books went to the well again for a second printing of Mob Boss, the book that The New York Times called a "gripping, novelistic biography — a bulls-eye."
The mass market, paperback version was published in 2015. It is available online and at your favorite bookstores for about eight bucks. You still should be able to pick up a copy of the hard cover at your favorite bookstore, or, as Claude Raines might say to Humphrey Bogart, from any number of the usual online suspects: Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and BooksAMillion, as well as an independent book seller near you.
See why Mob Boss has been praised by Pete Hamill, Jimmy Breslin, Nicholas Pileggi, Mister District Attorney Robert Morgenthau — as well as readers everywhere.
Mob Boss is also available in a special BIG PRINT edition. And for those who would rather hear every word of the 406 page book read to them, Mob Boss is also available on an MP3 CD from Tantor Audio.
