The Real Sopranos A journey into the FIVE FAMILIES
produceD
armand assante
EXECutIVE
BY
SYNOPSIS
The Sopranos considered by many the greatest show in television history, made the New Jersey mafia water cooler talk across the country from 1999-2007. While based on fictional characters, there was an actual mafia family neck deep in criminal activities across the Hudson River from their La Cosa Nostra contemporaries in New York. In New Jersey, starting in the 1960’s, the DeCavalcante family ran the show and are considered the inspiration for many of The Sopranos characters and storylines that fans are familiar with today. This season on The Real Sopranos we will look at the rise and fall of the DeCavalcante family. Sometimes truth is even more colorful than fiction...
THE PODCAST FRANCHISE
The Real Sopranos is an 8 episode investigative audio documenta ry focused on the most notorious mafia crime families and their impact and relationship with Hollywood. Each season we will take on another family, another city, and another set of nefarious,
deadly and sometimes even comical, characters and their sto ries. We begin Season One with the DeCavalcante crime family based in Northern New Jersey. The DeCavalcante crime family is an Italian American crime family that operates in Northern New Jersey, particularly in Elizabeth, Newark and the surrounding areas in North Jersey and it operates on the opposite side of the Hudson, from the Five Families of New York, but it maintains strong relations with many of them, as well as with the Philadelphia Crime Family and the Patriarca Crime Family of New England, Its illicit activities include bookmaking, cement, and construction violations, bootlegging, corruption, drug trafficking, extortion, fencing, fraud, hijacking, illegal gambling, loan-sharking, money laundering, murder, pier thefts, pornography, prostitution, rack eteering, and waste management violations. Interviews with informants, gangsters, defense lawyers, cops, family members, and journalists weave a true-crime tale.
EPISODES
EP 1 – THE PLUMBER
Starting with this episode, we will trace the rise & fall of the family, beginning with ‘Sam The Plumber.’ DeCavalcante was a sitting member of The Commission, allowing his family a seat at the table with the 5 families that ran La Cosa Nostra in New York. We will discuss Sam The Plumber’s career in crime & his arrests, leading to his semi-retirement to Florida.
EP 2 – GREG SMITH
Organized crime has always been catnip to savvy crime reporters, and as the years have progressed with the proliferation of rats, the storytelling has gotten more nuanced and more in depth. Former NY Daily News Reporter Greg Smith spent years reporting on orga nized crime, and in 2003 he published a wide-ranging book on the DeCavalcante clan, and their hijinks.
EP 5 – JOHNNY BOY
As John Riggi is sent to prison, John “Johnny Boy” D’Amato, is made the acting head of the DeCavalcante family. Despite not being popular in his own crime family, D’Amato uses his close friendship with John Gotti to become head of the DeCavalcante crew. Eventually, he is rubbed out by his own mafia family. His crime...being gay.
EP 3 THE RISE OF VINNIE OCEAN
In 1997, after the death of acting boss Jake Amari, Vinnie “Ocean” Palermo is named part of a three man panel that will now run the DeCavalcante family. Vinnie Ocean is considered the most likely candidate to be the real Tony Soprano, for a number of reasons. We trace his rise & fall in the mafia in this two-part episode.
EP 4 FURIO
Playing a New Jersey gangster was nuanced, one part menacing, but equally comedic. Federico Castellucio played the role of Fu rio Giunta , a Tony Soprano street-soldier who even tried to have a romantic fling with Tony’s wife Carmela Soprano.
EP 6 – JOHNNY SACK
While The Sopranos mainly focused on a fictional New Jersey mob, their fellow mafiosos in New York couldn’t be ignored. The fictional New York family was represented by Johnny Sacrimoni, better known as Johnny Sack. Vincent Curatola, a New Jersey native, portrayed the New York underboss with a steely cool that made him a hit with the legions of Sopranos fans. We spoke with Curatola in a wide-ranging interview, beginning with his fondness for New Jersey.
EP 7 THE FALL OF VINNIE OCEAN
r
As the DeCavalcante family transitioned into the late 90’s, the new leadership structure was causing a power struggle between Vinnie Ocean and Charlie “Big Ears” Majuri. With law enforcement con tinuing to hassle Wiggles, Ocean’s cash-cow was drying up.
EP 8
– GIOVANNi ROCCO
We interview the former FBI undercover task force officer and au thor of Giovanni’s Ring: My Life Inside the Real Sopranos, who spent 26 years undercover penetrating New Jersey’s DeCavalca nte crime family, the criminal organization known to law enforce ment as “The Real Sopranos”
THE CREWS
BONANNO FAMILY
Under the leadership of Bonanno between the 1930s and 1960s, the family was one of the most powerful in the country. However, in the early 1960s, Bonanno attempted to overthrow several leaders of the Commission, but failed. Bonanno had disappeared from 1964 to 1966, ensuing the “Banana War” that
lasted until 1968, when Bonanno retired to Arizona. Between 1976 and 1981, the family was infiltrated by an FBI agent calling himself Donnie Brasco, becoming the first of the New York families to be kicked off the Commission. The Bonanno family were seen as the most brutal of the 5 Families during the 20th century.
THE CREWS
GENOVESE FAMILY
The Genovese crime family dominateD organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American Mafia. The Genovese family is the oldest and the largest of the “Five Families”. they appear to be the most organized and powerful family in the U.S. Unique in today’s Mafia, the family has benefited
greatly from members following “Omertà,” a code of conduct emphasizing secrecy and non-cooperation with law enforcement and the justice system. While many mobsters from across the country have testified against their crime families since the 1980s, they only ten members turn state’s evidence in its history.
THE CREWS
COLUMBO FAMILY
The Colombo crime family is the youngest of the “Five Families” that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal organization known as the American Mafia. The family traces its roots to a bootlegging gang formed by Joseph Profaci in 1928. Profaci would rule
his family without interruption or challenge until the late 1950s. The family would then enjoy over 15 years of peace under Persico and his string of acting bosses.
Many levels of law enforcement FROM THE FBI to THE POLICE, FIRMLY believe that the Colombo crime family is the weakest of ALL the Five Families of New York City.
THE CREWS
GAMBINO FAMILY
The Gambino crime family dominateD organized crime activities in New York City. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The
group’s operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, fraud, hijacking, & fencing. THE TEFLON
DON HIMSELF WAS A MEMBER OF THE GAMBINO FAMILY.
THE CREWS
LUCCHESE FAMILY
The family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano Reina serving as boss up until his murder in 1930. their efforts concentrated in the Bronx, Manhattan, and New Jersey. Members refer to the organization as the Lucchese borgata, the meaning of borgata is Mafia slang for criminal gang, which itself was derived
from Sicilian word meaning close-knit community. The next boss was Tommy Lucchese who turned the family around to become one of the most powerful families to sit on the Commission. For most of its history, the Lucchese family was reckoned as one of the most peaceful crime families in the nation.
EXEC PROD
ARMAND ASSANTE
Armand Assante is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as mobster John Gotti in the 1996 HBO television film Gotti, as Odysseus in the 1997 mini-series adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, as Nietzsche in When Nietzsche Wept, and as Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer in 1982’s I, the Jury. His per-
formance in Gotti earned him a Primetime Emmy Award and nominations for the Golden Globe Award and the Screen Actors Guild Award. Known as an Actor’s Actor, the Four time Golden Globe Nominee, Emmy Award Winning Actor has received acclaim for his work for close to Five decades.
