Feb 05 2007
MOTOR CITY MAFIA: PICTURING THE DETROIT MAFIA
Zerilli anointed Jack Tocco as his successor, and Tocco continues as boss today. Burnstein says the metro-area Mafia of the early 21st Century is a cohesive outfit staffed by people who are mostly relatives, which adds to the cohesiveness. Regenerating after federal prosecutions of the 1990s, local mobsters remain active in the traditional Detroit mob pursuits as bookmaking, extortion and loan sharking, Burnstein contends.
Growing up in West Bloomfield, Burnstein became interested in crime after developing an obsession as a child with one of the crimes of the century – the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He graduated from Indiana University and got a law degree from John Marshall Law School in Chicago. He decided several years ago that he wanted to become a writer.
“By the end of law school I was telling everybody that law school was a mistake, and if I ever had to practice law I would have to shoot myself,” he says.
Signing books at local stores, Burnstein has met some of the younger relatives of the mobsters featured in the book, and he has even come face-to-face with a couple of low-ranking Mafia members. They’ve been generally positive, he said. One told him: “We got a kick out of it.”
One night, at the Border’s in Birmingham, an older man walked up and showed Burnstein his driver’s license. It was a former underworld character whose street name was “Pat the Pimp,” described in the book as having been killed in a gangland dispute. “I’m not dead,” he told Burnstein. Turns out he had been shot, but didn’t die. Before long, patrons were asking Pat the Pimp to sign their books, right on his photo – an FBI mug shot — on page 91.
Said Burnstein: “I’m not saying it’s the gospel. I’m not saying I know everything. The goal was to be as accurate as possible. I hope it’s the first book of many.”
BILL McGRAW, February 4, 2007, FREE PRESS COLUMNIST http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070204/BLOG07/70204018/0/BUSINESS01
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i am with frankie da bomb every day and he is the most honorable loving man youll ever meet case closed
FRANK STEVENS IS STILL ACTIVE…….BUT HIS OLD CREW FOUND OUT ABOUT HIS ”SOLICTING/PROCUURING SEX WITH A MALE” ARREST IN THE 50′S—THEY LAUGH AT HIM NOW AND I HEAR HE IS VERY PISSED…GET A HOLD OF ME IF YOU WANT MORE
Time to make a good mafia movie you in ??????????