Mob Experts on The Sopranos, Week 5

Jerry Capeci is author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia and Jerry Capeci's Gang Land: Fifteen Years of Covering the Mafia. His weekly column about organized crime, "Gang Land," appears in the New York Sun and at www.ganglandnews.com. Jeffrey Goldberg is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He covered organized crime for New York magazine and the New York Times Magazine. He is at work on a book about the Middle East. Gerald Shargel has represented many high-profile clients, including John Gotti. He is a practitioner in residence at Brooklyn Law School, where he also teaches. Dana Stevens, aka Liz Penn, is a Slate TV critic. She lives in New York and also writes on film and culture for the High Sign.

Who are these people?

Last year, each new episode of The Sopranos was analyzed by a group of shrinks; this year, each week two mob experts will discuss the lives and squabbles of America's favorite gangsters. Today our experts are joined by Gerald Shargel, an attorney who has represented many high-profile clients, including John Gotti.

Good morning, guys:

As far as the tape in the club is concerned, the conversation between the FBI agent and Adriana was close to, but not quite, realistic. It's true that the agent would prefer to have Adriana's consent to place a recording device in the club to obviate the need to get a judge's approval. (Her consent would mean a lot less work for the agent and a far greater chance of the recording actually happening.) But it wouldn't work for either of them. First, in order to go by consent, Adriana would have to be in on every conversation. (A consensual recording without a warrant is legal only if one party to the conversation is giving consent to have it recorded.) So, if Tony were talking to Christopher alone, for example, that could be done only with a court-authorized warrant since neither party would be consenting. Second, giving consent would ensure that one day Adriana would be revealed as the informant in testimony or court documents. By the way, Tony will find out that Adriana is an informant—the seed was sown last night. When Tony asked whether Adriana would get him a date with the FBI agent (remember he met her as a friend of Adriana), Adriana unwisely said that she was dead, having drowned at a picnic, if I recall. I'll bet that in a future episode Tony will see them together and paranoia will take its course.

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Jerry C., I'm not a Tony Soprano fan. In many ways Gandolfini is miscast as the boss. In all the gang cases I've been in, whether Mafia, Irish, African-American, Chinese (you know I've done them all), the boss has a kind of charisma that got him there in the first place. Tony is a mook. Mob bosses do not snort cocaine in clubs, fool around with made members' girlfriends, ask for total anesthesia for removal of a basal-cell skin cancer, and kvetch to psychiatrists. Nor do they have the day-to-day angst and problems that Tony has. Soprano should get a lunch pail and find a job.

And, yes, if Tony were a "boss," Christopher would be with the fishes right now.

Jerry (S.)

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