The real-life mobsters who need Dr Melfi’s help

The only thing missing from the full-dress Mob trial now under way in Chicago is the shrink. Real-life boss Frank Calabrese Senior, 70, may wish he had taken a leaf from Tony Soprano's television story and hired his own version of Dr Jennifer Melfi (right) - because it is child abuse and personal betrayals that are behind his downfall.

Calabrese, boss of the Chicago Outfit bequeathed by Al Capone, is on trial with four of his capos on multiple charges of racketeering and murder. They are white-haired, stony-faced old men. One comes to court in a wheelchair.

Now facing them from the witness box is the prosecution's star informer - Frank Calabrese Junior, the boss's son and the latest mobster to abandon the sacred oath of omerta.

Junior, 47, has been dishing details of life in the Outfit, confirming once and for all that the only difference
between Mob fiction and reality is the presence of cameras in the first, and actual blood in the second.

'Under-bosses', Junior has explained to the court, are equivalent to 'vice presidents of companies'; 'work cars' are untraceable cars used for crimes; 'juice loans' are high-interest street loans known to fans of The Sopranos as 'Shys' after Shylock.

Junior has also described how Uzi machineguns, shotguns and rifles were hidden behind walls in his grandmother's house. He has confided Mob rules: "Your Outfit family came before your blood family; it also came before God."

And: "You weren't supposed to steal without permission." Of course, those of us who've learnt our mob lore from The Sopranos already knew that: Brendan, speed-crazed friend of 'Christuffa' Moltisanti, got whacked for exactly that, when he
hijacked a load of Italian suits.

The novelty in the Calabrese trial comes in the relationship between father and son.

In the real-life Gambino family of New York, John Gotti Junior took over from jailed 'Dapper Don' Gotti, and was later heard on a surveillance tape complaining: "If it wasn't for my father, I would have walked away many, many years ago." He never found the courage.

In the New Jersey mob family the Boiardos, on whose story The Sopranos was modeled, the grandson did manage to go legit: The First Post told recently how Dr Richard A Boiardo went to college and became an orthopaedic surgeon.

Tony Soprano gave up on his feckless son AJ as inadequate for the job, but fretted over his family legacy of 'putrid genes'.

Calabrese father and son were in jail together in 2000 for Shylocking
when, according to Junior, they agreed that they would 'step back' from the business when they got out - 'step back' because the rule is that you cannot actually retire once that oath is taken.

Senior (pictured left in 1983) reneged, however, and Junior ratted to the Feds. But why? Junior had already served his time and so didn't need a deal to avoid a draconian sentence, the usual incentive.

The answer is hatred and revenge. The FBI believes Junior is a victim of child abuse who couldn't take it anymore, and that Senior handled his family the same way as his business: brutally. He repeatedly hit Junior for the slightest offence, and would later pull a gun on him and threaten to kill him.

A few good therapy sessions on supportive parenting and empathy might have made all the difference. But it is too late now.


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