IF Baby Soprano wants to sing abuse at cops, he should follow a real-life script from fellow cast member Anthony Sirico, who plays Paulie Walnuts.
Joe Coffey, who retired as one of the top cops fighting organized crime, was working for the Manhattan district attorney in 1971 when he busted Sirico on extortion charges.
“I not only busted him on the charge, I busted his nose,” Coffey chuckled, speaking of days when real wiseguys had respect for cops. “Anthony, who called himself ‘Junior’ then, was part of a crew that was shaking down ‘juice bars,’ places that couldn’t get liquor licenses, but kids would go there to get high.
“Anyway, there was this place on 57th Street and we had the manager wired, and Anthony walks in wearing a white suit, white shirt, white tie and white shoes. He goes up to the manager, opens his jacket to show a big .45 automatic and says words to the effect, ‘You know what this is and you know what I’m here for.’
“I jump out of the shadows, grab the .45 and bust Anthony right across the nose with the piece. Blood everywhere, all over his suit. We lock him up, but not a smart, wise-ass word out of his lips.”
After spending the night in the slammer, Anthony appears in court the next day.
“The first thing the judge does is look at the white suit with all these bloodstains over it,” Coffey recalled.
“He asks Anthony how he got the blood over his suit. Without missing a beat, Anthony says, ‘I fell down and hurt my head.’
“Not a word on how I busted his nose. You see, wiseguys don’t only respect themselves, they respect cops if you collar them for what they did. Anthony got two years on that charge.”
As for Baby Soprano?
“What a little punk, abusing cops like that. He should take a lesson in manners from Anthony,” Coffey said.
Remo Franceschini, before he retired, was a detective attached to the Queens district attorney’s office.
For years, Remo tracked the ascension of John Gotti and ended up his probe by putting a bug in the Dapper Don’s hangout, the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park.
“John was always polite but he always asked that if ever we wanted him, not to come to the house,” Remo once told me.
“If we wanted him for questioning or any of his boys, we would call him at home and make a time to meet at the DA’s office. He would arrive on Queens Boulevard outside the office. All of them would be wearing collar and tie.
“I would approach, we would shake hands, I would call him Mr. Gotti, he would call me sir.
“Of course, he never told me anything, but he was always extremely polite to the cops. That’s how the real guys work.”
None of us wants to see Baby Soprano grow up to be a real wiseguy, but after he’s learned a real good lesson from this, we want to see him wise up.