Did you know that many mafia members are pretty much just like teenage girls? It's true! Because they gossip and pass notes and arrange for the deaths of their many frenemies! Vincent Basciano, former hair salon owner (see?) and boss of the Bonanno crime family, has been accused by his jailers "of having an 'unusual sophistication' at passing notes." And he's embroiled in a terribly complicated plot to pretend he wants to kill someone and having a list of people he's trying to put Voodoo curses on and then there's all this note-passing. What a girl! Does he write his hit lists in pink gel pens and keep them in Lisa Frank folders?

But yeah these notes aren't really the kind of thing you want to read before the class, if the court papers are any indication.

"Cicale testified that Anthony 'Bruno' Indelicato initially was the person who called him about a 'piece of work' in which Cicale could 'make his bones' by killing Frank Santoro. Yet, P. J. Pisciotti testified that Indelicato told him that he was surprised to hear, just prior to the murder, that Santoro would be killed and that, in his view, it was a mistake to kill Santoro. Cicale testified that he had enlisted P. J. Pisciotti to kill Michael Mancuso and throw him off a boat. Pisciotti testified that, to the contrary, there was never a plan to kill Mancuso and throw him off a boat."

Man, wouldn't this make a great television show? You know, these "hard" mobsters acting in traditionally "soft" ways, demonstrating the foibles and petty jealousies of regular people? Hilarity would surely ensue! Maybe they could cast that charming Joey Pants in it? He's good in everything involving criminal Italian people!

Court Papers Reveal Gossiping, Passing Notes and Other Pursuits of the Mob [NYT]