US:The reputed head of organised crime in Chicago is raising the argument that because his mother was Irish-American, he could not possibly be a "made" member of the Mob.
In the 1990 movie Goodfellas, New York mobster Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, lamented that he could never become a "made" member of the Mob because he was only half Italian - his father was Irish.
In a Chicago courtroom this week, where the US government has brought a major criminal case against close to a dozen mostly ageing alleged mobsters for 18 previously unsolved murders, a lawyer for alleged Mob boss James "Little Jimmy" Marcello tried to use that lore to his advantage.
The government's star witness is Nick Calabrese, an admitted killer of 14 men who secretly tape-recorded conversations in prison with his brother, Frank Calabrese, one of the main defendants.
Nick Calabrese testified to Marcello's involvement in some of the murders and called him a made member of the mob that Al Capone built in Chicago.
Marcello's lawyer, Tom Breen, asked Calabrese, "Have you met his lovely mother, Mrs [ Irene] Flynn?"
Calabrese appeared surprised.
"And Mrs Flynn is as Irish as Paddy's pig, isn't she?" Mr Breen asked.
"I didn't know he was half Irish," Calabrese said. "Then Jimmy Marcello lied. [ Marcello's sponsor] Sam Carlisi lied, they lied to the boss."
Mr Breen responded with, "Yeah, somebody's lying", and a crack about how the ceremony at which Marcello was supposedly "made" must have featured the US St Patrick's Day staple of corned beef instead of pasta.
Calabrese testified that only 100 per cent Italian mobsters with at least one killing under their belt were eligible to become "made" members of the Mob. That involves a ceremony that, in Calabrese's case, had him prick his finger and get a "holy picture" burned into his hand as he pledged loyalty to the Mob, he said.
Prosecutors expect to introduce evidence as the trial proceeds that the Mob has accepted not-fully-Italian hoodlums to become "made" members in the past.
Most of the defendants in this case have already pleaded guilty, leaving five on trial for allegedly participating in such well-known killings as the murders of brothers Anthony and Michael Spilotro, whose deaths were dramatised in the movie Casino.
Contrary to the movie, the brothers were not killed in an Indiana cornfield - just buried there. They were killed in a suburban Chicago basement where they had been lured to a ceremony to make them "made" members of the Mob, Nick Calabrese testified.
Calabrese said he held Michael Spilotro's legs while another man strangled him. Anthony Spilotro - the Mob's man in Las Vegas - saw his brother being killed and did not put up a fight, saying only, "Can I say a prayer?" Calabrese testified.
The trial has raised uncomfortable questions for Chicago mayor Richard Daley, a long-time friend of Fred Barbara, who Calabrese testified participated in Mob torchings of Chicago-area restaurants in the 1980s.
Mr Daley has refused to answer questions about how close his relationship remains with Mr Barbara, who has made millions in city waste-hauling contracts.
Abdon Pallasch is legal affairs reporter of the Chicago Sun