“That’s not me, what they’re portraying as a gangster, as an organized crime figure, as an associate,” said Frank DiMattina, who is appealing his conviction.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – Frank DiMattina calls it the fight of his life.

The 44-year-old catering hall owner is staring down a six-year prison sentence, after being convicted at a federal trial on extortion charges, but he maintains his innocence and wants the world to know he’s not a mobster.
“It’s

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Italian police have arrested two suspects over the bombing of a school that killed a 16-year-old girl and seriously injured five more teenagers, media reports say.
The men were identified from security cameras at the vocational school in the southern city of Brindisi, where the bomb ripped through a group of students as they waited to begin classes early on Saturday.
One of the suspects is an ex-soldier with knowledge of electronics, the daily Corriere della Sera reported, citing local news website Brindisireport.

Melissa

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”Sinister side” … Ken Janakievski at his pub in St Peters in 2010 after receiving the Star of Courage. Photo: Brendan Esposito

He was considered an upstanding member of the community with friends in political, business and religious circles. Ken Janakievski had even won a bravery award for foiling an armed robbery.
But police say the 55-year-old led a double life as the kingpin of Balkan organised crime in Australia.
Mr Janakievski was facing ”significant drug charges in Western Australia” when his

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Pals … Joey and Paul

HARDMAN Paul Ferris’s movie life story was funded by the MAFIA, it has emerged.

London hood Joey Pyle used his Cosa Nostra contacts to help finance The Wee Man — based on the convicted gun-runner’s semi-autobiographical book The Ferris Conspiracy.
Pyle — an underworld pal of ex-gangster Ferris — was linked to the notorious Gambino and Genovese New York crime families before his death aged 69 five years ago.
Ferris admitted The Wee Man — premiered

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ROME (May 19, 2012): Two 16-year-old girls died Saturday after a powerful bomb blast outside their school in the southern Italian city of Brindisi, with another seven injured, one critically.

School officials said the blast, which went off as the students were arriving for class at the all-girls Francesca Morvillo Falcone vocational school, knocked several of them to the ground.

No one has claimed responsibility for the blast caused by gas canisters hidden in a container or backpacks placed near

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