Michael Pelligrino
Encyclopedia
Michael Pelligrino is a US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 man who fooled US publisher Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...

 to think that he was Michael Gambino, grandson of Mafioso
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

 Carlo Gambino
Carlo Gambino
"Don" Carlo Gambino, was a Sicilian mafioso who became Boss of the Gambino crime family, that still bears his name today. After the 1957 Apalachin Convention he unexpectedly seized control of the Commission of the American Mafia. Gambino was known for being low-key and secretive...

.

In 1999 Pelligrino was jailed for theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...

 and impersonating an FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

 agent. In jail he contacted literary agent Joel Gotler of the Artist Management Group
Artist Management Group
Artist Management Group was a pioneering artist's representation company founded by former CAA head Michael Ovitz, Rick Yorn, and Julie Yorn. Jeff Kwatinetz of The Firm acquired Ovitz' share and merged the two firms in 2002....

, a talent agency in Hollywood, and convinced him that he was actually Michael Gambino, illegitimate grandson of Carlo Gambino. When he was released in 2001, Gotler sold his story to Pocket Books
Pocket Books
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...

, a division of Simon & Schuster, for a $500,000 advance.

Pelligrino used a ghostwriter
Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written...

 to make a book The Honored Society, a novel that was supposedly based on his own experiences as a gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....

. In the book he claimed that he had been 12 years in prison for bribery
Bribery
Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...

, gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...

, extortion
Extortion
Extortion is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime...

, kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...

, money laundering
Money laundering
Money laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...

, murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 and pimping and had decided to come clean when serving time. The book was published November 2001. Pelligrino appeared on Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

to promote his book. He claimed that he was a son of Carlo Gambino's unknown son Vito, who had been born in Sicily and later immigrated to USA.

As it happens, Carlo Gambino has a great-grandson named Michael, who lives in New York. Carlo Gambino's son Thomas Gambino
Thomas Gambino
Thomas "Tommy" Gambino is a New York mobster and a longtime Caporegime of the Gambino crime family who successfully controlled lucrative trucking rackets in the New York City Garment District.-Early life:...

instructed his own lawyer Michael Rosen to expose the impostor. Rosen contacted the publisher to inform them.

Simon & Schuster withdrew the book. On August 27, 2002 Simon & Schuster sued Artist Management Group, accused it of misrepresenting Michael Gambino, demanded return of the money and millions of dollars in damages. Pelligrino's lawyers defended their client by stating that he did believe he was Gambino's grandson and that the book was fiction, not a biography.
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