TOP Manhattan prosecutor Dan Castleman has a public duty to immediately demand the death penalty for 83-year-old Margaret Frascone.
Quite obviously, this granny poses a clear and present danger to society.
Castleman is chief of investigations for Robert Morgenthau’s crime-buster unit. Castleman, 49, busted 20 badfellas in a gambling ring.
Over a three-year period in this “sting,” they heard on wiretaps elderly mom Margaret taking bets and telling people where to drop off their losings.
In the indictment, of course, Castleman said nothing about Frascone telling bettors where to pick up their winnings.
You see, bookies don’t always win. That’s why we gamble.
We have terrorists plotting our deaths, and Castleman spends a fortune busting a retired bus matron for giving someone the Giants spread.
About 55 years ago at 7 Glasgow Ave. – a narrow street of about 200 families in Sydney, Australia – I knew such a terrible woman as this Frascone.
This woman hit pay dirt because she actually had one of the seven telephones on the street.
In those days, children weren’t allowed in that house between noon and 6 p.m. because, on that telephone, this woman was getting odds and taking bets.
She was working for her brother-in-law, a bookie known as “Lenny the taxi driver,” and she was paid the enormous sum of $5 an afternoon.
That terrible woman was my mother.
This man Castleman, a terrific investigator, does bit parts on “The Sopranos,” playing a prosecutor.
Does he realize there are some fantastic “Sopranos” actors who also play out their one-time real-life role? I promise you, some have been real-life gangsters who did big time.
So maybe David Chase, the brilliant creator of “The Sopranos,” can work in a scenario of a go-getting prosecutor who bags an 83-year-old grandma for telling someone that Tea Biscuit is 7-to-3.