Of course, they couldn't keep that up forever. At age seven or eight, a family friend told her that her father was on the news. That's when she first heard about things like "RICO" (a law that hands out additional penalties for acts taken to further a criminal organization), "racketeering," "tax evasion," and "prostitution." On the upside, she was dynamite at the oddly criminal-themed spelling bee that year, and still too young to really understand what it all meant. "After we knew, [our mother] allowed us to look up whatever we wanted, would go into detail about where the newspapers got it wrong or weren't clear enough," she says. "She tried to explain what 'RICO' meant, and what exactly was going on with the money. But even today, I'm not completely clear on it."
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Any mafia law broad enough to apply to the Catholic church, professional baseball, and our next president is gonna be complex.
When she was old enough to overhear the more lively family discussions, she ended up knowing a lot more than she'd like to, if only in "witness testimony" terms. The more colorful stories include the time her grandfather was nearly assassinated, or when he dangled a dude out a window, Suge-Knight-style. And those are the things he admits to. He's been accused of much worse, though Angela doesn't know how much she believes. "It didn't seem his style; he always seemed more like a fear-tactic / incentive / 'rough 'em up at worst' kind of guy." But, she concedes, "That being said, he was a tough man, and there's a lot I don't know about him."
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