I was reading a Wikipedia article about Frank Sinatra yesterday, and I was surprised to see how closely connected to the Mafia he was. It sounds like it really wasn’t any secret at the time, either. This got me wondering: are any modern celebrities rumored to be “mobbed up”? It doesn’t have to be the Mafia, any modern organized crime outfit would count: Latin American drug cartels, the Chinese or Russian Mobs, whoever.
Ben Cousins is an Australian football player who has just been thrown out of the game for repeated drug offenses, and while not proven has been long suspected of gangland associations:
Do you consider Scientology orginized crime?
Steven Seagal has had problems with the Gambino Family.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/scams/steven_seagal/index.html
Well quite a few hip hop artists either have gang affiliations or try to pretend they do. Does that count or does it have to be the Italian mafia?
The Wu-Tang Clan had some dealings with the Gambino family.
Curtis Sliwa (Guardian Angels) didn’t have any dealings with them, but the Gambinos did try to kill him.
Is Steve Wynn a celebrity?
Does J.T. Dolan from The Sopranos count?
Frank Sinatra was a piker compared to George Raft, who supposedly prevented a mob hit on James Cagney due to his connections.
Are you implying that Frank Sinatra was not a “modern” celebrity? Maybe you mean current.
In any case, Dean Martin was involved with the Mafia when he was a young man, before he went into show business.
The OP has to mean current, because virtually everybody in show business in New York during the heyday of the mob had some mob connections or mob acquaintances. And virtually every celebrity in Las Vegas before the town was cleaned up had mob connections. You had to. The mob owned or ran or provided liquor to every place in town that had singers or comedians or other similar performers. Not just the Rat Pack. It’s next to impossible to read any biography of any similar celebrity of the era and find no mob connection of some kind.
The last survivors of that era are still around. Floyd Abrams, in his book Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment, has a chapter on Wayne Newton. Newton filed a libel suit against NBC News for accusing him of ties to organized crime. A Las Vegas jury affirmed his suit which was then overturned by a federal court.
Wayne Newton’s Libel Award Against NBC Is Overturned. Abrams, who was NBC’s lawyer, naturally defends himself with a convincing argument of Newton’s years of favors from and for the mob.
The mob is mostly out of show business these days so there is no reason for entertainment celebrities to have the same closeness. But I wouldn’t be all surprised that athletes who have been involved in gambling have some mob connections. You just have to look for the activities the mob are still making money from and follow the ripples outward.
The Church of Scientology is a criminal organization, but the celebrities associated with it are (or seem to be) dupes as opposed to criminals. It’s the difference between running a crooked casino and playing in one.