Michael Pelligrino (original) (raw)
Michael Pelligrino (born 1966) is a U.S. man who fooled publisher Simon & Schuster into thinking that he was Michael Gambino, grandson of Mafioso Carlo Gambino. In 1999, Pelligrino was jailed for theft and impersonating an FBI agent. In jail, he contacted literary agent Joel Gotler of the , a talent agency in Hollywood, and convinced him that he was actually Michael Gambino, the illegitimate grandson of Carlo Gambino. When he was released in 2001, Gotler sold his story to Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, for a $500,000 advance.
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| dbo:abstract | Michael Pelligrino (born 1966) is a U.S. man who fooled publisher Simon & Schuster into thinking that he was Michael Gambino, grandson of Mafioso Carlo Gambino. In 1999, Pelligrino was jailed for theft and impersonating an FBI agent. In jail, he contacted literary agent Joel Gotler of the , a talent agency in Hollywood, and convinced him that he was actually Michael Gambino, the illegitimate grandson of Carlo Gambino. When he was released in 2001, Gotler sold his story to Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, for a $500,000 advance. Pelligrino used a ghostwriter to make a book The Honored Society, a novel that was supposedly based on his own experiences as a gangster. In the book he claimed that he had been 12 years in prison for bribery, gambling, extortion, kidnapping, money laundering, murder and pimping, and had decided to come clean when serving time. The book was published in November 2001. Pelligrino appeared on Good Morning America to promote his book, claiming that he was a son of Carlo Gambino's unknown son Vito, who had been born in Sicily and later immigrated to the United States. As it happens, Carlo Gambino has a great-grandson named Michael, who lives in New York: Carlo Gambino's son Thomas, upon hearing of these events, instructed his own lawyer Michael Rosen to expose the impostor, and Rosen promptly contacted the publisher to inform them of the fraud. Simon & Schuster withdrew the book. On August 27, 2002, Simon & Schuster sued Artist Management Group, accusing it of misrepresenting Michael Gambino and demanding 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. (en) |
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| dbo:wikiPageWikiLink | dbr:Carlo_Gambino dbc:Organized_crime_memoirists dbr:Hollywood,_Los_Angeles dbr:United_States dbr:Talent_agency dbc:Living_people dbr:Gambling dbr:Gangster dbr:Good_Morning_America dbr:Murder dbr:Theft dbr:Thomas_Gambino dbr:Simon_&_Schuster dbc:1966_births dbr:Artist_Management_Group dbr:American_Mafia dbr:Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation dbr:Bribery dbr:Kidnapping dbc:Impostors dbc:Literary_forgeries dbr:Pocket_Books dbr:Extortion dbr:Money_laundering dbr:Ghostwriter dbr:Pimping |
| dct:subject | dbc:Organized_crime_memoirists dbc:Living_people dbc:1966_births dbc:Impostors dbc:Literary_forgeries |
| gold:hypernym | dbr:Man |
| rdf:type | dbo:Person yago:WikicatLivingPeople yago:BadPerson109831962 yago:CausalAgent100007347 yago:Deceiver109998101 yago:Imposter110201535 yago:LivingThing100004258 yago:Object100002684 yago:Organism100004475 yago:Person100007846 yago:PhysicalEntity100001930 yago:WikicatImpostors yago:Wrongdoer109633969 yago:YagoLegalActor yago:YagoLegalActorGeo yago:Whole100003553 |
| rdfs:comment | Michael Pelligrino (born 1966) is a U.S. man who fooled publisher Simon & Schuster into thinking that he was Michael Gambino, grandson of Mafioso Carlo Gambino. In 1999, Pelligrino was jailed for theft and impersonating an FBI agent. In jail, he contacted literary agent Joel Gotler of the , a talent agency in Hollywood, and convinced him that he was actually Michael Gambino, the illegitimate grandson of Carlo Gambino. When he was released in 2001, Gotler sold his story to Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, for a $500,000 advance. (en) |
| rdfs:label | Michael Pelligrino (en) |
| owl:sameAs | freebase:Michael Pelligrino yago-res:Michael Pelligrino wikidata:Michael Pelligrino https://global.dbpedia.org/id/4s9hQ |
| prov:wasDerivedFrom | wikipedia-en:Michael_Pelligrino?oldid=1078887231&ns=0 |
| foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf | wikipedia-en:Michael_Pelligrino |
| is dbo:wikiPageRedirects of | dbr:Pelligrino,_Michael dbr:The_Honored_Society dbr:Michael_Gambino |
| is dbo:wikiPageWikiLink of | dbr:List_of_fake_memoirs_and_journals dbr:Pelligrino,_Michael dbr:The_Honored_Society dbr:Michael_Gambino |
| is foaf:primaryTopic of | wikipedia-en:Michael_Pelligrino |