A month after the end of The Trial, Kathy Ciancaglini sits on a Margate beach, basking in a much-needed escape from South Philly. There's not a judge, jury or FBI agent within sight. There's only a reporter, and he's dressed for sunbathing. Here, it's about spending time with a couple nephews, a shore neighbor, a childhood friend and a rough surf that's keeping most people out of the ocean despite the intense heat.
Ciancaglini, 38, a bubbly brunette with a tan that says it's not her first trip to the beach this summer, walks to the water's edge, stopping every couple steps to chat with yet another recognizable face. But even here, she can't avoid the memory of Courtroom 9A, the place where a jury cleared her husband John "Johnny Chang," now a convicted mob racketeer, on a murder rap just before declaring him an extortionist and bookmaker.
Though Ciancaglini's beach acquaintances don't mention her husband's plight, they know, and she knows they know. Their concerned queries quickly become promises to get together soon.
As friends disappear down the coastline, the magnetic smile that drew television cameras to Ciancaglini during the trial slips away. The conversation shifts to her husband and La Cosa Nostra.
"Everybody thinks I hit the jackpot or something when I met Johnny Chang," she says. "Like it's The Godfather or The Sopranos or something. It really makes me laugh. Well, people might think that way, but they're wrong. When I looked at that defense table, I didn't see the mob. I saw all the kids from the corner, the ones I grew up with."
Then, gazing off into the ocean, she admits she's frightened. In three months, she'll find out how many years it'll be until Johnny Chang--her "sweetheart"--comes home from prison.
On July 20, when news came that the Merlino mob boys had beaten three murder raps, TV cameras sent live post-verdict images of their wives into homes across the Delaware Valley. Print reporters captured their actions and words for front pages.
There was Deborah Merlino, the attractive wife of Joey, the alleged Mafia boss, silently breezing into a waiting Mercedes.
Lauren Angelina--her husband mob soldier Marty--linked arms with a pair of guardians and ducked through the fray. Angelina, a petite, friendly mother of two toddlers, escaped without sharing how happy she was that her husband had been convicted only of extortion, bookmaking and getting his hands on a hot Lamborghini.
Up on the ninth-floor lobby, Dina Borgesi--wife of alleged congsigliere George--told reporters she didn't know how to tell her 5- and 8-year-old daughters that their daddy wouldn't be coming home to open the Christmas gifts they saved for him. A 34-year-old accountant, Borgesi never really warmed to the attention. She rued the decision and the whole scene.
After Danielle Mazzone, the blonde wife of Steven, the alleged underboss who now runs a McKean Street deli, somehow slipped by with nary a notice, Kathy Ciancaglini tumbled down a flight of stairs, locked in a joyous embrace with a family friend. About two hours after sprinting from her niece's wedding when she got word of an impending verdict, she gleefully took her regular place before the lights and, in her almost-raspy voice, declared victory.
On the stage they occupied from March to July, these women were living, breathing locals whose lives supposedly mirror those of fictional mafiosas.
They--everyone wanted to think-- married bad boys and turned a blind eye to crime and infidelity for the thousands tucked in their sock drawer and a lavish life. Turns out everyone may have been wrong.
Since graduating from Drexel University in 1989, Dina Borgesi has worked as an accountant for a Bensalem-based apparel company. She's also a working mother who trimmed her work week to spend more time with her two little girls.
Instead of mud baths and expensive champagne, her days consist of the typical motherhood tasks: shuttling the kids to school, CCD religion classes and playdates in the family's Lincoln Navigator.
"That's not even mentioning meals, errands and housework," she says, подстрекающих "Glamorous? Well it's rewarding, but it's definitely not glamorous."
The women don't blame the perceptions people have of them on filmmakers and the media alone, as investigators and historians still contend widely held views of mob lifestyles are alive and well. They say the women aren't innocent victims of government vendettas against their husbands.
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