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An inmate serving a life sentence for murder sued the author of “The Quiet Don,” the 2013 book on the late organized crime boss Russell Bufalino, claiming the writer wrongly named him as the killer of a witness against another reputed mobster.

Louis Coviello, 59, a former Dunmore High School football star in the 1970s, said he has suffered “beyond description” as a result of the fabricated account and sought $1 million in compensatory and punitive damages each from the author, Matt Birkbeck, The Berkley Publishing Group and the Penguin Group.

Birkbeck, a journalist and author who lives in the Poconos, declined comment Tuesday. Attorney Marlene Glazer of Penguin Random House LLC did not return a call for comment.

Coviello disputed Birkbeck’s account of what happened in the room of a patient recovering from a heart attack at the former Community Medical Center in Scranton.

“The book states that I walked into his room, closed the door, took a pillow and placed it over his head, smothering him to death,” the suit said.

“This is a completely fabricated piece of fiction that Defendant Matt Birkbeck created to make this book resemble a mob story,” the suit said.

On page 182 of the book the patient was an unnamed witness against Philip “Fibber” Forgione. But Coviello identified him as Frank Cooper whom he said had died at another hospital a year after the alleged murder at CMC.

Coviello filed the complaint himself earlier this month in U.S. District Court for the Middle District Pennsylvania, Scranton. He is an inmate at the state Correctional Institution at Huntingdon, serving life for the 1978 shooting of Dominic Coroniti of Dickson City during a drug deal.

The author wrote Coviello came clean with the confession out of sense of guilt as he spoke to investigators in 2006 looking into the alleged mob ties of Dunmore businessman Louis DeNaples who was applying for a casino license from the state. Birkbeck related that Coviello cooperated in the investigation and felt let down by DeNaples, a family friend, who reneged on a promise of legal help and protection in prison.

Coviello denied providing information to investigators, either over the phone or in writing. Letters reprinted in the book were not written by Coviello, the suit said. He demanded that the letters, referred to in the book, be produced in their “original format.”

Coviello dismissed the book as not living up to the hype of being “the untold story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino,” saying it repeated newspaper and media accounts of “long ago.” If it concentrated on Bufalino, who reportedly ordered that former Teamster head Jimmy Hoffa be killed, Coviello said he would not have filed the complaint.

“But this book is really a story about Louis DeNaples of Dunmore, Pennsylvania,” the suit said.

The publication of false information in the book has not only caused him pain and anguish, but his family also has suffered, the suit said. Any chance of a pardon “has been completely dashed,” and there is no chance either of correcting or reversing the damage done, the suit said.

“For ever-more, the plaintiff is stuck with this outrageous story,” the suit said.

Birkbeck
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/web1_6018766.jpg.optimal.jpgBirkbeck

By Jerry Lynott

[email protected]

Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLNews