GUILTY NY - Albert Circelli, 37, shot dead in Italian restaurant, NYC, 22 Dec 2003

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The scene in one of New York's fabled Italian restaurants would have done "The Sopranos" TV scriptwriters proud -- a reputed mobster shot a man dead for heckling a woman singer.

Police said Broadway chanteuse Rena Strober was singing "Don't Rain on My Parade" at Rao's, an East Harlem restaurant, Monday night when a patron, Albert Circelli, criticized her performance.

Reputed Luchese crime family associate Louis Barone told him to watch his mouth but when Circelli swore in response, Barone pulled out a .38-caliber revolver and shot him in the back, police said.

A second shot fired by Barone hit another diner, Al Petraglia, 57, in the foot, police said. Barone dropped the revolver, walked out of the restaurant and was arrested by police officers.

Circelli, 37, died of his wounds and Petraglia was treated in the hospital, police said.

Rao's is a 10-table restaurant that accommodates only 40 people. It has a reputation for exclusivity and a Mafia mystique, but police said the shooting was not a mob "hit."

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Feature article from 2013:

http://nypost.com/2013/12/29/the-mob-murder-at-raos-that-started-over-a-song/

What happened a decade ago at Rao’s has become the stuff of legend and Strober was center stage for it all...

Louis “Louie Lump Lump” Barone, a 67-year-old “associate” who would show up at Rao’s about once a year, shot to death Albert Circelli, a 37-year-old Yonkers resident and a “made man” in the Lucchese crime family...

Barone pleaded guilty in 2004 to manslaughter and assault and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He died in April of natural causes, according to the state Department of Corrections.

Although Rao’s now has outposts in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, Strober has yet to visit them. Nor did she ever return to her regular Monday nights at the Harlem eatery... Instead, she joined the Friar’s Club and would sing there every Thursday night.

“I just figured old Jews with no guns is probably a better place for me,” she said.

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