Author(s): Teresa Carpenter

Biography & Memoir

Arlyne Weiss grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the daughter of a Jewish mobster who ran an auto sales business as a front.

From a young age, she idolized Virginia Hill, the girlfriend of gangster Bugsy Siegel, and aspired to what she saw as a glamorous and exciting life. After a brief marriage to a furrier named Norman Brickman, she achieved her goal and then some, inserting herself into the lives of dozens of wise guys - Italian mobsters were her preference - and becoming addicted to the rush of danger and lawlessness. But after years of violence, a brutal gang rape, and finally, threats against her daughter, she turned the tables on those who betrayed her and became a government informant, wearing a wire and ultimately becoming a major witness in the government's successful case against the Colombo crime family, bringing down the notorious Anthony Scarpeti.