Born to Steal

March 24, 2003
Retraction: Publishers Weekly wishes to retract the review of Born to Steal by Gary Weiss (Forecasts, Mar. 24). Several statements (that "Weiss covered Pasciuto's story for Business Week in the 1990s, and he is almost fond of the man and his cohorts"; that Louis Pasciuto "borrowed money" from Charles Ricottone; and that Ricottone was convicted of racketeering) are incorrect. PW apologizes to Mr. Weiss for the errors.

April 1, 2003
Weiss, a business journalist, tells the fascinating story of Louis Pasciuto, a man "born to steal," who grew up in the Wall Street Mafia, was caught by law enforcement at age 25, and then turned against his former accomplices. With engrossing detail, we learn about the degraded life of Pasciuto as he moved from a gas station attendant to a Wall Street stockbroker in 1992. With lies and schemes that bilked naive investors of untold sums, he worked for chop shops (which looked like brokerages and were registered but sold usually worthless stocks) and bucket shops (which pretended to sell stocks), and in turn was bullied by gangsters who wanted their share. This description of the Mafia's infiltration of Wall Street is a tale of thievery in the 1990s on a scale never before seen. When caught by federal agents, he joined their efforts against the "Guys" in exchange for the government's Witness Protection Program. This story clearly illustrates that truth is better than fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)