1-800-SAVe-MY-ASS

(power)Suspected of murdering that blond girl in Aruba? Having some problemswith your appointment as homeland-security chief? Made the mistake of havingsex with Christie Brinkley’s husband? Call Joe Tacopina, the best-dressed,smoothest-talking, hardest-working criminal-defense attorney going, and fora mere $750 an hour, everything will be okay by Lisa DePaulo1-800-SAVE-MY-ASStonight, joe tacopina—or as the TV makeup artists call him, “Joe-too-bad-he’smarried-Tacopina”—iswandering the beaches of Aruba in his favorite Italian soccershirt, his $6,500 Panerai watch (o∞cial timekeeping instrument of the Italian navy),and the leather sandals he bought in Milan, searching for Booty. It doesn’t look good.He’s here as part of his ongoing quest to clear “the good name” of Joran van der Sloot,one of his numerous infamous clients, the one who had the misfortune of being thelast person to see (and sort of have sex with) Natalee Holloway.But, ah, Joe is convinced—still!—that his client was not the last person to see Nataleealive. “Booty was,” he says. “And who knows who else?” Booty is an alleged drug dealerwho operates out of a hut on the beach, just feet from the ground-floor room at theHoliday Inn where Natalee was staying…until she vanished. Gotta find Booty. ›››P R O D U C T I O N : M I Y A Z U S A T O F O R U R B A N N Y C . S T Y L I N G : M I C H A E L N A S H . G R O O M I N G : G I G I H A L E F O R W T M A N A G E M E N T . S U I T : K I T O N . S H I R T : C H A R V E T . S H O E S : J . M . W E S T O N .256.GQ.cOm.MAR.07( P h o t o g r a p h s b y F R A N Ç O I S D I S C H I N G E R )

(power)R O B E R T M E C E A / G E T T Y I M A G E SJoran has not been charged with anything(despite spending ninety days in an Arubanjail), but more than a year after Nataleedisappeared, Joe isn’t taking any chances.He continues to investigate the crime asthough the cable networks were still runningnightly dispatches.“Check this out,” says Joe. We are standingtoe-deep in sand on a pitch-black night,peering into Natalee’s hotel room. The slidingdoors lead directly to the beach—and toBooty’s drug hut. Booty, Joe explains, toldJoe’s private investigator that he saw Nataleereturn to her room that night at threeten in the morning, fifteen minutes afterJoran left her on the beach. “Booty knew itwas Natalee, because he knew her,” Joe says.“Because he sold her drugs earlier that day.”Wow. Now, that would be a news flash. Ishe sure about this?“Well, it would be kinda nice if I can getBooty to tell me the same thing,” Joe says.“Hey! You’re that guy!”Someone has recognized Joe on thebeach. This happens all the time in Aruba.Actually, it doesn’t matter where you go:These days, everyone seems to know Joe.They know him from his daily appearancesin the tabloids, for representing…well, justabout everyone. Joran van der Sloot; BernieKerik; Michael Jackson’s manager; FoxyBrown (until they parted ways—“She’s eithergonna end up in jail or an insane asylum”);the “Page Six” guy accused of tryingto shake down Ron Burkle; the Sopranosactor caught up in a cop killing; the womanwho was hurt when Yankees pitcher CoryLidle crashed his plane into her apartment;the nurse from New Jersey whose husbandwashed up in three suitcases in the ChesapeakeBay; and on and on. They’ve seen hisconstant appearances on the Greta-Larry-Abrams-Crier dead-girl-of-the-week cable-TV circuit. (But not Nancy Grace. He refusesto do Nancy Grace.) They’ve heard him onImus in the Morning (he also occasionally“counsels Imus on legal matters”). Evenhis appearances as a legal expert for ABCNews—a gig he discontinued because it precludedhim from being on every channel. “Itwould have been to the detriment of my clientsif I could only go on ABC,” he says. Buthe still owes the network big-time. It was anABC producer, after all, who told Joran vander Sloot to “call Joe Tacopina” after his previouslawyers pissed him off.So part of the agenda in Aruba this weekis to toss a bone to ABC’s Chris Cuomo in theform of an “exclusive” sit-down with Joran.ABC did the first half of theinterview yesterday, on thebeach where Joran did not doit. “They wanted to do the interviewnear the fishermen’shuts,” Joe explains, “but we eschewedthat. We don’t want tomake it any more sensationalthan it already is.” (Joe thinksof everything.) Instead, theyhad Joran walk the beachwhere he did not do it at sunset,when the lighting wouldbe nice. Other than that, “noground rules,” Joe says. Well,except that Cuomo wasn’t allowedto ask about what happenedthat night! “We did that already,” saysJoe—in Cuomo’s last exclusive with Joranand Greta’s last exclusive with Joran…That morning, over breakfast at theHyatt, young Joran van der Sloot—whois so tall (six feet four) his head keeps hittingthe lid over the omelet bar while thewaitresses gawk and the other breakfastdiners point—tells me that he hasn’t had toworry about much since Joe Tac has beenin charge. “I love the guy,” he says. So muchthat “if I do get any money from any of thesecivil suits, I plan to give it all to Joe.”You mean more than his 30 percent?“Every dime.”(“He said that?” says Joe. “That’s reallytouching.” Ka-ching!)Shortly after breakfast, Chris Cuomo—soon to be knighted as the news anchorof Good Morning America—is cooling hisheels in the Hyatt lobby. His camera crewhas to catch the next flight out of Aruba, andCuomo is none too pleased that Tacopina isholding up the big interview because he’supstairs changing into a new soccer shirt.“Relax,” Joe tells Cuomo from his cell phone.“He’s on Tacopina time,” Joran explainsto Cuomo, referring to the phrase oftenused for Joe’s chronic lateness.Of course, it will all work out in the end.Joran will do the final interview poolsideat his parents’ house. Cuomo will get his“exclusive”—and his GMA gig. And JoeTacopina will have another notch in his beltas the hottest lawyer in the country.* * *every few years, we get one of theseguys. You know, the lawyer who lands allthe juicy cases, who wears bespoke suitsand drives fancy cars, who seems to have atelevision earpiece permanently implantedToday he refuses to take Mob clients: “I gave up acouple million in fees last year, turning this stuff down.I won’t do it anymore. They made it hard for peoplelike my father, who is the purest soul on earth.”Tacopina first made news by winning* an acquittal for Thomas Wiese (left) in theAbner Louima police-brutality case in 1999.on the left side of his head, who makes moreappearances in the New York Post than incourt, and who eventually…crashes and burns.But Joe is di≠erent. For one thing, hewins. This isn’t another Mark Geragos,the last lawyer-of-the-minute, who tookhis arrogance show on the road while hisclient Scott Peterson went to San Quentin.(Guess who got a call midway through thetrial, asking if he was interested in takingover the case? Joe wasn’t.) The TV anchorswho book Joe will tell you that he is the ItGuy because he’s perfect for our made-forcableworld. MSNBC general manager DanAbrams: “Joe oozes charm. When a lot ofpeople picture what they want in a lawyer,they picture a guy who looks and acts likeJoe. They want a big, tough, good-lookingattorney who’s gonna be fearless in advocatingtheir cause. And Joe is just that.” CourtTV’s Catherine Crier: “Look, he’s charmingand personable and has a good reputationand all that. But he’s hot because he produces.He actually does excellent work inthe courtroom, too. And Joe’s very cute.…”Fox’s Greta Van Susteren: “Lawyering haschanged a lot. It used to just be what youdid in the courtroom. In the new age, whichbegan really with William Kennedy Smith,you have to worry about the court of publicopinion as well. Especially when you havea high-profile client. Joe is what I’d wantfrom my lawyer if I were in trouble.”Not surprisingly, even Hollywood is takingnotice. Joe has several studios courtinghim to do a reality show on daytime TV.“Sort of a Judge Judy meets Perry Mason”—yes, he has the lingo down—“but all crossexaminations,”his specialty. He wasn’t allthat interested until he heard Judge Judymade $32 million last year. “Can you fuckingbelieve that? Judge Judy!” He shot a pilotin December.But here’s the thing about Joe—and it’swhat separates him from the other hot dogs.You can’t help rooting for the guy. He somehowmanages to be slick without beingMAR.07.GQ.cOm.259

(power)slippery, the first “TV lawyer” who can sliceand dice and pontificate on the biggest casesin the headlines—many of them his—andstill come o≠ like a regular Joe. (“The faintNew York accent helps,” says Abrams.)It’s something that drives his competitorscrazy. Talk to other criminal-defenseattorneys and they’ll tell you two things:On the record, Great guy, works his ass o≠.O≠ the record, How did this sonofabitchget to be the Guy?Does Tac ever wonder: Why me?“Yeah!” A pause. “I mean, yes and no. Iknow a large part is due to luck. I caughtsome good breaks. I mean, look, I knowtomorrow it could all be over. Believe me,I wake up and go, ‘Today’s the day they’regonna catch on.’ But on the other hand,I worked my fingers to the bone. I workaround the clock, and I care. I know I havethe skills; I’m not bashful about that. ButI don’t believe in my own bullshit, either. Idon’t drink my own Kool-Aid. I don’t thinkbecause I’m on TV or have these cases thatI’m some self-important individual. As amatter of fact, I hate…like, this stu≠?”—he points to the tape recorder—“I getembarrassed by this stu≠.” Well, not toomuch. But still.* * *back on the beach in Aruba, the Booty callis not going as planned. Joe can’t find theguy. And neither can his two sidekicks, withwhom he spends most of his professionaltime: his young associate (soon to be madepartner) Chad Seigel, whom he once triedto strangle in a cab in Houston (long story),and Rosemarie Arnold, his Guccied-outpartner in his new civil practice, which isdi≠erent from his criminal practice (anddi≠erent from his practice in Milan—yes,he has a law firm there, too).“I don’t think we’re gonna find Booty,”says Rosemarie.“Have some faith!” says Joe.We’ve been walking the beach for overan hour now, skirting between tiki torches,hotel beach bars, and clusters of slurringtourists. It’s amazing that Natalee andJoran ever found a private place to have sexout here. “Well, they didn’t actually do it,”Joe explains, “because Joran didn’t have acondom. But they did everything but.”Joe’s very fancy cell phone is ringing.“Cuomo,” he reports. “His flight was delayedfor four hours, and he’s stuck at thefrickin’ Aruba airport.” He smiles. “Guesswe had plenty of time for the interview.”Nice cell phone.“Bernie Kerik gave me this. It costs, like,5,000 bucks.”As we walk, more calls come in. Clientswho need to talk to Joe, would-be clients whowant to hire Joe. In the weeks to come, therewill be plenty more boldfaced names in Joe’sroster. Rick Hilton—Paris’s father—needshelp with one of his other kids, who wasJoe knows cops, likes cops. He’s defended a lot ofthem. He made his name by defending one of thecops in the notorious Abner Louima case. But he’snot afraid of breaking their balls, if necessary.involved in a scu±e in Central Park. RachaelRay’s husband wants to hire Joe to do “mediarelations,” because the National Enquirer isreporting that he had an a≠air and wantedthe woman to spit on him. (“People do that?”says Joe.) Even John Mark Karr, the creepysuspect in the JonBenet case, reaches out viahis dad. (“You gotta be kidding,” says Joe.)But, oh, dear God. Here, on the beachesof Aruba, a true tragedy has occurred.While Joe is searching for Booty, hesomehow loses his Bernie Kerik cell phone.But he does not realize this until we are ensconced,an hour later, in his favorite Italianrestaurant in Aruba.He dispatches Chad to go scour thebeach, dig in the sand, whatever it takes.Whatever it takes? If they couldn’t findNatalee Holloway, how will they ever findthe Bernie Kerik cell phone?“Just bring me the cell phone,” says Joe.“We’ll keep your ravioli warm.”Chad returns an hour later with the cellphone. “The fuck, man,” says Joe. “There’ssand in it!”* * *he grew up in a row house in SheepsheadBay, Brooklyn. His mother, Josephine,worked for the New York City Fire Department,in accounting. His father, Cosmo, soldcardboard boxes. They still live in the househe grew up in, with the clothesline out backand the washer-dryer in the kitchen (withpictures of Joe taped all over it) and Joe’sbronzed baby shoes in the china cabinet.Joe tried to buy them a McMansion nearhis place in Connecticut, but they weren’tinterested. “What’s wrong with our house?”his father asks.Joe’s parents are in their eighties. Theyhold hands on the pleather couch and putout salami and cheese. They don’t thinkthey did “anything special” for their onlyson. But it was Josephine who draggedhim to the rink out at Coney Island whenshe thought he needed a hobby. (He endedup being scouted by the New York Islandersbut went to law school instead.) And itwas Josephine who once, during a game,walked on the ice in her heels and pulled akid o≠ Joe, by his hair. “It was a little traumatic,”says Joe. “I was hoping the kid killedme and this wasn’t happening.”“Joseph, he was hurting you,” says hismother. To me: “He cried all the way home.”“Ma!” says Joe.They worked extra jobs to send him toPoly Prep so that he didn’t have to go topublic school. They helped him pay for collegeat Skidmore, where he landed a partialhockey scholarship. “I remember driving upthere in an old Cutlass Supreme, an ugly bigasscar, and parking next to all the BMWs.I called my dad the first night and said, ‘Idon’t know if this is the place for me. I’m alittle di≠erent than everyone else here.’ Hesaid, ‘Do us a favor, just stick it out.’ ”In college he chased tail, was captain ofthe hockey and baseball teams, and readFatal Vision by Joe McGinniss. The book soa≠ected him, he decided to be a criminaldefenseattorney.His first big break came courtesy of hismother. One of her friends at work said arelative of hers had a great job transcribingtapes for some lawyer. Josephine intervenedso her son would have a summerjob, and Joe ended up transcribing tapesfor the Paul Castellano trial. He met allthe tough guys. One thing led to another,and by the time Joe was actually in lawschool, he was working on the first bigGotti trial. “I realized I instigated this,”says his mother, “but I had to keep tellinghim, ‘These are not good people.’ ” Hisfather was both proud and mortified. Today,as he sits on the couch, he looks awaywhen Josephine whispers the word Mafia.“He hates them,” Joe says later. His father,an immigrant, can still remember how hisfamily’s deli would be shaken down by theMob. “Otherwise the windows would getbroken,” says Joe. “It was brutal.”Today he refuses to take Mob clients. Ofcourse, he has the luxury of not needing themoney. “I probably gave up a couple millionin fees just last year, turning this stu≠down. But I just won’t do it anymore. Theymade it hard for everyone, for people likemy father, who is the purest soul on earth.Whenever I start thinking I’m, like, flyinga little too high, I think back to him andsay, You know what? That’s a good person.If you complete your life like that, you’veaccomplished a lot.”Josephine and Cosmo watched their sonmake it to the Brooklyn D.A.’s o∞ce freshout of law school. (They proudly show o≠his A.D.A. evaluation from 1994. Samplequote: “He leaps from his chair, resemblinga bull in a china cabinet.”) Even then, theyhelped out in their own way. At the time,Joe was already married, with his first kid,and money was tight. So Josephine wentto the local deli and made a deal with theowners: If they would give Joe lunch everyday, she would come in at the end of the260.GQ.cOm.MAR.07

(power)F R O M T O P : B R Y A N S M I T H / Z U M A / N E W S C O M ; L A W R E N C E S C H W A R T Z W A L D / S P L A S H N E W S / N E W S C O Mweek and pay the bill. “I had no idea,” saysJoe. “I thought they were giving me freesandwiches because they liked me.”“Everyone liked you,” says his mother.“Even the priest.” She turns to me. “Josephwas even the best altar boy.”“Grain of salt on that,” says Joe. “I was notthe best altar boy.”“I think the priest favored you, Joseph,”says Josephine.“Stop it, Ma!”* * *a decade ago, Joe Tacopina was so nothotthat he spent every Friday and Saturdaynight as the coat-check guy at theLongshore Club in Westport, Connecticut(where he now owns a six-bedroom lakefronthome with an ice rink in the basement),working for tips. “I needed themoney for diapers and shit,” he explains.(He has a wife and five kids at home—andhe’s only 40.) He had just left the BrooklynD.A.’s o∞ce and was trying to build hisown practice, so he’d lug his law files tothe coatroom and try to do work, betweencustomers. “They’d take their jacketso≠ and throw them at me,” he says. “Thefurs, stu≠ like that. ‘Son, don’t put thaton a wire hanger!’ It was so condescending,so demeaning. I was a lawyer, I wasa former prosecutor, I’d prosecuted someof the most vicious murders in New YorkCity, and they’d be like, ‘Here’s $2 for you,sonny.’ I wanted to say, ‘Fuck you!’ ”He couldn’t a≠ord an o∞ce, so he improvised.“I got one of those packages, youknow? Where you get your mail, you get anaddress, you get someone to try and answeryour phones, although it became pretty obviousthat it wasn’t my o∞ce, because theycould never pronounce my name: ‘No, Mr.Tropotina is not here right now.’ ” The packagealso came with a conference room forten hours a month at 575 Madison Avenue.“It was a Madison Avenue address! I hadbusiness cards made and shit, and I’d getmy mail there.”At the same time, he set up a “virtualo∞ce,” operating out of diners on MadisonAvenue, making calls, meeting clients. Thewaitresses took pity on him—to a point.“Basically, the gig was I’d try and find acorner where I’d stay out of everyone’s way,and order a co≠ee and a bagel, and try andmilk two hours. But eventually they’d belike, ‘Sir, do you need anything else?’ Andthen they’d put the check on the table. SoI’d move to the next diner.”* * *three days before jetting o≠ to Aruba,Joe is headed to a much bleaker place:Queens. More specifically, to the Queenscriminal courthouse—“You’re about to seethe belly of the beast,” he says—a place hedoesn’t get to very often nowadays, beingthe lawyer to the stars and all.“What, no E-ZPass?” he says as he headsthrough the Midtown Tunnel, driving asleek new black Lexus and fumbling aroundto find the E-ZPass thingie.He doesn’t know if he has an E-ZPass?“Oh, this isn’t my car.” It’s his intern’s.(You know things are good when your interndrives a Lexus.) Joe wanted to take theMaserati or the Audi A8 but had to borrowthe intern’s car because he slept on “theboat” last night. (That would be the fortynine-footMeridian yacht on which he occasionallycruises into Chelsea Piers fromhis home dock in Westport.)“I got the greatest case last night,” saysJoe, handing money to the toll clerk at thetunnel. “Did you read about that womanwho was in the papers yesterday? She hiredme last night.” Pause for e≠ect. “A 34-yearoldwoman taking the PATH train homefrom the city. O∞ce party. She takes thetrain home, gets o≠, is drunk. Goes to hercar. Two Jersey transit cops basically convinceher to follow them. She says, ‘No, I’mjust gonna sleep it o≠ in the car.’ They go,‘No, no, we’ll escort you home, don’t worryabout it, follow me.’ She follows the cop car.They make her get into a car drunk, first ofall.…” He is building the case in his head.“Then they say, ‘Follow us.’ And they makea left, and they turn into a lot, and theyrape her. Two cops. This is a great case.”He just missed an exit. It’s been a whilesince he was in Queens.“So she called me. And she’s scared. She’sgot a husband and three kids. This is thekind of case, I just want to get in front of ajury and slaughter these fucking guys.”Joe knows cops, likes cops. He’s defendeda lot of them. The case that put him on themap, in the late ’90s, was when he was a defenselawyer in the notorious Abner Louimacase. He eventually got his guy—Tom Wiese,a cop who actually admitted being in themen’s room at the time—acquitted on allcounts. No one expected it, least of all Joe.And so the cops love him. But he’s not afraidof breaking their balls, if necessary.“In this case, I could see them start attackingher. They’re gonna say it was consensualand whatnot,” he says. (They have pleadednot guilty.) “But first of all, even if it wasconsensual, it was a crime.… Did I just missanother exit?… The first thing I need to do ismake sure these guys, because they’re cops,don’t get a break. Believe me, if they try toshitcan this case, I will make some noise.”His Bernie Kerik cell phone rings. It’s BernieKerik, calling from Amman. That wouldbe the Bernie Kerik, the former N.Y.C. policecommissioner who was almost the secretaryof homeland security until his nominationimploded over…oh, gosh, where dowe begin? Was it the nanny thing, the taking-free-shitthing, the Ground Zero fuckpadthing, the a≠air-with–Judith Reganthing? In any event, even before Kerik had“a few problems,” as Joe puts it, Joe was hislawyer. Joe was the guy who talked to theWhite House to “vet” Bernie’s appointment.Joe was the guy Kerik planned to take withhim to Washington to be his personal counsel.And Joe was the guy who got Bernie asweet deal when the shit hit the fan: Kerikfaced up to sixty years in bribery chargesbut ended up with two “unclassified misdemeanors”—aslap on the wrist. Bernie lovesJoe so much that he gave him his Medalof Valor from his years as police commissioner.It’s on Joe’s shelf in his o∞ce, nextto a silver-framed picture of the pope anda signed come-hither photo from VictoriaGotti, another esteemed client. Bernie lovesJoe so much that he goes crazy findinggifts to send him. The Vuitton briefcase?“Bernie gave me that.” The Italian-navywatch? Bernie. “No one has ever appreciatedme as much as Bernie has,” says Joe.So anyway, he tells me, while he was landingthis new client last night, he was alsohaving cocktails with an editor from theNew York Post. Client relations, you know.“We had a little bump last week withBianchi,” he says. That would be DianaBianchi, the 19-year-old who slept withChristie Brinkley’s husband, Peter Cook.With Foxy Brown, top, in 2005; after* lunch at Nello with Bernie Kerik.(“I love Joe like a brother,” says Kerik.)MAR.07.GQ.cOm.261

(power)At home in Westport, Tacopina*(a die-hard fan of the Azzurri,the Italian national team) playssoccer with the family dog, Cyrus.The girl’s stepfather, a cop,called Joe when a couple ofdozen paparazzi showed up ontheir lawn and Diana was on thecover of every tabloid. Joe’s firstjob was to try to restore her reputation.Then he took the gloveso≠: “Peter Cook first approachedher when she was 17, okay? She’sringing up toys at a toy store.For his kids. And he makes it as if he sawa star there. You know, bringing out thetoys. ‘Wow, you bring out those Legos quitewell.’ ” He snorts. “Then he hires her to comework for him, and within a month of herbeing there, he starts making advances.…She’s 18, he’s 47. And she’s his employee.What’s she supposed to say, ‘Get away fromme, you old man’?”The phone is ringing again. Now it’sJared Paul Stern, the ex–“Page Six” scribewho got caught allegedly extorting the billionaireRon Burkle on tape. When Sterngot busted, he called Joe, even though thelast time they dealt with each other, Joe hadcalled him “to have a yelling match” abouta snarky item he’d written about yet anotherof Joe’s clients. “I found him to be, uh,slightly arrogant. I wasn’t a huge fan.” Butyou took the case? “He called me and said,‘More than one person’—he plays this mysterything—‘told me you’re the guy I have tosee, that you’re the fixer.’ It was intriguing.It was ‘Page Six.’ ” Plus, says Joe, “Burkle isperhaps the worst victim in the world! As adefense lawyer, you couldn’t ask for a betterguy to cross-examine. I mean, I’m sorry, Ijust don’t see a jury having much sympathyfor a schizophrenic paranoid billionairewho’s so concerned about his coverage inthe gossip pages that he has to go out of hisway to do a $200,000 sting operation to setup some schmuck from ‘Page Six’!” (Thefeds have since decided that there is no caseagainst Stern and never filed charges.)Joe pulls up to the dreary Queens courthouseand finds a parking spot on the street.By the way, what exactly are we doinghere today?“Oh,” says Joe, “this is just client relations,really. It’s just a regular case. It’sgonna be adjourned. Nothing’s gonna happentoday.”But what’s the case?“My guy was a Mitsubishi Businessmanof the Year, got some diploma and the wholewrite-up. But then he got busted in hishouse with cocaine and marijuana.” (EvenJoe’s alleged drug dealers have credentials.)Anyway, Joe’s here to get the case “knockedover for a month.”He waltzes into the courthouse. Theguys at the metal detectors give him highfives. A few lawyers in the hallway congratulatehim on his new cases. He asks forsome private time to go talk to the familyof his client; five of them are here to showtheir support.Where’s his client?“Oh,” says Joe, “he’s a guest of the governortoday.” He smiles. “He’s a guest of thestate correctional system.”Joe will spend the next few hours in a shitholeof a courtroom, waiting for his clientto arrive by bus from Riker’s as a parade ofD-list drug dealers get their moment beforethe weary judge. He sits there, Black-Berrying his children, nodding to hiscolleagues. “Look at that,” he says, pointingto a lawyer who is dressed without a tiefor court. “That is a disgrace.”Even here?“It’s a matter of respect,” says Joe.* * *a few words about the Italian thing.Tacopina is so proud to be Italian—andby that we mean Real Italian; he has no usefor the sauseege/ball-scratching Sopranosstu≠ (“it’s embarrassing, it’s like Ebonicsfor Italians; I hate The Sopranos”)—thathe has the Roman eagle tattooed on hisright hip. “You want to see it?” he asks, thefirst time I show up to interview him in hiso∞ce. (It’s awesome.) His underwear isalso Italian. (He buys the Dolce & GabbanaItalian-flag waistband motif: “How couldI not have that?”) He buys all his shoes inItaly, where he also has an o∞ce and a practicewith seven lawyers. (His clients rangefrom one of the Parmalat guys—“It’s likeEnron times twenty over there”—to GinaLollobrigida—“She’s still a babe.”) He getsall his suits there, too, unless he finds a fabriche loves, in which case he brings it backto his guy at Loro Piana on Madison Avenueand has him handcraft one.His o∞ce is decorated with Julius Caesarcrapola, some of which he displays moreprominently when he is on trial. “Caesarwas the greatest strategist of all time,” saysJoe. One of his most prized possessions is aframed photograph of himself in Rome withAntonin Scalia. They were both honored bythe Italian-American Bar Association.What were you doing in Rome with him?“Getting drunk. This is me and him,hanging out at the Pantheon together.”He even has his bottled water shippedover from Italy. “You need it to make realespresso,” he says.* * *here’s how he met his wife: He wasin the law-school cafeteria when he saw herstacking trays (she worked for Marriott).He was 22, she was 23. “See that girl?” hetold a friend. “I’m gonna marry her.”He made his move. Would she go on adate with him? No. Could they talk? No.Would she marry him? Um, no. She toldhim she was engaged. He persisted. “Justgive me one hour,” he begged. “One hour.”“I was actually thinking of calling security,”says Tish.Finally, she broke down and gave him hishour. He took her to a bar in Westport, andthey had nachos. “When the hour was up,”says Tish, “he said, ‘Well, I’m completelyin love with you, and I want to spend therest of my life with you. How do you feel?’ ”Silence. “ ‘Well, let me know,’ he said. ‘Becauseif you love me, you can call o≠ the otherthing and we can get married, like, soon.’ ”He negotiated another date. They wentto a diner. He walked her to her car and gaveher a peck on the cheek.“That’s all I get?” she asked. He was in.The next day, he almost blew it, however,when he broke into her car with a wirehanger to leave a rose and a letter (in Italian)on her seat. She wasn’t amused. Her largeIrish family was even less amused. “Theywere like, ‘Wait a minute, an Italian fromBrooklyn who’s breaking into your car?’ ”But Joe won them over.A few days after meeting Ma and PaTacopina, I drive out to Westport to meetTish and the kids. The house is grand butnot fancy. They still haven’t gotten aroundto putting furniture in the dining room, becausethey don’t do dinner parties. The artconsists of photos of the Italian soccer teamand drawings by the kids. The most obnoxiouspart is Joe’s shoe closet, which is largerthan Tish’s entire clothes closet.Tish is, as Joe billed her, beautiful andreal. The only flash is the huge diamond onher left hand—a surprise from her husbandon their fifteenth wedding anniversary(Bernie sent him to “his guy” in the diamonddistrict). He looks at her like she’s anice cream cone. We sit at the kitchen tableand talk about what it’s like to be Mrs. Joetoo-bad-he’s-married-Tacopina.Her husband is the kind of guy, she says,who calls her fifteen times a day and tellsher every day how lucky he is. She tells methe only thing she worries about with Joeis his schedule: She worries that he will getsick; she worries when he’s driving homeat two in the morning (“I stay up and talkP R O D U C T I O N : M I Y A Z U S A T O F O R U R B A N N Y C . S T Y L I N G : M I C H A E L N A S H . G R O O M I N G : G I G I H A L E F O R W T M A N A G E M E N T . T - S H I R T : D O L C E & G A B B A N A . J E A N S : D I E S E L . 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to him on the phone until he gets home”).But it can’t be easy. Women throw themselvesat “celebrity lawyers” far less handsomethan Joe. Earlier, I had asked Joeabout this. “Yeah, plenty of times it’s hardfor her. But you know what? The more inthe news I am, the more—I don’t want tosay reclusive—the more removed I am fromthese situations. My friend manages a restauranton the Upper East Side, Campagnola. Iused to go there all the time. I haven’t beenthere in two years. Because it’s just trouble.The women there, they line up at the bar.And I don’t need that shit, you know?“Never ever will anybody be able to tellyou that they see me out and about withwomen. I just don’t do it. You know what’sthe saddest thing for me in the world?When I go to Nello or one of those restaurantswith Bernie for lunch. And you see,like, guys who are old and decrepit come inwith a stunner who’s 25, and they’re smiling,holding hands. I just say to myself, ‘Iwould rather be hit by a fucking bus thanbe, at that age in life, having that.’“So I wear my ring all the time. I makeit very clear that I’m married, and happilymarried. Cindy Crawford could come andbeg me, but I have more important thingsto do.” Like coach three soccer teams.Joe and Tish have a rule: No matter whatnew desperate client he gets, the weekendsare family time. “If someone from theWhite House called me on a Saturday andsaid, ‘President Bush just got arrested inTimes Square and wants you to representhim,’ I’d send it to Chad,” Joe says.Well, maybe not. But still.At the end of the afternoon, Tish andJoe invite me to join them for dinner atTarantino, an Italian joint in Westport.The five kids all pile into the Denali. TheMaserati is not in the program. “Get in thecar, honey,” says his wife. Tish drives.* * *the morning Joe leaves Aruba, he is terriblyhungover. He still hasn’t found Booty,but he has a flight to catch and more hystericalclients to tend to. His cohorts, Chadand Rosemarie, stumble down to the lobby.“No more piña coladas for you,” says Joe.At the airport, the customs guy swoonsover Joe’s cell phone. In the business-classlounge, he sits and fields a zillion calls, andhe keeps talking on his way to the plane.CBS and MSNBC want him on the air. Aclient who’s suing her ex for giving her herpeswants to talk. Bernie just wants to sayhi and how was Aruba? Tish wants to knowif he will get home in time for dinner.Joe turns the phone o≠ and reclines inhis seat, snoring loudly until he gets backto New York.Where there are sixty-three new messageswaiting for him.lisa depaulo is a gq correspondent.MAR.07.GQ.cOm.263