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(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 . C L E A T S : K A P P A .262.GQ.cOm.MAR.07
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