Court Tosses Killer's Defamation Suit Over Russell Bufalino Bio
A federal appeals court dismissed a defamation lawsuit last Monday filed by a convicted murderer serving life in prison. The lawsuit, over the book The Quiet Don , about the late Cosa Nostra boss Russell Bufalino , had caused the defendant depression, and supposedly made other inmates target him for violence. Coviello was arrested in 1978 for murder. In its order, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Louis Coviello, the convict who filed the lawsuit, had failed to pay the fee on time to have his case heard. Coviello was challenging a lower court ruling that had thrown out the $1 million defamation suit against the book's author and publishers: The Berkley Publishing Group and the Penguin Group.