Thomas L Hillary

As a child, Linda Carol fantasized about the people she saw on TV. Growing up south of Boston in a family in which screaming matches were dinner-time fare, she retreated time and again to the tube. "I thought I'd like to go inside there," she says, "and get away from my own life." * At 14, she found a better escape--beauty pageants.

As a child, Linda Carol fantasized about the people she saw on TV. Growing up south of Boston in a family in which screaming matches were dinner-time fare, she retreated time and again to the tube. "I thought I'd like to go inside there," she says, "and get away from my own life." * At 14, she found a better escape--beauty pageants.

One of three New England mob figures caught in the FBI's elaborate Los Angeles-based movie sting--designed to ferret out organized crime influence over film unions--pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy charges. Dennis D. (Champagne) Lepore, 47, who is serving a 14-year sentence for racketeering, is expected to face one additional year behind bars as part of a plea bargain disclosed in federal court in Boston. Sentencing is scheduled Sept. 21 by U.S. District Judge Robert E. Keeton.

A phony movie company set up in Santa Monica as an FBI sting operation has led to the indictments of three organized crime figures and a Teamsters Union officer on charges of attempting to bribe union officials in Boston and Las Vegas, federal agents said Tuesday.

Barely one minute into his stint on the witness stand, FBI Agent Garland Schweickhardt was asked how he prepared to pose as a movie producer. Well, he recalled, he spent two weeks in "undercover school" at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. And 12 weeks at UCLA studying film production. Then there were the sessions with a cooperating movie industry veteran who served as his private tutor.