>>214494735
>Back in December 2016, your son Vadim was in the news for having been arrested for criminal mischief—it was reported that he had allegedly painted a swastika in his dorm at SUNY Purchase. Was this incident in any way connected with this troubled time you’re mentioning?
>Well, no, because I started writing this book three years before that. My wife is Jewish, so my kids are half-Jewish/half-Italian, and my son relates a lot to his grandfather, who was a survivor of Auschwitz. When [Vadim] went off to college, it was right around the [Trump] election, and he saw swastikas drawn on the campus somewhere. He identifies as a Jew and was horrified that people were swept up in this mood of bigotry because of the shit that Trump was saying, kind of validating it. On the Antifa [militant anti-fascist] website, he saw a swastika made of penises, which was a mockery, a response to this. He drew that, and someone ratted him out for it. When they arrested him, I got letters from the Jewish community that he grew up with, and they explained why he would do something like this, which is why [the government] didn’t prosecute it as a hate crime. Of course, everyone was saying, “Oh, he’s getting off because his father’s famous.” Believe me, just because you’re famous, the police don’t go easy on you. The press jumped at the fact that I’m the guy on The Sopranos—they want to think that I’m some thug who raises my kids with hatred. People try to spin things however they can instead of trying to find out the truth.