A federal jury has ruled in favor of Sopranos creator David Chase, saying that the claims of Robert Baer, a former prosecutor and aspiring writer, were unsubstantiated, and he is not owed anything for his alleged role in creating the hit HBO show. Over the course of the five-day trial, Baer had argued that he helped Chase with the writing of the pilot, arranging meetings with police and prosecutors while Chase was on a tour of New Jersey mob sites in 1995 and "sparking ideas," for which Chase later promised to "take care of him" (though probably not in that way). Chase contended that Baer was not himself all that knowledgeable about the mob, and after the initial Sopranos pilot was rejected, he turned to "true Mafia expert" Dan Castleman for help, later taking him on as a technical adviser.
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