Netflix Original Series Treatment

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Title: Conviction

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CONCETTA STARTELLI (aka Connie) late 20s, comes from a very large Italian family. They are the Italian version of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” owning pizza shops, butchers, fish stores, realties, etc. Everyone in her family has a role somewhere. Her parents each have 4 siblings and she alone has 4 sisters and one brother. She’s worked in the family business for the last 10 years, since she was 18. And she is better at it than most people. She has a very unique skill set. The Startelli’s are not the average family, they run the central hub of the Italian mafia outside of Boston. Connie is the family hit man and enforcement. She is torn between a loyalty and love for her family and a conscience telling her it isn’t right.

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Since she was a child she has had a passion for law and putting bad guys behind bars. Her past seems to follow her around as she tries desperately to get out of the family business. She applied to law school after college secretly. When her acceptances came in she was forced to tell her family. Her father agreed to let her go on one condition, when she becomes a lawyer to work for his friend’s firm and represent people who work under him. She agrees hoping that when the time comes she will change her father’s mind. Connie gets her law degree from Stanford University and returns home, securing a job in the Defense Attorney’s office. She wants to become a prosecutor.

But upon returning home she must keep it a secret. She gets pulled back into the life of her family and the person she used to be. Now she’s leading a double life, acting as a personal hitman for her family and working in secret at the DA. Meanwhile her family thinks she is the in house lawyer for each of their respective businesses, keeping her busy with piles of work.

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The first scene opens on Connie the night before her first day of work in the DA’s office. Although it isn’t going how she planned. “Tomorrow I start the first day of the only real job I’ve ever had. This is not how I planned on spending the night before. What can I say, I’m a Startelli. We make wine, eat pasta every Sunday no exception, and just happen to offer a service a lot of people would kill for. You thought the mafia was gone, you were wrong. You can’t kill us, we’ll just come back bigger and stronger. In my case, I didn’t choose it. I don’t know if anyone would ever choose this, but that’s life. But I’m trying to make good, turn my life around. “

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The whole family uses Vorta. Each individual family has a car they share. The car takes Connie to her jobs, covers her for an alibi, makes deliveries possible, and personally escorts each member to their desired locations. Connie will use the car to get to her hits, to work, to avoid family and to interact with her family.

Things get complicated when a cop from the Boston PD starts looking into the mafia more than usual. The cops have been looking into it for years, coming to a series of dead ends. They have small tidbits that they can’t pin to any one family or individual. ETHAN BILLINGS, mid 30s, is a new detective assigned to the Boston area, transferring in from New York. He’s smart and knows something is going on, and he is set on finding out what that is. He develops a flirtation-ship with Connie. Meanwhile, she is trying to juggle her family and new job and somehow not get arrested or killed. All of which prove to be a heck of an adventure.