NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - A dispute between two Gypsy clans over control of the fortune-telling trade in this Southern California city has spilled into court, offering a rare glimpse of an insular culture that has long settled scores according to its own Old World rules of honor.
The turf war in well-to-do Orange County has unfolded like a gangster movie, with allegations of death threats, a graveside scuffle, and nicknames like "White Bob" and "Black Bob" - details revealed in a police report and requests for restraining orders.
"The older Gypsies are pulling out their hair, not wanting the courts in our business because they'll find out too much about us," said Tom Merino, who is distantly related to one of the clans but has spurned his heritage. "Ignorance is the Gypsies' weapon against the outside world."
The Stevens and Merino clans, like other Gypsy families, have run numerous fortune-telling businesses in Southern California for decades.
The trouble started two years ago when Edward Merino and his wife, Sonia, opened fortune-telling parlors in two trendy resort sections of Newport Beach, not far from where the Stevenses did business.
Members of the Stevens clan promptly broke in, stole a credit card machine, and threatened to kill the Merinos if they didn't shut the places down, the Merinos claim in court papers. Since then, the bad blood has only gotten worse.
The Stevenses "are very territorial," Merino attorney Tom Quinn said. "This is crazy stuff."
At the root of the conflict lies a delicate system of intermarriage and social customs that has defused tensions among Gypsy clans for generations, said Anne Sutherland, a University of California, Riverside anthropologist who has studied Gypsies.
Gypsies - also known as Romany - began arriving in the United States from Romania toward the end of the 19th century. There are now about 1 million in America, one-fifth of them in California, where they dominate the fortune-telling and psychic shops in funky beach communities and other neighborhoods.
The Stevens and Merino clans adopted an Old World custom of uniting families through marriage to cope with intense competition, much as European nobility once did to avert war. A Merino married the Stevens patriarch, George Stevens.
But the family bond did not prevent tensions from flaring when, the Merinos say, the Stevenses demanded they pay $500,000 up front and $5,000 a week to open their fortune-telling businesses in the Stevenses' back yard. The Merinos refused to pay, and went ahead and opened their parlors. The alleged break-in soon followed.
Gypsies have traditionally resolved disputes in front of a secret council of elders that can impose fines, make territorial decisions, or order someone shunned. They don't like to involve non-Gypsies, who are considered impure.
The Merinos, though, went to court after the alleged break-in and obtained a restraining order in 2006 requiring George Stevens to stay a safe distance away.
That the dispute wound up in court reflects an erosion of tradition among the Gypsies, said Ian Hancock, an expert on Gypsy language and culture at the University of Texas.
Things were calm for months until the Stevens patriarch died of a heart attack at age 53 last May. Edward "Davie" Merino showed up at the funeral, pulling up at the cemetery in a limo with what was described as a menacingly burly chauffeur.
Merino says members of the Stevens clan attacked him and screamed, "We will make your life a living hell!" But the Stevenses contend that Merino flashed a gun and threatened to "come back and kill all of you."
Merino declined repeated requests for an interview through his attorney, and calls to his home were not returned.
