Treating Pimps Like Al Capone

You know it's hard out here for a pimp
When he tryin' to get his money for the rent

Lyrics from the Oscar-winning song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp''

And it just might get even harder if the flesh peddlers in America don't file their W-2s or hold on to their receipts.

Congress is considering unleashing the same forces that toppled the likes of infamous 1930s Chicago gangster Al Capone on the brazen street hustlers, brothel and escort service operators and others making a pretty — and mostly untaxed — penny in the multi-billion-dollar prostitution and sex trafficking trade.

No, we're not talking cops or even the clergy here. We're talking about that most feared of government agents: the tax collector.

Proposed legislation approved by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in late June could provide the feds a tried-and-true — but also nontraditional — way of prosecuting those cashing in on the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of young girls and women annually.

The bill, chiefly sponsored by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, would set aside $2 million to create a unit within the Internal Revenue Service to deal exclusively with the operators of an underground sex economy that stretches from the seedy streets and motels of red-light districts to the online porn industry.

The proposal pumps more muscle into current federal tax laws. The proposed legislation significantly stiffens the penalties pimps face for failure to file income tax returns for themselves or even W-2 forms for their "employees.''

If criminal activity is substantiated, the proposal would tag pimps with a maximum 10-year federal prison sentence and $50,000 for each W-2 form that is not filed. Ouch.

"The thugs who run these trafficking rings are exploiting society's poorest girls and women for personal gain," Grassley told reporters recently. "The IRS goes after drug traffickers. It can go after sex traffickers."

Of course, this sounds at first glance like a pimp-in-the-sky idea. Even given recent years of great awareness about human trafficking, both domestic and international, law enforcement has traditionally and historically been lax in making busting pimps a top priority. But those in the local trenches of this problem think it's not a bad idea.

"From what I'm reading, it sounds like a good idea and a long time coming,'' said St. Paul police Sgt. John Bandemer, a vice cop and also project manager for a local Justice Department grant to rescue human trafficking victims and help prosecute their exploiters. The Twin Cities area has been designated by the federal agency as one of the 13 "hot spots'' in the nation for sex trafficking.

Bandemer says one of the more difficult aspects of prosecuting pimps of all types is often the unwillingness of exploited victims to testify. Fear of being harmed or bringing harm to their family members often is a key reason.

"The tax laws have been a great thing for us in the past when going after drug dealers,'' he added. "I think it's good to find nontraditional ways to stop these guys and prosecute them for their illegal activities.''

Capone, who posed as a used furniture dealer, reportedly made $105 million by 1929 through prostitution, illegal gambling and alcohol sales during the Prohibition era. He eluded the law through bribes and witness tampering or intimidation. But treasury and IRS agents teamed up in 1931 and dug up receipts from some of his illicit earnings. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion and watched his mob empire crumble during his 11 years in the slammer.

Vednita Carter, who runs Breaking Free, a St. Paul-based nonprofit that provides services to prostituted girls and women in the Twin Cities area, likes the idea but has some concerns.

"It's usually the women that get busted, and my concern is whether they will go after former victims who are forced to recruit others and even run part of the trade,'' she said. Carter, however, also believes the paper chase might serve as another useful route in dismantling prostitution rings.

In testimony before Congress last year, a street outreach specialist for a group based in Washington, D.C., similar to Breaking Free provided an interesting estimate of one local pimp's annual haul.

"A victim sex-trafficked from her early teens was generating an estimated $130,000 in profits for her trafficker each year,'' Tina Frundt told legislators. "We sat down and figured out that the pimp was making about $24,000 a month between her and other women and about $642,000 a year tax-free.''

Go get them, tax man.

Thanks to Ruben Rosario

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$1 Million Will Get You Al Capone's Home

Friends of ours: Al Capone

For a former home of possibly the country’s most notorious mobster, the three-story building with beige siding at 21 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn, is totally unremarkable. Of course, the young Al Capone and his family moved there in the early 1900’s, long before he made his name as a murderous bootlegger in Roaring Twenties Chicago.

The house, one of at least two on Garfield Place where the Capone family lived after their move from Vinegar Hill, just east of the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, is for sale. The broker handling it, Peggy Aguayo of Aguayo & Huebener, said recently that a buyer was about to go into contract, for a little more than $1 million.

Ms. Aguayo, who lives in Park Slope, said she was unaware that the Capones had lived in the building, though she knew they had lived at 38 Garfield Place. At any rate, she said, she doubted that the building’s infamous former resident affected its value one way or the other for the buyers, who plan to maintain it in its current state, as a three-family house.

Capone stories still abound among old-timers in the neighborhoods where he spent his formative years. For example, Carroll Gardens residents will be happy to tell you that he was married at St. Mary Star of the Sea church on Court Street. But Laurence Bergreen, author of the 1994 biography “Capone: The Man and the Era,” said there was little at the time to distinguish the future Public Enemy No. 1 from his young compatriots in Brooklyn’s street gangs, which had names like the South Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors.

“Other people were doing those same things and went on to become mechanics or dentists, or nothing,” Mr. Bergreen said. “He did not come from a criminal background. His father was a barber, his mother was a seamstress, and those weren’t mob trades.”

Still, Mr. Bergreen said, the Al Capone of Garfield Place was no angel. He was often truant from Public School 133 on Butler Street, and he was finally kicked out of school for hitting a teacher (as the story goes, she hit him first). He also picked up a case of syphilis that incapacitated him later in life, probably while hanging out by the Brooklyn docks.

Today, even Capone might be impressed with the potential for legal moneymaking in Park Slope real estate. But Mr. Bergreen, who spent time on Garfield Place years ago researching his book, said some residents there had other treasure in mind. “People were wondering if there was cash stashed in the walls,” he said. “I heard that more than once.”

Alas, whoever buys 21 Garfield will most likely have to be satisfied with rental income, Mr. Bergreen said, adding, “Capone was poor then.”

Thanks to Jake Mooney

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The Godfather Comes Mob-handed to PSP

Listen up wiseguy, we're going to make you an offer you can't refuse: read the rest of this article and we'll agree not to make any more puns based around The Godfather universe.

Refuse this personal favour, and, erm, we'll weep.

Based on Mario Puzo's The Godfather novel and the subsequent Paramount Pictures film, The Godfather Mob Wars is – believe it or not – all about going up in the world. Because after a life of cheap criminal antics, illegally downloading MP3s and so forth, you've been accepted into America's most famous criminal organization, the Mafia.

Little does post-War New York know what's going to hit it. By carrying out orders and earning respect, you can rise through the ranks to eventually become a Don yourself. (Must... not... pun.)

Mob hits, bank heists and extortion are on the menu, and the police, businessmen, racket bosses and rival mobsters (the Tattaglia, Cuneo, Barzini and Stracci families from the novel) are mere appetisers at your table.

Just like Al Pacino in the movies, you'll have to choose between brutal violence and skilful diplomacy to best progress. Loyalty and fear are your best weapons and the ones that will earn you the most respect, and therefore power. But we're told the choices affect how the action plays out, so you'll have to choose carefully if you want to see a happier ending than The Godfather III.

As you'd expect, there are some gruesome-sounding actions in the mix, too. The so-called BlackHand Control combat system will enable you to punch, kick, grab, and even choke someone with a stranglehold.

But to pacify the censors, you can also use pressure point targeting, which enables you to get a less-than-lethal lock on your opponent so they're able to give you valuable information. (Okay, nothing to do with the censors – it's really that stiffs can't talk.)

Feeling squeamish? Maybe you're not made for a life in the front line of the family business? Well, as an alternative to all this blood and guts, the PSP exclusive Mob Wars mode will also give you the option to instead engage in strategy-based a turf war as you take over New York one territory at a time.

As well as original missions, the game also boasts scenarios lifted from the films, enabling you to interact with its classic characters. Actors lending their voices include (a recording, we presume of) the late Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, James Caan as Sonny Corleone, and Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen.

We weren't convinced by the home console version of the game, but as ever we'll take the PSP version of The Godfather Mob Wars on its own merits. There's no firm date yet, but EA has previously hinted it will be out before the end of 2006.

See, no more puns. Strictly a matter of business.

Thanks to Owain Bennaallack

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Truth About Sinatra Mafia Ties

Friends of ours: Lucky Luciano, Willie Moretti
Friends of mine: Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra biographers Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan have unearthed new evidence linking the late crooner to the Mafia, thanks to the confession of a dying mob boss. The husband-and-wife team published SINATRA: THE LIFE last summer and have since learned that claims they made in the tome about Ol' Blue Eyes' ties to organised crime were accurate.

In the hardback, the couple maintained the singing legend owed his career to the Mob, as Dons like American Mafia founder Lucky Luciano, whose family lived on the same street in small town Sicily as the Sinatras, gave him his first big break on the stages of the clubs run by the criminal masterminds. Summers and Swan's research also led them to believe that the Mafia continued to support Sinatra throughout his life - helping him reclaim his career when his popularity was waning in the late 1950s and 1960s - in return for his services.

Swan even spoke to comedian Jerry Lewis, who she claims told her that Sinatra once carried Mafia money for his mob boss pals. But it took the words of a dying man to help the biographers cement their claims, and they've added his testimony in the newly-released paperback version of their book. Summers explains, "To the Mafia, he (Sinatra) was an earner - they saw him as a potential earner and they helped him in special ways.

"Since the book came out I talked to a former journalist who remembered talking to one of the first mobsters to give Sinatra a hand, Willie Moretti. "He told our new contact, 'We made a good deal, we took good care of him.' That matches the things we've learned already and we put it in the new edition (of the book)."

Thanks to Contact Music

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Canadian Teflon Don Moves Closer to US Court Date

Friends of ours: Vito Rizzuto, Bonanno Crime Family

The man alleged to be the don of the Canadian Mafia came a leap closer to an American courtroom yesterday after two Supreme Court of Canada rulings on extradition cases that mirror his own legal bid to stay in Canada.

Vito Rizzuto, the so-called Teflon Don from Montreal, allegedly participated in the 1981 slayings of three New York mob captains who were plotting an underworld coup. He has been fighting extradition since his arrest in January, 2004.

The legal arguments in his case are similar to those in two others that were rejected yesterday by Canada's highest court. One involved Brantford, Ont., resident Shane Tyrone Ferras, who is wanted in the United States on fraud and money laundering charges. The other involved Canadian citizen Leroy Latty, a man wanted in the United States on drug-trafficking charges.

Both challenged the constitutionality of two sections of Canada's Extradition Act. In its decision, however, the court upheld rulings by the Ontario Court of Appeal and found that neither section of the Extradition Act infringed upon the appellants' rights and freedoms.

"It sort of tightens the noose around Vito's neck. It means that his options are narrowing and that he is a giant step closer to being sent to the United States, which is something that any accused criminal dreads," said Lee Lamothe, co-author of The Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia and the Rise of Vito Rizzuto.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the fall on whether to send Mr. Rizzuto, 60, to the United States to stand trial on racketeering charges. His lawyers did not return calls yesterday.

Mr. Rizzuto was the only Canadian arrested in the 2004 sweep that netted 27 alleged members of the Bonanno Mafia family, one of the notorious Five Families of New York.

U.S. authorities allege that Mr. Rizzuto was one of the hit men in the 1981 slaying of three rogue members of the Bonanno organization who were plotting to overthrow the head of the family while he was in prison.

Antonio Nicaso, author of several books on the Canadian mob, said the arrest highlighted the Canadian Mafia's cross-border reach. "His arrest changed the perception of the so-called Canadian Mafia . . . it showed there was a strategy that was going beyond the border."

A police report filed in Mr. Rizzuto's extradition case alleges that the Montreal resident, who has a penchant for Ferraris, Porsches and trips to St. Kitts, is considered a godfather in Canadian mob circles.

The report's allegations -- which have not been proved in court -- suggest his activities in the decade before his arrest included loan-sharking at the Montreal Casino, laundering money in Switzerland and ordering a hit on a Venezuelan lawyer.

Mr. Rizzuto earned the nickname Teflon Don because until the 2004 arrest, the only charges he had faced were for relatively minor offences, including disturbing the peace and impaired driving.

The Rizzuto name has popped up in many major U.S. drug busts over the thirty years, Mr. Lamothe said. "For the Americans, he is the face of the Sicilian Mafia in Canada . . . who helped flood America in the seventies and eighties with heroin," he said. "The Americans want him."

Thanks to Hayley Mick

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