AMW All Star Week One Winner

AMW All Star Week One Winner: A Christiansburg, Va. police officer who was one of the first to respond to the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University and is credited with saving the life of a gravely-injured student has become the first weekly finalist in the 2008 America's Most Wanted All-Star Contest, sponsored by Sprint.

Also on America's Most Wanted this week:

Brianna Denison Killer: Reno, Nev. cops announced that a pair of thong underwear found near Brianna Denison's body contains both the DNA of an unknown female and that of the serial rapist who kidnapped and raped -- and may have murdered -- the 19-year-old college student. Police do not believe that the black, "Pink Panther" thong belonged to Denison and are hoping that someone will come forward to claim the underwear.

Ahmet Gashi: Kemal Kolenovic was a New York welterweight champion who took one hit from which he'd never recover on New Years Eve 2006. Cops say a vicious foe, Ahmet Gashi, came at Kemal with some heavy armor, and he's been on the run ever since.

Unknown New Mexico “Boots” Jane Doe Killer: It was one of New Mexico 's most mysterious unsolved Jane Doe cases: a pair of hikers found a murder victim, buried in a shallow grave in the unforgiving desert. But when AMW brought you the story two weeks ago, a tipster called our hotline and helped cops crack the case. The "Boots" Jane Doe now has a name: Sandra Jean Brady.

Thomas Gleason: BMX Racing and teenage boys are not a good combination for Tom Gleason: after years of coaching kids in the extreme sport, police say he went too far and victimized several members of his team. Now, he's racing to stay away from the cops and families aching for justice who want him caught.

Pamela Biggers: Police have very few clues in the search for 52-year-old Pamela Biggers who went missing while on a business trip in Panama City , Fla. on January 28, 2008. The Bay County Sheriff's Office says Pam was last seen at 7 p.m. the night before at the La Quinta Inn, but the next morning, she was gone.

Nai Yin Xue: It's been more than five months since the international manhunt for self-proclaimed martial arts master Nai Yin Xue began. Now, police say the search is over after Xue was captured in Chamblee , Ga. after Chinese-American locals recognized him and hogtied him until authorities arrived. Authorities say Xue killed his wife and abandoned his young daughter in a train station.

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US Links Being Restablished by Sicilian Mafia

Sicily's Mafia is rebuilding its networks in the US, according to an Italian parliamentary report.

The report says Cosa Nostra has been sending people to the US to form alliances with families with which it had lost contact in the 1980s.

It says that while the mob maintains a foothold in the lucrative drugs trade, it is now moving into new areas.

Although Cosa Nostra has its roots in Italian organised crime, it has long been a separate organisation in the US. But this month in an operation codenamed Old Bridge, a reference to these long-standing links between Sicily and New York, the FBI revealed details of the new relationships being formed across the Atlantic.

They rounded up more than 80 gangsters in New York including the acting bosses of the Gambino crime family - known to have direct links with Sicily.

The Italian anti-mafia commission says Old Bridge was a remarkable success but it shows the Sicilian Cosa Nostra is "re-establishing its links with the American cousins".

The commission says it has evidence Cosa Nostra is sending its top members to New York while allowing those expelled by the mob during the clan wars of the 1980s to return home to Sicily.

Their report says that many US food distribution and construction firms are now controlled by the US Cosa Nostra, whose bosses are of Sicilian origin and have direct links. And while Cosa Nostra still maintains its control over the lucrative drugs trade and its traditional activities of extortion and racketeering, it is now diversifying into new industries like online gambling.

Angela Napoli, a member of the anti-mafia commission, says the work to defeat Cosa Nostra falls on the Italian politicians - who must do more - and on the very brave witnesses who come forward to give evidence.

The commission says not enough is being done to help them.

Those under state protection say they feel abandoned. And consequently the number now prepared to come forward is falling.

Thanks to Christian Fraser

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Former Las Vegas Strip Club Owner Compared to Tony "The Ant" Spilotro

Federal prosecutors never got a chance to prove a criminal case tying former Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo to the mob.

Before that could happen, Rizzolo pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 2006 and struck a deal to end a decadelong racketeering case against him. But that didn’t stop Stan Hunterton, a former prosecutor with the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force, from keeping allegations of Rizzolo’s underworld associations alive during a hearing in federal court Friday on the status of the government’s efforts to sell the topless club it had seized from the imprisoned Rizzolo.

“Not since the reign of Anthony Spilotro and his associates has there been a more infamous hoodlum than Rick Rizzolo,” Hunterton told U.S. District Judge Philip Pro as Rizzolo’s father, Bart Rizzolo, cringed in the first row of the courtroom gallery.

Spilotro, the basis for Joe Pesci’s character in the 1995 movie “Casino,” ran street rackets in Las Vegas for the Chicago mob from the early 1970s until his gangland slaying in a Chicago suburb in 1986. He was considered a coldblooded killer, and before his death he was the FBI’s most wanted man in Las Vegas.

Hunterton represents Amy Henry, the wife of Kirk Henry, a Kansas City-area man who suffered a broken neck and became paralyzed following a fight in 2001 at the Crazy Horse Too. As part of Rizzolo’s plea arrangement with the government, he agreed to pay the Henrys $10 million to settle a civil suit they had brought against the nightclub.

What Hunterton was doing in court was challenging an effort by Sierra Pacific Bank to foreclose on the land beneath the Crazy Horse Too. The bank wants the land as payment for a $5 million loan it extended to Rizzolo seven months before he struck his deal with the government. Hunterton wants to make sure the bank’s claim against the property won’t hurt the Henrys’ chances of getting paid once money comes in from the government’s sale of the Crazy Horse Too.

He raised the specter of mob connections while arguing that Sierra Pacific was negligent when it lent Rizzolo the $5 million when he was under the well-publicized racketeering investigation. Hunterton contends that bank officials either turned a blind eye to Rizzolo’s reputation or failed miserably in their due diligence obligations.

Hunterton told Pro he would drop his effort to push the bank’s claim aside if, as prosecutors reported in court, the government signs a contract this week to sell the Crazy Horse Too for $30 million to an undisclosed buyer. If that happens, there will be plenty of money for all of Rizzolo’s creditors.

After the hearing, however, Rizzolo’s lawyer, Mark Hafer, wasn’t very happy.

Hafer described Hunterton’s comments about his client as “somewhat slanderous” and “definitely a cheap shot.”

All Bart Rizzolo could do was shake his head in disgust.

Thanks to Jeff German

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5 Things You Could Do to Kill the Mafia

As a little kid growing up in Palermo (Sicily), I used to dream of chasing the Bad Guys who were terrorizing my beautiful city.

In my teens, I started to consider the idea of stopping the Mafia one of those naive dreams that could never become a reality.

But now, for the first time in the last 20 years, there is a concrete possibility to kill the Sicilian Mafia, ending its presence in Italy, in USA, and everywhere else it operates, thus improving the lives of thousands of people around the world. And your help is needed, so listen up.

Sicily. Maybe the last place in the world where you can find yourself having lunch next to Armani or Madonna in an inexpensive restaurant overlooking a turquoise sea. Unfortunately, a land still plagued with organized crime, which protects tourists – they bring money to the local economy – but merciless target local business owners, demanding a large share of their revenue in exchange for "Protection."

Locals call the extortion racket “Pizzo”, and experts agree that this criminal activity is Mafia’s core business, bringing in a steady cash flow which finances its worldwide operations. But “Pizzo” offers much more than just a large financial gain: the protection racket is Mafia’s way to affirm its control over a city, sending the message "I own this place, so you must give me a share of anything you earn, and you must ask my approval for anything you do."

The extortion racket has flourished for decades with the Italian business organization Confindustria secretly telling his associate to comply with Mafia's financial requests: “If we all pay” they used to say “We will all pay less.”

Recently, things have started changing for the better:
- The association of Italian business owner is now expelling from its ranks anyone who pays the “Pizzo.”
- Police has been very successful in taking into custody Mafia bosses, whilst at the same time confiscating Mafia's financial assets.
- Business owner who have said no to Pizzo are increasingly joining an association called AddioPizzo (Goodbye Pizzo) which put them in contact with thousands of Sicilians who are tired of the Mafia and are willing to buy only mob-free products.

The association AddioPizzo is really hitting the Mafia where it hurts, and its leaders now lives in constant danger of a terrible retribution: their popularity is their only defense, since Mafia knows that if AddioPizzo leaders were killed today, thousands of people would take the street in protest, and new stronger leaders would inevitably emerge. So everything depends on national and international attention: the moment we forget about AddioPizzo, Mafia will destroy them without too much fuss, maybe killing a few and spreading negative rumors about the others.

Considering the goal it pursues, AddioPizzo has yet to receive a decent level of International media attention: only a bunch of articles from BBC, Telegraph, Herald Tribune and The Independent, and then nothing else.

Silence is Mafia's natural ally, so please talk about what's happening. Pick one or more activities from the following list and dedicate the next five minutes to it:
1- Write your name on AddioPizzo guestbook to publicly express your support for this brave organization.
2- Help AddioPizzo with a donation. It can be very safely done via PayPal and you get an email confirmation at the end of the process.
3- If you write on a Blog, a Newspaper on any other media, please talk about the possibility of killing the Mafia: nothing scares the Mob more than people not being afraid of it.
4- Alternatively, please Digg this article, review it on StumbleUpon or save it on Delicious. Let’s have as many people as possible knowing that together we can kill the Mafia.
5- If a friend of yours is planning an holiday in Sicily, make sure he’ll sleep only in a beautiful Pizzo-free hotel, such as Addaura Residence or Amarcord Hotel. If you want to try typical Sicilian wine or food, make sure you’ll buy it only from a pizzo free online portals such as Buona Sicilia, and let them know that you are purchasing from them because you’ve read that they are pizzo-free. In short, let’s make sure that Pizzo-free business increase their sales, so they can have an added incentive to stay clean. (The growing list of businesses who have publicly said no to the Mafia is here.) In fact, anyone who speak out against the Mob should be protected and rewarded. So long life to AddioPizzo, and long life to you.

Thanks to Even Happier

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Prison Sentence for 87 Year Old Mafia Capo

Federal authorities announced that Ciro Perrone, 87, a “capo” or captain in the Genovese Organized Crime Family, has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Perrone was convicted by a jury in June 2007 following a two-week trial of all counts against him, including racketeering.

Perrone has been a member of the Genovese Family since at least the 1960s, the feds said.

He was convicted of four separate racketeering acts including operation of a gambling business, loan-sharking conspiracy, and loan-sharking against two victims; RICO conspiracy, conspiracy to make extortionate extensions of credit; and conspiracy to use extortionate means to collect extensions of credit.

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