A longtime associate of the Genovese organized crime family has pleaded guilty to securities fraud for selling $2.1 million of worthless stock, according to federal officials.
Frank Schwamborn, 48, of Farmingdale, took over a Ronkonkoma company, called World Cyberlinks, which had been set up to produce docking stations for Palm Pilots, but which did not actually make any products, officials said.
Schwamborn had the company transfer stock to a number of companies he had bought or set up in return for services, officials said. He took control of these companies using money he made selling cocaine, federal prosecutors said.
The companies never performed any services for the Cyberlinks company, officials said. But the stock transfers were backdated to get around the rule requiring that stock used to pay for services had to be held for a year before they could be resold, officials aid.
Among the companies, which prosecutors say are now out of business: Burdette Ltd., on the Isle of Man; Puritan Management of Bay Shore; FRF Holding of North Babylon, and Candles, a restaurant in Bay Shore that also was known as Park 70 Bistro and Giovanna's.
Schwamborn has been held in jail without bail awaiting trial on the charges because of a history of threats made against agents, police officers and state and federal prosecutors involved in the case and other investigations, officials said.
A postal inspector said in an affidavit at the time of Schwamborn's arrest that he was an associate of organized crime who had his own crew, which was "a collection of thieves, drug dealers, prostitutes, 'leg breakers,' and stockbrokers."
A number of stock investors, who were possible witnesses against Schwamborn, had been asked to move because of "credible death threats" by him, the affidavit said. Schwamborn has denied the allegations.
Schwamborn previously served 55 months in prison after a conviction for racketeering and money laundering in an other case related to the Genovese family, officials have said.
The Schwamborn investigation was conducted jointly by federal prosecutors and Suffolk prosecutors, postal inspectors and agents of the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division, officials said.
Federal prosecutors Burton Ryan and Charles Kelly declined to comment after the plea yesterday. Schwamborn's attorney could not be reached for comment.
Schwamborn faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Sandra Feuerstein in Central Islip, as well as 5 years supervised release and a $250,000 fine. As part of a plea deal, Schwamborn also agreed to forfeit the $2.1 million he made in the scheme, officials said.
Thanks to Robert E. Kessler
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Arrest Warrant Issued for Henry Hill
"Henry Hill."San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Kyle Brodie matter-of-factly read the name Wednesday in a roll call of small-time suspects: the unlicensed driver; the work-release probationer.
"No answer," yelled the bailiff.
With that, the mobster-turned-FBI informant -- whose life inspired the movie epic "Goodfellas" -- was facing two $25,000 arrest warrants.
Once linked to an NCAA point-shaving scandal and a $5 million airport heist, Hill at age 65 is wanted for failing to appear on tickets alleging that he was drunk in public in San Bernardino.
"I would have been asking for his autograph," said Desiree Gallegos, 27, who was in the courtroom for a suspension of house arrest terms.
Reached by phone later in the day, Hill said he was unaware he needed to be present. He said he had visited the downtown court on Monday to advise the clerks that he would be having hernia surgery later this week and wanted a new date. "I was hoping the court would understand," Hill said from his San Fernando Valley home. "I did a few days in jail already."
The cases stem from two arrests in May 2008. In the first, a patrol officer saw an intoxicated man standing in the intersection at Redlands Boulevard and Club Drive. The second ticket came 10 days later, when a drunken man refused to leave the lobby of the Fairfield Inn on Harriman Place.
Hill said he was in alcohol rehabilitation at the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial VA Medical Center in Loma Linda at the time. He failed to appear for his first arraignment last July.
He was arrested in Los Angeles earlier this year and again booked at West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.
Because of jail crowding, he was released before his arraignment. "I don't remember much of all that, but I've been sober a month now," Hill said. "I don't want to drink anymore."
The Brooklyn native is a frequent caller to Howard Stern's radio show
, where he plugs his mob-related watercolor painting, with scenes like a rat with a handgun and three well-dressed men digging a hole in the ground.The "Goodfellas" movie ends with Hill, played by Ray Liotta, entering federal witness protection. Drug trafficking charges were leveraged for his testimony implicating cohorts in murders and the 1978 heist of $5.8 million in cash from a Lufthansa Airlines vault at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
In real life, drug arrests caused Hill to be removed from the federal program in the early 1990s. He dabbled in restaurants and spaghetti sauce sales.
These days, when he's not collaborating on Mafia-related film, television and book projects, Hill said he works with the FBI as an organized-crime consultant and counsels young street gang members about the lifestyle.
The man who once masterminded gambling enterprises now plays bingo at San Manuel Indian Bingo & Casino in Highland.
"Hollywood makes it up to be glamorous, but it's not," Hill said of his days with New York's Lucchese crime family. "You're either in jail for the rest of your life or you're dead."
Thanks to Paul Larocco
Al Capone Still Helping Chicago
The Sears Tower in Chicago was renamed after Willis Group Holdings after Sears' naming rights expired on the one hundred and ten story skyscraper. The building is very secure. Osama bin Laden didn't go near it for fear of angering the Capone family.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Real Life Tony Sopranos Seeing More Real Life Dr. Melfis
In scenes familiar from the television series The Sopranos, the so-called "men of honour" are no longer content to keep their problems within their families, researchers have found.
A study by Palermo University on the island of Sicily found clinical anxiety in 20 per cent of Mafia relatives and personality disorders in 17 per cent.
Girolamo Lo Verso, a psychologist who led the research, said: "Psychiatric problems are steadily rising among the families, a sign that the monolithic culture of Mafia society is crumbling."
Dr Lo Verso's research, The Psychology of Organised Crime in the Mezzogiorno, studied the cases of 81 patients linked to Italy's three main Mafia organisations - Sicily's Cosa Nostra, the Camorra in Campania and Calabria's 'Ndrangheta.
Dr Lo Verso said: "These people are victims of terrible identity crises because they aren't used to seeing their world view challenged.
"They're like fundamentalists, but as soon as something happens that brings the security wall down, they have crises.
"That's why they go and see a psychiatrist and many say that they feel a lot better for speaking to someone about their problems."
Dr Lo Verso said that food disorders, anxiety and depression, sexual problems and a sense of inadequacy and shame at failing to live up to macho stereotypes were the most common problems encountered.
"In one real-life case, a homosexual son of a top ... boss rebels against his father's code and dares to come out of the closet, causing personal pain and wider clan uproar."
In the hit television series about New Jersey mobsters, Tony Soprano confided his depression and panic attacks over his "business" to a psychiatrist, while in the Hollywood blockbuster Analyze This, Robert De Niro's Godfather also talks over his anxities on a psychiatrist's couch.
Thanks to Nick Pisa
A study by Palermo University on the island of Sicily found clinical anxiety in 20 per cent of Mafia relatives and personality disorders in 17 per cent.
Girolamo Lo Verso, a psychologist who led the research, said: "Psychiatric problems are steadily rising among the families, a sign that the monolithic culture of Mafia society is crumbling."Dr Lo Verso's research, The Psychology of Organised Crime in the Mezzogiorno, studied the cases of 81 patients linked to Italy's three main Mafia organisations - Sicily's Cosa Nostra, the Camorra in Campania and Calabria's 'Ndrangheta.
Dr Lo Verso said: "These people are victims of terrible identity crises because they aren't used to seeing their world view challenged.
"They're like fundamentalists, but as soon as something happens that brings the security wall down, they have crises.
"That's why they go and see a psychiatrist and many say that they feel a lot better for speaking to someone about their problems."
Dr Lo Verso said that food disorders, anxiety and depression, sexual problems and a sense of inadequacy and shame at failing to live up to macho stereotypes were the most common problems encountered.
"In one real-life case, a homosexual son of a top ... boss rebels against his father's code and dares to come out of the closet, causing personal pain and wider clan uproar."
In the hit television series about New Jersey mobsters, Tony Soprano confided his depression and panic attacks over his "business" to a psychiatrist, while in the Hollywood blockbuster Analyze This, Robert De Niro's Godfather also talks over his anxities on a psychiatrist's couch.
Thanks to Nick Pisa
The Corleone Family of Kansas City
Shot point blank in the head six times.
That was typically how people died if they messed with the Kansas City Mafia.
That's right, the Kansas City Mafia, who ruled this town for more than 50 years.
While the term Mafia probably conjures images of New York gangsters and episodes of "The Sopranos," maybe images of Southwest Boulevard and the River Market would be more appropriate.
A tyrannical organization led by hard-boiled Italians, the Mafia dominated everything from beer to the political machine.
Even Harry S. Truman, our 33rd president, was ushered into the Senate with a little help from the mob.
A brand new local documentary "Black Hand Strawman" covers the history of the Kansas City gangsters in full detail.
Directed and produced by Terence O'Malley, the film opens at the Screenland Theatre on Friday, March 20th - the 37th anniversary of the release of "The Godfather," an ironic date due to the fact the Mafia bought out entire theaters for that night in 1972 to prevent audiences from seeing it.
The Mafia thought it was "misrepresentative" of Italian culture.
What wasn't misrepresentative was O'Malley's film, which is full of information about the lives of the people involved with the Mafia.
The documentary covers the humble beginnings of the mob, when they were deemed "The Black Hand."
Back in 1912, the Black Hand was comprised of a small group of people from Kansas City's Little Italy, now recognized as Columbus Park, who occasionally shot at or threw bombs at enemies - usually people who were doing well financially.
If you got a threatening note on your front door with a scrawled-out drawing of a dagger dripping blood, you knew you were in trouble.
It was only later that members of the Black Hand became more organized and informally assumed the name of Mafia, which according to O'Malley, is actually an Italian acronym for Morte Alla Francia Italia Anelia!, or "Death to the French is Italy's Cry!"
"It occurred to me that nobody had ever given a serious treatment of K.C. organized crime on film before," O'Malley said. "I have always been drawn to storytelling, and have a very real sense of what the Italian culture is all about. That's why I made this film."
The documentary proceeds like a long list of Santa's wicked children.
Murder after murder ensues as O'Malley weaves together an intricate story of men like Joe "Scarface" DiGiovani who earned his name from a huge scar on his face inflicted by an explosion and Solly Weisman, a huge man who packed four revolvers and a switchblade at all times.
"Black Hand Strawman" covers nationally-recognized events such as the Union Station Massacre, or the Kansas City Massacre, of June 1933.
UMKC's own professor of Communications Studies Robert Unger was featured in the film speaking about the event, which he wrote a book about, titled "The Union Station Massacre: The Original Sin of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI."
"His book is the definitive source on the subject because he breaks the event down to such detail that the truth of what happened is revealed," O'Malley said.
Beyond the inclusion of UMKC faculty within the film, the director feels that UMKC students can connect directly with the subject.
"In many ways the history of organized crime in Kansas City tells the story of Kansas City in general," he said. "Organized crime is a reflection of the times, the culture, the community, the music and the politics of the day. UMKC students will walk away with an appreciation of this town's history they could never have had before."
Indeed, the film presents an astounding number of photographs taken throughout Kansas City's history.
Not only will the mug shots of criminals appear on screen, but also events such as the construction of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
While it may not have the technical resolution of "The Godfather," "Black Hand Strawman" has more heart in many ways.
It's the true tales of Kansas City's own people.
It's tales of the good times of the rise of the Kansas City jazz scene. And it's tales of the bad times of the death threats and street shootouts.
Fill some of your free time and see this film if you want to see the truth in the aptly named "Killer City" at the Screenland Crossroads, 1656 Washington St. Kansas City, Mo. 64108.
Just make sure to arrive early to score a seat in the row of red recliners.
Thanks to Corey Light
That was typically how people died if they messed with the Kansas City Mafia.
That's right, the Kansas City Mafia, who ruled this town for more than 50 years.
While the term Mafia probably conjures images of New York gangsters and episodes of "The Sopranos," maybe images of Southwest Boulevard and the River Market would be more appropriate.
A tyrannical organization led by hard-boiled Italians, the Mafia dominated everything from beer to the political machine.
Even Harry S. Truman, our 33rd president, was ushered into the Senate with a little help from the mob.
A brand new local documentary "Black Hand Strawman" covers the history of the Kansas City gangsters in full detail.
Directed and produced by Terence O'Malley, the film opens at the Screenland Theatre on Friday, March 20th - the 37th anniversary of the release of "The Godfather," an ironic date due to the fact the Mafia bought out entire theaters for that night in 1972 to prevent audiences from seeing it.
The Mafia thought it was "misrepresentative" of Italian culture.
What wasn't misrepresentative was O'Malley's film, which is full of information about the lives of the people involved with the Mafia.
The documentary covers the humble beginnings of the mob, when they were deemed "The Black Hand."
Back in 1912, the Black Hand was comprised of a small group of people from Kansas City's Little Italy, now recognized as Columbus Park, who occasionally shot at or threw bombs at enemies - usually people who were doing well financially.
If you got a threatening note on your front door with a scrawled-out drawing of a dagger dripping blood, you knew you were in trouble.
It was only later that members of the Black Hand became more organized and informally assumed the name of Mafia, which according to O'Malley, is actually an Italian acronym for Morte Alla Francia Italia Anelia!, or "Death to the French is Italy's Cry!"
"It occurred to me that nobody had ever given a serious treatment of K.C. organized crime on film before," O'Malley said. "I have always been drawn to storytelling, and have a very real sense of what the Italian culture is all about. That's why I made this film."
The documentary proceeds like a long list of Santa's wicked children.
Murder after murder ensues as O'Malley weaves together an intricate story of men like Joe "Scarface" DiGiovani who earned his name from a huge scar on his face inflicted by an explosion and Solly Weisman, a huge man who packed four revolvers and a switchblade at all times.
"Black Hand Strawman" covers nationally-recognized events such as the Union Station Massacre, or the Kansas City Massacre, of June 1933.
UMKC's own professor of Communications Studies Robert Unger was featured in the film speaking about the event, which he wrote a book about, titled "The Union Station Massacre: The Original Sin of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI."
"His book is the definitive source on the subject because he breaks the event down to such detail that the truth of what happened is revealed," O'Malley said.
Beyond the inclusion of UMKC faculty within the film, the director feels that UMKC students can connect directly with the subject.
"In many ways the history of organized crime in Kansas City tells the story of Kansas City in general," he said. "Organized crime is a reflection of the times, the culture, the community, the music and the politics of the day. UMKC students will walk away with an appreciation of this town's history they could never have had before."
Indeed, the film presents an astounding number of photographs taken throughout Kansas City's history.
Not only will the mug shots of criminals appear on screen, but also events such as the construction of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
While it may not have the technical resolution of "The Godfather," "Black Hand Strawman" has more heart in many ways.
It's the true tales of Kansas City's own people.
It's tales of the good times of the rise of the Kansas City jazz scene. And it's tales of the bad times of the death threats and street shootouts.
Fill some of your free time and see this film if you want to see the truth in the aptly named "Killer City" at the Screenland Crossroads, 1656 Washington St. Kansas City, Mo. 64108.
Just make sure to arrive early to score a seat in the row of red recliners.
Thanks to Corey Light
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