Tuesday, February 07, 2012
City of Chicago to Honor Maniac Latin Disciples with City Sticker?
Kudos to Detective Shaved Longcock for breaking a disturbing story about the City of Chicago's soon to be released city sticker design being designed both by a reputed Maniac Latin Disciples and in honor of the child killing gang.
Mob Wives Connected to Bonanno Crime Family Bust
Federal agents busted several high-ranking Bonanno crime family members last week and charged them with racketeering and extortion, authorities said.
Among those arrested in the joint FBI-Drug Enforcement Administration probe were two senior members of the Bonanno ruling administration, Anthony "TG" Graziano and Vinny Badalamenti, law enforcement sources said.
Bonanno captain Nicky Santoro was also charged in the sweep as were soldiers Vito Balsamo and Anthony Calabrese, sources said.
A Gambino crime family associate, James LaForte, was also arrested in the early morning raids, sources said.
The suspects were scheduled to be arraigned in Brooklyn federal court.
Graziano was already facing previous extortion charges in a separate case.
The massive sweep against the Bonanno leadership stems in part from the assistance of former mob associate Hector Pagan, who is the ex-husband of "Mob Wives" star Renee Graziano. Pagan is now a DEA informant.
Renee Graziano is the daughter of Anthony Graziano.
Anthony Graziano, 71, was released recently from prison, but then quickly ensnared in an earlier Drug Enforcement Administration probe that pre-dated today's developments.
In that previous case, Pagan -- a Bonanno associate-turned DEA informant -- reportedly wore a wire and secretly recorded conversations for the feds with his ex-father-in-law while discussing the collection of a loanshark debt.
Anthony Graziano was indicted by Brooklyn federal prosecutors on those earlier charges just last week.
Thanks to Mitchel Maddux
Among those arrested in the joint FBI-Drug Enforcement Administration probe were two senior members of the Bonanno ruling administration, Anthony "TG" Graziano and Vinny Badalamenti, law enforcement sources said.
Bonanno captain Nicky Santoro was also charged in the sweep as were soldiers Vito Balsamo and Anthony Calabrese, sources said.
A Gambino crime family associate, James LaForte, was also arrested in the early morning raids, sources said.
The suspects were scheduled to be arraigned in Brooklyn federal court.
Graziano was already facing previous extortion charges in a separate case.
The massive sweep against the Bonanno leadership stems in part from the assistance of former mob associate Hector Pagan, who is the ex-husband of "Mob Wives" star Renee Graziano. Pagan is now a DEA informant.
Renee Graziano is the daughter of Anthony Graziano.
Anthony Graziano, 71, was released recently from prison, but then quickly ensnared in an earlier Drug Enforcement Administration probe that pre-dated today's developments.
In that previous case, Pagan -- a Bonanno associate-turned DEA informant -- reportedly wore a wire and secretly recorded conversations for the feds with his ex-father-in-law while discussing the collection of a loanshark debt.
Anthony Graziano was indicted by Brooklyn federal prosecutors on those earlier charges just last week.
Thanks to Mitchel Maddux
Monday, February 06, 2012
"Jimmy the Man" Marcello Accusses the Government of Dirty Tricks
It has been nearly five years since several top Chicago mob bosses were convicted in the Operation Family Secrets racketeering and murder trial. In this Intelligence Report: Why one of them, James Marcello, is now accusing the government of dirty tricks.
Lawyers for James "Jimmy the Man" Marcello claim that the hoodlum is on his way to "Siberia" courtesy of the U.S. government.
Of course Marcello isn't actually headed to the Russian hinterland, but his lawyers say he has been abruptly moved from the federal lock-up in Chicago and is currently on his way to a prison 2,000 miles across the country.
Most of Marcello's relatives still live in the Chicago suburbs, near where the I-Team paid him a visit a few years ago when he was still a free man.
Now, the outfit boss is doing a life sentence for racketeering murder. During the appeal process, he had been housed at the Metro Correctional Center in downtown Chicago.
With the appeal process going nowhere, federal prosecutors filed a motion to have Marcello transferred to his permanent prison assignment. The court had recommended the penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, which would have been convenient for Marcello's family to visit. But the Bureau of Prisons decided the hoodlum should do time in northern California at the Atwater facility. The hearing on his transfer is this week, but according to the latest court filing, Marcello's attorneys claim he was removed last Monday, bound for California, meaning "Marcello might as well have been sent to Siberia."
So, somewhere across America right now, Marcello's con caravan is on the move. We know from prison records that he went via Oklahoma, where Wednesday night he was checked into the prison at El Reno.
Marcello is now thought to be making a beeline for the West Coast, and eventually Atwater, a high-security prison on an abandoned Air Force base 130 miles from San Francisco. His Bureau of Prison record right now simply lists Marcello as "in transit."
The motion filed by Marcello's attorneys asks that the con caravan put on the brakes, do a u-turn and deliver Marcello back to the MCC in Chicago.
The I-Team didn't hear back from the mobster's lawyer Thursday, and a spokesman for the U.S. attorney declined to comment on this allegation that the government pulled a fast one by shipping Marcello out of town before his court hearing could be held on the transfer.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
Lawyers for James "Jimmy the Man" Marcello claim that the hoodlum is on his way to "Siberia" courtesy of the U.S. government.
Of course Marcello isn't actually headed to the Russian hinterland, but his lawyers say he has been abruptly moved from the federal lock-up in Chicago and is currently on his way to a prison 2,000 miles across the country.
Most of Marcello's relatives still live in the Chicago suburbs, near where the I-Team paid him a visit a few years ago when he was still a free man.
Now, the outfit boss is doing a life sentence for racketeering murder. During the appeal process, he had been housed at the Metro Correctional Center in downtown Chicago.
With the appeal process going nowhere, federal prosecutors filed a motion to have Marcello transferred to his permanent prison assignment. The court had recommended the penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, which would have been convenient for Marcello's family to visit. But the Bureau of Prisons decided the hoodlum should do time in northern California at the Atwater facility. The hearing on his transfer is this week, but according to the latest court filing, Marcello's attorneys claim he was removed last Monday, bound for California, meaning "Marcello might as well have been sent to Siberia."
So, somewhere across America right now, Marcello's con caravan is on the move. We know from prison records that he went via Oklahoma, where Wednesday night he was checked into the prison at El Reno.
Marcello is now thought to be making a beeline for the West Coast, and eventually Atwater, a high-security prison on an abandoned Air Force base 130 miles from San Francisco. His Bureau of Prison record right now simply lists Marcello as "in transit."
The motion filed by Marcello's attorneys asks that the con caravan put on the brakes, do a u-turn and deliver Marcello back to the MCC in Chicago.
The I-Team didn't hear back from the mobster's lawyer Thursday, and a spokesman for the U.S. attorney declined to comment on this allegation that the government pulled a fast one by shipping Marcello out of town before his court hearing could be held on the transfer.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Deirdre Capone Returns to Chicago This Week with Media Appearances & Book Signings Scheduled
Deirdre Capone will be on many TV and radio shows in Chicago this week. You can see her complete calendar at her web site, www.unclealcapone.com.
She will be speaking and signing books at the Barnes & Noble in Oakbrook on Saturday Feb. 11th from 11:00 am.
Dierdre just returned from New York where she was a guest on many TV shows including CBS This Morning and Fox & Friends. Those interviews are available online for viewing.
Her book Uncle Al Capone - The Untold Story from Inside His Family will be available in audio in the next couple of weeks. It is in the final stages of production. Dierdre has worked with a professional voice impressionist and all of the Al Capone quotes in the book will be in her uncles voice. No one has ever heard Al Capones voice before.
The book is also going into its second printing.
She will be speaking and signing books at the Barnes & Noble in Oakbrook on Saturday Feb. 11th from 11:00 am.
Dierdre just returned from New York where she was a guest on many TV shows including CBS This Morning and Fox & Friends. Those interviews are available online for viewing.
Her book Uncle Al Capone - The Untold Story from Inside His Family will be available in audio in the next couple of weeks. It is in the final stages of production. Dierdre has worked with a professional voice impressionist and all of the Al Capone quotes in the book will be in her uncles voice. No one has ever heard Al Capones voice before.
The book is also going into its second printing.
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Vegas Rag Doll: A True Story of Terror & Survival as a Mob Hitman's Wife
My personal memory of hitman Tom Hanley dates to November 1979, when I was covering a federal court trial where he was a critical witness.
Just before leaving to spend Thanksgiving in San Diego, I told a friend that Hanley wasn't as ill as he claimed on the witness stand.
I thought he had been faking some of his confusion when he testified in a firebombing trial for four days. At 63, Hanley, a former sheet-metal union official turned hitman, seemed frail and had trouble hearing the questions put to him. He complained about his health so often, the judge ordered him to stop it.
Oops.
The day after Thanksgiving, he died of natural causes.
Hanley really was sick when he complained about his ailments while testifying against Ben Schmoutey, then the secretary-treasurer of Culinary union Local 226, charged with ordering non-union restaurants firebombed.
I've been thinking of that trial because over the holidays I read "Vegas Rag Doll: A True Story of Terror & Survival as a Mob Hitman's Wife," co-authored by Hanley's former wife, Wendy Mazaros, and Joe Schoenmann.
I could hardly wait to get to the part of the book covering the trial, the part I knew personally. Except by that time, Mazaros was married to Robert Peoples, the second murderer she wed. I never saw her at the trial, and she didn't attend Hanley's funeral a few weeks later.
Since the trial received scant mention in the book, I pulled out old clips of the trial and saw the screaming blue headlines that used to mark front-page banner stories in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
"Hanley switches story," one screamed. He had testified before the grand jury that Schmoutey paid him for the firebombings. In court, he said meant to say Al Bramlet paid him. Well, that didn't help the Las Vegas Strike Force case.
Hanley and his son, Gramby, were the key witnesses against Schmoutey. The father and son had confessed to killing Bramlet, Schmoutey's predecessor, in 1977. Bramlet's nude body was found with six bullets in it, one in each ear, one in the sternum and three others in the area of his heart.
The Hanleys both testified about their own roles in firebombing nonunion restaurants that the Culinary union sought to organize. They were successful in three out of the five firebombings, which occurred between 1975 through 1977. It was long thought that Bramlet was killed because he refused to pay the Hanleys for the two failed firebombings. But there were other theories as well.
One was that the Chicago mob ordered Bramlet hit because they wanted to take more control over the Culinary union's $42 million pension fund and Bramlet was resisting. Another was perhaps Bramlet was stealing from the pension fund. Mazaros' book didn't provide a definitive answer, nor did Tom Hanley provide details during the trial.
At one point, he confessed he was answering questions though he couldn't hear the questions. Schmoutey's attorney, Oscar Goodman, didn't even bother to cross-examine him, leaving that job to other defense attorneys representing four other men also charged in the case.
U.S. District Judge Harry Claiborne threw Hanley's testimony out, saying, "Hanley's testimony may go down in history as the most confusing testimony ever given in a criminal case."
On Nov. 20, 1979, Claiborne ordered all the defendants except one minor player acquitted saying the federal prosecutors hadn't proved their case. (The guy left was later acquitted as well.)
Three days later, Tom Hanley died.
Five months later in April 1980, it became public that the judge was being investigated by the Strike Force.
Claiborne later speculated that the Strike Force investigated him relentlessly partly because he dismissed the Schmoutey case.
Those were the glory days for those of us who covered federal court.
Union corruption. Political corruption. Judicial corruption. Mob murders. Scams. Some proven, some not. All intriguing.
Thanks to Jane Anne Morrison
Just before leaving to spend Thanksgiving in San Diego, I told a friend that Hanley wasn't as ill as he claimed on the witness stand.
I thought he had been faking some of his confusion when he testified in a firebombing trial for four days. At 63, Hanley, a former sheet-metal union official turned hitman, seemed frail and had trouble hearing the questions put to him. He complained about his health so often, the judge ordered him to stop it.
Oops.
The day after Thanksgiving, he died of natural causes.
Hanley really was sick when he complained about his ailments while testifying against Ben Schmoutey, then the secretary-treasurer of Culinary union Local 226, charged with ordering non-union restaurants firebombed.
I've been thinking of that trial because over the holidays I read "Vegas Rag Doll: A True Story of Terror & Survival as a Mob Hitman's Wife," co-authored by Hanley's former wife, Wendy Mazaros, and Joe Schoenmann.
I could hardly wait to get to the part of the book covering the trial, the part I knew personally. Except by that time, Mazaros was married to Robert Peoples, the second murderer she wed. I never saw her at the trial, and she didn't attend Hanley's funeral a few weeks later.
Since the trial received scant mention in the book, I pulled out old clips of the trial and saw the screaming blue headlines that used to mark front-page banner stories in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
"Hanley switches story," one screamed. He had testified before the grand jury that Schmoutey paid him for the firebombings. In court, he said meant to say Al Bramlet paid him. Well, that didn't help the Las Vegas Strike Force case.
Hanley and his son, Gramby, were the key witnesses against Schmoutey. The father and son had confessed to killing Bramlet, Schmoutey's predecessor, in 1977. Bramlet's nude body was found with six bullets in it, one in each ear, one in the sternum and three others in the area of his heart.
The Hanleys both testified about their own roles in firebombing nonunion restaurants that the Culinary union sought to organize. They were successful in three out of the five firebombings, which occurred between 1975 through 1977. It was long thought that Bramlet was killed because he refused to pay the Hanleys for the two failed firebombings. But there were other theories as well.
One was that the Chicago mob ordered Bramlet hit because they wanted to take more control over the Culinary union's $42 million pension fund and Bramlet was resisting. Another was perhaps Bramlet was stealing from the pension fund. Mazaros' book didn't provide a definitive answer, nor did Tom Hanley provide details during the trial.
At one point, he confessed he was answering questions though he couldn't hear the questions. Schmoutey's attorney, Oscar Goodman, didn't even bother to cross-examine him, leaving that job to other defense attorneys representing four other men also charged in the case.
U.S. District Judge Harry Claiborne threw Hanley's testimony out, saying, "Hanley's testimony may go down in history as the most confusing testimony ever given in a criminal case."
On Nov. 20, 1979, Claiborne ordered all the defendants except one minor player acquitted saying the federal prosecutors hadn't proved their case. (The guy left was later acquitted as well.)
Three days later, Tom Hanley died.
Five months later in April 1980, it became public that the judge was being investigated by the Strike Force.
Claiborne later speculated that the Strike Force investigated him relentlessly partly because he dismissed the Schmoutey case.
Those were the glory days for those of us who covered federal court.
Union corruption. Political corruption. Judicial corruption. Mob murders. Scams. Some proven, some not. All intriguing.
Thanks to Jane Anne Morrison
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