The U.S. News & World Report law school rankings are back, catching the attention of students, attorneys and law school administrators throughout the country. This year’s rankings reveal upgrades or downgrades for schools like the University of Michigan, the University of Cincinnati and Brooklyn Law School, as well as tuition and enrollment variations among schools.
None of the three highest ranked schools took top honors in any specialty category, but all three placed in the top ten of at least two specialties categories.
Top Ten
The rankings reveal few changes to the ranks of the most elite law schools. Yale University remains in the top spot, followed by Harvard University and Stanford University, which share the second spot.
Columbia University and the University of Chicago share the fourth spot, while the University of California, Berkeley, Michigan and the University of Virginia share the eighth spot. (Michigan switched places this year with Duke University, with Michigan moving up from No. 11 to No. 8 and Duke moving down from No. 8 to No. 11).
The remaining top ten law schools are New York University in the No. 6 spot and the University of Pennsylvania in the No. 7 spot.
Top Twenty-Five
The additional top 25 law schools are: Duke University (No. 11); Northwestern University (No. 12); Cornell University (No. 13); Georgetown University (No. 14); University of Texas, Austin (No. 15); Vanderbilt University (No. 16); University of California, Los Angeles (No. 17); Washington University in St. Louis (No. 18); University of Southern California (No. 19); Boston University (No. 20); University of Iowa (No. 20); Emory University (No. 22); University of Minnesota (No. 22); University of Notre Dame (No. 22); Arizona State University (No. 25); George Washington University (No. 25); and Indiana University, Bloomington (No. 25).
Indiana, Boston University, Michigan, Iowa, Vanderbilt, USC, and Arizona State moved up at least one slot.
Greatest Gains and Losses
Some law schools made significant gains this year, while others suffered losses. Within the top 100 ranked schools, Cincinnati had the most improved ranking, getting bumped up from No. 79 to No. 60.
Other schools that moved up five or more spots are Boston University (up 6 to No. 20); Indiana (up 9 to No. 25); Wake Forest University (up 7 to No. 40); University of California, Hastings (up 9 to No. 50); University of Houston (up 9 to No. 50); University of New Mexico (up 11 to No. 60); University of Oklahoma (up 7 to No. 60); Loyola Marymount University (up 10 to No. 65); Loyola University Chicago (up 6 to No. 72); St. John’s University (up 8 to No. 74); Villanova University (up 13 to No. 74); Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge (up 12 to No. 82); Northeastern University (up 5 to No. 82); St. Louis University (up 5 to No. 82); University of New Hampshire School of Law (up 5 to No. 82); and Wayne State University (up 8 to No. 97).
On the flip side, Brooklyn Law School experienced the greatest decline in ranking, getting downgraded from No. 78 to No. 97.
Other schools that moved down five or more spots are the University of Alabama (down 6 to No. 28); University of Washington (down 5 to No. 33); Pepperdine University (down 13 to No. 65); University of Tennessee, Knoxville (down 13 to No. 65); University of Denver (down 5 to No. 72); American University (down 7 to No. 78); University of Nevada, Las Vegas (down 11 to No. 78); Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago-Kent) (down 8 to No. 86); Pennsylvania State University (Dickinson) (down 15 to No. 86); Pennsylvania State University, University Park (down 15 to No. 86); University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (down 11 to No. 86); Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (down 5 to No. 92); University of Hawaii, Manoa (down 10 to No. 92); Michigan State University (down 6 to No. 100); and SUNY Buffalo Law School (down 13 to No. 100).
Ranking Criteria
The U.S. News rankings are based on 2015 and 2016 data and calculated according to the weighted average of various measures including peer assessment scores, median LSAT scores, median undergraduate GPAs, acceptance rates, employment rates for graduates, bar passage rates, and library resources.
Enrollment and Cost
The U.S. News rankings also include information on enrollment and tuition. Of the top 50 law schools, the school with the highest enrollment is Harvard, with 1,767 students (followed by Georgetown, with 1,725 students). The school with the lowest enrollment is Washington and Lee University, with 314 students (followed by University of California, Irvine, with 334 students).
When it comes to tuition and fees, the most expensive of the top 50 law schools is Columbia, at $62,700 per year (followed by Cornell University, at $59,900 per year). The least expensive of the top 50 schools (at least for certain students) is Brigham Young University, at $11,970 per year for full time LDS members (followed by University of Georgia, at $19,476 per year for in state students).
Starting Salaries
The median starting private sector salary for 2014 law school graduates from 108 schools was between $50,000 and $74,999. Graduates of 39 schools had a median starting salary of between $75,000 and $100,000, while graduates of 30 schools had a median starting salary of more than $100,000.
For public sector jobs, graduates from 69 schools had a median starting salary of under $50,000, and graduates from 112 schools had a median starting salary of between $50,000 to $74,999.
Specialty Rankings
The following law schools each came in No. 1 for the following specialty areas of law: Georgetown for clinical programs (overall rank No. 14); Seattle University for legal writing (overall rank No. 111); Stetson University for trial advocacy (overall rank No. 103); St. Louis University for health care law (overall rank No. 82); Vermont Law School for environmental law (overall rank No. 132); Ohio State University for dispute resolution (overall rank No. 30); Berkeley for intellectual property law (overall rank No. 8); and NYU for both international law and tax law (overall rank No. 6).
None of the law schools ranked in the top three overall (Yale, Harvard and Stanford) earned the top spot in any specialty ranking. However, Harvard made the top ten for health care law, dispute resolution, international law and tax law. Yale made the top ten for clinical programs and international law, while Stanford made the top ten for clinical programs and intellectual property law.
Conclusions
With the rankings now in, ambitious college students can set their sights on making it into law schools in the coveted top ten. Those who aspire to practice in niche areas like environmental or tax law can hone in on the most appropriate schools for them. Meanwhile, law school administrators at upwardly mobile institutions can celebrate their accomplishments this year while their counterparts at schools heading in the other direction can assess how to reverse course and move up by the time the rankings roll around again next year.
Monday, April 04, 2016
Saturday, April 02, 2016
"Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires"
Face it--there seemingly will always be a market for certain books. Just choose to chronicle some facet of the Kennedys, the Nazis or, as Selwyn Raab has opted, the Mafia, and a certain sales threshold is guaranteed. Quality seldom seems an issue. Just serve it up and the buyers will come.
Happily, "Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires" is worth every cent, and for those who haven't gotten into Mafia reading on either the fictional -- as in Mario Puzo-- level or other documentary accounts, this may well be the only book you need to read.
So well written and encompassing is Raab's effort that even at 763 pages
, many readers will pine for more. And of course there could be more at some point. As the title suggests, a Mafia resurgence is more than quite possible after the John Gotti era unraveling of the more traditional operations in the 1980s and '90s. The next time, it just might not be so Italian based.
Raab serves up a history of the underworld that is long on coherency and understanding and short on the kind of mind-numbing detail other Mafia historians wander into. He gets right into the notoriously efficient work of Charles (Lucky) Luciano, whose rules of engagement ended a lot of shoot-'em-ups and kept the Mafia pointed at one goal -- ever increasing the amount of money pouring into the organization and individual coffers by corrupting American government and business, not necessarily in that order.
It was Luciano who advocated the organization adopt secretive, low-profile standards for thievery, extortion and other crimes as opposed to the over-the-top "I'm just giving the people what they want" personna that Chicago boss Al Capone advocated. And Raab pulls the thread by luring the reader to all that came after. With a reporter's love of fact and disdain for much of the fictional crap about these dark knights, we follow the organization's operations through its real birth during Prohibition, its World War II profiteering, its '50s heyday as a union corrupter and Las Vegas force and its '80s and '90s stumbling largely attributed to a name now very familiar -- Rudy Giuliani. It was Giuliani's use of RICO (the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act) that did great damage to the Mafia's traditional legal defenses in the 1980s.
While he devotes a few pages to the oft-told stories like the Louis (Lepke) Buchalter case from the '30s and '40s, Raab scores big points for telling modern Mafia tales that are less often told but are just as magnetic as the '30s-era classics. And Raab is a constant critic of the law enforcement and justice system weaknesses for not prosecuting crimes that seemed all too obvious. And back in the beginning of this review, did we mention the Kennedys?
That would propel the reader to the book's Chapter 15, titled "The Ring of Truth." The title comes from the mouth of G. Robert Blakey, an expert on both the John F. Kennedy assassination and the underworld, about utterances from Frank Ragano, a lawyer who had the opportunity to defend Mafia operators Santos Trafficante, Carlos Marcello and Detroit's own labor racketeer, the still missing Jimmy Hoffa.
Trafficante, Ragano said, confirmed that the Mafia had a hand in the drama of Nov. 22, 1963. The simple theory: Robert Kennedy's vigorous prosecution of racketeering had to be stopped and the best way to do that was by icing the man who appointed him to his job. Yes, there was plenty of bad feeling toward JFK himself, but Raab concludes, "Whether or not they had a part in it, the Mafia had triumphed as a big winner after the assassination."
One other reason to admire Raab's work: He does quite a bit of damage to the fictional image of the Mafia that is the result of Puzo's fiction and movies like "Good Fellas," "Casino" and the most current manifestation, "The Sopranos." Raab quotes organized crime boss Howard Abadinsky as saying, "They are displayed having a twisted sense of honor, 'taking no crap from anyone,' with easy access to women and money. Such displays romanticize organized crime and, as an unintended consequence, serve to perpetuate the phenomenon and create alluring myths about the Mafia."
That's something Raab could never be convicted of.
Reviewed by JOHN SMYNTEK
Happily, "Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires" is worth every cent, and for those who haven't gotten into Mafia reading on either the fictional -- as in Mario Puzo-- level or other documentary accounts, this may well be the only book you need to read.
So well written and encompassing is Raab's effort that even at 763 pages
, many readers will pine for more. And of course there could be more at some point. As the title suggests, a Mafia resurgence is more than quite possible after the John Gotti era unraveling of the more traditional operations in the 1980s and '90s. The next time, it just might not be so Italian based.Raab serves up a history of the underworld that is long on coherency and understanding and short on the kind of mind-numbing detail other Mafia historians wander into. He gets right into the notoriously efficient work of Charles (Lucky) Luciano, whose rules of engagement ended a lot of shoot-'em-ups and kept the Mafia pointed at one goal -- ever increasing the amount of money pouring into the organization and individual coffers by corrupting American government and business, not necessarily in that order.
It was Luciano who advocated the organization adopt secretive, low-profile standards for thievery, extortion and other crimes as opposed to the over-the-top "I'm just giving the people what they want" personna that Chicago boss Al Capone advocated. And Raab pulls the thread by luring the reader to all that came after. With a reporter's love of fact and disdain for much of the fictional crap about these dark knights, we follow the organization's operations through its real birth during Prohibition, its World War II profiteering, its '50s heyday as a union corrupter and Las Vegas force and its '80s and '90s stumbling largely attributed to a name now very familiar -- Rudy Giuliani. It was Giuliani's use of RICO (the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act) that did great damage to the Mafia's traditional legal defenses in the 1980s.
While he devotes a few pages to the oft-told stories like the Louis (Lepke) Buchalter case from the '30s and '40s, Raab scores big points for telling modern Mafia tales that are less often told but are just as magnetic as the '30s-era classics. And Raab is a constant critic of the law enforcement and justice system weaknesses for not prosecuting crimes that seemed all too obvious. And back in the beginning of this review, did we mention the Kennedys?
That would propel the reader to the book's Chapter 15, titled "The Ring of Truth." The title comes from the mouth of G. Robert Blakey, an expert on both the John F. Kennedy assassination and the underworld, about utterances from Frank Ragano, a lawyer who had the opportunity to defend Mafia operators Santos Trafficante, Carlos Marcello and Detroit's own labor racketeer, the still missing Jimmy Hoffa.
Trafficante, Ragano said, confirmed that the Mafia had a hand in the drama of Nov. 22, 1963. The simple theory: Robert Kennedy's vigorous prosecution of racketeering had to be stopped and the best way to do that was by icing the man who appointed him to his job. Yes, there was plenty of bad feeling toward JFK himself, but Raab concludes, "Whether or not they had a part in it, the Mafia had triumphed as a big winner after the assassination."
One other reason to admire Raab's work: He does quite a bit of damage to the fictional image of the Mafia that is the result of Puzo's fiction and movies like "Good Fellas," "Casino" and the most current manifestation, "The Sopranos." Raab quotes organized crime boss Howard Abadinsky as saying, "They are displayed having a twisted sense of honor, 'taking no crap from anyone,' with easy access to women and money. Such displays romanticize organized crime and, as an unintended consequence, serve to perpetuate the phenomenon and create alluring myths about the Mafia."
That's something Raab could never be convicted of.
Reviewed by JOHN SMYNTEK
Attend the Gold Standard in Firearms Law Classes with @OliverNorthFNC
The Annual National Firearms Law Seminar will be held on Friday, May 20, 2016 as part of the NRA Annual Meetings. The gold standard in firearms law classes, this day-long seminar provides legal instruction for attorneys and all others interested in Second Amendment law. CLE credit for all states is available.
Topics will include: current constitutional challenges across the country, how to best analyze and bring constitutional cases, executive orders and dangers from the administrative agencies (including the VA and Social Security Administration gun grabs), FFL compliance issues and ATF’s new guidance on who is a "firearms dealer," firearms instructor liability, preemption cases across the country, rights restoration, and gun trusts after 41F. The special luncheon speaker will be LtCol. Oliver North, who will give us his thoughts on arming our military personnel on U.S. soil.
Registration for attorneys is only $245 and $150 for non-attorneys through April 29th. Special pricing is available for active-duty military and police and current law students. Tuition includes the course, study materials, continental breakfast, luncheon, and meet & greet reception.
Seating will be limited. For more information and to register, please visit the Seminar website at http://lawseminar.nrafoundation.org/ or call 1-877-NRF-LAWS.
Topics will include: current constitutional challenges across the country, how to best analyze and bring constitutional cases, executive orders and dangers from the administrative agencies (including the VA and Social Security Administration gun grabs), FFL compliance issues and ATF’s new guidance on who is a "firearms dealer," firearms instructor liability, preemption cases across the country, rights restoration, and gun trusts after 41F. The special luncheon speaker will be LtCol. Oliver North, who will give us his thoughts on arming our military personnel on U.S. soil.
Registration for attorneys is only $245 and $150 for non-attorneys through April 29th. Special pricing is available for active-duty military and police and current law students. Tuition includes the course, study materials, continental breakfast, luncheon, and meet & greet reception.
Seating will be limited. For more information and to register, please visit the Seminar website at http://lawseminar.nrafoundation.org/ or call 1-877-NRF-LAWS.
Friday, April 01, 2016
In Capone's Shadow: Former Teacher Writes Book on Frank Nitti
Book Review of "After Capone: The Life and World of Chicago Mob Boss Frank The Enforcer"" Nitti""" by Mars Eghigian reviewed by Wally Spiers
Even the title of Mars Eghigian Jr.'s new book reflects the fact that Frank Nitti has always been in the shadow of the flamboyant Al Capone.
"After Capone. The Life and World of Chicago Mob Boss Frank (the Enforcer) Nitti
," (437 pages, 75 pages of notes, Cumberland House Publishing Inc.) tells the story of the quieter Nitti who ran the Chicago Mob for more than a decade after Capone built the organization from bootlegging liquor.
The book offers insight to gangland events of the time in Chicago and other connected cities -- not just what happened but also why it happened. It tells of the transformation of the mob from Prohibition busters to gambling and protection racketeering.
Nitti actually was named Francesco Raffele Nitto when he was born in Italy. He Anglicized it to Frank Nitto but even then his last name was constantly misspelled.
Eghigian, of Belleville, is a former horticulture teacher at Southwestern Illinois College and now is a financial planner.
Why, then, a book on a Chicago crime boss? Eghigian said his grandfather came to the metro-east about the time of World War I and established a dry cleaning business on 13th Street in East St. Louis. "When I was a kid I would hear stories at dinner," he said. "My family knew of the local mobsters and protection rackets, like the Master Cleaners and Dyers Association.
"They told stories like the exploding suits."
Exploding suits?
Apparently, to make their points about the need for protection, mobsters would have agents drop off suits or coats in which flammable material had been sewn in the lining. When the heat of the presses hit the material, it would explode, scaring the wits out of everyone.
Eghigian said he found that there really was not much published information on Nitti. "Nobody wrote abut him, at least not accurately," he said.
Eghigian asked a friend who also was an author, former FBI agent Bill Roemer, about the gangster. "He said, 'Nitti was just one of those guys who fell through the cracks. Why don't you write a book?'" Eghigian said. Then Roemer provided Eghigian with a lot of leads.
Eghigian said he has really worked on the book since 1991. Instead of vacations at the beach, he would be in libraries and microfilm files, digging out information.
He found that Nitti ran Chicago after the imprisonment of Capone, even during Nitti's own 18-month prison sentence. In fact, Nitti was in charge for much longer than Capone, until Nitti committed suicide in 1943.
"My goal was to put out a professional project, to do the work. I thought I had time. Nobody had touched Nitti for more than 40 years. Luckily I was right," Eghigian said.
Eghigian is working on other projects now in relation to crime and gangs. He said it is nice to see the results of all his work. "It was a fun project," he said. "It's really fun to see it finished."
Thanks to Wally Spiers
Even the title of Mars Eghigian Jr.'s new book reflects the fact that Frank Nitti has always been in the shadow of the flamboyant Al Capone.
"After Capone. The Life and World of Chicago Mob Boss Frank (the Enforcer) Nitti
," (437 pages, 75 pages of notes, Cumberland House Publishing Inc.) tells the story of the quieter Nitti who ran the Chicago Mob for more than a decade after Capone built the organization from bootlegging liquor.The book offers insight to gangland events of the time in Chicago and other connected cities -- not just what happened but also why it happened. It tells of the transformation of the mob from Prohibition busters to gambling and protection racketeering.
Nitti actually was named Francesco Raffele Nitto when he was born in Italy. He Anglicized it to Frank Nitto but even then his last name was constantly misspelled.
Eghigian, of Belleville, is a former horticulture teacher at Southwestern Illinois College and now is a financial planner.
Why, then, a book on a Chicago crime boss? Eghigian said his grandfather came to the metro-east about the time of World War I and established a dry cleaning business on 13th Street in East St. Louis. "When I was a kid I would hear stories at dinner," he said. "My family knew of the local mobsters and protection rackets, like the Master Cleaners and Dyers Association.
"They told stories like the exploding suits."
Exploding suits?
Apparently, to make their points about the need for protection, mobsters would have agents drop off suits or coats in which flammable material had been sewn in the lining. When the heat of the presses hit the material, it would explode, scaring the wits out of everyone.
Eghigian said he found that there really was not much published information on Nitti. "Nobody wrote abut him, at least not accurately," he said.
Eghigian asked a friend who also was an author, former FBI agent Bill Roemer, about the gangster. "He said, 'Nitti was just one of those guys who fell through the cracks. Why don't you write a book?'" Eghigian said. Then Roemer provided Eghigian with a lot of leads.
Eghigian said he has really worked on the book since 1991. Instead of vacations at the beach, he would be in libraries and microfilm files, digging out information.
He found that Nitti ran Chicago after the imprisonment of Capone, even during Nitti's own 18-month prison sentence. In fact, Nitti was in charge for much longer than Capone, until Nitti committed suicide in 1943.
"My goal was to put out a professional project, to do the work. I thought I had time. Nobody had touched Nitti for more than 40 years. Luckily I was right," Eghigian said.
Eghigian is working on other projects now in relation to crime and gangs. He said it is nice to see the results of all his work. "It was a fun project," he said. "It's really fun to see it finished."
Thanks to Wally Spiers
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Read #Golden by @JeffCoen and @ChaseJohn to learn how How Rod Blagojevich Talked Himself out of the Governor's Office and into Prison
No one did political corruption quite like Rod Blagojevich
. The 40th governor of Illinois made international headlines in 2008 when he was roused from his bed and arrested by the FBI at his Chicago home. He was accused of running the state government as a criminal racket and, most shockingly, caught on tape trying to barter away President-elect Barack Obama’s US Senate seat. Most politicians would hunker down, stay quiet, and fight the federal case against them. But as he had done for years, Rod Blagojevich proved he was no ordinary politician. Instead, he fueled the headlines, proclaiming his innocence on seemingly every national talk show and street corner he could find.
Revealing evidence from the investigation never before made public, Golden: How Rod Blagojevich Talked Himself out of the Governor's Office and into Prison, is the most complete telling yet of the Blagojevich story, written by two Chicago reporters who covered every step of his rise and fall and spent years sifting through evidence, compiling documents, and conducting more than a hundred interviews with those who have known Blagojevich from his childhood to his time in the governor’s office. Dispensing with sensationalism to present the facts about one of the nation’s most notorious politicians, the authors detail the mechanics of the corruption that brought the governor down and profile a fascinating and frustrating character who embodies much of what is wrong with modern politics. With Blagojevich now serving 14 years in prison, the time has come for the last word on who Blagojevich was, how he was elected, how he got himself into trouble, and how the feds took him down.
. The 40th governor of Illinois made international headlines in 2008 when he was roused from his bed and arrested by the FBI at his Chicago home. He was accused of running the state government as a criminal racket and, most shockingly, caught on tape trying to barter away President-elect Barack Obama’s US Senate seat. Most politicians would hunker down, stay quiet, and fight the federal case against them. But as he had done for years, Rod Blagojevich proved he was no ordinary politician. Instead, he fueled the headlines, proclaiming his innocence on seemingly every national talk show and street corner he could find.
Revealing evidence from the investigation never before made public, Golden: How Rod Blagojevich Talked Himself out of the Governor's Office and into Prison, is the most complete telling yet of the Blagojevich story, written by two Chicago reporters who covered every step of his rise and fall and spent years sifting through evidence, compiling documents, and conducting more than a hundred interviews with those who have known Blagojevich from his childhood to his time in the governor’s office. Dispensing with sensationalism to present the facts about one of the nation’s most notorious politicians, the authors detail the mechanics of the corruption that brought the governor down and profile a fascinating and frustrating character who embodies much of what is wrong with modern politics. With Blagojevich now serving 14 years in prison, the time has come for the last word on who Blagojevich was, how he was elected, how he got himself into trouble, and how the feds took him down.
Exploring the Myth of the Mafia's Grip
Book Review of An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America, by George De Stefano
Cliches exist until they are challenged.
Analyze this: a thumbnail history of Italian Americans.
A Southern European immigrant group, disembarking in America in huge numbers from the late 19th century to the early 20th, comes to be associated with what an 1876 New York Times editorial calls "A Natural Inclination Toward Criminality." No matter that crime remained the ultimate multiethnic, equal-opportunity business. As the perception grows, so-called native-born Americans also aren't sure the new immigrants are white.
A black man
, convicted in 1922 of miscegenation in Alabama, gets off when an appeals court rules the prosecution failed to prove his Sicilian wife was Caucasian. In 1930s Hollywood, directors choose non-Italians - Romanian Jew Edward G. Robinson and Yiddish stage actor Paul Muni - to play fictional crime bosses such as Rico "Little Caesar" Bandello and Tony "Scarface" Camonte.
Forty years later, two classic '70s films - The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II - raise the link between Italians and crime, denounced by antidefamation protesters, to the level of American myth. Or so say many film and cultural critics.
In 1999, The Sopranos - the much-honored cable series that happens to return tonight - takes the same association for its theme, making high TV art of the traumas suffered by members of the immigrant group in adjusting to modern suburban life.
In the more than 100 years since Italians began arriving here in numbers: Two Supreme Court justices. One president of Harvard (Neil Rudenstine). One of Yale (A. Bartlett Giamatti). Painter Frank Stella. Architect Robert Venturi. Novelist Don DeLillo. Lots of big-time doctors, lawyers and other professionals. Pretty much no movies or TV series about them. Conclusion? Irrational stereotyping? Vicious bias? Reverent mythmaking? Selective realism? Collective insanity?
"The conventions and cliches of the Mafia myth," writes New York culture critic George De Stefano, "not only define a genre; they have to a large degree defined Italian Americans... . 'The Mafia' is now the paradigmatic pop-culture expression of Italian American ethnicity, despite the fact that gangsters never constituted more than a tiny percentage of the massive southern Italian immigration to America."
No argument, so let's shift to pop-cult mode: Leave the potboiler junk, take the De Stefano - a detailed, textured meditation on what it all means. De Stefano isn't an ethnocentric screamer about stereotyping of Italian Americans. Third generation, leftist and gay, the New York-based journalist grew up in working-class Bridgeport, Conn. He supports multiculturalism, and doesn't think Italians invented every implement of civilization from forks to statues. He's less badda-bing than yadda-ying in his cultural bent. That means his yeoman's precis of growing Italian American scholarship by writers such as Robert Orsi, Fred Gardaphe, and Richard Gambino profits from a clear framework.
Whether De Stefano is summarizing causes of 19th-century Italian immigration, sketching the Mafia's origin in Sicily, or dissecting the appeal of Hollywood mobster characters, he catches links to evolving capitalism, discomfort with modern society, psychological urges for strong father figures, and other complex topics not usually addressed by opponents of Mafia pop culture.
Like many writers on the subject, he eventually finds himself overwhelmed by movie and TV depictions of the Mafia. At times, De Stefano, falling into a familiar trap, sounds desperate to include any example Google or Nexis turned up. Nonetheless, he correctly appreciates that for most Americans, "It's not an exaggeration to say that The Godfather is the Torah, and everything else is commentary."
Remember Joe Fox, played by Tom Hanks in You've Got Mail? Fox declares: "The Godfather is the I Ching. The Godfather is the sum of all wisdom. The Godfather is the answer to any question." David Chase, creator of the characters in The Sopranos, who themselves constantly allude to Mafia films, similarly says that "for a lot of wiseguys, The Godfather is like the Koran."
It's at this point that De Stefano argues for a radical difference between Italian Americans and other ethnic groups in regard to stereotypes. Often, he notes, "it is Italian Americans themselves who write, direct and act in these films and TV shows." The distinction hardly persuades: As the already controversial "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" routine at the Oscars reminded us last week, Italian Americans have company in pandering to showbiz stereotypes to get ahead.
Yet here, as elsewhere in his "on the waterfont, therefore cover the waterfront" book, De Stefano provokes hard thought about why the Mafia, to the exclusion of almost every other dimension of Italian American life, stays lodged "in the Mind of America."
A short answer De Stefano implies, but does not flesh out: The problem is not what Italian American artists and stars give us, but what they don't. Think of those with enormous clout in the movie business: Pacino. De Niro. Scorsese. Coppola. They've rarely used that clout to spotlight less cliched sides of Italian American life. Where is the Italian American Oprah, promoting quality art on the order of Beloved, or the Broadway version of The Color Purple?
Couldn't Scorsese and De Niro have made a film about Sacco and Vanzetti instead of dubbing voices for Shark Tale? Might Pacino play Pietro Di Donato instead of the overexposed Shylock? Dream on. Rare are Hollywood exceptions like idealistic actor John Turturro, with his brave 1992 film, Mac, about working-class Italian Americans, and Stanley Tucci, director of Big Night (1996), about two brothers trying to launch an authentic Italian restaurant.
De Stefano rightly observes that "some Italian Americans are ready and willing to perpetuate unflattering and even belittling images of themselves. If the Mafia image is a kind of minstrelsy, as anthropologist Micaela di Leonardo claims... Italian Americans have done their part to keep the minstrel show running." The self-stereotyping doesn't end with the mob - De Stefano reminds us of the Fonz, Rocky Balboa, Tony Manero, and more.
In his overly optimistic conclusion, De Stefano cites all sorts of recent cultural bubbling: the establishment by New York's Guild of Italian American Actors of a repertory theater in 2004; the development of the John Calandra Italian American Institute at City University of New York; the rise of prominent writers such as poet Dana Gioia (now Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts) - as a counterweight to the entertainment industry's same old habits.
One wonders, though, whether much will change until celebrated Italian American movie stars and directors concede, before an industry determined to drown them in stereotypes, what Michael Corleone admits to Sen. Pat Geary in The Godfather: "We're part of the same corruption."
De Stefano and his publisher could do worse than tweak the title on the paperback edition to An Offer We Can Refuse. Italian American stars who can't get unstereotypical projects greenlighted - for lack of the Mafia hood, or "the blue-collar bore, the dumb but lovable stud" - are both badfellas and dumbfellas.
Rememberaboutit!
Thanks to Carlin Romano
Cliches exist until they are challenged.
Analyze this: a thumbnail history of Italian Americans.
A Southern European immigrant group, disembarking in America in huge numbers from the late 19th century to the early 20th, comes to be associated with what an 1876 New York Times editorial calls "A Natural Inclination Toward Criminality." No matter that crime remained the ultimate multiethnic, equal-opportunity business. As the perception grows, so-called native-born Americans also aren't sure the new immigrants are white.
A black man
, convicted in 1922 of miscegenation in Alabama, gets off when an appeals court rules the prosecution failed to prove his Sicilian wife was Caucasian. In 1930s Hollywood, directors choose non-Italians - Romanian Jew Edward G. Robinson and Yiddish stage actor Paul Muni - to play fictional crime bosses such as Rico "Little Caesar" Bandello and Tony "Scarface" Camonte.Forty years later, two classic '70s films - The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II - raise the link between Italians and crime, denounced by antidefamation protesters, to the level of American myth. Or so say many film and cultural critics.
In 1999, The Sopranos - the much-honored cable series that happens to return tonight - takes the same association for its theme, making high TV art of the traumas suffered by members of the immigrant group in adjusting to modern suburban life.
In the more than 100 years since Italians began arriving here in numbers: Two Supreme Court justices. One president of Harvard (Neil Rudenstine). One of Yale (A. Bartlett Giamatti). Painter Frank Stella. Architect Robert Venturi. Novelist Don DeLillo. Lots of big-time doctors, lawyers and other professionals. Pretty much no movies or TV series about them. Conclusion? Irrational stereotyping? Vicious bias? Reverent mythmaking? Selective realism? Collective insanity?
"The conventions and cliches of the Mafia myth," writes New York culture critic George De Stefano, "not only define a genre; they have to a large degree defined Italian Americans... . 'The Mafia' is now the paradigmatic pop-culture expression of Italian American ethnicity, despite the fact that gangsters never constituted more than a tiny percentage of the massive southern Italian immigration to America."
No argument, so let's shift to pop-cult mode: Leave the potboiler junk, take the De Stefano - a detailed, textured meditation on what it all means. De Stefano isn't an ethnocentric screamer about stereotyping of Italian Americans. Third generation, leftist and gay, the New York-based journalist grew up in working-class Bridgeport, Conn. He supports multiculturalism, and doesn't think Italians invented every implement of civilization from forks to statues. He's less badda-bing than yadda-ying in his cultural bent. That means his yeoman's precis of growing Italian American scholarship by writers such as Robert Orsi, Fred Gardaphe, and Richard Gambino profits from a clear framework.
Whether De Stefano is summarizing causes of 19th-century Italian immigration, sketching the Mafia's origin in Sicily, or dissecting the appeal of Hollywood mobster characters, he catches links to evolving capitalism, discomfort with modern society, psychological urges for strong father figures, and other complex topics not usually addressed by opponents of Mafia pop culture.
Like many writers on the subject, he eventually finds himself overwhelmed by movie and TV depictions of the Mafia. At times, De Stefano, falling into a familiar trap, sounds desperate to include any example Google or Nexis turned up. Nonetheless, he correctly appreciates that for most Americans, "It's not an exaggeration to say that The Godfather is the Torah, and everything else is commentary."
Remember Joe Fox, played by Tom Hanks in You've Got Mail? Fox declares: "The Godfather is the I Ching. The Godfather is the sum of all wisdom. The Godfather is the answer to any question." David Chase, creator of the characters in The Sopranos, who themselves constantly allude to Mafia films, similarly says that "for a lot of wiseguys, The Godfather is like the Koran."
It's at this point that De Stefano argues for a radical difference between Italian Americans and other ethnic groups in regard to stereotypes. Often, he notes, "it is Italian Americans themselves who write, direct and act in these films and TV shows." The distinction hardly persuades: As the already controversial "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" routine at the Oscars reminded us last week, Italian Americans have company in pandering to showbiz stereotypes to get ahead.
Yet here, as elsewhere in his "on the waterfont, therefore cover the waterfront" book, De Stefano provokes hard thought about why the Mafia, to the exclusion of almost every other dimension of Italian American life, stays lodged "in the Mind of America."
A short answer De Stefano implies, but does not flesh out: The problem is not what Italian American artists and stars give us, but what they don't. Think of those with enormous clout in the movie business: Pacino. De Niro. Scorsese. Coppola. They've rarely used that clout to spotlight less cliched sides of Italian American life. Where is the Italian American Oprah, promoting quality art on the order of Beloved, or the Broadway version of The Color Purple?
Couldn't Scorsese and De Niro have made a film about Sacco and Vanzetti instead of dubbing voices for Shark Tale? Might Pacino play Pietro Di Donato instead of the overexposed Shylock? Dream on. Rare are Hollywood exceptions like idealistic actor John Turturro, with his brave 1992 film, Mac, about working-class Italian Americans, and Stanley Tucci, director of Big Night (1996), about two brothers trying to launch an authentic Italian restaurant.
De Stefano rightly observes that "some Italian Americans are ready and willing to perpetuate unflattering and even belittling images of themselves. If the Mafia image is a kind of minstrelsy, as anthropologist Micaela di Leonardo claims... Italian Americans have done their part to keep the minstrel show running." The self-stereotyping doesn't end with the mob - De Stefano reminds us of the Fonz, Rocky Balboa, Tony Manero, and more.
In his overly optimistic conclusion, De Stefano cites all sorts of recent cultural bubbling: the establishment by New York's Guild of Italian American Actors of a repertory theater in 2004; the development of the John Calandra Italian American Institute at City University of New York; the rise of prominent writers such as poet Dana Gioia (now Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts) - as a counterweight to the entertainment industry's same old habits.
One wonders, though, whether much will change until celebrated Italian American movie stars and directors concede, before an industry determined to drown them in stereotypes, what Michael Corleone admits to Sen. Pat Geary in The Godfather: "We're part of the same corruption."
De Stefano and his publisher could do worse than tweak the title on the paperback edition to An Offer We Can Refuse. Italian American stars who can't get unstereotypical projects greenlighted - for lack of the Mafia hood, or "the blue-collar bore, the dumb but lovable stud" - are both badfellas and dumbfellas.
Rememberaboutit!
Thanks to Carlin Romano
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Two Federal Inmates Charged With Assault with a Shank
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that two inmates at the United States Penitentiary
, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, have been indicted today by a federal grand jury in Scranton for assaulting another inmate with a homemade weapon.
According to United States Attorney Peter Smith, the superseding indictment charges Kyle Stevens, age 25, and James Sweeney, age 39, with assault with a dangerous weapon and aiding and abetting. The charges stem from an incident in February 2016 in which Stevens and Sweeney allegedly assaulted another inmate with a sharpened piece of metal commonly known as a “shank.” The superseding indictment also charges Stevens with possessing contraband in prison.
Stevens was previously indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2016, for assaulting an inmate in February 2015. The superseding indictment issued today by the grand jury adds the new assault to the previous indictment.
The investigations were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Prisons Special Investigative Service. Prosecution is assigned to Assistant United States Attorney Robert J. O’Hara.
, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, have been indicted today by a federal grand jury in Scranton for assaulting another inmate with a homemade weapon. According to United States Attorney Peter Smith, the superseding indictment charges Kyle Stevens, age 25, and James Sweeney, age 39, with assault with a dangerous weapon and aiding and abetting. The charges stem from an incident in February 2016 in which Stevens and Sweeney allegedly assaulted another inmate with a sharpened piece of metal commonly known as a “shank.” The superseding indictment also charges Stevens with possessing contraband in prison.
Stevens was previously indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2016, for assaulting an inmate in February 2015. The superseding indictment issued today by the grand jury adds the new assault to the previous indictment.
The investigations were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Prisons Special Investigative Service. Prosecution is assigned to Assistant United States Attorney Robert J. O’Hara.
Dennis Griffin's The Battle for Las Vegas (The Law vs. The Mob)
The inside story of the law's battle to remove the influence and corruption of organized crime from Sin City's streets and casinos.
In the 1970s and thru the mid-1980s
, the Chicago Outfit was the dominant organized crime family in Las Vegas, with business interests in several casinos. During those years the Outfit and its colleagues in Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Cleveland were using Sin City as a cash cow. Commonly referred to as the "skim," unreported revenue from Outfit-controlled casinos was making its way out of Vegas by the bag full and ending up in the coffers of the crime bosses in those four locations.
The skim involved large amounts of money. The operation had to be properly set up and well managed to ensure a smooth cash flow. To accomplish that goal, the gangsters brought in a front man with no criminal record to purchase several casinos. Allen R. Glick, doing business as the Argent Corporation (Allen R. Glick Enterprises) purchased the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda, and Marina. They next installed Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal as their inside man, and the real boss of the casino operations. Rosenthal was a Chicago native and considered to be a genius when it came to oddsmaking and sports betting. Under Lefty's supervision the casino count rooms were accessible to mob couriers.
But even with the competent Rosenthal in charge, there remained room for problems. What if an outsider tried to muscle in on the operation? Or just as bad, suppose one of their own decided to skim the skim? To guard against such possibilities the Chicago bosses decided to send someone to Vegas to give Rosenthal a hand should trouble arise. The successful applicant had to be a person with the kind of reputation that would deter interlopers from horning in, and make internal theft too risky to try. But the mob's outside man had to be capable of action as well as threats. In other words, he had to be a man who would do whatever it took to protect the Outfit's interests. So, in 1971, 33-year-old Tony Spilotro, considered by many to be the "ultimate enforcer," was sent to the burgeoning gambling and entertainment oasis in the desert. Spilotro, sometimes called "tough Tony," or "the Ant," was a made man of the Outfit and a childhood friend of Rosenthal. He was known as a man who could be counted on to get the job done.
Being an ambitious sort, Tony quickly recognized that there were other criminal opportunities in his new hometown besides skimming from the casinos. Street crimes ranging from loan sharking to burglary, robbery, and fencing stolen property were all in play. It wasn't very long before Tony had his hands into every one of these areas. As the scope of his criminal endeavors grew, Tony brought in other heavies from Chicago to fill out his gang. The five-foot-six-inch gangster was soon being called the "King of the Strip."
Federal and local law enforcement recognized the need to rid the casinos of the hidden ownership and control of the mob, and shut down Spilotro's street rackets. They declared war on organized crime and the battle was on. It was a hard fight, with plenty of tough guys on both sides. But it was a confrontation the law knew it had to win.
The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law Vs. the Mob relates the story of that conflict, told in large part by the agents and detectives who lived it.
In the 1970s and thru the mid-1980s
, the Chicago Outfit was the dominant organized crime family in Las Vegas, with business interests in several casinos. During those years the Outfit and its colleagues in Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Cleveland were using Sin City as a cash cow. Commonly referred to as the "skim," unreported revenue from Outfit-controlled casinos was making its way out of Vegas by the bag full and ending up in the coffers of the crime bosses in those four locations.The skim involved large amounts of money. The operation had to be properly set up and well managed to ensure a smooth cash flow. To accomplish that goal, the gangsters brought in a front man with no criminal record to purchase several casinos. Allen R. Glick, doing business as the Argent Corporation (Allen R. Glick Enterprises) purchased the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda, and Marina. They next installed Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal as their inside man, and the real boss of the casino operations. Rosenthal was a Chicago native and considered to be a genius when it came to oddsmaking and sports betting. Under Lefty's supervision the casino count rooms were accessible to mob couriers.
But even with the competent Rosenthal in charge, there remained room for problems. What if an outsider tried to muscle in on the operation? Or just as bad, suppose one of their own decided to skim the skim? To guard against such possibilities the Chicago bosses decided to send someone to Vegas to give Rosenthal a hand should trouble arise. The successful applicant had to be a person with the kind of reputation that would deter interlopers from horning in, and make internal theft too risky to try. But the mob's outside man had to be capable of action as well as threats. In other words, he had to be a man who would do whatever it took to protect the Outfit's interests. So, in 1971, 33-year-old Tony Spilotro, considered by many to be the "ultimate enforcer," was sent to the burgeoning gambling and entertainment oasis in the desert. Spilotro, sometimes called "tough Tony," or "the Ant," was a made man of the Outfit and a childhood friend of Rosenthal. He was known as a man who could be counted on to get the job done.
Being an ambitious sort, Tony quickly recognized that there were other criminal opportunities in his new hometown besides skimming from the casinos. Street crimes ranging from loan sharking to burglary, robbery, and fencing stolen property were all in play. It wasn't very long before Tony had his hands into every one of these areas. As the scope of his criminal endeavors grew, Tony brought in other heavies from Chicago to fill out his gang. The five-foot-six-inch gangster was soon being called the "King of the Strip."
Federal and local law enforcement recognized the need to rid the casinos of the hidden ownership and control of the mob, and shut down Spilotro's street rackets. They declared war on organized crime and the battle was on. It was a hard fight, with plenty of tough guys on both sides. But it was a confrontation the law knew it had to win.
The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law Vs. the Mob relates the story of that conflict, told in large part by the agents and detectives who lived it.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
The Battle between Steve and Elaine Wynn Over the Wynn Resorts Casino Empire Escalates
The former wife of Wynn Resorts Chairman and CEO Steve Wynn has filed a counterclaim in a lawsuit filed in Clark County District Court that is putting her ouster from the Wynn board a year ago back in the public spotlight.
Elaine Wynn, a co-founder of the company and its third-largest shareholder, sought to regain control of her company stock, which has been restricted by an agreement reached in 2010 that she now says her ex-husband breached.
The claim was filed Monday as part of Wynn Resorts’ lawsuit against former partner Kazuo Okada and his company, Aruze USA Inc., and Okada’s countersuit against Wynn.
Steve Wynn disputed Elaine Wynn’s claims Monday in statements issued through the company and a personal spokesperson
.
Elaine Wynn said her ex-husband orchestrated her ouster from the Wynn board of directors in retaliation for asking questions about the “tone at the top,” the absence of internal controls, the withholding of information from the board and the “reckless activity of the CEO and others in the company.”
Elaine Wynn said as a result of her removal from the board, she no longer has a meaningful avenue to protect her economic interest in the company and because Steve Wynn and the board have failed to address the matter, she said she had no choice but to proceed with legal action.
She is seeking a judicial determination that the January 2010 stockholders’ agreement which prohibits her from transferring stock that she owns without Steve Wynn’s permission and gives him all rights to vote her stock, is invalid and unenforceable.
Steve Wynn responded to the allegations in statements from the company and from a personal spokesperson.
The company said that Elaine Wynn’s counterclaim “simply not true and are rehashed from her previous, unfounded statements made during her proxy campaign” in which she lost election to the Wynn board in collecting 7 percent of the votes cast.
Elaine Wynn conducted a dissident campaign last year that ended in shareholders re-electing two board-recommended candidates, John Hagenbuch and J. Edward Virtue, to the board at the company’s annual meeting on April 24. At the time, Elaine Wynn said while disappointed in the vote outcome, she felt she stood for being “an agent for change and improvement for this company which I love so deeply.”
Steve Wynn responded to the allegations in statements from the company and from a personal spokesperson.
Through a personal spokesperson, Steve Wynn called Elaine Wynn “a disappointed ex-wife who is seeking to tarnish the reputation of Wynn Resorts and Steve Wynn and their daughters.”
“This lawsuit is filled with lies and distortions and is an embarrassment to Ms. Wynn and her counsel,” the statement said. “This is simply an attempt to inflict personal pain on Mr. Wynn.”
Steve Wynn said his ex-wife never raised the issues stated in the court claim in her 13 years on the board of directors and that she agreed to the terms of the 2010 stockholders’ agreement when it was drafted and at the time of the couple’s divorce.
“What particularly saddens Mr. Wynn among the many falsehoods is the assertion that Mr. Wynn’s estate planning does not provide for his daughters and grandchildren,” the statement said. “This is untrue in every sense of the word and is a shocking allegation for a mother to make concerning family.
“This is an action unbecoming of a long-time director, significant shareholder and mother.”
Steve Wynn, 74, developer of The Mirage, Treasure Island and Bellagio in addition to the Wynn properties, is worth $2.7 billion, while Elaine Wynn, 73, is worth $1.5 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
Court papers show the Wynns married in 1963, divorced in 1986, remarried in 1991, and divorced again in 2010.
Elaine Wynn controls 9.4 percent of Wynn Resorts’ stock, while Steve Wynn controls 11.8 percent, Reuters data show.
The company’s stock was largely unaffected Monday, closing down 0.68 percent or 64 cents to $92.83 on average trading.
Elaine Wynn, a co-founder of the company and its third-largest shareholder, sought to regain control of her company stock, which has been restricted by an agreement reached in 2010 that she now says her ex-husband breached.
The claim was filed Monday as part of Wynn Resorts’ lawsuit against former partner Kazuo Okada and his company, Aruze USA Inc., and Okada’s countersuit against Wynn.
Steve Wynn disputed Elaine Wynn’s claims Monday in statements issued through the company and a personal spokesperson
.Elaine Wynn said her ex-husband orchestrated her ouster from the Wynn board of directors in retaliation for asking questions about the “tone at the top,” the absence of internal controls, the withholding of information from the board and the “reckless activity of the CEO and others in the company.”
Elaine Wynn said as a result of her removal from the board, she no longer has a meaningful avenue to protect her economic interest in the company and because Steve Wynn and the board have failed to address the matter, she said she had no choice but to proceed with legal action.
She is seeking a judicial determination that the January 2010 stockholders’ agreement which prohibits her from transferring stock that she owns without Steve Wynn’s permission and gives him all rights to vote her stock, is invalid and unenforceable.
Steve Wynn responded to the allegations in statements from the company and from a personal spokesperson.
The company said that Elaine Wynn’s counterclaim “simply not true and are rehashed from her previous, unfounded statements made during her proxy campaign” in which she lost election to the Wynn board in collecting 7 percent of the votes cast.
Elaine Wynn conducted a dissident campaign last year that ended in shareholders re-electing two board-recommended candidates, John Hagenbuch and J. Edward Virtue, to the board at the company’s annual meeting on April 24. At the time, Elaine Wynn said while disappointed in the vote outcome, she felt she stood for being “an agent for change and improvement for this company which I love so deeply.”
Steve Wynn responded to the allegations in statements from the company and from a personal spokesperson.
Through a personal spokesperson, Steve Wynn called Elaine Wynn “a disappointed ex-wife who is seeking to tarnish the reputation of Wynn Resorts and Steve Wynn and their daughters.”
“This lawsuit is filled with lies and distortions and is an embarrassment to Ms. Wynn and her counsel,” the statement said. “This is simply an attempt to inflict personal pain on Mr. Wynn.”
Steve Wynn said his ex-wife never raised the issues stated in the court claim in her 13 years on the board of directors and that she agreed to the terms of the 2010 stockholders’ agreement when it was drafted and at the time of the couple’s divorce.
“What particularly saddens Mr. Wynn among the many falsehoods is the assertion that Mr. Wynn’s estate planning does not provide for his daughters and grandchildren,” the statement said. “This is untrue in every sense of the word and is a shocking allegation for a mother to make concerning family.
“This is an action unbecoming of a long-time director, significant shareholder and mother.”
Steve Wynn, 74, developer of The Mirage, Treasure Island and Bellagio in addition to the Wynn properties, is worth $2.7 billion, while Elaine Wynn, 73, is worth $1.5 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
Court papers show the Wynns married in 1963, divorced in 1986, remarried in 1991, and divorced again in 2010.
Elaine Wynn controls 9.4 percent of Wynn Resorts’ stock, while Steve Wynn controls 11.8 percent, Reuters data show.
The company’s stock was largely unaffected Monday, closing down 0.68 percent or 64 cents to $92.83 on average trading.
Monday, March 28, 2016
National DNA Database Created to Enhance Anti-terror Fight
Italy on Friday approved the creation of a national DNA database to allow greater cooperation among states in the fight against terrorism, a step in the wake of the Brussels terror attacks that killed 31 people and injured around 300.
The database would store the DNA samples from different categories of people including those who are being held in custody or under house arrest, those who are arrested while committing a crime, the presumed authors of voluntary crimes and convicts with a definitive sentence.
Based on the new law, profiles can be retained for a maximum of 40 years while biological samples would be destroyed after 20 years.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano hailed the database as a "formidable power tool from the IT point of view." He said the database will allow to store DNA information of fundamental importance both in the fight against terrorism, and against organized crime and irregular immigration.
The move came in the wake of the Brussels terror attacks. Local media said among the victims there could be also an Italian national, Patricia Rizzo, an official for a European Commission agency who is presently listed among the missing people.
Justice Minister Andrea Orlando stressed that the DNA database will be crucial to increase the security level in Italy. He said the data collection will start soon in the coming days and will not only ease investigations but also help deal with cases that had been considered unresolved so far.
Italian experts agree that Italy has one of the most advanced anti-terrorism systems in Europe, but the strategic aim should be increased exchange of information with European Union (EU) member states, an objective which looks very hard to achieve.
"In a geopolitical scenario where it is difficult to get along as regards short term migration policies, I wonder whether it is possible that (EU) member states give up one of the cornerstones of their sovereignty, that is to say their intelligence," Rome Prefect Franco Gabrielli was quoted as saying by Corriere della Sera newspaper.
"Robust increase in public investment, and with a common intelligence, defense and foreign policy should be put at the center of the anti-terror fight," Italy's leading economic daily
Il Sole 24 Ore said.
As part of anti-terrorism measures, according to Alfano also on Friday, Italy has repatriated nine terror-related people so far this year and a total of 75 last year. The latest was a Moroccan
national and former president of a local Islamic center "known for his fundamentalist stance and desire to go fight in Syria."
Earlier this week, Italian leaders called for a European common strategy as the only effective tool against the terrorist threat as the country raised security measures at airports, railway stations, subways, and all places considered at risk.
Thanks to Marzie De Giuli.
The database would store the DNA samples from different categories of people including those who are being held in custody or under house arrest, those who are arrested while committing a crime, the presumed authors of voluntary crimes and convicts with a definitive sentence.
Based on the new law, profiles can be retained for a maximum of 40 years while biological samples would be destroyed after 20 years.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano hailed the database as a "formidable power tool from the IT point of view." He said the database will allow to store DNA information of fundamental importance both in the fight against terrorism, and against organized crime and irregular immigration.
The move came in the wake of the Brussels terror attacks. Local media said among the victims there could be also an Italian national, Patricia Rizzo, an official for a European Commission agency who is presently listed among the missing people.
Justice Minister Andrea Orlando stressed that the DNA database will be crucial to increase the security level in Italy. He said the data collection will start soon in the coming days and will not only ease investigations but also help deal with cases that had been considered unresolved so far.
Italian experts agree that Italy has one of the most advanced anti-terrorism systems in Europe, but the strategic aim should be increased exchange of information with European Union (EU) member states, an objective which looks very hard to achieve.
"In a geopolitical scenario where it is difficult to get along as regards short term migration policies, I wonder whether it is possible that (EU) member states give up one of the cornerstones of their sovereignty, that is to say their intelligence," Rome Prefect Franco Gabrielli was quoted as saying by Corriere della Sera newspaper.
"Robust increase in public investment, and with a common intelligence, defense and foreign policy should be put at the center of the anti-terror fight," Italy's leading economic daily
Il Sole 24 Ore said.
As part of anti-terrorism measures, according to Alfano also on Friday, Italy has repatriated nine terror-related people so far this year and a total of 75 last year. The latest was a Moroccan
national and former president of a local Islamic center "known for his fundamentalist stance and desire to go fight in Syria."
Earlier this week, Italian leaders called for a European common strategy as the only effective tool against the terrorist threat as the country raised security measures at airports, railway stations, subways, and all places considered at risk.
Thanks to Marzie De Giuli.
An Offer We Can't Refuse - The Mafia in the Mind of America
It's ironic that at a time when the real-life Mafia has never been weaker, its grip on the American consciousness has never been stronger. Just as Westerns - first as novels, then television shows and movies - did not become popular until long after the frontier was settled, the Mafia seems to be reaching a media peak even as its leaders die, get sent away or turn state's evidence.
It's been all but conceded that "The Sopranos" is the greatest thing on television ever, and "The Godfather" trilogy continues to occupy a huge space in the cultural landscape. Mafioso appear regularly in movies, television shows, commercials and even animated cartoons. Robert De Niro provided the voice for a piscine godfather in the movie "Shark Tale."
Why the public so loves media portrayals of the Mafia is the subject of George De Stefano's "An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America." Journalist De Stefano traces the roots of the American Mafia to southern Italy and explains how prejudice against Italian immigrants fostered the growth of organized crime here even as it exaggerated the Mafia's reach and power.
Early portrayals of Italian criminals were crude and racist, but the public's fascination with stylish outlaws eventually gave celluloid gangsters an anti-hero cachet. While disparaging earlier, racist depictions of the Mafia, De Stefano has little patience with Italian-Americans who think "The Sopranos" and "Goodfellas" hurt the community. It is too well established and too successful to be hurt by Tony Soprano's excesses. In fact, the author singles out "The Sopranos" for its realistic portrayal of the Mob as chaotic and in decline, hardly the omnipotent syndicate of popular fiction.
The subject is a fascinating one, but "An Offer We Can't Refuse" only partly delivers. For one, it feels padded. Scarcely a page goes by without a lengthy quotation from an Italian-American critic, actor or social commentator. No point is made unless it is belabored. Nonetheless, people who want to know how we got from Edward G. Robinson's Rico "Little Caesar" Bandello to James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano will enjoy this book.
Thanks to James Sweeney
, its grip on the American consciousness has never been stronger. Just as Westerns - first as novels, then television shows and movies - did not become popular until long after the frontier was settled, the Mafia seems to be reaching a media peak even as its leaders die, get sent away or turn state's evidence.It's been all but conceded that "The Sopranos" is the greatest thing on television ever, and "The Godfather" trilogy continues to occupy a huge space in the cultural landscape. Mafioso appear regularly in movies, television shows, commercials and even animated cartoons. Robert De Niro provided the voice for a piscine godfather in the movie "Shark Tale."
Why the public so loves media portrayals of the Mafia is the subject of George De Stefano's "An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America." Journalist De Stefano traces the roots of the American Mafia to southern Italy and explains how prejudice against Italian immigrants fostered the growth of organized crime here even as it exaggerated the Mafia's reach and power.
Early portrayals of Italian criminals were crude and racist, but the public's fascination with stylish outlaws eventually gave celluloid gangsters an anti-hero cachet. While disparaging earlier, racist depictions of the Mafia, De Stefano has little patience with Italian-Americans who think "The Sopranos" and "Goodfellas" hurt the community. It is too well established and too successful to be hurt by Tony Soprano's excesses. In fact, the author singles out "The Sopranos" for its realistic portrayal of the Mob as chaotic and in decline, hardly the omnipotent syndicate of popular fiction.
The subject is a fascinating one, but "An Offer We Can't Refuse" only partly delivers. For one, it feels padded. Scarcely a page goes by without a lengthy quotation from an Italian-American critic, actor or social commentator. No point is made unless it is belabored. Nonetheless, people who want to know how we got from Edward G. Robinson's Rico "Little Caesar" Bandello to James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano will enjoy this book.
Thanks to James Sweeney
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires By Selwyn Raab
As the Mafia grew into a malignantly powerful force during the middle of the last century, it owed much of its success to its low-priority ranking as a law enforcement target. During most of his reign as FBI director from 1924 to 1972, J. Edgar Hoover denied that the Mafia even existed. In the late 1950s, Hoover was ''still publicly in denial" that there was such a thing as the Mafia, writes Selwyn Raab in ''Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires," his engaging history of the New York mob.
Even Hoover, who hesitated to tackle mob cases because they were difficult to win and might corrupt his agents, grudgingly came around. ''Five Families," a gritty cops-and-robbers narrative and a meticulous case history of an extraordinary law enforcement mobilization, shows how the federal government finally brought the Mafia down.
Raab, a former reporter for The New York Times whose beat was organized crime, exudes the authority of a writer who has lived and breathed his subject. Indeed, Raab seems too attached to every last nugget that he has unearthed. ''Five Families" bogs down in places under the groaning weight of excessive, repetitious detail.
Even as he tosses congratulatory bouquets to the cops for having reduced the mob to a ''fading anachronism," as one of them puts it, Raab inserts a cautionary note. The redeployment since 9/11 of US law enforcement personnel from an anti-Mafia to an antiterrorism posture is providing Cosa Nostra -- as the Italian-American organized-crime syndicates refer to themselves, meaning ''Our Thing" -- a ''renewed hope for survival," Raab says.
If they are to prosper again, all five of New York's mob families (the Gambinos, Luccheses, Colombos, Genoveses, and Bonannos) must first rebuild their leadership. The top bosses of the five families, along with many underlings, have been convicted in racketeering prosecutions and sentenced to long terms in federal prison. Those prosecutions constitute ''arguably the most successful anticrime expedition in American history," according to Raab.
The decades-long jelling of the law enforcement response to the Mafia threat commands Raab's close attention. An impetus came from Democratic Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, whose subcommittee investigated labor racketeering in the late 1960s. One key behind-the-scenes figure -- an American hero, in Raab's account -- was G. Robert Blakey, who helped craft the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations legislation as an aide to McClellan and, as a crusading law professor, tirelessly promoted the statute's use after Congress enacted it in 1970.
The law enabled prosecutors to throw the book at top mobsters, who otherwise would have been able to insulate themselves more easily from criminal accountability. Electronic surveillance, which a related law authorized, added another invaluable weapon to the federal prosecutors' arsenal.
Another of Raab's heroes, G. Bruce Mouw, supervised the FBI's Gambino Squad. Mouw's relentless, six-year investigation of John Gotti stands as a model of aggressive anti-Mafia pursuit. Gotti, whom the tabloids dubbed ''the Teflon Don," beat federal charges three times. Mouw produced ironclad evidence of Gotti's guilt by identifying an old lady's apartment as the Gambino godfather's clandestine inner sanctum and bugging it. Prosecutors nailed the Teflon Don in a fourth trial.
As for the villains portrayed by Raab, they and their operatic brutality seem endless. Raab's profiles of such ogres as Joseph ''Crazy Joe" Gallo or Salvatore ''Sammy the Bull" Gravano quickly dispel any Hollywood depiction of mobsters as lovable rogues or, as in the case of Tony Soprano of HBO's prize-winning series, as an angst-ridden man groping for life's meaning.
Mobsters typically start out as losers, dropouts from school at an early age. They are natural bullies who turn to crime out of desperation and indolence. As adults, to quote Raab's description of Gotti's wise guys, they join together as a ''hardened band of pea-brained hijackers, loan-shark collectors, gamblers, and robotic hit men."
No surprise, then, that such lowlifes would resort to violence as their modus operandi. But their cavalier acts of viciousness are nonetheless shocking. Thus, when Vito Genovese falls in love with a married cousin, he apparently has her husband strangled to death so he can marry her.
Or when Lucchese thugs believe that one of their own, Bruno Facciolo, is talking to authorities, they shoot and stab him to death. They then murder two of his mob buddies, Al Visconti and Larry Taylor, to prevent them from retaliating. Visconti is deliberately shot several times in the groin because the Luccheses believe he is a homosexual and has shamed the family.
Although ''Five Families" detours outside New York to chronicle aspects of the Cosa Nostra story, New England's Patriarcas, who deferred to New York's Gigante family, rate only passing mention. Summarizing how officials view Cosa Nostra's once-thriving 20-odd families around the country, Raab reports that those in New York and Chicago retain a ''semblance of [their] organizational frameworks," while the others, including Patriarca's, are ''in disarray or practically defunct."
Raab has much to say about what he regards as the possible involvement of a Florida mafioso, Santo Trafficante Jr., in President Kennedy's assassination. Raab theorizes that Trafficante -- who lost his organized-crime base in Havana when Fidel Castro took over and who loathed Kennedy for not unhorsing the Cuban revolutionary -- may have conspired to kill Kennedy.
Exhibit A is the confession of a gravely ill Trafficante, four days before his death in 1987, that he had had a hand in Kennedy's murder. Raab's source for the purported confession was Trafficante's longtime lawyer, Frank Ragano. Raab collaborated with Ragano on a book, ''Mob Lawyer."
Of course, any mob role in Kennedy's assassination remains a speculative matter, as Raab concedes. But in ''Five Families," he notes that ''Ragano's assertions are among the starkest signs implicating Mafia bosses in the death of President Kennedy." To buttress his theory, Raab might have mentioned that the Mafia was at or near the apex of its power in 1963, the year of Kennedy's murder.
Reviewed by Joseph Rosenbloom
Even Hoover
, who hesitated to tackle mob cases because they were difficult to win and might corrupt his agents, grudgingly came around. ''Five Families," a gritty cops-and-robbers narrative and a meticulous case history of an extraordinary law enforcement mobilization, shows how the federal government finally brought the Mafia down.Raab, a former reporter for The New York Times whose beat was organized crime, exudes the authority of a writer who has lived and breathed his subject. Indeed, Raab seems too attached to every last nugget that he has unearthed. ''Five Families" bogs down in places under the groaning weight of excessive, repetitious detail.
Even as he tosses congratulatory bouquets to the cops for having reduced the mob to a ''fading anachronism," as one of them puts it, Raab inserts a cautionary note. The redeployment since 9/11 of US law enforcement personnel from an anti-Mafia to an antiterrorism posture is providing Cosa Nostra -- as the Italian-American organized-crime syndicates refer to themselves, meaning ''Our Thing" -- a ''renewed hope for survival," Raab says.
If they are to prosper again, all five of New York's mob families (the Gambinos, Luccheses, Colombos, Genoveses, and Bonannos) must first rebuild their leadership. The top bosses of the five families, along with many underlings, have been convicted in racketeering prosecutions and sentenced to long terms in federal prison. Those prosecutions constitute ''arguably the most successful anticrime expedition in American history," according to Raab.
The decades-long jelling of the law enforcement response to the Mafia threat commands Raab's close attention. An impetus came from Democratic Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, whose subcommittee investigated labor racketeering in the late 1960s. One key behind-the-scenes figure -- an American hero, in Raab's account -- was G. Robert Blakey, who helped craft the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations legislation as an aide to McClellan and, as a crusading law professor, tirelessly promoted the statute's use after Congress enacted it in 1970.
The law enabled prosecutors to throw the book at top mobsters, who otherwise would have been able to insulate themselves more easily from criminal accountability. Electronic surveillance, which a related law authorized, added another invaluable weapon to the federal prosecutors' arsenal.
Another of Raab's heroes, G. Bruce Mouw, supervised the FBI's Gambino Squad. Mouw's relentless, six-year investigation of John Gotti stands as a model of aggressive anti-Mafia pursuit. Gotti, whom the tabloids dubbed ''the Teflon Don," beat federal charges three times. Mouw produced ironclad evidence of Gotti's guilt by identifying an old lady's apartment as the Gambino godfather's clandestine inner sanctum and bugging it. Prosecutors nailed the Teflon Don in a fourth trial.
As for the villains portrayed by Raab, they and their operatic brutality seem endless. Raab's profiles of such ogres as Joseph ''Crazy Joe" Gallo or Salvatore ''Sammy the Bull" Gravano quickly dispel any Hollywood depiction of mobsters as lovable rogues or, as in the case of Tony Soprano of HBO's prize-winning series, as an angst-ridden man groping for life's meaning.
Mobsters typically start out as losers, dropouts from school at an early age. They are natural bullies who turn to crime out of desperation and indolence. As adults, to quote Raab's description of Gotti's wise guys, they join together as a ''hardened band of pea-brained hijackers, loan-shark collectors, gamblers, and robotic hit men."
No surprise, then, that such lowlifes would resort to violence as their modus operandi. But their cavalier acts of viciousness are nonetheless shocking. Thus, when Vito Genovese falls in love with a married cousin, he apparently has her husband strangled to death so he can marry her.
Or when Lucchese thugs believe that one of their own, Bruno Facciolo, is talking to authorities, they shoot and stab him to death. They then murder two of his mob buddies, Al Visconti and Larry Taylor, to prevent them from retaliating. Visconti is deliberately shot several times in the groin because the Luccheses believe he is a homosexual and has shamed the family.
Although ''Five Families" detours outside New York to chronicle aspects of the Cosa Nostra story, New England's Patriarcas, who deferred to New York's Gigante family, rate only passing mention. Summarizing how officials view Cosa Nostra's once-thriving 20-odd families around the country, Raab reports that those in New York and Chicago retain a ''semblance of [their] organizational frameworks," while the others, including Patriarca's, are ''in disarray or practically defunct."
Raab has much to say about what he regards as the possible involvement of a Florida mafioso, Santo Trafficante Jr., in President Kennedy's assassination. Raab theorizes that Trafficante -- who lost his organized-crime base in Havana when Fidel Castro took over and who loathed Kennedy for not unhorsing the Cuban revolutionary -- may have conspired to kill Kennedy.
Exhibit A is the confession of a gravely ill Trafficante, four days before his death in 1987, that he had had a hand in Kennedy's murder. Raab's source for the purported confession was Trafficante's longtime lawyer, Frank Ragano. Raab collaborated with Ragano on a book, ''Mob Lawyer."
Of course, any mob role in Kennedy's assassination remains a speculative matter, as Raab concedes. But in ''Five Families," he notes that ''Ragano's assertions are among the starkest signs implicating Mafia bosses in the death of President Kennedy." To buttress his theory, Raab might have mentioned that the Mafia was at or near the apex of its power in 1963, the year of Kennedy's murder.
Reviewed by Joseph Rosenbloom
Friday, March 25, 2016
Guilty Plea in Hobbs Act Extortion Conspiracy Involving Extortion of Restaurant and Social Clubs
Denis Nikolla pleaded guilty to two counts of Hobbs Act extortion conspiracy, one count of threatening physical violence in furtherance of an extortion plan, and one count of brandishing a firearm. The proceeding took place before United States District Judge Eric N. Vitaliano. When sentenced, Nikolla faces up to life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years. One of his co-defendants, Besnik Llakatura, who served as a police officer with the New York City Police Department during the charged crimes, previously pleaded guilty in this case.
The plea was announced by Robert L. Capers, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Diego Rodriguez, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office, and William J. Bratton, Commissioner, New York Police Department.
According to prior court filings and facts presented during the plea proceeding, between May and November 2013, Nikolla, Llakatura and their co-defendant conspired and attempted to extort a Queens restaurant owner, demanding regular payments in exchange for so-called “protection.” The extortion began shortly after the victim opened a restaurant in Astoria when he was visited by the co-defendant and told that he had opened a business in “our neighborhood” and, as a result, “you have to pay us” $4,000 per month. The restaurant owner sought help from his friend Llakatura.
Unbeknownst to him, Llakatura, an NYPD officer in Staten Island since 2006, was conspiring with the co-defendant in the extortion. Llakatura actively discouraged the restaurant owner from going to the police and sought to leverage his position of trust as a friend and a police officer to persuade the victim that he had no choice but to make the demanded payments, warning the victim that the co-defendant and his associates would physically harm him if he did not pay. When the victim resisted, Nikolla threatened him with physical violence and chased him at gunpoint down the street in Queens. Over the course of five months, each of the three defendants took turns collecting monthly payments from the Astoria restaurant owner, ultimately collecting $24,000 in so-called protection money.
Between April 2012 and November 2013, Nikolla and the co-defendant also conspired and attempted to extort the proceeds of two nightclubs located in Queens, New York, and used a firearm in their efforts to do so. In or about April 2012, around the time that one of the clubs was opened, Nikolla approached the owner with an extortion demand, indicating to the victim that other businesses in the area were paying him for so-called “protection.” Nikolla demanded $200 per week from the owner for each of the two nightclubs. After the owner refused to pay, Nikolla retrieved a firearm from the codefendant’s side, stuck the firearm in owner’s ribs, and informed the owner that if he wasn’t paid, Nikolla would come to the owner’s house and beat up the owner in front of the owner’s wife and children.
Finally, during 2013, Nikolla, Llakatura, and the co-defendant also conspired and attempted to extort a proprietor of two social clubs in Astoria. Nikolla, accompanied by the co-defendant, made the initial extortion demand, seeking payments of $1,000 per week from the proprietor for so-called “protection.” The proprietor refused to make the demanded payments and ceased going to his social clubs out of fear for his safety. Court-authorized wiretaps of the defendants’ telephones revealed evidence of Nikolla’s participation in this extortion conspiracy with Llakatura and the co-defendant, and their attempts to locate the victim. In one instance, Nikolla, Llakatura, and the co-defendant threatened, punched, and pulled a gun on a friend of the victim in an effort to make the friend locate the victim. The victim ultimately fled to a foreign country for a period of time to avoid the defendants’ extortionate threats.
The co-defendant is scheduled to commence trial later this month.
The plea was announced by Robert L. Capers, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Diego Rodriguez, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office, and William J. Bratton, Commissioner, New York Police Department.
According to prior court filings and facts presented during the plea proceeding, between May and November 2013, Nikolla, Llakatura and their co-defendant conspired and attempted to extort a Queens restaurant owner, demanding regular payments in exchange for so-called “protection.” The extortion began shortly after the victim opened a restaurant in Astoria when he was visited by the co-defendant and told that he had opened a business in “our neighborhood” and, as a result, “you have to pay us” $4,000 per month. The restaurant owner sought help from his friend Llakatura.
Unbeknownst to him, Llakatura, an NYPD officer in Staten Island since 2006, was conspiring with the co-defendant in the extortion. Llakatura actively discouraged the restaurant owner from going to the police and sought to leverage his position of trust as a friend and a police officer to persuade the victim that he had no choice but to make the demanded payments, warning the victim that the co-defendant and his associates would physically harm him if he did not pay. When the victim resisted, Nikolla threatened him with physical violence and chased him at gunpoint down the street in Queens. Over the course of five months, each of the three defendants took turns collecting monthly payments from the Astoria restaurant owner, ultimately collecting $24,000 in so-called protection money.
Between April 2012 and November 2013, Nikolla and the co-defendant also conspired and attempted to extort the proceeds of two nightclubs located in Queens, New York, and used a firearm in their efforts to do so. In or about April 2012, around the time that one of the clubs was opened, Nikolla approached the owner with an extortion demand, indicating to the victim that other businesses in the area were paying him for so-called “protection.” Nikolla demanded $200 per week from the owner for each of the two nightclubs. After the owner refused to pay, Nikolla retrieved a firearm from the codefendant’s side, stuck the firearm in owner’s ribs, and informed the owner that if he wasn’t paid, Nikolla would come to the owner’s house and beat up the owner in front of the owner’s wife and children.
Finally, during 2013, Nikolla, Llakatura, and the co-defendant also conspired and attempted to extort a proprietor of two social clubs in Astoria. Nikolla, accompanied by the co-defendant, made the initial extortion demand, seeking payments of $1,000 per week from the proprietor for so-called “protection.” The proprietor refused to make the demanded payments and ceased going to his social clubs out of fear for his safety. Court-authorized wiretaps of the defendants’ telephones revealed evidence of Nikolla’s participation in this extortion conspiracy with Llakatura and the co-defendant, and their attempts to locate the victim. In one instance, Nikolla, Llakatura, and the co-defendant threatened, punched, and pulled a gun on a friend of the victim in an effort to make the friend locate the victim. The victim ultimately fled to a foreign country for a period of time to avoid the defendants’ extortionate threats.
The co-defendant is scheduled to commence trial later this month.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Grape Street Crips Crack-Cocaine Distributor Sentenced to Over 14 Years in Prison
A drug supplier for the Grape Street Crips street gang was sentenced to 176 months in prison for his role in distributing large quantities of crack-cocaine in and around Newark, New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Jihad Coles, a/k/a “Half Dead,” 31, of Newark, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Esther Salas to an information charging him with one count of conspiracy to distribute 280 grams or more of crack-cocaine. Judge Salas imposed the sentence in Newark federal court.
In May 2015, over the course of three weeks, 50 alleged members and associates of the Grape Street Crips were charged in criminal complaints that alleged drug-trafficking, physical assaults, and witness intimidation. The charges were the result of a long-running investigation led by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the FBI, in conjunction with the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, the Newark Police Department and Essex County Sheriff’s Office Bureau of Narcotics. Over the course of the entire investigation, 71 defendants have been charged with federal and state charges.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
Coles admitted that between March 2012 and August 2012 he conspired with others to distribute hundreds of grams of crack-cocaine at the Mildred Terrell Homes public-housing complex located on Riverview Terrace in Newark, New Jersey. As a long-time member of the Grape Street Crips, Coles admitted that he served as an organizer and leader of the crack-cocaine distribution conspiracy.
In addition to the prison term, which will be served consecutively to a state prison term that he is currently serving, Coles was sentenced to five years of supervised release.
Jihad Coles, a/k/a “Half Dead,” 31, of Newark, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Esther Salas to an information charging him with one count of conspiracy to distribute 280 grams or more of crack-cocaine. Judge Salas imposed the sentence in Newark federal court.
In May 2015, over the course of three weeks, 50 alleged members and associates of the Grape Street Crips were charged in criminal complaints that alleged drug-trafficking, physical assaults, and witness intimidation. The charges were the result of a long-running investigation led by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the FBI, in conjunction with the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, the Newark Police Department and Essex County Sheriff’s Office Bureau of Narcotics. Over the course of the entire investigation, 71 defendants have been charged with federal and state charges.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
Coles admitted that between March 2012 and August 2012 he conspired with others to distribute hundreds of grams of crack-cocaine at the Mildred Terrell Homes public-housing complex located on Riverview Terrace in Newark, New Jersey. As a long-time member of the Grape Street Crips, Coles admitted that he served as an organizer and leader of the crack-cocaine distribution conspiracy.
In addition to the prison term, which will be served consecutively to a state prison term that he is currently serving, Coles was sentenced to five years of supervised release.
Monday, March 14, 2016
Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror with @GenMhayden
The 1990s ushered in a new era of technological advances that changed nearly every imaginable facet of human existence. The rise of the Internet meant the world got a whole lot smaller as email and online forums facilitated communications worldwide. The proliferation of cell phones allowed calls to be made from nearly anywhere in the world.
This was a dream come true for the average Joe
, but a nightmare for America’s largest and most powerful spy agency, the National Security Agency. With funding reduced, a downsized workforce, and antiquated IT systems, the job NSA Director Michael Hayden walked into in 1999 was no walk in the park. The attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 shortly thereafter made fulfilling the mission downright Herculean.
In “Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror,” Hayden recounts the step-by-step journey of reinventing the NSA technologically, undertaking long overdue organizational changes, and trying to balance liberty and security in a rapidly changing world. All while carrying out the mission the NSA has had since the agency’s founding under President Truman in 1952 — “intercepting communications that contain information that would help keep Americans free and safe and advance [America’s] vital national security interests.”
Sometimes, indeed oftentimes, that mission included the development of programs that were deemed controversial. Among those detailed in “Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror” is Stellarwind, a presidentially authorized program that gave the NSA the ability to access a large percentage of the calls entering and leaving the United States. The agency would only access and collect the call if it had probable cause that one or both ends were al Qaeda related. Typically under-reported is the fact that the overwhelming majority of calls intercepted were actually foreign-to-foreign, Hayden notes.
Kick-starting a program such as this was not a matter of drawing up plans within the agency and then executing them; no, it required intricately assessing the legalities, securing presidential approval, briefing a select few members of Congress, ramping up the agency’s infrastructure to be able to carry out the program, and more.
Hayden’s detailed accounts truly gives the reader a new-found appreciation for all the hoops that must be jumped through in order to instate programs that serve to keep Americans safe in a post-9/11 world, and how seriously the agency guards the privacy of U.S. persons—regardless of how it’s reported. Therein lies another issue Hayden dedicated significant portions of the book to: discussing the efforts the agency undertakes to keep these programs secret so they actually work. Inevitably, however, they are leaked to the press, and Hayden takes the reader through the process of how he handled the media once it was on to a story and what he did to manage public relations for the agency once the news broke.
During his tenure at the NSA and later as director at the CIA, calming the storm—whether on the Hill, in the media, or among the public—was commonplace. The discussions about misjudgments over WMDs in Iraq, the controversial practice of waterboarding, Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and the CIA’s black sites were just some of the more interesting segments of the book that Hayden had to address while director—and he doesn’t hold back fascinating details about each that only an insider at his level would be privy to.
The book predominately focuses on the shifting intelligence landscape in the 2000s while he was heading up the NSA and CIA, but Hayden also offers a brief glimpse into his life and background. He confronts the heavy personal, familial, and moral burdens those in the field of espionage undertake while protecting America and its national security interests.
American intelligence has undergone fascinating changes in the age of terror and Hayden’s account offers the reader a long overdue perspective to counter the often incomplete and flawed version of the story in the media, particularly after Edward Snowden’s leaks. And while the subject matter is serious and at times dense, Hayden has a knack for explaining complex programs simplistically, never bogging the reader down with extraneous detail or inundating the pages with Washington’s alphabet soup. Those interested in learning the truth about what goes on behind some of America’s most tightly sealed agencies will find tremendous value in this compelling book.
This was a dream come true for the average Joe
, but a nightmare for America’s largest and most powerful spy agency, the National Security Agency. With funding reduced, a downsized workforce, and antiquated IT systems, the job NSA Director Michael Hayden walked into in 1999 was no walk in the park. The attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 shortly thereafter made fulfilling the mission downright Herculean.
In “Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror,” Hayden recounts the step-by-step journey of reinventing the NSA technologically, undertaking long overdue organizational changes, and trying to balance liberty and security in a rapidly changing world. All while carrying out the mission the NSA has had since the agency’s founding under President Truman in 1952 — “intercepting communications that contain information that would help keep Americans free and safe and advance [America’s] vital national security interests.”
Sometimes, indeed oftentimes, that mission included the development of programs that were deemed controversial. Among those detailed in “Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror” is Stellarwind, a presidentially authorized program that gave the NSA the ability to access a large percentage of the calls entering and leaving the United States. The agency would only access and collect the call if it had probable cause that one or both ends were al Qaeda related. Typically under-reported is the fact that the overwhelming majority of calls intercepted were actually foreign-to-foreign, Hayden notes.
Kick-starting a program such as this was not a matter of drawing up plans within the agency and then executing them; no, it required intricately assessing the legalities, securing presidential approval, briefing a select few members of Congress, ramping up the agency’s infrastructure to be able to carry out the program, and more.
Hayden’s detailed accounts truly gives the reader a new-found appreciation for all the hoops that must be jumped through in order to instate programs that serve to keep Americans safe in a post-9/11 world, and how seriously the agency guards the privacy of U.S. persons—regardless of how it’s reported. Therein lies another issue Hayden dedicated significant portions of the book to: discussing the efforts the agency undertakes to keep these programs secret so they actually work. Inevitably, however, they are leaked to the press, and Hayden takes the reader through the process of how he handled the media once it was on to a story and what he did to manage public relations for the agency once the news broke.
During his tenure at the NSA and later as director at the CIA, calming the storm—whether on the Hill, in the media, or among the public—was commonplace. The discussions about misjudgments over WMDs in Iraq, the controversial practice of waterboarding, Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and the CIA’s black sites were just some of the more interesting segments of the book that Hayden had to address while director—and he doesn’t hold back fascinating details about each that only an insider at his level would be privy to.
The book predominately focuses on the shifting intelligence landscape in the 2000s while he was heading up the NSA and CIA, but Hayden also offers a brief glimpse into his life and background. He confronts the heavy personal, familial, and moral burdens those in the field of espionage undertake while protecting America and its national security interests.
American intelligence has undergone fascinating changes in the age of terror and Hayden’s account offers the reader a long overdue perspective to counter the often incomplete and flawed version of the story in the media, particularly after Edward Snowden’s leaks. And while the subject matter is serious and at times dense, Hayden has a knack for explaining complex programs simplistically, never bogging the reader down with extraneous detail or inundating the pages with Washington’s alphabet soup. Those interested in learning the truth about what goes on behind some of America’s most tightly sealed agencies will find tremendous value in this compelling book.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster
Here is the shocking true saga of the Irish American mob
. In Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster, bestselling author and organized crime expert T. J. English brings to life nearly two centuries of Irish American gangsterism, which spawned such unforgettable characters as Mike "King Mike" McDonald, Chicago's subterranean godfather; Big Bill Dwyer, New York's most notorious rumrunner during Prohibition; Mickey Featherstone, troubled Vietnam vet turned Westies gang leader; and James "Whitey" Bulger, the ruthless and untouchable Southie legend.
Stretching from the earliest New York and New Orleans street wars through decades of bootlegging scams, union strikes, gang wars, and FBI investigations, Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster, is a riveting tour de force that restores the Irish American gangster to his rightful preeminent place in our criminal history -- and penetrates to the heart of the American experience.
. In Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster, bestselling author and organized crime expert T. J. English brings to life nearly two centuries of Irish American gangsterism, which spawned such unforgettable characters as Mike "King Mike" McDonald, Chicago's subterranean godfather; Big Bill Dwyer, New York's most notorious rumrunner during Prohibition; Mickey Featherstone, troubled Vietnam vet turned Westies gang leader; and James "Whitey" Bulger, the ruthless and untouchable Southie legend.Stretching from the earliest New York and New Orleans street wars through decades of bootlegging scams, union strikes, gang wars, and FBI investigations, Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster, is a riveting tour de force that restores the Irish American gangster to his rightful preeminent place in our criminal history -- and penetrates to the heart of the American experience.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
International Drug Trafficking Fugitive, Antonio Vottari, with Links to the Mafia Arrested
An international drug trafficking fugitive with links to the Mafia has been arrested at Rome's airport after flying from Australia, according to reports from Italy.
Antonio Vottari, 31, was apprehended by police at the Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino airport on Tuesday after he stepped off a flight from Australia, according to Il Quotidiano and other Italian news reports.
Vottari has been on the run for five years, wanted on drug crimes. He was convicted in his absence and sentenced to seven-and-half years in prison for trafficking cocaine as part of a syndicate operating in South America, Holland, Belgium, Germany and Italy.
The syndicate, Rai News reports, was managed by a notorious San Luca clan of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia. The clan, which bears the surname of the former fugitive, was led by Bruno Pizzata. Pizzata, known as the king of cocaine, is serving a 30-year prison term for drug trafficking after his arrest in 2011 in Germany.
Italian Mafia experts told Fairfax Media that clans from the same area of Italy have been historically present in Australia, therefore it was "no surprise" he was arrested coming back from Australia.
The Australian Federal Police and the Department of Immigration have been contacted for comment. The Department of Immigration would not comment on whether they were aware Vottari was present in the country. An AFP spokeswoman said it was a matter for Italian authorities.
It is not clear which Australian airport he left from nor how long he had been in the country.
Thanks to Tammy Mills.
Antonio Vottari, 31, was apprehended by police at the Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino airport on Tuesday after he stepped off a flight from Australia, according to Il Quotidiano and other Italian news reports.
Vottari has been on the run for five years, wanted on drug crimes. He was convicted in his absence and sentenced to seven-and-half years in prison for trafficking cocaine as part of a syndicate operating in South America, Holland, Belgium, Germany and Italy.
The syndicate, Rai News reports, was managed by a notorious San Luca clan of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia. The clan, which bears the surname of the former fugitive, was led by Bruno Pizzata. Pizzata, known as the king of cocaine, is serving a 30-year prison term for drug trafficking after his arrest in 2011 in Germany.
Italian Mafia experts told Fairfax Media that clans from the same area of Italy have been historically present in Australia, therefore it was "no surprise" he was arrested coming back from Australia.
The Australian Federal Police and the Department of Immigration have been contacted for comment. The Department of Immigration would not comment on whether they were aware Vottari was present in the country. An AFP spokeswoman said it was a matter for Italian authorities.
It is not clear which Australian airport he left from nor how long he had been in the country.
Thanks to Tammy Mills.
Wednesday, March 09, 2016
President of Hells Angels Convicted
U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. announced that Richard W. Mar, 64, of Monterey, California, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, before U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa. The charge carries a mandatory minimum penalty of five years in prison, a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison, and a $2,000,000 fine.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Harvey, who is handling the case, stated that, from 2002 through July 2010, Mar – the President of the Hell’s Angels, Monterey (California) Charter at the time – supplied significant quantities of methamphetamine to a methamphetamine trafficking network operating in the Western District of New York. The leader of the network was James H. McAuley, Jr. – a member and Vice President of the Rochester Hell’s Angels. During the conspiracy, McAuley and other members of the conspiracy traveled to the Monterey, California, on numerous occasions to obtain pound-size quantities of methamphetamine from Mar, in exchange for cash. The methamphetamine was be transported and/or shipped from California to the Rochester area, where other members of the conspiracy would sell and distribute it to their customers.
In April 2007, McAuley was arrested on federal racketeering charges in the Northern District of New York. After his arrest and incarceration, McAuley continued to maintain control over the methamphetamine trafficking operation. Mar, acting at the direction of McAuley, distributed pound-size quantities of methamphetamine to McAuley’s wife, Donna Boon. Boon and other members of the conspiracy sold and distributed the methamphetamine to individuals in the Rochester area, Genesee County, and other locales. Mar, who admitted to trafficking up to 15 kilograms of methamphetamine during the course of the conspiracy, continued to supply the methamphetamine trafficking network until July 2010.
The plea is part of a larger investigation that resulted in the indictment and arrest of members and associates of the Rochester and Monterey (California) Hell's Angels for drug trafficking and racketeering-related offenses in February 2012. Seven defendants – including Mar – were charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 500 grams or more of methamphetamine. All of the defendants – Mar; McAuley, Boon; Gordon L. Montgomery; Jeffrey A. Tyler; Richard E. Riedman; and Paul Griffin, have been convicted. Judge Siragusa sentenced Griffin to probation and Riedman to 37 months in prison; the remaining defendants are awaiting sentencing.
Rochester Hell's Angels member Robert W. Moran, Jr., a/k/a Bugsy, was convicted of conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity. Gina Tata was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to the conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity. Defendant Timothy M. Stone was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to the assault.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Harvey, who is handling the case, stated that, from 2002 through July 2010, Mar – the President of the Hell’s Angels, Monterey (California) Charter at the time – supplied significant quantities of methamphetamine to a methamphetamine trafficking network operating in the Western District of New York. The leader of the network was James H. McAuley, Jr. – a member and Vice President of the Rochester Hell’s Angels. During the conspiracy, McAuley and other members of the conspiracy traveled to the Monterey, California, on numerous occasions to obtain pound-size quantities of methamphetamine from Mar, in exchange for cash. The methamphetamine was be transported and/or shipped from California to the Rochester area, where other members of the conspiracy would sell and distribute it to their customers.
In April 2007, McAuley was arrested on federal racketeering charges in the Northern District of New York. After his arrest and incarceration, McAuley continued to maintain control over the methamphetamine trafficking operation. Mar, acting at the direction of McAuley, distributed pound-size quantities of methamphetamine to McAuley’s wife, Donna Boon. Boon and other members of the conspiracy sold and distributed the methamphetamine to individuals in the Rochester area, Genesee County, and other locales. Mar, who admitted to trafficking up to 15 kilograms of methamphetamine during the course of the conspiracy, continued to supply the methamphetamine trafficking network until July 2010.
The plea is part of a larger investigation that resulted in the indictment and arrest of members and associates of the Rochester and Monterey (California) Hell's Angels for drug trafficking and racketeering-related offenses in February 2012. Seven defendants – including Mar – were charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 500 grams or more of methamphetamine. All of the defendants – Mar; McAuley, Boon; Gordon L. Montgomery; Jeffrey A. Tyler; Richard E. Riedman; and Paul Griffin, have been convicted. Judge Siragusa sentenced Griffin to probation and Riedman to 37 months in prison; the remaining defendants are awaiting sentencing.
Rochester Hell's Angels member Robert W. Moran, Jr., a/k/a Bugsy, was convicted of conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity. Gina Tata was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to the conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity. Defendant Timothy M. Stone was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to the assault.
Monday, February 29, 2016
Mafia Ties on Taxes of @realDonaldTrump is Speculated by @SenTedCruz
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz speculated Donald Trump doesn't want to disclose his tax filings because he may have business ties to the mafia and donated to left-leaning organizations like Planned Parenthood. "There have been multiple media reports about Donald's business dealings with the mob, with the mafia," Cruz said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "Maybe his tax returns show that those business dealings are a lot more extensive than reported. We don't know."
Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio released summary pages of their recent tax filings Saturday. Trump has said he will release the filings once the IRS finishes auditing his returns.
Cruz pointed to S&A Concrete, which built Trump Tower, and other media reports linking the billionaire businessman to the mafia. "You guys have reported that he's done deals with S&A Concrete, which was owned by two of the big crime families in New York and that he's had involvement in Atlantic City," Cruz said. "Maybe that's what his tax returns show. We don't know."
The Trump campaign has not yet responded to a request for comment.
An ABC News investigation found Trump claimed to not know Felix Sater, a twice-convicted Russian émigré who served prison time and had documented mafia connections, while testifying in video deposition for a civil lawsuit two years ago. Sater had played a role in a number of high-profile Trump-branded projects across the country.
Cruz added conservatives should unite behind him if they don't want Hillary Clinton in the White House. "In the general election, Hillary Clinton is going to shine a light on all of this and Republican primary voters deserve to know,” Cruz said.
Thanks to Andrea Gonzales.
Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio released summary pages of their recent tax filings Saturday. Trump has said he will release the filings once the IRS finishes auditing his returns.
Cruz pointed to S&A Concrete, which built Trump Tower, and other media reports linking the billionaire businessman to the mafia. "You guys have reported that he's done deals with S&A Concrete, which was owned by two of the big crime families in New York and that he's had involvement in Atlantic City," Cruz said. "Maybe that's what his tax returns show. We don't know."
The Trump campaign has not yet responded to a request for comment.
An ABC News investigation found Trump claimed to not know Felix Sater, a twice-convicted Russian émigré who served prison time and had documented mafia connections, while testifying in video deposition for a civil lawsuit two years ago. Sater had played a role in a number of high-profile Trump-branded projects across the country.
Cruz added conservatives should unite behind him if they don't want Hillary Clinton in the White House. "In the general election, Hillary Clinton is going to shine a light on all of this and Republican primary voters deserve to know,” Cruz said.
Thanks to Andrea Gonzales.
Hell’s Angel Pleads Guilty To Armed Assault
U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. announced that Robert W. Moran, Jr., 63, of Rochester, NY, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity, before U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa. The charge carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine. In addition, Gina Tata, 52, also of Rochester, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to the crime of conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity. That charge carries a maximum penalty of 18 months in prison and a $125,000 fine.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Harvey, who is handling the case, stated that on May 31, 2006, Moran – a member and officer of the Rochester Hell’s Angels – assaulted a patron at Spenders Bar on Lyell Avenue in Rochester with a baseball bat. The defendant beat the patron in the head and body after the patron made disparaging remarks about motorcycle clubs, including the Hell’s Angels. At the time of the assault, Moran was a member of the Rochester Hell’s Angels, which was an enterprise the members of which were engaged in racketeering activity, including drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit murder. The defendant committed the assault in order to maintain his position in the Rochester Hell’s Angels.
Gina Tata, who was the bartender at Spenders Bar at the time of the assault, tried to help Moran escape arrest and prosecution for the assault. After hearing the comments made by the patron, Tata called a member of the Rochester Hell’s Angels, leading to the eventual beating of the victim by Moran. In the aftermath of the attack, Tata took several steps to help Moran avoid apprehension by law enforcement authorities, including lying to the police about the identities of the perpetrator of the assault. Tata also counseled another eyewitness to not give the police a good description of the perpetrator and to not identify Moran. Also, in the early morning hours after the assault, Tata let an associate of the Rochester Hell’s Angels into Spenders Bar to retrieve a hard drive containing recordings of the interior surveillance cameras at the bar. In May 2007, a year after the assault, Tata lied to the FBI about the perpetrators of the assault, describing them as tall, young Hispanic males, and falsely told the FBI that she used the phone at Spenders Bar only to call 911 and the owner of the bar.
These pleas are part of a larger investigation that resulted in the indictment and arrest of members and associates of the Rochester and Monterey (California) Hell's Angels for drug trafficking and racketeering-related offenses in February 2012. Hell's Angels President Richard W. Mar, and Jeffrey A. Tyler, were charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 500 grams or more of methamphetamine. Five other defendants – Henry McCauley, Donna Boon, Paul Griffin, Richard E. Riedman, and Gordon L. Montgomery – were convicted for their roles in the methamphetamine conspiracy. Judge Siragusa sentenced Griffin to probation and Riedman to 37 months in prison. McCauley, Boon and Montomgery are awaiting sentencing. Another defendant, Timothy M. Stone, was convicted and of being an accessory after the fact to the assault and conspiracy, and was sentenced to 12 months in prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Harvey, who is handling the case, stated that on May 31, 2006, Moran – a member and officer of the Rochester Hell’s Angels – assaulted a patron at Spenders Bar on Lyell Avenue in Rochester with a baseball bat. The defendant beat the patron in the head and body after the patron made disparaging remarks about motorcycle clubs, including the Hell’s Angels. At the time of the assault, Moran was a member of the Rochester Hell’s Angels, which was an enterprise the members of which were engaged in racketeering activity, including drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit murder. The defendant committed the assault in order to maintain his position in the Rochester Hell’s Angels.
Gina Tata, who was the bartender at Spenders Bar at the time of the assault, tried to help Moran escape arrest and prosecution for the assault. After hearing the comments made by the patron, Tata called a member of the Rochester Hell’s Angels, leading to the eventual beating of the victim by Moran. In the aftermath of the attack, Tata took several steps to help Moran avoid apprehension by law enforcement authorities, including lying to the police about the identities of the perpetrator of the assault. Tata also counseled another eyewitness to not give the police a good description of the perpetrator and to not identify Moran. Also, in the early morning hours after the assault, Tata let an associate of the Rochester Hell’s Angels into Spenders Bar to retrieve a hard drive containing recordings of the interior surveillance cameras at the bar. In May 2007, a year after the assault, Tata lied to the FBI about the perpetrators of the assault, describing them as tall, young Hispanic males, and falsely told the FBI that she used the phone at Spenders Bar only to call 911 and the owner of the bar.
These pleas are part of a larger investigation that resulted in the indictment and arrest of members and associates of the Rochester and Monterey (California) Hell's Angels for drug trafficking and racketeering-related offenses in February 2012. Hell's Angels President Richard W. Mar, and Jeffrey A. Tyler, were charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 500 grams or more of methamphetamine. Five other defendants – Henry McCauley, Donna Boon, Paul Griffin, Richard E. Riedman, and Gordon L. Montgomery – were convicted for their roles in the methamphetamine conspiracy. Judge Siragusa sentenced Griffin to probation and Riedman to 37 months in prison. McCauley, Boon and Montomgery are awaiting sentencing. Another defendant, Timothy M. Stone, was convicted and of being an accessory after the fact to the assault and conspiracy, and was sentenced to 12 months in prison.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Humans of New York: Stories
In the summer of 2010, photographer Brandon Stanton began an ambitious project -to single-handedly create a photographic census of New York City. The photos he took and the accompanying interviews became the blog Humans of New York. His audience steadily grew from a few hundred followers to, at present count, over twelve million. In 2013, his book Humans of New York, based on that blog, was published and immediately catapulted to the top of the NY Times Bestseller List where it has appeared for over forty-five weeks.
Now, Brandon is back with the Humans of New York book that his loyal followers have been waiting for: Humans of New York: Stories. Ever since Brandon began interviewing people on the streets of New York, the dialogue he's had with them has increasingly become as in-depth, intriguing and moving as the photos themselves. Humans of New York: Stories presents a whole new group of people in stunning photographs, with a rich design and, most importantly, longer stories that delve deeper and surprise with greater candor. Let Brandon Stanton and the Humans of New York he's photographed astonish you all over again next fall.
Now, Brandon is back with the Humans of New York book that his loyal followers have been waiting for: Humans of New York: Stories. Ever since Brandon began interviewing people on the streets of New York, the dialogue he's had with them has increasingly become as in-depth, intriguing and moving as the photos themselves. Humans of New York: Stories presents a whole new group of people in stunning photographs, with a rich design and, most importantly, longer stories that delve deeper and surprise with greater candor. Let Brandon Stanton and the Humans of New York he's photographed astonish you all over again next fall.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Two Stars of @MobWives Told to Stay Far Away from Funeral of #BigAng
Two Mob Wives stars were told to stay far away from Big Ang's funeral this weekend, all because of a long-standing family drama.
Angela "Big Ang" Raiola died of cancer last Thursday, and her viewings and funeral were quickly planned for the weekend. But two of her co-stars were warned to stay away, and it's all over old beefs.
Brittany Fogarty and Karen Gravano were told "it's not a good idea" to attend any of Big Ang's services, a source told E! News. "It's just years of history between the fathers," the source said, adding, "It's a shame, but they understand to a point. No one wants to have conflict at a funeral."
What is that history? It's no secret that Mob Wives is about women whose families were active in the Mafia and how that has affected their families. Gravano's father, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, turned federal witness — i.e., snitched — against Mafia kingpin John Gotti in exchange for immunity against 19 murder charges. He was placed in the Witness Protection Program and relocated under an alias to Arizona.
Fogarty's family was relocated to Pennsylvania when her father, John Fogarty, cooperated with the feds in exchange for keeping her mom out of prison when they were busted on RICO charges.
What this boils down to is that their fathers are considered rats — and there is nothing worse in the Mafia world than a rat. Fogarty and Gravano's presence at Big Ang's funeral could cause unnecessary drama within the old ranks of the families, and no one wanted to shift the focus away from the woman it should really be about. But this doesn't mean the two women aren't honoring their friend in their own ways. Gravano visited Big Ang at the hospital before she passed, telling E! she looked "beautiful."
In addition to releasing a beautiful statement about her friend, Fogarty shared another tribute to Big Ang on her Instagram page.
Big Ang was buried on Sunday.
Thanks to Caroline Goddard.
Angela "Big Ang" Raiola died of cancer last Thursday, and her viewings and funeral were quickly planned for the weekend. But two of her co-stars were warned to stay away, and it's all over old beefs.
Brittany Fogarty and Karen Gravano were told "it's not a good idea" to attend any of Big Ang's services, a source told E! News. "It's just years of history between the fathers," the source said, adding, "It's a shame, but they understand to a point. No one wants to have conflict at a funeral."
What is that history? It's no secret that Mob Wives is about women whose families were active in the Mafia and how that has affected their families. Gravano's father, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, turned federal witness — i.e., snitched — against Mafia kingpin John Gotti in exchange for immunity against 19 murder charges. He was placed in the Witness Protection Program and relocated under an alias to Arizona.
Fogarty's family was relocated to Pennsylvania when her father, John Fogarty, cooperated with the feds in exchange for keeping her mom out of prison when they were busted on RICO charges.
What this boils down to is that their fathers are considered rats — and there is nothing worse in the Mafia world than a rat. Fogarty and Gravano's presence at Big Ang's funeral could cause unnecessary drama within the old ranks of the families, and no one wanted to shift the focus away from the woman it should really be about. But this doesn't mean the two women aren't honoring their friend in their own ways. Gravano visited Big Ang at the hospital before she passed, telling E! she looked "beautiful."
In addition to releasing a beautiful statement about her friend, Fogarty shared another tribute to Big Ang on her Instagram page.
Big Ang was buried on Sunday.
Thanks to Caroline Goddard.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Drug Conspirator Pleads Guilty #OperationSmokinBones
United States Attorney A. Lee Bentley, III announces that Ilian David Gomez Mathews (25, Orlando) pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance. He faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in federal prison. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to the plea agreement, between November 2012 and November 2015, Mathews conspired with others to ship at least 15 kilograms of cocaine through the U.S. mail from Puerto Rico to Orange and Osceola counties for distribution. Mathews admitted to distributing the majority of the cocaine, which was typically between 500 grams and two kilograms per month. As part of the scheme, tens of thousands of dollars were transported as bulk cash back to Puerto Rico, to the cocaine supply source.
In November 2015, federal and local law enforcement arrested five individuals, including Mathews, for drug trafficking, as part of Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking Task Force Operation “Smokin’ Bones.” Those individuals were indicted in December 2015. Mathews is the first defendant to plead guilty. The remaining individuals, Jose Javier Nieves Torres (45, Kissimmee); Dennis Rodriguez De Jesus (38, Kissimmee); Ramon Alberto Castro Ortega (26, St. Cloud); and Hector Manual Sanchez Garay (55, Orlando) are awaiting trial.
According to the plea agreement, between November 2012 and November 2015, Mathews conspired with others to ship at least 15 kilograms of cocaine through the U.S. mail from Puerto Rico to Orange and Osceola counties for distribution. Mathews admitted to distributing the majority of the cocaine, which was typically between 500 grams and two kilograms per month. As part of the scheme, tens of thousands of dollars were transported as bulk cash back to Puerto Rico, to the cocaine supply source.
In November 2015, federal and local law enforcement arrested five individuals, including Mathews, for drug trafficking, as part of Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking Task Force Operation “Smokin’ Bones.” Those individuals were indicted in December 2015. Mathews is the first defendant to plead guilty. The remaining individuals, Jose Javier Nieves Torres (45, Kissimmee); Dennis Rodriguez De Jesus (38, Kissimmee); Ramon Alberto Castro Ortega (26, St. Cloud); and Hector Manual Sanchez Garay (55, Orlando) are awaiting trial.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Hell’s Angels Associate Sentenced For Destroying Evidence
U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced that Timothy M. Stone, 36, of East Rochester, NY, who was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to an assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity, was sentenced to 12 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa
.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Harvey, who is handling the case, stated that in the late night hours on May 31, 2006, a male patron at Spenders Bar in Rochester was assaulted with a baseball bat. At the time, Spenders Bar was equipped with interior surveillance cameras that recorded the area in the bar where the assault occurred. The recordings were stored on a computer hard drive. In the early morning hours on June 1, 2006, Stone – knowing that others had committed the assault with the baseball bat in aid of racketeering – went to Spenders Bar, forcibly removed the hard drive, and took the hard drive from the bar. The defendant later destroyed the hard drive and the baseball bat used to commit the assault to assist the perpetrators of the assault in order to prevent their apprehension by the police.
This case was part of a larger investigation that resulted in the indictment and arrest of members and associates of the Rochester and Monterey (California) Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, for drug trafficking and racketeering-related offenses in February 2012. Monterey (California) Hell's Angels President Richard W. Mar, Rochester Hell's Angels members James H. McAuley, Jr., of Oakfield, NY, and Jeffrey A. Tyler, of Rochester, and Donna Boon, of Oakfield, NY, were charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 500 grams or more of methamphetamine. Three other defendants – Paul Griffin, of Blasdell, NY, Richard E. Riedman, of Webster, NY, and Gordon L. Montgomery, of Batavia, NY – were convicted for their roles in the methamphetamine conspiracy. Griffin was sentenced to probation and Riedman to 37 months in prison. Montgomery will be sentenced on May 3, 2016.
Rochester Hell's Angels member Robert W. Moran, Jr., of Rochester, along with Gina Tata, also of Rochester, are charged in the same indictment with assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity, and McAuley, Moran and Tata are charged with conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity. In addition, Tata is charged with being an accessory after the fact to the assault and conspiracy.
A jury trial for the remaining six defendants – Mar, McAuley, Moran, Boon, Tyler and Tata – is scheduled to begin on March 7, 2016, before U.S District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo.
.Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Harvey, who is handling the case, stated that in the late night hours on May 31, 2006, a male patron at Spenders Bar in Rochester was assaulted with a baseball bat. At the time, Spenders Bar was equipped with interior surveillance cameras that recorded the area in the bar where the assault occurred. The recordings were stored on a computer hard drive. In the early morning hours on June 1, 2006, Stone – knowing that others had committed the assault with the baseball bat in aid of racketeering – went to Spenders Bar, forcibly removed the hard drive, and took the hard drive from the bar. The defendant later destroyed the hard drive and the baseball bat used to commit the assault to assist the perpetrators of the assault in order to prevent their apprehension by the police.
This case was part of a larger investigation that resulted in the indictment and arrest of members and associates of the Rochester and Monterey (California) Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, for drug trafficking and racketeering-related offenses in February 2012. Monterey (California) Hell's Angels President Richard W. Mar, Rochester Hell's Angels members James H. McAuley, Jr., of Oakfield, NY, and Jeffrey A. Tyler, of Rochester, and Donna Boon, of Oakfield, NY, were charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 500 grams or more of methamphetamine. Three other defendants – Paul Griffin, of Blasdell, NY, Richard E. Riedman, of Webster, NY, and Gordon L. Montgomery, of Batavia, NY – were convicted for their roles in the methamphetamine conspiracy. Griffin was sentenced to probation and Riedman to 37 months in prison. Montgomery will be sentenced on May 3, 2016.
Rochester Hell's Angels member Robert W. Moran, Jr., of Rochester, along with Gina Tata, also of Rochester, are charged in the same indictment with assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity, and McAuley, Moran and Tata are charged with conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity. In addition, Tata is charged with being an accessory after the fact to the assault and conspiracy.
A jury trial for the remaining six defendants – Mar, McAuley, Moran, Boon, Tyler and Tata – is scheduled to begin on March 7, 2016, before U.S District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Friends of the Family - The Inside Story of the Mafia Cops Case
Several books
, including one by Jimmy Breslin, have been written on the Mafia cops case: the story of two city detectives who in 2005 were charged with being in league with mob hit men and committing two murders themselves. If you’re still looking for even more detail, “Friends of the Family” (William Morrow) by Tommy Dades and Michael Vecchione with David Fisher promises “The Inside Story of the Mafia Cops Case,” as the subtitle puts it. (Mr. Vecchione heads the investigations division for the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes; Mr. Dades is a former detective who worked on the case).
Some questions are still being pondered, though, including one posed by the authors themselves. “Even after the whole thing was done and the Mafia cops had been put in a cell to rot forever,” they write, “there was still one question that never got answered: At the beginning, were these guys killers who became cops or were they cops who became killers?”
Thanks to Sam Roberts
, including one by Jimmy Breslin, have been written on the Mafia cops case: the story of two city detectives who in 2005 were charged with being in league with mob hit men and committing two murders themselves. If you’re still looking for even more detail, “Friends of the Family” (William Morrow) by Tommy Dades and Michael Vecchione with David Fisher promises “The Inside Story of the Mafia Cops Case,” as the subtitle puts it. (Mr. Vecchione heads the investigations division for the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes; Mr. Dades is a former detective who worked on the case).Some questions are still being pondered, though, including one posed by the authors themselves. “Even after the whole thing was done and the Mafia cops had been put in a cell to rot forever,” they write, “there was still one question that never got answered: At the beginning, were these guys killers who became cops or were they cops who became killers?”
Thanks to Sam Roberts
Tuesday, February 09, 2016
United States of Jihad - Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists
A riveting, panoramic look at “homegrown” Islamist terrorism from 9/11 to the present
Since 9/11
, more than three hundred Americans—born and raised in Minnesota, Alabama, New Jersey, and elsewhere—have been indicted or convicted of terrorism charges. Some have taken the fight abroad: an American was among those who planned the attacks in Mumbai, and more than eighty U.S. citizens have been charged with ISIS-related crimes. Others have acted on American soil, as with the attacks at Fort Hood, the Boston Marathon, and in San Bernardino. What motivates them, how are they trained, and what do we sacrifice in our efforts to track them?
Paced like a detective story, United States of Jihad: Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists, tells the entwined stories of the key actors on the American front. Among the perpetrators are Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexico-born radical cleric who became the first American citizen killed by a CIA drone and who mentored the Charlie Hebdo shooters; Samir Khan, whose Inspire webzine has rallied terrorists around the world, including the Tsarnaev brothers; and Omar Hammami, an Alabama native and hip hop fan who became a fixture in al Shabaab’s propaganda videos until fatally displeasing his superiors.
Drawing on his extensive network of intelligence contacts, from the National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI to the NYPD, Peter Bergen also offers an inside look at the controversial tactics of the agencies tracking potential terrorists—from infiltrating mosques to massive surveillance; at the bias experienced by innocent observant Muslims at the hands of law enforcement; at the critics and defenders of U.S. policies on terrorism; and at how social media has revolutionized terrorism.
Lucid and rigorously researched, United States of Jihad: Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists, is an essential new analysis of the Americans who have embraced militant Islam both here and abroad.
Since 9/11
, more than three hundred Americans—born and raised in Minnesota, Alabama, New Jersey, and elsewhere—have been indicted or convicted of terrorism charges. Some have taken the fight abroad: an American was among those who planned the attacks in Mumbai, and more than eighty U.S. citizens have been charged with ISIS-related crimes. Others have acted on American soil, as with the attacks at Fort Hood, the Boston Marathon, and in San Bernardino. What motivates them, how are they trained, and what do we sacrifice in our efforts to track them?Paced like a detective story, United States of Jihad: Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists, tells the entwined stories of the key actors on the American front. Among the perpetrators are Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexico-born radical cleric who became the first American citizen killed by a CIA drone and who mentored the Charlie Hebdo shooters; Samir Khan, whose Inspire webzine has rallied terrorists around the world, including the Tsarnaev brothers; and Omar Hammami, an Alabama native and hip hop fan who became a fixture in al Shabaab’s propaganda videos until fatally displeasing his superiors.
Drawing on his extensive network of intelligence contacts, from the National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI to the NYPD, Peter Bergen also offers an inside look at the controversial tactics of the agencies tracking potential terrorists—from infiltrating mosques to massive surveillance; at the bias experienced by innocent observant Muslims at the hands of law enforcement; at the critics and defenders of U.S. policies on terrorism; and at how social media has revolutionized terrorism.
Lucid and rigorously researched, United States of Jihad: Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists, is an essential new analysis of the Americans who have embraced militant Islam both here and abroad.
Monday, February 08, 2016
Details on John Bills Conviction in City of Chicago's Red-light Camera Scam
The former assistant transportation commissioner for the city of Chicago was convicted today on federal corruption charges in connection with the awarding of lucrative red-light camera contracts.
After a two-week trial in federal court in Chicago, the jury convicted JOHN BILLS on all counts against him. The counts include nine counts of mail fraud; three counts of wire fraud; one count of extortion under color of official right; one count of conspiracy to commit bribery; three counts of bribery; and three counts of filing false tax returns. Bills, 54, of Chicago, faces a maximum combined sentence of 304 years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall scheduled a sentencing hearing for May 5, 2016, at 10:00 a.m.
The conviction was announced by Zachary T. Fardon, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Michael J. Anderson, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Joseph M. Ferguson, Inspector General for the City of Chicago; and James D. Robnett, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division in Chicago.
“By accepting bribes in exchange for influencing city contracts, John Bills deprived the city of Chicago of money and honest services,” said Mr. Fardon. “When public officials abuse their power and violate the public trust for personal gain, we will be there to hold them accountable.”
As an assistant transportation commissioner, Bills was a voting member of the city’s Request for Proposal evaluation committee, which sought vendors under the city’s Digital Automated Red Light Enforcement Program. In 2003, the committee recommended awarding contracts to Phoenix-based Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., to install cameras that automatically record and ticket drivers who run red lights. Evidence at trial revealed that from approximately 2003 to 2011, Bills used his influence to expand Redflex’s business with the city, resulting in millions of dollars in contracts for the installation of hundreds of red-light cameras. In exchange for his efforts, Redflex provided Bills with cash and personal benefits, including meals, golf outings, rental cars, airline tickets, hotel rooms and other entertainment.
Some of the benefits were given directly to Bills, while hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash was funneled to him through a friend, MARTIN O’MALLEY. Redflex hired O’Malley as a contractor and paid him lavish bonuses as new cameras were added in Chicago. O’Malley testified at trial that he often stuffed the bonus money into envelopes and gave it to Bills during meals in Chicago restaurants.
Between 2004 and 2008, Chicago paid Redflex approximately $25 million. After KAREN FINLEY became CEO of Redflex in 2007, O’Malley’s commissions escalated and Redflex was awarded a “sole-sourced” contract for another $33 million. The city then followed up that contract with another deal worth $66 million – for the installation of nearly 250 additional red-light cameras.
Bills retired from the city in 2011.
Finley, of Cave Creek, Ariz., pleaded guilty last year to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. She is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Kendall on Feb. 18, 2016.
O’Malley, of Worth, pleaded guilty in December 2014 to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. His sentencing date has not yet been set.
After a two-week trial in federal court in Chicago, the jury convicted JOHN BILLS on all counts against him. The counts include nine counts of mail fraud; three counts of wire fraud; one count of extortion under color of official right; one count of conspiracy to commit bribery; three counts of bribery; and three counts of filing false tax returns. Bills, 54, of Chicago, faces a maximum combined sentence of 304 years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall scheduled a sentencing hearing for May 5, 2016, at 10:00 a.m.
The conviction was announced by Zachary T. Fardon, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Michael J. Anderson, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Joseph M. Ferguson, Inspector General for the City of Chicago; and James D. Robnett, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division in Chicago.
“By accepting bribes in exchange for influencing city contracts, John Bills deprived the city of Chicago of money and honest services,” said Mr. Fardon. “When public officials abuse their power and violate the public trust for personal gain, we will be there to hold them accountable.”
As an assistant transportation commissioner, Bills was a voting member of the city’s Request for Proposal evaluation committee, which sought vendors under the city’s Digital Automated Red Light Enforcement Program. In 2003, the committee recommended awarding contracts to Phoenix-based Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., to install cameras that automatically record and ticket drivers who run red lights. Evidence at trial revealed that from approximately 2003 to 2011, Bills used his influence to expand Redflex’s business with the city, resulting in millions of dollars in contracts for the installation of hundreds of red-light cameras. In exchange for his efforts, Redflex provided Bills with cash and personal benefits, including meals, golf outings, rental cars, airline tickets, hotel rooms and other entertainment.
Some of the benefits were given directly to Bills, while hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash was funneled to him through a friend, MARTIN O’MALLEY. Redflex hired O’Malley as a contractor and paid him lavish bonuses as new cameras were added in Chicago. O’Malley testified at trial that he often stuffed the bonus money into envelopes and gave it to Bills during meals in Chicago restaurants.
Between 2004 and 2008, Chicago paid Redflex approximately $25 million. After KAREN FINLEY became CEO of Redflex in 2007, O’Malley’s commissions escalated and Redflex was awarded a “sole-sourced” contract for another $33 million. The city then followed up that contract with another deal worth $66 million – for the installation of nearly 250 additional red-light cameras.
Bills retired from the city in 2011.
Finley, of Cave Creek, Ariz., pleaded guilty last year to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. She is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Kendall on Feb. 18, 2016.
O’Malley, of Worth, pleaded guilty in December 2014 to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. His sentencing date has not yet been set.
Sunday, February 07, 2016
5 Chicago Men Arrested in Connection with Violent Kidnapping
Five men have been arrested on kidnapping charges for allegedly abducting a Berwyn man in broad daylight and holding him for ransom in a North Side auto body shop.
The kidnapping went awry after the abductors realized they had snatched the wrong man, according to a criminal complaint and affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The victim was the brother of the intended target. He was blindfolded and held at gunpoint for nearly two days in an auto body shop in Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood, before being released, the complaint states.
Federal authorities arrested abd charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping: ANTONIO SALGADO, 34; ARMANDO DELGADO, 36; OCTAVIO ALEJANDRE JR., 33; JAIME GUTIERREZ, 22; and MUNAF ABDULRAZAK MUSA, 22; all of Chicago. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
According to the complaint, the abduction occurred on the afternoon of May 30, 2015, when the victim was kidnapped at gunpoint outside of his Berwyn home. The victim was forced into a sport-utility vehicle and taken to the auto repair shop. While being held, one of the kidnappers pushed a gun into the victim’s body and threatened him, while another kidnapper placed a knife on the victim’s fingers and threatened to cut them off, the complaint states.
Early the next morning, the victim’s uncle received telephone calls from an unidentified man who stated he was holding the victim, according to the complaint. The caller demanded approximately 25 kilograms of narcotics. At one point the victim was placed on the phone and instructed to tell his uncle to cooperate, the complaint states.
Unbeknownst to the defendants, several of their phones had previously been intercepted by federal authorities who were conducting an unrelated investigation, the complaint states. In a recorded call between Salgado and Delgado on the night of May 31, 2015, Delgado told Salgado, “There is a little situation. It’s the wrong guy because it’s his brother of the one that we’re trying to get.” According to the complaint, Salgado allegedly replied, “Let the guy go, but beat the [expletive] out of him.”
On the morning of June 1, 2015, the victim appeared at a bus station in Chicago, according to the complaint. The victim told police that he had walked to the bus station after being released from captivity during the night.
The kidnapping went awry after the abductors realized they had snatched the wrong man, according to a criminal complaint and affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The victim was the brother of the intended target. He was blindfolded and held at gunpoint for nearly two days in an auto body shop in Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood, before being released, the complaint states.
Federal authorities arrested abd charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping: ANTONIO SALGADO, 34; ARMANDO DELGADO, 36; OCTAVIO ALEJANDRE JR., 33; JAIME GUTIERREZ, 22; and MUNAF ABDULRAZAK MUSA, 22; all of Chicago. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
According to the complaint, the abduction occurred on the afternoon of May 30, 2015, when the victim was kidnapped at gunpoint outside of his Berwyn home. The victim was forced into a sport-utility vehicle and taken to the auto repair shop. While being held, one of the kidnappers pushed a gun into the victim’s body and threatened him, while another kidnapper placed a knife on the victim’s fingers and threatened to cut them off, the complaint states.
Early the next morning, the victim’s uncle received telephone calls from an unidentified man who stated he was holding the victim, according to the complaint. The caller demanded approximately 25 kilograms of narcotics. At one point the victim was placed on the phone and instructed to tell his uncle to cooperate, the complaint states.
Unbeknownst to the defendants, several of their phones had previously been intercepted by federal authorities who were conducting an unrelated investigation, the complaint states. In a recorded call between Salgado and Delgado on the night of May 31, 2015, Delgado told Salgado, “There is a little situation. It’s the wrong guy because it’s his brother of the one that we’re trying to get.” According to the complaint, Salgado allegedly replied, “Let the guy go, but beat the [expletive] out of him.”
On the morning of June 1, 2015, the victim appeared at a bus station in Chicago, according to the complaint. The victim told police that he had walked to the bus station after being released from captivity during the night.
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
Reputed mob debt collector Paul Carparelli's recordings read like low-grade gangster script
Paul Carparelli may have fancied himself a rising star in the Chicago Outfit, but by his own admission he made a pretty lousy firefighter.
In 2012, Carparelli, a reputed debt collector for the mob's Cicero faction, was caught on undercover federal recordings talking about his unsuccessful stint as a firefighter in sleepy west suburban Bloomingdale in the 1990s.
Among his gripes about the job: running into burning buildings for low pay, being forced to do menial tasks like washing firetrucks instead of his beloved Cadillac, and, heaven forbid, going on a late-night call to the nearby nursing home, where "them old (expletive) (expletive)ers are always croakin.'"
"It just wasn't the job for me, you know. You gotta help them (expletive) people," Carparelli told his top muscle guy, George Brown, in a profanity-laced tirade, according to a transcript in court records. "You gotta be a certain kind of person for that. George, I guess you gotta like people. My problem is I hate everybody."
Carparelli's day of reckoning comes Wednesday when he faces sentencing at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse for a series of extortion attempts involving deadbeat businessmen. Federal prosecutors are seeking about 11 years in prison.
At the center of the case are hundreds of hours of conversations between Carparelli and Brown, a 300-pound union bodyguard and mixed martial arts fighter who was secretly cooperating with the FBI. The recordings paint a colorful picture of Carparelli as a callous mid-level mob operative looking to make a name for himself after convictions had sent several Outfit bosses — including Cicero crew leader Mike "The Large Guy" Sarno — to prison.
"This position doesn't happen all the time, George," Carparelli told Brown in a recorded call from 2011. "This is like a once in a lifetime (expletive) thing, if this is what you want to do, if this is the way you want to live your life."
Carparelli's lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman for as little as probation, saying in a recent court filing that the former pizzeria owner was "nothing but a blowhard" whose constant exaggerations of his mob ties "caused the government to believe he was a connected guy."
"Mr. Carparelli is clearly a 'wanna-be' who has watched 'The Sopranos' and 'Goodfellas' too many times," attorneys Ed Wanderling and Charles Nesbit wrote. He was simply playing a "role," they argued.
If it was just a role, it was one Carparelli, now 47, played to the hilt. Carparelli was caught on surveillance arranging for the beating of suburban car dealership owner R.J. Serpico — he wanted both his legs broken — for failing to pay back a $300,000 loan from Michael "Mickey" Davis. Davis was a longtime partner of reputed mob lieutenant Salvatore "Solly D" DeLaurentis and had Outfit connections that purportedly went all the way to acting boss John DiFronzo, according to testimony at Davis' recent trial.
"We definitely can't (expletive) around with these guys or we're gonna have a big (expletive) headache," Carparelli told Brown in one call that was played at Davis' trial.
Carparelli also played a behind-the-scenes role in a plot to confront a business owner in Appleton, Wis., about a $100,000 debt. In a backroom at a Fuddruckers restaurant, Brown and two other mob toughs threatened the owner, who had offered to hand over a special-edition Ford Mustang as partial payment.
Asked where the car could be found, the victim was "shaking and stuttering" so badly that one of the enforcers grabbed his driver's license and wrote the address down himself, prosecutors said. At a 2014 trial in Chicago, the victim had trouble reading the complaint he had filed with police, telling jurors he was still shaking when he filled it out and that his handwriting was almost illegible.
Carparelli's undercover conversations with Brown certainly seem ripped from the pages of a low-grade gangster script. In call after call, the two talked as casually as office cubicle mates about the depleted state of the mob, the difficult logistics of certain contract beatings and the pain they intended to inflict on those behind in payments.
In one phone call from February 2013, Carparelli was recorded telling Brown to go to the home of a victim to collect a $66,000 juice loan debt with a ridiculously high interest rate, according to Carparelli's plea agreement.
"(Expletive) ring the bell and crack that guy," Carparelli was quoted as telling Brown. "Don't even say nothing to him. ... Go over there, give him a (expletive) crack, and we'll get in contact with him."
And when Brown and Carparelli had a falling out — purportedly over Brown's inability to get certain beatings done on time — Carparelli patched things up by reciting a sort of mob creed.
"As long as you don't steal from me, (expletive) my wife or rat on me, you're my friend 1,000 percent," he was quoted as telling Brown in a transcript of the call. "The thing is, when we say we're gonna do something, we have to get it done 'cause we look like (expletive) idiots. And I'm not in a position to look like an idiot. Because there is a lot of (expletive) goin' on now."
Prosecutors alleged Carparelli's allegiance to the Outfit began at a young age. As a teen, he joined the 12th Street Players, a Cicero-based gang founded in the late 1960s and credited with being the first street gang in the west suburbs, where Carparelli grew up, records show.
He racked up numerous violent arrests in his teens and 20s for bar fights, street beatings and several incidents in which he allegedly pulled a gun during an altercation, according to court records. In 1995, Carparelli was arrested at a Chicago Blackhawks game after he allegedly punched a man in the face "without warning" during a conversation, records show.
After his brief employment as a firefighter, Carparelli went to work for a company owned by Bridgeport trucking boss Michael Tadin — a longtime friend of former Mayor Richard M. Daley — whose firm Marina Cartage was once the target of an Outfit-related bombing, records show.
At the same time, Carparelli was establishing himself as a cocaine dealer, a lucrative moneymaker for him for more than 20 years, according to prosecutors.
When Carparelli was arrested in July 2013 as he pulled into his driveway with his son in the car, agents found "distribution amounts of cocaine" on him, prosecutors said. The FBI also recovered two guns, $170,500 and nearly $200,000 in jewelry — including a gold bracelet with the name "Paulie" spelled in diamonds — in a safe hidden in his home's crawlspace, court records show.
While free on bond awaiting trial, Carparelli was accused of threatening the life of a witness against him outside a Chicago-area Wal-Mart, pulling up alongside an employee of the witness and saying, "Tell him he is a (expletive) rat. Tell him he knows what happens to rats," prosecutors said.
Even after Carparelli was jailed for the stunt, he continued to make threats from the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal jail, prosecutors said. In intercepted emails and prison calls, Carparelli allegedly called his business partner a "fink" after he stopped returning calls and accused him of cooperating with the government, prosecutors said. He also claimed the man owed him money.
"Doesn't matter if I get six months or six years, when I'm done were gonna have a talk," Carparelli wrote in all capital letters in an email to the man. "So put your big boy pants on and get ready."
"The 1,500 means nothing," Carparelli wrote. "It's the point that matters!!!!!! ... See you when I get out!!!!!! Partner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
In their court filing asking for probation, Carparelli's attorneys said he is the sole caretaker for his son, who suffers from Tourette syndrome. They also pointed to his work as a firefighter and that his felony extortion conviction prevents him from ever holding a civil service position again.
If the issue comes up in court on Wednesday, prosecutors could play the recording in which Carparelli talks about his firefighting experience, ripping everything from the "ex-military, straight-A guys" who worked with him at the station to the long 24-hour shifts.
He also complained about frequent medical calls to a local nursing home and recalled one early-morning trip there when a resident told him she had been having chest pains since 6:30 or 7 that night.
"I looked at her, I said, 'Lady, it's 2 in the morning. You wait until 2 in the morning and call us. Why didn't you call us at 7? You woke everybody up,'" he said. "She looked at me and got hot."
Thanks to Jason Meisner.
In 2012, Carparelli, a reputed debt collector for the mob's Cicero faction, was caught on undercover federal recordings talking about his unsuccessful stint as a firefighter in sleepy west suburban Bloomingdale in the 1990s.
Among his gripes about the job: running into burning buildings for low pay, being forced to do menial tasks like washing firetrucks instead of his beloved Cadillac, and, heaven forbid, going on a late-night call to the nearby nursing home, where "them old (expletive) (expletive)ers are always croakin.'"
"It just wasn't the job for me, you know. You gotta help them (expletive) people," Carparelli told his top muscle guy, George Brown, in a profanity-laced tirade, according to a transcript in court records. "You gotta be a certain kind of person for that. George, I guess you gotta like people. My problem is I hate everybody."
Carparelli's day of reckoning comes Wednesday when he faces sentencing at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse for a series of extortion attempts involving deadbeat businessmen. Federal prosecutors are seeking about 11 years in prison.
At the center of the case are hundreds of hours of conversations between Carparelli and Brown, a 300-pound union bodyguard and mixed martial arts fighter who was secretly cooperating with the FBI. The recordings paint a colorful picture of Carparelli as a callous mid-level mob operative looking to make a name for himself after convictions had sent several Outfit bosses — including Cicero crew leader Mike "The Large Guy" Sarno — to prison.
"This position doesn't happen all the time, George," Carparelli told Brown in a recorded call from 2011. "This is like a once in a lifetime (expletive) thing, if this is what you want to do, if this is the way you want to live your life."
Carparelli's lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman for as little as probation, saying in a recent court filing that the former pizzeria owner was "nothing but a blowhard" whose constant exaggerations of his mob ties "caused the government to believe he was a connected guy."
"Mr. Carparelli is clearly a 'wanna-be' who has watched 'The Sopranos' and 'Goodfellas' too many times," attorneys Ed Wanderling and Charles Nesbit wrote. He was simply playing a "role," they argued.
If it was just a role, it was one Carparelli, now 47, played to the hilt. Carparelli was caught on surveillance arranging for the beating of suburban car dealership owner R.J. Serpico — he wanted both his legs broken — for failing to pay back a $300,000 loan from Michael "Mickey" Davis. Davis was a longtime partner of reputed mob lieutenant Salvatore "Solly D" DeLaurentis and had Outfit connections that purportedly went all the way to acting boss John DiFronzo, according to testimony at Davis' recent trial.
"We definitely can't (expletive) around with these guys or we're gonna have a big (expletive) headache," Carparelli told Brown in one call that was played at Davis' trial.
Carparelli also played a behind-the-scenes role in a plot to confront a business owner in Appleton, Wis., about a $100,000 debt. In a backroom at a Fuddruckers restaurant, Brown and two other mob toughs threatened the owner, who had offered to hand over a special-edition Ford Mustang as partial payment.
Asked where the car could be found, the victim was "shaking and stuttering" so badly that one of the enforcers grabbed his driver's license and wrote the address down himself, prosecutors said. At a 2014 trial in Chicago, the victim had trouble reading the complaint he had filed with police, telling jurors he was still shaking when he filled it out and that his handwriting was almost illegible.
Carparelli's undercover conversations with Brown certainly seem ripped from the pages of a low-grade gangster script. In call after call, the two talked as casually as office cubicle mates about the depleted state of the mob, the difficult logistics of certain contract beatings and the pain they intended to inflict on those behind in payments.
In one phone call from February 2013, Carparelli was recorded telling Brown to go to the home of a victim to collect a $66,000 juice loan debt with a ridiculously high interest rate, according to Carparelli's plea agreement.
"(Expletive) ring the bell and crack that guy," Carparelli was quoted as telling Brown. "Don't even say nothing to him. ... Go over there, give him a (expletive) crack, and we'll get in contact with him."
And when Brown and Carparelli had a falling out — purportedly over Brown's inability to get certain beatings done on time — Carparelli patched things up by reciting a sort of mob creed.
"As long as you don't steal from me, (expletive) my wife or rat on me, you're my friend 1,000 percent," he was quoted as telling Brown in a transcript of the call. "The thing is, when we say we're gonna do something, we have to get it done 'cause we look like (expletive) idiots. And I'm not in a position to look like an idiot. Because there is a lot of (expletive) goin' on now."
Prosecutors alleged Carparelli's allegiance to the Outfit began at a young age. As a teen, he joined the 12th Street Players, a Cicero-based gang founded in the late 1960s and credited with being the first street gang in the west suburbs, where Carparelli grew up, records show.
He racked up numerous violent arrests in his teens and 20s for bar fights, street beatings and several incidents in which he allegedly pulled a gun during an altercation, according to court records. In 1995, Carparelli was arrested at a Chicago Blackhawks game after he allegedly punched a man in the face "without warning" during a conversation, records show.
After his brief employment as a firefighter, Carparelli went to work for a company owned by Bridgeport trucking boss Michael Tadin — a longtime friend of former Mayor Richard M. Daley — whose firm Marina Cartage was once the target of an Outfit-related bombing, records show.
At the same time, Carparelli was establishing himself as a cocaine dealer, a lucrative moneymaker for him for more than 20 years, according to prosecutors.
When Carparelli was arrested in July 2013 as he pulled into his driveway with his son in the car, agents found "distribution amounts of cocaine" on him, prosecutors said. The FBI also recovered two guns, $170,500 and nearly $200,000 in jewelry — including a gold bracelet with the name "Paulie" spelled in diamonds — in a safe hidden in his home's crawlspace, court records show.
While free on bond awaiting trial, Carparelli was accused of threatening the life of a witness against him outside a Chicago-area Wal-Mart, pulling up alongside an employee of the witness and saying, "Tell him he is a (expletive) rat. Tell him he knows what happens to rats," prosecutors said.
Even after Carparelli was jailed for the stunt, he continued to make threats from the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal jail, prosecutors said. In intercepted emails and prison calls, Carparelli allegedly called his business partner a "fink" after he stopped returning calls and accused him of cooperating with the government, prosecutors said. He also claimed the man owed him money.
"Doesn't matter if I get six months or six years, when I'm done were gonna have a talk," Carparelli wrote in all capital letters in an email to the man. "So put your big boy pants on and get ready."
"The 1,500 means nothing," Carparelli wrote. "It's the point that matters!!!!!! ... See you when I get out!!!!!! Partner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
In their court filing asking for probation, Carparelli's attorneys said he is the sole caretaker for his son, who suffers from Tourette syndrome. They also pointed to his work as a firefighter and that his felony extortion conviction prevents him from ever holding a civil service position again.
If the issue comes up in court on Wednesday, prosecutors could play the recording in which Carparelli talks about his firefighting experience, ripping everything from the "ex-military, straight-A guys" who worked with him at the station to the long 24-hour shifts.
He also complained about frequent medical calls to a local nursing home and recalled one early-morning trip there when a resident told him she had been having chest pains since 6:30 or 7 that night.
"I looked at her, I said, 'Lady, it's 2 in the morning. You wait until 2 in the morning and call us. Why didn't you call us at 7? You woke everybody up,'" he said. "She looked at me and got hot."
Thanks to Jason Meisner.
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