The presidents of El Salvador, Salvador Sanchez Cerén; Guatemala, Jimmy Morales; and Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez; and the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, met at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C. on September 23, 2016 to follow up on progress in addressing regional migration, security, governance, and economic challenges within the framework of the Northern Triangle governments’ Plan of the Alliance for Prosperity and the United States Strategy for Engagement in Central America, with the goal of reducing incentives that drive irregular migration. The leaders also participated in a dialogue with the private sector and a broader audience of stakeholders on Central America, to discuss innovative activities in the areas of infrastructure, logistics, and energy.
The governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the United States reaffirmed their commitments enshrined in the Blair House Communique on February 24, 2016. One such example has been the establishment of consultative groups in each country to provide oversight of the Plan, with participation of the public and private sectors, and of civil society. The dialogue between the leaders was based on the commitments established during the January 14, February 24, and May 3, 2016 meetings that defined specific objectives with regard to security, governance, and prosperity in the region, including efforts to promote safe, legal, and orderly migration that include public messaging campaigns to combat irregular migration and provide comprehensive assistance to returned migrants.
In their remarks, the Northern Triangle presidents highlighted the progress each government has made, and emphasized the actions undertaken at a regional level, such as the trade and customs integration process, the establishment of a Regional Plan for Combatting Organized Crime, the creation of a Tri-national Force addressing organized crime, and the integration of investigations and information systems related to gangs, with efforts coordinated by public prosecutors.
Additionally, they highlighted progress and accomplishments at the national level:
In El Salvador, in the wake of the government’s efforts to improve security, homicides have dropped approximately 50 percent since the beginning of the year. El Salvador has also aggressively targeted the financial networks of transnational criminal organizations. Operation Jaque resulted in the July arrest of 78 individuals and the seizure of real estate properties, 178 vehicles, and over 600 bank accounts. In addition, the government has established public-private dialogues on economic growth, security, and education. These discussions have helped develop specific proposals such as the Plan Safe El Salvador and the approval of reforms to promote private investment. Currently, the President is leading a dialogue on taxation with the main political parties. In the fight against corruption, the Secretariat of Transparency and Anti-Corruption presented more than 150 cases of alleged corruption in public administration to the Attorney General’s Office. The Attorney General’s Office has received support from the Executive, including additional funding to hire more assistant prosecutors.
Guatemala has significantly increased tax collection through judicial and administrative measures, and has adopted new methods to combat tax evasion and contraband. The government continues to fight corruption and strengthen the Public Prosecutor’s office. In the area of security, as a result of the strengthening and modernization of the National Civilian Police, there has been a decrease in the homicide rate, continued efforts to dismantle criminal organizations, and a record number of drug seizures. The government recently presented an urban development policy to promote job creation and improve standards of living. To strengthen coordination and alignment actions of the Plan, the government’s Consultative Body agreed to implement a pilot plan in three municipalities.
In Honduras, notable achievements include the implementation of the Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (known by its Spanish acronym MACCIH) and a sustained increase in tax revenue, projected to be 17.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2016. In addition, there has been unprecedented progress by the Special Commission for the Clean-Up and Transformation of the National Police, which has removed 40 percent of Honduran police officers and referred information on their cases to the judicial system. Honduras also continues with capacity building of the National Police and the dismantling of human trafficking and smuggling organizations, as well as ongoing efforts against extortion. The government, together with the private sector, launched the Honduras 20/20 program to strengthen the priority productive sectors of the national economy, fostering job creation for its citizens. The ongoing implementation of the Better Life program combats poverty throughout the country.
The leaders expressed their appreciation to Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank, for his support to the Alliance for Prosperity Plan from its inception. They also expressed their appreciation to the Foreign Ministers of Mexico, Colombia, and Chile for their participation in the meeting.
The three presidents also recognized the efforts by the United States Congress to allocate resources for the Strategy. They also recognized Vice President Biden for his commitment to the Plan on behalf of the Obama Administration.
Finally, the four leaders agreed to the establishment of the United States-Northern Triangle High Level Dialogue that will further the efforts to promote a secure, stable, and prosperous Central America.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Monday, September 26, 2016
Hidden Power: The Strategic Logic of Organized Crime
Hidden Power: The Strategic Logic of Organized Crime.
What should we make of the outsized role organized crime plays in conflict and crisis
,
from drug wars in Mexico to human smuggling in North Africa, from the struggle in Crimea to scandals in Kabul? How can we deal with the convergence of politics and crime in so-called 'mafia states' such as Guinea-Bissau, North Korea or, as some argue, Russia?
Drawing on unpublished government documents and mafia memoirs, James Cockayne discovers the strategic logic of organized crime, hidden in a century of forgotten political--criminal collaboration in New York, Sicily and the Caribbean. He reveals states and mafias competing - and collaborating -- in a competition for governmental power. He discovers mafias influencing elections, changing constitutions, organizing domestic insurgencies and transnational terrorism, negotiating peace deals, and forming governmental joint ventures with ruling groups. And he sees mafias working with the US government to spy on American citizens, catch Nazis, try to assassinate Fidel Castro, invade and govern Sicily, and playing unappreciated roles in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
What should we make of the outsized role organized crime plays in conflict and crisis
,
from drug wars in Mexico to human smuggling in North Africa, from the struggle in Crimea to scandals in Kabul? How can we deal with the convergence of politics and crime in so-called 'mafia states' such as Guinea-Bissau, North Korea or, as some argue, Russia?
Drawing on unpublished government documents and mafia memoirs, James Cockayne discovers the strategic logic of organized crime, hidden in a century of forgotten political--criminal collaboration in New York, Sicily and the Caribbean. He reveals states and mafias competing - and collaborating -- in a competition for governmental power. He discovers mafias influencing elections, changing constitutions, organizing domestic insurgencies and transnational terrorism, negotiating peace deals, and forming governmental joint ventures with ruling groups. And he sees mafias working with the US government to spy on American citizens, catch Nazis, try to assassinate Fidel Castro, invade and govern Sicily, and playing unappreciated roles in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Friday, September 23, 2016
Police Corruption and Cover-ups Surround "The Brotherhood - The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia"
In 1994, an underboss of the Lucchese crime family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, flipped. He was in federal custody, facing numerous murder and racketeering counts, when he informed FBI agents that, in return for a "pad" of $4,000 a month, two New York City Police Department detectives had regularly slipped him confidential information from police and FBI organized-crime files: names and addresses of confidential informants (who were then knocked off), tipoffs on raids and phone taps, and advance warnings of arrests.
For almost a decade, Casso said that the two detectives, Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito
, conducted secret investigations for the Lucchese family. Eventually, Casso claimed, he hired the detectives as hit men. They used their badges to put unsuspecting gangland targets at ease, killed them and collected payoffs of up to $100,000.
What makes "Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia" even more alarming is the criminal negligence of law-enforcement officials, who showed little interest in bringing Caracappa and Eppolito to justice. "The Brotherhoods" chronicles years of egregious police corruption and the stupefying bureaucratic indifference that allowed it to flourish. It was not until 11 years after Casso first fingered the two cops that they were finally arrested.
After receiving life sentences, the two had their convictions thrown out by a judge who ruled that the statute of limitations had expired. At the time of their arrest, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent said, "It's been a long time coming." Well, it's still not over. The book closes with the government's appeal of the ruling.
Investigative journalist Guy Lawson teamed up for this book with William Oldham, a retired NYPD detective who spearheaded the police corruption investigation as an investigator for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn. Oldham brings an insider's insight and analysis to this absorbing book, which serves as a cautionary tale to all police departments. Because the NYPD brass did not assiduously follow up on the signs of corruption, the job of every cop in the department became more difficult.
Eppolito and Caracappa were longtime best friends and former partners as young detectives in south Brooklyn. Thin, quiet and with a preference for dark suits, Caracappa was called "the Prince of Darkness" by other detectives. He was also one of the department's top detectives, a go-to guy in the elite Major Case Squad, which investigated high-profile, difficult cases. Caracappa had "written the book on organized crime murders in New York," the authors explain. "If a wise guy was killed in Queens or the Bronx and the homicide detective who caught the case wanted to know how his victim fit in the Mafia, he would look in Caracappa's book for connections."
Eppolito, on the other hand, was "fat, loud, foul-mouthed ... with a thick mustache and a taste for gold chains. ... He was a conspicuous cop - he dressed like a wise guy." He also wrote a memoir called "Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob." Given his family's connections with organized crime, it is remarkable that NYPD screeners let Eppolito onto the force. His grandfather - "Diamond Louie" - and his father - "Fat the Gangster" - were members of the Gambino crime family.
Eppolito served as his father's bagman when he was a boy, handing cash to local cops so they wouldn't break up Fat the Gangster's dice and poker games. At his father's funeral - where the FBI took surveillance photos of the numerous organized-crime figures in attendance - Eppolito was slipped notes by wise guys.
After killing time at a no-work job set up by a Gambino relative, Eppolito decided to join the NYPD. To Eppolito's way of thinking, he was simply exchanging one brotherhood for another.
Eppolito retired before his memoir was published; Caracappa didn't. He was still on the force, and in the author's note for "Mafia Cop," Eppolito calls him "my closest and dearest friend." When Oldham came across a copy of Eppolito's memoir in the early 1990s, he was assigned to the Major Case Squad along with Caracappa. Oldham was stunned that Caracappa, who had access to the department's most sensitive intelligence, would be best friends with a dubious character like Eppolito. That was Oldham's first clue that the Mafia might have made inroads into the NYPD.
When Casso told federal authorities about Caracappa and Eppolito's criminality, Oldham assumed investigations would be launched. When the detectives later retired to Las Vegas and bought homes in a luxury development across the street from each other, Oldham was outraged. The crooked cops had skated. Oldham decided to investigate the case himself - first as an NYPD detective and later from the U.S. attorney's office.
In 2004, Oldham's situation improved, as the book relates: "Finally ... a small group of detectives and investigators came together to work on the investigation. Oldham called them 'the cadre.' ... They were all determined to see that justice was done. All of the voluminous information Oldham had gathered over the years was examined anew. More evidence was uncovered. Compelling connections between 'the cops' and long-forgotten murders were unearthed. Even with the accumulated facts, Oldham knew the case needed someone inside the conspiracy ... to take the disparate strands of the case and pull them together. He needed a storyteller."
Oldham found him in "Downtown" Burt Kaplan, a colorful Jewish gangster who was one of the most notorious dealers in stolen goods in New York. It was Kaplan who first made contact with the two detectives; it was Kaplan who set them up with organized-crime figures, and it was Kaplan who ultimately turned on them and testified in court.
Of course, it shouldn't have taken until 2005 to convict Caracappa and Eppolito. Shortly after teaming up in the 1970s, they accumulated numerous Internal Affairs complaints, including cash stolen from arrestees and money missing from a homicide scene. When the nephew of crime boss Carlo Gambino was busted for attempting to set up a major heroin deal with an FBI undercover agent, agents searching the house discovered a confidential NYPD Intelligence Divisions file. The FBI ran the documents for fingerprints, and they matched Eppolito's.
"Eppolito had a long, contorted explanation for how his fingerprints had magically appeared on a police department intelligence document found in a Gambino's house," Oldham recalled. "I wasn't buying it."
After the two cops retired, Oldham continued to try and bring them down. He told his NYPD supervisor about the trail he'd followed and the evidence he had collected. "He didn't want to hear about it. He said the words slowly, carefully enunciating them. 'I do not want to hear about that case ever again. Understand?'" Oldham recalled. "Catching Caracappa and Eppolito would ... hurt the whole department. Certain people think cops go bad every day. This would just confirm it."
"The Brotherhoods" is the anti-"Sopranos." Instead of yarns about colorful mobsters who believe in family, honor and omert ... , the book provides a glimpse of the New Millennium Mafia: arrested mobsters who start singing as soon as the cuffs are on, and crime bosses who let the families of loyal soldiers doing time live in penury. The book is long and dense, and it would have benefited from the perspective and insight of other detectives in "the cadre." On the other hand, readers will find this an important and well-told story.
Thanks to Miles Corwin
For almost a decade, Casso said that the two detectives, Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito
, conducted secret investigations for the Lucchese family. Eventually, Casso claimed, he hired the detectives as hit men. They used their badges to put unsuspecting gangland targets at ease, killed them and collected payoffs of up to $100,000.What makes "Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia" even more alarming is the criminal negligence of law-enforcement officials, who showed little interest in bringing Caracappa and Eppolito to justice. "The Brotherhoods" chronicles years of egregious police corruption and the stupefying bureaucratic indifference that allowed it to flourish. It was not until 11 years after Casso first fingered the two cops that they were finally arrested.
After receiving life sentences, the two had their convictions thrown out by a judge who ruled that the statute of limitations had expired. At the time of their arrest, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent said, "It's been a long time coming." Well, it's still not over. The book closes with the government's appeal of the ruling.
Investigative journalist Guy Lawson teamed up for this book with William Oldham, a retired NYPD detective who spearheaded the police corruption investigation as an investigator for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn. Oldham brings an insider's insight and analysis to this absorbing book, which serves as a cautionary tale to all police departments. Because the NYPD brass did not assiduously follow up on the signs of corruption, the job of every cop in the department became more difficult.
Eppolito and Caracappa were longtime best friends and former partners as young detectives in south Brooklyn. Thin, quiet and with a preference for dark suits, Caracappa was called "the Prince of Darkness" by other detectives. He was also one of the department's top detectives, a go-to guy in the elite Major Case Squad, which investigated high-profile, difficult cases. Caracappa had "written the book on organized crime murders in New York," the authors explain. "If a wise guy was killed in Queens or the Bronx and the homicide detective who caught the case wanted to know how his victim fit in the Mafia, he would look in Caracappa's book for connections."
Eppolito, on the other hand, was "fat, loud, foul-mouthed ... with a thick mustache and a taste for gold chains. ... He was a conspicuous cop - he dressed like a wise guy." He also wrote a memoir called "Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob." Given his family's connections with organized crime, it is remarkable that NYPD screeners let Eppolito onto the force. His grandfather - "Diamond Louie" - and his father - "Fat the Gangster" - were members of the Gambino crime family.
Eppolito served as his father's bagman when he was a boy, handing cash to local cops so they wouldn't break up Fat the Gangster's dice and poker games. At his father's funeral - where the FBI took surveillance photos of the numerous organized-crime figures in attendance - Eppolito was slipped notes by wise guys.
After killing time at a no-work job set up by a Gambino relative, Eppolito decided to join the NYPD. To Eppolito's way of thinking, he was simply exchanging one brotherhood for another.
Eppolito retired before his memoir was published; Caracappa didn't. He was still on the force, and in the author's note for "Mafia Cop," Eppolito calls him "my closest and dearest friend." When Oldham came across a copy of Eppolito's memoir in the early 1990s, he was assigned to the Major Case Squad along with Caracappa. Oldham was stunned that Caracappa, who had access to the department's most sensitive intelligence, would be best friends with a dubious character like Eppolito. That was Oldham's first clue that the Mafia might have made inroads into the NYPD.
When Casso told federal authorities about Caracappa and Eppolito's criminality, Oldham assumed investigations would be launched. When the detectives later retired to Las Vegas and bought homes in a luxury development across the street from each other, Oldham was outraged. The crooked cops had skated. Oldham decided to investigate the case himself - first as an NYPD detective and later from the U.S. attorney's office.
In 2004, Oldham's situation improved, as the book relates: "Finally ... a small group of detectives and investigators came together to work on the investigation. Oldham called them 'the cadre.' ... They were all determined to see that justice was done. All of the voluminous information Oldham had gathered over the years was examined anew. More evidence was uncovered. Compelling connections between 'the cops' and long-forgotten murders were unearthed. Even with the accumulated facts, Oldham knew the case needed someone inside the conspiracy ... to take the disparate strands of the case and pull them together. He needed a storyteller."
Oldham found him in "Downtown" Burt Kaplan, a colorful Jewish gangster who was one of the most notorious dealers in stolen goods in New York. It was Kaplan who first made contact with the two detectives; it was Kaplan who set them up with organized-crime figures, and it was Kaplan who ultimately turned on them and testified in court.
Of course, it shouldn't have taken until 2005 to convict Caracappa and Eppolito. Shortly after teaming up in the 1970s, they accumulated numerous Internal Affairs complaints, including cash stolen from arrestees and money missing from a homicide scene. When the nephew of crime boss Carlo Gambino was busted for attempting to set up a major heroin deal with an FBI undercover agent, agents searching the house discovered a confidential NYPD Intelligence Divisions file. The FBI ran the documents for fingerprints, and they matched Eppolito's.
"Eppolito had a long, contorted explanation for how his fingerprints had magically appeared on a police department intelligence document found in a Gambino's house," Oldham recalled. "I wasn't buying it."
After the two cops retired, Oldham continued to try and bring them down. He told his NYPD supervisor about the trail he'd followed and the evidence he had collected. "He didn't want to hear about it. He said the words slowly, carefully enunciating them. 'I do not want to hear about that case ever again. Understand?'" Oldham recalled. "Catching Caracappa and Eppolito would ... hurt the whole department. Certain people think cops go bad every day. This would just confirm it."
"The Brotherhoods" is the anti-"Sopranos." Instead of yarns about colorful mobsters who believe in family, honor and omert ... , the book provides a glimpse of the New Millennium Mafia: arrested mobsters who start singing as soon as the cuffs are on, and crime bosses who let the families of loyal soldiers doing time live in penury. The book is long and dense, and it would have benefited from the perspective and insight of other detectives in "the cadre." On the other hand, readers will find this an important and well-told story.
Thanks to Miles Corwin
Monday, September 19, 2016
Ahmad Khan Rahami Wanted by FBI for Questioning in Connection with New York Explosion
AHMAD KHAN RAHAMI
DETAILS: The FBI is asking for assistance in locating Ahmad Khan Rahami. Rahami is wanted for questioning in connection with an explosion that occur red on September 17, 2016, at approximately 8:30 p.m. in the vicinity of 135 W est 23rd Street, New York, New York. Rahami is a 28-year-old United States citizen of Afghan descent born on January 23, 1988, in Afghanistan. His last known address was in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He is about 5’ 6” tall and weighs approximately 200 pounds. Rahami has brown hair, brown eyes, and brown facial hair.
SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS: If you have any information concerning this case, please contact the FBI's Toll-Free Tipline at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225\5324), your local FBI office, or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Victoria Gotti's Long Island mansion and Her Sons Auto Parts Store Raided by Feds
Victoria Gotti
, daughter of Gambino Family crime boss John Gotti and star of reality TV show 'Growing Up Gotti,' had her home raided by federal agents Wednesday.Her sprawling mansion in Old Westbury, Long Island, was visited by IRS agents executing a search warrant obtained from Brooklyn US Attorney’s office.
At the same time, just after dawn, the Queens auto parts store run by her sons was also raided, dnainfo reported.
This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti.
The reason why Gotti's mansion - featured heavily in the show - and the parts shop, located on Liberty Avenue near Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, were raided isn't yet known.
The parts shop used to belong to Gotti's ex-husband, Carmine Agnello.But he gave it up after serving nine years in prison on racketeering charges, separating from Victoria and moving to Cleveland.
The shop is now run by their three sons, Carmine, John and Frank Gotti Agnello.
All three sons, and their mom, were featured in 'Growing Up Gotti,' which ran from 2004-2007 on A&E.As well as her TV appearances, Victoria Gotti also wrote a series of thriller novels in the 2000s.
Victoria Gotti dumped Agnello 12 years ago after he was exposed for cheating on her with his Queens secretary - and was also convicted of racketeering.
Gotti: Rise and Fall.
John Gotti shot to fame in the late 1980s when he was given the nickname 'The Teflon Don' because of his ability to beat various rap sheets.He was also known as the 'Dapper Don' because he always appeared immaculately dressed in expensive suits in public.
Gotti became head of the Gambino family - one of five families which traditionally dominated the Mob in New York - in 1985 after ordering a hit on his boss
, Paul 'Big Paul' Castellano. Castellano and his chauffeur were gunned down outside Sparks steakhouse in midtown Manhattan. Gotti apparently watched the hit go down from a car parked across the street.
Gotti was never brought to book for the Castellano murder and was acquitted of other crimes in two separate trials, both of which were surrounded by rumors of jury tampering and intimidation.
Eventually in 1992 Gotti was convicted under the new RICO laws - designed to target mafia bosses - and jailed for life without possibility of parole for racketeering and murder.
James Fox, director of the FBI in New York FBI, gloated: 'The Teflon is gone. The don is covered with Velcro, and all the charges stuck.'
Shadow of My Father.
Gotti continued to run the Gambino family from prison until his death in 2002 and was succeeded as boss by his son
, John 'Junior' Gotti, who claims to have since quit organized crime.
In August John J Gotti, 23-year-old son of Victoria's brother Peter, was charged with selling prescription drugs, including oxycodone.
And that same month it emerged that a biopic - 'The Life and Death of John Gotti' was in production, with real-life couple John Travolta and Kelly Preston as the senior Gotti and his wife.
Thanks to James Wilkinson and Chris Summers.
, daughter of Gambino Family crime boss John Gotti and star of reality TV show 'Growing Up Gotti,' had her home raided by federal agents Wednesday.Her sprawling mansion in Old Westbury, Long Island, was visited by IRS agents executing a search warrant obtained from Brooklyn US Attorney’s office.At the same time, just after dawn, the Queens auto parts store run by her sons was also raided, dnainfo reported.
This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti.
The reason why Gotti's mansion - featured heavily in the show - and the parts shop, located on Liberty Avenue near Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, were raided isn't yet known.
The parts shop used to belong to Gotti's ex-husband, Carmine Agnello.But he gave it up after serving nine years in prison on racketeering charges, separating from Victoria and moving to Cleveland.
The shop is now run by their three sons, Carmine, John and Frank Gotti Agnello.
All three sons, and their mom, were featured in 'Growing Up Gotti,' which ran from 2004-2007 on A&E.As well as her TV appearances, Victoria Gotti also wrote a series of thriller novels in the 2000s.
Victoria Gotti dumped Agnello 12 years ago after he was exposed for cheating on her with his Queens secretary - and was also convicted of racketeering.
Gotti: Rise and Fall.
John Gotti shot to fame in the late 1980s when he was given the nickname 'The Teflon Don' because of his ability to beat various rap sheets.He was also known as the 'Dapper Don' because he always appeared immaculately dressed in expensive suits in public.
Gotti became head of the Gambino family - one of five families which traditionally dominated the Mob in New York - in 1985 after ordering a hit on his boss
, Paul 'Big Paul' Castellano. Castellano and his chauffeur were gunned down outside Sparks steakhouse in midtown Manhattan. Gotti apparently watched the hit go down from a car parked across the street. Gotti was never brought to book for the Castellano murder and was acquitted of other crimes in two separate trials, both of which were surrounded by rumors of jury tampering and intimidation.
Eventually in 1992 Gotti was convicted under the new RICO laws - designed to target mafia bosses - and jailed for life without possibility of parole for racketeering and murder.
James Fox, director of the FBI in New York FBI, gloated: 'The Teflon is gone. The don is covered with Velcro, and all the charges stuck.'
Shadow of My Father.
Gotti continued to run the Gambino family from prison until his death in 2002 and was succeeded as boss by his son
, John 'Junior' Gotti, who claims to have since quit organized crime. In August John J Gotti, 23-year-old son of Victoria's brother Peter, was charged with selling prescription drugs, including oxycodone.
And that same month it emerged that a biopic - 'The Life and Death of John Gotti' was in production, with real-life couple John Travolta and Kelly Preston as the senior Gotti and his wife.
Thanks to James Wilkinson and Chris Summers.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Thursday, September 08, 2016
MS-13 Member Pleads Guilty to Violent Racketeering Conspiracy #LaMaraSalvatrucha
A Hyattsville, Maryland, man pleaded guilty to charges related to his participation in a racketeering enterprise known as La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, including participating in a murder.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein of the District of Maryland; Special Agent in Charge Andre R. Watson of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); Chief Hank Stawinski of the Prince George’s County, Maryland, Police Department; Chief Douglas Holland of the Hyattsville Police Department; and Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela D. Alsobrooks made the announcement.
Jose Rodriguez-Nunez, aka Killer, 27, pleaded yesterday before Senior U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus of the District of Maryland to conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise.
MS-13 is a national and transnational gang with branches or “cliques” operating throughout the United States, including in Prince George’s County, Montgomery County and Frederick County, Maryland. In pleading guilty, Rodriguez-Nunez admitted that he was a member of MS-13 and an associate of the MS-13 Weedons Clique.
According to his plea agreement, beginning in 2010, Rodriguez-Nunez conspired with members and associates of MS-13 to engage in crimes to further the interests of the gang, including murder, assault, robbery, extortion by threat of violence, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and witness retaliation. Specifically, Rodriguez-Nunez admitted to his role as the driver in a drive-by shooting on Dec. 5, 2012, in which another MS-13 member shot at three individuals believed to be gang rivals, killing one and wounding another. After the shooting, Rodriguez-Nunez fled the scene to avoid being identified, he admitted.
In addition to Rodriguez-Nunez, eight other defendants have pleaded guilty and three have been convicted at trial for their roles in the racketeering conspiracy.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein of the District of Maryland; Special Agent in Charge Andre R. Watson of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); Chief Hank Stawinski of the Prince George’s County, Maryland, Police Department; Chief Douglas Holland of the Hyattsville Police Department; and Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela D. Alsobrooks made the announcement.
Jose Rodriguez-Nunez, aka Killer, 27, pleaded yesterday before Senior U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus of the District of Maryland to conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise.
MS-13 is a national and transnational gang with branches or “cliques” operating throughout the United States, including in Prince George’s County, Montgomery County and Frederick County, Maryland. In pleading guilty, Rodriguez-Nunez admitted that he was a member of MS-13 and an associate of the MS-13 Weedons Clique.
According to his plea agreement, beginning in 2010, Rodriguez-Nunez conspired with members and associates of MS-13 to engage in crimes to further the interests of the gang, including murder, assault, robbery, extortion by threat of violence, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and witness retaliation. Specifically, Rodriguez-Nunez admitted to his role as the driver in a drive-by shooting on Dec. 5, 2012, in which another MS-13 member shot at three individuals believed to be gang rivals, killing one and wounding another. After the shooting, Rodriguez-Nunez fled the scene to avoid being identified, he admitted.
In addition to Rodriguez-Nunez, eight other defendants have pleaded guilty and three have been convicted at trial for their roles in the racketeering conspiracy.
Wednesday, September 07, 2016
Tony Spilotro and His Las Vegas #PokerMafia Crew
Slick Hanner recalls his past association with Tony Spilotro and the "Poker Mafia
" in his book: Thief! The Gutsy, True Story of an Ex-Con Artist.
Tuesday, September 06, 2016
Reviewing the History of @RealDonaldTrump and The Mob
As billionaire developer Donald Trump became the toast of New York in the 1980s
, he often attributed his rise to salesmanship and verve. "Deals are my art form," he wrote. But there is another aspect to his success that he doesn't often discuss. Throughout his early career, Trump routinely gave large campaign contributions to politicians who held sway over his projects and he worked with mob-controlled companies and unions to build them.
Americans have rarely contemplated a candidate quite like Trump, 69, who has become the unlikely leader among Republican Party contenders for the White House. He's a brash Queens-born scion who navigated through one of the most corrupt construction industries in the country to become a brand-name business mogul.
Much has been written about his early career, but many details have been obscured by the passage of time and overshadowed by Trump's success and celebrity.
A Washington Post review of court records, testimony by Trump and other accounts that have been out of the public eye for decades offer insights into his rise. He was never accused of illegality, and observers of the time say that working with the mob-related figures and politicos came with the territory. Trump declined repeated requests to comment.
One state examination in the late 1980s of the New York City construction industry concluded that "official corruption is part of an environment in which developers and contractors cultivate and seek favors from public officials at all levels."
Trump gave so generously to political campaigns that he sometimes lost track of the amounts, documents show. In 1985 alone, he contributed about $150,000 to local candidates, the equivalent of $330,000 today.
Officials with the New York State Organized Crime Task Force later said that Trump, while not breaking any laws, "circumvented" state limits on individual and corporate contributions "by spreading his payments among eighteen subsidiary companies."
Trump alluded to his history of political giving in August this year, at the first Republican debate, bragging that he gave money with the confidence that he would get something in return. "I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me," he said. "And that's a broken system."
As he fed the political machine, he also had to work with unions and companies known to be controlled by New York's ruling mafia families, which had infiltrated the construction industry, according to court records, federal task force reports and newspaper accounts. No serious presidential candidate has ever had his depth of business relationships with the mob-controlled entities.
The companies included S & A Concrete Co., which supplied building material to the Trump Plaza on Manhattan's east side, court records show. S & A was owned by Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno, boss of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, boss of the Gambino family. The men required that major multimillion-dollar construction projects obtain concrete through S & A at inflated prices, according to a federal indictment of Salerno and others.
Salerno eventually went to prison on federal racketeering, bid-rigging and other charges. His attorney, Roy Cohn, the former chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.), was one of the most politically connected men in Manhattan. He was also Donald Trump's friend and occasionally his attorney. Cohn was never charged over any dealings with the mob, but he was disbarred shortly before his death in 1986 for ethical and financial improprieties.
"[T]he construction industry in New York City has learned to live comfortably with pervasive corruption and racketeering," according to "Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry," a 1990 report by the New York State Organized Crime Task Force. "Perhaps those with strong moral qualms were long ago driven from the industry; it would have been difficult for them to have survived. 'One has to go along to get along.' "
James B. Jacobs, the report's principal author, told The Post that Trump and other major developers at the time "had to adapt to that environment" or do business in another city. "That's not illegal, but you might say it's not a beautiful thing," said Jacobs, a law professor at New York University. "It was a very sick system."
Trump entered the real estate business full-time in 1968, following his graduation from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked in Queens with his father, Fred Trump, who owned a development firm with apartment buildings and other holdings across the country. Donald, who had worked part-time for the firm for years, learned the business from the inside.
When he joined his father
, Donald Trump examined the books and found tens of millions of untapped equity. Trump urged his father to take on more debt and expand the business in Manhattan. "At age twenty-two the young baron's dreams had already begun to assume the dimensions of an empire," Jerome Tuccille wrote in a biography of Trump.
Donald Trump took over in 1971 and began cultivating the rich and powerful. He made regular donations to members of the city's Democratic machine. Mayors, borough presidents and other elected officials often were blunt in their requests for campaign cash and "loans," according to the commission on government integrity. Donald Trump later said that the richer he became, the more money he gave.
After a series of scandals not tied to Trump, campaign finance practices in the state came under scrutiny by the news media. In 1987, Gov. Mario Cuomo and New York Mayor Ed Koch appointed the state commission on government integrity and gave it subpoena power and a sweeping mandate to examine official corruption.
The commission created a database of state contribution records that previously had been kept haphazardly in paper files. It called on politicians and developers to explain the patterns of giving identified by the computer analysis.
Trump appeared one morning in March 1988, according to a transcript of his appearance obtained by The Post. He acknowledged that campaign contributions had been a routine part of his business for nearly two decades. He repeatedly told the commission he could not remember the details.
"In fact, in 1985 alone, your political contributions exceeded $150,000; is that correct?" Trump was asked. "I really don't know," he said. "I assume that is correct, yes."
A commission member said that Trump had made contributions through more than a dozen companies. "Why aren't these political contributions just made solely in your name?"
"Well, my attorneys basically said that this was the proper way of doing it," Trump said.
Trump told the commission that he also provided financial help to candidates in another way. In June 1985, he guaranteed a $50,000 loan for Andrew Stein, a Democrat who was running to be New York's City Council president. Six months later, Trump paid off the loan. "I was under the impression at the time it was made that I would be getting my money back," Trump told the commission. "And when were you disabused of that notion?" "When it was time to get my money back," Trump said.
Asked whether he considered such transactions as a "cost of doing business," Trump was equivocal. "I personally don't," he said. "But I can see that some people might very well feel that way, sir."
Stein told The Post he did not recall the loan, but he said developers were close to city officials at the time. "The Donald was a supporter, as well as a lot of the real estate people were," Stein said. "They have a huge interest in the city and have their needs."
Trump's donations were later cited by the organized crime task force's report as an example of the close financial relationships between developers and City Hall. "New York city real estate developers revealed how they were able to skirt the statutory proscriptions," the report said in a footnote. "Trump circumvented the State's $50,000 individual and $5,000 corporate contribution limits by spreading his payments among eighteen subsidiary companies."
Trump, then in his early 40s, said he made some donations to avoid hurting the feelings of friends, not to curry favor. "[Y]ou will have two or three friends running for the same office and they literally are all coming to you asking for help, and so it's a choice, give to nobody or give to everybody," according to his testimony at a 1988 hearing by the New York Commission on Government Integrity.
John Bienstock, the staff director of the Commission on Government Integrity at the time, recently told The Post that Trump took advantage of a loophole in the law. "They all did that," Bienstock said. "It inevitably leads to either the reality, or the perception, that approvals are being bought by political contributions."
As his ambitions expanded in the 1970s and 1980s, Trump had to contend with New York's Cosa Nostra in order to complete his projects. By the 1980s, crime families had a hand in all aspects of the contracting industry, including labor unions, government inspections, building supplies and trash carting.
"[O]rganized crime does not so much attack and subvert legitimate industry as exploit opportunities to work symbiotically with 'legitimate' industry so that 'everybody makes money,' " according to the organized crime task force report. "Organized crime and other labor racketeers have been entrenched in the building trades for decades."
In New York City, the mafia families ran what authorities called the "concrete club," a cartel of contractors that rigged bids and squelched competition from outsiders. They controlled the Cement and Concrete Workers union and used members to enforce their rules.
Nearly every major project in Manhattan during that period was built with mob involvement, according to court records and the organized crime task force report. That includes Trump Tower, the glittering 58-story skyscraper on Fifth Avenue, which was made of reinforced concrete.
"Using concrete
, however, put Donald at the mercy of a legion of concrete racketeers," according to "Trump: The Deals and the Downfall" by investigative journalist Wayne Barrett.
For three years, the project's fate rested in part with the Teamsters Local 282, the members of which delivered the concrete. Leading the union was John Cody, who "was universally acknowledged to be the most significant labor racketeer preying on the construction industry in New York," according to documents cited by the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice in 1989. Using his power to disrupt or shut down major projects, Cody extracted millions in "labor peace payoffs" from contractors, the documents said.
"Donald liked to deal with me through Roy Cohn," Cody said, according to Barrett.
Trump was subpoenaed by federal investigators in 1980 and asked to describe his relationship with Cody, who had allegedly promised to keep the project on track in exchange for an apartment in Trump Tower. Trump "emphatically denied" making such a trade, Barrett wrote.
Cody was later convicted on racketeering and tax-evasion charges.
The mob also played a role in the construction of Trump Plaza, the luxury apartment building on Manhattan's east side. The $7.8 million deal for concrete was reserved for S & A Concrete and its owners, court records show. The crime families did not advertise their role in S & A and the other contractors. But it was well known in the industry.
"They had to know about it," according to Jacobs, the lawyer who served on the organized crime task force. "Everybody knew about it."
While these building projects were underway in the early 1980s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and New York authorities carried out an unprecedented investigation of the five New York crime families. Investigators relied on informants, court-authorized wiretaps and eavesdropping gear. Over five years, they gathered hundreds of hours of conversations proving the mob's reach into the construction industry.
On Feb. 26, 1985, Salerno and 14 others were indicted on an array of criminal activity, including conspiracy, extortion and "infiltration of ostensibly legitimate businesses involved in selling ready-mix concrete in New York City," the federal indictment said. Among the projects cited was Trump Plaza. Salerno and all but one of the others received terms of 100 years in prison.
Trump also dealt with mob figures in Atlantic City, where he was pressing to go into the casino business, according to court records, gaming commission reports and news accounts. One of these figures, Kenny Shapiro, was a former scrap metal dealer in Philadelphia turned real estate developer on the Jersey Shore. Shapiro also was an associate of the Scarfo crime organization, serving as a financier of mob activities in south Jersey and Philadelphia, according to a report by New Jersey authorities.
Shapiro worked closely with Daniel Sullivan, a Teamster who also was an FBI informant, documents show. Trump's brother once described him as a "labor consultant" on Trump projects in New York.
Shapiro and Sullivan leased land to Trump for the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. They also agreed to help bankroll the campaign of a Michael Matthews, a mayoral candidate the mob considered to be friendly to its interests. Matthews was elected, but he later went to prison on extortion charges related to an FBI sting operation and a $10,000 bribe.
After questions surfaced about the mob's possible involvement in Trump's proposal
, the state gaming commission delayed approval of Trump's casino license and eventually told him to buy the land outright to avoid trouble. In commission hearings, Trump defended Shapiro and Sullivan, according to "TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald."
"I don't think there's anything wrong with these people," he said. "Most of them have been in Atlantic City for many, many years and I think they are well thought of."
Records show Trump was aware of mob involvement in Atlantic City. In confidential conversations with FBI agents who contacted him about his casino deal, Trump said "he had read in the press media and had heard from various acquaintances that Organized Crime elements were known to operate in Atlantic City," according to a copy of a an FBI memo obtained by the Smoking Gun.
Trump told the FBI that "he wanted to build a casino in Atlantic City but he did not want to tarnish his family name."
Thanks to Robert O'Harrow Jr..
, he often attributed his rise to salesmanship and verve. "Deals are my art form," he wrote. But there is another aspect to his success that he doesn't often discuss. Throughout his early career, Trump routinely gave large campaign contributions to politicians who held sway over his projects and he worked with mob-controlled companies and unions to build them.Americans have rarely contemplated a candidate quite like Trump, 69, who has become the unlikely leader among Republican Party contenders for the White House. He's a brash Queens-born scion who navigated through one of the most corrupt construction industries in the country to become a brand-name business mogul.
Much has been written about his early career, but many details have been obscured by the passage of time and overshadowed by Trump's success and celebrity.
A Washington Post review of court records, testimony by Trump and other accounts that have been out of the public eye for decades offer insights into his rise. He was never accused of illegality, and observers of the time say that working with the mob-related figures and politicos came with the territory. Trump declined repeated requests to comment.
One state examination in the late 1980s of the New York City construction industry concluded that "official corruption is part of an environment in which developers and contractors cultivate and seek favors from public officials at all levels."
Trump gave so generously to political campaigns that he sometimes lost track of the amounts, documents show. In 1985 alone, he contributed about $150,000 to local candidates, the equivalent of $330,000 today.
Officials with the New York State Organized Crime Task Force later said that Trump, while not breaking any laws, "circumvented" state limits on individual and corporate contributions "by spreading his payments among eighteen subsidiary companies."
Trump alluded to his history of political giving in August this year, at the first Republican debate, bragging that he gave money with the confidence that he would get something in return. "I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me," he said. "And that's a broken system."
As he fed the political machine, he also had to work with unions and companies known to be controlled by New York's ruling mafia families, which had infiltrated the construction industry, according to court records, federal task force reports and newspaper accounts. No serious presidential candidate has ever had his depth of business relationships with the mob-controlled entities.
The companies included S & A Concrete Co., which supplied building material to the Trump Plaza on Manhattan's east side, court records show. S & A was owned by Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno, boss of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, boss of the Gambino family. The men required that major multimillion-dollar construction projects obtain concrete through S & A at inflated prices, according to a federal indictment of Salerno and others.
Salerno eventually went to prison on federal racketeering, bid-rigging and other charges. His attorney, Roy Cohn, the former chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.), was one of the most politically connected men in Manhattan. He was also Donald Trump's friend and occasionally his attorney. Cohn was never charged over any dealings with the mob, but he was disbarred shortly before his death in 1986 for ethical and financial improprieties.
"[T]he construction industry in New York City has learned to live comfortably with pervasive corruption and racketeering," according to "Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry," a 1990 report by the New York State Organized Crime Task Force. "Perhaps those with strong moral qualms were long ago driven from the industry; it would have been difficult for them to have survived. 'One has to go along to get along.' "
James B. Jacobs, the report's principal author, told The Post that Trump and other major developers at the time "had to adapt to that environment" or do business in another city. "That's not illegal, but you might say it's not a beautiful thing," said Jacobs, a law professor at New York University. "It was a very sick system."
Trump entered the real estate business full-time in 1968, following his graduation from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked in Queens with his father, Fred Trump, who owned a development firm with apartment buildings and other holdings across the country. Donald, who had worked part-time for the firm for years, learned the business from the inside.
When he joined his father
, Donald Trump examined the books and found tens of millions of untapped equity. Trump urged his father to take on more debt and expand the business in Manhattan. "At age twenty-two the young baron's dreams had already begun to assume the dimensions of an empire," Jerome Tuccille wrote in a biography of Trump.Donald Trump took over in 1971 and began cultivating the rich and powerful. He made regular donations to members of the city's Democratic machine. Mayors, borough presidents and other elected officials often were blunt in their requests for campaign cash and "loans," according to the commission on government integrity. Donald Trump later said that the richer he became, the more money he gave.
After a series of scandals not tied to Trump, campaign finance practices in the state came under scrutiny by the news media. In 1987, Gov. Mario Cuomo and New York Mayor Ed Koch appointed the state commission on government integrity and gave it subpoena power and a sweeping mandate to examine official corruption.
The commission created a database of state contribution records that previously had been kept haphazardly in paper files. It called on politicians and developers to explain the patterns of giving identified by the computer analysis.
Trump appeared one morning in March 1988, according to a transcript of his appearance obtained by The Post. He acknowledged that campaign contributions had been a routine part of his business for nearly two decades. He repeatedly told the commission he could not remember the details.
"In fact, in 1985 alone, your political contributions exceeded $150,000; is that correct?" Trump was asked. "I really don't know," he said. "I assume that is correct, yes."
A commission member said that Trump had made contributions through more than a dozen companies. "Why aren't these political contributions just made solely in your name?"
"Well, my attorneys basically said that this was the proper way of doing it," Trump said.
Trump told the commission that he also provided financial help to candidates in another way. In June 1985, he guaranteed a $50,000 loan for Andrew Stein, a Democrat who was running to be New York's City Council president. Six months later, Trump paid off the loan. "I was under the impression at the time it was made that I would be getting my money back," Trump told the commission. "And when were you disabused of that notion?" "When it was time to get my money back," Trump said.
Asked whether he considered such transactions as a "cost of doing business," Trump was equivocal. "I personally don't," he said. "But I can see that some people might very well feel that way, sir."
Stein told The Post he did not recall the loan, but he said developers were close to city officials at the time. "The Donald was a supporter, as well as a lot of the real estate people were," Stein said. "They have a huge interest in the city and have their needs."
Trump's donations were later cited by the organized crime task force's report as an example of the close financial relationships between developers and City Hall. "New York city real estate developers revealed how they were able to skirt the statutory proscriptions," the report said in a footnote. "Trump circumvented the State's $50,000 individual and $5,000 corporate contribution limits by spreading his payments among eighteen subsidiary companies."
Trump, then in his early 40s, said he made some donations to avoid hurting the feelings of friends, not to curry favor. "[Y]ou will have two or three friends running for the same office and they literally are all coming to you asking for help, and so it's a choice, give to nobody or give to everybody," according to his testimony at a 1988 hearing by the New York Commission on Government Integrity.
John Bienstock, the staff director of the Commission on Government Integrity at the time, recently told The Post that Trump took advantage of a loophole in the law. "They all did that," Bienstock said. "It inevitably leads to either the reality, or the perception, that approvals are being bought by political contributions."
As his ambitions expanded in the 1970s and 1980s, Trump had to contend with New York's Cosa Nostra in order to complete his projects. By the 1980s, crime families had a hand in all aspects of the contracting industry, including labor unions, government inspections, building supplies and trash carting.
"[O]rganized crime does not so much attack and subvert legitimate industry as exploit opportunities to work symbiotically with 'legitimate' industry so that 'everybody makes money,' " according to the organized crime task force report. "Organized crime and other labor racketeers have been entrenched in the building trades for decades."
In New York City, the mafia families ran what authorities called the "concrete club," a cartel of contractors that rigged bids and squelched competition from outsiders. They controlled the Cement and Concrete Workers union and used members to enforce their rules.
Nearly every major project in Manhattan during that period was built with mob involvement, according to court records and the organized crime task force report. That includes Trump Tower, the glittering 58-story skyscraper on Fifth Avenue, which was made of reinforced concrete.
"Using concrete
, however, put Donald at the mercy of a legion of concrete racketeers," according to "Trump: The Deals and the Downfall" by investigative journalist Wayne Barrett.For three years, the project's fate rested in part with the Teamsters Local 282, the members of which delivered the concrete. Leading the union was John Cody, who "was universally acknowledged to be the most significant labor racketeer preying on the construction industry in New York," according to documents cited by the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice in 1989. Using his power to disrupt or shut down major projects, Cody extracted millions in "labor peace payoffs" from contractors, the documents said.
"Donald liked to deal with me through Roy Cohn," Cody said, according to Barrett.
Trump was subpoenaed by federal investigators in 1980 and asked to describe his relationship with Cody, who had allegedly promised to keep the project on track in exchange for an apartment in Trump Tower. Trump "emphatically denied" making such a trade, Barrett wrote.
Cody was later convicted on racketeering and tax-evasion charges.
The mob also played a role in the construction of Trump Plaza, the luxury apartment building on Manhattan's east side. The $7.8 million deal for concrete was reserved for S & A Concrete and its owners, court records show. The crime families did not advertise their role in S & A and the other contractors. But it was well known in the industry.
"They had to know about it," according to Jacobs, the lawyer who served on the organized crime task force. "Everybody knew about it."
While these building projects were underway in the early 1980s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and New York authorities carried out an unprecedented investigation of the five New York crime families. Investigators relied on informants, court-authorized wiretaps and eavesdropping gear. Over five years, they gathered hundreds of hours of conversations proving the mob's reach into the construction industry.
On Feb. 26, 1985, Salerno and 14 others were indicted on an array of criminal activity, including conspiracy, extortion and "infiltration of ostensibly legitimate businesses involved in selling ready-mix concrete in New York City," the federal indictment said. Among the projects cited was Trump Plaza. Salerno and all but one of the others received terms of 100 years in prison.
Trump also dealt with mob figures in Atlantic City, where he was pressing to go into the casino business, according to court records, gaming commission reports and news accounts. One of these figures, Kenny Shapiro, was a former scrap metal dealer in Philadelphia turned real estate developer on the Jersey Shore. Shapiro also was an associate of the Scarfo crime organization, serving as a financier of mob activities in south Jersey and Philadelphia, according to a report by New Jersey authorities.
Shapiro worked closely with Daniel Sullivan, a Teamster who also was an FBI informant, documents show. Trump's brother once described him as a "labor consultant" on Trump projects in New York.
Shapiro and Sullivan leased land to Trump for the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. They also agreed to help bankroll the campaign of a Michael Matthews, a mayoral candidate the mob considered to be friendly to its interests. Matthews was elected, but he later went to prison on extortion charges related to an FBI sting operation and a $10,000 bribe.
After questions surfaced about the mob's possible involvement in Trump's proposal
, the state gaming commission delayed approval of Trump's casino license and eventually told him to buy the land outright to avoid trouble. In commission hearings, Trump defended Shapiro and Sullivan, according to "TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald.""I don't think there's anything wrong with these people," he said. "Most of them have been in Atlantic City for many, many years and I think they are well thought of."
Records show Trump was aware of mob involvement in Atlantic City. In confidential conversations with FBI agents who contacted him about his casino deal, Trump said "he had read in the press media and had heard from various acquaintances that Organized Crime elements were known to operate in Atlantic City," according to a copy of a an FBI memo obtained by the Smoking Gun.
Trump told the FBI that "he wanted to build a casino in Atlantic City but he did not want to tarnish his family name."
Thanks to Robert O'Harrow Jr..
Friday, September 02, 2016
Did @RealDonaldTrump Join Investors with Reputed Mobs Ties on First Casino?
For years, Donald Trump has boasted that his casinos are free of the taint of organized crime, using this claim to distinguish his gambling ventures from competitors. But Trump's casinos turn out not to be so squeaky clean.
One of his prime Atlantic City developments, the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, relied on a partnership with two investors reputedly linked to the mob, prompting New Jersey regulators to force Trump to buy them out. And he employed a known Asian organized crime figure as a vice president at his Taj Mahal casino for five years, defending the executive against regulators’ attempts to take away his license, according to law enforcement officials.
As the famously brash developer now considers a run for the presidency, this history could complicate his efforts to project an image of a trusted power in the business world. It exposes a seamy underside to Trump's rise to fortune -- one that involved intimate links to unsavory characters.
As voters learn more about such links between Trump and reputed organized crime figures, "it will get more difficult for him," says John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University. "Under that withering examination, his past associations and troubles will all emerge and could make it tough in a Republican primary."
In his 2000 book
, “The America We Deserve,” released to coincide with an earlier prospective presidential campaign, Trump boasted:
“One thing you can say about Trump, as the holder of a casino gaming license, is that I’m 100 percent clean -- something you can’t say with certainty about our current group of presidential candidates.”
Trump has sought to lean on such claims while sometimes intimating that industry competitors are themselves tainted by mob associations -- in order to saddle them with restrictions on their casino licenses.
On Oct. 5, 1993, Trump told a Congressional panel examining the rise of Indian casinos -- then, a rapidly emerging threat to Atlantic City -- that the proprietors were vulnerable to organized crime.
It is “obvious that organized crime is rampant,” Trump told the panel, according to a transcript, drawing a direct contrast to his own operations. “At the Taj Mahal I spent more money on security and security systems than most Indians building their entire casino, and I will tell you that there is no way the Indians are going to protect themselves from the mob.”
That broadside garnered Trump a reprimand from then-House Interior Committee Chairman George Miller, a California Democrat, who complained that he had never heard more irresponsible testimony. But Trump continued, predicting that Indian casinos would spawn “the biggest crime problem in the nation’s history.”
Trump’s neglected to mention that his initial partners on his first deal in Atlantic City reputedly had their own organized crime connections: Kenneth Shapiro was identified by state and federal prosecutors as the investment banker for late Philadelphia mob boss Nicky Scarfo according to reports issued by New Jersey state commissions examining the influence of organized crime, and Danny Sullivan, a former Teamsters Union official, is described in an FBI file as having mob acquaintances. Both controlled a company that leased parcels of land to Trump for the 39-story hotel-casino.
Trump teamed up with the duo in 1980 soon after arriving in Atlantic City, according to numerous news reports and his real estate broker on the deal, Paul Longo. The developer seized on a prime piece of property and partnered with Shapiro and Sullivan, but the state’s gambling regulators were concerned enough about Shapiro and Sullivan’s mob links that they required Trump to end the partnership and buy out their shares, according to several Trump biographies.
Trump's office did not respond to requests for comment. Both Sullivan and Shapiro died in the early 1990s.
Trump later confided to a biographer that the twosome were “tough guys
,” relaying a rumor that Sullivan, a 6-foot, 5-inch bear of a man, killed Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters boss who disappeared in July 1975.
“Because I heard that rumor, I kept my guard up. I said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to be friends with this guy.’ I’ll bet you that if I didn’t hear that rumor, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now,” Trump told Timothy L. O’Brien, the author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald” and current national editor of The Huffington Post.
Trump told a different story to casino regulators who were deciding whether to grant him the lucrative gambling license. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these people,” he said about Shapiro and Sullivan during licensing hearings in 1982, according to "TrumpNation : The Art of Being The Donald." “Many of them have been in Atlantic City for many, many years and I think they are well thought of.”
Sullivan's unsavory reputation did not stop Trump from later arranging for him to be hired as a labor negotiator for the Grand Hyatt, a hotel project on Manhattan’s East Side, according to People magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Trump also introduced Sullivan to his own banker at Chase, though he declined to guarantee a loan to Sullivan, reported the L.A. Times.
Longo, the real estate broker Trump used in Atlantic City on the Trump Plaza deal, says he wasn’t aware of Shapiro or Sullivan having any mob ties, and insisted Trump didn’t have any problems at all obtaining his gaming license. “In AC, you always had to be careful who you were dealing with, but Donald did things on the level,” Longo told The Huffington Post. But Wayne Barrett’s biography, “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall,” alleges Trump considered using Shapiro as a go-between to deliver campaign contributions to Atlantic City mayor Michael Matthews, in violation of state law.
Casino executives are prohibited from contributing to Atlantic City political campaigns in New Jersey. Sullivan later claimed that he was present when Trump proposed funneling contributions through Shapiro. Trump denied the allegation in an interview with O’Brien. Matthews, who was later forced out of office and served time in prison for extortion, did not return calls from HuffPost.
Barrett also reported that Trump once met Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, front boss of the Genovese crime family, at the Manhattan townhouse of their mutual lawyer -- infamous J. Edgar Hoover sidekick Roy Cohn. The author explained that Salerno’s company supplied all the concrete used in the Trump Towers in New York.
At the time of its publication, Trump slammed Barrett's book as “boring, nonfactual and highly inaccurate.”
Barrett's book prompted New Jersey casino regulators to investigate some of its allegations, but the state never brought any charges. "If there had been a provable charge, they would have brought it,” said former casino commission chairman Steven P. Perskie.
While Trump was making his bold statements about the integrity of the Taj Mahal at the 1993 congressional hearing on Indian gaming, a reputed organized crime figure was running junkets for the hotel, bringing in well-heeled gamblers from Canada. Danny Leung, the hotel’s former vice president for foreign marketing, was identified by a 1991 Senate subcommittee on investigations as a member of the 14K Triad, a Hong Kong group linked to murder, extortion and heroin smuggling, according to the New York Daily News.
Canadian police testified at a 1995 hearing before New Jersey’s casino commission that they observed Leung working in illegal gambling dens in Toronto alongside Asian gang leaders. Leung, who denied any affiliation with organized crime, had his license renewed by the commission over the objection of the Division of Gaming Enforcement.
Back in the early 1980s, just as Trump was dipping his toes into Atlantic City real estate, the developer did express concern to the FBI that his casino ventures might expose him to the mob and “tarnish his family’s name.” He even offered to place undercover FBI agents in his casinos, according to an FBI memo uncovered by TheSmokingGun.com. When Trump asked one of the agents his “personal opinion” on whether he should build in Atlantic City, the agent replied that there were “easier ways that Trump could invest his money.”
That proved prescient: In early 2009, Trump’s casino company in Atlantic City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, just days after Trump resigned from the board.
Thanks to Marcus Baram
One of his prime Atlantic City developments, the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, relied on a partnership with two investors reputedly linked to the mob, prompting New Jersey regulators to force Trump to buy them out. And he employed a known Asian organized crime figure as a vice president at his Taj Mahal casino for five years, defending the executive against regulators’ attempts to take away his license, according to law enforcement officials.
As the famously brash developer now considers a run for the presidency, this history could complicate his efforts to project an image of a trusted power in the business world. It exposes a seamy underside to Trump's rise to fortune -- one that involved intimate links to unsavory characters.
As voters learn more about such links between Trump and reputed organized crime figures, "it will get more difficult for him," says John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University. "Under that withering examination, his past associations and troubles will all emerge and could make it tough in a Republican primary."
In his 2000 book
, “The America We Deserve,” released to coincide with an earlier prospective presidential campaign, Trump boasted:“One thing you can say about Trump, as the holder of a casino gaming license, is that I’m 100 percent clean -- something you can’t say with certainty about our current group of presidential candidates.”
Trump has sought to lean on such claims while sometimes intimating that industry competitors are themselves tainted by mob associations -- in order to saddle them with restrictions on their casino licenses.
On Oct. 5, 1993, Trump told a Congressional panel examining the rise of Indian casinos -- then, a rapidly emerging threat to Atlantic City -- that the proprietors were vulnerable to organized crime.
It is “obvious that organized crime is rampant,” Trump told the panel, according to a transcript, drawing a direct contrast to his own operations. “At the Taj Mahal I spent more money on security and security systems than most Indians building their entire casino, and I will tell you that there is no way the Indians are going to protect themselves from the mob.”
That broadside garnered Trump a reprimand from then-House Interior Committee Chairman George Miller, a California Democrat, who complained that he had never heard more irresponsible testimony. But Trump continued, predicting that Indian casinos would spawn “the biggest crime problem in the nation’s history.”
Trump’s neglected to mention that his initial partners on his first deal in Atlantic City reputedly had their own organized crime connections: Kenneth Shapiro was identified by state and federal prosecutors as the investment banker for late Philadelphia mob boss Nicky Scarfo according to reports issued by New Jersey state commissions examining the influence of organized crime, and Danny Sullivan, a former Teamsters Union official, is described in an FBI file as having mob acquaintances. Both controlled a company that leased parcels of land to Trump for the 39-story hotel-casino.
Trump teamed up with the duo in 1980 soon after arriving in Atlantic City, according to numerous news reports and his real estate broker on the deal, Paul Longo. The developer seized on a prime piece of property and partnered with Shapiro and Sullivan, but the state’s gambling regulators were concerned enough about Shapiro and Sullivan’s mob links that they required Trump to end the partnership and buy out their shares, according to several Trump biographies.
Trump's office did not respond to requests for comment. Both Sullivan and Shapiro died in the early 1990s.
Trump later confided to a biographer that the twosome were “tough guys
,” relaying a rumor that Sullivan, a 6-foot, 5-inch bear of a man, killed Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters boss who disappeared in July 1975.“Because I heard that rumor, I kept my guard up. I said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to be friends with this guy.’ I’ll bet you that if I didn’t hear that rumor, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now,” Trump told Timothy L. O’Brien, the author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald” and current national editor of The Huffington Post.
Trump told a different story to casino regulators who were deciding whether to grant him the lucrative gambling license. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these people,” he said about Shapiro and Sullivan during licensing hearings in 1982, according to "TrumpNation : The Art of Being The Donald." “Many of them have been in Atlantic City for many, many years and I think they are well thought of.”
Sullivan's unsavory reputation did not stop Trump from later arranging for him to be hired as a labor negotiator for the Grand Hyatt, a hotel project on Manhattan’s East Side, according to People magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Trump also introduced Sullivan to his own banker at Chase, though he declined to guarantee a loan to Sullivan, reported the L.A. Times.
Longo
, the real estate broker Trump used in Atlantic City on the Trump Plaza deal, says he wasn’t aware of Shapiro or Sullivan having any mob ties, and insisted Trump didn’t have any problems at all obtaining his gaming license. “In AC, you always had to be careful who you were dealing with, but Donald did things on the level,” Longo told The Huffington Post. But Wayne Barrett’s biography, “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall,” alleges Trump considered using Shapiro as a go-between to deliver campaign contributions to Atlantic City mayor Michael Matthews, in violation of state law.Casino executives are prohibited from contributing to Atlantic City political campaigns in New Jersey. Sullivan later claimed that he was present when Trump proposed funneling contributions through Shapiro. Trump denied the allegation in an interview with O’Brien. Matthews, who was later forced out of office and served time in prison for extortion, did not return calls from HuffPost.
Barrett also reported that Trump once met Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, front boss of the Genovese crime family, at the Manhattan townhouse of their mutual lawyer -- infamous J. Edgar Hoover sidekick Roy Cohn. The author explained that Salerno’s company supplied all the concrete used in the Trump Towers in New York.
At the time of its publication, Trump slammed Barrett's book as “boring, nonfactual and highly inaccurate.”
Barrett's book prompted New Jersey casino regulators to investigate some of its allegations, but the state never brought any charges. "If there had been a provable charge, they would have brought it,” said former casino commission chairman Steven P. Perskie.
While Trump was making his bold statements about the integrity of the Taj Mahal at the 1993 congressional hearing on Indian gaming, a reputed organized crime figure was running junkets for the hotel, bringing in well-heeled gamblers from Canada. Danny Leung, the hotel’s former vice president for foreign marketing, was identified by a 1991 Senate subcommittee on investigations as a member of the 14K Triad, a Hong Kong group linked to murder, extortion and heroin smuggling, according to the New York Daily News.
Canadian police testified at a 1995 hearing before New Jersey’s casino commission that they observed Leung working in illegal gambling dens in Toronto alongside Asian gang leaders. Leung, who denied any affiliation with organized crime, had his license renewed by the commission over the objection of the Division of Gaming Enforcement.
Back in the early 1980s, just as Trump was dipping his toes into Atlantic City real estate, the developer did express concern to the FBI that his casino ventures might expose him to the mob and “tarnish his family’s name.” He even offered to place undercover FBI agents in his casinos, according to an FBI memo uncovered by TheSmokingGun.com. When Trump asked one of the agents his “personal opinion” on whether he should build in Atlantic City, the agent replied that there were “easier ways that Trump could invest his money.”
That proved prescient: In early 2009, Trump’s casino company in Atlantic City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, just days after Trump resigned from the board.
Thanks to Marcus Baram
Thursday, September 01, 2016
MS-13 Gang Leaders Face New Charge of Murder
As part of an ongoing investigation into the criminal activities of leaders, members, and associates of the criminal organization “La Mara Salvatrucha,” or “MS-13,” a federal grand jury has handed down a fourth superseding indictment adding allegations that six members of MS-13 murdered a 16-year-old in July 2015.
Oscar Noe Recinos-Garcia, a/k/a “Psycho;” German Hernandez-Escobar, a/k/a “Terible;” Noe Salvador Perez-Vasquez, a/k/a “Crazy;” Jose Rene Andrade, a/k/a “Triste,” a/k/a “Inocente;” Josue Alexis De Paz, a/k/a “Gato;” and Manuel Diaz-Granados, a/k/a “Perverso,” are charged with federal racketeering conspiracy, the object of which included the murder of Jose Aguilar-Villanueva, a/k/a “Fantasma”, age 16, who was stabbed to death in O’Connell Park in Lawrence on July 5, 2015. Four of these six individuals -- Recinos-Garcia, Hernandez-Escobar, Perez-Vasquez, and Andrade -- were previously charged with racketeering conspiracy. De Paz and Diaz-Granados are newly charged. In documents previously filed with the Court, Hernandez-Escobar and Perez-Vasquez are identified as leaders of MS-13’s Everett Loco Salvatrucha (ELS) clique.
The superseding indictment alleges that on July 5, 2015, the defendants stabbed Aguilar-Villanueva to death in O’Connell Park in Lawrence. Including the murder of Aguilar-Villanueva, the fourth superseding indictment now alleges that a total of 17 members of MS-13 are responsible for six murders from October 2014 to January 2016 in Chelsea, East Boston, and Lawrence, as well as the attempted murders of at least 15 people. Two MS-13 members -- Edwin Gonzalez, a/k/a “Sangriento;” and Noe Perez-Vasquez, a/k/a “Crazy,” are named as participants in two of the RICO murders. The fourth superseding indictment re-alleges that more than fifty leaders, members, and associates of MS-13 conspired to commit murder, attempted murder, and drug trafficking. Various other defendants are also charged with drug trafficking, firearm violations, immigration offenses, and fraudulent document charges.
The charge of RICO conspiracy provides a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, or life if the violation is based on racketeering activity for which the maximum penalty includes life imprisonment; three years of supervised release; and a fine of $250,000.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Jonathan Blodgett, Essex County District Attorney; Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; Matthew Etre, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston; Colonel Richard D. McKeon, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police; Chief James X. Fitzpatrick of the Lawrence Police Department; Commissioner Thomas Turco of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections; Sheriff Frank G. Cousins, Jr. of the Essex County Sheriff Department; Sheriff Steven W. Tompkins of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department; Daniel F. Conley, Suffolk County District Attorney; Marian T. Ryan, Middlesex County District Attorney; Boston Police Commissioner William Evans; Chief Brian A. Kyes of the Chelsea Police Department; Chief Steven A. Mazzie of the Everett Police Department; Chief Kevin Coppinger of the Lynn Police Department; Chief Joseph Cafarelli of the Revere Police Department; and Chief David Fallon of the Somerville Police Department, made the announcement.
Oscar Noe Recinos-Garcia, a/k/a “Psycho;” German Hernandez-Escobar, a/k/a “Terible;” Noe Salvador Perez-Vasquez, a/k/a “Crazy;” Jose Rene Andrade, a/k/a “Triste,” a/k/a “Inocente;” Josue Alexis De Paz, a/k/a “Gato;” and Manuel Diaz-Granados, a/k/a “Perverso,” are charged with federal racketeering conspiracy, the object of which included the murder of Jose Aguilar-Villanueva, a/k/a “Fantasma”, age 16, who was stabbed to death in O’Connell Park in Lawrence on July 5, 2015. Four of these six individuals -- Recinos-Garcia, Hernandez-Escobar, Perez-Vasquez, and Andrade -- were previously charged with racketeering conspiracy. De Paz and Diaz-Granados are newly charged. In documents previously filed with the Court, Hernandez-Escobar and Perez-Vasquez are identified as leaders of MS-13’s Everett Loco Salvatrucha (ELS) clique.
The superseding indictment alleges that on July 5, 2015, the defendants stabbed Aguilar-Villanueva to death in O’Connell Park in Lawrence. Including the murder of Aguilar-Villanueva, the fourth superseding indictment now alleges that a total of 17 members of MS-13 are responsible for six murders from October 2014 to January 2016 in Chelsea, East Boston, and Lawrence, as well as the attempted murders of at least 15 people. Two MS-13 members -- Edwin Gonzalez, a/k/a “Sangriento;” and Noe Perez-Vasquez, a/k/a “Crazy,” are named as participants in two of the RICO murders. The fourth superseding indictment re-alleges that more than fifty leaders, members, and associates of MS-13 conspired to commit murder, attempted murder, and drug trafficking. Various other defendants are also charged with drug trafficking, firearm violations, immigration offenses, and fraudulent document charges.
The charge of RICO conspiracy provides a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, or life if the violation is based on racketeering activity for which the maximum penalty includes life imprisonment; three years of supervised release; and a fine of $250,000.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Jonathan Blodgett, Essex County District Attorney; Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; Matthew Etre, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston; Colonel Richard D. McKeon, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police; Chief James X. Fitzpatrick of the Lawrence Police Department; Commissioner Thomas Turco of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections; Sheriff Frank G. Cousins, Jr. of the Essex County Sheriff Department; Sheriff Steven W. Tompkins of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department; Daniel F. Conley, Suffolk County District Attorney; Marian T. Ryan, Middlesex County District Attorney; Boston Police Commissioner William Evans; Chief Brian A. Kyes of the Chelsea Police Department; Chief Steven A. Mazzie of the Everett Police Department; Chief Kevin Coppinger of the Lynn Police Department; Chief Joseph Cafarelli of the Revere Police Department; and Chief David Fallon of the Somerville Police Department, made the announcement.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
#SouthSideCartel Gangster Pleads Guilty to Racketeering, Carjacking, Robbery and Drug Charges
A Newark, New Jersey, man pleaded guilty to his role in a violent and long-running racketeering conspiracy perpetuated by the “South Side Cartel,” a set of the Bloods street gang based in Newark, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman of the District of New Jersey.
Malik Lowery, aka Leek, 35, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in the District of New Jersey to multiple counts of a second superseding indictment charging him with racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, carjacking, robbery affecting interstate commerce and conspiracy to distribute, and to possess with intent to distribute, one kilogram or more of heroin and 280 grams or more of crack cocaine. Lowery is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 6, 2016.
In pleading guilty to the racketeering charges, Lowery admitted that he was involved in the murder of a South Side Cartel member on Oct. 20, 2007; committing an armed carjacking with fellow South Side Cartel members on Jan. 3, 2008; and robbing a drug dealer on Feb. 3, 2008, among other acts.
The South Side Cartel was once known among law enforcement and the FBI as the most violent street gang operating in Newark, committing numerous murders, shootings, robberies and other violent acts in furtherance of the enterprise. The gang is a subset of the Bloods street gang that has operated primarily from two apartment buildings, dubbed the “Twin Towers,” located on Hawthorne Avenue in Newark. Local law enforcement has made repeated narcotics and gun-related arrests at these buildings from 2002 to 2010. Many of the South Side Cartel members have tattoos depicting these buildings and the gang’s initials. At its peak, the South Side Cartel had about 20 members or associates, many of whom have since been killed in gang-related murders or are serving prison sentences for gang-related crimes.
Lowery and his co-defendants, Mark Williams, aka B.G., and Farad Roland, aka B.U., represent the last of the gang’s active members. On Aug. 10, 2016, Williams pleaded guilty to racketeering and related charges before Judge Salas. Roland is scheduled to begin trial in September 2017 on five murder charges.
Malik Lowery, aka Leek, 35, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in the District of New Jersey to multiple counts of a second superseding indictment charging him with racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, carjacking, robbery affecting interstate commerce and conspiracy to distribute, and to possess with intent to distribute, one kilogram or more of heroin and 280 grams or more of crack cocaine. Lowery is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 6, 2016.
In pleading guilty to the racketeering charges, Lowery admitted that he was involved in the murder of a South Side Cartel member on Oct. 20, 2007; committing an armed carjacking with fellow South Side Cartel members on Jan. 3, 2008; and robbing a drug dealer on Feb. 3, 2008, among other acts.
The South Side Cartel was once known among law enforcement and the FBI as the most violent street gang operating in Newark, committing numerous murders, shootings, robberies and other violent acts in furtherance of the enterprise. The gang is a subset of the Bloods street gang that has operated primarily from two apartment buildings, dubbed the “Twin Towers,” located on Hawthorne Avenue in Newark. Local law enforcement has made repeated narcotics and gun-related arrests at these buildings from 2002 to 2010. Many of the South Side Cartel members have tattoos depicting these buildings and the gang’s initials. At its peak, the South Side Cartel had about 20 members or associates, many of whom have since been killed in gang-related murders or are serving prison sentences for gang-related crimes.
Lowery and his co-defendants, Mark Williams, aka B.G., and Farad Roland, aka B.U., represent the last of the gang’s active members. On Aug. 10, 2016, Williams pleaded guilty to racketeering and related charges before Judge Salas. Roland is scheduled to begin trial in September 2017 on five murder charges.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
John Bills Sentenced to Ten Years for Corruption in Awarding of Chicago Red-Light Camera Contracts
The former assistant transportation commissioner for the city of Chicago was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for his role in a corruption scheme involving the city’s red-light camera contracts.
A jury in January convicted JOHN BILLS, 55, of Chicago, on all counts against him. The conviction included 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.
In addition to the 120-month prison sentence
, U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall also ordered restitution in the amount of $2,032,959.50.
The sentence 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.
In 2003, as an assistant transportation commissioner, Bills was a voting member of the city’s Request for Proposal (RFP) evaluation committee, which sought vendors under the city’s Digital Automated Red Light Enforcement Program. In May 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. In addition, O’Malley testified that he used some of the bonus money paid to him by Redflex to purchase and pay all expenses for a condo in Arizona that Bills used as his own. O’Malley, of Worth, pleaded guilty in December 2014 to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Kendall on Sept. 12, 2016.
After KAREN FINLEY became CEO of Redflex, O’Malley’s commissions escalated and Bills assisted Redflex in being awarded a “sole-source” contract for additional cameras. The sole source contract was rescinded when a competitor complained. As the city began the process of issuing a second RFP in 2007, Bills, in his capacity as a non-voting, advisory member of the 2007 evaluation committee, assisted in ensuring that the RFP favored Redflex. 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 Nov. 10, 2016.
A jury in January convicted JOHN BILLS, 55, of Chicago, on all counts against him. The conviction included 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.
In addition to the 120-month prison sentence
, U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall also ordered restitution in the amount of $2,032,959.50.The sentence 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.
In 2003, as an assistant transportation commissioner, Bills was a voting member of the city’s Request for Proposal (RFP) evaluation committee, which sought vendors under the city’s Digital Automated Red Light Enforcement Program. In May 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. In addition, O’Malley testified that he used some of the bonus money paid to him by Redflex to purchase and pay all expenses for a condo in Arizona that Bills used as his own. O’Malley, of Worth, pleaded guilty in December 2014 to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Kendall on Sept. 12, 2016.
After KAREN FINLEY became CEO of Redflex, O’Malley’s commissions escalated and Bills assisted Redflex in being awarded a “sole-source” contract for additional cameras. The sole source contract was rescinded when a competitor complained. As the city began the process of issuing a second RFP in 2007, Bills, in his capacity as a non-voting, advisory member of the 2007 evaluation committee, assisted in ensuring that the RFP favored Redflex. 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 Nov. 10, 2016.
Monday, August 29, 2016
Shootings and Murders in Chicago Continue to Spike
Even before the high-profile shooting death of Nykea Aldridge, NBA star Dwyane Wade's cousin, Chicago had been battling a citywide spike in violent crime. While the connection to one of the country's best-known athletes has drawn national attention to the city's problem with gun violence, the underlying problem remains all too familiar for many Chicago residents.
Following Aldridge's death, nine people were killed and nearly 50 were shot across Chicago over the weekend, ABC Chicago station WLS-TV reported. Aldridge's death took place just one day after Wade participated in an ESPN Town Hall on gun violence in the Windy City, an event also attended by Wade's mother, the pastor Jolinda Wade.
"Just sat up on a panel yesterday, The Undefeated, talking about the violence that's going on within our city of Chicago, never knowing that the next day we would be the ones that would be actually living and experiencing it," she said. "We're still going to try and help these people to transform their minds and give them a different direction, so this thing won't keep happening."
Murders have spiked by 49 percent this year compared to last year, and 81 percent over the same time period in 2014.
With more than 450 murders so far in 2015, Chicago is on pace for its highest overall murder count since at least 2012, when 504 were recorded in the entire year.
Overall shooting incidents -- at more than 2,200 and counting -- have mirrored that rise, with a 48 percent spike so far in 2016.
Police blame gangs for a disproportionate share of the city's violent crime.
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said on Saturday that about 1,400 people -- many of them gangs members -- are driving 85 percent of the city's gun violence. The two suspects in Aldridge's death are both documented gang members, police said.
Tragically, many of the shooting victims get caught in the crossfire.
Aldridge, 32, was hit by stray bullets as she pushed her newborn in a stroller after enrolling one of her children in school, WLS-TV reported.
This year's shootings have intensified with the summer heat. This July alone, Chicago saw 65 homicides — the most for that month since 2006, the Associated Press reported.
On Aug. 8, nine people were murdered in Chicago, making it the bloodiest day in 13 years, according to the Chicago Tribune. The victims that day included a 10-year-old boy shot in the back as he played on his front porch, the Tribune reported. Some 27 children younger than 13 have been shot in Chicago so far this year, according to WLS-TV.
Thanks to J.J. Gallagher.
Following Aldridge's death, nine people were killed and nearly 50 were shot across Chicago over the weekend, ABC Chicago station WLS-TV reported. Aldridge's death took place just one day after Wade participated in an ESPN Town Hall on gun violence in the Windy City, an event also attended by Wade's mother, the pastor Jolinda Wade.
"Just sat up on a panel yesterday, The Undefeated, talking about the violence that's going on within our city of Chicago, never knowing that the next day we would be the ones that would be actually living and experiencing it," she said. "We're still going to try and help these people to transform their minds and give them a different direction, so this thing won't keep happening."
Murders have spiked by 49 percent this year compared to last year, and 81 percent over the same time period in 2014.
With more than 450 murders so far in 2015, Chicago is on pace for its highest overall murder count since at least 2012, when 504 were recorded in the entire year.
Overall shooting incidents -- at more than 2,200 and counting -- have mirrored that rise, with a 48 percent spike so far in 2016.
Police blame gangs for a disproportionate share of the city's violent crime.
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said on Saturday that about 1,400 people -- many of them gangs members -- are driving 85 percent of the city's gun violence. The two suspects in Aldridge's death are both documented gang members, police said.
Tragically, many of the shooting victims get caught in the crossfire.
Aldridge, 32, was hit by stray bullets as she pushed her newborn in a stroller after enrolling one of her children in school, WLS-TV reported.
This year's shootings have intensified with the summer heat. This July alone, Chicago saw 65 homicides — the most for that month since 2006, the Associated Press reported.
On Aug. 8, nine people were murdered in Chicago, making it the bloodiest day in 13 years, according to the Chicago Tribune. The victims that day included a 10-year-old boy shot in the back as he played on his front porch, the Tribune reported. Some 27 children younger than 13 have been shot in Chicago so far this year, according to WLS-TV.
Thanks to J.J. Gallagher.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Full Track List for #Mafia3 Plus Expanded Game Score
Mafia III (Expanded Game Score)
? And The Mysterians: “Ninety-Six Tears
”
The Animals: “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place”
Aretha Franklin: “Chain of Fools,” “Respect”
Barry Maguire: “Eve of Destruction”
Beach Boys: “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Heroes and Villains,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”
Beethoven Ben: “Dance of the Hours”
Big Brother & The Holding Company: “Piece of My Heart”
Blue Cheer: “Good Times Are So Hard To Find”
Bobby Fuller Four: “I Fought The Law”
Box Tops: “The Letter”
Canned Heat: “On The Road Again”
Chambers Brothers: “I Can’t Turn You Loose”
Clarence Carter: “Slip Away”
Clifton Chenier: “Ay-Tete-Fee”
Count Five: “Psychotic Reaction”
Cream: “White Room”
Creedence Clearwater Revival: “Proud Mary,” “Fortunate Son,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Born on the Bayou”
Del Shannon: “Runaway,” “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun)”
Delta Rae: “Bottom of the River”
Dewey Edwards: “I Let A Good Thing Go By”
Diana Ross & The Supremes: “Love Child”
Dusty Springfield: “Son of a Preacher Man”
Eddie Floyd: “Knock on Wood”
Elvis: “A Little Less Conversation”
Etta James: “Don’t Go To Strangers”
Four Tops: “Reach Out, I’ll Be There”
Freddie Cannon: “Palisades Park”
Iron Butterfly: “In A Gadda Da Vida”
James Brown: “I Got You (I Feel Good)”
Jefferson Airplane: “Somebody to Love,” “White Rabbit”
John Lee Hooker: “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”
Johnny Cash: “Folsom Prison Blues (Live),” “Ring of Fire”
Jr. Walker and the All Stars: “Shotgun”
L.C. Cooke: “Take Me For What I Am”
Lightnin’ Hopkins: “Black Ghost Blues,” “Sinner’s Prayer,” “The Howling Wolf”
Lightnin’ Slim: “G.I. Blues”
Little Richard: “Long Tall Sally”
Lonnie Youngblood: “Go Go Shoes”
Martha and the Vendellas: “Nowhere to Run”
Marvin Gaye: “You”
Mercy Dee Walton: “Five Card Hand”
Misfits: “You Belong To Me”
Mourning Ritual (ft. Peter Dreimanis): “Bad Moon Rising”
Otis Redding: “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay,” “Hard To Handle”
Otis Redding & Carla Thomas: “Tramp”
Otis Spann: “Must Have Been The Devil”
Patsy Cline: “Crazy”
Paul Revere and the Raiders: “Kicks”
Ramones: “Palisades Park”
Roger Miller: “King of the Road”
Roosevelt Sykes: “Hey Big Momma”
Roy Orbison: “Running Scared”
Rufus Thomas: “Walking The Dog”
Sam and Dave: “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” “Soul Man”
Sam Cooke: “Chain Gang,” “Wonderful World,” “Bring It On Home To Me,” “Another Saturday Night,” “I’m Gonna Forget About You”
Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs: “Li’l Red Riding Hood”
Sonny Rhodes: “You Better Stop”
Status Quo: “Pictures Of Matchstick Men”
Steppenwolf: “Desperation,” “Born To Be Wild”
Supremes: You Keep Me Hangin’ On
Temptations: “I Wish It Would Rain”
The Animals: “House of the Rising Sun”
The Avengers: “Paint It Black”
The Band: “The Weight”
The Chambers Brothers: “Time Has Come Today”
The Dramatics: “Get Up and Get Down”
The Duprees: “You Belong To Me”
The Fun Sons: “Hang Ten”
The Miracles: “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me”
The Rolling Stones: “Mother’s Little Helper,” “Paint It Black,” “Sympathy For The Devil,” “Street Fighting Man,”
The Searchers: “Take Me For What I’m Worth,” “Needles & Pins”
The Shadows of Knight: “I Got My Mojo Working”
The Supremes: “Baby Love”
The Tams: “What Kind of Fool (Do You Think I Am)”
The Temptations: “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg”
The Troggs: “Wild Thing”
Three Dog Night: “One”
Vanilla Fudge: “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”
? And The Mysterians: “Ninety-Six Tears
”The Animals: “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place”
Aretha Franklin: “Chain of Fools,” “Respect”
Barry Maguire: “Eve of Destruction”
Beach Boys: “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Heroes and Villains,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”
Beethoven Ben: “Dance of the Hours”
Big Brother & The Holding Company: “Piece of My Heart”
Blue Cheer: “Good Times Are So Hard To Find”
Bobby Fuller Four: “I Fought The Law”
Box Tops: “The Letter”
Canned Heat: “On The Road Again”
Chambers Brothers: “I Can’t Turn You Loose”
Clarence Carter: “Slip Away”
Clifton Chenier: “Ay-Tete-Fee”
Count Five: “Psychotic Reaction”
Cream: “White Room”
Creedence Clearwater Revival: “Proud Mary,” “Fortunate Son,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Born on the Bayou”
Del Shannon: “Runaway,” “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun)”
Delta Rae: “Bottom of the River”
Dewey Edwards: “I Let A Good Thing Go By”
Diana Ross & The Supremes: “Love Child”
Dusty Springfield: “Son of a Preacher Man”
Eddie Floyd: “Knock on Wood”
Elvis: “A Little Less Conversation”
Etta James: “Don’t Go To Strangers”
Four Tops: “Reach Out, I’ll Be There”
Freddie Cannon: “Palisades Park”
Iron Butterfly: “In A Gadda Da Vida”
James Brown: “I Got You (I Feel Good)”
Jefferson Airplane: “Somebody to Love,” “White Rabbit”
John Lee Hooker: “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”
Johnny Cash: “Folsom Prison Blues (Live),” “Ring of Fire”
Jr. Walker and the All Stars: “Shotgun”
L.C. Cooke: “Take Me For What I Am”
Lightnin’ Hopkins: “Black Ghost Blues,” “Sinner’s Prayer,” “The Howling Wolf”
Lightnin’ Slim: “G.I. Blues”
Little Richard: “Long Tall Sally”
Lonnie Youngblood: “Go Go Shoes”
Martha and the Vendellas: “Nowhere to Run”
Marvin Gaye: “You”
Mercy Dee Walton: “Five Card Hand”
Misfits: “You Belong To Me”
Mourning Ritual (ft. Peter Dreimanis): “Bad Moon Rising”
Otis Redding: “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay,” “Hard To Handle”
Otis Redding & Carla Thomas: “Tramp”
Otis Spann: “Must Have Been The Devil”
Patsy Cline: “Crazy”
Paul Revere and the Raiders: “Kicks”
Ramones: “Palisades Park”
Roger Miller: “King of the Road”
Roosevelt Sykes: “Hey Big Momma”
Roy Orbison: “Running Scared”
Rufus Thomas: “Walking The Dog”
Sam and Dave: “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” “Soul Man”
Sam Cooke: “Chain Gang,” “Wonderful World,” “Bring It On Home To Me,” “Another Saturday Night,” “I’m Gonna Forget About You”
Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs: “Li’l Red Riding Hood”
Sonny Rhodes: “You Better Stop”
Status Quo: “Pictures Of Matchstick Men”
Steppenwolf: “Desperation,” “Born To Be Wild”
Supremes: You Keep Me Hangin’ On
Temptations: “I Wish It Would Rain”
The Animals: “House of the Rising Sun”
The Avengers: “Paint It Black”
The Band: “The Weight”
The Chambers Brothers: “Time Has Come Today”
The Dramatics: “Get Up and Get Down”
The Duprees: “You Belong To Me”
The Fun Sons: “Hang Ten”
The Miracles: “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me”
The Rolling Stones: “Mother’s Little Helper,” “Paint It Black,” “Sympathy For The Devil,” “Street Fighting Man,”
The Searchers: “Take Me For What I’m Worth,” “Needles & Pins”
The Shadows of Knight: “I Got My Mojo Working”
The Supremes: “Baby Love”
The Tams: “What Kind of Fool (Do You Think I Am)”
The Temptations: “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg”
The Troggs: “Wild Thing”
Three Dog Night: “One”
Vanilla Fudge: “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia
It was a case that took years to make
. Former NYPD Detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were accused of taking part in at least eight gangland murders in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, most while still on the job. In the end they were found guilty; but the judge threw out their convictions, saying the statute of limitations had expired, even though he believed the evidence showed overwhelmingly that the officers were guilty.
“It's sort of crazy and sensible,” explained Guy Lawson, co-author of the book “Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia” about the case. “It's like New York City, it's a paradox. It all makes sense at each stage, but when you put it all together, it seems like madness.”
It makes for a story that is better than fiction. “[It had] murder, kidnapping, and intrigue, and the mafia and hit men,” said co-author of “Brotherhoods”, William Oldham. “[It had] a guy who killed 30 people, and a “good guy” who only killed six people."
Oldham was one of a team of investigators who made the case. He and Lawson have written the first book about it, a book that begins with Oldham's story. “In 1990, I went to work with Stephen Caracappa in the major case squad,” recalled Oldham.
The allegations against Eppolito and Caracappa emerged in the mid-90s, but prosecutors did not have enough evidence to charge them. That is when Oldham started investigating the detectives. “In 1997, everyone had sort of packed up their tents and gone home, and I thought that these two deserved a trial and I began an investigation that lasted seven years,” said Oldham.
“I think the secret to why Oldham took this case is because it was so damn hard,” added Lawson. “You know, there's a certain kind of intelligence that wants to do the hardest thing.”
Oldham eventually produced the key witness, Burton Kaplan, a marijuana dealer who said he was the main contact between the officers and the Luchese family. “The thing about a RICO case, it's a number of criminal instants strung together and you sort of do need a story teller to connect the dots,” explained Oldham.
Thanks to Solana Pyne
. Former NYPD Detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were accused of taking part in at least eight gangland murders in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, most while still on the job. In the end they were found guilty; but the judge threw out their convictions, saying the statute of limitations had expired, even though he believed the evidence showed overwhelmingly that the officers were guilty.“It's sort of crazy and sensible,” explained Guy Lawson, co-author of the book “Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia” about the case. “It's like New York City, it's a paradox. It all makes sense at each stage, but when you put it all together, it seems like madness.”
It makes for a story that is better than fiction. “[It had] murder, kidnapping, and intrigue, and the mafia and hit men,” said co-author of “Brotherhoods”, William Oldham. “[It had] a guy who killed 30 people, and a “good guy” who only killed six people."
Oldham was one of a team of investigators who made the case. He and Lawson have written the first book about it, a book that begins with Oldham's story. “In 1990, I went to work with Stephen Caracappa in the major case squad,” recalled Oldham.
The allegations against Eppolito and Caracappa emerged in the mid-90s, but prosecutors did not have enough evidence to charge them. That is when Oldham started investigating the detectives. “In 1997, everyone had sort of packed up their tents and gone home, and I thought that these two deserved a trial and I began an investigation that lasted seven years,” said Oldham.
“I think the secret to why Oldham took this case is because it was so damn hard,” added Lawson. “You know, there's a certain kind of intelligence that wants to do the hardest thing.”
Oldham eventually produced the key witness, Burton Kaplan, a marijuana dealer who said he was the main contact between the officers and the Luchese family. “The thing about a RICO case, it's a number of criminal instants strung together and you sort of do need a story teller to connect the dots,” explained Oldham.
Thanks to Solana Pyne
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
The Mafia in Gomorrah, Reminiscent of The Wire and The Sopranos
A pair of Mafia lieutenants, filling a jerry can at a Naples gas station, pass the time discussing the foibles of modern youth. “She put a picture of me and her mom on ‘book,’” the older one says. “Facebook,” his younger colleague tells him. “All the kids have it.” Gangsters — they’re just like us!
That’s the opening scene of “Gomorrah,” the highly popular Italian television series that makes its American debut on SundanceTV on Wednesday. Based on a 2007 nonfiction investigative work by Roberto Saviano
, Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System, that has also been adapted into a well-known film, the series arrives with a deserved reputation for unrelenting violence — the gas in that can is quickly put to use in a vivid and unpleasant way. But brutality isn’t the whole story. “Gomorrah” operates on two planes. It’s a grim, detailed, quotidian drama about the inner workings of organized crime (which has drawn comparisons to “The Wire”) and at the same time it’s a traditional Mafia saga, a clan melodrama centering on succession and the ups and downs of the family business (which has drawn comparisons to “The Sopranos” and “The Godfather”). Either of these by itself might not be very interesting, but the combination is handled so adroitly that the show sucks you in. It doesn’t have the emotional or stylistic highs of those predecessors, but it carries you along like one of the sleek Italian motorcycles preferred by its wealthier characters.
The 12-episode first season (a second has already been shown in Europe) centers on two members of a drug gang in the Naples suburbs who are like a foster-family version of Sonny and Michael Corleone. Gennaro (Salvatore Esposito) is a Sonny-like hothead, unfit to be in charge but eventually thrust into the role because he’s the only son of the boss. Ciro (Marco D’Amore, whose quiet charisma holds your attention) is a coldly efficient killer and canny strategist — he’s the Michael, but because he’s not in the family, he has to work with Gennaro, or appear to.
The relationship of these two up-and-comers, playing out amid a large cast of other familiar Mafia-drama types (the ruthless but declining boss, the calculating mother, the good soldier, the aggrieved wife), proceeds through an arc of increasingly operatic violence, as rival clans fight for turf and one massacre begets another. The story line is dark, and so is the screen. Under the guidance of the showrunner, Stefano Sollima, the show makes a fetish of low light and shadow. Its most characteristic scenes are not chases and shootouts but small groups of nervous or celebratory men meeting in the dark. They gather on street corners, in crowded discos and in abandoned buildings that serve as drug markets, their faces obscured or invisible. Even during the day, they’re in curtained rooms or prison cells.
The cinematography and lighting fit with the show’s overall sense of desolation, a depiction of the Neapolitan environment as rubble-filled, overgrown and derelict. (Scenes set in Milan offer a pointed comparison to the less prosperous south.) Much of the action is set in faceless, towering apartment blocks that recall the settings of Italian neorealist films, though touches of lyricism creep in, like a beach scene in which a pair of horse carts passing in the background feel like early Fellini.
Mr. Sollima and his colleagues are certainly aware of the many influences to be sorted through in making a modern gangster tale. At one point a young hood, describing the botched job that got him imprisoned, says that cops and helicopters arrived “just like an American movie.” In “Gomorrah,” they’ve achieved a satisfying international blend.
Thanks to Mike Hale.
That’s the opening scene of “Gomorrah,” the highly popular Italian television series that makes its American debut on SundanceTV on Wednesday. Based on a 2007 nonfiction investigative work by Roberto Saviano
, Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System, that has also been adapted into a well-known film, the series arrives with a deserved reputation for unrelenting violence — the gas in that can is quickly put to use in a vivid and unpleasant way. But brutality isn’t the whole story. “Gomorrah” operates on two planes. It’s a grim, detailed, quotidian drama about the inner workings of organized crime (which has drawn comparisons to “The Wire”) and at the same time it’s a traditional Mafia saga, a clan melodrama centering on succession and the ups and downs of the family business (which has drawn comparisons to “The Sopranos” and “The Godfather”). Either of these by itself might not be very interesting, but the combination is handled so adroitly that the show sucks you in. It doesn’t have the emotional or stylistic highs of those predecessors, but it carries you along like one of the sleek Italian motorcycles preferred by its wealthier characters.The 12-episode first season (a second has already been shown in Europe) centers on two members of a drug gang in the Naples suburbs who are like a foster-family version of Sonny and Michael Corleone. Gennaro (Salvatore Esposito) is a Sonny-like hothead, unfit to be in charge but eventually thrust into the role because he’s the only son of the boss. Ciro (Marco D’Amore, whose quiet charisma holds your attention) is a coldly efficient killer and canny strategist — he’s the Michael, but because he’s not in the family, he has to work with Gennaro, or appear to.
The relationship of these two up-and-comers, playing out amid a large cast of other familiar Mafia-drama types (the ruthless but declining boss, the calculating mother, the good soldier, the aggrieved wife), proceeds through an arc of increasingly operatic violence, as rival clans fight for turf and one massacre begets another. The story line is dark, and so is the screen. Under the guidance of the showrunner, Stefano Sollima, the show makes a fetish of low light and shadow. Its most characteristic scenes are not chases and shootouts but small groups of nervous or celebratory men meeting in the dark. They gather on street corners, in crowded discos and in abandoned buildings that serve as drug markets, their faces obscured or invisible. Even during the day, they’re in curtained rooms or prison cells.
The cinematography and lighting fit with the show’s overall sense of desolation, a depiction of the Neapolitan environment as rubble-filled, overgrown and derelict. (Scenes set in Milan offer a pointed comparison to the less prosperous south.) Much of the action is set in faceless, towering apartment blocks that recall the settings of Italian neorealist films, though touches of lyricism creep in, like a beach scene in which a pair of horse carts passing in the background feel like early Fellini.
Mr. Sollima and his colleagues are certainly aware of the many influences to be sorted through in making a modern gangster tale. At one point a young hood, describing the botched job that got him imprisoned, says that cops and helicopters arrived “just like an American movie.” In “Gomorrah,” they’ve achieved a satisfying international blend.
Thanks to Mike Hale.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Hells Angels Biker Gang Readying a Comeback
The weekend funeral of a Hells Angel member provided valuable information for law enforcement officers monitoring the group's attempt to rebuild after being decimated by arrests, said several organized crime experts.
Kenny Bédard, 51, had only recently become a full member of the biker gang when he was killed in a road accident in New Brunswick last month.But his newcomer status didn't seem to matter to the hundreds of gang members who gathered at a church in Pointe-Saint-Charles for the funeral on Saturday.
The funeral doubled as a strategic bit of theatre, said one expert, who pointed out the gang has been in restructuring mode since a large police operation in 2009 that led to the arrests of more than 150 members.
"It was a chance for the bikers to show that they're close to each other and at the same time, a demonstration of their strength to other bikers who are their enemies," said Pierre de Champlain, a historian of organized crime in Montreal.
"It shows, 'Us bikers, we are in control of the territory in terms of the sale of drugs.'"
On Saturday, police officers could be seen taking footage of gang members gathering outside the church — a sign, said another expert, that law enforcement is readying itself for the gang's resurgence."These guys are returning," said Guy Ryan, a former organized crime investigator with Montreal police. "They will start reconquering their territory and selling drugs."
Several experts noted the Hells appeared to be no longer keeping a low profile, as they had in the years after Operation SharQc in 2009.
Sylvain Tremblay, a former provincial police officer, believes the gang was emboldened by the failure to prosecute some of the more high-profile cases that stemmed from those arrests.
Five Hells Angels picked up in 2009 on murder and conspiracy charges were released last year when a judge ruled the Crown had violated rules on sharing evidence with the defence."We could say that 2016, even the end of 2015, saw the return of the Hells Angels," Tremblay told Radio-Canada. "I think we'll be seeing them more and more in Quebec."
Thanks to CBC.
Kenny Bédard, 51, had only recently become a full member of the biker gang when he was killed in a road accident in New Brunswick last month.But his newcomer status didn't seem to matter to the hundreds of gang members who gathered at a church in Pointe-Saint-Charles for the funeral on Saturday.
The funeral doubled as a strategic bit of theatre, said one expert, who pointed out the gang has been in restructuring mode since a large police operation in 2009 that led to the arrests of more than 150 members.
"It was a chance for the bikers to show that they're close to each other and at the same time, a demonstration of their strength to other bikers who are their enemies," said Pierre de Champlain, a historian of organized crime in Montreal.
"It shows, 'Us bikers, we are in control of the territory in terms of the sale of drugs.'"
On Saturday, police officers could be seen taking footage of gang members gathering outside the church — a sign, said another expert, that law enforcement is readying itself for the gang's resurgence."These guys are returning," said Guy Ryan, a former organized crime investigator with Montreal police. "They will start reconquering their territory and selling drugs."
Several experts noted the Hells appeared to be no longer keeping a low profile, as they had in the years after Operation SharQc in 2009.
Sylvain Tremblay, a former provincial police officer, believes the gang was emboldened by the failure to prosecute some of the more high-profile cases that stemmed from those arrests.
Five Hells Angels picked up in 2009 on murder and conspiracy charges were released last year when a judge ruled the Crown had violated rules on sharing evidence with the defence."We could say that 2016, even the end of 2015, saw the return of the Hells Angels," Tremblay told Radio-Canada. "I think we'll be seeing them more and more in Quebec."
Thanks to CBC.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
No Bail for Mob Boss Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme
He left his life as a Mafia don decades ago, disappeared into the federal witness protection program, and was living quietly in Atlanta as Richard Parker, an unassuming octogenarian who loved to read and exercise.But Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme’s past caught up with him Wednesday, when he was arrested at a Connecticut hotel and escorted to a Boston courthouse in handcuffs to face a new charge for an old crime: the 1993 murder of a witness during a federal investigation.
It was deja vu for Salemme, a contemporary of James “Whitey” Bulger’s who will turn 83 this month. Arriving in court, he smiled slightly when he spotted Fred Wyshak, the veteran prosecutor who helped send him to prison twice before, seated at the prosecution table and quipped, “Hey, Fred, fancy seeing you here!”
His casual demeanor belied the severity of the charge, which allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
Salemme, who served as boss of the New England Mafia in the 1990s, is charged with the May 10, 1993, slaying of South Boston nightclub manager Steven A. DiSarro, whose remains were discovered in March by investigators acting on a tip. DiSarro was buried in a Providence lot owned by a man facing federal drug charges.
Salemme denies he killed DiSarro and “is ready to fight this case tooth and nail,” Salemme’s attorney, Steven Boozang, said after the court hearing. “This is old stuff that has been dredged up from the past, but he’ll face it head-on as he always has.”
The murder in question stretches back more than two decades, to a time when the mob in New England was being battered by federal prosecutions. DiSarro was 43 when he vanished 23 years ago and was presumed murdered.
The recent discovery of his remains let his family finally lay him to rest. “We buried him this weekend and had a small ceremony,” DiSarro’s son, Nick, said during a brief telephone interview Wednesday. “I am really glad that there is progress and they are moving forward. I’m looking forward to finding out the details.”
The magistrate judge granted a request by the prosecution to keep an FBI affidavit filed in support of Salemme’s arrest under seal.
While Salemme is charged with murdering a witness, authorities have not disclosed whether DiSarro was cooperating with authorities when he vanished, or whether investigators were planning to call him as a witness during a federal investigation that was underway in 1993 against Salemme and his son, Frank.
DiSarro had acquired The Channel, a now-defunct nightclub, between 1990 and 1991 and Salemme and his son had a hidden interest in the club, according to court filings by the government in prior cases.
The new charge against Salemme marks the first time anyone has been charged with DiSarro’s murder. However, Salemme pleaded guilty in 2008 to lying and obstruction of justice for denying any knowledge about DiSarro’s death and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Salemme also spent 15 years in prison for attempting to kill an Everett lawyer in 1968 by planting dynamite in his car. The lawyer lost a leg in the explosion.
After his release, Salemme was being groomed to take over as mob boss, igniting a war with a renegade faction. He survived after being shot by rival gangsters outside a Saugus pancake house in 1989 and was indicted on federal racketeering charges in 1995 along with others, including Bulger, gangster Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, and Rhode Island mobster Robert “Bobby” DeLuca.
In 1999, after learning that Bulger and Flemmi were longtime FBI informants, Salemme agreed to cooperate with authorities against the pair and their handler, retired FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. In exchange he served only eight years in prison and was admitted to the federal witness protection program.
In 2003, Flemmi began cooperating with authorities and claimed he walked in on the murder of DiSarro at Salemme’s estranged wife’s home in 1993, according to a US Drug Enforcement Administration report filed in federal court in Boston. He claimed that Salemme’s son, Frank, was strangling DiSarro, while Salemme, his brother John Salemme, and another man, Paul Weadick, watched.
Flemmi said Salemme was concerned about DiSarro’s friendship with a man who was cooperating in the federal investigation targeting Salemme and his son. He also told investigators that Salemme later told him DeLuca was present when they buried DiSarro.
Salemme’s son Frank died in 1995.
Salemme was kicked out of the witness protection program in 2004 when he was charged with lying about DiSarro’s killing but was allowed back into the program in 2009 after finishing his sentence.
Court filings indicated that Salemme was using the name Richard Parker while in Georgia.
He was living “a healthy lifestyle,” exercised as much as possible, and was a voracious reader, Boozang said.“He’s a guy that learned his lesson,” Boozang said. “He paid his debt to society. For 21 years he hasn’t been in trouble.”But, Nick DiSarro said, “None of that takes away the fact that he murdered someone.”
Dressed in a short-sleeved navy blue polo shirt and olive green khakis when he appeared in court Wednesday, the gray haired former Mafia don was slightly tanned and looked fit and trim. When told to rise, he took a few moments to get to his feet.
US Magistrate Judge Donald L. Cabell ordered Salemme held without bail pending the resolution of the case. The prosecutor said Salemme had a history of fleeing to avoid charges and recently fled Atlanta, where he was in the witness protection program, and was captured in Connecticut.
Salemme did not challenge the government’s request to hold him without bail. However, Boozang insisted that Salemme was not in hiding, but rather, “He was on his way back to answer any charges that might have been coming forth.”
Thanks to Shelley Murphy.
It was deja vu for Salemme, a contemporary of James “Whitey” Bulger’s who will turn 83 this month. Arriving in court, he smiled slightly when he spotted Fred Wyshak, the veteran prosecutor who helped send him to prison twice before, seated at the prosecution table and quipped, “Hey, Fred, fancy seeing you here!”
His casual demeanor belied the severity of the charge, which allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
Salemme, who served as boss of the New England Mafia in the 1990s, is charged with the May 10, 1993, slaying of South Boston nightclub manager Steven A. DiSarro, whose remains were discovered in March by investigators acting on a tip. DiSarro was buried in a Providence lot owned by a man facing federal drug charges.
Salemme denies he killed DiSarro and “is ready to fight this case tooth and nail,” Salemme’s attorney, Steven Boozang, said after the court hearing. “This is old stuff that has been dredged up from the past, but he’ll face it head-on as he always has.”
The murder in question stretches back more than two decades, to a time when the mob in New England was being battered by federal prosecutions. DiSarro was 43 when he vanished 23 years ago and was presumed murdered.
The recent discovery of his remains let his family finally lay him to rest. “We buried him this weekend and had a small ceremony,” DiSarro’s son, Nick, said during a brief telephone interview Wednesday. “I am really glad that there is progress and they are moving forward. I’m looking forward to finding out the details.”
The magistrate judge granted a request by the prosecution to keep an FBI affidavit filed in support of Salemme’s arrest under seal.
While Salemme is charged with murdering a witness, authorities have not disclosed whether DiSarro was cooperating with authorities when he vanished, or whether investigators were planning to call him as a witness during a federal investigation that was underway in 1993 against Salemme and his son, Frank.
DiSarro had acquired The Channel, a now-defunct nightclub, between 1990 and 1991 and Salemme and his son had a hidden interest in the club, according to court filings by the government in prior cases.
The new charge against Salemme marks the first time anyone has been charged with DiSarro’s murder. However, Salemme pleaded guilty in 2008 to lying and obstruction of justice for denying any knowledge about DiSarro’s death and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Salemme also spent 15 years in prison for attempting to kill an Everett lawyer in 1968 by planting dynamite in his car. The lawyer lost a leg in the explosion.
After his release, Salemme was being groomed to take over as mob boss, igniting a war with a renegade faction. He survived after being shot by rival gangsters outside a Saugus pancake house in 1989 and was indicted on federal racketeering charges in 1995 along with others, including Bulger, gangster Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, and Rhode Island mobster Robert “Bobby” DeLuca.
In 1999, after learning that Bulger and Flemmi were longtime FBI informants, Salemme agreed to cooperate with authorities against the pair and their handler, retired FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. In exchange he served only eight years in prison and was admitted to the federal witness protection program.
In 2003, Flemmi began cooperating with authorities and claimed he walked in on the murder of DiSarro at Salemme’s estranged wife’s home in 1993, according to a US Drug Enforcement Administration report filed in federal court in Boston. He claimed that Salemme’s son, Frank, was strangling DiSarro, while Salemme, his brother John Salemme, and another man, Paul Weadick, watched.
Flemmi said Salemme was concerned about DiSarro’s friendship with a man who was cooperating in the federal investigation targeting Salemme and his son. He also told investigators that Salemme later told him DeLuca was present when they buried DiSarro.
Salemme’s son Frank died in 1995.
Salemme was kicked out of the witness protection program in 2004 when he was charged with lying about DiSarro’s killing but was allowed back into the program in 2009 after finishing his sentence.
Court filings indicated that Salemme was using the name Richard Parker while in Georgia.
He was living “a healthy lifestyle,” exercised as much as possible, and was a voracious reader, Boozang said.“He’s a guy that learned his lesson,” Boozang said. “He paid his debt to society. For 21 years he hasn’t been in trouble.”But, Nick DiSarro said, “None of that takes away the fact that he murdered someone.”
Dressed in a short-sleeved navy blue polo shirt and olive green khakis when he appeared in court Wednesday, the gray haired former Mafia don was slightly tanned and looked fit and trim. When told to rise, he took a few moments to get to his feet.
US Magistrate Judge Donald L. Cabell ordered Salemme held without bail pending the resolution of the case. The prosecutor said Salemme had a history of fleeing to avoid charges and recently fled Atlanta, where he was in the witness protection program, and was captured in Connecticut.
Salemme did not challenge the government’s request to hold him without bail. However, Boozang insisted that Salemme was not in hiding, but rather, “He was on his way back to answer any charges that might have been coming forth.”
Thanks to Shelley Murphy.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Is the anti-mafia movement is in trouble?
FEW people are more respected by the majority of Italians than those who fight their country’s powerful organised crime syndicates. There are four such gangs: the eponymous Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra of Campania (the region around Naples), the Ndrangheta from Calabria (the "toe" of the Italian "boot") and the lesser-known Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia on the Adriatic coast. Members of the so-called anti-mafia include police, prosecutors and judges; campaigning local journalists; businesspeople who refuse to pay the pizzo (slang for protection money); and the members of voluntary organisations such as Libera. Founded by a priest, Don Luigi Ciotti, Libera specialises in the exploitation of land and other resources confiscated from mafia bosses, often in the face of intimidation from the jailed bosses’ associates. For the past eight months, however, several prosecutors in Italy’s southern badlands and parliament’s standing commission on organised crime have been probing the mafias’ supposed adversaries. Why?
Civil society anti-mafia groups have burgeoned since the murders in 1992 of the Sicilian Mafia’s most formidable opponents, the magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Not all such groups are as irreproachable as Libera. Some exist merely to enhance the prestige of their founders. They also offer access to public funds that can be misappropriated. In January, the head of a women’s group in Calabria was given a four-year jail sentence for spending the cash on herself. Among other things, she bought a car. A senior prosecutor in Sicily has emphasised that these are isolated cases. But the head of the parliamentary commission, Rosy Bindi, believes they are symptomatic of a movement that has lost its original purpose. The mafia has changed, becoming more business-oriented, less violent and visible: it kills less to earn more. But, says Ms Bindi, the civil society groups remain focused on the sort of trigger-happy mobsters responsible for the 1992 assassinations.
What really caused alarm, however, was the suspension last year of a judge in a uniquely responsible and influential position. Silvana Saguto presided over a court in Palermo that decides who should take over companies seized from the Sicilian Mafia. Administering the mobsters’ former businesses provides lucrative opportunities for lawyers. Ms Saguto, who denies wrongdoing, is accused of accepting bribes and favours that influenced her decisions. Other cases have raised concern. A businessman feted as a champion of legality was convicted last October of practising the mafia’s own speciality, extortion. A renowned local journalist, celebrated for his denunciations of the mobsters’ activities, faces similar allegations, while the head of the bosses’ union in Sicily is also under investigation, accused of steering contracts towards firms in the grip of the Mafia. Both men deny wrongdoing.
In the short term, the unmasking of phoney do-gooders gives cheer to organised criminals. It will no doubt deter some members of the public from donating to anti-mafia groups (many benefit from a system whereby Italians can give a small percentage of their taxes to recognised charities). And it reinforces the cynical view of the mobsters that their adversaries are no better than them. In the longer term, however, the drive to purge the anti-mafia movement of undesirable elements should help restore public confidence. Meanwhile, stricter rules have been written into a bill going through parliament to ensure that judges cannot favour their cronies when deciding who should administer the mafias’ seized assets. The bill has been approved by the lower house Chamber of Deputies and is currently in the Senate. But because of Italy’s unwieldy legislative procedures, there is no guarantee it will reach the statute book.
Thanks to J.H..
Civil society anti-mafia groups have burgeoned since the murders in 1992 of the Sicilian Mafia’s most formidable opponents, the magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Not all such groups are as irreproachable as Libera. Some exist merely to enhance the prestige of their founders. They also offer access to public funds that can be misappropriated. In January, the head of a women’s group in Calabria was given a four-year jail sentence for spending the cash on herself. Among other things, she bought a car. A senior prosecutor in Sicily has emphasised that these are isolated cases. But the head of the parliamentary commission, Rosy Bindi, believes they are symptomatic of a movement that has lost its original purpose. The mafia has changed, becoming more business-oriented, less violent and visible: it kills less to earn more. But, says Ms Bindi, the civil society groups remain focused on the sort of trigger-happy mobsters responsible for the 1992 assassinations.
What really caused alarm, however, was the suspension last year of a judge in a uniquely responsible and influential position. Silvana Saguto presided over a court in Palermo that decides who should take over companies seized from the Sicilian Mafia. Administering the mobsters’ former businesses provides lucrative opportunities for lawyers. Ms Saguto, who denies wrongdoing, is accused of accepting bribes and favours that influenced her decisions. Other cases have raised concern. A businessman feted as a champion of legality was convicted last October of practising the mafia’s own speciality, extortion. A renowned local journalist, celebrated for his denunciations of the mobsters’ activities, faces similar allegations, while the head of the bosses’ union in Sicily is also under investigation, accused of steering contracts towards firms in the grip of the Mafia. Both men deny wrongdoing.
In the short term, the unmasking of phoney do-gooders gives cheer to organised criminals. It will no doubt deter some members of the public from donating to anti-mafia groups (many benefit from a system whereby Italians can give a small percentage of their taxes to recognised charities). And it reinforces the cynical view of the mobsters that their adversaries are no better than them. In the longer term, however, the drive to purge the anti-mafia movement of undesirable elements should help restore public confidence. Meanwhile, stricter rules have been written into a bill going through parliament to ensure that judges cannot favour their cronies when deciding who should administer the mafias’ seized assets. The bill has been approved by the lower house Chamber of Deputies and is currently in the Senate. But because of Italy’s unwieldy legislative procedures, there is no guarantee it will reach the statute book.
Thanks to J.H..
Chicago's Gangs Out of Control, Give City Worst Day for Homicides in Over a Decade
Michael Lucas, 61, was sitting on his front stoop in Chicago’s Burnside neighborhood, watching his 3-year-old grandnephew play in the afternoon sun, when without warning two men ran toward the house and opened fire on him.
One shot struck Lucas. As the men advanced up the sidewalk, they pushed Lucas’s grandnephew out of the way and shot Lucas three more times, family members said. The attackers fled in a red SUV, and Lucas died on the stoop from gunshot wounds to the neck and head.
Lucas was one of 19 people shot on Monday — nine of them fatally — in what the Chicago Tribune has called the city’s deadliest day in more than a decade.
Chicago has experienced a surge in violence in the past year, much of it concentrated on the city’s South Side, where Lucas lived. A staggering 2,500 people have been shot in the city since the beginning of the year, more than in any year at this point since the 1990s. There have been at least 426 homicides in 2016, far more than in New York, which has three times Chicago’s population.
Monday marked the most homicides Chicago has seen in a single day since July 5, 2003, when 10 people were killed, according to the Tribune.
The Chicago Police Department hasn’t offered an official response to the day’s violence. A spokesman for the department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.
Lucas, a father of three and grandfather of seven, was shot at about 1:20 p.m., according to police, who said he didn’t appear to be the intended target. His family members described him as a jack of all trades and a handyman who played blues guitar and liked to drink beer on his front porch.“Pops wasn’t a bad person,” Lucas’s son Carl told WGN. “He never did nothing to nobody.”
Lucas’s grandnephew wasn’t harmed in the shooting, relatives said.
Across town in Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood, a 10-year-old boy wasn’t as lucky. Fifth-grader Tavon Tanner was playing with his twin sister on the front porch of their home around 10 p.m. when someone on the street fired nine shots, with at least one round striking the boy in the back, the Tribune reported.
Tanner’s mother, Mellanie Washington, said the boy staggered through the front door, gasping for air and yelling, “I can’t breathe.” His sister held his hand and told him, “Twin don’t leave me” over and over, according to Washington.
Tanner was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where doctors removed his spleen and operated on his kidneys and other organs, leaving a bullet inside, Washington said. He remained in critical condition as of Tuesday afternoon, the Tribune reported.
Earlier in the evening in the same part of the city two other people were shot and killed.
Irell Mitchell, 22, was playing basketball in a park in North Lawndale when someone shot at him from a passing car, DNAinfo reported. He died in the hospital from gunshot wounds to the arm and back, police said.
Mitchell’s godfather, Ken Owens, said he had moved out of the neighborhood, but often came back to shoot hoops with his friends.“I know every time this happens, everyone starts saying ‘Oh, he was a good kid,’ ” Owens said. “But in this case it’s true — he really was a good kid.”
Less than two hours earlier and one mile away, John Hosey Jr., 28, was shot while he was driving, the Chicago Sun Times reported. Police said he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Other parts of the city weren’t spared the violence either. On Chicago’s Far South Side, a drive-by shooting left one man dead and two others critically injured. Police said Anthony Hatchett, 44, was standing on the sidewalk when someone opened fire out of the window of a passing blue van. Hatchett died in the hospital from a gunshot wound to the head. A 28-year-old and a 30-year-old were struck as well and taken to the hospital, where they were listed in critical condition.
And in West Town, near Chicago’s North Side, a 25-year-old father died after being shot in his car. William Villa was in his SUV stopped at a red light when another vehicle pulled up next to him and someone inside shot him in his head, killing him, according to police, who said Villa was a known gang member.
Law enforcement agencies in metropolitan areas around the country say they’ve seen upticks in homicides and other violent crimes over this point last year. More than two-dozen police departments in large U.S. cities reported that as of June 2016 homicides were up over the first half of last year — in some cases by dozens, according to a Washington Post analysis of law enforcement data.
Orlando led the pack, with a 712 percent increase over last year — a figure driven up dramatically by the Pulse nightclub mass shooting that claimed the lives of 49 clubgoers in June.
Chicago, however, saw the biggest increase in the raw number of homicides. In the first half of 2016, the city counted 316 killings, up from 211 at the same time last year. At this rate, the city could pass 600 homicides by the end of the year, more than any year since 2003, The Post reported.
News of Monday’s violence fell hard on Rev. Tim Williams, who said he knew Irell Mitchell and Tavon Tanner, two of the victims from the West Side shootings.
Williams told the Tribune that he was a mentor to Mitchell through church and had gone to visit his family in the hospital. He said he returned home to see Tanner, who lives next door to him, playing outside, kicking a gate in front of his house. Moments later, bullets hit Tanner in the back.
Williams said his mother had just come inside from choir rehearsal when the shots rang out.“I walked her to the bedroom and then pa-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta,” Williams told the Tribune. “That could have been my momma.”
Thanks to Derek Hawkins.
One shot struck Lucas. As the men advanced up the sidewalk, they pushed Lucas’s grandnephew out of the way and shot Lucas three more times, family members said. The attackers fled in a red SUV, and Lucas died on the stoop from gunshot wounds to the neck and head.
Lucas was one of 19 people shot on Monday — nine of them fatally — in what the Chicago Tribune has called the city’s deadliest day in more than a decade.
Chicago has experienced a surge in violence in the past year, much of it concentrated on the city’s South Side, where Lucas lived. A staggering 2,500 people have been shot in the city since the beginning of the year, more than in any year at this point since the 1990s. There have been at least 426 homicides in 2016, far more than in New York, which has three times Chicago’s population.
Monday marked the most homicides Chicago has seen in a single day since July 5, 2003, when 10 people were killed, according to the Tribune.
The Chicago Police Department hasn’t offered an official response to the day’s violence. A spokesman for the department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.
Lucas, a father of three and grandfather of seven, was shot at about 1:20 p.m., according to police, who said he didn’t appear to be the intended target. His family members described him as a jack of all trades and a handyman who played blues guitar and liked to drink beer on his front porch.“Pops wasn’t a bad person,” Lucas’s son Carl told WGN. “He never did nothing to nobody.”
Lucas’s grandnephew wasn’t harmed in the shooting, relatives said.
Across town in Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood, a 10-year-old boy wasn’t as lucky. Fifth-grader Tavon Tanner was playing with his twin sister on the front porch of their home around 10 p.m. when someone on the street fired nine shots, with at least one round striking the boy in the back, the Tribune reported.
Tanner’s mother, Mellanie Washington, said the boy staggered through the front door, gasping for air and yelling, “I can’t breathe.” His sister held his hand and told him, “Twin don’t leave me” over and over, according to Washington.
Tanner was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where doctors removed his spleen and operated on his kidneys and other organs, leaving a bullet inside, Washington said. He remained in critical condition as of Tuesday afternoon, the Tribune reported.
Earlier in the evening in the same part of the city two other people were shot and killed.
Irell Mitchell, 22, was playing basketball in a park in North Lawndale when someone shot at him from a passing car, DNAinfo reported. He died in the hospital from gunshot wounds to the arm and back, police said.
Mitchell’s godfather, Ken Owens, said he had moved out of the neighborhood, but often came back to shoot hoops with his friends.“I know every time this happens, everyone starts saying ‘Oh, he was a good kid,’ ” Owens said. “But in this case it’s true — he really was a good kid.”
Less than two hours earlier and one mile away, John Hosey Jr., 28, was shot while he was driving, the Chicago Sun Times reported. Police said he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Other parts of the city weren’t spared the violence either. On Chicago’s Far South Side, a drive-by shooting left one man dead and two others critically injured. Police said Anthony Hatchett, 44, was standing on the sidewalk when someone opened fire out of the window of a passing blue van. Hatchett died in the hospital from a gunshot wound to the head. A 28-year-old and a 30-year-old were struck as well and taken to the hospital, where they were listed in critical condition.
And in West Town, near Chicago’s North Side, a 25-year-old father died after being shot in his car. William Villa was in his SUV stopped at a red light when another vehicle pulled up next to him and someone inside shot him in his head, killing him, according to police, who said Villa was a known gang member.
Law enforcement agencies in metropolitan areas around the country say they’ve seen upticks in homicides and other violent crimes over this point last year. More than two-dozen police departments in large U.S. cities reported that as of June 2016 homicides were up over the first half of last year — in some cases by dozens, according to a Washington Post analysis of law enforcement data.
Orlando led the pack, with a 712 percent increase over last year — a figure driven up dramatically by the Pulse nightclub mass shooting that claimed the lives of 49 clubgoers in June.
Chicago, however, saw the biggest increase in the raw number of homicides. In the first half of 2016, the city counted 316 killings, up from 211 at the same time last year. At this rate, the city could pass 600 homicides by the end of the year, more than any year since 2003, The Post reported.
News of Monday’s violence fell hard on Rev. Tim Williams, who said he knew Irell Mitchell and Tavon Tanner, two of the victims from the West Side shootings.
Williams told the Tribune that he was a mentor to Mitchell through church and had gone to visit his family in the hospital. He said he returned home to see Tanner, who lives next door to him, playing outside, kicking a gate in front of his house. Moments later, bullets hit Tanner in the back.
Williams said his mother had just come inside from choir rehearsal when the shots rang out.“I walked her to the bedroom and then pa-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta,” Williams told the Tribune. “That could have been my momma.”
Thanks to Derek Hawkins.
Monday, August 08, 2016
Putin's Number 1 Enemy - Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
A New York Times bestseller: “[Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice] does for investing in Russia and the former Soviet Union what Liar’s Poker did for our understanding of Salomon Brothers
, Wall Street, and the mortgage-backed securities business in the 1980s. Browder’s business saga meshes well with the story of corruption and murder in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, making Red Notice an early candidate for any list of the year’s best books” (Fortune).
This is a story about an accidental activist. Bill Browder started out his adult life as the Wall Street maverick whose instincts led him to Russia just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, where he made his fortune.
Along the way he exposed corruption, and when he did, he barely escaped with his life. His Russian lawyer wasn’t so lucky: he ended up in jail, where he was tortured to death. That changed Browder forever. He saw the murderous heart of the Putin regime and has spent the last half decade on a campaign to expose it. Because of that, he became Putin’s number one enemy, especially after Browder succeeded in having a law passed in the United States that punishes a list of Russians implicated in the lawyer’s murder. Putin famously retaliated with a law that bans Americans from adopting Russian orphans.
A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice, is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world, and also the story of how, without intending to, he found meaning in his life.
, Wall Street, and the mortgage-backed securities business in the 1980s. Browder’s business saga meshes well with the story of corruption and murder in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, making Red Notice an early candidate for any list of the year’s best books” (Fortune).This is a story about an accidental activist. Bill Browder started out his adult life as the Wall Street maverick whose instincts led him to Russia just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, where he made his fortune.
Along the way he exposed corruption, and when he did, he barely escaped with his life. His Russian lawyer wasn’t so lucky: he ended up in jail, where he was tortured to death. That changed Browder forever. He saw the murderous heart of the Putin regime and has spent the last half decade on a campaign to expose it. Because of that, he became Putin’s number one enemy, especially after Browder succeeded in having a law passed in the United States that punishes a list of Russians implicated in the lawyer’s murder. Putin famously retaliated with a law that bans Americans from adopting Russian orphans.
A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice, is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world, and also the story of how, without intending to, he found meaning in his life.
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