Gangsters of Harlem

For the first time ever, author Ron Chepesiuk chronicles the little known history of organized crime in Harlem. African American organized crime has had as significant an impact on its constituent community as Italian, Jewish, and Irish organized crime has had on theirs. Gangsters are every bit as colorful, intriguing, and powerful as Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, and have a fascinating history in gambling, prostitution, and drug dealing. In this riveting, vivid documentation, Chepesiuk tells the little-known story of organized crime in Harlem through in-depth profiles of the major gangs and motley gangsters whose exploits have made them legends.

Joseph "Rudy" Olivieri, Reputed Genovese Crime Family Soldier, to Face Trial as Alleged Union Contact Person for the Mob

The mob-linked head of a powerful contractors group goes on trial Tuesday in a case expected to dramatically demonstrate organized crime's grip on the city's construction unions.

Joseph (Rudy) Olivieri is the last of nine contracting bigwigs to face judgment in a case that's seen District Council of Carpenters chief Michael Forde and seven cohorts plead guilty this year.

Authorities say Olivieri, 55, is a Genovese crime family soldier who headed the Association of Wall-Ceiling & Carpentry Industries. The group represents 160 contractors who employ thousands of workers.

The trial centers on Olivieri's group, which is a force in several unions, and his role in a plot to steal millions from the carpenters' benefit funds.

Prosecutors say he took orders from mob capo Louis Moscatiello, who ran the crime family's construction rackets in the city. Moscatiello was set to testify against Olivieri but died last year in prison while serving time for a 2004 racketeering case.

Prosecutors have massed a parade of mobsters, ex-union officials, crooked contractors and FBI agents to show how the mob infests unions, rips off their benefit funds and pockets kickbacks to let contractors use cheap, nonunion labor.

Reputed Genovese associate Joseph Rizzuto, ex-business agent of Operating Engineers Local 14, has fingered Olivieri as the mob's "contact person" in the union in the late 1990s. Rizzuto is set to tell the jury how Olivieri "threatened" him and summoned him to a meeting at a LaGuardia Airport hotel after he balked at putting Moscatiello's pick in a top union post.

Jurors also are expected to hear a 2004 recording of capo John (Buster) Ardito and several wiseguys identifying Olivieri as "a friend of Louis" with ties to longtime labor racketeer Vincent DiNapoli.

At a hearing yesterday, defense lawyer Brian Gardner tried to bar prosecutors from using sworn testimony Olivieri gave in a related civil case without warning him he was a criminal target.

Manhattan Federal Judge Victor Marrero decided Olivieri will be tried first only for perjury, one of five counts against him.

Thanks to Brian Kates

Sam Giancana's Life Could become TV Series

Legendary Chicago mobster Sam Giancana could soon get the TV series treatment. Ted Field and his Radar Pictures shingle have pacted with Dimitri Logothetis and Nicholas Celozzi to turn Giancana's life story into a drama. Radar, Logothetis and Celozzi are looking first for international financing and distribution before turning their attention to finding a U.S. partner. A deal is imminent, the trio said.

Giancana ran the Chicago mob -- known as "the Outfit" -- from the 1950s to the 1970s, when he was forced out of power and exiled to Mexico. Upon his return, Giancana became an informant for the FBI but was assassinated in his home. Giancana's murder has never been solved.

Giancana was also a widower raising three daughters. Celozzi secured Giancana's life rights from daughters Bonnie and Francine, who also happen to be Celozzi's cousins.

Logothetis and Celozzi will write and exec produce. The duo's credits include recent Lifetime telepic "The Lost Angel."

Logothetis' other credits include "Code Name Eternity," "Dark Realm" and "Stephen King's Sleepwalkers." He also directed HBO's "Body Shot." Celozzi has written indie features such as "Quiet Kill" and "A Fine Step."

Giancana story also hits home for Field, who formerly owned the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as Kaiser Broadcasting and Interscope Communications. As a producer, Field was behind "The Invention of Lying," "Jumanji," "The Last Samurai" and "Runaway Bride."

Thanks to Michael Schneider

Armenian Organized Crime Mobsters Target Medicare Scams Along with Credit Card Fraud, Identity Theft and Mortgage Fraud

Endeavor Diagnostics billed itself as a thriving medical laboratory that performed more than $1 million of work for Medicare patients.

When two FBI agents went to inspect it, they found an empty San Fernando Valley office with only a desk and a fax machine. There were no workers, no patients and no biological samples.

Behind the door of the facade were signs tying the operation to a sprawling network of phantom enterprises allegedly set up by Armenian mobsters to try to defraud Medicare of $163 million for services never provided.

Dozens of arrests around the country Wednesday highlighted a criminal demographic rarely seen, but one that officials say is rooted in California and growing in reach and sophistication.

"They are victimizing our systems, they are victimizing business, they are victimizing private citizens," said Glendale police Lt. Steve Davey, who heads up a task force tackling Eurasian crime. "Their ultimate goal is oligarchy - to see if they can infiltrate government."

Few criminal groups can match the sophistication of Armenian scammers, who developed an uncanny savvy for probing weaknesses in government systems and were hailed as heroes when they exploited their Soviet republic homeland, authorities said. They have been known for devising complex white collar schemes such as credit card fraud, identity theft and mortgage fraud.

Indictments released Wednesday in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere show how various cells, largely working on their own but often sharing techniques, set up fraudulent medical businesses using stolen physician identities. After becoming licensed Medicare providers and submitting claims, the fake office billed the government, which would pay money to fraudulent bank accounts. Many claims were bogus but sometimes criminals would provide a small service then submit an inflated bill.

In Los Angeles, for example, they would provide a scooter worth about $1,000, but profit after billing Medicare for a top-end electric wheelchair worth six times as much, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Matt McLaughlin said.

The groups have been known to recruit people with a nominal sum to become a fake patient, then bill Medicare for services supposedly rendered.

"It's great camouflage," McLaughlin said. "We have to deconstruct each element to prove a fraud."

Prosecutors also allege that conspirators paid corrupt doctors to carry out unnecessary testing on purported accident victims, then charged the government for the treatment.

In all, $163 million in fraudulent bills were submitted, with Medicare actually paying out $35 million, according to the documents.

The complex operation was allegedly overseen by Armen Kazarian, who melded into Glendale's large Armenian population after arriving as an asylum seeker in 1996 and mostly stayed out of view of the police. Kazarian, 46, who is in custody in Los Angeles, is known by the Soviet term "thief in law," which is the rough equivalent of a "godfather." Authorities say it is only the second time such a figure, known in Russian as a "vor v zakone," has been arrested in the U.S.

Nearly half of Glendale's 200,000 residents have an Armenian background. Following the 1915 massacre of Armenians in Turkey, a diaspora spread around the globe, with many arriving in Fresno and the East Coast.

Successive waves of immigrants followed major geopolitical upheavals, including the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and a small Armenian community in Hollywood quickly expanded to Glendale and the surrounding areas

In the mid-1980s, sons of Armenian immigrants from the Hollywood area banded together to form a gang called Armenian Power to protect themselves against Hispanic gangs. The community initially saw members as vigilante protectors but the group soon morphed into a street gang like any other, carrying out drive-by shootings and other crimes such as kidnappings, drug deals and burglaries, Glendale Officer Rafael Quintero said. But most crime in the Armenian community is carried out quietly and centers on sophisticated identity theft schemes. Police started picking up on these activities at the end of the 1990s and Glendale's task force was established in 2000, Davey said.

Several police agencies have task forces focused on Eurasian crime but Los Angeles police Lt. Stephen Margolis said this operation illustrates how the law enforcement community overall should pay closer attention.

"The sophistication and the pervasiveness of this type of criminal activity is years in the making," Margolis said. "Hopefully this will serve as a wake up to the extent of the seriousness this problem presents at a national level."

Zaven Kazazian, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Armenian-American Chamber of Commerce, said much of the crime in the community is carried out by people raised under communist rule in the former Soviet republic of Armenia, where exploiting a corrupt government was seen as fair game. "It is a different cultural background," Kazazian said. "Everybody was out for themselves."

Kazazian stressed that only a handful of Armenians are engaged in criminal enterprises and cautioned against making generalizations. "We are embarrassed by it and we do not have any affiliation with them. They do not represent the true Armenian people," he said. "It's like saying all Italians are part of the Mafia. That's just stupid."

Prosecutors say the crime ring was known as the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian Organization, named after its principal leaders Davit Mirzoyan, 34, of Glendale and Robert Terdjanian, 35, of Brooklyn.

Most of the 44 people charged are from the Los Angeles area and New York but arrests were also made in Georgia, New Mexico and Ohio.

The seven defendants named in the Los Angeles indictment have all pleaded not guilty. Defendants named in the New York portion of the case had either pleaded not guilty or were due to be arraigned Monday.

A call to Kazarian's defense attorney, Vicken Hagopian, was not immediately returned Friday.

As the "thief-in-law" of the operation, Kazarian was touted by authorities as the big catch. But the role of such "vor v zakones" is more subtle than that of a Mafia boss, Lt. Davey said.

Armenian crime bosses typically are nominated by other criminals and their main task is to mediate disputes between groups. Though they describe no actual violence, authorities allege Kazarian helped the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian Organization and would use threats to resolve disputes in the U.S., Armenia and other places.

Armenia has said it will cooperate with the U.S. in its investigation and Foreign Ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan has said his nation was sorry.

Thanks to Thomas Watkins