The Great Red Hook Mafia Wars

Murder, gang wars and Mafia dons all appear in Tom Folsom's book, The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld.

A look at the real-life Gallo family — a gangster clan that inspired Bob Dylan's song "Joey" as well as The Godfather — The Mad Ones looks at Larry, Albert and "Crazy" Joe Gallo as they war against established crime families and take over the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn in the '50s and '60s through a variety of colorful and brutal means.

Folsom co-authored the book Mr Untouchable: The Rise and Fall of the Black Godfather, about drug kingpin Nicky Barnes; his film credits include The Road to Gulu for Showtime, The Lost Generation and Ernest Hemingway: Wrestling with Life for A&E Biography and Neo-Noir, a short film for the Sundance Channel.

Listen to an interview with author Tom Folsom.

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Justice Perverted: How The Innocence Project at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism Sent an Innocent Man to Prison

In 1983, Anthony Porter was convicted of the brutal double murder of Marilyn Green and Jerry Hillard. While sitting in the bleachers near Chicago’s Washington Park swimming pool, the victims were shot multiple times at point-blank range. Porter was sentenced to death.

In 1998, within fifty hours of Porter’s scheduled execution, the Illinois Supreme Court granted a stay, pending a hearing on Porter’s mental competency. At this point, journalism professor David Protess and his Northwestern University Innocence Project students took up Porter’s cause. Soon, Porter was released from prison, and Alstory Simon, then a Milwaukee resident, was convicted of the Washington Park homicides. But that’s not the end of the story. Nor is it all of the story. Simon himself has now been exonerated and is suing Northwestern University, David Protess, and two other individuals for more than $40 million in punitive damages. This is the true story of how and why Alstory Simon replaced Anthony Porter in prison.

Justice Perverted: How The Innocence Project at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism Sent an Innocent Man to Prison

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Mobster Enchilada Recipe

Have a little something to eat mobster enchilada style:

2 chopped red or yellow onions
1 red bell pepper, chopped small
1 ½ pounds ground beef
Garlic salt
Ground cumin
Freshly ground black pepper
½ pound shredded Monterey Jack cheese (2 cups)
½ pound shredded cheddar cheese (2 cups)
8 ounces (1 cup) cottage cheese
1 package corn tortillas (50-count)
One 14-ounce can red enchilada sauce
One 14-ounce can chili, no beans
Lettuce
3 large tomatoes, cored, seeded, cut in tiny pieces
Salsa (to top)
Sour cream (to top)
Refried beans (optional)
Rice-A-Roni (optional)

Heat a little vegetable oil in a large frying pan. Saute half the onions and the bell pepper until translucent. Add the ground beef and brown it. Remove all of the fat from the pan. Season the meat with garlic salt, cumin and black pepper to taste.

Let the meat cool, then mix it with the Monterey Jack, cheddar and cottage cheeses and the remainder of the raw chopped onion.

Heat the enchilada sauce with the chili.

Heat the corn tortillas until soft. Place a few tablespoons of the filling on a tortilla and roll it up to look like a fat cigar. Place the rolled enchilada in a deep baking pan (ovenproof glass preferred). Repeat this process until all of the meat mixture is used. Pour the enchilada-chili sauce over the top of the enchiladas.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Put some chopped lettuce and tomatoes on every enchilada that you eat, along with salsa and sour cream. You could also serve refried beans and Rice-A-Roni on the side.

Serves 12 to 16.

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The Dealmakers Behind the Chicago Mob

For most Americans, real racket power in the last century hovered somewhere over the Hudson River, and no wonder. They saw New York-area gangsters featured in the best books and movies about the Mafia. Flamboyant bosses like John Gotti grabbed headlines with good sound bites and flashy trials, or the occasional high-profile hit in a crowded restaurant. But while East Coast mob families splattered each other's brains in the marinara, the Second City's less-colorful Mafia, known as the Outfit, built a criminal empire that was truly second to none. Its tentacles stretched to the West Coast and wrapped securely around Las Vegas. Not that its members didn't whack their own wayward bosses along the way, but their executions were mostly private affairs, often dispatched with a few well-placed .22s to the back of the head.

Author Gus Russo has done yeoman's work in pulling the Outfit bosses from the shadows to show how their muscle and methods came to dominate organized crime. In his 2001 book, suitably titles "The Outfit," he chronicles the Chicago mob's rise to national power after Al Capone.

Now, he weighs in with "Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers." If you know about the short shrift the Outfit has received in the popular imagination, you can almost forgive the breathless title, but Russo pointedly uses the term "Supermob" to describe a band of Jewish lawyers, politicians and businessmen who acted as cat's-paws for some of the Outfit's most ambitious scams. Although he credits a Senate investigator with first using the term "Supermob," Russo takes it to a new level, suggesting a gang of white-collar kingpins as ruthless and tightly knit as a Mafia family. He is also serious about the "Super," claiming that the members of his "Kosher Nostra" would ultimately profit more from their "amoral, and frequently criminal careers" than did their Outfit allies.

Like all other Chicago gangster stories, Russo's starts with Capone, a criminal mastermind far more sophisticated than the brutal Scarface we know from the movies. Unlike gang leaders before him, he was not content with cornering the market on gambling and bootlegging. The "financial wiz" who showed him the way was Alex Louis Greenberg. He put Capone's money into real estate and service industries with free flowing cash, such as banks, entertainment venues and hotels. In the beginning, to protect the various investments, the mob used its excess money to buy politicians and its excess muscle to strong-arm unions. Eventually these inroads into the public sector and labor organizations would become lucrative sources of income themselves.

As the schemes got more complicated, the mobsters needed the help of lawyers, politicians and frontmen with relatively clean criminal records. It was a Faustian bargain, but it helped launch some of the most prominent names in Chicago's Jewish community. For example, according to Russo, Outfit funds and connections formed the foundation on which lawyer Abe Pritzker's family built the Hyatt hotel chain.

At the nexus of mob influence and political corruption was lawyer Jacob Arvey, the most important Jewish cog of the city's multiethnic Democratic machine. His clout with the Truman administration put a protege in charge of property seized from German companies and interned Japanese-Americans. Russo documents how these West Coast assets were sold for a fraction of their value to silent mob partners and the young lawyers, Arvey accomplices, who served as their frontmen. Some of these young lawyers then set up shop in California and duplicated Chicago's Democratic machine there, fueling their candidates' campaigns with money donated by the mob and its related unions. But the Outfit's insidious control of unions most drove its westward expansion. Back in the earliest days of moving pictures, Chicago mobsters used the threat of projectionist walkouts to shake down local theaters. These extortion schemes worked their way back to the studio lots. According to Russo, the movie moguls did not mind seeing leftist organizers pushed to the side by mob goons, who could at least be paid off to keep the cameras rolling.

Producers also got squeezed by the stars in front of the cameras, especially those managed by Jules Stein and Lew Wasserman of MCA, Hollywood's first powerhouse talent agency. Back in Chicago when Stein started the firm as Music Corporation of America, he was booking area bands and using a "union racketeer" to throw stink bombs in nightclubs that wouldn't take his acts. He was supposedly a silent partner with Outfit bosses in the hot spots where his bands played, and according to Russo, he would continue to blur the line between ownership and union influence throughout his career.

Later, when Wasserman client Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild, he helped push through a waiver permitting MCA to be the only agency that could also produce programs for the burgeoning TV industry. This competitive edge helped Stein and Wasserman gain control of Universal Pictures and create Hollywood's first multimedia behemoth. In return for the SAG waiver, Russo asserts, Wasserman secretly cut Reagan into production deals (counter to SAG rules) and helped transform him into the ubiquitous TV presence that launched his political career.

The Outfit had its hooks in Las Vegas from the start (a Chicago mobster bribed Nevada legislators to pass the Wide Open Gambling Bill), but if the bosses hadn't had their fingers in the Teamsters pension fund, the city wouldn't be what we know today. From 1959 to 1961, they took $91 million from the union to build or improve one casino after another. Over the next decade, as Las Vegas' popularity soared, the Outfit was perfectly positioned to dominate the scene, with its control of corrupt politicians from both parties, its manipulation of the service unions and even its access, through Hollywood back channels, to the hottest entertainers, like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. Eventually millions in cash skimmed from the casino counting rooms would make its way to Chicago's mob bosses.

Members of Russo's Supermob were pivotal resources in each of the Outfit's connections to Las Vegas, but none more so than Sidney Korshak. An obscure labor lawyer from Lawndale, Korshak would ultimately be dubbed the most powerful man in Hollywood. By the mid-'60s, the same would be true in Las Vegas. His brother Marshall had gone on to a very public career in Chicago as a lawyer, Democratic politician and city officeholder. Though Sidney would have his own notoriety, the source of his power would lurk in the shadows. Working on a flat retainer of $50,000 per job, Korshak was anointed the official labor negotiator for almost all of the Outfit-connected businesses. With just a phone call he could spark or quell strikes--a fearsome power in the seasonal hotel industry or during the massively expensive process of film production. But the contacts with his clients went far beyond labor matters. Moguls like Wasserman called him virtually every day. He helped negotiate deals for casinos and even business conglomerates on the backs of envelopes, often keeping a small piece of the action for himself. No favors were too big or too small for his clients, whether a Chicago hotel room for Warren Beatty during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, or a pardon from President Richard Nixon for ex-Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa. Ironically, he may have even contributed to the success of the film "The Godfather" by prying Al Pacino away from another studio.

Many a Korshak miracle was worked from the corner booth at Bistro, a posh Beverly Hills eatery, where a private phone was brought to his table. Russo fails to note that this setup closely emulated the notorious corner table at Counsellors Row, a restaurant across from Chicago's City Hall where the Outfit's kingmaker, Pat Marcy, ruled supreme. Like Marcy, Korshak would walk guests outside the restaurant to talk about especially confidential subjects. Some of the best yarns in "Supermob" come from a book written by Bistro's owner, Kurt Niklas, who kept tabs on the strange bouillabaisse that simmered around Korshak: It could include producer Bob Evans, actor Kirk Douglas, Gov. Jerry Brown, coarse Teamsters and, on rare occasion, cursing mobsters. One later testified that an Outfit boss warned him to stay away from Korshak because " `he's our man, been our man his whole life. [But he] can't be seen in public with guys like us.' "

In other words, the mob had to keep him subservient and separate. This was one of many conflicts in Korshak's fascinating life. He went to great ends to quash any media coverage of his activities, but he gladly relented to fawning mentions by Joyce Haber, the Los Angeles gossip columnist who, Russo says, coined the term "A-list" to describe the celebrities in the Korshak inner circle. He was a doting husband to his glamorous, shopaholic wife and a serial philanderer, not embarrassed to be seen on the town with paramours like Jill St. John. He dressed and collected art with impeccable taste but still exuded a threatening though soft-spoken manner. At one moment he could lament the unbreakable ties to his Outfit overseers and in the next threaten a recalcitrant business executive with " `cement shoes.' " In the words of one producer, " `Sidney was a very loud man in a very quiet way.' " Unfortunately, Russo does not give us much insight into how Korshak or his friends could bridge such contradictions. While "Supermob" is long on anecdote, it's much too short on analysis. No doubt there was something different about either Chicago or its Jewish community to produce the players Russo writes about. He only scratches the surface in trying to understand the world they came from. The closest he gets is a quote about Greenberg: " `[L]ike almost everyone who became rich through racketeering, respectability was what he sought most.' " The words came from long-time Sun-Times reporter Irv Kupcinet, a close friend of Korshak's and another macho Jewish guy who loved rubbing shoulders with the mob.

In fact, most of the Supermob families Russo writes about did find legitimacy, if not for themselves then for their heirs; hence the shock some of us may feel at discovering the roots of their fortunes. The same is true for some Outfit clans as well. Perhaps there is something about the institutional memory in Chicago that has helped ease the transformation. Kupcinet was a gossip columnist but a nice one, the sort who never delved too deeply into the dark sources of power. When he spotted you on a prestigious perch, like Booth One at the Pump Room, a mention in his column brought some glow of fame without the painful questions about how you got there.

Thanks to Hillel Levin

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Chevy Chase and Mobsters Involved in Funny Money

It's Henry Perkins' birthday--just another ordinary day for an ordinary wax fruit factory foreman. That is, until he mistakenly ends up holding a briefcase containing five million dollars on his subway ride home.

Mayhem and hilarity ensue as Henry tries to convince his wife Carol to keep the loot and flee with him to paradise while Romanian mobsters, the cops, a dead body and dozens of nude statues join the medley.

Funny Money

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Mob Trial Testimony

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In Tunnels Below the Green Mill, a Maze of Prohibition-Era Mob History and Myth

Few people know it's there -- fewer know where it leads.

In the floor behind the bar at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, a century-old jazz club in Uptown, lies a door. Beneath it: a musty labyrinth of gangster and Uptown history.

The World Below -- a series of tunnels branching underground from the Green Mill to the bookstore Shake, Rattle & Read a few doors away -- mixes myth and fable, dusty boilers and blood-splattered urinals (more on this in a moment).

In the mid-1910s, the Green Mill was an exclusive hangout for Essanay Studio executives and early film stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Wallace Beery. In recent decades, jazz musicians such as Clifford Jordan, Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. have graced its stage. But tales of Jazz Age Chicago, when gangsters such as "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and boss Alphonse Capone defied Prohibition, are most prominent down below.

"They could either come to the tunnels and hide, or escape. Of course, the booze was stashed down here," says Ric Addy, owner of Shake, Rattle & Read. The bookstore has been in his family since 1965, which makes Addy an armchair historian and raconteur of all things Uptown.

Below the Green Mill, Addy latches the heavy wooden door to the bar with a metal hook and carefully climbs down the steep stairs, ducking his head under the lip of the floor above.

These musty concrete hallways and storage rooms are remnants of a tunnel system used to haul coal in the first part of the 20th Century. The Green Mill end of the tunnel provides the nightclub with its storeroom and cellar. Boxes of beer bottles and mini-pretzels wait to be summoned. Electrical wires and various pipes slink around the ceiling. Side rooms -- cubbyholes said to be the sites of gangster poker games -- hold dust-caked bar stools.

Around the corner, heading north, through an ominous steel door and down a dark hallway, Addy shines a flashlight on a doorway that, a century ago, would have read "Men."

Before the massive Uptown Theatre changed the face of Broadway's 4800 block in 1925, the Green Mill hosted a vast beer garden and dance hall, complete with underground restrooms. The original stone facade entrance still stands outside, though obscured by a fiberglass sign for the restaurant Fiesta Mexicana.

Below, only the men's restroom survives, complete with the original, tiny octagonal tiles and porcelain urinals.

"It's not too hard to imagine Capone stepping up to do his business here," Addy jokes.

Unlike the brightly lighted Green Mill storeroom, darkness permeates everything and temperatures drop 20 degrees. It's quiet. The corpses of a half-dozen water bugs lie scattered near the doorway.

There is evidence of life, however. Inside one of the urinals, a violent red smear clings to the porcelain -- remnant of a fake mob hit shot for the 1993 movie "Excessive Force," starring Thomas Ian Griffith and James Earl Jones.

Jones and Griffith aren't the only celebrities to have visited the tunnels. Over the years, Addy has given private tours to bands such as the Beastie Boys and Suicidal Tendencies who were looking for their own pieces of gangster legacy. Years ago, one room held wooden bank vaults stacked with rotting bank documents, but they're long gone.

The only paper down here now belongs to Addy, in two gigantic rail car-size rooms filled with back issues of Rolling Stone, Playboy and Esquire. Addy's dusty library of pop culture doubles as his eBay store, where he packages and sends off rock posters, books and hard-to-find magazine back issues.

Without lights, it's still a tomb.

Heading toward the door to his own store, Addy says, "It really used to creep me out down here."

He adds: "It still feels haunted, kinda ghostly down here. Now it's not so creepy because of all the new construction -- new air conditioning units, new coolers. I just wish the tunnels would keep going, so that I could see what it was like way back when."

Despite the Green Mill's prominent place in Chicago film and jazz history, its link to gangster king Al Capone still gets the most attention. But that may be exaggerated, says historian Richard Lindberg, author of "Return to the Scene of the Crime: A Guide to Infamous Places in Chicago."

"People are always calling me with Capone stories, someplace where Capone was known to be," Lindberg says. "Ninety-nine percent of it is urban legend, and I think it's especially true with the Green Mill."

The Green Mill started life in 1907 as Pop Morse's Roadhouse, a watering hole in developing Uptown. Three years later, new investors converted the spot into the Green Mill Gardens, a blocklong dance hall and beer garden, complete with a giant windmill perched atop the festivities -- a nod to Paris' own Moulin Rouge (or "Red Windmill").

Capone's shadow fell on the Mill during the late 1920s, when "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn -- Capone henchman and speculated triggerman of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre -- acquired part ownership.

Capone was said to frequent the club and even had a favorite booth that, owner Dave Jemilo says, still sits in the center of the room, facing away from the stage, in full view of the front and side doors, and a quick route to the trap door.

Famously, when singing comedian Joe E. Lewis attempted to get out of his Green Mill contract in 1927, McGurn's men visited Lewis in his hotel room where, Lindberg says, "he was sliced within an inch of his life." Fortunately, Lewis survived a slit throat, recovered and enjoyed a long career as a comedian, though he never fully recovered his crooner voice. His story was later adapted into the 1957 film "The Joker Is Wild," starring Frank Sinatra.

Beyond this, says Lindberg, Capone's ties to the Green Mill are "peripheral at best."

When Jemilo bought the Mill in 1986, all sorts of longtime customers told him personal stories about Capone's visits to the club.

But, he says, "we don't make a big deal about the Capone stuff. We're more about the music and the history of the joint, overall. I don't mind the gangster history, but I don't want to it to be the only thing it's known for."

As for the world underneath Broadway, Lindberg says, "The tunnels had more mundane purposes ... moving coal and eating materials." But, he adds: "Where there was illicit activity, you had tunnels," such as the dug-out tunnels in Capone's places in the Levee District.

Under the Green Mill, however, "I don't believe that they were created as escape routes. ... They were created long before Capone," Lindberg says. "But I think the main point here is: Capone has become such a larger-than-life character, it has created an Al Capone cottage industry, and bits of stories become legend. Separating the fact from the fiction has become the greatest challenge."

Thanks to Robert K. Elder

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Scarface Deluxe Gift Set

Scarface Deluxe Gift Set - Scarface (1983) & Scarface (1932)

Brian De Palma's blood-and-sun-drenched saga of a Cuban deportee’s rise to the top of Miami's cocaine business has become something of a popular classic since its release; it's been referenced in rap songs and subsequent gangster movies and quoted the world over. Despite this lovefest with the dialogue, the film’s brutal violence and lack of positive characters still make it controversial and disliked by certain critics.

Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, whose intelligence, guts, and ambition help him skyrocket from dishwasher to the top of a criminal empire but whose eventual paranoia and incestuous desire for his kid sister (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) prove his undoing. Michelle Pfeiffer plays Tony’s neglected coke-addicted trophy wife, and Steven Bauer is his concerned friend. F. Murray Abraham, Robert Loggia, and Paul Shenar are some of Tony’s sleazy business partners and potential killers. Oliver Stone wrote the expletive-packed screenplay, based on Howard Hawks’s 1932 version--which was ostensibly about Al Capone and starred Paul Muni and George Raft. The synth-heavy Giorgio Moroder score expertly evokes the drug-fueled decadence of 1980s Miami, and De Palma provides several of his elaborate set pieces, including a horrific showstopper in a motel room with a chain saw.

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How Mobsters Could Influence Sports

With a strong caution that this is simply an informed guess based on the knowledge of author Pete DeVico, consider this possible scenario involving Tim Donaghy, the former NBA referee who bet on games and pleaded guilty to federal felony conspiracy charges for allegedly passing along inside information:

Perhaps the guy liked to gamble and got in hock with a bookie. The bookie might have been inclined to sell Donaghy's marker -- his debt plus points, or interest -- to a mobster. The mobster could have made Donaghy an offer he couldn't refuse, to satisfy the debt by providing inside information and influencing certain games.

"I can't prove this. It's strictly speculation. But this is how it works," said DeVico, a Brooklyn-born expert on the American mob and author of "The Mafia Made Easy: The Anatomy and Culture of La Cosa Nostra"

Even if that is not how things played out with Donaghy, DeVico believes similar situations arise. That's alarming.

Forget steroids. Forget stealing opponents' play signals. Forget obscene salaries. Fixing games, manipulating the outcome for the sake of gambling, is the worst thing that can happen to any sport or sports in general.

Imagine the collective disgust, the stampede of former fans, if it became widely accepted that organized crime and gambling interests swayed the final scores of a number of games.

What merit would there be in Steelers town to dissect Ben Roethlisberger's psyche and decision-making if we believed even one NFL game official was on the take and would call interference or holding penalties to reach a predetermined outcome -- or worse, if we suspected certain linemen or receivers or quarterbacks were ready to botch plays or feign injuries on purpose?

The good news, according to DeVico, is the American mob is a shadow of what it once was, reduced in many cases to the level of loosely organized street thugs. The bad news is that does not mean La Cosa Nostra can't or doesn't have an undesirable hold on some sporting events.

In the past, DeVico points out, the mob was strong enough to run cities as big as Chicago and stiff-arm the FBI.

In the future, sports gambling could be the vehicle that drives the Mafia to reorganize and regain some level of power and influence. There's a cold shiver for you.

DeVico, whose book traces the origins of the Mafia in Italy and its history in the United States, said all it takes is an opening. "As long as the mob can exploit you, they will," he said. "They're masters of exploiting weaknesses."

It's probably farfetched that high-paid pro athletes are on the take for money. It would be something darker, DeVico said.

That could be digging up information about individuals' gambling or drug problems, steroids use, even infidelity. It's a simple formula: Help us, or we'll expose you. And there's a second formula: Expose us, and you'll be sorry.

DeVico grew up knowing wiseguys and, judging from his book, has done exhaustive research on the American Mafia (there's even a short section on its history in Pittsburgh), so perhaps he too quickly sees conspiracies. Or maybe it's just that most of us are naive or lack the proper cynicism.

In any case, DeVico suspects possible mob ties in many instances of impropriety in sports.

With boxing and horse racing, at least in years gone by, there's little question outcomes have been influenced.

DeVico can't help but wonder about the various point-shaving scandals in college basketball, the ongoing investigation into game-fixing with Toledo football, and the recent bust of a gambling operation run by former Penguins player Rick Tocchet and a New Jersey policeman.

What stood out to DeVico about that last case was the news the ring handled more than 1,000 wagers for more than $1.7 million in a 40-day period. "There's no proof of mob ties -- there never is -- but that's a lot of money," he said. "Somebody's going to know about this."

He didn't mean just the authorities.

Even Pete Rose, the disgraced former Cincinnati Reds star and manager who is banned from baseball for betting on games, makes DeVico curious.

"Who knows, but all the signs were there -- he supposedly always won when he made bets of $10,000 or more, he was accused of tax evasion," he said.

Let's not panic. There's no reason to think sports are corrupt to the point of stinking. Things might even be cleaner than they used to be -- for now. And if it makes football fans feel any better, DeVico figures NFL games would be difficult to fix because of the number of people involved.

Not much comfort, though, is it?

Thanks to Shelly Anderson

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Brooklyn Rules

Outside Providence director Michael Corrente helms this tale of three lifelong friends struggling with relationships, responsibility, and loyalty on the mean streets of 1980s era Brooklyn, NY.

When the violent influence of the mafia becomes factor in their friendship, lives will be threatened as the fond memories of the past begin to give way to potentially grim future.

Brooklyn Rules is the story of three boyhood friends who come of age in Brooklyn during John Gotti's rise. When becomes enamoured with the mafia lifestyle, it frays the friendships and puts the pals in grave danger. Alec Baldwin plays a mobster, Freddie Prinze Jr, Scott Caan, and Jerry Ferrara are the three friends. Brooklyn Rules is from the writers of The Sopranos

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Early 20th Century Mob Killing Map for Los Angeles

Larry Hanrisch has put together an excellent crime map, listing various mafia killings in Los Angeles from 1908 to 1951. He also provides some of his reflections and analysis of his research. Hanrish is the leading Black Dahlia expert and a collaborator in the 1947 project. He has been a copy editor at The Times since 1988 and he has appeared on many TV shows discussing the Dahlia case, notably "James Ellroy's Feast of Death."



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Special Edition of On the Waterfront - Classic Story of Mob Informers

On the Waterfront (Special Edition)

This classic story of Mob informers was based on a number of true stories and filmed on location in and around the docks of New York and New Jersey. Mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) rules the waterfront with an iron fist. The police know that he's been responsible for a number of murders, but witnesses play deaf and dumb ("plead D & D"). Washed-up boxer Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) has had an errand-boy job because of the influence of his brother Charley, a crooked union lawyer (Rod Steiger). Witnessing one of Friendly's rub-outs, Terry is willing to keep his mouth shut until he meets the dead dockworker's sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint). "Waterfront priest" Father Barry (Karl Malden) tells Terry that Edie's brother was killed because he was going to testify against boss Friendly before the crime commission. Because he could have intervened, but didn't, Terry feels somewhat responsible for the death. When Father Barry receives a beating from Friendly's goons, Terry is persuaded to cooperate with the commission.

Featuring Brando's famous "I coulda been a contendah" speech, On the Waterfront has often been seen as an allegory of "naming names" against suspected Communists during the anti-Communist investigations of the 1950s. Director Elia Kazan famously informed on suspected Communists before a government committee -- unlike many of his colleagues, some of whom went to prison for refusing to "name names" and many more of whom were blacklisted from working in the film industry for many years to come -- and Budd Schulberg's screenplay has often been read as an elaborate defense of the informer's position. On the Waterfront won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor for Brando, and Best Supporting Actress for Saint.

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6 More Members of Lucchese Crime Family Plead Guilty

Six members of the New York-based Lucchese crime family, including a ruling boss in New York and a top captain in New Jersey, have pleaded guilty to running a multi-billion-dollar gambling enterprise built upon extortion and violence, state authorities said Thursday.

The men were indicted in 2010 after an investigation uncovered the gambling ring, which, according to records, transacted an estimated $2.2 billion in wagers, primarily on sporting events, during a 15-month period. The operation allegedly received and processed the wagers using password-protected websites and a Costa Rican "wire room."

Authorities said the investigation, led by the state Division of Criminal Justice, also revealed a scheme in which a former New Jersey corrections officer and a high-ranking member of the Nine Trey Gangsters set of the Bloods street gang entered into an alliance with the Lucchese family to smuggle drugs and pre-paid cell phones into East Jersey State Prison.

The alleged gangster, Edwin Spears, who was an inmate, formed the alliance in concert with the former officer, Michael Bruinton, authorities said. Charges are pending against them.

Among those who pleaded guilty Wednesday were Ralph V. Perna, 69, of East Hanover, who oversaw the crime family's operations in New Jersey, as well as his two of his sons: Joseph Perna, 45, of Wyckoff, and John Perna, 38, of West Caldwell, authorities said.

Under the plea deal, prosecutors will recommend eight years in prison for Ralph Perna and 10 years in prison for his two sons. Charges against a third son, Ralph M. Perna, 43, of West Caldwell, are pending, authorities said.

Also pleading guilty were Martin Taccetta, 64, formerly of East Hanover and a former New Jersey underboss, who is already serving a life sentence as a result of a state prosecution in the 1990s; John Mangrella, 72, of Clifton, a senior member of the family; and Matthew Madonna, 80, of Seldon, N.Y., a member of the three-man ruling panel of the family.

Charges are pending against a second alleged ruling member, Joseph DiNapoli, 79, of Scarsdale, N.Y., authorities said. Under the plea deal, prosecutors will recommend five years in prison for Madonna, and eight years for Mangrella and Taccetta.

Thanks to Christopher Baxter.

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The Ambition and Disloyalty of Cleveland Mobsters During the 1990's.

For mobsters who've helped the feds, coming home for the holidays can be a dangerous proposition.
It was the night before Thanksgiving, 1994, and Paul waded cautiously into the Cleveland night. He was to meet Mike Roman at the Flat Iron, a corner bar on the east bank of the Flats.

A 26-year-old assistant manager, Roman had arrived at the bar to pick up his check, then drink it away. Paul says Roman was "shitfaced" when he arrived around midnight, and Paul ordered him to drink coffee before driving home.

At closing time, they walked out the back door. Paul, who spoke with Scene on condition that his last name not be printed, remembers Roman glowering at a group of men standing around a white car on Center Street. "What the fuck are you looking at?" he asked.

One of the men walked up to Roman. Acting on instinct, Paul took a swing. It staggered the man, but he reached for a gun, squeezing off three shots into Roman's chest. Paul says he tried to grab the gun and it went off -- piercing the wrist of his right arm. Paul says he hobbled away, blood spurting from his arm. A friend drove him to a hospital. Roman was dead.

This was a Mafia hit, says Paul -- only the bullets were meant for him.

His old friends suspected that he was a rat. Paul says it isn't true. But suspicion is all it takes to get yourself killed in this line of work.

Ten years later, he sits at the Flat Iron and rolls up his sleeve to show the scar on his right wrist. He remembers the pain, the temptation to pass out and bleed to death on the sidewalk, then the five surgeries it took to repair the damage. What he got out of the deal was a good story.

The transcript from the murder trial, though, tells a different story: Minutes before he was shot, Roman had been honking and cursing at the four men gathered around a car, telling them to quit lingering near the bar.

According to witnesses, Sam Bulgin, a Lake County drug dealer, was in no mood to take orders. He got his .38. The next time Roman came outside, Bulgin was ready.

The transcript makes no mention of the Mafia. Police say it was nothing more than a booze-fueled clash that escalated into gunfire.

Paul's face drops when he hears this. He had wanted to observe the 10th anniversary of the hit that almost took his life. He insists that Bulgin was a hit man, that the shooting was only supposed to look spontaneous. More likely, Paul is marking the 10th anniversary of the most paranoid time in his life.

There's no doubting Paul's Mafia cred. It's all spelled out in a federal-court file. Few can speak with the same authority on the 1990s version of La Cosa Nostra's Cleveland chapter. In a group whose story has survived through oral tradition, Paul may be the guy who authors the final chapter.

Paul came to the mob by way of Milan -- as in the Milan, Michigan Federal Correctional Institution. There he reunited with two swaggering wise guys, Allie Calabrese and Joe Iacobacci, whom he knew from his Collinwood youth.

During the 1970s, a young Calabrese had run gambling and loan-sharking rackets for the Mafia. Rivals tried to take him out with a car bomb, but Calabrese's neighbor died in the explosion instead. Later, Cleveland underboss-turned-informant Angelo Lonardo testified that Calabrese was involved in the plot to bomb Irish mobster Danny Greene.

Iacobacci went by the nickname "Loose" -- as in "screw loose." He had been trafficking in large quantities of cocaine. Lonardo confirmed to the FBI that Loose was a made man. Paul says Calabrese was too.

It's easy to see what they saw in Paul. He looks like a wise guy -- thick-bodied, muscular to the point of necklessness, Mediterranean skin, and a cocky grin. "Fuck" shows up in nearly every breath. What most endeared Paul to them, however, was his expertise in an unfamiliar area of crime -- the white-collar variety. Paul was in Milan on securities fraud. In the early 1980s, he had duplicated stock certificates and taken out bank loans by offering the phony stock as collateral. He had also sold stock for a phony product: a self-chilling can. Paul and his collaborators held a press conference at the World Trade Center to announce that they had inked deals with PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch. Any sucker who bought the stock saw his investment vanish.

Paul impressed upon Loose and Calabrese that white-collar crime paid better than drugs -- and brought only a fraction of the penalties. "It's a dirty business," Paul says of drugs. "And the kind of time they give out is fucking astronomical. I can do a million dollars in fraud and get three to four years. But if you do a million dollars in coke, you're never going to see daylight." A stockbroker in New York, Paul knew how to create shell companies and move money offshore. "These guys saw my paperwork when I was at Milan," he says. "They fucking loved me!"

They plotted to make their fortune in a racket called the "California swing." Paul would open bank accounts in New Jersey, then deposit bad checks with California routing numbers. At that time, it took 10 days for an East Coast bank to learn that the check was bogus. "In the meantime," says Paul with a satisfied grin, "I'm wiring $4 to $5 million out of the country to an offshore account."

The money would move from islands like the Netherlands Antilles and Curaçao to accounts in Geneva, then be routed through Chicago banks -- with the consent of the Chicago Mafia, which extracted its own toll.

The neatly laundered loot would be the building block for the new Cleveland Mafia, they all agreed. Loose, a favorite of former boss Jack "White" Licavoli, would be the head of the family. Calabrese would be his captain. "We had a pretty good crew set up," says Paul. "It could have been something."

Every start-up has its complications. While he was still in prison, Paul says, he ran into a man from a Newark, New Jersey crew that operated vending companies and trafficked in drugs. "He says, 'Hey, asshole, I know you,'" Paul recalls. Several years earlier, Paul had screwed the man's crew. "We sold him a vending company that didn't exist," he laughs. "Took his guys for about 150 G's."

Calabrese intervened on Paul's behalf, convincing the Jersey mobster that instead of putting Paul in the ground, he ought to put him on the payroll. As Paul's California swing turned profitable, the Jersey crew could get a fat cut.

Heading the Newark faction was Mike Taccetta, made famous as the model for fictional mobster Tony Soprano. Taccetta signed off on the deal. Paul had extra mouths to feed, but at least he was alive.

He left prison in 1991. From the smile on his face as he reminisces, it's apparent that these were his glory days. Besides the California swing, he was fleecing airlines with a luggage scam. At that time, you didn't need to show an ID to fly. So Paul could book himself on four flights, using a different name for each. He'd check carry-on bags. Upon arriving, he'd pick up the bag and rip off the tags, then report lost luggage containing about $2,000 in valuables. After a month of fruitless searching, the airline would send him a check for $1,250, the maximum rate.

It was so easy, everyone in Paul's crew did it. "We had guys sitting around, filling out forms all day," he laughs. Paul claims they made thousands a week, multiplying their profit every time they added a soldier. Once, he took a pack of 50 friends on a Florida golfing trip. All claimed to lose their luggage, thus vacationing at a profit.

Meanwhile, the California swing was bringing in so much money, Paul had to go to the Caribbean to cash the checks -- he was worried about alerting suspicion in the States. "I was basically a money machine for the fucking mob," he says. He wore $2,500 suits and $800 shoes, and drove a BMW convertible.

As head of the family, Loose was entitled to a cut of everything. He was supposed to send a portion to New Jersey to pay off Paul's debt. But Calabrese told Paul that Loose was keeping the money for himself and telling the New Jersey crew that Paul wasn't earning. Paul was furious, but he could do nothing. Loose called the shots.

The FBI was watching with keen interest. Agents decided Paul was ripe for the picking. In July 1992, he was arrested for a parole violation -- consorting with known felons. The feds knew about the California swing. If he wanted to be saved from prison, he'd have to wear a wire. As an extra inducement, Paul says, agents played a tape of Loose musing over the best method to kill Paul. This, says Paul, combined with the FBI investigation, was enough to make him bolt for Miami.

When the California-swing arrests came down, Paul was listed only as an unindicted co-conspirator. "They didn't have anything on me," he says. Court files say otherwise. The indictment notes that Paul agreed to wear a wire and that he hung around Cleveland long enough to tape roughly 200 meetings with his partners between the time of his arrest and the spring of 1993. [Paul says that he gave agents permission to bug his car, but never wore a wire.]

Paul was also a groomsman at Calabrese's wedding. He admired the older man's toughness, his style. This was "a gangster's gangster," Paul still says today. But his fawning respect also made Paul perfect for his role; Calabrese would never suspect him.

"Mr. Calabrese was clearly commanding a position of authority over him," FBI Agent David Drab testified at the trial. "He realized, in my opinion, that this cooperating witness [Paul] deified him in a sense, that he looked up to him and wanted to be part of the organization."

Paul taped Calabrese boasting about being "the only guy left" who was capable of forming a new Mafia. He recorded Calabrese's resentment of Iacobacci, who liked the money and prestige that came with mob work, but not the physical danger. "I'm the real, original tough motherfucker around here," Calabrese declared on one tape.

Once, at the Feast of the Assumption, Calabrese wanted to eat dinner at Nido Italia in Little Italy. He sat down at a table reserved by a man who had come with his family. When the man objected, Calabrese dragged him outside. He told Paul he "beat the fucker's head in." When the man's daughter kicked Calabrese in the groin, he slugged her too. Stories like these didn't help his case. Calabrese was sentenced to three and a half years. Iacobacci got two and a half. Meanwhile, Paul was in Miami, going to bed at night with a pistol strapped to his ankle.

The subsequent decade has only added more mystery -- and more death. In 1998, a jury convicted Sam Bulgin of killing Roman. Bulgin claims that he wasn't the shooter, that he was set up by a friend who ratted him out in exchange for a reduced sentence on his own drug-trafficking charges.

A year earlier, Bulgin's brother, Peter, was found shot to death in his East Cleveland home. Police never knew whether it was self-inflicted, but Paul believes it was payback for Roman's slaying. "He got whacked," Paul shrugs. He says he knows who did it, but he isn't telling. He only insists he wasn't the one.

In 1999, while doing time at a federal prison in Georgia, Calabrese was clubbed with a metal pipe. He slipped into a coma and died. The attacker was caught, but no one seems to know his identity -- only that he happened to be from Cleveland. Paul thinks Loose arranged the hit.

Loose himself has kept a low profile. There are rumors that he became an informant. Some say he's gone straight. But nobody seems to peddle the theory that he'll make another run at establishing La Cosa Nostra in Cleveland.

Paul claims to be enjoying straight living. He left Cleveland, though he won't say where his permanent address is. He regrets getting into the fast life. Friends from college stayed on Wall Street, earning Fifth Avenue condos.

He has no regrets about cooperating with the feds in taking down the Cleveland Mafia. "There's a difference between being a rat and self-preservation," says Paul. "My ass was against the wall. What was I going to do? Get clipped?"

Thanks to Thomas Francis.

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Mickey Davis, Longtime Reputed Mob Associate, Convicted of Extortion

A longtime associate of reputed Outfit bosses Peter and John DiFronzo was convicted Monday of extortion for threatening a deadbeat suburban businessman and then hiring a team of goons to break the victim's legs months later when he still wouldn't pay up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

"How are your wife and kids doing? Are you still living in Park Ridge?" prosecutors said Michael "Mickey" Davis asked the victim during a January 2013 confrontation at a Melrose Park used car dealership, according to trial testimony. "Does your wife still own that salon in Schaumburg?"

After two weeks of testimony, a federal jury deliberated about nine hours before convicting Davis, 58, on two extortion-related counts. He faces up to 20 years in prison on each count.

As the verdict was read, Davis, dressed in a light gray suit with his hair slicked back, raised his eyebrows, turned to whisper something to one of his lawyers, sat back in his chair and shook his head.

Prosecutors sought to immediately jail Davis pending sentencing, but U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan allowed Davis to remain free for now so he can go to a doctor's appointment. Davis could be taken into custody when he is scheduled to return to court next week.

In the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, Davis' attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin, vowed to appeal, telling reporters he was "disappointed that the jury could conclude from nothing but circumstantial evidence that it was proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

Davis' trial featured some of the biggest names in the depleted ranks of the Chicago Outfit, including the DiFronzo brothers and Salvatore "Solly D" DeLaurentis, all reputed leaders of the notorious Elmwood Park crew. While none of the aging bosses was charged with any wrongdoing, their names and photos were shown to jurors as evidence of Davis' purported connections to the highest levels of the mob.

The alleged victim of the extortion plot, R.J. Serpico, testified that he was well aware of Davis' friendship with the DiFronzo brothers and that he often saw Davis and Peter DiFronzo cruising past his Ideal Motors dealership in DiFronzo's black Cadillac Escalade. Serpico, who is a nephew of longtime Melrose Park Mayor Ronald Serpico, said he also had heard that Davis was partnered with DeLaurentis, a feared capo convicted in the 1990s of racketeering conspiracy in connection with a violent gambling crew run by Ernest Rocco Infelice.

Durkin said Davis has known the DiFronzo brothers since childhood and that for years he has maintained a business relationship with them through his landfill in Plainfield, where two DiFronzo-owned construction companies have paid millions to dump asphalt and other construction debris. Davis and Peter DiFronzo were also golfing and fishing buddies, Durkin said.

"As many witnesses testified, growing up in Melrose Park, or growing up in Elmwood Park as Mickey did, you come to know those people," Durkin said Monday. "I don't think at this point Peter DiFronzo is anything but a businessman. I think it's unfortunate that he gets tarred with the same brush, but the government seems hellbent on continuing to put the Outfit out of business, and I don't begrudge them that, but I do begrudge them the means that they go about doing it."

Prosecutors allege that within months of the ominous January 2013 confrontation at Ideal Motors, Davis, infuriated that Serpico had still failed to pay back a $300,000 loan, ordered his brutal beating, enlisting the help of a well-known Italian restaurant owner in Burr Ridge to find the right guys for the job. The restaurateur went to reputed mob associate Paulie Carparelli, who in turn hired a team of bone-cracking goons to carry out the beating for $10,000, according to prosecutors.

Unbeknownst to everyone involved, however, the beefy union bodyguard tasked with coordinating the assault, George Brown, had been nabbed months earlier in an unrelated extortion plot and was secretly cooperating with the FBI. In July 2013, agents swooped in to stop the beating before it was carried out, court records show.

Thanks to Jason Meisner.

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Chicago Blackhawks 2015 Stanley Cup Champions Fan Gear and Collectibles

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Mickey Davis and Peter DiFronzo, Fishing Buddies or Mob Associates?

The mob-connected plot to break the legs of a deadbeat suburban businessman started at a dingy used car dealership in Melrose Park, federal prosecutors say.

Michael "Mickey" Davis, a longtime associate of reputed Outfit bosses Peter and John DiFronzo, walked into R.J. Serpico's office, closed the door behind him and threw a piece of paper onto the desk.

On the sheet were scribbled notes from a mob bookie indicating Serpico's father owed thousands of dollars in gambling debts. Serpico, who had taken a $300,000 loan from Davis to start the fledgling Ideal Motors dealership with his father, knew instantly he was in trouble.

"This wasn't our (expletive) agreement," Davis growled, according to Serpico's recent testimony in federal court. "I want my (expletive) money."

He then pulled up a chair, leaned in close and issued what prosecutors allege was a thinly veiled threat.

"How are your wife and kids doing? Are you still living in Park Ridge?" the hefty suburban landfill owner allegedly asked Serpico. "Does your wife still own that salon in Schaumburg?"

Without another word, Davis got up and walked out.

Prosecutors allege that within months of that ominous January 2013 confrontation, Davis, infuriated that Serpico had still failed to pay back the loan, ordered his brutal beating, enlisting the help of a well-known Italian restaurant owner in Burr Ridge to find the right guys for the job. The restaurateur went to reputed mob associate Paulie Carparelli, who in turn hired a team of bone-cracking goons to carry out the beating for $10,000, according to prosecutors.

Unbeknownst to everyone involved, however, the beefy union bodyguard tasked with coordinating the assault had been nabbed months earlier in an unrelated extortion plot and was secretly cooperating with the FBI. In July 2013, agents swooped in to stop the beating before it was carried out, court records show.

For the past two weeks, Davis' trial on extortion charges at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse has featured some of the biggest names in the depleted ranks of the Chicago Outfit, including the DiFronzo brothers and Salvatore "Solly D" DeLaurentis, all reputed leaders of the notorious Elmwood Park crew.

While none of the aging bosses has been charged with any wrongdoing, their names and photos have been shown to jurors as evidence of the 58-year-old Davis' purported connections to the highest levels of the mob.

Serpico testified he was well aware of Davis' friendship with the DiFronzo brothers and that he often saw Davis and Peter DiFronzo cruising past Ideal Motors in DiFronzo's black Cadillac Escalade. He said he also had heard Davis was partnered with DeLaurentis, a feared capo convicted in the 1990s of racketeering conspiracy in connection with a violent gambling crew run by Ernest Rocco Infelice.

Davis' attorneys, meanwhile, have denied he has anything to do with the mob. Davis has known the DiFronzos since childhood and has maintained a longtime business relationship with them through his landfill in suburban Plainfield, where two DiFronzo-owned construction companies have paid millions of dollars to dump asphalt and other construction debris, according to his lawyers.

To bolster their point that he had nothing to hide, Davis' attorneys showed the jury a photo that Davis kept in his office at the E.F. Heil landfill. The undated photo showed a tanned Davis deep-sea fishing off Costa Rica with Peter DiFronzo, the shirtless mob boss appearing to be reeling in a catch with a pole harness strapped around his waist.

Jurors deliberated about seven hours Friday without reaching a verdict. U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan told the panel to return Monday morning to resume discussions.

In his closing argument Thursday, Thomas Anthony Durkin, Davis' attorney, urged jurors not to get swept up in the dramatic talk of gangsters and to focus instead on the evidence that Durkin said failed to connect Davis to the mob or any extortion plot.

"If you want to get swayed by looking at 'murderer's row' here, Pete DiFronzo, John DiFronzo, Solly DeLaurentis, all the boys, then we are in trouble," Durkin told the jury in his closing argument as the mobsters' photos were flashed on an overhead screen.

Durkin also painted Serpico as a liar and called the government's undercover informant, George Brown, "just pathetic."

Both Carparelli and Brown have pleaded guilty to charges unrelated to Davis' case and are awaiting sentencing.

According to court records and testimony at the trial, Davis, who often golfed with Serpico's father, Joe, loaned the father-son team $300,000 in 2012 to purchase used vehicles to sell at Ideal Motors. The agreement called for the loan to be paid back within three years, plus an extra $300 per car sold tacked on as interest. According to prosecutors, Davis expected to more than double his money. But the deal quickly soured as the business floundered and Serpico's father continued to gamble with the borrowed funds, court records show. By the end of that year, Ideal Motors was in trouble, with creditors breathing down the owners' necks and cars being repossessed.

Serpico, 44, who is married with two children, testified he was terrified and sick to his stomach after Davis threatened him and his family at the meeting at Ideal Motors. He kicked his father off the lot to appease Davis, who became co-owner. Serpico also paid Davis nearly $60,000 in cash and a used Chevelle to try to buy some time, according to prosecutors.

Wracked with fear and not knowing what to do, Serpico "literally walked off the lot" that May 2013 and left control of the business to Davis, Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather McShain said in her closing argument. But with Ideal Motors a financial bust, Davis had had enough, McShain said.

"Mickey Davis made a decision to not only continue to collect but to follow up on his threat," McShain said.

Over the next several weeks, FBI agents secretly recorded a series of phone calls and meetings between Carparelli and Brown in which they discussed the logistics of the beating, including concerns over whether they had the proper clearance from the Outfit to carry out such an attack in the DiFronzos' territory.

In a recorded call on July 11, 2013, Carparelli told Brown their plan was safe because Davis had a direct line to the bosses, court records show.

"OK, listen, I met this guy (Davis) yesterday. You know who this guy is?" a transcript of the call quoted Carparelli as saying. "This is Solly D's partner. Ok? ...So, listen, we definitely can't (expletive) around with these guys or we're going to have a big (expletive) headache, a big headache."

But Carparelli also saw the job as a chance to prove themselves to the bosses, saying if the beating was successful it would "put us right on the map, believe me when I tell ya," according to the transcript.

A few days later, Carparelli told Brown his guys should approach Serpico as he left his new job as a salesman at Al Piemonte Ford, stage a fender-bender and attack him when he got out of his car.

"Say we give him a little tap, like an accident. 'Oh man, I'm sorry,'" Carparelli said on the call. "Guy gets out of his car. Boom, boom, boom. That's it."

Thanks to Jason Meisner.

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The Ganja Godfather: The Untold Story of NYC's Weed Kingpin

Genovese mob-scion Silvio Eboli lived within the shadows of history, and now for the first time, the untold story of a mafia legend is revealed. The Ganja Godfather: The Untold Story of NYC's Weed Kingpin is the story about an ongoing organized criminal operation, in real time with firsthand accounts and experiences by award-winning author and investigative journalist, Toby Rogers.

Shadowing the Ganja Godfather, Rogers witnesses it all standing next to the Boss himself: violence, drugs, celebrities, girls, construction hustles, crime-family business meetings and social gatherings. From strip clubs in Atlantic City to Sunday night dinner with the wife and kids, Rogers experiences whatever the Ganja Godfather does on any given day. As exhilarating as Silvio’s life had become, it certainly was much more stressful behind the scenes. Being the Empire State’s spliff king was undoubtedly the hardest job in New York. And it was only after Silvio finally got to the top of the mountain that he realized just how easy it was to fall over the edge. With a wife and kids, dysfunctional family business obligations, and an out-of-control social life all pulling him in conflicting paths, Silvio struggled keep the empire moving forward without detection from law enforcement. But when he was introduced to a Colombian cocaine princess with aspirations to become a model, he saw an opportunity to expand the family’s profit margins to unimaginable heights and risked it all despite the collision course with disaster he saw right before him.

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Former House Speaker Sentenced to Federal Prison

Former Rhode Island House Speaker and former Vice-Chairman of the City of Providence Board of Licenses Gordon D. Fox, 53, of East Providence, was sentenced to three years in federal prison for stealing $108,000 donated by campaign supporters to pay for personal expenses; his acceptance of a $52,000 bribe to advocate and move for issuance of a liquor license for an East Side restaurant while serving as Vice-Chairman of the City of Providence Board of Licenses in 2008; and his failure to account for these illegal sources of income on his tax returns.

At sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge Mary M. Lisi also ordered Fox to serve two years’ supervised release upon completion of his prison term, and to pay $109,000 in restitution. Fox pleaded guilty on March 3, 2015, to wire fraud, bribery and filing a false tax return.

Fox has been ordered to self-surrender to begin serving his prison sentence by July 7, 2015.

An 18-month federal grand jury investigation led by prosecutors from the United States Attorney’s Office and the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office, and investigators from the FBI, IRS and Rhode Island State Police, included the execution of court authorized search warrants at the former speaker’s home and State House office in March of 2014; the issuance of more than 200 subpoenas; the examination of more than 36,000 bank, government, personal, and campaign records belonging to former Speaker Fox; and forensic examinations of numerous computers and other electronic devices.

United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha commented, “It is a great irony that the man in Rhode Island once most responsible for securing the passage of laws somewhere along the way decided he no longer needed to follow them. And the laws former Speaker Fox chose not to follow were not just any laws, but rather laws designed to ensure the integrity of the legal and political process. In short, he violated his oath to the people of Rhode Island. He promised to do their business, not his own. His failure to keep that promise has brought him down today, and deservedly so.

“I want to thank the FBI and IRS Special Agents, Rhode Island State Police Detectives, and the federal and state prosecutors, whose outstanding work has secured justice and ensured that Rhode Island can chart a new path forward. Hopefully, Rhode Island can take advantage of it.”

Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin said, “From day one, I pledged the resources of my office, and when the allegations surrounding the acceptance of a bribe by Gordon Fox arose, and it was recognized that the federal statute of limitations for that offense had expired, this office made a commitment to the United States Attorney to proceed with the prosecution of that charge in state court if necessary. The State, working jointly with the United States Attorney, was ready to prosecute the bribery charge had this case not been resolved in Federal Court, and this case now stands as a testament to the commitment of both offices to aggressively prosecute corrupt public officials.”

Attorney General Kilmartin further stated, “Gordon Fox is not the first public official that our two offices have jointly prosecuted. While we can all hope it’s the last time we prosecute a public official, unfortunately history has taught us that it will happen again. But, let this serve as a warning to all public officials in this state, whether they are the Speaker of the House or a local board member—if you break the law, violate the trust the voters put in you, and abuse your office, you will be held accountable. You can be assured, as can the public, that we stand together, as federal and state prosecutors, with a single purpose, and will continue to work with our prosecutorial and law enforcement partners to ensure justice prevails.”

At the time of his guilty plea, Fox admitted to the Court that from February 2008 until March of 2014, just prior to the execution of federal search warrants at his State House office and home, he repeatedly used money received from campaign donors to pay for personal expenses. After transferring the money from his campaign accounts to his personal accounts, former Speaker Fox used the money—$108,000 in all—to pay the mortgage on his home, the loan payments on his car, and the balance on his personal American Express card, which he used to make purchases at various retail outlets. Fox admitted that in order to conceal his fraudulent conduct, he falsified his mandatory Rhode Island Board of Elections filings.

Additionally, Fox admitted to the Court that in 2008, while serving as an appointed member and Vice-Chairman of the City of Providence Board of Licenses, he accepted a $52,000 bribe from the owners of Shark Sushi Bar and Grill to help secure a liquor license for the establishment. At the time, there was considerable neighborhood opposition to the application. At a hearing in August 2008, Vice-Chairman Fox, pursuant to his agreement with the Shark Bar partners, spoke in detail regarding why the license should be awarded, and moved the Board to approve the Shark Bar’s application. The Board voted to approve the Shark Bar’s application.

Additionally, Fox admitted to the Court that for the tax years 2008 through 2012, he filed false tax returns, in that he knowingly omitted personal income he received as a result of his receipt of the bribe in 2008 and his fraudulent transfers from his campaign accounts to his personal accounts.

Vincent B. Lisi, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Boston Division said, “Gordon Fox accepted a bribe, used campaign donations for his own personal use and lied on his tax return. The FBI will continue to go after corrupt individuals like him who abuse their elected office and betray the public’s trust.”

“Public servants are entrusted by all of us to act in the best interests of the citizens they serve,” said Special Agent William Offord, IRS Criminal Investigation. “Gordon Fox betrayed the public’s trust and his sentencing today sends a clear message—corruption at all levels of government will not be tolerated. IRS-CI will continue to lend our financial expertise to these important prosecutions.”

Colonel Steven G. O’Donnell, Superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police added, “I commend all the Troopers, Detectives, FBI and IRS agents as well as the prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s office and Attorney General’s office for their dedication and commitment to justice”.

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Dirty Block Street Gang Drug Dealer in Atlantic City Sentenced to Prison in Heroin Trafficking Conspiracy

An Atlantic City, N.J., man was sentenced to 54 months in prison for engaging in a conspiracy to distribute heroin with several members of the “Dirty Block” criminal street gang—several of whom were convicted after a six-week jury trial in January—which used threats, intimidation and violence to maintain control of the illegal drug trade in Atlantic City, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Ronald Davis, a/k/a “Black,” 29, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Joseph E. Irenas to a superseding information charging him with one count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute within 1,000 feet of public housing, 100 grams or more of heroin. Judge Irenas imposed the sentence today in Camden federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

Davis acted as a dealer, helping Dirty Block to distribute heroin in and around the public housing apartment complexes of Stanley Holmes, Carver Hall, Schoolhouse, Adams Court and Cedar Court, in Atlantic City. Davis was arrested on March 26, 2013.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Irenas sentenced Davis to six years of supervised release.

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