Top Organized Crime Publishers to Form Dynamic Duo

The publishers of two quarterly true-crime journals plan to pool their resources in a new, combined publication. Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement, set to launch in October, will provide informative and well-documented historical articles on crime, organized crime, policing and penology.

Rick Mattix has been publisher and editor of the On the Spot Journal of Crime and Law Enforcement since fall of 2006. Thomas Hunt has held a similar role with Informer: The Journal of American Mafia History since fall of 2008. Mattix’s publication specialized in the history of the gangster era - the 1920s and 30s, while Hunt’s dealt exclusively with the history of the American Mafia.

“Though I never thought of us as being in competition with each other,” Hunt said, “It’s clear there was considerable overlap in our publications. In fact, before launching Informer, I wrote several Mafia history articles for On the Spot. So, this seems a natural combination.”

Mattix said, “I am pleased to participate in the new Informer, which I believe will be a worthy successor to both its parent journals as well as expanding our previous horizons in the history of American crime and crime control.”

Hunt will serve as publisher of the new Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement. He also will perform copy editing and page design tasks. Mattix will serve as editorial director and will be responsible for article acquisition and issue contents.

The new publication will be distributed in electronic and print editions. The low-cost electronic edition will be distributed through the Scribd.com document sharing service. Individual electronic issues will be priced at $5 (US), with annual subscriptions available for $18. The high quality print edition will be produced and shipped by HP’s international print-on-demand service MagCloud.com. The cost of individual print edition issues, including shipping, is estimated to be just under $20. Annual subscriptions to the print edition will be offered at a price of $75.

For more information on the publication, visit its website: http://informer-journal.blogspot.com. Informer can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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"The Dig" Has Band Gear Stolen from Van in Chicago

First, the good news: New York City's The Dig has announced two new tour dates in support of Dashboard Confessional. Before traveling home following a five-week national tour with Thrice, Kevin Devine, and Bad Veins, the band will play Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL, on July 27th and Six Flags St. Louis in Eureka, MO, on July 28th with Dashboard.

In far less happy news, the band's van was robbed overnight in Chicago and most of their gear stolen. The Dig will be able to play the Gurnee and Eureka shows thanks to the good men of Dashboard Confessional, who have kindly offered to share their gear for the next two nights. Anyone with information on the stolen gear can please contact the Chicago Police and/or the band at thedigmusic@gmail.com. The van was parked on N. Leavitt St. and W. Evergreen Ave., and a full list of stolen items is below

The Dig's debut album Electric Toys was released June 8th and has been catching praise from the press, with Relix recently writing, "The Dig's formula combines the resonance and character of the Strokes with the sentimental uncertainty of a Charles Bukowski novel...the end result is 12 tracks of assorted musical flavors that truly encapsulate New York City rock and roll." The band has spent the majority of the past year on the road, in support of The Walkmen, White Rabbits, Editors, The Antlers, Portugal. The Man, Here We Go Magic, and Port O'Brien. The Dig has also had multiple tracks from Electric Toys featured on primetime dramas, most recently "I Just Wanna Talk To You" on ABC's Scoundrels, and previously "Carry Me Home" on NBC's Trauma and "Look Inside" on The CW's The Vampire Diaries.

The Dig tour dates:

JULY 27 GURNEE, IL SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA*
JULY 28 EUREKA, MO SIX FLAGS ST. LOUIS*

The Dig's stolen gear list:

* Bass Guitar - Fender Electric Precision - Ivory Body w/ Black Pick
Guard SN: 619368
* Guitar - PRS - McCarty - Dark Red
* Guitar - Fender Telecaster - blonde body w/ black pick guard -
double humbucker pickups - rosewood neck
* Guitar - Epiphone - 1967 Sorrento Sun burst hollow body
* Bass Amplifier - Ampeg V-4 SN: 137500
* Guitar Amplifier - Fender Deville "212" Type PR247 SN: 178888
* Custom Speaker Cabinet - 2 x 10"
* Snare Drum Ludwig 14"x 5 1/4" Steel SN: 3079825
* Rack Tom - Slingerland 13" x 8" Pearl White 1962
* Laptop Computer - Sony Vaio - 2007

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Colombo Crime Family Mobster Mickey Souza Learns the Mob is More About Money Than Honor

The Colombo crime family must really be going to the dogs if this is the type of muscle they're recruiting.

Meet Michael (Mickey) Souza.

Before legendary Colombo underboss John (Sonny) Franzese pricked Souza's finger with a sterile diabetic needle in 2005 to make him a made man, Souza had built quite the fiasco-filled résumé.

There was the time he shot himself, Plaxico Burress-style, while tucking a handgun in his sweatpants. There's his arrest for boating while drunk. And then there was the time he injured one of his fellow goons while the two busted up a funeral parlor.

If an organization is no better than its worst guy, then the Colombos are indeed in trouble. And what thanks do they get for taking in this mopey mobster? He's now turned stool pigeon.

Souza, 42, made his debut on the witness stand last week at the racketeering trial of Genovese gangster Anthony Antico in Brooklyn Federal Court.

He was facing 30 years to life for drug trafficking when he sought a cooperation agreement from the feds.

"'Hello, John,'" he wrote to John Buretta, the chief of the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's organized-crime section, in 2008, offering to help "seal up" some federal cases.

"P.S. I am so ready to go to [the witness protection program] ... can't do this anymore," Souza concluded.

His testimony - and dramatic turn against the bosses - speaks to the Colombos' disarray and lowering of standards for supposed "men of honor."

"Their [the Colombos'] roster is getting pretty thin," conceded a law enforcement official.

Souza's troubles go way back.

He was "honorably discharged" from high school because "I baseball-batted somebody on school property," he testified. He instead graduated to loansharking, drug dealing and running a Staten Island gym called Evolution, where wiseguys and wanna-bes pumped iron. And after assaulting his own wife, he was marked for death by his mobbed-up father-in-law. But maybe worst of all was violating a previously unknown rule by exposing himself in a Staten Island bar owned by a gangster.

"You know, the rules, you don't take out your private part in a wiseguy's place," Souza said on the stand, in describing his past with the mob.

In Souza's bizarro world, "sitdowns" to settle beefs are now called "standups" - "you talk on the corner." And he paid the medical bills for a guy whose eye he popped out during a grisly fight. But Souza said he sees the Mafia more clearly now. "There's no honor in this life. It's all about the dollar," he said.

Thanks to John Marzulli

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