U.S. Marshal Teaches Students About Witness Protection Program

Taking a page out of a realistic fiction book, some eighth-grade students at St. Patrick’s School on Friday learned that a federal program aimed at toppling crime is literally a life-changing event.

Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Tom Cassels has been in the federal agency since June 1992. He told about 30 students at the Terre Haute private school of his service as a federal marshal in the Witness Security Program, where he worked for about 21/2 years, starting in 1996.

That witness protection program was authorized by the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 and amended by the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. Since its inception, more than 7,500 witnesses and more than 9,500 family members have entered the program, according to the U.S. Marshal Service’s Web site.

The program provides for the health and safety of government witnesses, along with their families, whose lives are in danger as a result of testimony against drug traffickers, organized crime members, terrorists or other major criminals. It involves relocating a person to a new community.

“We basically try to remove [witnesses] from an area that is threatening and put them in an area that is not threatening. It is basically a new identity,” Cassels said.

“The vast majority of these people were participants in a criminal activity or organization. The chance that someone is an innocent lamb that just happens to be there does happen, but not in most cases. These are people who weigh the options of going to prison for 30 years or testifying to help bring down people in the upper levels” of an organization, he said.

“No one has ever been killed or injured as long as they abide by the protocols of the program,” Cassels said.

Protocols, Cassels told students, include not contacting family members, friends or former boyfriends or girlfriends. “You have to severe all ties, period,” he said. “If it is grandma’s birthday, you don’t call her. If grandma dies, you don’t go to the funeral. That is one of the most dangerous times. That is when people say, ‘hey, this relative died, let’s see if anyone shows up.’”

“That is one of the main things than can get somebody terminated from the program, as you have to comply with all the restrictions and protocols,” he said.

Another violation is getting arrested, such as for drunk driving. A police department, using a person’s fingerprints, could discover a person’s previous identity. “We can’t lie to another [police] department,” Cassels said.

The students have been reading “Zach’s Lie,” a book published in 2001 by author Roland Smith. The book follows fictional 13-year-old Jack Osborne, whose father flies a small airplane that actually is a front for illegal drug trafficking. After his father’s arrest, his father’s former “business associates” don’t want him to talk. His family is placed into the federal Witness Security Program. Jack Osborne has to change his name to Zach Granger and moves from Texas to Elko, Nev., along with his mother and sister.

To bring the book to life, school librarian Tammy Kikta had students eat lunch family style, much like was done at the Nevada Hotel in the book. In addition, a room was decorated much like a custodian’s work room under a high school stage, where the book’s character gets away from criminals who had discovered the family in Nevada.

Cassels said relocating is “very, very hard, especially on a kid.” He said in some cases, worried parents have not let children “out to play in a year, fearing they would say a name or say where they used to live.”

Still, once placed into a safe environment, which includes a new job, witnesses are generally on their own security-wise, Cassels said. He said witnesses have to get a job and work to support their families. Most of the effort is on their part. If they are willing to work for themselves, the program will work to assist them,” he said.

Christopher Schenck, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at St. Pat’s, said the book and the visit from Cassels taught him the Witness Security Program “is a life-changing program. You really have to leave your life behind.”

Prior to hearing Cassels, students used a computer program to change hair color or eye color, as if in the program. Cassels said he could not comment if that was common practice, but said generally it is enough to geographically move a person to where someone would not recognize him. “It is really enough to hide in plain sight,” he said.

Thanks to Howard Greninger

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More Future Presidential Candidates from Chicago?

The Weather Channel reported record low temperatures across the Midwest Friday, setting new records in Chicago. The wind chill index was fifty degrees below zero at O'Hare Airport. Now everyone wants to run for president just to get out of Chicago.

Thanks to Argus Hamilton

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Is Mob Killer Confined Like Hannibal Lecter?

He may not have been a cannibal like movie madman Hannibal Lecter, but a lawyer for prolific mob killer Frank Calabrese Sr. says the Chicago Outfit boss is confined in jail just like the fictional psychopath in "Silence of the Lambs."

Calabrese attorney Joe "The Shark" Lopez filed a pre-sentencing motion in federal court alleging that "the Defendant (Calabrese, Sr.) is shackled like Hannibal Lecter in the movie 'Silence of the Lambs'. As a result, the Defendant cannot shake his attorney's hand which is a civilized way to greet another person. The Defendant also cannot read a document on his own since his hands are shackled."

Hollywood's Hannibal Lector, a serial killer who would then devour his victims, was entombed in a subterranean prison from homicidally insane. Famously portrayed in 1991 by actor Anthony Hopkins, Lector was restrained in a straight-jacket and a muzzle, intended to prevent him from sinking his teeth into anyone else.

Lopez tells the I-Team that the only restraint not yet used on Calabrese is the protective face-mask. "I am sure it is coming," stated Lopez "and I think he will never leave (solitary confinement.) This is unheard of for a U.S. citizen. It's reserved for terrorists."

Calabrese, known in Outfit circles as "the Breeze," is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 28. The motion, which will be heard in court next Thursday, is aimed at gaining permission for Calabrese to meet with a private investigator hired by Mr. Lopez.

As the I-Team reported in December, Calabrese has been held in solitary confinement after authorities say they determined he was a violent security threat.

"The Defendant does not know which information the Attorney General was provided; but, it is his position that it is false" Calabrese contends in the court motion. "Accordingly, he is ready to submit to a lie detector test along with the persons who may have made false statements to representatives of the United States."

Lopez maintains that it is impossible for Calabrese to prepare for his defense while being held like Hannibal Lecter. "The Defendant's calls are restricted; and, as of today's date, he has not seen his children. He has seen his wife with whom he was allowed a visit through a glass window and shackled" states the motion.

Among the children Calabrese has not seen, is his Frank Jr. who testified against him during the Operation Family Secrets mob murder trial in 2007. Calabrese believes that government prosecutors do not want him investigating what may have motivated his son to become a witness."Namely, the real reason he began to cooperate and the fact he recruited individual "A" to put the spin of the lousy father before the public eye rather than the real reason of avarice and greed," according to the filing.

A spokesman for United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald on Friday declined to comment on the Hannibal Lecter motion.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Restitution Filing Doubles Value Requested for Mob Murder Victims

In a separate court filing, the lives of 14 mob murder victims have gone up in value.

Federal prosecutors originally filed court motions last fall citing the earnings potential of victims and the monetary loss to their relatives. At that time, restitution to be paid by top Chicago mobsters convicted in Operation Family Secrets was put at $3.9 million.

Updated figures filed in federal court on Friday put the restitution at $7,450,686.00. Prosecutors say the increased value is based on new information provided to experts who figured the restitution. Government lawyers are asking the court to force lead mob defendants to split that figure five ways and be made to pay survivors of those who were rubbed out by assassins.

The convicted hoodlums who are being asked to pay up are: Frank Calabrese Sr., James "Jimmy the Man" Marcello, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Paul "The Indian" Schiro and Anthony "Twan" Doyle.

All of the men are due to be sentenced by the end of February, at which time Judge James Zagel is expected to impose restitution and also $20 million in fines that the government has requested.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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Despite Winning Multiple European Film Prizes, The Academy Awards Appear to Snub "Gomorra" for Now

OVER THE years, your correspondent has always been puzzled by the huge success of the American TV drama series The Sopranos , a work which dealt, in an often humorous way, with the everyday vicissitudes of a New Jersey mobster and his family.

Sure the series was cleverly scripted, brilliantly acted and intelligently told but, in the end, its hero was a violent godfather and the underlying protagonist was organised crime.

How would Irish viewers react to a soap opera about the Murphys in mid-80s Belfast and the difficulties they faced in trying to resolve the conflicting requirements of home life and being effective Provo operatives?

One suspects that no matter how well written the series was and no matter how many intriguing philosophical, social or political themes it touched, many in this country would still be outraged.

Organised crime is neither funny nor entertaining.

The point was perhaps made this week when Matteo Garrone’s film Gomorra , based on a hard-hitting expose of the Neapolitan Mafia, the Camorra, was adjudged by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts not good enough to make a shortlist of nine for the Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Language Film.

The academy boffins will no doubt tell us that, interesting as it is, Gomorra simply was not up to the mark.

Yet, how come the film picked up the Grand Prix award at Cannes last year, not to mention five prizes at the 2008 European Film Awards?

How come Gomorra , based on the two-million-plus bestseller by Roberto Saviano, has won widespread critical acclaim not only in Italy but also across Europe? No, clearly this is a good and important film but one for which Hollywood simply does not have the stomach.

The Mafia are just fine when it is a question of mobster Tony Soprano in a heart to heart chat with his therapist but a lot less appetising, it would seem, when we we are talking about the grizzly, bloody and violent everyday drug-reality of today’s Naples.

Naples-born Italian film director Gabriele Salvatores, himself a Foreign Film Oscar winner in 1992 with Mediterraneo, finds the exclusion of Gomorra “absurd”.

He believes Academy members tend to prefer films aimed at the widest possible public, telling Turin daily La Stampa this week: “Sure, Gomorra might seem difficult because there is no obvious storyline to follow, no central character with whom to identify and because it doesn’t have a happy ending, but we are in 2009.”

Maybe the Academy has a point. Cinema and show business, after all, are about entertainment and there is nothing entertaining about organised crime.

The grimy, grubby cinéma vérité style of Gomorra has been called “too realistic” by one British critic, who said he had difficulty working out whether he was watching “real people or professional actors”.

In truth, this was a fair observation since at least three members of the Gomorra cast have subsequently been arrested for Camorra-related offences. It seems that some small-time godfathers just could not resist the chance of acting in a film, acting out their own everyday lives.

Curiously, in the very week that Gomorra was being overlooked for the Oscars, life not so much imitated as outstripped art when wanted Camorra killer Giuseppe Setola was arrested near Caserta, close to Naples.

Setola, a member of the Casalesi family, which features in Saviano’s book, was arrested on Wednesday after a three-day flight that began with him escaping down a sewer and ended with a dramatic rooftop chase. Wanted by police for no less than 18 murders in the last nine months, (including the killing of six Africans at Castel Volturno last September), Setola allegedly has a great devotion to the Kalashnikov rifle.

One ex-Camorrista, now turned state’s witness, told investigators that when he was deciding to pull off a “job”, Setola would tell his “soldiers”: “I’ve already got a life sentence and I’ve nothing to lose, so we’ll do this my way – we go in shooting, we’re not here to make jewellery.”

In today’s world, much has been (correctly) made of the fact that organised crime has long since moved into a whole series of legitimate businesses, including high finance, as a way to recycle its drug-created money. Setola, however, was not one such “financier”.

Describing him this week, senior Neapolitan mafia investigator Franco Roberto said: “Setola is no psychopath. He is neither mad nor a fanatic. He does not kill in the name of Allah, he kills only for business.”

Living in grime and filth, and literally like a sewer rat, hardly makes for your average Hollywood hero. The problem about Gomorra is that it features many such unappetising characters.

Perhaps, this is just one case where the Hollywood boffins simply cannot stand too much reality. That is, of course, unless the Academy intends to give the Best Picture Award to Gomorra and prove us all wrong.

Thanks to Paddy Agnew

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