Budget Crisis Costs Defendant in Mob Boss Murder Case One of His Attorneys

Fallout from the state budget crisis is cropping up in the darnedest places.

A defendant charged in federal court in a mob murder conspiracy lost one of three appointed lawyers after a hearing on Wednesday. The lawyer argued her state-funded office is too cash-strapped for her to remain on the case.

Fotios A. "Freddy" Geas Jr., accused in the 2003 murder of organized crime boss Adolfo M. "Big Al" Bruno and facing a potential death penalty if convicted, lost the services of defense lawyer Stephanie Page. Page works for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state agency that provides legal counsel to indigent defendants.

Page said that as a state employee, she felt compelled to withdraw from the federal case. Her agency, like others with operations financed by the state, is reeling from deep budget cuts announced last month by Gov. Deval L. Patrick. "In light of the budget crisis, I felt I had to bow out," she said after the hearing in U.S. District. "I'm a full-time state employee."

Page represents Geas in a parallel murder case in Hampden Superior Court, and will remain his legal counsel in that venue.

David P. Hoose and Peter L. Ettenberg, both private lawyers who were appointed to the case, will stay on Geas' defense team in the federal court. The case is crawling along as Justice Department officials consider whether they will seek the death penalty.

Geas, 41, was indicted in federal court for murder in aid of racketeering, a charge that can trigger capital punishment. He also is charged with murder in state court along with Brendan D. Croteau and Frankie A. Roche.

Roche, the admitted gunman in the case, turned government informant and has offered testimony against others in the case. Prosecutors say Geas paid Roche $10,000 to shoot Bruno on Nov. 23, 2003, in the midst of a power struggle.

Like most state offices, the Committee for Public Counsel Services' budget was slashed when the governor announced $191 million in emergency cuts for this fiscal year and $871 million in proposed cuts for the next fiscal year that begins July 1. The agency's budget plummeted from about $186 million to roughly $158 million, according to state records.

Page is one of 200 members of the committee's Public Defender Division. The agency also pays thousands of private lawyers out of its budget for the bulk of the defense work it provides.

Thanks to Stephanie Barry

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Omerta - The Massive Multiplayer Text-Based RPG Gangster Game

While the gangster games are on their way – basically in the form of 2K Games’ Mafia II and EA’s GodFather II: The Game – another company is updating an MMOG that takes the whole mobster concept and puts some spice on it…and a little black-handing, because gamers like black-handing.

Comments Steve Biddick, CEO of Omerta Game commented in the press release about the new update, saying... "There had been a lot of talk among our players about making a change to how players are killed within the game. We have since implemented these changes so that in effect, the strength of the players account will be a crucial factor in a duel as a higher ranked player can take more bullets. But now is the best time for new players to join in with Omerta as with a new version, everybody starts from what is effectively a level playing field”.

The game, surprisingly enough, boasts 3.5 million subscriptions. Yizers, that’s a lot of people playing a game that is relatively unheard of. One of the things that makes Omerta different from other MMOGs is that a lot of the content is contributed by players. Kind of neat, eh?

"We pride ourselves on involving our players, listening to their feedback and then responding accordingly. Our players can make recommendations which are then discussed in the user group and actioned by our development team”. Said Biddick.

More than 250 volunteers help out with Omerta and the game is available in 34 different languages. For gamers interested in this game be sure to check out the Main Website for more information.

Thanks to William Usher

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Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob by Jeff Coen

Painting a vivid picture of the scenes both inside and outside the courtroom and re-creating events from court transcripts, police records, interviews, and notes taken day after day as the story unfolded in court in 2007, this narrative accurately portrays cold-blooded—and sometimes incompetent—killers and their crimes. In 1998 Frank Calabrese Jr. offered to wear a wire to help the FBI build a case against his father, Frank Sr., and his uncle Nick. A top Mob boss, a reputed consigliore, and other high-profile members of the Chicago Outfit were eventually accused in a total of 18 gangland killings, revealing organized crime's ruthless grip on the city throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. After a series of other defendants pled guilty, those left to face off in court alongside Frank Sr. were James “Little Jimmy” Marcello, the acting head of the Chicago mob; Joey “the Clown” Lombardo, one of Chicago’s most colorful mobsters; and Paul “the Indian” Schiro. A former Chicago police officer who worked in evidence, Anthony "Twan" Doyle, rounded out the list. The riveting testimony and wide-angle view provide one of the best accounts on record of the inner workings of the Chicago syndicate and its control over the city's streets.

The author, Jeff Coen, is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, covering federal trials and investigations from the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in downtown Chicago. He was present in the courtroom throughout the Family Secrets trial, and his pieces on the case were featured in a popular series in the Chicago Tribune. He lives in Oak Park, Illinois.

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La Cosa Nostra Getting Competition from Eurasian and Asian Crime Groups

When you hear the words “organized crime,” the first thing that comes to mind is probably the Mafia and its five major crime families in New York City. But have you ever heard of the notorious Thief-in-Law Vyacheslav Ivankov, the Solnstsevo organization, the Young Joon Yang gang, or the Black Dragons?

They’re involved in organized crime, too. Individuals associated with foreign-based criminal groups are targeting the U.S. as we speak, and they are a major focus of American law enforcement and a top priority of the FBI’s organized crime busting efforts.

These groups have much in common with their Mafia brethren, beginning with their hunger for power and profit. But what sets them apart is their reach. While traditional mobsters mostly operate domestically, Eurasian and Asian crime groups are transnational. Some report to an established leadership hierarchy in their native lands while others have fuzzier connections, but all require that we work closely with our law enforcement partners in these regions of the world.

Who they are. Eurasian criminal groups hail from dozens of countries spanning the Baltics, the Balkans, Central/Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucacus, and Central Asia. Although ethnically-based, they work with other ethnic groups when perpetrating crimes. Asian organized crime includes traditional enterprises like the Chinese Triads, Chinese Tong, and Japanese Boryokudan (a.k.a., Yakuza), as well as more loosely organized groups like the Big Boys Circle, the Asian Boyz Group, and Vietnamese and Korean criminal enterprises.

What they do. Both groups are involved in a range of illegal activities in this country, including drug trafficking, extortion, murder, kidnapping, home invasions, prostitution, illegal gambling, loan sharking, insurance/credit card fraud, stock fraud, and the theft of high-tech components. Chinese groups are also involved in human trafficking—bringing large numbers of Chinese migrants to North America and essentially enslaving them here. One of U.S. law enforcement’s chief concerns: the same criminal infrastructure that smuggles people into the U.S. could also be used to smuggle terrorists.

Investigative strategies. Over the past few decades, U.S. law enforcement has had a great deal of success against the major Mafia families using a full suite of investigative methods. Now, we’re using the same set of tools to combat Eurasian and Asian crime groups, including:

* Intelligence gathering;
* The enterprise theory of investigation, which focuses on the entire criminal group rather than on isolated members;
* The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act (both the criminal and civil provisions of this law can help dismantle criminal organizations);
* Cooperation, lots of it, with both domestic and global law enforcement partners; and
* Time-tested techniques like undercover operations, court-authorized electronic surveillance, informants and cooperating witnesses, and consensual monitoring.

Investigative accomplishments. Thief-in-Law Vyacheslav Ivankov’s conviction in New York in 1996 represented the FBI’s first major victory against the new wave of Eurasian organized crime entering America. Subsequent successes included Operation “Trojan Horses,” which dismantled a violent New York City Albanian criminal enterprise that had taken traditional racketeering activity away from the established La Cosa Nostra crime families. And undercover investigations in Newark and Los Angeles uncovered an Asian criminal organization that was smuggling, or attempting to smuggle, nearly every form of contraband imaginable—counterfeit currency, cigarettes, illegal drugs, pharmaceuticals, and weapons—into the United States.

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"Jackie the Nose" Indictment Announcement

LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), announced the unsealing of an indictment charging JOHN D’AMICO, a/k/a "Jackie the Nose," the Acting Boss of the Gambino Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra (the "Gambino Crime Family"), and powerful, longtime Gambino Crime Family associate JOSEPH WATTS with the 1989 murder of FREDERICK WEISS, who the defendants believed was serving as a federal government witness. The Indictment unsealed today also charges D'AMICO with racketeering conspiracy involving murder, extortion, witness tampering, obstruction of justice and gambling. WATTS was arrested earlier this morning in Manhattan and is expected to be presented later today in Manhattan federal court. D'AMICO is in federal custody in connection with a separate matter and is expected to be transferred to Manhattan to face these charges at a later date. According to the Indictment unsealed earlier today and other documents filed in Manhattan federal Court:

D'AMICO is a Capo in the Gambino Crime Family -- one of the families of "La Cosa Nostra" that operate in the New York City and New Jersey areas -- and is presently serving as its Acting Boss.

One of the purposes of the Gambino Crime Family is to identify and kill individuals suspected of providing information about the Family to law enforcement. On September 11, 1989, FREDERICK WEISS was murdered at the direction of JOHN GOTTI, the boss of the Gambino Family, because he was believed to be cooperating with law enforcement. D'AMICO and WATTS were among those involved in carrying out GOTTI's order to murder WEISS. From at least 1986, D'AMICO was also involved in conspiring with other members and associates of the Gambino Crime Family to commit a wide range of criminal offenses, including murder, operating illegal gambling businesses, extortion and obstruction of justice. D'AMICO's illegal conduct continued until at least May 2008 when, in an attempt to obtain release on bail in connection with separate federal charges against him, he misrepresented the nature of a salaried position with a major beverage distributor, which he obtained through Gambino Crime Family influence.

D'AMICO is charged with one count of racketeering conspiracy involving murder, extortion, witness tampering, obstruction of justice and gambling; and one count of murder of a witness in a federal criminal case. WATTS is charged with one count of murder of a witness in a federal criminal case. If convicted, D'AMICO, 72, and WATTS, 67, face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The Indictment also seeks the forfeiture of $4 million from D'AMICO. The forfeitures represent the alleged proceeds obtained from the charged offenses.

Mr. DASSIN praised the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys MIRIAM ROCAH and ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN are in charge of the prosecution.

The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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