11 Palm Beach and Broward County Residents Indicted on Organized Crime Charges with Reputed Connections to the Bonanno Crime Family

Eleven Palm Beach and Broward County residents were indicted Thursday after federal prosecutors outlined their alleged roles in an organized crime ring specializing in fraud, narcotics, gambling and mob-style shakedowns.

The crew operated out of South Florida, but regularly reported and paid tribute to the Bonanno family, a New York City-based mafia unit, according to the indictment from the U.S. attorney's office in Miami.

Boynton Beach resident Thomas Fiore, 46, is an associate of the Bonanno family and leads its South Florida operation, prosecutors said.

Each of the 11 were indicted on federal charges of Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, after a two-year undercover investigation.

The other defendants include Billie Robertson, 34, and Lee Klein, 39, both of Boynton Beach; Daniel Young, 57, and Guy Alessi, 81, both of Delray Beach; Kenneth Dunn, 44, and Nicholas Fiore, 49, both of Boca Raton; and Frank D'Amato, 48, of West Palm Beach.

The indictment also included Coral Springs residents Pasquale Rubbo, 43, Joseph Rubbo, 45, and Marc Broder, 42.

None of the defendants are ''made'' members of the Bonanno family.

According to prosecutors, an undercover FBI agent posing as a corrupt businessman infiltrated Thomas Fiore's group as part of a scam to convert fraudulent checks to cash.

With the agent in its midst, Fiore's crew laundered fake checks, acquired and planned to distribute illegal drugs and sold and purchased contraband cigarettes, stolen plasma televisions and identification documents to later be used in other scams, the indictment states. From September to January, authorities audiotaped conversations about alleged criminal activity using wiretaps on Fiore's and Pasquale Rubbo's phones.

Prosecutors also say Fiore set fire to his Royal Palm Beach gym to cash in on the insurance proceeds, then lied under oath about the fire and solicited the murder of someone to facilitate the fraud.

Prosecutors allege that members of the operation also:

• Submitted fraudulent claims to the Medicare program using illegally obtained patient records;

• Organized illegal high-stakes poker games for wealthy gamblers, although no players were named in the indictment;

• Manufactured fake checks using the names, addresses and account numbers of legitimate businesses and then cashed them at convenience stores or through foreign bank accounts and;

• Conspired to threaten business owners to extort illegal payments.

Other crimes include mail fraud, obstruction of justice and transporting stolen property across state lines, the indictment states.

Thomas and Nicholas Fiore and Pasquale and Joseph Rubbo were on either supervised release or probation after pleading guilty in recent years to engaging in criminal activities with leaders and associates of the Bonanno crime family.

At a hearing Thursday afternoon, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Seltzer set bail at $250,000 for Robertson, Joseph Rubbo and Young.

Seltzer allowed Robertson, who pleaded not guilty, to continue working at the medical offices in Boynton Beach and Boca Raton where she is employed. He ordered Jospeh Rubbo to live at a halfway house in Dania Beach and Young to live in home confinement in Delray Beach with electronic monitoring.

Fiore and the remaining defendants were being held in the Broward County Main Jail awaiting their bond hearings. The defendants could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey N. Kaplan and Paul F. Schwartz are prosecuting the case.

Thanks to Don Jordan

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Ed Burke's Palace: Powerful Chicago alderman gets zoning break, special parking

Ald. Edward M. Burke has ruled the 14th Ward for 40 years. He has used his clout to build himself a palace — right alongside the CTA’s Orange Line near Pulaski.

The house is part of a $4.6 million development that Burke and his partners built on a parking lot over the objections of Mayor Daley’s zoning administrators.

Daley’s zoning staff thought the development — one massive, three story house along with 13 town homes — wasn’t “compatible” with the Archer Heights neighborhood, where it would tower over the surrounding bungalows. But Burke, the city’s most powerful alderman, won permission from his colleagues on the City Council for the project anyway.

Then he got the city Zoning Board of Appeals’ OK to build the 4,400-square-foot house without having to leave space — as required by city ordinance — for a yard in the front or back.

The house does have an enormous rooftop deck, though, giving Burke and his wife, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne M. Burke, a bird’s-eye view of the L trains that rush by all day between the Loop and Midway Airport.

They moved in nearly four years ago.

Burke declined to discuss the project, which couldn’t have been built without City Council approval. Instead, he gave the Chicago SunTimes a copy of a June 24, 2004, letter that he sent to the Chicago Board of Ethics, assuring the city agency that he would abstain from voting on any matters involving the construction of his home and the rest of the project. And he promised he wouldn’t talk to any city officials about the development, either.

According to records obtained by the Sun-Times, Burke teamed with two of his campaign contributors — Anthony DeGrazia, a housing developer, and Eric Gonzales, a contractor whose company has worked on several projects for City Hall. They became equal partners in a new company — 51st Street Townhomes LLC — that paid $300,000 in late June 2004 to buy a little-used parking lot in the 3900 block of West 51st St. They bought it from someone who’d been a client of Burke’s law firm.

The triangular lot, about two- thirds of an acre, was zoned for businesses. Burke and his partners hired a lobbyist — Marcus Nunes, a law partner of Mayor Daley’s former chief of staff, Gery Chico — to get City Hall’s permission to build.

The city’s Zoning Department deemed the project “not recommended.” But the City Council went ahead and approved the project on Sept. 1, 2004 — with Burke abstaining.

On Sept. 10, 2004, Burke and his partners got a $480,000 construction loan from Cole Taylor Bank. They were free to begin building the town homes. But they still couldn’t build Burke’s new home unless the Zoning Board of Appeals agreed to drastically reduce the required size of the front and back yards. If the board wouldn’t agree, there wouldn’t have been enough room to build the house.

“Due to the unique shape of the property, it is impossible to place a home on it and meet the requirements for front, side and rear yard minimums,” according to documents Burke’s group gave the appeals board. “In the absence of such a variation, the property is likely to remain vacant or underutilized.’’

Shortly before Thanksgiving 2004, the appeals board gave Burke what he wanted: His house could be set back just three feet from the lot line, rather than the normal nine feet. And his backyard had to be just three feet deep, rather than the usual 30 feet.

Today, Burke’s home and three car attached garage fills the property. He has no backyard, just a paved driveway around his house. There’s no lawn, just a few flower beds.

Burke and his partners sold the home for $900,000 to the Anne M. Burke Trust on Oct. 10, 2005. The tax bills are mailed to the alderman, who paid $8,551.98 in property taxes last year.

After selling the house to his wife’s trust, Burke and his partners sold the 13 town homes for a total of $3.7 million. One of the biggest went for $280,000 to state Rep. Daniel Burke, the alderman’s brother.

Ald. Burke’s block is one-way, with a traffic barricade. And no one can park on the street without a parking permit. But there are two different permits required — one for the people who live across the street from Burke, another to park on the alderman’s side of the street.

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Drew Peterson Mock Trial to Feature Family Secrets Mob Lawyer Joseph Lopez

WGN Radio's Greg Adamski and Karen Conti will host a mock trial of the closing arguments in the murder prosecution of Drew Peterson for the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, on Thursday, May 28.

Chicago attorneys Greg Adamski and Karen Conti, hosts of WGN Radio's Legally Speaking, will host a mock trial of the closing arguments in the murder prosecution of Drew Peterson for the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, on Thursday, May 28 from 6-8pm at the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. The event will be open to the public and taped for broadcast on WGN Radio on Sunday, June 14 and Sunday, June 21.

"The People v. Drew Peterson" will feature Greg Adamski as moderator, Karen Conti as prosecutor, and Family Secrets Mob Trial lawyer Joseph R. Lopez as Drew Peterson's defense attorney. Retired Cook County Circuit Court Judge Richard Neville will preside and a professional jury consultant will be present to quickly screen and select jurors who will be taken from the audience. The jury will be given a short period of time to deliberate and a verdict will be rendered before the night is over. The event is intended as an educational exposition, based solely on the facts that have been publicly reported.

The event will be taped and broadcast on WGN Radio on Sunday, June 14 and Sunday, June 21, prior to the Chicago Cubs broadcasts - the exact start times will be announced closer to air dates.

Drew Peterson was indicted by a Will County grand jury on two counts of murder in connection with Savio's death. Defense attorney Joel Brodsky entered a not guilty plea on Peterson's behalf on May 18. Peterson, a former Bolingbrook police sergeant, has maintained his innocence in the case.

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The Dark Side of Camelot

There are many Jack Kennedys in America's collective consciousness, even 46 years after his Friday lunchtime slaying under clearing Dallas skies. It was the most public killing in American history until the destruction of the World Trade Center on a sunny Tuesday morning.

A million bits of paper, freed through gaping holes in the burning Twin Towers, fluttered high over Manhattan. So did the president's brother and political keeper, Robert Kennedy, face a blizzard of paperwork as he secured safes at the White House, the Justice Department, the national security regimes and other offices around Washington. His goal: to hide his dead brother's sins and political missteps from a shocked and mourning American people.

Bobby wanted to protect his brother's legacy while denying the Kennedy family's political enemies their proof of JFK's complicity in the murder of Diem of South Vietnam; Lumumba of the Congo; Arbenz of the Dominican Republic and other excesses of presidential power; the failure of the Bay of Pigs; the secret deal with Khrushchev to remove nuclear missiles from Turkey to end the Cuban Missile Crisis and other details best kept from the public so soon after JFK's death.

Nor was there any love lost between Bobby and Lyndon Baines Johnson, the newly sworn-in president already in the air with the slain president on board. Bobby worked the phones the afternoon of the shooting, ordering longtime Kennedy family aides and political operatives to not discuss what they knew and to secure any letters, memos or notes of communications in which JFK took part.

In addition to changing the combination on the Oval Office safe to keep LBJ from discovering its contents until he could find a secure place for them, Bobby ordered the removal of the secret taping system that JFK had installed not only in the Oval Office but throughout the living quarters that the president, until two nights before, had shared not only with Jacqueline but with a woman whom Bobby himself had arranged for his brother to bed.

So opens "The Dark Side of Camelot," a 1997 classic by Seymour Hersh, the journalist who broke the My Lai story. Worth a revisit at this time, it's a thoroughly researched and hyper-revealing look not only at JFK's life and presidency but at the horrifying politics of the time. Politics so well hidden from a trusting public by a press corps that, by and large, honored an unwritten rule that certain things a powerful man does are best not reported.

Jack Kennedy was incapable of true partnership with people beyond Bobby and his father, Joe, whom he worshiped. He inherited his father's beliefs that other men were of lesser importance and were to be used for personal gain. Women, meanwhile, were a beautiful distraction that held little value beyond sexual pleasure.

Hersh personally interviewed many men and women who had known JFK since his days as a congressman from Massachusetts; his behavior hadn't changed since his carefree college days at Harvard.

For all that was at stake, JFK at times felt he was invincible, that nothing could touch him. Recklessness is a Kennedy trait and JFK brought it to the fore after he won the presidency.

Hersh quotes a longtime lover of Jack's who slept with him the night before his inauguration. She said the idea of betraying Jacqueline and his children was not on his mind, even though, had it been reported by an otherwise fawning press, his political career would have been over before his first 100 days in the White House.

She said, "I think somehow between his money, his position, his charm, his whatever, he was caught up in feeling that he was buffered. That people would take care of it. There is that feeling that you are not accountable, that the laws of the world do not apply to you. Laws had never been applied to his father and to him."

Yet JFK, described by former lovers as smooth, a charming man who laughed easily when among peers at the thousands of nights of parties and social events in his political years, kept the Kennedy aloofness at the same time.

Hersh interviewed Charles Spalding, who grew up with JFK: "Kennedy hated physical touching. People taking liberties with him," said Spalding. "Which I assume goes back to his mother [Rose] and the fact that she was so cold, so distant."

As president, JFK ignored the niceties of politics when he had to. He ordered the assassinations of world leaders and, like his father, had a working relationship with organized crime bosses in Chicago and New Orleans. JFK also regularly received graft while in the White House, Hersh writes. Over a period of years, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from California businessmen were delivered to the White House by operatives. Chicago mobster Sam Giancana's girlfriend on several occasions ran money from JFK's White House to the mob boss personally. She'd board a train at Union Station carrying a suitcase filled with cash and deliver it to Giancana himself, who would meet her at the Chicago train station. Not once, but several times, according to Hersh. The delivery of the money was set up by Bobby.

Was it money for Giancana's help in trying to kill Castro? A payoff for delivering votes in the 1960 election, which Kennedy won by a very slim margin? "That election was stolen," Hersh writes.

There is no understanding Jack Kennedy without investigating his grandfather, John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, an old Boston pol, bought a seat in Congress in 1912 but lost it after an investigation by the House.

Joe Kennedy played a big role in that scandalous election, hiring thugs to beat voters opposed to Fitz; Joe then used money and less-violent but just as effective means to get his son Jack elected president. The lessons were not lost on Jack.

Hersh's book is priceless in its bare-knuckled accuracy, from the origins of the Kennedy empire, the purchase of the 1960 presidential election, JFK's deadly international gamesmanship, J. Edgar Hoover's hatred of the Kennedys and father Joe's embracing of Adolf Hitler's politics.

The myth of the young idealist, the brave and courageous knight cut down early in life, still survives in the hearts of most Americans. In spite of the facts, JFK's role is that of the fair-haired American prince worthy of canonization.

Thanks to Hersh, history is properly recorded here for those willing to read it. "The Dark Side of Camelot" reveals a rogue's gallery of pimps, mobsters, right-wing military officers, ruthless political operatives, a fanatical FBI director and, of course, CIA spooks -- all the shadowy illegitimates of American politics who helped give JFK the presidency and who eventually decided to take it all away from him after the rain stopped falling in Dallas.

In a tragic twist of irony, Hersh connects JFK's inability to dodge the final head-blast from "Oswald's rifle" to JFK's amorous adventures. Because he'd strained his back while having a tryst in the pool belonging to his brother-in-law, the actor Peter Lawford, JFK had to wear a canvas and metal back brace from his neck to his waste. When hit by the neck shot, JFK tried to duck before the second (or third) shot -- but the brace limited his motion.

This book is as explosive as the bullet that sent JFK's skull flying.

Thanks to John L. Guerra

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Meet The Gavones Video

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