When Lin DeVecchio goes to court, he never goes alone.
His lawyers are there, making arguments. The news media are there, taking photographs and notes. His wife sometimes shows up, making small, sorrowful faces as she grips him by the hand. Then there are the men who make a path for him as they escort him back and forth through the crowd. The ones with the gray hair and the jowls, the stern faces and the off-the-rack suits.
Almost from the moment he was charged in March with helping to commit four murders for the mob, R. Lindley DeVecchio has been surrounded by this posse of supporters: retired F.B.I. men who for years were not only his colleagues, but also his friends.
They watch his back. Personally guarantee his million-dollar bond. Solicit money for his legal bills. Scoff at his accusers. Interview — or, some have said, intimidate — witnesses in the case. And at every chance they get, tell whoever cares to listen that Mr. DeVecchio is an innocent man.
Sixty-five years old and retired from the F.B.I., Mr. DeVecchio stands accused in a state indictment of four counts of second-degree murder. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office says he helped an informant in the mob, Gregory Scarpa Sr., kill four times in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, so that Mr. Scarpa could rid himself of rivals and win bloody battles in a war within the Colombo family.
To a federal agent, there is nothing more toxic than a corruption charge — which even by association can ruin a career. And the charges faced by Mr. DeVecchio are radioactive: that he gave secret information to Mr. Scarpa in exchange for $66,000.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that 19 former F.B.I. agents have put their names and reputations on the line to save their troubled friend. These were not the bureaucrats or pencil pushers of the New York office, but its veteran undercover and investigative men. “We’ve all worked with Lin since the early 1970’s,” said Joseph D. Pistone, the real-life Donnie Brasco, who infiltrated the Bonanno crime family as an undercover agent in the 1970’s.
“We’re all veteran street guys,” Mr. Pistone said. “If anyone could smell something bad, it would be us. And with Lin, we never smelled bad.”
The so-called Friends of Lin DeVecchio have a total of 480 years of street experience, give or take a few, and while most spend their time these days on a golf course or at the shore, they remain encyclopedic on the subject of the mob.
Who knows better than us, they say, what happened 20 years ago at Carmine Sessa’s bar or at Larry Lampesi’s house near McDonald Avenue in Brooklyn? (Both places will figure prominently at trial.) “We gathered the information,” said James M. Kossler, who from 1979 to 1989 was Mr. DeVecchio’s boss.
Much of that information has been posted on a Web site, www.lindevecchio.com, which attempts to refute the state indictment with transcripts of federal trials and with private F.B.I. reports called 302’s. There is information about how to donate money toward Mr. DeVecchio’s legal expenses. The Web site also levels personal attacks against the state’s lead prosecutor, Michael Vecchione; its chief witness, Linda Schiro, Mr. Scarpa’s former companion; and Sandra Harmon, who is a self-described relationship coach and the co-author with Priscilla Presley of a tell-all book on Elvis Presley, and who had planned to write a book with Ms. Schiro but wrote one instead about Mr. Scarpa’s son.
Mr. DeVecchio’s supporters make no bones about their deep disdain for the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, who they say considers a good Mafia case to be rounding up gamblers on Super Bowl Sunday. “Here you have a rackets bureau that doesn’t know a thing about organized crime,” Mr. Kossler said. “They don’t know what they’re doing. If they had a track record of making great O.C. cases, fine — but they don’t.”
The bad blood between the state and the F.B.I. goes back many years, to at least 1992, when Mr. Scarpa went into hiding after Brooklyn prosecutors obtained a warrant for his arrest on a gun possession charge. From April to August of that year, court papers say, Mr. Scarpa met or spoke with Mr. DeVecchio seven times, but the F.B.I. neither informed the state of his whereabouts nor arrested Mr. Scarpa.
Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for Mr. Hynes, waved off accusations that the office was incompetent. “These people who are making these allegations can’t possibly know the depth of the evidence we have compiled to make this case,” he said.
Part of that evidence is likely to include the testimony of Lawrence Mazza, Mr. Scarpa’s one-time disciple, who has already told investigators that Mr. Scarpa had a friend in law enforcement, whom he used to call “the girlfriend.” Mr. Mazza, who now works at a gym in southern Florida, said that several weeks ago, one of the retired agents paid him a visit. Without saying exactly what happened, he said the agent had tried to intimidate him in connection with the case.
Mr. Kossler scoffed at the charge, saying the former agent had gone to Florida merely to interview Mr. Mazza on Mr. DeVecchio’s behalf. As a witness for the prosecution, Mr. Mazza is of obvious interest to the defense, he said. While the prosecution has said in court that intimidation of witnesses may have occurred, it will not publicly discuss Mr. Mazza’s accusation.
At its core, the DeVecchio case is about the tenuous give-and-take that exists between an agent and a confidential source. Prosecutors say that Mr. DeVecchio abused that give-and-take, giving Mr. Scarpa names and addresses of men who wound up dead.
Mr. DeVecchio has said that in the 12 years he “ran” Mr. Scarpa, he never leaked a secret and never received anything more than a Cabbage Patch doll, a bottle of wine and a pan of lasagna.
As for the Friends of Lin DeVecchio, they maintain it takes a special sort of man to handle Mafia informants. He must speak the language of the street and of the F.B.I. He must appreciate the criminal mind without admiring it. He must be able to cultivate trust among those who trust no one but themselves. “That’s the fine line the agent has to walk — to always remember who he is and who he’s dealing with,” said Christopher Mattice, who served for many years as the F.B.I.’s informant coordinator in New York. “You have to talk the language and make them understand you understand what’s going on.” And most important, he said, you must remember that no conversation between an agent and a mole takes place in a vacuum. Questions fashioned to elicit information give information: If Agent X asks about Gangster Y, it means that he is interested in Gangster Y. If Gangster Y winds up dead, is that Agent X’s fault?
For now, Mr. DeVecchio’s trial is scheduled to open at the beginning of next year, and his federal friends are planning to attend. “The bond is very close,” said Douglas E. Grover, Mr. DeVecchio’s lawyer. “It’s not just that they worked together; it’s like they were in the Army together, like they went through the wars.”
Should things go poorly for Mr. DeVecchio, his supporters will not quit, they say. “We’ll continue to do what we’re doing,” Mr. Kossler said. “We’ll fight this as far as it has to go.”
Thanks to Alan Feuer
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Tribute in Light
The "Tribute in Light," a tribute to the victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, lights up the sky above lower Manhattan with the Brooklyn Bridge in the foreground in this view from the Brooklyn borough of New York, Monday, Sept. 11, 2006.
Megale Gets Capone Prison Sentence
The sole remaining defendant, Gambino Family associate Louis Natrella
Mob underboss Anthony "The Genius" Megale, a/k/a “Mac,” a/k/a “Machiavelli,” was sentenced Friday in Manhattan federal court to 11 years imprisonment, following his conviction on racketeering and extortion charges. Ironically, he received the same sentence as the legendary Chicago mobster Al "Scarface" Capone.
United States District judge also imposed a term of three years’ supervised release, a fine of $30,000, and ordered Megale to forfeit $100,000, representing the proceeds of his criminal activity.
Megale's sentencing followed his guilty plea on March 30, 2006, to four counts of an Indictment unsealed last year. It charged 32 defendants, most of whom are members or associates of the Gambino Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra, with wide-ranging racketeering crimes and other offenses spanning more than a decade, including violent assault, extortion of various individuals and businesses, loansharking, union embezzlement, illegal gambling, trafficking in stolen property and counterfeit goods, and mail fraud.
As part of his guilty plea, Megale admitted participating in a racketeering enterprise and extorting the owners of a restaurant in Greenwich, Connecticut, a New Jersey trucking company, and a construction company in Westchester County.
As stated in the Indictment, from approximately 2002 until the time of his arrest in late 2004, Megale was the Acting Underboss of the Gambino Organized Crime Family. Megale assumed this position when official Underboss Arnold Squitieri , a codefendant, was elevated from Underboss to Acting Boss. The Gambino Crime Family was once headed by John "Teflon Don" Gotti and Paul Castelano, whom many believe was assassinated by order of Gotti.
The charges leading to Megale's conviction were the result of an almost three-year long investigation that included obtaining court authorization to intercept conversations among high-ranking members of the Gambino Crime Family at several locations in the Bronx and Westchester County, including at the United Hebrew Geriatrics Home, located in New Rochelle, New York. An undercover FBI agent also infiltrated the Gambino Family in the course of the investigation.
All but one of the defendants charged in this case have pleaded guilty or, in the case of Gambino Family Capo Gregory DePalma, been convicted at trial. In the past two weeks, Gambino Family Capo Thomas Cacciopoli, a/k/a “Tommy Sneakers,” Luchese Organized Crime Family Captain John Capra, a/k/a “Johnny Hooks,” and Genovese Organized Crime Family Soldier Pasquale DeLuca, a/k/a “Scop,” have all pleaded guilty in this case.
The sole remaining defendant, Gambino Family associate Louis Natrella, is scheduled to go to trial on September 11, 2006.
Anthony Megale, who was known as "The Genius," began his criminal activity in Stamford, Connecticut. In August 2001, it is believed that Megale became a Capo (Captain) within the Gambino Family and was made acting underboss after Peter Gotti -- son of John Gotti --was arrested on racketeering charges.
During August 2002, a Fairfield County nightclub owner, met with Megale after the nightclub owner had been approached by members and associates of the Gambino Family and another organized crime family who sought to extort payments from him, his associates, and his businesses.
Megale represented to the nightclub owner that he was a top Gambino Family member, that he had met with leadership of the rival organized crime family, and that he had prevented members and associates of the rival family from extorting payments from him.
Then Megale told the nightclub owner that he would have to pay for “protection” in order to ensure the safety of himself, his associates, his property and his businesses. Megale demanded payment of $2000 every month plus an annual Christmas bonus as tribute money.
According to the FBI, for almost two years the nightclub owner was forced to pay protection money to Megale. It is further alleged that Megale threatened the nightclub owner with violence, destruction of property and disruption of his business if and when Megale didn't receive his protection money from the owner.
Thanks to Jim Kouri
Mob underboss Anthony "The Genius" Megale, a/k/a “Mac,” a/k/a “Machiavelli,” was sentenced Friday in Manhattan federal court to 11 years imprisonment, following his conviction on racketeering and extortion charges. Ironically, he received the same sentence as the legendary Chicago mobster Al "Scarface" Capone.
United States District judge also imposed a term of three years’ supervised release, a fine of $30,000, and ordered Megale to forfeit $100,000, representing the proceeds of his criminal activity.
Megale's sentencing followed his guilty plea on March 30, 2006, to four counts of an Indictment unsealed last year. It charged 32 defendants, most of whom are members or associates of the Gambino Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra, with wide-ranging racketeering crimes and other offenses spanning more than a decade, including violent assault, extortion of various individuals and businesses, loansharking, union embezzlement, illegal gambling, trafficking in stolen property and counterfeit goods, and mail fraud.
As part of his guilty plea, Megale admitted participating in a racketeering enterprise and extorting the owners of a restaurant in Greenwich, Connecticut, a New Jersey trucking company, and a construction company in Westchester County.
As stated in the Indictment, from approximately 2002 until the time of his arrest in late 2004, Megale was the Acting Underboss of the Gambino Organized Crime Family. Megale assumed this position when official Underboss Arnold Squitieri , a codefendant, was elevated from Underboss to Acting Boss. The Gambino Crime Family was once headed by John "Teflon Don" Gotti and Paul Castelano, whom many believe was assassinated by order of Gotti.
The charges leading to Megale's conviction were the result of an almost three-year long investigation that included obtaining court authorization to intercept conversations among high-ranking members of the Gambino Crime Family at several locations in the Bronx and Westchester County, including at the United Hebrew Geriatrics Home, located in New Rochelle, New York. An undercover FBI agent also infiltrated the Gambino Family in the course of the investigation.
All but one of the defendants charged in this case have pleaded guilty or, in the case of Gambino Family Capo Gregory DePalma, been convicted at trial. In the past two weeks, Gambino Family Capo Thomas Cacciopoli, a/k/a “Tommy Sneakers,” Luchese Organized Crime Family Captain John Capra, a/k/a “Johnny Hooks,” and Genovese Organized Crime Family Soldier Pasquale DeLuca, a/k/a “Scop,” have all pleaded guilty in this case.
The sole remaining defendant, Gambino Family associate Louis Natrella, is scheduled to go to trial on September 11, 2006.
Anthony Megale, who was known as "The Genius," began his criminal activity in Stamford, Connecticut. In August 2001, it is believed that Megale became a Capo (Captain) within the Gambino Family and was made acting underboss after Peter Gotti -- son of John Gotti --was arrested on racketeering charges.
During August 2002, a Fairfield County nightclub owner, met with Megale after the nightclub owner had been approached by members and associates of the Gambino Family and another organized crime family who sought to extort payments from him, his associates, and his businesses.
Megale represented to the nightclub owner that he was a top Gambino Family member, that he had met with leadership of the rival organized crime family, and that he had prevented members and associates of the rival family from extorting payments from him.
Then Megale told the nightclub owner that he would have to pay for “protection” in order to ensure the safety of himself, his associates, his property and his businesses. Megale demanded payment of $2000 every month plus an annual Christmas bonus as tribute money.
According to the FBI, for almost two years the nightclub owner was forced to pay protection money to Megale. It is further alleged that Megale threatened the nightclub owner with violence, destruction of property and disruption of his business if and when Megale didn't receive his protection money from the owner.
Thanks to Jim Kouri
New Orleans Radio Host Charged with "Mob" Hit on Wife
To friends and listeners, radio talk show host Vince Marinello was "Vinnie" -- a racetrack regular straight out of "Guys and Dolls," a New Orleans native with a Brooklyn accent, a guy who liked to imply he had mob connections.
Now, Marinello stands accused of donning a disguise and shooting his estranged wife to death gangland-style in a suburban parking lot. Listeners who enjoyed his fan talk or found comfort in his post-Katrina broadcasts are wondering what went wrong. Marinello, 69, surrendered to authorities and was jailed Thursday on murder charges.
Mary Elizabeth Marinello, a 45-year-old respiratory therapist, died September 1, a day after she was shot twice in the face as she stood in a parking lot. The attack was first described as a botched robbery, but Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee said Wednesday that it was being treated as a "hit" based on surveillance tapes.
"I think that before Katrina they had some problems," said Bertha Norman, the victim's mother. "But after Katrina, all that stress brought on a lot of things. I think Katrina made everything worse."
So much worse that in July, Mary Elizabeth filed for a divorce. That was when she learned that her husband of less than two years was still married when they wed. "The lawyer called and told her, `You don't need a divorce; you need an annulment,"' Norman said. Marinello "had told her so many lies -- that's why she was divorcing him. But this was the one he didn't want known."
Marinello was put on a suicide watch after turning himself in Thursday. The charges carry a mandatory life sentence.
Detectives said that on August 31, Marinello put on a fake mustache and beard, rode a bicycle to a parking lot he knew his wife used regularly, lay in ambush and shot her before pedaling away. Marinello's lawyer, Donald Foret, said he was trying to help his client post $250,000 and get out of jail. Other than that, he had no comment.
Authorities initially thought the shooting was a robbery gone bad, until they were able to take a closer look at surveillance tape.
Late Wednesday, authorities searched Marinello's Katrina-damaged house, the FEMA trailer he lived in, and the home of a friend. In the trailer, the sheriff said, they found a handwritten checklist of the alleged plans for the attack. "It was almost as good as a confession," Lee said.
Initially, Marinello had said he was in Jackson, Mississippi, at the time of the shooting, but Lee said his alibi unraveled and "things started to fall into place."
Marinello grew up in the close-knit Italian community in the French Quarter. He was a New Orleans sportscaster for a quarter of a century and also did a handicapping show from the Fair Grounds Race Track that was televised to betting establishments nationwide.
After Hurricane Katrina hit, he switched his WWL talk show's focus from sports to hurricane relief. "He was everybody's idea of a New Orleans guy," said Michael Diliberto, who worked with Marinello at the Fair Grounds for 15 years. "He'd do anything for anybody." Marinello knew everyone, Diliberto said, including the sheriff, who acknowledged that the arrest pained him.
Marinello was not above dropping hints that he was mob-connected. "I know from his life in the news media that he knew a lot of people that were known as bad guys," Diliberto said. "Working at the racetrack, in Chicago, around boxing, he came in contact with all kinds."
Despite that, Diliberto said he has a hard time thinking of Marinello as a bad guy himself. "I can think he might think he would know somebody that would do it," Diliberto said. "But I can't believe he would do it himself. He is such a kind man. I just can't picture him pulling the trigger."
Bob Mitchell, who co-hosted the show with Marinello, said during Thursday night's broadcast that he is still trying to make sense of what has happened. "If my friend is innocent, then I hope God will lead investigators to the guilty person or person. If he's not, and he did the crime, then he should pay the price whatever it is," Mitchell said. "This is a tragedy for all of us."
Now, Marinello stands accused of donning a disguise and shooting his estranged wife to death gangland-style in a suburban parking lot. Listeners who enjoyed his fan talk or found comfort in his post-Katrina broadcasts are wondering what went wrong. Marinello, 69, surrendered to authorities and was jailed Thursday on murder charges.
Mary Elizabeth Marinello, a 45-year-old respiratory therapist, died September 1, a day after she was shot twice in the face as she stood in a parking lot. The attack was first described as a botched robbery, but Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee said Wednesday that it was being treated as a "hit" based on surveillance tapes.
"I think that before Katrina they had some problems," said Bertha Norman, the victim's mother. "But after Katrina, all that stress brought on a lot of things. I think Katrina made everything worse."
So much worse that in July, Mary Elizabeth filed for a divorce. That was when she learned that her husband of less than two years was still married when they wed. "The lawyer called and told her, `You don't need a divorce; you need an annulment,"' Norman said. Marinello "had told her so many lies -- that's why she was divorcing him. But this was the one he didn't want known."
Marinello was put on a suicide watch after turning himself in Thursday. The charges carry a mandatory life sentence.
Detectives said that on August 31, Marinello put on a fake mustache and beard, rode a bicycle to a parking lot he knew his wife used regularly, lay in ambush and shot her before pedaling away. Marinello's lawyer, Donald Foret, said he was trying to help his client post $250,000 and get out of jail. Other than that, he had no comment.
Authorities initially thought the shooting was a robbery gone bad, until they were able to take a closer look at surveillance tape.
Late Wednesday, authorities searched Marinello's Katrina-damaged house, the FEMA trailer he lived in, and the home of a friend. In the trailer, the sheriff said, they found a handwritten checklist of the alleged plans for the attack. "It was almost as good as a confession," Lee said.
Initially, Marinello had said he was in Jackson, Mississippi, at the time of the shooting, but Lee said his alibi unraveled and "things started to fall into place."
Marinello grew up in the close-knit Italian community in the French Quarter. He was a New Orleans sportscaster for a quarter of a century and also did a handicapping show from the Fair Grounds Race Track that was televised to betting establishments nationwide.
After Hurricane Katrina hit, he switched his WWL talk show's focus from sports to hurricane relief. "He was everybody's idea of a New Orleans guy," said Michael Diliberto, who worked with Marinello at the Fair Grounds for 15 years. "He'd do anything for anybody." Marinello knew everyone, Diliberto said, including the sheriff, who acknowledged that the arrest pained him.
Marinello was not above dropping hints that he was mob-connected. "I know from his life in the news media that he knew a lot of people that were known as bad guys," Diliberto said. "Working at the racetrack, in Chicago, around boxing, he came in contact with all kinds."
Despite that, Diliberto said he has a hard time thinking of Marinello as a bad guy himself. "I can think he might think he would know somebody that would do it," Diliberto said. "But I can't believe he would do it himself. He is such a kind man. I just can't picture him pulling the trigger."
Bob Mitchell, who co-hosted the show with Marinello, said during Thursday night's broadcast that he is still trying to make sense of what has happened. "If my friend is innocent, then I hope God will lead investigators to the guilty person or person. If he's not, and he did the crime, then he should pay the price whatever it is," Mitchell said. "This is a tragedy for all of us."
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Snitch from "Mafia Cops" Case May Have Sentenced Reduced
A former mob associate who helped convict the "Mafia cops" could have his prison sentence reduced because of his testimony, according to a published report.
During Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa's trial, Burton Kaplan told jurors he acted as a middleman, passing secret police information -- including names of confidential informants and imminent mob arrests -- from Eppolito and Caracappa to Luchese crime family underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso.
As thanks, prosecutors are expected to ask U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein to resentence Kaplan, 72, who has served 15 years of a 27-year sentence, according to the New York Daily News. "Burt was an incredible witness, he was certainly telling the truth and was responsible for getting convictions against two really bad people," a legal source told the News. "If anybody deserves a sentence reduction, it's him."
While Eppolito and Caracappa, a former Great Kills resident, were found guilty of every count in the racketeering conspiracy case -- from murder for hire to kidnapping to witness tampering to bribery -- the verdict was tossed out June 30 by Weinstein, who ruled that the statute of limitations had run out on the pair's racketeering convictions. Weinstein has ordered a new trial on charges of money laundering and drug trafficking.
Thanks to Staten Island Advance
During Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa's trial, Burton Kaplan told jurors he acted as a middleman, passing secret police information -- including names of confidential informants and imminent mob arrests -- from Eppolito and Caracappa to Luchese crime family underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso.
As thanks, prosecutors are expected to ask U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein to resentence Kaplan, 72, who has served 15 years of a 27-year sentence, according to the New York Daily News. "Burt was an incredible witness, he was certainly telling the truth and was responsible for getting convictions against two really bad people," a legal source told the News. "If anybody deserves a sentence reduction, it's him."
While Eppolito and Caracappa, a former Great Kills resident, were found guilty of every count in the racketeering conspiracy case -- from murder for hire to kidnapping to witness tampering to bribery -- the verdict was tossed out June 30 by Weinstein, who ruled that the statute of limitations had run out on the pair's racketeering convictions. Weinstein has ordered a new trial on charges of money laundering and drug trafficking.
Thanks to Staten Island Advance
Friday, September 08, 2006
Paris Hilton - 'Mafia Princess'
Paris Hilton is a singer, actress, accidental porn star - and, we now learn, a bit of a Mafia princess. The hotel heiress' parents almost didn't get married because her maternal grandmother was married to a mobster, a new book reveals.Jerry Oppenheimer reports in "House of Hilton" that Kathy Richards - known as "Big Kathy" -was hitched to a notorious gangland figure when her daughter, "Little Kathy," fell in love with Paris' dad, Rick Hilton.
Oppenheimer, whose Crown book comes out in November, is withholding the mob guy's name for now. But he reports that federal prosecutors linked him to Mafia families in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago.
"Big Kathy used to boast to friends … that 'if you ever need someone taken care of,' her husband had the muscle to handle it." But Big Kathy got nervous when her daughter hooked up with Rick. "I can't have the Hiltons finding out what [my husband] does," she told a friend.
Big Kathy promptly divorced the potential wedding-spoiler, one of four husbands she collected. The gentleman later died of a heart attack - just before he was due to serve 15 years for counterfeiting, money-laundering and other charges.
Even so, Mama Richards was banned from the Hilton estate in Los Angeles unless the family patriarch, Barron Hilton, was out of town, according to Oppenheimer. "Barron couldn't stand being around Kathy's mother," a source told Oppenheimer. "He used to call her 'The Madam' - as in bawdy house madam."
Word is her mobster gave Big Kathy the same big honking diamond ring that he'd given earlier molls. "He'd always get it back from them," a source tells us. "But he never got it back from Big Kathy."
A spokesman for the Hiltons, who are said to be dreading the book, declined to comment. But Paris still cherishes the memory of her grandma, who died in 2002 at the age of 63. "We were, like, best friends," Paris says in September's issue of Blender. "She would say, 'You're my Marilyn Monroe. You're my Grace Kelly. You're going to be the most famous woman in the world.' … I feel like she made all this happen."
Thanks to Rush & Molloy
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Missing Mobster?
Friends of ours: Anthony Zizzo, Sam "Wings" Carlisi, Anthony Chiaramonti, Anthony Spilotro, James Marcello
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro, Phillip Goodman
Westmont police Wednesday asked the public for information about the whereabouts of Anthony Zizzo, an elderly organized crime figure who was last seen Aug. 31 driving away from his home in the suburb.
While the Police Department is taking the lead in the investigation, which was launched after Zizzo's wife filed a missing person report, federal authorities are now also participating in the investigation, law enforcement sources said.
Westmont officials confirmed Wednesday that Zizzo's vehicle was recovered Saturday in the parking lot of a restaurant in Melrose Park. Police said he suffers from kidney failure and did not take medication with him when he left home.
Zizzo's wife reported him missing Friday morning. She had last seen him the day before as he drove away from their home in the 5700 block of South Cass Avenue, police said. When last seen, Zizzo, who is 5-foot-3 and 200 pounds, was wearing a gray shirt, black pants, a black windbreaker and black athletic shoes. He has thinning gray hair, blue eyes and wears metal-rimmed glasses.
It is unclear what his plans were when he left home, but some sources familiar with the case said he may have been headed for a meeting in the Rush Street area of Chicago.
Zizzo, 71, was a major figure in the organization of mob kingpin Sam Carlisi and went to prison with his boss and several others in 1993. He was released in 2001.
Zizzo, who lived in Melrose Park before his conviction, was described as the No. 3 person in command of the late Carlisi's crew. He supervised loan sharking and gambling operations, prosecutors said.
According to court records, Zizzo was the former boss of a Carlisi crew enforcer and debt collector, Anthony Chiaramonti, who was gunned down outside a Brown's Chicken and Pasta restaurant in Lyons in November 2001. That killing was the last-known hit in the Chicago mob world.
At the time of Zizzo's conviction, federal authorities said he and some co-defendants were believed to have information about several unsolved mob murders. Each was named in connection with events that preceded the murders of Anthony and Michael Spilotro and bookmaker Phillip Goodman, according to a prosecution filing in the Carlisi case. It did not link anyone to the actual crimes, however.
Last year, federal prosecutors charged several reputed Chicago mob leaders in connection with a number of unsolved murders. Zizzo was not named, but one of his 1993 co-defendants, James Marcello, was charged in the massive federal conspiracy case.
Thanks to David Heinzmann and Jeff Coen
Friends of mine: Michael Spilotro, Phillip Goodman
Westmont police Wednesday asked the public for information about the whereabouts of Anthony Zizzo, an elderly organized crime figure who was last seen Aug. 31 driving away from his home in the suburb.
While the Police Department is taking the lead in the investigation, which was launched after Zizzo's wife filed a missing person report, federal authorities are now also participating in the investigation, law enforcement sources said.
Westmont officials confirmed Wednesday that Zizzo's vehicle was recovered Saturday in the parking lot of a restaurant in Melrose Park. Police said he suffers from kidney failure and did not take medication with him when he left home.
Zizzo's wife reported him missing Friday morning. She had last seen him the day before as he drove away from their home in the 5700 block of South Cass Avenue, police said. When last seen, Zizzo, who is 5-foot-3 and 200 pounds, was wearing a gray shirt, black pants, a black windbreaker and black athletic shoes. He has thinning gray hair, blue eyes and wears metal-rimmed glasses.
It is unclear what his plans were when he left home, but some sources familiar with the case said he may have been headed for a meeting in the Rush Street area of Chicago.
Zizzo, 71, was a major figure in the organization of mob kingpin Sam Carlisi and went to prison with his boss and several others in 1993. He was released in 2001.
Zizzo, who lived in Melrose Park before his conviction, was described as the No. 3 person in command of the late Carlisi's crew. He supervised loan sharking and gambling operations, prosecutors said.
According to court records, Zizzo was the former boss of a Carlisi crew enforcer and debt collector, Anthony Chiaramonti, who was gunned down outside a Brown's Chicken and Pasta restaurant in Lyons in November 2001. That killing was the last-known hit in the Chicago mob world.
At the time of Zizzo's conviction, federal authorities said he and some co-defendants were believed to have information about several unsolved mob murders. Each was named in connection with events that preceded the murders of Anthony and Michael Spilotro and bookmaker Phillip Goodman, according to a prosecution filing in the Carlisi case. It did not link anyone to the actual crimes, however.
Last year, federal prosecutors charged several reputed Chicago mob leaders in connection with a number of unsolved murders. Zizzo was not named, but one of his 1993 co-defendants, James Marcello, was charged in the massive federal conspiracy case.
Thanks to David Heinzmann and Jeff Coen
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Junior is Dopey
Friends of ours: John "Junior Gotti, Gambino Crime Family
The way John A. (Junior) Gotti sees it, if the feds were so convinced he was a dummy, how could he have run the city's most murderous crime family? In recorded prison chats played for jurors yesterday, Gotti mocks the tag he earned after government agents said he didn't have the smarts his father possessed to run the Gambino crime family.
"I'm the Dopey Don, remember?" he tells pal Steve Dobies during a July 2003 prison conversation intercepted by the feds. "That's what I was. I had no problem with that. But you can't just now say, 'Well, we thought now because we're gonna put him in jail for life, he wasn't really the Dopey Don. You can't do that. ... You gotta lock them into something."
The Dopey Don chat was among more than a dozen prison conversations played for jurors yesterday as prosecutors wrapped up their racketeering case against the 42-year-old mob scion by presenting evidence they say shows Gotti never truly renounced the mob life as he claims he did.
When Gotti's lawyers begin calling witnesses today, they may start with Curtis Sliwa, the radio host allegedly shot twice by thugs prosecutors say were sent by Junior. Sliwa testified for the prosecution at two previous trials but was not called this time.
On the tapes recorded in 2003 and 2004, Gotti weighs in on numerous topics, from "vulture" uncles to a "bum" brother to his interpretation of the Torah.
Among Junior's greatest hits:
Gotti's anxiety heightens throughout as it becomes clear the feds are preparing to indict him on new charges. He muses about leaving New York once his five-year prison hitch is over. And when Gotti lawyer Richard Rehbock complains about having to buy Dobies - who is Jewish - lunch every day, Gotti offered his take on the Torah. "Isn't that like supposed to be a Jewish pact or something that youse got with each other to feed each other to shelter them in their shelter or some s---?" Gotti asked. "Isn't that in the Torah?"
Thanks to Thomas Zambito
The way John A. (Junior) Gotti sees it, if the feds were so convinced he was a dummy, how could he have run the city's most murderous crime family? In recorded prison chats played for jurors yesterday, Gotti mocks the tag he earned after government agents said he didn't have the smarts his father possessed to run the Gambino crime family.
"I'm the Dopey Don, remember?" he tells pal Steve Dobies during a July 2003 prison conversation intercepted by the feds. "That's what I was. I had no problem with that. But you can't just now say, 'Well, we thought now because we're gonna put him in jail for life, he wasn't really the Dopey Don. You can't do that. ... You gotta lock them into something."
The Dopey Don chat was among more than a dozen prison conversations played for jurors yesterday as prosecutors wrapped up their racketeering case against the 42-year-old mob scion by presenting evidence they say shows Gotti never truly renounced the mob life as he claims he did.
When Gotti's lawyers begin calling witnesses today, they may start with Curtis Sliwa, the radio host allegedly shot twice by thugs prosecutors say were sent by Junior. Sliwa testified for the prosecution at two previous trials but was not called this time.
On the tapes recorded in 2003 and 2004, Gotti weighs in on numerous topics, from "vulture" uncles to a "bum" brother to his interpretation of the Torah.
Among Junior's greatest hits:
Gotti told pal John Ruggiero during a 2003 chat that if uncles Peter or Richie Gotti turned up in the upstate New York prison where he was being housed, they'd suffer the consequences. "I swear it to you on my dead brother and my dead father, I swear to you, I will meet them by the [prison] door, with two padlocks in my hands, and I will crack their skulls."
On brother Peter, whom he crossed off his prison visitors list in 2003, he said: "I love him, but my brother's a bum. That's all he is. No more, no less. ... I have a hard time respecting any man who doesn't spend any time with his wife and kids at all. If Pete has an available moment he'll take whatever's in his pocket, like my father would have done, and go to OTB or go to Atlantic City."
Gotti's anxiety heightens throughout as it becomes clear the feds are preparing to indict him on new charges. He muses about leaving New York once his five-year prison hitch is over. And when Gotti lawyer Richard Rehbock complains about having to buy Dobies - who is Jewish - lunch every day, Gotti offered his take on the Torah. "Isn't that like supposed to be a Jewish pact or something that youse got with each other to feed each other to shelter them in their shelter or some s---?" Gotti asked. "Isn't that in the Torah?"
Thanks to Thomas Zambito
Induction Nominees for Las Vegas Mob Museum
Friends of ours: Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, Bugsy Siegel, Tony Accardo
Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel
Anthony "Big Tuna" Accardo
Proposed by Michael Martinez
Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro
Known as the Chicago mob's overseer in Las Vegas, Spilotro, 48, was brutally slain in 1986 along with his brother, Michael. Their bodies were found in an Indiana cornfield and the slayings were part of the movie "Casino."
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel
The boss of West Coast gambling for the crime syndicate and an original member of Murder Inc., he came to Las Vegas in 1945. A year later, Siegel opened the Flamingo hotel on a dusty stretch of highway that soon would become known as the Strip. A shrewd businessman with an explosive temper, Siegel was executed in 1947 in Beverly Hills before he could see his Las Vegas dream come to fruition. More than 40 years later, Warren Beatty brought the gangster back to life in "Bugsy."
Anthony "Big Tuna" Accardo
Accardo rose from Al Capone's bodyguard to become the reputed boss of the Chicago crime syndicate. Under his leadership, the Chicago mob was the secret power behind Las Vegas casinos, skimming millions. He also was known as "Joe Batters," apparently a reference to his prowess as a mob enforcer. Though he had a long arrest record, he was never convicted of a felony and boasted that he had never spent a night in jail. Accardo died in 1992 at age 86.
Proposed by Michael Martinez
Las Vegas Godfathers to Get Mob Museum
Friends of ours: Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, Jimmy Chagra, Nick Civella, Vinny Ferrara, Meyer Lansky, Natale Richichi, Nicky Scarfo
Friends of mine: Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal
Las Vegas' mayor gained fame and fortune defending mob titans. Now he wants a museum celebrating their role in building Sin City.
Mayor Oscar Goodman, the flamboyant, gin-sipping, sports-gambling, showgirl-squiring executive of Sin City, is caught in a contradiction. For years he had told the world, "There is no mob." That was when he was a defense lawyer who represented mobsters and even had a cameo playing himself in Martin Scorsese's "Casino." Goodman said there were no mobsters--just alleged mobsters. Now, as mayor, he wants to take a National Historic Landmark, the old federal courthouse where he tried his first case, and turn it into a mob museum--and there's no alleged about it.
Many of Goodman's constituents and some former FBI agents are appalled by the idea, but Goodman insists he's just recognizing Vegas' founding fathers. Or godfathers. "The mob founded us, and I never apologized for them because I represented them, and they made me a rich man," he said.
Goodman, 67, who recalled representing an alleged mobster at Chicago's criminal courts complex known as "26th and Cal," is winning all verdicts in the political arena these days. He was re-elected in 2003 to a second term as mayor of Las Vegas with more than 85 percent of the vote.
If Goodman wants it, he gets it. And he wants a mob museum. "As long as I'm mayor," Goodman asserted, "we're going to keep on smiling at ourselves at how the mob founded us."
One of the most prominent founders was Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, a maverick underworld mastermind who was the boss of West Coast gambling for the crime syndicate and who opened the Flamingo hotel in 1946 on a forlorn patch of highway that eventually became known famously as the Strip.
Some wonder whether the museum will end up as a monument to Goodman's legal career and his extensive list of old clients: Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro of Chicago, Jimmy Chagra, Nick Civella, Vinny Ferrara, Frank Rosenthal, Meyer Lansky, Natale Richichi and Nicky Scarfo.
That compilation was made by author and Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith, who wrote a book about Goodman, including how he despised mob snitches, in "Of Rats and Men: Oscar Goodman's Life from Mob Mouthpiece to Mayor of Las Vegas."
"Oscar's client list would fill any mob museum," said Smith, 46. "You know, he has represented members of various organized crime families literally from coast to coast. He's most known locally and in Chicago, of course, for his representation of Tony Spilotro."
Spilotro allegedly crushed the skull of one victim in a vise and later turned up dead in an Indiana cornfield in 1986. "Most locals here know him as a killer, but [Goodman] says he was a gentleman. . . . Of course Oscar never went on any long rides with Tony Spilotro, or he wouldn't have come back," Smith said.
The notion of a mob museum annoys the FBI agents who were Goodman's legal adversaries. "In my estimation, his purpose would be to glorify them," said Joe Yablonsky, 77, who retired as agent in charge of the FBI's Las Vegas office in 1984. "The only reason that he gets away with this is that he's in Vegas. If he was in some normal American city, he'd never make it."
Yablonsky, who spent the last four years of his FBI career in Las Vegas and now lives in Lady Lake, Fla., said many Vegas residents don't remember the violent days of mob-influenced casinos because most of them weren't living there then. The population of Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County is 1.8million, four times what it was in 1980. "If it were told truthfully, it would be OK, how we ridded the place of them and what they were really like," Yablonsky said. "They milked the place for all these dollars they took in the skim and . . . Spilotro was a hit guy, and we figured him for 22 whacks and that was supposed to be his role as enforcer. How is [Goodman] going to make him look good?"
The museum, which doesn't have a formal name yet, would be housed downtown across the street from City Hall in the old federal courthouse and post office, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, said Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell.
The city awarded a $7.5 million contract this month for an architect to design temporary and permanent galleries. The museum and cultural center is expected to cost $30 million.
City officials have yet to decide how the museum, which would open in 2008, will depict the Mafia, but Fretwell said it will be entertaining enough to hold its own against the stiff competition for which Vegas attractions are renowned.
City officials now refer to the building as the POST Modern, a word play on how they want a modern use for the old post office, which opened in 1933. The building's sole courtroom is perhaps best known as one of the sites used in 1950 for the U.S. Senate's televised Kefauver hearings, in which suspected crime figures were interrogated.
Because the museum is to address the history of organized crime in Las Vegas, exhibits could very well bear upon the mayor's career as a defense lawyer. "The mayor has a rich history as an attorney and may have things to contribute in terms of collections or oral history," Fretwell said.
An advisory board including local media members, a former chief of the Las Vegas FBI office and tourism officials has been formed, and a panel of historians also is being assembled, Fretwell said.
While a recent city-commissioned survey showed that out-of-town visitors preferred a mob museum in the old courthouse, locals more often preferred a museum devoted to "vintage Vegas," its architecture and entertainment evolution.
One resident, Wayne Haag, 45, a garbage collection driver, thought the mayor's idea cast a negative light on Las Vegas. "A Mafia museum--in a way, he's related to it. It's an old post office. Why [a Mafia museum]? To me, it's m-o-n-e-y," Haag said.
Thanks to Michael Martinez
Friends of mine: Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal
Las Vegas' mayor gained fame and fortune defending mob titans. Now he wants a museum celebrating their role in building Sin City.
Mayor Oscar Goodman, the flamboyant, gin-sipping, sports-gambling, showgirl-squiring executive of Sin City, is caught in a contradiction. For years he had told the world, "There is no mob." That was when he was a defense lawyer who represented mobsters and even had a cameo playing himself in Martin Scorsese's "Casino." Goodman said there were no mobsters--just alleged mobsters. Now, as mayor, he wants to take a National Historic Landmark, the old federal courthouse where he tried his first case, and turn it into a mob museum--and there's no alleged about it.Many of Goodman's constituents and some former FBI agents are appalled by the idea, but Goodman insists he's just recognizing Vegas' founding fathers. Or godfathers. "The mob founded us, and I never apologized for them because I represented them, and they made me a rich man," he said.
Goodman, 67, who recalled representing an alleged mobster at Chicago's criminal courts complex known as "26th and Cal," is winning all verdicts in the political arena these days. He was re-elected in 2003 to a second term as mayor of Las Vegas with more than 85 percent of the vote.
If Goodman wants it, he gets it. And he wants a mob museum. "As long as I'm mayor," Goodman asserted, "we're going to keep on smiling at ourselves at how the mob founded us."
One of the most prominent founders was Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, a maverick underworld mastermind who was the boss of West Coast gambling for the crime syndicate and who opened the Flamingo hotel in 1946 on a forlorn patch of highway that eventually became known famously as the Strip.
Some wonder whether the museum will end up as a monument to Goodman's legal career and his extensive list of old clients: Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro of Chicago, Jimmy Chagra, Nick Civella, Vinny Ferrara, Frank Rosenthal, Meyer Lansky, Natale Richichi and Nicky Scarfo.
That compilation was made by author and Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith, who wrote a book about Goodman, including how he despised mob snitches, in "Of Rats and Men: Oscar Goodman's Life from Mob Mouthpiece to Mayor of Las Vegas."
"Oscar's client list would fill any mob museum," said Smith, 46. "You know, he has represented members of various organized crime families literally from coast to coast. He's most known locally and in Chicago, of course, for his representation of Tony Spilotro."
Spilotro allegedly crushed the skull of one victim in a vise and later turned up dead in an Indiana cornfield in 1986. "Most locals here know him as a killer, but [Goodman] says he was a gentleman. . . . Of course Oscar never went on any long rides with Tony Spilotro, or he wouldn't have come back," Smith said.
The notion of a mob museum annoys the FBI agents who were Goodman's legal adversaries. "In my estimation, his purpose would be to glorify them," said Joe Yablonsky, 77, who retired as agent in charge of the FBI's Las Vegas office in 1984. "The only reason that he gets away with this is that he's in Vegas. If he was in some normal American city, he'd never make it."
Yablonsky, who spent the last four years of his FBI career in Las Vegas and now lives in Lady Lake, Fla., said many Vegas residents don't remember the violent days of mob-influenced casinos because most of them weren't living there then. The population of Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County is 1.8million, four times what it was in 1980. "If it were told truthfully, it would be OK, how we ridded the place of them and what they were really like," Yablonsky said. "They milked the place for all these dollars they took in the skim and . . . Spilotro was a hit guy, and we figured him for 22 whacks and that was supposed to be his role as enforcer. How is [Goodman] going to make him look good?"
The museum, which doesn't have a formal name yet, would be housed downtown across the street from City Hall in the old federal courthouse and post office, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, said Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell.
The city awarded a $7.5 million contract this month for an architect to design temporary and permanent galleries. The museum and cultural center is expected to cost $30 million.
City officials have yet to decide how the museum, which would open in 2008, will depict the Mafia, but Fretwell said it will be entertaining enough to hold its own against the stiff competition for which Vegas attractions are renowned.
City officials now refer to the building as the POST Modern, a word play on how they want a modern use for the old post office, which opened in 1933. The building's sole courtroom is perhaps best known as one of the sites used in 1950 for the U.S. Senate's televised Kefauver hearings, in which suspected crime figures were interrogated.Because the museum is to address the history of organized crime in Las Vegas, exhibits could very well bear upon the mayor's career as a defense lawyer. "The mayor has a rich history as an attorney and may have things to contribute in terms of collections or oral history," Fretwell said.
An advisory board including local media members, a former chief of the Las Vegas FBI office and tourism officials has been formed, and a panel of historians also is being assembled, Fretwell said.
While a recent city-commissioned survey showed that out-of-town visitors preferred a mob museum in the old courthouse, locals more often preferred a museum devoted to "vintage Vegas," its architecture and entertainment evolution.
One resident, Wayne Haag, 45, a garbage collection driver, thought the mayor's idea cast a negative light on Las Vegas. "A Mafia museum--in a way, he's related to it. It's an old post office. Why [a Mafia museum]? To me, it's m-o-n-e-y," Haag said.
Thanks to Michael Martinez
Thursday, August 31, 2006
A Mafia Offer to Sean Connery?
Sir Sean Connery will only star in the new 'Indiana Jones' movie if he is offered so much money he couldn't refuse.
The legendary actor, who recently turned 76, has been in talks with director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas about reprising his role as Indiana's father, Professor Henry Jones, in the fourth movie.
Despite being interested in the role, Connery insists he will only accept the part if the money is right. He said: "It would have to be an offer I couldn't refuse, but maybe I'm too expensive."
Connery previously claimed he unofficially retired from acting because of the "idiots" running Hollywood. He said at the time: "I'm fed up with the idiots, the ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies, and those who green light them. "They are not all idiots - I'm just saying there are a lot of them.
"It would almost need a Mafia-like offer to convince me to make another movie."
Thanks to Bang Media
The legendary actor, who recently turned 76, has been in talks with director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas about reprising his role as Indiana's father, Professor Henry Jones, in the fourth movie.
Despite being interested in the role, Connery insists he will only accept the part if the money is right. He said: "It would have to be an offer I couldn't refuse, but maybe I'm too expensive."
Connery previously claimed he unofficially retired from acting because of the "idiots" running Hollywood. He said at the time: "I'm fed up with the idiots, the ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies, and those who green light them. "They are not all idiots - I'm just saying there are a lot of them.
"It would almost need a Mafia-like offer to convince me to make another movie."
Thanks to Bang Media
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Mob Recipes
Friends of ours: Frank Calabrese Sr., James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs
Reputed mob killer Frank Calabrese Sr. would chat about "recipes" over the phone with his wife while he was in prison in Milan, Mich.
In one recorded conversation between Calabrese Sr. and his second wife, Diane Calabrese, she asks the aging gangster, "You talking about the German chocolate one?"
"Yes," Calabrese Sr. replies. But it's not food they're talking about, the feds say.
They're talking about illegal money collections from mob activities.
The fresh details came to light Friday night as federal prosecutors responded to a slew of pre-trial motions filed by the defendants in what some observers call the most important prosecution ever against the Chicago mob.
Such mob heavyweights as James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs and Calabrese Sr. are on trial in a case that puts 18 hits at the Outfit's doorstep.
Calabrese Sr. and Marcello want any tape-recorded conversations between them and their wives while the men were in prison disallowed at trial because of marital privilege. The feds argue otherwise, saying both husbands and wives knew they were being tape-recorded during their prison phone chats and had no expectation of privacy.
In the case of Diane Calabrese, they suggest she helped further the illegal activity her loan-sharking husband allegedly was involved in. Diane Calabrese has not been charged with any crime.
Calabrese Sr.'s attorney, Joseph Lopez, dismissed the government's filing as "just more nonsense."
The feds contend that Calabrese Sr., known for talking in code, would refer to various collections as "recipes."
In one Nov. 11, 1999, phone conversation, Calabrese Sr. asks his wife: "Miss Engel was supposed to give you a recipe that you were supposed to send me, with all the different size of the, of the ounces of, of a flour and stuff."
"Yeah," Diane Calabrese replies.
"What happened?" Calabrese Sr. asks.
"She's working on it. She's, you know, a little slow," his wife replies.
In short, the feds contend, Calabrese Sr. is asking where the money from a specific collection is.
In another motion, prosecutors argue against a defense request to have separate trials for the defendants in the case, arguing in part that some witnesses are in danger and that making them testify more than once at multiple trials only increases the risk against them.
Without providing specific numbers, prosecutors point out that "a number of witnesses" have been placed in witness protection, while the FBI has moved others who feared retaliation from the mob.
Some grand jury witnesses went to jail rather than testify in the investigation, while others changed their grand jury testimony after they were threatened, the feds contend.
Thanks to Steve Warmbir
Reputed mob killer Frank Calabrese Sr. would chat about "recipes" over the phone with his wife while he was in prison in Milan, Mich.
In one recorded conversation between Calabrese Sr. and his second wife, Diane Calabrese, she asks the aging gangster, "You talking about the German chocolate one?"
"Yes," Calabrese Sr. replies. But it's not food they're talking about, the feds say.
They're talking about illegal money collections from mob activities.
The fresh details came to light Friday night as federal prosecutors responded to a slew of pre-trial motions filed by the defendants in what some observers call the most important prosecution ever against the Chicago mob.
Such mob heavyweights as James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs and Calabrese Sr. are on trial in a case that puts 18 hits at the Outfit's doorstep.
Calabrese Sr. and Marcello want any tape-recorded conversations between them and their wives while the men were in prison disallowed at trial because of marital privilege. The feds argue otherwise, saying both husbands and wives knew they were being tape-recorded during their prison phone chats and had no expectation of privacy.
In the case of Diane Calabrese, they suggest she helped further the illegal activity her loan-sharking husband allegedly was involved in. Diane Calabrese has not been charged with any crime.
Calabrese Sr.'s attorney, Joseph Lopez, dismissed the government's filing as "just more nonsense."
The feds contend that Calabrese Sr., known for talking in code, would refer to various collections as "recipes."
In one Nov. 11, 1999, phone conversation, Calabrese Sr. asks his wife: "Miss Engel was supposed to give you a recipe that you were supposed to send me, with all the different size of the, of the ounces of, of a flour and stuff."
"Yeah," Diane Calabrese replies.
"What happened?" Calabrese Sr. asks.
"She's working on it. She's, you know, a little slow," his wife replies.
In short, the feds contend, Calabrese Sr. is asking where the money from a specific collection is.
In another motion, prosecutors argue against a defense request to have separate trials for the defendants in the case, arguing in part that some witnesses are in danger and that making them testify more than once at multiple trials only increases the risk against them.
Without providing specific numbers, prosecutors point out that "a number of witnesses" have been placed in witness protection, while the FBI has moved others who feared retaliation from the mob.
Some grand jury witnesses went to jail rather than testify in the investigation, while others changed their grand jury testimony after they were threatened, the feds contend.
Thanks to Steve Warmbir
Monday, August 28, 2006
Lawyers Ask to Bar Wife Tapes in Mob Trial
Friends of ours: Frank "Frankie Breeze" Calabrese Sr., James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs
Lawyers for Frank Calabrese Sr. have asked a Chicago judge not to let prosecutors play tapes of the alleged mob boss talking to his wife.
The tapes, made while Calabrese was in prison in Milan, Mich., include conversations about "German chocolate cake" and other "recipes," which federal prosecutors say are code words for illegal money collections from organized-crime activities, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Lawyers for Calabrese, known as "Frankie Breeze," and other reputed mob heavyweights -- including James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs -- want the tape recordings disallowed because of marital privilege. Marital privilege protects the contents of private communications between husband and wife.
Federal prosecutors argue both husbands and wives knew they were being tape-recorded during their prison phone chats and had no expectation of privacy, the Sun-Times said.
The case attempts to tie the men to 18 hits in what some observers call the most important prosecution ever against the Chicago mob.
Thanks to UPI
Lawyers for Frank Calabrese Sr. have asked a Chicago judge not to let prosecutors play tapes of the alleged mob boss talking to his wife.
The tapes, made while Calabrese was in prison in Milan, Mich., include conversations about "German chocolate cake" and other "recipes," which federal prosecutors say are code words for illegal money collections from organized-crime activities, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Lawyers for Calabrese, known as "Frankie Breeze," and other reputed mob heavyweights -- including James "Little Jimmy" Marcello, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, Frank "The German" Schweihs -- want the tape recordings disallowed because of marital privilege. Marital privilege protects the contents of private communications between husband and wife.
Federal prosecutors argue both husbands and wives knew they were being tape-recorded during their prison phone chats and had no expectation of privacy, the Sun-Times said.
The case attempts to tie the men to 18 hits in what some observers call the most important prosecution ever against the Chicago mob.
Thanks to UPI
Friday, August 25, 2006
Gotti Said To Break Mafia Vow During Meeting With Prosecutors
Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, John "Dapper Don" Gotti, Daniel Marino, John "Johnny G" Gammarano, Gambino Crime Family, Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo, Genovese Crime Family, Luchese Crime Family, Paul Castellano, Peter Gotti, Frank DeCicco, Bartholemew "Bobby" Borriello, Edward Lino
Friends of mine: Joseph Watts
Mob prince John "Junior" Gotti broke his Mafia vow of omerta last year and used a pre-trial sitdown with federal prosecutors as an opportunity to settle some old scores with two of his father's former top lieutenants, Gang Land has learned.
Gotti has acknowledged the January 2005 secret session with the feds, but has maintained it was merely an effort to convince the feds of his innocence concerning the charges in the racketeering indictment.
He said he indignantly stomped out once he realized that prosecutors were seeking his cooperation. In a June 27 interview with the Daily News, he insisted he would never tell on his former crime cohorts, underscoring his own attitude about informing by quoting his late father's extreme views on the subject. "I could have robbed a church but I wouldn't admit to it if I had a steeple sticking out of my" rear end, Gotti said the Dapper Don had told him.
However, several sources confirmed to Gang Land that, in a failed bid to persuade prosecutors to drop their case against him, Gotti spilled old secrets about two "made men" and a Gambino crime family associate — all underlings of the elder John Gotti.
Junior fingered capo Daniel Marino, soldier John "Johnny G" Gammarano, and longtime associate Joseph Watts for numerous crimes that took place before 1999, when Junior Gotti has insisted he walked away from the Mafia life, sources said.
Gotti also allegedly gave the feds information about a crooked Queens cop who enabled him to beat one case during the 1980s, and a corrupt politician who was part of a land-grab scheme during the same time frame, sources said. Both men are deceased.
Despite Gotti's claims of retirement and his ultimate decision not to cooperate, any informant activity by the mob scion would be viewed as an abomination within his former realm, and equate him with the defectors who have testified against him and his late father. "If it's true, he's a rat, just like Sammy and Scars," an underworld source said, referring to the two major Gambino family defectors, former underboss Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano and onetime capo Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo.
The disclosure about Gotti's discussions comes as his third trial stemming from the kidnap-shooting of Curtis Sliwa is under way in Manhattan Federal Court.The trial judge, Shira Scheindlin, has issued a gag order in the case and prosecutors and defense lawyers are prohibited from discussing it.
Gang Land's sources declined to discuss specifics that Junior gave the feds, but said he focused primarily on Marino, 65, a powerful family capo and longtime thorn in the side of the Dapper Don, and Watts, 64, once viewed as a possible FBI informer by the Junior Don and his cohorts. While informing about Marino, Gotti, almost as an afterthought, also related alleged criminal activity by Gammarano, 65, a soldier in Marino's crew, sources said.
Marino, who served six years behind bars for a murder conspiracy ordered by the elder Gotti, was released in 2000. Watts, who spent 10 years in prison for his involvement in the same plot and a separate tax case, was released from prison in May. Johnny G, who served three years for a labor racketeering scam in Brooklyn and a Joker Poker gambling machine scheme in New Orleans, has been back in action since 2002.
Gotti has had it out for Marino and Watts for years, a source said. "He's talked about killing them both," the source said. The Gotti faction has long believed that Marino was poised to take over the crime family in the early 1990s as part of a retaliation plot by the Genovese and Luchese families for the unsanctioned 1985 killing of Gambino boss Paul Castellano.
Even after Marino was incarcerated during the late 1990s, Junior, Mikey Scars, Peter Gotti, and other supporters of the then-jailed Dapper Don debated whether to kill Marino, according to FBI documents. The discussions revolved around suspicions that Marino may have had a role in the murders of Frank DeCicco, Bartholemew "Bobby" Borriello, and Edward Lino — all key allies of the elder Gotti — between 1986 and 1991.
In the early 1990s, according to testimony at Junior's second trial, Gotti had two gunmen waiting in the closet of a Brooklyn apartment ready to kill Marino and Johnny G and dispose of their remains in body bags after Junior suspected they had kept $400,000 in annual construction industry extortion payments that should have been forwarded to him. The plot was thwarted, probably intentionally, by Watts.
Watts, who would become the focus of rubout talk a few years later, had been instructed to bring Marino and Johnny G to a meeting that would end with their execution. But when Watts and the targeted mobsters arrived in a stretch limo along with another mobster and a driver, Junior aborted the plan, according to the testimony.
In 1994 and 1995, according to court documents, Junior discussed killing Watts when "rumors began to spread within the Gambino family that Watts might be cooperating" and Gotti feared that Watts and then-superstar witness Sammy Bull would be a "deadly combination" that would threaten the "survival of the Gottis and the Gambino family."
The nasty talk about Watts fizzled out after he pleaded guilty and went to prison. But Junior has long suspected that Watts, who referred to Junior as "Boss" whenever they met, had worn a wire against him, according to FBI documents. And, during his session with the feds, "Junior was quick to point a finger at him," a source said. Sources said Gotti did implicate himself, and a few longtime friends, in several crimes, but they took place too long ago to be used in an indictment.
Gotti denied any role in a 23-year-old murder, a crime for which there is no statute of limitations, sources said. He insisted that he did not kill Danny Silva, a 24-year-old Queens man who died from a knife wound during a wild melee in an Ozone Park bar when Junior was a rowdy and arrogant 19-year-old wannabe wiseguy. "He said he was there, but he said he had nothing to do with the stabbing," a source said.
As Gang Land reported in our first New York Sun column four years ago, a formerly reluctant witness has told authorities that he "personally saw Junior stab Danny Silva" and the police and FBI reopened the case with an eye toward charging Gotti with Silva's murder.
Thanks to Jerry Capeci of Gangland News
Friends of mine: Joseph Watts
Mob prince John "Junior" Gotti broke his Mafia vow of omerta last year and used a pre-trial sitdown with federal prosecutors as an opportunity to settle some old scores with two of his father's former top lieutenants, Gang Land has learned.
Gotti has acknowledged the January 2005 secret session with the feds, but has maintained it was merely an effort to convince the feds of his innocence concerning the charges in the racketeering indictment.
He said he indignantly stomped out once he realized that prosecutors were seeking his cooperation. In a June 27 interview with the Daily News, he insisted he would never tell on his former crime cohorts, underscoring his own attitude about informing by quoting his late father's extreme views on the subject. "I could have robbed a church but I wouldn't admit to it if I had a steeple sticking out of my" rear end, Gotti said the Dapper Don had told him.
However, several sources confirmed to Gang Land that, in a failed bid to persuade prosecutors to drop their case against him, Gotti spilled old secrets about two "made men" and a Gambino crime family associate — all underlings of the elder John Gotti.
Junior fingered capo Daniel Marino, soldier John "Johnny G" Gammarano, and longtime associate Joseph Watts for numerous crimes that took place before 1999, when Junior Gotti has insisted he walked away from the Mafia life, sources said.
Gotti also allegedly gave the feds information about a crooked Queens cop who enabled him to beat one case during the 1980s, and a corrupt politician who was part of a land-grab scheme during the same time frame, sources said. Both men are deceased.
Despite Gotti's claims of retirement and his ultimate decision not to cooperate, any informant activity by the mob scion would be viewed as an abomination within his former realm, and equate him with the defectors who have testified against him and his late father. "If it's true, he's a rat, just like Sammy and Scars," an underworld source said, referring to the two major Gambino family defectors, former underboss Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano and onetime capo Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo.
The disclosure about Gotti's discussions comes as his third trial stemming from the kidnap-shooting of Curtis Sliwa is under way in Manhattan Federal Court.The trial judge, Shira Scheindlin, has issued a gag order in the case and prosecutors and defense lawyers are prohibited from discussing it.
Gang Land's sources declined to discuss specifics that Junior gave the feds, but said he focused primarily on Marino, 65, a powerful family capo and longtime thorn in the side of the Dapper Don, and Watts, 64, once viewed as a possible FBI informer by the Junior Don and his cohorts. While informing about Marino, Gotti, almost as an afterthought, also related alleged criminal activity by Gammarano, 65, a soldier in Marino's crew, sources said.
Marino, who served six years behind bars for a murder conspiracy ordered by the elder Gotti, was released in 2000. Watts, who spent 10 years in prison for his involvement in the same plot and a separate tax case, was released from prison in May. Johnny G, who served three years for a labor racketeering scam in Brooklyn and a Joker Poker gambling machine scheme in New Orleans, has been back in action since 2002.
Gotti has had it out for Marino and Watts for years, a source said. "He's talked about killing them both," the source said. The Gotti faction has long believed that Marino was poised to take over the crime family in the early 1990s as part of a retaliation plot by the Genovese and Luchese families for the unsanctioned 1985 killing of Gambino boss Paul Castellano.
Even after Marino was incarcerated during the late 1990s, Junior, Mikey Scars, Peter Gotti, and other supporters of the then-jailed Dapper Don debated whether to kill Marino, according to FBI documents. The discussions revolved around suspicions that Marino may have had a role in the murders of Frank DeCicco, Bartholemew "Bobby" Borriello, and Edward Lino — all key allies of the elder Gotti — between 1986 and 1991.
In the early 1990s, according to testimony at Junior's second trial, Gotti had two gunmen waiting in the closet of a Brooklyn apartment ready to kill Marino and Johnny G and dispose of their remains in body bags after Junior suspected they had kept $400,000 in annual construction industry extortion payments that should have been forwarded to him. The plot was thwarted, probably intentionally, by Watts.
Watts, who would become the focus of rubout talk a few years later, had been instructed to bring Marino and Johnny G to a meeting that would end with their execution. But when Watts and the targeted mobsters arrived in a stretch limo along with another mobster and a driver, Junior aborted the plan, according to the testimony.
In 1994 and 1995, according to court documents, Junior discussed killing Watts when "rumors began to spread within the Gambino family that Watts might be cooperating" and Gotti feared that Watts and then-superstar witness Sammy Bull would be a "deadly combination" that would threaten the "survival of the Gottis and the Gambino family."
The nasty talk about Watts fizzled out after he pleaded guilty and went to prison. But Junior has long suspected that Watts, who referred to Junior as "Boss" whenever they met, had worn a wire against him, according to FBI documents. And, during his session with the feds, "Junior was quick to point a finger at him," a source said. Sources said Gotti did implicate himself, and a few longtime friends, in several crimes, but they took place too long ago to be used in an indictment.
Gotti denied any role in a 23-year-old murder, a crime for which there is no statute of limitations, sources said. He insisted that he did not kill Danny Silva, a 24-year-old Queens man who died from a knife wound during a wild melee in an Ozone Park bar when Junior was a rowdy and arrogant 19-year-old wannabe wiseguy. "He said he was there, but he said he had nothing to do with the stabbing," a source said.
As Gang Land reported in our first New York Sun column four years ago, a formerly reluctant witness has told authorities that he "personally saw Junior stab Danny Silva" and the police and FBI reopened the case with an eye toward charging Gotti with Silva's murder.
Thanks to Jerry Capeci of Gangland News
Monday, August 21, 2006
Tapes Seal Fate of Genovese Associate
Friends of ours: Joseph "Little Joe" Scarbrough, Genovese Crime Family, Harry Aleman, Lawrence "Little Larry" Dentico
Friends of mine: Peter "Petey" Caporino
Joseph Scarbrough came to his sentencing on federal racketeering charges yesterday with his wife, his daughter and a stack of letters from his friends and West Orange neighbors who insisted the genteel girls softball coach couldn't be the mobster the government said he was.
Prosecutors brought their own stack of papers -- transcripts of Scarbrough regaling an FBI informant with his war stories from decades inside the Genovese crime family. On the tapes, Scarbrough boasts of reaping hundreds of thousands of dollars in burglaries and cargo thefts, of his ties to corrupt cops and of running with violent mob crews.
"Harry (Aleman) was one of the most cold, calculating, (expletive) smartest killers that (expletive) hit Chicago, he really was ..." Scarbrough said, recalling a mob enforcer during a conversation three years ago. "Good man. Good (expletive) man. I loved the guy and vice versa."
The tapes won.
Turning aside arguments that the mob allegations were exaggerated, U.S. District Judge William Martini sentenced Scarbrough to five years in prison. After presiding over all the prosecutions in the long-running FBI investigation, the judge said he believed evidence that Scarbrough was an influential Genovese associate who supervised millions of dollars in gambling and loan-sharking from a Hoboken social club. "Somehow it was clear to everybody that Joe Scarbrough was the guy running the niche operation here in New Jersey," the judge said.
Scarbrough, 67, was the last of 15 reputed mobsters or associates to be sentenced in Newark after pleading guilty to charges ranging from racketeering to illegal gambling. Most received prison terms of less than three years.
One, Lawrence "Little Larry" Dentico, 82, a reputed ranking captain, was ordered yesterday to serve 51 months in prison. But Scarbrough, known as "Big Joe," was the government's key target. His last arrest was in 1977, a stretch of freedom that Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Faye Schwartz called lucky, given his history of crime. "We believe now is the day of reckoning, your honor," she said.
In a final exclamation point, the prosecutors again used Scarbrough's longtime friend and associate, Peter "Petey" Caporino, to seal his fate. Schwartz and Assistant U.S Attorney Jill Andersen gave the judge transcripts from three conversations that Caporino, a Genovese associate from Hasbrouck Heights, secretly recorded during more than a decade of work as an FBI informant.
In them, Scarbrough reveled in some of his crimes, like the time he said he made $170,000 hijacking a tractor-trailer full of hair dye in Jamesburg or the time he and a partner stole duffel bags filled with records from a company that made and sold safes. "We had (expletive) safes all over the United States ... where they were delivered, combinations, in banks," he said. "It supported us and kept us going for years."
He talked about a special safecracking tool he used -- "a thermo burning bar," he called it -- that he said he found 25 years after a cellmate first told him about a unusual heated drill Navy divers used to carve into sunken German battleships. But he was just as animated about the ones that got away. More than once on the tapes, Scarbrough blamed "bad breaks" or not enough time for ruining what might have been million-dollar heists.
"You never know, ya know? Even with scores," he told Caporino. "You never know when one is going to come along with a good one ... big payment. The biggest thing is you have to be here when it happens."
Scarbrough said he used to rely on a Hoboken police officer -- now dead -- to tip off the mobsters when officers were on the way. He also bragged about beating a woman in a traffic dispute and said he helped steal an unsuspecting man's car for a hitman to use as a getaway car.
Scarbrough said he staked out city parking lots to find a car that stayed untouched night after night. Using a Hoboken police officer's name, he said he called the state motor vehicles office, gave the license plate number and asked for details on the registered owner. Then, posing as the owner, Scarbrough said, he called a car dealer, said he was out of the area, had lost his key and needed the code for a locksmith to make a new one.
With a new key in hand, the hitman used the car to stake out and kill his target, Scarbrough said. "When I see these cases on (expletive) court and I know what we were capable of doing, I'm really skeptical," Scarbrough told Caporino.
Rarely did the conversations include names or dates. At the hearing, defense attorney Michael Koribanics asked the judge to disregard the tapes, arguing that the government never proved any of the crimes Scarbrough appears to take credit for. He noted the current case included no evidence of violence -- only some perceived threats -- and suggested the government exaggerated its mob claims. "Perhaps he's a blowhard, (but) this is not blowhard material, Mr. Koribanics," Martini responded, noting the detail on the tapes. "You can't make this stuff up."
Scarbrough also agreed to forfeit $256,000 in illegal proceeds. The judge ordered him to report to prison by Oct. 10.
Outside the courtroom, Scarbrough cordially shook the hands of the FBI case agent and prosecutors. He declined to discuss the case in detail, but was resigned by the outcome. "No use crying over spilled milk, ya know?" he said.
Thanks to John P. Martin
Friends of mine: Peter "Petey" Caporino
Joseph Scarbrough came to his sentencing on federal racketeering charges yesterday with his wife, his daughter and a stack of letters from his friends and West Orange neighbors who insisted the genteel girls softball coach couldn't be the mobster the government said he was.
Prosecutors brought their own stack of papers -- transcripts of Scarbrough regaling an FBI informant with his war stories from decades inside the Genovese crime family. On the tapes, Scarbrough boasts of reaping hundreds of thousands of dollars in burglaries and cargo thefts, of his ties to corrupt cops and of running with violent mob crews.
"Harry (Aleman) was one of the most cold, calculating, (expletive) smartest killers that (expletive) hit Chicago, he really was ..." Scarbrough said, recalling a mob enforcer during a conversation three years ago. "Good man. Good (expletive) man. I loved the guy and vice versa."
The tapes won.
Turning aside arguments that the mob allegations were exaggerated, U.S. District Judge William Martini sentenced Scarbrough to five years in prison. After presiding over all the prosecutions in the long-running FBI investigation, the judge said he believed evidence that Scarbrough was an influential Genovese associate who supervised millions of dollars in gambling and loan-sharking from a Hoboken social club. "Somehow it was clear to everybody that Joe Scarbrough was the guy running the niche operation here in New Jersey," the judge said.
Scarbrough, 67, was the last of 15 reputed mobsters or associates to be sentenced in Newark after pleading guilty to charges ranging from racketeering to illegal gambling. Most received prison terms of less than three years.
One, Lawrence "Little Larry" Dentico, 82, a reputed ranking captain, was ordered yesterday to serve 51 months in prison. But Scarbrough, known as "Big Joe," was the government's key target. His last arrest was in 1977, a stretch of freedom that Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Faye Schwartz called lucky, given his history of crime. "We believe now is the day of reckoning, your honor," she said.
In a final exclamation point, the prosecutors again used Scarbrough's longtime friend and associate, Peter "Petey" Caporino, to seal his fate. Schwartz and Assistant U.S Attorney Jill Andersen gave the judge transcripts from three conversations that Caporino, a Genovese associate from Hasbrouck Heights, secretly recorded during more than a decade of work as an FBI informant.
In them, Scarbrough reveled in some of his crimes, like the time he said he made $170,000 hijacking a tractor-trailer full of hair dye in Jamesburg or the time he and a partner stole duffel bags filled with records from a company that made and sold safes. "We had (expletive) safes all over the United States ... where they were delivered, combinations, in banks," he said. "It supported us and kept us going for years."
He talked about a special safecracking tool he used -- "a thermo burning bar," he called it -- that he said he found 25 years after a cellmate first told him about a unusual heated drill Navy divers used to carve into sunken German battleships. But he was just as animated about the ones that got away. More than once on the tapes, Scarbrough blamed "bad breaks" or not enough time for ruining what might have been million-dollar heists.
"You never know, ya know? Even with scores," he told Caporino. "You never know when one is going to come along with a good one ... big payment. The biggest thing is you have to be here when it happens."
Scarbrough said he used to rely on a Hoboken police officer -- now dead -- to tip off the mobsters when officers were on the way. He also bragged about beating a woman in a traffic dispute and said he helped steal an unsuspecting man's car for a hitman to use as a getaway car.
Scarbrough said he staked out city parking lots to find a car that stayed untouched night after night. Using a Hoboken police officer's name, he said he called the state motor vehicles office, gave the license plate number and asked for details on the registered owner. Then, posing as the owner, Scarbrough said, he called a car dealer, said he was out of the area, had lost his key and needed the code for a locksmith to make a new one.
With a new key in hand, the hitman used the car to stake out and kill his target, Scarbrough said. "When I see these cases on (expletive) court and I know what we were capable of doing, I'm really skeptical," Scarbrough told Caporino.
Rarely did the conversations include names or dates. At the hearing, defense attorney Michael Koribanics asked the judge to disregard the tapes, arguing that the government never proved any of the crimes Scarbrough appears to take credit for. He noted the current case included no evidence of violence -- only some perceived threats -- and suggested the government exaggerated its mob claims. "Perhaps he's a blowhard, (but) this is not blowhard material, Mr. Koribanics," Martini responded, noting the detail on the tapes. "You can't make this stuff up."
Scarbrough also agreed to forfeit $256,000 in illegal proceeds. The judge ordered him to report to prison by Oct. 10.
Outside the courtroom, Scarbrough cordially shook the hands of the FBI case agent and prosecutors. He declined to discuss the case in detail, but was resigned by the outcome. "No use crying over spilled milk, ya know?" he said.
Thanks to John P. Martin
Sunday, August 20, 2006
'Mafia Cops' Had No Right To Allegedly Decide Father's Fate Says Daughter
Friends of ours: Edward Lino, John "Dapper Don" Gotti, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa, Gene Gotti
The case of former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa has seen many twists and turns, and now the daughter of a reputed mobster said the two so-called "Mafia Cops" had no right to allegedly play God with her father's life.
Danielle Lino's father, reputed mobster Edward Lino, was allegedly killed by rogue detectives, NewsChannel 4 reported. "Those two men had no right to just judge my father and to change my life. It was not for them to decide if he lived or died," Danielle Lino said.
Her quest has sparked a lawsuit seeking $100 million from city taxpayers for the 1990 shooting of her father. This is the latest twist in the ongoing saga of Eppolito and Caracappa, who are suspected of arranging eight hits for the mob.
The lawsuit claimed that authorities knew that the two detectives were "serving the interests of organized crime." "There was substantial evidence that the city as a result of which knew or should have known these guys were dirty, and they did nothing about it," said attorney Scott Charnas.
Investigators said they believe Edward Lino was close to John Gotti, boss of the Gambino crime family. Gotti's brother, Gene, and Edward Lino were charged in the 1980s with drug trafficking. Edward Lino was acquitted and he had no other convictions.
Danielle Lino, 27, a marketing executive, said she knows nothing about her father's alleged crimes. "That's not the man I know," Danielle Lino said.
Danielle Lino was 12 years old when her father was gunned down in his black Mercedes on the Belt Parkway. The father and daughter had spent the day with family in Brooklyn. She rode home to Long Island separately from her father, a choice that haunts her. She said she wonders if a little girl in his car might have stopped his killers. "I would love to think that I could have saved him, but I'm afraid to think what if I did go with him?" Danielle Lino said.
Danielle Lino said the focus should be on Eppolitto and Caracappa, who were allegedly paid to kill her father on the orders of mobster Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, NewsChannel 4 reported. "I don't have a father today because two New York City police detectives thought $65,000 was enough money to change my life. Is that fair?" Danielle Lino said.
The city declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The criminal case against the detectives, who maintain their innocence, remains up in the air. A federal jury had convicted the pair of arranging eight murders, including Edward Lino's, but the judge threw out that verdict on a technicality. Prosecutors are appealing.
Thanks to WNBC
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa, Gene Gotti
The case of former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa has seen many twists and turns, and now the daughter of a reputed mobster said the two so-called "Mafia Cops" had no right to allegedly play God with her father's life.
Danielle Lino's father, reputed mobster Edward Lino, was allegedly killed by rogue detectives, NewsChannel 4 reported. "Those two men had no right to just judge my father and to change my life. It was not for them to decide if he lived or died," Danielle Lino said.
Her quest has sparked a lawsuit seeking $100 million from city taxpayers for the 1990 shooting of her father. This is the latest twist in the ongoing saga of Eppolito and Caracappa, who are suspected of arranging eight hits for the mob.
The lawsuit claimed that authorities knew that the two detectives were "serving the interests of organized crime." "There was substantial evidence that the city as a result of which knew or should have known these guys were dirty, and they did nothing about it," said attorney Scott Charnas.
Investigators said they believe Edward Lino was close to John Gotti, boss of the Gambino crime family. Gotti's brother, Gene, and Edward Lino were charged in the 1980s with drug trafficking. Edward Lino was acquitted and he had no other convictions.
Danielle Lino, 27, a marketing executive, said she knows nothing about her father's alleged crimes. "That's not the man I know," Danielle Lino said.
Danielle Lino was 12 years old when her father was gunned down in his black Mercedes on the Belt Parkway. The father and daughter had spent the day with family in Brooklyn. She rode home to Long Island separately from her father, a choice that haunts her. She said she wonders if a little girl in his car might have stopped his killers. "I would love to think that I could have saved him, but I'm afraid to think what if I did go with him?" Danielle Lino said.
Danielle Lino said the focus should be on Eppolitto and Caracappa, who were allegedly paid to kill her father on the orders of mobster Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, NewsChannel 4 reported. "I don't have a father today because two New York City police detectives thought $65,000 was enough money to change my life. Is that fair?" Danielle Lino said.
The city declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The criminal case against the detectives, who maintain their innocence, remains up in the air. A federal jury had convicted the pair of arranging eight murders, including Edward Lino's, but the judge threw out that verdict on a technicality. Prosecutors are appealing.
Thanks to WNBC
Chef Junior Gotti?
Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, Gambino Crime Family
Prosecutors on Thursday accused mob figure John 'Junior' Gotti of having 'cooked up' his defense against racketeering and conspiracy allegations as they opened their case in his third trial on the charges. Jurors deadlocked in the two previous trials when they could not agree on the 42-year-old's defense that he withdrew from the mob while in prison on separate charges.
Gotti says he left the Mafia before he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in 1999, meaning that a five-year statute of limitations would by now have expired. Prosecutors say Gotti took over as boss of the Gambino crime family after his notorious father, John J. Gotti, was sent to prison in 1992. He died there ten years later.
The younger Gotti is suspected of ordering the beating and kidnapping of Curtis Sliwa, founder of New York's Guardian Angels anti-crime patrols after Sliwa criticized his father on his radio show. Prosecutor Victor Hou said on Thursday that Gotti's defense was a 'ploy' thought up while he served prison time knowing he would be indicted again.
Hou said the government had fresh evidence that Gotti continued to be a part of the mob from prison, including receiving rent from properties bought with mob proceeds. 'The truth is Gotti never left the life because he never gave up his mob money,' Hou told the jury in Manhattan federal court. 'It is an elaborate lie he cooked up a year before he was ever charged in this case.'
He said he would introduce tape recordings of Gotti showing anger at being demoted in the Gambino family as evidence he was still part of the mob and that he deliberately talked about having left knowing he was being recorded by the government. But Gotti's lawyer Charles Carnesi told the jury that the government would present old evidence that only proved he was a mob figure before 1999. 'There is nothing new that has come to the attention of the government,' he said. 'They don't have evidence after 1999. They know he was out, so they want to recycle this.'
Tapes prosecutors would introduce only proved he had left, he said. 'In 1999 Mr Gotti wanted to get out of his life in the criminal world,' he said. 'That is the message in this trial, he's out of this life.'
Prosecutors added several new charges for his third trial including racketeering and witness tampering to counter his defense. Sliwa is expected to again testify he was shot and wounded in the back of a taxi in Manhattan but miraculously survived. The trial is expected to last several weeks.
Thanks to Christine Kearney
Prosecutors on Thursday accused mob figure John 'Junior' Gotti of having 'cooked up' his defense against racketeering and conspiracy allegations as they opened their case in his third trial on the charges. Jurors deadlocked in the two previous trials when they could not agree on the 42-year-old's defense that he withdrew from the mob while in prison on separate charges.
Gotti says he left the Mafia before he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in 1999, meaning that a five-year statute of limitations would by now have expired. Prosecutors say Gotti took over as boss of the Gambino crime family after his notorious father, John J. Gotti, was sent to prison in 1992. He died there ten years later.The younger Gotti is suspected of ordering the beating and kidnapping of Curtis Sliwa, founder of New York's Guardian Angels anti-crime patrols after Sliwa criticized his father on his radio show. Prosecutor Victor Hou said on Thursday that Gotti's defense was a 'ploy' thought up while he served prison time knowing he would be indicted again.
Hou said the government had fresh evidence that Gotti continued to be a part of the mob from prison, including receiving rent from properties bought with mob proceeds. 'The truth is Gotti never left the life because he never gave up his mob money,' Hou told the jury in Manhattan federal court. 'It is an elaborate lie he cooked up a year before he was ever charged in this case.'
He said he would introduce tape recordings of Gotti showing anger at being demoted in the Gambino family as evidence he was still part of the mob and that he deliberately talked about having left knowing he was being recorded by the government. But Gotti's lawyer Charles Carnesi told the jury that the government would present old evidence that only proved he was a mob figure before 1999. 'There is nothing new that has come to the attention of the government,' he said. 'They don't have evidence after 1999. They know he was out, so they want to recycle this.'
Tapes prosecutors would introduce only proved he had left, he said. 'In 1999 Mr Gotti wanted to get out of his life in the criminal world,' he said. 'That is the message in this trial, he's out of this life.'
Prosecutors added several new charges for his third trial including racketeering and witness tampering to counter his defense. Sliwa is expected to again testify he was shot and wounded in the back of a taxi in Manhattan but miraculously survived. The trial is expected to last several weeks.
Thanks to Christine Kearney
Wiretapped Calls Could Close Case On Genovese Suspects
Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family
Prosecutors said evidence against seven men accused of running the Genovese crime family's South Florida operation includes thousands of hours of phone intercepts and more than 150 undercover videotapes.
According to a prosecutor, investigators recorded about 12,000 phone calls through court-ordered wiretaps over more than a decade. Prosecutors also have some 10,000 pages of seized documents. A judge said that because of the amount of evidence she will recommend a trial date not be set until early March.
All seven defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit extortion and robbery and other counts. The men were arrested June 30, 2006.
Prosecutors said evidence against seven men accused of running the Genovese crime family's South Florida operation includes thousands of hours of phone intercepts and more than 150 undercover videotapes.
According to a prosecutor, investigators recorded about 12,000 phone calls through court-ordered wiretaps over more than a decade. Prosecutors also have some 10,000 pages of seized documents. A judge said that because of the amount of evidence she will recommend a trial date not be set until early March.
All seven defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit extortion and robbery and other counts. The men were arrested June 30, 2006.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Alleged Mob Ties to Maurice Clarett
Friends of ours: Hai Waknine, The Jerusalem Group
Maurice Clarett was bankrolled by an alleged member of an Israeli crime organization after leaving Ohio State, ESPN has learned, and Clarett's attorney said Thursday that his client may have been in possession of firearms last week to protect himself against mob activity.
Clarett's attorney, Nick Mango, said Thursday that Clarett has repeatedly received death threats over the past year but that a cryptic postcard sent from Los Angeles last week has him wondering about Clarett's ties to an alleged mob enforcer.
In the late summer of 2004, ESPN has learned, Clarett traveled to Los Angeles and was introduced by a rapper friend to Hai Waknine, 35, a convicted felon who federal prosecutors believe is a member of an Israeli crime organization called The Jerusalem Group. Waknine, who at the time was facing a federal indictment on extortion and money-laundering charges, became Clarett's sponsor and adviser, along with Waknine's attorney, David Kenner. Waknine provided Clarett with cash, a BMW, bodyguards, drivers and beachfront lodging in Malibu, Calif., with the understanding that he would be reimbursed and receive 60 percent of Clarett's rookie contract. But when Clarett was released by the Denver Broncos in August 2005, he was unable to pay Waknine back, and ESPN has learned that Waknine eventually cut off Clarett financially. Clarett moved back to his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, that fall.
After Clarett was arrested last week, allegedly wearing a bulletproof vest and possessing four guns and a hatchet, Clarett's attorneys say they received an anonymous phone call alerting them to Clarett's ties to Waknine. They grew more suspicious when they received the threatening postcard this week.
Mango said he is concerned that postcard, sent to his law office in Columbus, Ohio, may have come from Waknine. "That's our question, whether it's from him or people associated with that scene out there," Mango told ESPN. "Again, it came from Los Angeles, and we don't know what to make of that. … We're going to turn this over to someone in law enforcement and see what they think [of the postcard]. … We've always felt he had some reasons to fear for his safety, and we don't think any of his actions the night he was arrested -- despite the way it's been spun -- were that he was a threat to anyone else but more of him being in fear for his safety for quite some time."
Mango also said he believes Clarett's debt may have something to do with the threats. "I believe he owes [Waknine] money, and I think [Waknine] is probably not the only one [he owes]," Mango said. "Whether it's someone all the way on that coast or more on this side of the country; it's no one that I'd want to owe money to. … A call came to our office [about Waknine], kind of giving us a rumored story. It's been kind of tossed around by us, and quite frankly, Youngstown has quite a reputation -- if you don't know it already -- for the Italian side of that ball game. And everyone here thought, 'Well, you wonder with money changing hands … ' Having heard the things we've heard, this is a little more concerning."
Waknine's current relationship with Clarett is not clear, although two hours before Clarett's arrest, the running back called an ESPN reporter and mentioned, in passing, that he and Waknine were still friends. However, ESPN has learned that the FBI contacted Clarett about his relationship with Waknine before the 2005 draft, and it is unknown whether Clarett cooperated.
Waknine went on trial on June 5, and he pleaded guilty a week later to a single racketeering charge, admitting that he threatened violence to extort money from several individuals. Waknine, who was unavailable for comment Thursday, is expected to receive a nine-year prison term at his sentencing Sept. 11. His attorney, Kenner -- the former lawyer for Death Row Records and its founder, Marion "Suge" Knight -- did not return phone messages left at his office and cell phone.
It's no secret, however, that Waknine provided Clarett with a life of luxury from August 2004 to August 2005. "When I worked with Maurice, he had Hai and a very high-profile lawyer (Kenner)," strength coach Charles Poliquin said earlier this year, after having trained Clarett in November and December 2004 in Phoenix. "There are not a lot of guys that want to play pro football who have a team of lawyers and money men backing them up, and, for sure, they had his best interests at heart. But he was living too nice a life. Too nice. He was living in Malibu. Right on the beach. I've been to the house. [Waknine] owned like 10 cars and said, 'Pick whatever car you want.'" But money eventually became an issue, especially for all of Clarett's three personal trainers. None of them -- Poliquin, Chad Ikei and Todd Durkin -- said he was ever paid for his services, and when one contacted a member of Clarett's inner circle to be reimbursed, he was told, "You'll get paid when I get paid."
Mango said he has neither the time nor the resources to investigate Waknine, but he found the threatening postcard puzzling. "It came on a small index card like you use in school or whatever, and whatever language that was on it was actually cut and pasted in the old-fashioned sense, like typed and then cut out and pasted onto it," he said. "And then, obviously, the identity of the sender has been pretty well kept … they took steps to keep that …
"I think anything you get where the sender has taken very obvious and extreme and multiple steps to keep their identity sealed, that concerns me. Maurice has gotten other letters and, quite frankly, so have we. People write notes and might use the N-words, but it's in their handwriting some. Some sign it, even an address. In this case, none of that. There's no way to trace this one."
Thanks to ESPN
Maurice Clarett was bankrolled by an alleged member of an Israeli crime organization after leaving Ohio State, ESPN has learned, and Clarett's attorney said Thursday that his client may have been in possession of firearms last week to protect himself against mob activity.Clarett's attorney, Nick Mango, said Thursday that Clarett has repeatedly received death threats over the past year but that a cryptic postcard sent from Los Angeles last week has him wondering about Clarett's ties to an alleged mob enforcer.
In the late summer of 2004, ESPN has learned, Clarett traveled to Los Angeles and was introduced by a rapper friend to Hai Waknine, 35, a convicted felon who federal prosecutors believe is a member of an Israeli crime organization called The Jerusalem Group. Waknine, who at the time was facing a federal indictment on extortion and money-laundering charges, became Clarett's sponsor and adviser, along with Waknine's attorney, David Kenner. Waknine provided Clarett with cash, a BMW, bodyguards, drivers and beachfront lodging in Malibu, Calif., with the understanding that he would be reimbursed and receive 60 percent of Clarett's rookie contract. But when Clarett was released by the Denver Broncos in August 2005, he was unable to pay Waknine back, and ESPN has learned that Waknine eventually cut off Clarett financially. Clarett moved back to his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, that fall.
After Clarett was arrested last week, allegedly wearing a bulletproof vest and possessing four guns and a hatchet, Clarett's attorneys say they received an anonymous phone call alerting them to Clarett's ties to Waknine. They grew more suspicious when they received the threatening postcard this week.
Mango said he is concerned that postcard, sent to his law office in Columbus, Ohio, may have come from Waknine. "That's our question, whether it's from him or people associated with that scene out there," Mango told ESPN. "Again, it came from Los Angeles, and we don't know what to make of that. … We're going to turn this over to someone in law enforcement and see what they think [of the postcard]. … We've always felt he had some reasons to fear for his safety, and we don't think any of his actions the night he was arrested -- despite the way it's been spun -- were that he was a threat to anyone else but more of him being in fear for his safety for quite some time."
Mango also said he believes Clarett's debt may have something to do with the threats. "I believe he owes [Waknine] money, and I think [Waknine] is probably not the only one [he owes]," Mango said. "Whether it's someone all the way on that coast or more on this side of the country; it's no one that I'd want to owe money to. … A call came to our office [about Waknine], kind of giving us a rumored story. It's been kind of tossed around by us, and quite frankly, Youngstown has quite a reputation -- if you don't know it already -- for the Italian side of that ball game. And everyone here thought, 'Well, you wonder with money changing hands … ' Having heard the things we've heard, this is a little more concerning."
Waknine's current relationship with Clarett is not clear, although two hours before Clarett's arrest, the running back called an ESPN reporter and mentioned, in passing, that he and Waknine were still friends. However, ESPN has learned that the FBI contacted Clarett about his relationship with Waknine before the 2005 draft, and it is unknown whether Clarett cooperated.
Waknine went on trial on June 5, and he pleaded guilty a week later to a single racketeering charge, admitting that he threatened violence to extort money from several individuals. Waknine, who was unavailable for comment Thursday, is expected to receive a nine-year prison term at his sentencing Sept. 11. His attorney, Kenner -- the former lawyer for Death Row Records and its founder, Marion "Suge" Knight -- did not return phone messages left at his office and cell phone.
It's no secret, however, that Waknine provided Clarett with a life of luxury from August 2004 to August 2005. "When I worked with Maurice, he had Hai and a very high-profile lawyer (Kenner)," strength coach Charles Poliquin said earlier this year, after having trained Clarett in November and December 2004 in Phoenix. "There are not a lot of guys that want to play pro football who have a team of lawyers and money men backing them up, and, for sure, they had his best interests at heart. But he was living too nice a life. Too nice. He was living in Malibu. Right on the beach. I've been to the house. [Waknine] owned like 10 cars and said, 'Pick whatever car you want.'" But money eventually became an issue, especially for all of Clarett's three personal trainers. None of them -- Poliquin, Chad Ikei and Todd Durkin -- said he was ever paid for his services, and when one contacted a member of Clarett's inner circle to be reimbursed, he was told, "You'll get paid when I get paid."
Mango said he has neither the time nor the resources to investigate Waknine, but he found the threatening postcard puzzling. "It came on a small index card like you use in school or whatever, and whatever language that was on it was actually cut and pasted in the old-fashioned sense, like typed and then cut out and pasted onto it," he said. "And then, obviously, the identity of the sender has been pretty well kept … they took steps to keep that …
"I think anything you get where the sender has taken very obvious and extreme and multiple steps to keep their identity sealed, that concerns me. Maurice has gotten other letters and, quite frankly, so have we. People write notes and might use the N-words, but it's in their handwriting some. Some sign it, even an address. In this case, none of that. There's no way to trace this one."
Thanks to ESPN
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Junior Sings in Court
Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti
Junior sang in court yesterday - but he didn't give up any secrets.
John A. (Junior) Gotti did croon "Happy Birthday" to the judge presiding over his racketeering trial. "I led the attack," the mob scion joked afterward. "Everyone said, 'We're going to sing, we're going to sing,' and then they chickened out."
The command performance came after Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin's courtroom deputy opened the third day of jury selection by asking everyone to sing in honor of the judge's 60th birthday. Prosecutors and defense attorneys who seldom find themselves tongue-tied in a courtroom squirmed at the unusual request but managed to muddle their way through.
Both sides have so far amassed a pool of 40 jurors and will begin whittling the panel down to 18 today. Opening statements are expected to begin in the afternoon.
This is Gotti's third trial after jurors deadlocked at two previous trials. Gotti is accused in a wide-ranging racketeering conspiracy case of ordering a 1992 assault on radio host Curtis Sliwa.
Thanks to Thomas Zambito
Junior sang in court yesterday - but he didn't give up any secrets.
John A. (Junior) Gotti did croon "Happy Birthday" to the judge presiding over his racketeering trial. "I led the attack," the mob scion joked afterward. "Everyone said, 'We're going to sing, we're going to sing,' and then they chickened out."
The command performance came after Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin's courtroom deputy opened the third day of jury selection by asking everyone to sing in honor of the judge's 60th birthday. Prosecutors and defense attorneys who seldom find themselves tongue-tied in a courtroom squirmed at the unusual request but managed to muddle their way through.
Both sides have so far amassed a pool of 40 jurors and will begin whittling the panel down to 18 today. Opening statements are expected to begin in the afternoon.
This is Gotti's third trial after jurors deadlocked at two previous trials. Gotti is accused in a wide-ranging racketeering conspiracy case of ordering a 1992 assault on radio host Curtis Sliwa.
Thanks to Thomas Zambito
Mrs. Gotti Praises 'Mafia Cops" Judge
Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, John "Dapper Don" Gotti, Gambino Crime Family, Ralph "Fat the Gangster" Eppolito, Jimmy "The Clam" Eppolito
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein has a new unexpected fan: Victoria Gotti.
The matriarch of the Gotti clan wrote a letter to Weinstein, praising him for showing a "tremendous amount of courage" in knocking out the convictions of the "Mafia cops."
"I am a person that was totally, totally disillusioned with the justice system," Victoria Gotti wrote in an undated letter to Weinstein. "You have restored my hope that my own son may have a chance, or should I say a second chance at life."
The letter was entered into a court file yesterday.
Gotti has been silent since attending each day of her son John A. (Junior) Gotti's trial this winter, when he scored his second mistrial. Then she attacked a government witness who testified against her son, and defended her late husband, John (Dapper Don) Gotti, amid allegations that he'd fathered a love child.
She's expected back in court later this week for opening statements in a racketeering conspiracy case that centers on claims that Gotti, 42, ordered the assault on radio host Curtis Sliwa in 1992. "With two hung juries and a third trial in August, I am beyond [despondent]," Gotti said. "I continue to hope for a better day for him."
Last month, Weinstein tossed out the federal murder convictions of Mafia cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. In April a jury found that the former NYPD detectives participated in eight gangland slayings while still on the job. Weinstein ruled that the statute of limitations on the racketeering conspiracy had expired.
She began the letter by saying: "I want to applaud you on your decision in regard to the Eppolito and Caracappa case, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to do what you did."
"Those two men, Eppolito and Caracappa need to thank their lucky stars for your wisdom and fairness," Gotti wrote.
There happens to be a Gambino family connection with Eppolito: Two of his relatives, Ralph (Fat the Gangster) Eppolito and Jimmy (The Clam) Eppolito were Gambino family members.
Thanks to Thomas Zambito
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa
Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein has a new unexpected fan: Victoria Gotti.
The matriarch of the Gotti clan wrote a letter to Weinstein, praising him for showing a "tremendous amount of courage" in knocking out the convictions of the "Mafia cops."
"I am a person that was totally, totally disillusioned with the justice system," Victoria Gotti wrote in an undated letter to Weinstein. "You have restored my hope that my own son may have a chance, or should I say a second chance at life."
The letter was entered into a court file yesterday.
Gotti has been silent since attending each day of her son John A. (Junior) Gotti's trial this winter, when he scored his second mistrial. Then she attacked a government witness who testified against her son, and defended her late husband, John (Dapper Don) Gotti, amid allegations that he'd fathered a love child.
She's expected back in court later this week for opening statements in a racketeering conspiracy case that centers on claims that Gotti, 42, ordered the assault on radio host Curtis Sliwa in 1992. "With two hung juries and a third trial in August, I am beyond [despondent]," Gotti said. "I continue to hope for a better day for him."
Last month, Weinstein tossed out the federal murder convictions of Mafia cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. In April a jury found that the former NYPD detectives participated in eight gangland slayings while still on the job. Weinstein ruled that the statute of limitations on the racketeering conspiracy had expired.She began the letter by saying: "I want to applaud you on your decision in regard to the Eppolito and Caracappa case, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to do what you did."
"Those two men, Eppolito and Caracappa need to thank their lucky stars for your wisdom and fairness," Gotti wrote.
There happens to be a Gambino family connection with Eppolito: Two of his relatives, Ralph (Fat the Gangster) Eppolito and Jimmy (The Clam) Eppolito were Gambino family members.
Thanks to Thomas Zambito
New Method for Mob to Recruit and Train Teenagers?
The Sims Online is a very popular video game, and it may be getting even more popular. Trouble is, it has been almost completely overrun by an occasionally subtle, occasionally out version of the Mob.
The Mafia may be using The Sims Online as a chat room and indoctrinating teenage kids into it. Sort of a Neo Mafia, similar to the Neo Nazis. Not sure. I do not know what you will think of this, but it is your business.
Several people on the game agreed rationally that the Mafia may be using TSO as a chat room to lure teenage kids into the very real Mafia. Some, in defense of the game, said no, it is a bunch of teenage kids having whoopies and do not get worried. Those people are often game addicts and love TSO a lot. They say they do not get into trouble. And some people said, Maxis, Mafia, who knows. Maybe Maxis is just making money from the woes of those who play TSO and then leave.
I have blown quite a few people away with this story (pun intended.) Also, this is not a fiction story, and finally, I am an ocasionally investigative journalist who has won a few awards. You have probably never heard of me.
If I told you this, would you believe me? Try doing so, because it is the truth. And also, in this strange and perverse world, young people are busy killing each other at an alarming rate. Do we really need something like a pseudo Mafia causing the same sorts of problems? Gangsterism, in other words, on the beloved video games of our children?
According to Wikipedia, the foremost Web online encyclopedia, ever since 9/11 the FBI has not had much in time or resources to handle organized crime, and there has been a sudden resurgence in its activities.
Right now, the online game The Sims Online - which is labeled a T for Teens game - has been overrun by several obviously Mafia named families. These people do not seem to have enough imagination to be Mexican Mafia, Chinese Mafia or Japanese Mafia (yet), which also exist in real life. They are both very aggressive and very obvious.
Whether or not they are the real Mafia is a question which I cannot answer. They may be a bunch of errant teenage boys and girls – but ones with some very eclectic adult tastes and also many violent and weird high tech tendencies. You should see the Playboy style icons they paste on top of their houses from certain views of the TSO video game.
I cannot tell who is to blame for that, adults or kids. And that sort of thing is not something you can ordinarily get as a regular player of that particular video game. Something is up with that, something way too mysterious. And one thing these kids, if they are kids, really do, even though it is to virtual and not real houses: they trash the paid-for beautiful properties of their fellow gameplayers. The kinds of properties that people would like to build, taking a lifetime to achieve. Gorgeous, sprawling mansions you cannot own in real life, the kind that are totally out of reach for the vast majority of people.
Some people have been playing The Sims Online for years. Maybe you think they are weird, maybe you think they are no one to feel sorry for. Maybe you are even rooting for the pseudo Mafia. But not me. I had real friends going on that game, and slowly but surely somebody began destroying our Sims houses, and all of our prized possessions on that game. To the point where no one could tell if it was part of the game, or something far worse.
I happen to have another friend (an entirely different situation) who was screwed over for $15,000 real life dollars when he tried to sell some photographs and they were more or less taken from him. Is that a good thing to do to someone? And is it a good thing to interrupt a high tech, presumably decent enough game involving minor adult activity and corrupt it still further? So far as I can tell, some money is going out that way on TSO too — in real life.
I am so tired, I do not know. Values are very hard to gauge in life, anyway.
To green up on The Sims Online at all, or to keep your simulated character alive and kicking, it forces you to do interactions that are rather similar to bestiality (wrestle with your dog, but you should see what it looks like if you really see it) and that is bad enough, but rather bearable. Sigmund Freud would have told us that such behavior is relatively normal, that having an orgy session involving heavy petting with your own puppy where it loves you and licks your face and you are all over each other is fun. Also, there is sexy dancing, heavy kissing and hugging, and so forth, which works for most people - including twelve year old kids.
This is all done with your fellow characters, real life people in the game whom you can become acquainted with, work with, and even marry. The marriages are not legal of course, and tend to dissolve fairly quickly. I also found out that you can pay, with real money, for virtual acts of prostitution on that game - a T for Teens game. Recently I have found out that what they call kiddy porn has definitely become involved in that game, too. There are children selling kissing and hugging sexual favors there, and they have access to nude skins on the naked characters. Somehow, this doesn't seem like proper "fun" for teenage kids to me.
And it is not fun, also, to come home one day to having your hard won, worked for skills, games, store or money house trashed by unknown people - while your town is crawling with De Corleoni Territori, the Italian Mafia Empire, The Vito Family Territory and so forth. I am not talking Anti-Italian Defamation. I had several Italian friends on the game, whom I now am stuck missing in my daily life. I am talking about a bunch of people either acting like the Mafia, or worse yet, actually being connected with them somehow and taking over a kiddy teen video game. Possibly, several teenage version video games. Or were they involved in the first place, and is Maxis a Mafia held game company? Look at the names. Maxis, Mafia.
When will Electronic Arts do something about the house trashing problem, for example, even though people have repeatedly complained about it? What is it exactly that they are trying to hide? Apparently not much; you can easily find the Mob everywhere on that game. And the Sims version of the cops does absolutely nothing but dress up in uniforms and occasionally threaten people. Their police threaten you if you do not cooperate with them, such as by kissing them or letting them become your roommates, but cannot do anything real to you. It has also been found that their police station involves nothing but lollygagging around and having fun. There is no attempt to stop the Mob at all. Maxis did crack down on one "house of prostitution" and kids selling sexual favors on the game once, but not very hard. I've heard there has been resurgences of such clearly illegal game activities.
It is also true that while the game is labeled T for Teens, it is connected with what appears at first to be some harmless fake gambling. The money being exchanged seems to be Simoleans at first. Fake money, which you get by working at odd jobs on the game, and you may also acquire skills so you can make more of the fake money. But there are payoffs, and you can also buy blocks of the money on EBay, roughly $15-25 for 1 million Simoleans. And you can buy rares, which people barter and pay for, such as Mystic Trees, tigers and cheetahs. The nature of the game makes it looks like you are not spending anything, like the gambling is harmless. Yet it swiftly begins to catch up with you that you are indeed spending your own very real money.
Is this what you want your teenager to be doing? For 6-10 hours a day, five-seven days a week? Eventually, obviously, after I spent about a month on the game, it was so that the money was swiftly turning real. It took about one month for me to blow about $200 in real life dollars on that game. I was getting seriously addicted.
Okay, video addiction is bad enough, but we are talking about Organized Crime here as well. Remember a little place called Columbine High School? What if there is some sort of eerie connection to that sort of business? I had to join this game to find out, kind of as a lark, but I did some real exploring too. The "Mafia" is in and roughly controlling every town that I have visited on The Sims Online, and I have reasonably checked them all over. Dans Grove, Jolly Pines, Blazing Falls, Alphaville. The Mafia is...everywhere.
I have talked to these Mafia gentlemen and ladies, and visited their houses. They do not have very much to do at them but the usual Sims stuff. I am afraid they have discovered game cheats, and being bored, they are using them to destroy other game player properties. And yes, I have evidence, not hard unfortunately, that they have watched people play the game from a distance. One of them knew about something he should not have known. And another friend of mine who regularly plays video games has noticed these tendencies toward having strange game powers that other players do not have in yet other video games. He says it is pretty common. Hackers, he calls it, but in the TSO case, it is hitting a little too close to home.
For example, a very realistic gay bashing was set up right in front of me. I rode it out, but I had to comfort the gay being bashed. Of course, it was his simulated character, not he/she who was hurt. TSO is real people playing games. I am not gay, but it was getting a little peculiar that such stuff is allowable on a T for Teens video game. I was more than a little confused, embarassed and hurt. There had been a threat to bash me as well, which was at least not carried out. I somehow escaped it.
A lady in fun did fire a game Civil War cannon at me, in private, and this Mafia guy named Riccardo knew that it had happened. I do not think she told him about it. How did he know? She did it for laughs, and it was a harmless game event (I peed my pants as the game character, and it seemed okay), but it is not very funny that he knew about it. I did not exactly care, and it was sort of humorous. He could not have known about it unless he had seen it happen, in all probability. And he was not anywhere on the property or onscreen at the time. He had an obvious private view of it going on. The lady was a friend of mine and I did not mind the harmless cannon. But I certainly minded that invisible people knew all about what was going on.
That meant Riccardo there could probably observe sex acts with kids characters on the game, either. But I seriously doubt that he had any interest at all in stopping them. As to policing them, I suppose there would be problems with that, too. The same Mafia dude, who kept denying he was Mafia - while dressed in an obvious game-style Mafia suit and with the name Riccardo - also told me you cannot trash houses unless you are a roommate or the home owner. This should indeed be the case; it involves building permissions. But one of the house trashing victims had no roommates whatsoever. And she was not motivated to trash her house, as no insurance money is involved.
The game definitely has its better aspects, though. Game players on this game can be quite friendly. I made a lot of good friends doing things like making pizzas, opening up my own skills house business, doing minor gambling (legal for adults and I am over 40) and in general - partying. You can play high tech, beautiful looking musical instruments and feel like you are there. It is a great game. You should see some of the wild and crazy characters on this game! Or should you?
Well, I can not play it myself anymore. I quit the game solely because of the extremely heavy Mafia presence that was starting to visit my house and breathe hotly down my neck. That, and the game was cutting into my work routine as a full-time writer quite a little bit, too.
First, Riccardo showed up. Out of nowhere, after I had used the usual Maxis device to screen all apparent Mafia members out of my house. He showed up at my house. The same day the house of my friend was trashed. It was the second such trashing since I had started playing there. Obvious Mafia guy, obviously scouting me. For membership, or for house bashing? He denied everything completely. This was after two such houses had been trashed.
Want to know anything about terrorism? Now I know what it is. A little too thoroughly for my tastes. The Mob was making it obvious that I could be next. Why is that exactly? And what sort of next would it be, real, or simulated game activity? These people looked capable of tracking down my actual home computer IP address, my ISP - and finally, my real life house. They seem to have the technology... ...yeah, they are just a bunch of teenagers who like to trash houses...they are not the real Mafia, they are just kids...I heard a lot of that from people both on and off the game, even my fellow writers. Harmless kids. With Playboy symbols on the roofs of their game houses, very obviously the kind adults use. Mere "kids."
Like the ones at Columbine? That bunch called themselves The Trenchcoat Mafia. What is it with teenage kids and the Mob nowadays? Bad influence from gangsta rap? Perhaps boredom with what the Sims had to offer, or a lack of desire to wait for the further events? We had chat rooms going, and Eminem (might be the real one from rap music, somebody on the game claimed it actually is the rapper dude, who knows) was there, helping to build a SimBall stadium. So people could play SimBall on the game. Some guy called Eminem, and he wanted to build us a ball stadium. What if the pseudo Mafia decides to trash that, too? Em there might have been trying to do something real and good for a change. Dunno. And I heard about the house of a man also being trashed in Jolly Pines, so it is obvious they do not do it only to women or just to my own coincidental female friends. But all I could finally do was flee. The game was cutting too deeply into my own personal life anyway, as sour grapes as that sounds. I quit playing the game for good. I do not feel much like a grownup after that. I feel rather like an inebriated cipher. I learned later that it is a major punishment in the Sims Mafia to get a member to erase their character or all of their characters and property - that is, if you are already a Mob member. I was only glad to get our of there before I was "erased" by someone else. And my daughter was equally glad to stop playing the game, as she found it was getting boring anyway trying to elude the Mob.
Parents, watch the video games your teenagers are playing. You might turn around and suddenly find you have a genuine Neo Mafiosi for a teenage daughter or son, in your Real Life. I know that now. You might think I am crazy, but I am not. A man told me recently he has been finding kids that stay all day on those games. I am not the only nutty parent here who is getting worried. I think something like Columbine could swallow our kids alive, alarmist as that may sound, through video games.
The Sims Online is conceivably the haven for a slinking beast with no better name than the Neo Mafia: My New Family. And for the last time, if you are Italian, I am not picking on you. I am worried about you instead. And do you need to be affiliated with these mysterious strangers, who maybe think all organized crime is still from Italy? Are you, like me, a parent? Ma fia? Neo ma fia? Oy gevaldt, as the Jews say, on such a New Family!
Yes, parents, that is what it means in Italian-American. My new family. Still feel comfortable with the concept?
Those guys were lying to me. If so, then they are Neo Mafia. What would that mean exactly, if they have the technology to get past the normal defenses in the game and tear the houses of other players down? I was told by several people, even Riccardo, that it is not easy to do that.
"Trust me. I am only Italian. I am not a Mafia member. You must be a bigot. It is because my skin is brown. Yadayadayaday," Riccardo said. You can be whatever skin color you want to be on TSO, and either sex for that matter. Everybody kept going, it is only kids, calm down, it is only kids. Yeah, some pretty old kids with Playboy banners and slogans who like to indulge in kiddy sex trades.
First town on The Sims map: Dans Grove. First thing you see when you enter there: Italian Mafia Empire. It was a little hidden, but not very. Sort of to the South. It is obviously their beachhead, the place they originally hit.
Then they simply moved out from there. And they can hide. When you go there, to Dans Grove, you do not find very many Mafia. They seemingly moved out from there. Trouble is, they can move right back there at lightning speed. That is not doable by any regular game player without having more than one paid account on the game. How many paid accounts do these guys have? Dans Grove seems to be the seat of the Hidden Mafia Empire, altogether. Sounds exciting in a way, I guess, but no fun.
That is where they trashed the two or three houses. Or...whatever. Yes dear, it is all twelve year old kids. And my name is Uncle Auntie Em. Maybe I was a fool for ever playing it. I assumed it was just a game, and someone was being silly.
I was wrong. That game smells to the skies of actual real life payoffs, and everyone I talked to genuinely seemed to know that, one way or another. And if they chase almost everyone who is not Mafia off of the game, who is left talking to each other while presumably playing a T for Teens video game - as a chat room?
I hope the FBI does something, but God help anybody, I do not know what. They would have to join the game to infiltrate it and actually, er, gather evidence. Gosh, that would be so going overboard for them. Maybe they could eat donuts, drink coffee, and pretend to look for terrorists instead, like the cops on the Sims do, more or less? Or maybe go bug half-crazed Black people and Native Americans from the sixties?
Sorry, I have got to admit I am finally feeling a little nuts here.
I know bloody well that if this story is ever run or promoted, people will join The Sims Online (TSO) after having read it. It is an extremely easy game to join, a free two week trial, $10 per month and bam, you are in it. This story itself works out to promoting them. Well, if you want to join the Mafia very easily, there you go.
The last I read, however, sales on the game have been slipping, and are not as high as Maxis would like them to be. Their overall projections were much higher than their actual results. But their other non-interactive Sims games, which are played mostly offline, are selling so well that Maxis can claim that The Sims 2 is the Number One selling video game worldwide. At least that is what they are claiming.
News items like riots over the War in Iraq or tales of actual real life child prostitution belittle all of this pretty much. Nonetheless, I believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation should be looking into at least some of these teenage and kiddy video games. You can buy money on EBay to sell on that TSO game, very young kids are on that game, and they are being threatened into being recruited for the, I would assume, mostly "Sicilian" Mafia...right now...since they all keep mentioning the Italian one so much...
...the real one or the virtual one?
Who knows?
Thanks to Karen Peralta
The Mafia may be using The Sims Online as a chat room and indoctrinating teenage kids into it. Sort of a Neo Mafia, similar to the Neo Nazis. Not sure. I do not know what you will think of this, but it is your business.
Several people on the game agreed rationally that the Mafia may be using TSO as a chat room to lure teenage kids into the very real Mafia. Some, in defense of the game, said no, it is a bunch of teenage kids having whoopies and do not get worried. Those people are often game addicts and love TSO a lot. They say they do not get into trouble. And some people said, Maxis, Mafia, who knows. Maybe Maxis is just making money from the woes of those who play TSO and then leave.
I have blown quite a few people away with this story (pun intended.) Also, this is not a fiction story, and finally, I am an ocasionally investigative journalist who has won a few awards. You have probably never heard of me.
If I told you this, would you believe me? Try doing so, because it is the truth. And also, in this strange and perverse world, young people are busy killing each other at an alarming rate. Do we really need something like a pseudo Mafia causing the same sorts of problems? Gangsterism, in other words, on the beloved video games of our children?
According to Wikipedia, the foremost Web online encyclopedia, ever since 9/11 the FBI has not had much in time or resources to handle organized crime, and there has been a sudden resurgence in its activities.
Right now, the online game The Sims Online - which is labeled a T for Teens game - has been overrun by several obviously Mafia named families. These people do not seem to have enough imagination to be Mexican Mafia, Chinese Mafia or Japanese Mafia (yet), which also exist in real life. They are both very aggressive and very obvious.
Whether or not they are the real Mafia is a question which I cannot answer. They may be a bunch of errant teenage boys and girls – but ones with some very eclectic adult tastes and also many violent and weird high tech tendencies. You should see the Playboy style icons they paste on top of their houses from certain views of the TSO video game.
I cannot tell who is to blame for that, adults or kids. And that sort of thing is not something you can ordinarily get as a regular player of that particular video game. Something is up with that, something way too mysterious. And one thing these kids, if they are kids, really do, even though it is to virtual and not real houses: they trash the paid-for beautiful properties of their fellow gameplayers. The kinds of properties that people would like to build, taking a lifetime to achieve. Gorgeous, sprawling mansions you cannot own in real life, the kind that are totally out of reach for the vast majority of people.
Some people have been playing The Sims Online for years. Maybe you think they are weird, maybe you think they are no one to feel sorry for. Maybe you are even rooting for the pseudo Mafia. But not me. I had real friends going on that game, and slowly but surely somebody began destroying our Sims houses, and all of our prized possessions on that game. To the point where no one could tell if it was part of the game, or something far worse.
I happen to have another friend (an entirely different situation) who was screwed over for $15,000 real life dollars when he tried to sell some photographs and they were more or less taken from him. Is that a good thing to do to someone? And is it a good thing to interrupt a high tech, presumably decent enough game involving minor adult activity and corrupt it still further? So far as I can tell, some money is going out that way on TSO too — in real life.
I am so tired, I do not know. Values are very hard to gauge in life, anyway.
To green up on The Sims Online at all, or to keep your simulated character alive and kicking, it forces you to do interactions that are rather similar to bestiality (wrestle with your dog, but you should see what it looks like if you really see it) and that is bad enough, but rather bearable. Sigmund Freud would have told us that such behavior is relatively normal, that having an orgy session involving heavy petting with your own puppy where it loves you and licks your face and you are all over each other is fun. Also, there is sexy dancing, heavy kissing and hugging, and so forth, which works for most people - including twelve year old kids.
This is all done with your fellow characters, real life people in the game whom you can become acquainted with, work with, and even marry. The marriages are not legal of course, and tend to dissolve fairly quickly. I also found out that you can pay, with real money, for virtual acts of prostitution on that game - a T for Teens game. Recently I have found out that what they call kiddy porn has definitely become involved in that game, too. There are children selling kissing and hugging sexual favors there, and they have access to nude skins on the naked characters. Somehow, this doesn't seem like proper "fun" for teenage kids to me.
And it is not fun, also, to come home one day to having your hard won, worked for skills, games, store or money house trashed by unknown people - while your town is crawling with De Corleoni Territori, the Italian Mafia Empire, The Vito Family Territory and so forth. I am not talking Anti-Italian Defamation. I had several Italian friends on the game, whom I now am stuck missing in my daily life. I am talking about a bunch of people either acting like the Mafia, or worse yet, actually being connected with them somehow and taking over a kiddy teen video game. Possibly, several teenage version video games. Or were they involved in the first place, and is Maxis a Mafia held game company? Look at the names. Maxis, Mafia.
When will Electronic Arts do something about the house trashing problem, for example, even though people have repeatedly complained about it? What is it exactly that they are trying to hide? Apparently not much; you can easily find the Mob everywhere on that game. And the Sims version of the cops does absolutely nothing but dress up in uniforms and occasionally threaten people. Their police threaten you if you do not cooperate with them, such as by kissing them or letting them become your roommates, but cannot do anything real to you. It has also been found that their police station involves nothing but lollygagging around and having fun. There is no attempt to stop the Mob at all. Maxis did crack down on one "house of prostitution" and kids selling sexual favors on the game once, but not very hard. I've heard there has been resurgences of such clearly illegal game activities.
It is also true that while the game is labeled T for Teens, it is connected with what appears at first to be some harmless fake gambling. The money being exchanged seems to be Simoleans at first. Fake money, which you get by working at odd jobs on the game, and you may also acquire skills so you can make more of the fake money. But there are payoffs, and you can also buy blocks of the money on EBay, roughly $15-25 for 1 million Simoleans. And you can buy rares, which people barter and pay for, such as Mystic Trees, tigers and cheetahs. The nature of the game makes it looks like you are not spending anything, like the gambling is harmless. Yet it swiftly begins to catch up with you that you are indeed spending your own very real money.
Is this what you want your teenager to be doing? For 6-10 hours a day, five-seven days a week? Eventually, obviously, after I spent about a month on the game, it was so that the money was swiftly turning real. It took about one month for me to blow about $200 in real life dollars on that game. I was getting seriously addicted.
Okay, video addiction is bad enough, but we are talking about Organized Crime here as well. Remember a little place called Columbine High School? What if there is some sort of eerie connection to that sort of business? I had to join this game to find out, kind of as a lark, but I did some real exploring too. The "Mafia" is in and roughly controlling every town that I have visited on The Sims Online, and I have reasonably checked them all over. Dans Grove, Jolly Pines, Blazing Falls, Alphaville. The Mafia is...everywhere.
I have talked to these Mafia gentlemen and ladies, and visited their houses. They do not have very much to do at them but the usual Sims stuff. I am afraid they have discovered game cheats, and being bored, they are using them to destroy other game player properties. And yes, I have evidence, not hard unfortunately, that they have watched people play the game from a distance. One of them knew about something he should not have known. And another friend of mine who regularly plays video games has noticed these tendencies toward having strange game powers that other players do not have in yet other video games. He says it is pretty common. Hackers, he calls it, but in the TSO case, it is hitting a little too close to home.
For example, a very realistic gay bashing was set up right in front of me. I rode it out, but I had to comfort the gay being bashed. Of course, it was his simulated character, not he/she who was hurt. TSO is real people playing games. I am not gay, but it was getting a little peculiar that such stuff is allowable on a T for Teens video game. I was more than a little confused, embarassed and hurt. There had been a threat to bash me as well, which was at least not carried out. I somehow escaped it.
A lady in fun did fire a game Civil War cannon at me, in private, and this Mafia guy named Riccardo knew that it had happened. I do not think she told him about it. How did he know? She did it for laughs, and it was a harmless game event (I peed my pants as the game character, and it seemed okay), but it is not very funny that he knew about it. I did not exactly care, and it was sort of humorous. He could not have known about it unless he had seen it happen, in all probability. And he was not anywhere on the property or onscreen at the time. He had an obvious private view of it going on. The lady was a friend of mine and I did not mind the harmless cannon. But I certainly minded that invisible people knew all about what was going on.
That meant Riccardo there could probably observe sex acts with kids characters on the game, either. But I seriously doubt that he had any interest at all in stopping them. As to policing them, I suppose there would be problems with that, too. The same Mafia dude, who kept denying he was Mafia - while dressed in an obvious game-style Mafia suit and with the name Riccardo - also told me you cannot trash houses unless you are a roommate or the home owner. This should indeed be the case; it involves building permissions. But one of the house trashing victims had no roommates whatsoever. And she was not motivated to trash her house, as no insurance money is involved.
The game definitely has its better aspects, though. Game players on this game can be quite friendly. I made a lot of good friends doing things like making pizzas, opening up my own skills house business, doing minor gambling (legal for adults and I am over 40) and in general - partying. You can play high tech, beautiful looking musical instruments and feel like you are there. It is a great game. You should see some of the wild and crazy characters on this game! Or should you?
Well, I can not play it myself anymore. I quit the game solely because of the extremely heavy Mafia presence that was starting to visit my house and breathe hotly down my neck. That, and the game was cutting into my work routine as a full-time writer quite a little bit, too.
First, Riccardo showed up. Out of nowhere, after I had used the usual Maxis device to screen all apparent Mafia members out of my house. He showed up at my house. The same day the house of my friend was trashed. It was the second such trashing since I had started playing there. Obvious Mafia guy, obviously scouting me. For membership, or for house bashing? He denied everything completely. This was after two such houses had been trashed.
Want to know anything about terrorism? Now I know what it is. A little too thoroughly for my tastes. The Mob was making it obvious that I could be next. Why is that exactly? And what sort of next would it be, real, or simulated game activity? These people looked capable of tracking down my actual home computer IP address, my ISP - and finally, my real life house. They seem to have the technology... ...yeah, they are just a bunch of teenagers who like to trash houses...they are not the real Mafia, they are just kids...I heard a lot of that from people both on and off the game, even my fellow writers. Harmless kids. With Playboy symbols on the roofs of their game houses, very obviously the kind adults use. Mere "kids."
Like the ones at Columbine? That bunch called themselves The Trenchcoat Mafia. What is it with teenage kids and the Mob nowadays? Bad influence from gangsta rap? Perhaps boredom with what the Sims had to offer, or a lack of desire to wait for the further events? We had chat rooms going, and Eminem (might be the real one from rap music, somebody on the game claimed it actually is the rapper dude, who knows) was there, helping to build a SimBall stadium. So people could play SimBall on the game. Some guy called Eminem, and he wanted to build us a ball stadium. What if the pseudo Mafia decides to trash that, too? Em there might have been trying to do something real and good for a change. Dunno. And I heard about the house of a man also being trashed in Jolly Pines, so it is obvious they do not do it only to women or just to my own coincidental female friends. But all I could finally do was flee. The game was cutting too deeply into my own personal life anyway, as sour grapes as that sounds. I quit playing the game for good. I do not feel much like a grownup after that. I feel rather like an inebriated cipher. I learned later that it is a major punishment in the Sims Mafia to get a member to erase their character or all of their characters and property - that is, if you are already a Mob member. I was only glad to get our of there before I was "erased" by someone else. And my daughter was equally glad to stop playing the game, as she found it was getting boring anyway trying to elude the Mob.
Parents, watch the video games your teenagers are playing. You might turn around and suddenly find you have a genuine Neo Mafiosi for a teenage daughter or son, in your Real Life. I know that now. You might think I am crazy, but I am not. A man told me recently he has been finding kids that stay all day on those games. I am not the only nutty parent here who is getting worried. I think something like Columbine could swallow our kids alive, alarmist as that may sound, through video games.
The Sims Online is conceivably the haven for a slinking beast with no better name than the Neo Mafia: My New Family. And for the last time, if you are Italian, I am not picking on you. I am worried about you instead. And do you need to be affiliated with these mysterious strangers, who maybe think all organized crime is still from Italy? Are you, like me, a parent? Ma fia? Neo ma fia? Oy gevaldt, as the Jews say, on such a New Family!
Yes, parents, that is what it means in Italian-American. My new family. Still feel comfortable with the concept?
Those guys were lying to me. If so, then they are Neo Mafia. What would that mean exactly, if they have the technology to get past the normal defenses in the game and tear the houses of other players down? I was told by several people, even Riccardo, that it is not easy to do that.
"Trust me. I am only Italian. I am not a Mafia member. You must be a bigot. It is because my skin is brown. Yadayadayaday," Riccardo said. You can be whatever skin color you want to be on TSO, and either sex for that matter. Everybody kept going, it is only kids, calm down, it is only kids. Yeah, some pretty old kids with Playboy banners and slogans who like to indulge in kiddy sex trades.
First town on The Sims map: Dans Grove. First thing you see when you enter there: Italian Mafia Empire. It was a little hidden, but not very. Sort of to the South. It is obviously their beachhead, the place they originally hit.
Then they simply moved out from there. And they can hide. When you go there, to Dans Grove, you do not find very many Mafia. They seemingly moved out from there. Trouble is, they can move right back there at lightning speed. That is not doable by any regular game player without having more than one paid account on the game. How many paid accounts do these guys have? Dans Grove seems to be the seat of the Hidden Mafia Empire, altogether. Sounds exciting in a way, I guess, but no fun.
That is where they trashed the two or three houses. Or...whatever. Yes dear, it is all twelve year old kids. And my name is Uncle Auntie Em. Maybe I was a fool for ever playing it. I assumed it was just a game, and someone was being silly.
I was wrong. That game smells to the skies of actual real life payoffs, and everyone I talked to genuinely seemed to know that, one way or another. And if they chase almost everyone who is not Mafia off of the game, who is left talking to each other while presumably playing a T for Teens video game - as a chat room?
I hope the FBI does something, but God help anybody, I do not know what. They would have to join the game to infiltrate it and actually, er, gather evidence. Gosh, that would be so going overboard for them. Maybe they could eat donuts, drink coffee, and pretend to look for terrorists instead, like the cops on the Sims do, more or less? Or maybe go bug half-crazed Black people and Native Americans from the sixties?
Sorry, I have got to admit I am finally feeling a little nuts here.
I know bloody well that if this story is ever run or promoted, people will join The Sims Online (TSO) after having read it. It is an extremely easy game to join, a free two week trial, $10 per month and bam, you are in it. This story itself works out to promoting them. Well, if you want to join the Mafia very easily, there you go.
The last I read, however, sales on the game have been slipping, and are not as high as Maxis would like them to be. Their overall projections were much higher than their actual results. But their other non-interactive Sims games, which are played mostly offline, are selling so well that Maxis can claim that The Sims 2 is the Number One selling video game worldwide. At least that is what they are claiming.
News items like riots over the War in Iraq or tales of actual real life child prostitution belittle all of this pretty much. Nonetheless, I believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation should be looking into at least some of these teenage and kiddy video games. You can buy money on EBay to sell on that TSO game, very young kids are on that game, and they are being threatened into being recruited for the, I would assume, mostly "Sicilian" Mafia...right now...since they all keep mentioning the Italian one so much...
...the real one or the virtual one?
Who knows?
Thanks to Karen Peralta
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
China is Swept by 'Mafia'
A card game called "Mafia" that requires competitors to "kill" their fellow players is sweeping China.
Pubs, clubs and restaurants are full of people playing the game, and it has even jumped to the Internet, where games can last a whole day. The game has, however, caused controversy, with some professors complaining the game is too violent.
Searching the Internet, surfers can find out everything about the game, including information about game rules, online game services, "Mafia" clubs and debates on the advantages and disadvantages of the game.
There are various forms of the game, although the type using cards usually has 10 to 20 players who take on a number of different roles, including a judge, cops, killers, an angel and ordinary people. The aim of the game differs depending on which character you play, but killers do just that, while ordinary people have to find who the killers are.
Xclub, in the Haidian District of Beijing, was one of the first "Mafia" clubs in China. "The game can improve people's personalities, making them smarter and quicker," according to Yuan Yi, the club's vice-manager. "Introvert people become more active."
The Beijing-based club has registered more than 50,000 members all over the country since opening for business in March. Yuan said members are from a wide range of circles, including public relations workers, media people, IT engineers and students.
"The name sounds scary but actually it builds up your brain without any actual violence. It demands high concentration, which is a great challenge," said player Liu Mei, a 28-year old Beijing architect. "I think this game is much more meaningful than surfing online, doing karaoke, or playing poker or mahjong." But not everyone agrees.
A player will try hard to lie, deny he is a killer and by fair means or foul "kill" others," said Gao Feng, a professor from Beijing People's Police College. "People will imitate these ways of thinking when they commit a crime in real life and try to escape legal punishment."
"Players are easily addicted to the game and become numb when it comes to 'killing,'" added another professor, Zhang Zhensheng, from China Public Security University. "These cheating minds formed through the game will have a negative effects on lives and careers in the long run," he said.
Zhang even predicts that lie detectors could fail when faced with experienced "Mafia" game players as they will be used to cheating.
Thanks to Xie Chuanjiao
Pubs, clubs and restaurants are full of people playing the game, and it has even jumped to the Internet, where games can last a whole day. The game has, however, caused controversy, with some professors complaining the game is too violent.
Searching the Internet, surfers can find out everything about the game, including information about game rules, online game services, "Mafia" clubs and debates on the advantages and disadvantages of the game.
There are various forms of the game, although the type using cards usually has 10 to 20 players who take on a number of different roles, including a judge, cops, killers, an angel and ordinary people. The aim of the game differs depending on which character you play, but killers do just that, while ordinary people have to find who the killers are.
Xclub, in the Haidian District of Beijing, was one of the first "Mafia" clubs in China. "The game can improve people's personalities, making them smarter and quicker," according to Yuan Yi, the club's vice-manager. "Introvert people become more active."
The Beijing-based club has registered more than 50,000 members all over the country since opening for business in March. Yuan said members are from a wide range of circles, including public relations workers, media people, IT engineers and students.
"The name sounds scary but actually it builds up your brain without any actual violence. It demands high concentration, which is a great challenge," said player Liu Mei, a 28-year old Beijing architect. "I think this game is much more meaningful than surfing online, doing karaoke, or playing poker or mahjong." But not everyone agrees.
A player will try hard to lie, deny he is a killer and by fair means or foul "kill" others," said Gao Feng, a professor from Beijing People's Police College. "People will imitate these ways of thinking when they commit a crime in real life and try to escape legal punishment."
"Players are easily addicted to the game and become numb when it comes to 'killing,'" added another professor, Zhang Zhensheng, from China Public Security University. "These cheating minds formed through the game will have a negative effects on lives and careers in the long run," he said.
Zhang even predicts that lie detectors could fail when faced with experienced "Mafia" game players as they will be used to cheating.
Thanks to Xie Chuanjiao
The Chicago Mob in Vegas during the 70's and 80's
Friends of ours: Tony “the Ant” Spilotro, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, Al Capone
Friends of mine: Oscar Goodman, Michael Spilotro, Joe Blasko, Phil Leone
The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law vs. The Mob Looks at Vegas Crime in the 70's and 80's
Friends of mine: Oscar Goodman, Michael Spilotro, Joe Blasko, Phil Leone
The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law vs. The Mob Looks at Vegas Crime in the 70's and 80's
Monday, August 14, 2006
Gotti's Groundhog Day Trial Begins with Jury Selection
Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, John "Dapper Don" Gotti
In his 1882 treatise, “The Gay Science
,” Friedrich Nietzsche describes the theory of eternal return like this:
“What,” he writes, “if some day a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more? Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?”
This, of course, is the philosophy of endless repetition that has entered the culture in masterworks like Albert Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus
” and Harold Ramis’s “Groundhog Day
.” It has touched both novelists and rock stars and is appearing — yet again — in the racketeering trial of John A. Gotti, the son of the late Gambino family don.
The trial, which opened today in Federal District Court in Manhattan, is, after all, Mr. Gotti’s third on nearly identical charges in the last two years. He stands accused, again, of having ordered the abduction of Curtis Sliwa, the radio talk-show host and founder of the Guardian Angels, in 1992 — an allegation that led to dead-locked juries at two prior federal trials.
Today jury selection started and it was fairly remarkable, given the ink already spilled on Mr. Gotti, that the panelists did not know more about the man. Several times, potential jurors confessed in court to little more than a passing knowledge of Mr. Gotti — beyond the fact that he is John J. Gotti’s son.
This was to the point. Like many sons of famous fathers, the younger Gotti has been walking in his father’s shade for many years. Indeed, the primary charge in the case is directly related to Oedpial anxiety: Prosecutors say that Mr. Gotti ordered Mr. Sliwa to be kidnapped from the street after the talk-show host called his father “public enemy No. 1” on air.
The kidnapping occurred in June 1992, as Mr. Sliwa (on his way to work at WABC) hailed a taxicab near his apartment on Avenue A and St. Marks Place, in the East Village. As prosecutors put it, the taxi was “intended to serve as a hearse,” for as he stepped inside, they say, a gang assassin bolted upright in the front seat and shot him several times at point-blank range.
For this trial the prosecution has added a few new racketeering counts that charge Mr. Gotti with having used illicit profits from loan-sharking and extortion to operate two holding companies. It tried to charge him with money laundering as well, but that charge was dismissed last week by Shira A. Scheindlin, the presiding judge.
The third time is said to be the charm, but even Judge Scheindlin admitted today that jury selection was fairly slow-going. There seemed no end to good reasons to dismiss jurors from the pool.
One woman told the judge that she might lose her job as a part-time telemarketer if she were forced to serve — and was excused. So was the slightly addled woman who complained that the jury questionnaire was somewhat “tricky.” (She had checked the box “no,” when asked if the Mafia existed, though told the judge in court that she had meant to check it “yes.”)
Then there was the young man who said that he believed in karma, which, of course, alone was not enough to send him packing.
That occurred when Judge Scheindlin said she found it troubling that he kept referring to Mr. Gotti as “Mr. Gandhi.”
Thanks to Alan Feuer
In his 1882 treatise, “The Gay Science
,” Friedrich Nietzsche describes the theory of eternal return like this:“What,” he writes, “if some day a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more? Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?”
This, of course, is the philosophy of endless repetition that has entered the culture in masterworks like Albert Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus
” and Harold Ramis’s “Groundhog Day.” It has touched both novelists and rock stars and is appearing — yet again — in the racketeering trial of John A. Gotti, the son of the late Gambino family don.The trial, which opened today in Federal District Court in Manhattan, is, after all, Mr. Gotti’s third on nearly identical charges in the last two years. He stands accused, again, of having ordered the abduction of Curtis Sliwa, the radio talk-show host and founder of the Guardian Angels, in 1992 — an allegation that led to dead-locked juries at two prior federal trials.
Today jury selection started and it was fairly remarkable, given the ink already spilled on Mr. Gotti, that the panelists did not know more about the man. Several times, potential jurors confessed in court to little more than a passing knowledge of Mr. Gotti — beyond the fact that he is John J. Gotti’s son.
This was to the point. Like many sons of famous fathers, the younger Gotti has been walking in his father’s shade for many years. Indeed, the primary charge in the case is directly related to Oedpial anxiety: Prosecutors say that Mr. Gotti ordered Mr. Sliwa to be kidnapped from the street after the talk-show host called his father “public enemy No. 1” on air.
The kidnapping occurred in June 1992, as Mr. Sliwa (on his way to work at WABC) hailed a taxicab near his apartment on Avenue A and St. Marks Place, in the East Village. As prosecutors put it, the taxi was “intended to serve as a hearse,” for as he stepped inside, they say, a gang assassin bolted upright in the front seat and shot him several times at point-blank range.
For this trial the prosecution has added a few new racketeering counts that charge Mr. Gotti with having used illicit profits from loan-sharking and extortion to operate two holding companies. It tried to charge him with money laundering as well, but that charge was dismissed last week by Shira A. Scheindlin, the presiding judge.
The third time is said to be the charm, but even Judge Scheindlin admitted today that jury selection was fairly slow-going. There seemed no end to good reasons to dismiss jurors from the pool.
One woman told the judge that she might lose her job as a part-time telemarketer if she were forced to serve — and was excused. So was the slightly addled woman who complained that the jury questionnaire was somewhat “tricky.” (She had checked the box “no,” when asked if the Mafia existed, though told the judge in court that she had meant to check it “yes.”)
Then there was the young man who said that he believed in karma, which, of course, alone was not enough to send him packing.
That occurred when Judge Scheindlin said she found it troubling that he kept referring to Mr. Gotti as “Mr. Gandhi.”
Thanks to Alan Feuer
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Junior has Charges Reinstated Against Him
Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, Gambino Crime Family, John "Dapper Don" Gotti
Four days after tossing out a handful of new charges against John A. Gotti, the Mafia scion, a federal judge reversed herself — and the fortunes of prosecutors — when she reinstated some of the charges against him in a ruling yesterday.
The judge, Shira A. Scheindlin of Federal District Court in Manhattan, had ruled on Monday that federal prosecutors could not pursue money laundering and some racketeering charges against Mr. Gotti at his trial, which is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Monday. But after a contentious hearing on Thursday, Judge Scheindlin changed her mind, saying that the government could charge Mr. Gotti, the son of the late Gambino family don, with the racketeering charges, under which he stands accused of using profits from loan-sharking and extortion to operate two holding companies.
The trial will be Mr. Gotti’s third in two years in federal court in Manhattan and concerns the government’s accusations that he ordered the abduction of Curtis Sliwa, the radio talk-show host and vigilante, in 1992 after Mr. Sliwa criticized the elder Mr. Gotti on the air. Juries have twice deadlocked in the case, unable to decide if Mr. Gotti was, or was not, involved in the abduction and a subsequent assault.
On Thursday, Victor Hou, a federal prosecutor, told Judge Scheindlin that he had doubts about the government’s ability to proceed to trial without the new charges. “We have serious concerns about our ability to go forward, given your ruling,” Mr. Hou told the judge, referring to her initial decision.
The government had sought the new charges, in part, to counteract Mr. Gotti’s claim that he had left the mob in the 1990’s. The reinstated charges concern crimes the government says took place after Mr. Gotti says he left the mob.
The government argues that Mr. Gotti led the Gambino family in the 1990’s after his father was convicted of racketeering and was given a life sentence. He died in prison in 2002. Charles Carnesi, the younger Mr. Gotti’s lawyer, said he had no comment on the case.
Judge Scheindlin’s latest decision still bars the government from charging Mr. Gotti with money laundering — specifically with receiving income from properties the government says he bought with money derived from crime.
The main charges in the case concern the abduction of Mr. Sliwa, who was the founder of the Guardian Angels. He was kidnapped in a taxicab in the East Village in 1992 and shot and wounded.
Thanks to Alan Feuer
Four days after tossing out a handful of new charges against John A. Gotti, the Mafia scion, a federal judge reversed herself — and the fortunes of prosecutors — when she reinstated some of the charges against him in a ruling yesterday.
The judge, Shira A. Scheindlin of Federal District Court in Manhattan, had ruled on Monday that federal prosecutors could not pursue money laundering and some racketeering charges against Mr. Gotti at his trial, which is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Monday. But after a contentious hearing on Thursday, Judge Scheindlin changed her mind, saying that the government could charge Mr. Gotti, the son of the late Gambino family don, with the racketeering charges, under which he stands accused of using profits from loan-sharking and extortion to operate two holding companies.
The trial will be Mr. Gotti’s third in two years in federal court in Manhattan and concerns the government’s accusations that he ordered the abduction of Curtis Sliwa, the radio talk-show host and vigilante, in 1992 after Mr. Sliwa criticized the elder Mr. Gotti on the air. Juries have twice deadlocked in the case, unable to decide if Mr. Gotti was, or was not, involved in the abduction and a subsequent assault.
On Thursday, Victor Hou, a federal prosecutor, told Judge Scheindlin that he had doubts about the government’s ability to proceed to trial without the new charges. “We have serious concerns about our ability to go forward, given your ruling,” Mr. Hou told the judge, referring to her initial decision.
The government had sought the new charges, in part, to counteract Mr. Gotti’s claim that he had left the mob in the 1990’s. The reinstated charges concern crimes the government says took place after Mr. Gotti says he left the mob.
The government argues that Mr. Gotti led the Gambino family in the 1990’s after his father was convicted of racketeering and was given a life sentence. He died in prison in 2002. Charles Carnesi, the younger Mr. Gotti’s lawyer, said he had no comment on the case.
Judge Scheindlin’s latest decision still bars the government from charging Mr. Gotti with money laundering — specifically with receiving income from properties the government says he bought with money derived from crime.
The main charges in the case concern the abduction of Mr. Sliwa, who was the founder of the Guardian Angels. He was kidnapped in a taxicab in the East Village in 1992 and shot and wounded.
Thanks to Alan Feuer
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