The Chicago Syndicate
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Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Reputed Mob Associate Tapped to Build FBI Headquarters


He is the man who helped build a greater part of Las Vegas with millions of dollars from Jimmy Hoffa’s mobbed-up Teamsters’ pension fund. Along with his close friend and business partner, the legendary Moe Dalitz, an early associate of Detroit’s notorious Purple Gang — high school dropouts who built their fortune on murder, hijacking, and rum-running during Prohibition — he built Paradise Development, a firm that prospered mightly during the heyday of the Vegas mob. Now he is working for the FBI. His name is Irwin Molasky.

“Dalitz was one of the most illustrious figures in the annals of crime,” wrote attorney Roy Grutman in his 1990 memoir, Lawyers and Thieves. “Able to trace his mob ties back to such underworld icons as Lucky Luciano and Bugsy Siegel, he even had the distinction of having been chased out of Cleveland in the 1940s by the city’s celebrated public safety director, Elliot Ness.”

In 1962, Dalitz, Molasky, Paradise, and two partners, Merv Adelson and Allard Roen, would snap up a total of 5000 acres outside the tiny San Diego County beach town of Carlsbad. There, with funds loaned by the Teamsters and C. Arnholt Smith’s US National Bank, they built Rancho La Costa, the posh resort that became synonymous with America’s mid-century wave of organized crime, murder, and political corruption.

Today, at the age of 84, according to a signed declaration filed under penalty of perjury, Molasky is sick and infirm, requiring a cane to move about a room. He is in the painful last stages of a rare form of incurable bone-marrow cancer and is in urgent need of taking care of business now rather than later.

Once worshipped as the financial genius of the Las Vegas Strip, he has been forced to watch as his trusted elder son Steven declared bankruptcy, with $55.4 million of unsecured debts during the financial meltdown of 2008.

His son-in-law, Kenneth Collin Cornell, who pled guilty to fraud charges resulting from a telemarketing boiler-room swindle in 1994, is being sued for breach of contract in a case arising from a Mission Beach condominium project he developed with his wife, Molasky’s daughter Beth. But despite the maelstrom of his later years, Molasky has vowed to complete one project above all: a new San Diego headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Incredible as it seems to some old bureau hands, Molasky, loyal friend and associate of Moe Dalitz and a litany of other gamblers and bookies, has won a 20-year, $223.4-million lease from the U.S. General Services Administration to construct a 248,882-square-foot field office and campus overlooking Interstate 805 on Vista Sorrento Parkway in Sorrento Mesa.

The financing method the government is using to construct the project is itself controversial. By agreeing to lease the building from Molasky at $11.2 million a year, rather than paying $100 million up front to build it, critics say taxpayers will end up paying more than double.

The project was announced to the public this January as a fait accompli. But since then, a major complication has arisen. Molasky does not yet actually own the property, and he can’t obtain a loan with which to buy or build on it. A neighboring landowner filed suit against him in March, charging that the old Las Vegas hand, true to form, is trying to strong-arm his way to the capstone of a legendary career.

In a May 4 filing, lawyers for SN Investment Properties LLC, a Portland, Oregon–based development firm that owns the property adjoining the FBI site, charged that Molasky and his companies “are some of the largest real-estate developers in Las Vegas, Nevada” that “believe they can utilize their significant wealth and power to do whatever they want, wherever they want.”

At issue is a vehicle-access easement, granted in 1984, that runs across the land Molasky wants to use for the project. Molasky and his fellow defendants allegedly “knew months before the contract was awarded by the GSA, and even while they were bidding the contract and seeking approvals from the City of San Diego to develop the project, that the proposed FBI Building was to be built directly on top of an express deeded easement owned by SNI and running over the site of the FBI Building.”

“The current effort to expedite the trial date, despite the fact that Defendants have known since August 2010 of SNl’s easement,” the May filing says, “is just one further part of their strong-arm tactics.”

For their part, Molasky and his lawyers insist that the Portland firm is trying to waylay the FBI building for selfish financial gain at the expense of the public. “Upon learning that the tenant would be the FBI, Plaintiff began protesting that the development and construction of the FBI project would allegedly ‘diminish the value’ of Plaintiff’s property,” according to a response by Molasky and company filed May 4.

The filing added that Molasky had obtained documents showing that the strategy of its foe was “simply to stall and thereby obstruct the development of the FBI project in its entirety or receive a large payment from the Molasky Defendants.”

Any delay in San Diego would be costly, Molasky’s attorneys say. “The Molasky Defendants are currently developing three other FBI office projects for the GSA in Minneapolis, Portland, and Cincinnati, and this existing relationship could be damaged solely because the adjacent property owner claims it would like a different tenant, when in fact Plaintiff simply wants a huge payday for a long abandoned and never used 1984 easement. In addition, the Molasky Defendants have built up goodwill and a relationship of trust with the GSA, the FBI, builders and lenders, all of which is likewise threatened by Plaintiff’s attempt to belatedly assert rights that remained dormant for 26 years.”

Molasky himself filed a personal declaration, dated April 29, implying that, because his days were numbered, the court should hasten to hear the easement case: “I have…Waldenström’s Disease. This disease is a rare form of cancer that affects the bone marrow space in the human body. That disease is treated by chemotherapy and a drug called Rituxan. This disease was diagnosed approximately 15 years ago and I have been treated since that time.

“There is no cure for Waldenström’s Disease. I am in stage 4 of this disease, which is the last stage of the disease. I have received numerous chemotherapy treatments over the years and I am being treated by Dr. Allan Saven at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California. Because of my age and health issues, the importance of this case being quickly tried, and the importance of this new FBI project to the City of San Diego, I request that this Court set the earliest possible trial date.”

Molasky’s lawyers have argued that he has the public interest at heart, claiming that the fight over the easement threatens “to thwart years of work by the federal government to create a new FBI building in San Diego. In such an event, the federal government will likely have to start the process all over again — resulting in the delay of much needed space to the FBI and much needed economic stimulus to the City of San Diego and its citizens. The City of San Diego will lose the immediate value of 700 new construction jobs and 500 permanent jobs, new revenue from property taxes, additional protection and security from the FBI facility and a new office development in Mira Mesa/Sorrento Valley area.” They add that “prominent members of the City Council of San Diego are fully behind the project as it directly impacts the citizens in this City.”

In order to build that support, Molasky — no stranger to the uses of politics and politicians — has launched an all-out blitz on San Diego’s city hall, quietly retaining Paul Robinson, the high-priced dean of the city’s lobbying corps, a former aide to GOP mayor Pete Wilson, informal advisor and fundraiser for current mayor Jerry Sanders, and a member of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority board. Robinson has deep ties to some of the city’s most sacred institutions, including county Republicans and San Diego State University. Through the first quarter of this year, Molasky has paid Robinson’s law firm a total of $63,000 for its services, according to disclosure documents on file at city hall.

An appointment calendar on the website of city councilwoman Marti Emerald shows that Robinson sat down with her on April 15 to lobby the FBI project with Molasky executive Rich Worthington. Campaign records show that Robinson contributed $270 to Democrat Emerald in January 2009, having previously backed April Boling, Emerald’s failed Republican foe, the year before. On April 25, Robinson and Worthington also paid a visit to first district councilwoman Sherri Lightner, according to her official calendar posted online.

According to his disclosure filings, last year Robinson and associate Neil Hyytinen lobbied city councilman Carl DeMaio; Sanders assistant Phil Rath; city development services division director Kelly Broughton; assistant director of development services Cecilia Gallardo; and assistant city attorney Donald Worley about the Molasky project, and the Robinson law firm was paid a total of $9000. During the first quarter of this year, his firm received $54,000 from Molasky; it lobbied Worley, DeMaio, Broughton, Sanders chief of staff Julie Dubick, and deputy city attorney Debra Bevier, among other city staffers.

According to a source familiar with the project, the Molasky forces want the city to condemn the disputed easement, claiming that public safety demands that the FBI field office be expedited.

On Monday of this week, a source in the office of Councilman DeMaio said that an internal memo from Mayor Jerry Sanders was expected to be sent to City Attorney Jan Goldsmith requesting that condemnation be undertaken by the city.

Will it happen? Molasky’s alliance with the government is astonishing to many who know his history. But to others, it is not unsurprising, given the rise of the national power and influence of Las Vegas over the last 30 years. One of Molasky’s favored politicians, Democrat Harry Reid — once city attorney of dusty Henderson, Nevada, and ex-chairman of the state’s Gaming Control Board — is now majority leader of the United States Senate, where he controls a vast network of campaign contributions and federal patronage.

“In an America so widely dominated by corporate and individual wealth, the Strip’s once disreputable Mob ethic of exploitation and greed has become in large measure a national ethic,” wrote Sally Denton and Roger Morris in The Money and the Power, their 2001 history of post-war Las Vegas. “To chart its rise is far less a walk on the dark and aberrant side of American life than a way to see the larger history of the nation more completely, and without illusion.”

The Molasky File

Irwin Molasky was born in St. Louis in 1927 and grew up Dayton, Ohio. He put in a year at Ohio State University before heading to Los Angeles, where, according to testimony he gave in January 1982, he helped his parents build and run a small hotel on Wilshire Boulevard’s Miracle Mile. At the age of 20, he said, he built a five-unit apartment house in Westwood. He later moved to Las Vegas and started building small houses, as well as the 18-room Pyramids Motel on the Vegas Strip.

His uncle, William Molasky, of St. Louis, had been indicted by a federal grand jury for tax fraud in August 1939, along with millionaire Moses “Moe” Annenberg, publisher of the Philadelphia Enquirer and owner of Consensus Publishing Company, tied to Pioneer News, a racing wire primarily patronized by St. Louis bookies. In November 1940, William, president of Consensus, pled guilty to a single charge of evading $57,800 in personal income taxes. He was sentenced to 18 months behind bars.

When William testified before the organized-crime investigating committee of Senator Estes Kefauver in June 1950, he issued a statement: “I have never engaged in bookmaking or in any commercial gambling. I have never had a financial interest in any gaming establishment; and my personal and business associates do not include bookmakers or professional gamblers…There are no gangsters, mobsters, racketeers, or other persons of questionable character connected with, interested in, or employed by Pioneer News.” William was represented before the committee by St. Louis attorney Morris Shenker, once referred to by Life Magazine as the “foremost lawyer for the mob in the U.S.,” whose most prominent client was to be Jimmy Hoffa.

Irwin Molasky ended up in Las Vegas in the early 1950s, he later recalled, where he met future business partner Merv Adelson, a Beverly Hills grocer’s son who was then-owner of Market Town, a 24-hour-a-day supermarket on Las Vegas Boulevard. Among their other ventures was the Colonial House, a bistro that enjoyed an edgy reputation as a haunt for high-class hookers, recounted Ovid Demaris and Ed Reid in 1965’s The Green Felt Jungle.

They soon linked up with Moe Dalitz, who had become one of the richest and most powerful denizens of the underworld after expanding the base of his hometown Detroit empire of gambling and other assorted rackets to Cleveland. Dalitz, it’s been said by some, first arrived in Las Vegas in the late 1940s, on a mission for the East Coast mob to keep track of Bugsy Siegel and the construction of his over-budget Flamingo hotel.

An example of how Dalitz did business is recounted by Michael Newton in his 2009 Dalitz biography, Mr. Mob. In September 1947, four men carrying submachine guns held up the Mounds Club casino outside of Cleveland, fleeing with between $250,000 and $500,000 in cash and jewelry. Another heist followed at the Continental Club. Cops took no action, but, according to Newton, “Moe Dalitz used his influence to learn the bandits’ names. A trial of sorts was held, sentence was passed, and manhunters hit the ground running. By March 1948, it is said, every one of the robbers was tracked down and killed.”

Molasky testified in January 1982 that he was introduced to Dalitz by Allard Roen, a Dalitz protégé, general manager of the Desert Inn, and convicted stock manipulator who was the son of notorious Cleveland gambler and bookie Frank Rosen. Molasky said Dalitz wanted him to build houses on the new golf course at the Desert Inn, which Dalitz controlled.

Shortly after that, according to Molasky, he and Adelson began building the for-profit Sunrise Hospital on Maryland Parkway. Its construction had been financed by loans from a savings and loan, but “we ran out of money and had to take in some investors,” Newton quoted Molasky as saying. When the deal was finally worked out, Molasky later testified, he and Adelson owned 45 percent of the stock, another 45 percent was held by Dalitz and Roen, and the remaining 10 percent by a doctor who put up the original $40,000 to help get Molasky and Adelson off the ground.

The first 62 beds of the hospital opened on December 15, 1958. Senator-elect Howard Cannon, cozy with Dalitz and his friends, cut the ribbon. Another prominent financier of the project remained low profile: Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters Union pension fund, which had advanced a million dollars at 6 percent interest in a complicated deal that obscured the origin of the money.

The loan was just the beginning of an exceedingly profitable relationship between the Teamsters, Dalitz, Molasky, and their partners. To guarantee patients, Hoffa ordered that all members of the Teamsters’ and Culinary Unions’ medical plan be forced to use Sunrise if they required hospitalization. It was “an early form of managed care,” Molasky later said.

The Teamsters also loaned $1.2 million to Dalitz, Roen, Adelson, and Molasky, along with fifth partner, Bernie Rothkopf, to build the Stardust Golf Course and Country Club and the nearby Paradise Palms housing development. “If Moe told them to make a loan,” said one observer quoted by Sally Denton and Roger Morris, authors of 2001’s The Money and the Power, “they made the loan.”

All along the way, FBI agents dogged virtually every movement of Dalitz, Molasky, and their associates, taking copious notes and filing voluminous reports. According to Newton, in February 1961 G-men wanted to charge Dalitz with “bribery, labor racketeering, and Mann Act violations (transporting women across state lines for ‘immoral purposes’),” but bureau director J. Edgar Hoover killed the idea.

In February 1962, writes Newton, the FBI followed Dalitz and his friend, entertainer Phil Harris, to San Diego, where they had “quite a party” with unidentified women before heading for Mexico in Dalitz’s yacht. The same month, Dalitz and New York mob kingpin Meyer Lansky were listed by FBI agents as being among ten mobsters “marked for ‘intensified investigations.’”

Somehow, though, charges were never filed. Then along came the flamboyant publisher of a glossy skin magazine to do what federal authorities never had. Bob Guccione, the owner of Penthouse, was in the midst of taking on Hugh Hefner’s Playboy for the pinnacle of the nation’s men’s publishing business, and the Brooklyn-born Guccione was ready to get down to some serious muckraking.

“I first met Bob Guccione at the London Penthouse Club in 1970,” wrote attorney Roy Grutman. “Dressed in a white suit and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and sporting an array of gold chains, he looked like a psychedelic Beau Brummel.”

“After years of selling soft-focus crotch shots, Guccione wanted to do something more important, something Hugh Hefner would never try,” added Grutman. “If the Washington Post could bring down Richard Nixon, he would go after something even bigger.” The target was La Costa.

Headlined “La Costa: The Hundred-Million-Dollar Resort with Criminal Clientele,” the story ran in March 1975. “The primary founders of La Costa were syndicate ‘bluebloods,’” Penthouse charged. “La Costa has been controlled by the Moe Dalitz mob, which includes Dalitz, Allard Roen, Merv Adelson, and Irwin Molasky.… It was Dalitz who persuaded then-president of the Teamsters Union, James Riddle Hoffa, to finance Las Vegas casinos, starting with [Dalitz’s] Desert Inn and related properties, with Teamsters retirement cash.”

That May, Dalitz and his partners filed a $630 million libel suit against Guccione and his magazine.

By coincidence, Grutman, who handled the case for Guccione, had earlier been a guest at La Costa: “A vast complex of white motel buildings and a golf course that looked like a semi-arid cemetery, it reminded me of Las Vegas. There were fountains, doormen who looked like ex-boxers, and many peculiar guests. I realized how peculiar when the tennis pro arranged a doubles match for me, and one member of the foursome was a recently convicted recipient of bribes, former New York state senator Bert Podell.”

The libel case dragged on for seven years before it finally reached a jury. By then, “Roen and Dalitz dropped out as plaintiffs when it was decided they were public figures and could not prove malice against Penthouse,” wrote Grutman.

“In my opening statement, I told the jury we would prove La Costa was built and maintained for the benefit of the mob,” he recalled. “I explained how the resort was designed as a safe haven for criminals on working vacations. Since Mafia members prefer to conduct their business in person rather than over the telephone or by mail, La Costa, far from the cops and other cares of the world, was the perfect place to relax and make deals.

“‘People who are the heads of rackets not only go [to La Costa] but are given the run of the place,’ I said.

“The resort provided complimentary accommodations to mobsters of all persuasions, from Louis ‘the Tailor’ Rosanova...to the legendary Meyer Lansky, who explained in a deposition that he had gone to La Costa only twice to take walks and visit a sick acquaintance.”

Of Penthouse’s publisher, Lansky opined, “I’d rather be counted a pal of Moe Dalitz than that fucking Guccione, who peddles slime and pornography to the youth of the country.”

“In court,” said Grutman, “both Molasky and Adelson denied that Dalitz had opened the door to the Teamsters’ pension fund. The evidence showed otherwise. Since the two had begun a business relationship with Dalitz and Roen, the fourway partnership had been one of the pension fund’s best customers, accounting for millions of dollars in loans and additional millions in equity deals. As part of its loan agreement with La Costa, the Teamsters bought 15 percent of the resort at a bargain price, and later sold the same shares for a profit of millions.

“Not surprisingly, the Teamsters’ loan came with strings attached. The union demanded the right to appoint three members to the La Costa board of directors. One of them was Teamsters’ consultant Allen Dorfman, later indicted for accepting kickbacks. Adelson testified that all he really knew about Dorfman was that he was a decorated war veteran. Dorfman was murdered in Chicago in a gangland-style execution in 1983.”

The trial featured a sworn affidavit on behalf of Molasky and his partners by their friend, San Diego sheriff John Duffy, who maintained that “no evidence of criminal activity by La Costa or the management of La Costa…has ever been detected.” It later came to light that Duffy had privately expressed his own doubts about Dalitz and company and had received campaign contributions from La Costa and three of its principals, including Molasky, but not Dalitz.

There was also testimony on behalf of Penthouse by Mafia hit man Aladena “Jimmy the Weasel” Fratianno, who was barred by the judge from telling the jury about a meeting Fratianno claimed he’d had at La Costa with Chicago mob boss Sam “Momo” Giancana and San Diego hit man Frank “the Bomp” Bompensiero to plot the murder of TV star Desi Arnaz. To discredit Fratianno, La Costa’s attorneys dug up a deposition from six years earlier in which he said he’d never been to the resort. Fratianno responded that he’d lied “maybe 100 times” in the sworn affidavit, of which he said 90 percent “are [sic] lies.”

In May 1982, after 15 days of deliberation, the jury decided in favor of Penthouse, but Judge Kenneth Gale quickly overturned the verdict, ordering a new trial. Grutman discovered that Gale had once been Fratianno’s lawyer and eventually got the judge removed from the case. More than three years later, in December 1985, just as a second trial was to finally begin, the exhausted litigants announced a settlement. Only words, not money, changed hands.

Guccione and his magazine were praised by Molasky and partners for their “many personal and professional awards and distinctions.” For his part, Guccione said, “Penthouse…did not mean to imply nor did it intend for its readers to believe that Messrs. Adelson and Molasky are or were members of organized crime or criminals.

“Penthouse acknowledges that all of the individual plaintiffs, including Messrs. Dalitz and Roen, have been extremely active in commendable civic and philanthropic activities which have earned them recognition from many estimable people. Furthermore, Penthouse acknowledges that among plaintiffs’ successful business activities is the La Costa resort itself, one of the outstanding resort complexes of the world.”

Molasky — who did not respond to a request for an interview for this story relayed through Richard Worthington, president and chief operating officer of Molasky’s Paradise Development Company — survived and prospered. Today he remains one of only two La Costa case principals still standing. Moe Dalitz died in August 1989 at 89. Allard Roen died in 2008, age 87. Guccione succumbed last year at 79. Besides Molasky, only Merv Adelson, who was once married to TV news personality Barbara Walters, lives on at 81.

“Shored up by the Teamster underwriting at Sunrise and eased by governmental concessions and favorable contracts at every turn, the trio’s Paradise Development Company shaped the emerging commercial and residential map of the city,” Denton and Morris wrote of Molasky, Dalitz, and Adelson in 2001.

As the years went by Molasky built Nevada’s first enclosed shopping mall, the first high-rise office building in Las Vegas, and its first high-rise luxury condominium complex. He was hailed as one of the town’s biggest philanthropists, with gifts of acreage for the University of Nevada and construction of the Nathan Adelson Hospice, named in honor of Merv Adelson’s father.

He became a close friend of Jerry Tarkanian, whom he helped recruit from Long Beach State with a big-money contract to become head basketball coach at UNLV in 1973. “It would have taken 50 years for the university to become the Harvard of the West,” Molasky told the New York Times in July 1991. “We felt it would be a lot easier to achieve it by getting a renowned basketball program and then gradually going into the academics.”

The first chairman of the UNLV Foundation, Molasky skirted controversy in May 1990, when the Washington Post reported he had bet on college football, pro football, and baseball games in the 1980s in partnership with Las Vegas physician and bookie Ivan Mindlin, leader of a national sports betting operation.

Mindlin was indicted in January 1990 after the FBI shut down his computerized betting operation in a nationwide raid on the eve of the Super Bowl, January 19, 1985. Molasky testified before the federal grand jury that indicted Mindlin and avoided being charged in the case. In 1992, in a major embarrassment for the FBI and U.S. prosecutors, the defendants were acquitted in federal court in Las Vegas.

Later, in April of 2002, federal prosecutors in Chicago accused Mindlin of attempting to hire a lieutenant in the Chicago mob’s Elmwood Park street crew to wipe out a former gambling partner. Defense attorneys for a Chicago cop, alleged to have been the go-between in the plot, denied that it had happened, according to an Associated Press report.

As his power over Las Vegas grew, Molasky and his wife Susan became heavy donors to Democratic causes, including, in the 1990s, the Searchlight Leadership Fund of Senator Harry Reid, which Reid used to distribute campaign contributions to curry favor among Reid’s Senate allies, with the aim of ultimately electing him majority leader.

In May 2007, Molasky was an honored guest at a lavish tribute to Reid; that November Molasky was named to the Nevada Business Leadership Council of then–presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. (Molasky’s most recent federal contribution was $500 this May 12 to Democratic congressional candidate Kate Marshall.)

During the same period, Molasky began an aggressive push into the financing, construction, and leasing of office buildings for the federal government. The deficit was growing out of control, and officials wanted to push capital expenditures into future years in the form of lease payments, rather than pay for buildings up front, a much cheaper alternative in the long run.

With close ties to Reid and other Democratic and Republican power brokers, Molasky was well positioned to take advantage of the trend. Ironically, sources say, Molasky’s many contacts with federal law enforcement agencies over the years also may have put him on the inside track to build a series of FBI and IRS regional headquarters.

“The competitive landscape was changing. The returns from our traditional line of work were less, so there was a conscious decision to diversify our focus,” Richard Worthington, Molasky’s right-hand man, told the Las Vegas Business Press in June 2005.

Molasky has also successfully leveraged his political relationships with local governments; in Las Vegas, the redevelopment agency gave him a bargain on downtown land. “Three years ago, Molasky responded to a request-for-proposal for a new Internal Revenue Service headquarters in the region,” the Business Press reported. “He beat out six competitors by securing a five-acre parcel of city-owned land in downtown Las Vegas for $2,000. The property has been valued at $2 million.”

“It’s outrageous,” an anonymous Las Vegas developer told the paper. “I can fully understand the need for economic development and the need to generate jobs and redevelopment for downtown. But when you’re doing a build-to-suit and the land is donated, it eliminates all the risk. How can anyone else compete?”

“Public-private partnerships make-up 10 to 15 percent of our overall portfolio, but it’s growing. And we want it to play a larger role,” Worthington was quoted as saying at the time. “These projects are all about the economics. But whenever there is a leap of faith, there is an advantage if you’re a proven commodity. And when you’ve been in town for as long as we have, there’s credibility.”

Today Molasky is counting on many of the same factors to give him an edge in the fight over San Diego’s FBI project. As Molasky’s legal battle with his Sorrento Valley neighbor approaches an early trial next month, Worthington said in a telephone interview last week, ongoing settlement negotiations have proved fruitless.

Worthington wouldn’t provide any further details, saying the case was still being litigated, but other sources say that Molasky has been vigorously lobbying both the FBI and the city of San Diego to condemn the disputed easement and turn it over to Molasky on the grounds that prompt completion of the new FBI building is vital to public safety. That would require hearings by the city council, which might shed new light on Molasky’s operations here.

What the FBI’s options are if its deal with Molasky unravels aren’t known. Neither the General Services Administration nor the FBI responded to requests for comment regarding the situation. What is almost certain, based on his sworn declaration last month, is that the FBI project, just a few miles down I-5 from the legendary La Costa resort where the Mafia came to play, is Irwin Molasky’s last hurrah.

Thanks to Matt Potter

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Stocks Drop on Arrest of Whitey Bulger

Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger was tracked down in Santa Monica by the FBI after sixteen years on the run. Stocks fell on the news. When it was first reported the feds had just nailed Whitey, everyone assumed the Democrats had pushed through a tax hike on the rich.

Friday, July 01, 2011

$110,000 for Al Capone's Handgun

Al Capone's handgun sold for nearly $110,000 at an auction in London$110,000 for Al Capone's Handgun

The Colt .38 revolver was manufactured in 1929, the year of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, when seven people were slain during clashes in Chicago between Capone's gang and a rival mob.

Auctioneer Christie's says the gun went for 67,250 pounds ($109,080) to an anonymous online bidder. It was sold by an anonymous private collector along with a letter from Madeleine Capone Morichetti, the widow of Al Capone's brother Ralph, confirming the gun "previously belonged to and was only used by Al Capone while he was alive."

The sale price was at the upper end of the pre-sale estimate of between 50,000 pounds and 70,000 pounds. It includes a buyer's premium.

The New York-born mobster Alphonse "Al" Capone dominated the Chicago underworld during Prohibition until his 1931 arrest for tax evasion. He died in 1947.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Chicago Geriaric Mob Trio Trial Delayed Over DNA Tests

The so-called ''geriatric trio'' of Chicago mobsters will have to wait a few months for their day in court.

The federal court trial of Jerry Scalise, Art Rachel and Robert Pullia was to start on July 11, and as avid craps players know, that date -- 7/11 -- is considered good luck and a natural win. Now, though, a delay in some evidence tests ordered by the prosecution means the trial for the Outfit's "geriatric trio" will no longer roll on 7/11.

It has been nearly 15 months since the geriatric troika was arrested in its latest Outfit racket: Armed invasions of several suburban banks and a break-in at the home of a deceased mob boss.

The leader of the 70-somethings is Scalise, a long-time Outfit burglar and repeat ex-con who seemed to have been going straight, working as a consultant on Dillinger and other gangster films shot in Chicago. But, according to prosecutors, Scalise was plotting new crimes even as he aided the fictional accounts on film.

In May, FBI agents served warrants on Scalise's head, demanding hair samples for DNA tests to compare with hair strands found on masks that were allegedly to be used in the hold-ups.

Pullia also provided hair samples to the government.

Art Rachel, known as "The Genius," was not required to pluck any samples.

In court Wednesday, the government said that DNA testing of hair samples was still under way. With defense attorneys willing to wait for the results of hair tests that they hope will clear their clients, a new trial date of September 19 was set.

Thirty-one years ago, the case that made Scalise and Rachel famous was the daring theft of the 41-carat Marlborough diamond from a London jeweler. They were convicted and did lengthy prison sentences in the UK in a case that had no DNA sampling because the use of DNA testing was still a few years away in criminal cases.

This time around, with DNA center stage, attorneys for the mobsters contend that U.S. prosecutors shouldn't have waited a year to do the hair tests.

The September trial date is tentative and it may be later than that. There was even talk of a possible December date. Judge Harry Leinenweber said the whole thing was "screwing up my schedule."

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Oscar D'Angelo, "Mayor of Little Italy", on Mob Trial Witness List

Two weeks from now Chicago's latest Outfit trial is scheduled to start in federal court. A trio of aging Chicago mobsters face racketeering/burglary charges.

In this Intelligence Report: We've learned that the government witnesses may include one of the city's most controversial businessmen, the man known as "the Mayor of Little Italy."

He is Oscar D'Angelo, whose Chicago political influence began in the 1950s with Richard J. Daley, yielded him millions as a well-connected developer and rainmaker, and ended in a feud with Richard M. Daley almost 10 years ago. D'Angelo is the flamboyant, self-styled "mayor of Little Italy."

Now, at age 79, D'Angelo finds himself on the prosecution's list of potential witnesses in the city's next big mob trial.

Next month, in the trial of three Chicago hoodlums, D'Angelo may have to speak publicly from the witness stand in federal court.

Jerry Scalise, Art Rachel and Robert Pullia are charged with plotting to hold-up suburban banks and with scheming a break-in at the home of deceased South Side rackets boss Angelo "The Hook" LaPietra.

Scalise and Rachel are best known for stealing the famous 40-carat Marlborough diamond in 1980, a daring daylight robbery from a popular jewelry store in London, England. The men did long prison stretches in the UK and returned to Chicago, authorities say, to resume their careers as Outfit burglars.

While it is not clear why the government would want D'Angelo to testify against them, it would be an unusual and potentially uncomfortable position for him.

First, D'Angelo is a defrocked attorney himself, in 1989 having been disbarred for giving rental cars as gifts to city officials, judges and other politicians. In 2000 he then scarred his three-decade long relationship with the Daley family by loaning money interest to a top Daley official and working as an unregistered lobbyist.

Federal authorities aren't talking about why D'Angelo is on the witness list, although with a park along the Eisenhower Expressway named after him and with his historical perspective of Taylor Street where the gangland thugs operated, perhaps D'Angelo will merely be a foundation witness for the prosecution.

It is not unusual for the government to put people on the witness list who don't end up being called to testify just to cover their bases. But D'Angelo's name certainly attracts attention. And, there is another well-known name on the prosecutor's list, former Chicago police chief of detectives William Hanhardt, who is in prison for his own role in an Outfit jewel theft racket.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

Sunday, June 26, 2011

The Chicago Outfit Still Corners the Vice Market

It has been a quarter-century since the two brothers were found, one on top of the other, buried in a shallow grave in a freshly planted Indiana cornfield. The June 1986 slayings of Las Vegas mob chieftain Anthony Spilotro and his brother, Michael, captured national attention and became part of mob lore. The movie "Casino" immortalized their deaths — albeit incorrectly — and the "Family Secrets" trial detailed their final moments of life, including Anthony Spilotro's request to say a prayer before being beaten and strangled in a Bensenville basement.

On the 25th anniversary of the Spilotro slayings, the mob in Chicago has been weakened by dozens of convictions within its hierarchy, but it has not faded away, according to organized-crime experts. It keeps a lower profile, issuing high-interest loans and running illegal betting games but shying away from attention-getting mob hits, they say. "It is safe to say with complete certainty that (the Outfit's) size, scope and sphere of influence is much smaller today than it was 25 years ago," FBI spokesman Ross Rice said.

In fact, the Outfit has become so secretive that mob watchers are no longer sure who the top boss is. Joseph "the Builder" Andriacchi, John "No Nose" DiFronzo and Michael "The Large Guy" Sarno are considered three of the Outfit's top-ranking members, according to the Chicago Crime Commission.

The Chicago mob once had as many as seven street crews, but is down to two or three, Rice said. It has found a steady source of revenue by controlling video poker machines, but authorities are catching on.

In December, Sarno and four co-defendants were found guilty of running a video poker racket, pulling off a string of armed robberies that spanned three years and four states, and protecting their gambling franchise by planting a bomb in front of a Berwyn business that encroached on their turf.

Furthermore, the landmark Family Secrets mob conspiracy trial in 2007 pulled back the curtain on murder after murder, including the slayings of the Spilotro brothers. Mob hit man Nicholas Calabrese's testimony led to the conviction of five men, including mob bosses James Marcello, Joey "the Clown" Lombardo and his brother, Frank Calabrese Sr.

In 2009, Marcello, Lombardo and Calabrese Sr. were each sentenced to life in prison. But while the Family Secrets case dealt a major blow to organized crime in Chicago, the Outfit has not been eliminated and probably never will be, said James Wagner, former president of the crime commission and former chief of the Chicago FBI's organized-crime section.

Wagner said the Outfit corners a market that will always be in demand — vice. Whether it's providing loans to borrowers who can't get them through banks or taking bets from gamblers who don't have money, the mob provides a service — albeit an illegal one, Wagner said. "There will always be somebody to purchase the goods they sell," said Wagner, now inspector general of the Illinois Tollway. "I don't see us ever eliminating it."

The last suspected instance of foul play within the Chicago mob was in September 2006, when mob boss Anthony Zizzo, 71, disappeared. His Jeep was found two days later in the parking lot of a Melrose Park restaurant. He has never been found.

The proposed expansion of casinos in Illinois could be a golden opportunity for organized crime to make a comeback, said Art Bilek, executive vice president of the crime commission. The state's gambling legislation does not provide additional regulatory personnel, which could allow the Outfit to enrich itself by infiltrating thousands of new gambling positions, Bilek said.

The plan lawmakers approved includes a Chicago casino and four others in Danville, Rockford, Lake County and southern Cook County. Gov. Pat Quinn continues to review the proposal, a spokeswoman said.

It's possible, Bilek said, that the Outfit could regain influence in a business once ruled in Nevada by Anthony Spilotro, one of its most notorious members.

At the time of his murder, Anthony Spilotro, 48, oversaw the Chicago mob's interests in Nevada. He was scheduled to stand trial a second time in Nevada on charges he ran the Hole-in-the-Wall gang, a Las Vegas burglary ring. Meanwhile, Michael Spilotro, 41, was under indictment in Chicago on federal extortion charges.

The brothers were targeted because they were bringing too much heat to the mob's Las Vegas arm, according to Nicholas Calabrese, a made member of the mob and the government's star witness during the Family Secrets trial.

In addition, Anthony Spilotro was rumored to be involved in moving drugs with a motorcycle gang and having an affair with the wife of Chicago bookmaker and reputed mob associate Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, Calabrese testified. But in a recent interview, their brother, Patrick Spilotro, 74, a retired dentist who aided federal authorities in the Family Secrets investigation, said he remains unsure why his brothers were targeted. Much of Anthony Spilotro's notoriety was overblown, he said.

"They put (Anthony) in their cross hairs," Patrick Spilotro said of the Outfit. "I don't know why. Jealousy, envy, hate, you name it. Whether it was deserved or not, I can't answer that. But I know a lot of it is made up. I don't say my brother (Anthony) was an angel, but he's not all they depicted him to be."

On June 14, 1986, the Spilotro brothers left Michael's Oak Park home, lured to a Bensenville basement under the ruse they were to be promoted within the Outfit, Calabrese testified.

Instead, they were jumped by a hit team, beaten and strangled.

In February 2009, James Marcello was sentenced to life in prison for the deaths of the Spilotro brothers. But Patrick Spilotro said he will never find peace until reputed Outfit boss DiFronzo is also put behind bars. Calabrese testified in 2007 that DiFronzo was among the dozen or more men who fatally beat Anthony and Michael Spilotro in 1986, but he was never charged. "We've tried to heal over the years," Patrick Spilotro said by phone from Arizona, "but there's still one person out there — John DiFronzo — who has not been indicted or convicted."

DiFronzo did not return a call seeking comment.

Calabrese's testimony also dispelled the popular belief — depicted in the 1995 Martin Scorsese movie "Casino" — that the Spilotro brothers were beaten with bats in a farmer's field.

On June 23, 1986, their bodies were found buried in a wildlife preserve in Enos, Ind., about 70 miles southeast of Chicago. The brothers — clad only in undershorts — were identified by dental charts supplied by Patrick Spilotro.

Their discovery was an embarrassment for the Outfit. Three months later, John Fecarotta, a longtime muscleman for the 26th Street Crew, was shot to death in a doorway of a bingo hall on West Belmont Avenue. Informants said he was killed for botching the burials of the Spilotro brothers, according to court documents.

The bodies were found by a farmer who thought the freshly turned earth hid the remains of a deer killed out of season and buried by a poacher.

Deland Szczepanski and Dick Hudson, who both worked at the time for the Indiana Division of Fish and Wildlife, drove to the scene and began digging.

Hudson hit something soft with a shovel, then Szczepanski dug deeper with his hands until he uncovered short hairs that he initially thought belonged to a hog, he said in an interview. But he soon realized they were from a man's abdomen, Szczepanski said. Szczepanski called law enforcement. A few days later, he learned the two men he dug up were no ordinary victims but notorious mobsters.

"We realized we had uncovered somebody who wasn't supposed to be found," said Szczepanski, who is now 46 and a conservation officer with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. "It's one of those instances I'll probably never forget."

In the days that followed, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago denied the Spilotro brothers a public church funeral because of their links to organized crime, and more than 2,000 mourners attended their visitation.

They were buried at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, where the Spilotros regularly visit to maintain the family plot, Patrick Spilotro said. "We don't forget our relatives," he said. "We're a very close family."

Thanks to Gerry Smith

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Whitey Bulger Captured!


Top Ten fugitive James “Whitey” Bulger was arrested thanks to a tip from the public—just days after a new media campaign was announced to help locate the gangster who had been on the run for 16 years.

Whitey Bulger Captured!

Bulger, who once ran South Boston’s violent Winter Hill Gang and was wanted for his role in 19 murders, was arrested with his longtime companion Catherine Greig Wednesday night in Santa Monica, California, by agents on the FBI's Violent Crimes Task Force.

“Although there are those who doubted our resolve, it never wavered," said Boston Special Agent in Charge Richard DesLauriers. "We followed every lead, we explored every possibility, and when those leads ran out we did not sit back and wait for the phone to ring. The result is we have captured one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, a man notorious in Boston and around the world for the very serious crimes he is alleged to have committed."

The FBI has always relied on cooperation from the public to help capture fugitives and solve crimes. The new media campaign regarding Bulger was designed to draw attention to Greig, who fled with Bulger in 1995. A 30-second public service announcement (PSA) produced by the Bureau began airing Tuesday in 10 states where it was believed Bulger had resided or still had contacts. California was one of those states.

The PSA focused on the 60-year-old Greig’s physical appearance, habits, and personality traits and was directed specifically at women who might come in contact with her at places such as the beauty parlor or doctor’s office. After the PSA began to air, hundreds of tips flowed into the FBI, and one of them led to the arrest Wednesday night in a residence near Los Angeles.

“We were trying to reach a different audience to produce new leads in the case,” said Richard Teahan, a special agent in our Boston office who leads a task force that has searched for Bulger around the world. “We believed that locating Greig would lead us to Bulger. And that’s exactly what happened.”

The PSA included pictures of Greig after her pre-fugitive plastic surgeries and other details including her love of animals and the reward of up to $100,000 for her capture. Although she was not implicated in Bulger’s crimes, Greig was federally charged in 1997 for harboring a fugitive. The reward for Bulger is up to $2 million—the largest the FBI has ever offered for a Top Ten domestic fugitive.

Bulger, 81, who is known for his violent temper, was arrested without incident and was scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles court later today.

Did Jerry Scalise Target Oscar D'Angelo?


Mobbed-up thief Joseph Jerry “The Monk” Scalise allegedly targeted Daley mayoral pal and controversial lobbyist Oscar D’Angelo for a robbery and corresponded with imprisoned Chicago cop William Hanhardt, writing that “Oft times, defendants forget that they DID do the crime,” according to a federal court document filed Tuesday.

Scalise, who is in his early 70s, has a storied criminal career that most recently found him charged last year with two alleged accomplices with conspiring to knock off an armored car at a La Grange bank and rob the home of the late, brutal Chicago mob boss Angelo “The Hook” LaPietra.

The court document, filed by federal prosecutors, lays out the case against Scalise and two other senior citizens, Arthur “The Genius” Rachel and Robert Pullia. The men go to trial next month.

Scalise stole the 45-carat Marlborough diamond in London in 1980, was a reputed member of an Outfit crew of killers called “The Wild Bunch” and more recently was a consultant to famed Hollywood director Michael Mann on his film “Public Enemies.”

The court document is heavily redacted in parts and does not reveal any detail about the men allegedly conspiring to rob D’Angelo, but the criminal deed was never done. D’Angelo, who was involved in scandals in the Richard M. Daley administration, is expected to be called as a prosecution witness at trial against the three men.

The court document does quote at length a letter that Scalise allegedly sent to Hanhardt after Scalise was arrested last year. Federal prosecutor Amarjeet Bhachu contends in the government filing that Scalise admits his guilt in the letter.

Hanhardt, a former Chicago chief of detectives, was sentenced to nearly 12 years behind bars after pleading guilty in 2001 to running a sophisticated theft ring that stole more than $5 million in diamonds and gems from jewelry salesmen across the country. The FBI has contended that Hanhardt was on the take from the mob early in his police career.

“Since I am soon to be out of time (but with, maybe a lot of ‘time’) I am getting as much done . . . while I am out (on bond),” Scalise writes in one letter to Hanhardt, according to the court filing.

“I am finally going through everything with a fine tooth comb and conferring with Eddie G. on a plan of attack,” Scalise wrote, apparently referring to his legendary defense attorney, Edward Genson.

“Oft times, defendants forget that they DID do the crime. So, what do we do to mitigate the charges? The only approach I can see is to attempt to move the goal posts — to make something else the issue. My contention is that the ‘evidence’ is just not good enough. Yes, these culprits were up to something, but the ‘problem’ is in the technological evidence.”

Hanhardt is listed as a prosecution witness. Genson could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Father Eugene Klein Pleads Not Guilty


Former prison chaplain Eugene Klein has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he plotted with convicted Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. to recover a violin reportedly hidden in a hit man's Wisconsin house.

Authorities say Klein, 62, of Springfield, Mo., was released on $20,000 bond after he appeared in a federal courtroom in Chicago on Wednesday.

Klein administered daily communion to Calabrese at the Missouri prison where he's serving a life sentence for 13 murders. He's accused of passing messages with Calabrese and conspiring with two others to try to steal the violin the mobster believed was a Stradivarius worth millions of dollars.

Defense attorney Thomas Anthony Durkin says the case against his client is "preposterous."

Monday, June 20, 2011

Chicago's Violent Crime Task Force - Partnerships Key to Success


As a chilly spring drizzle fell in one of Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods, FBI agents and Chicago Police Department officers on the joint Violent Crimes Task Force gathered on a rooftop parking garage for a last-minute briefing before executing a search warrant nearby involving a recently paroled felon.

Members of the task force donned bullet-proof vests and finalized their operational plan. The felon in question was believed to be violating his parole by carrying a sawed-off shotgun, and every safety precaution needed to be taken.

Established in 1989, Chicago’s Violent Crimes Task Force is one of the oldest continuing task force operations in the FBI. The squad, known as VC1, consists of agents and members of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and Cook County Sheriff’s Office who work side by side and are on call around the clock.

“If something happens,” said Special Agent Mark Quinn, who joined the squad in 1994 and has supervised it since 2006, “we respond. Our first priority is public safety.”

The task force handles a variety of violent crimes such as extortion and murder for hire, but the “big three” offenses it investigates are kidnappings, bank robberies, and fugitive matters.

VC1 is staffed by seasoned investigators like Quinn and CPD’s Sgt. Warren Richards—who was leading the search warrant operation—and young agents learning the ropes and getting valuable street experience.

Special Agent Joe Raschke, an 11-year veteran of the squad, remembers that when he first came to the Chicago Field Office, “VC1 was the squad to be on."

"As a young agent you get great experience,” Raschke said, “not just making arrests but interviewing subjects and victims and learning how to deal with a variety of people and situations.”

Sgt. Richards, CPD’s commanding officer on the task force, added, “I like bringing fugitives to justice and locking up bad guys. On this squad I get to do that almost every day.”

On this particular day, however, there would be no arrest. The team moved into place in unmarked vehicles, setting up to cover the front and back of the house where the felon was living. But when the search warrant was executed, the only people in the residence were a woman and her young daughter. The search did turn up the shotgun, under the felon’s mattress. He was now a fugitive, and would eventually be arrested.

Quinn noted that despite the different law enforcement organizations they belong to, there is a strong bond among VC1 members. “The task force setting breaks down barriers between agencies,” he said. “Everyone works together as a team.”

That teamwork pays dividends beyond the task force, too. Relationships have expanded over time so that agents and detectives working all kinds of cases can pick up the phone and get help from their local and federal partners. “Agents and detectives all over the city have each other on speed dial,” Sgt. Richards said.

And members of the task force are always ready to respond, Quinn said. “Whenever there is a murder, kidnapping, or multiple bank robberies and a call goes out for volunteers, even on weekends and evenings, we always get more people than we need.” He added, “If someone is looking for a 9-to-5 type of job in law enforcement, VC1 is definitely not for them.”

Sunday, June 19, 2011

America's Most Wanted Signs Off Due to Cost Cutting by Fox, John Walsh Vows to be Backing Fighting Injustice


John Walsh has said goodbye and thanked viewers of "America's Most Wanted" America's Most Wanted Signs Off Due to Cost Cutting by Fox, John Walsh Vows to be Backing Fighting Injusticefor helping bring almost 1,200 fugitives to justice over more than two decades.

Walsh told his audience in brief farewell remarks: "You've saved lives and gotten people justice."

The series aired its last weekly episode on Fox on Saturday. Fox has cited high production costs for pulling the plug on the series, which premiered in 1988. But Walsh vows he'll return to television.

He said earlier this week he has heard from other networks, including Fox News Channel. A decision on a new TV home could be announced within two weeks, he said.

Walsh, 65, launched his crime-busting crusade in the aftermath of the abduction and murder of his 6-year-old son Adam in 1981.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Chicago Police to Reassign 150 More Officers to Its Neighborhoods


Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy announced the deployment of 150 police officers to districts throughout the city as part of a continued effort to improve safety in Chicago’s neighborhoods.

“We are putting them where they can have the best immediate impact on our communities, working with residents – on the beat,” said Mayor Emanuel at a press conference at the Illinois Centennial Monument in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood.

Districts scheduled to receive the additional police officers include 2, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25.

The officers will begin their new assignments next Sunday, June 19th. These assignments are permanent.

At the press conference, Mayor Emanuel praised the “exceptional police work” that went into finding and filing charges against the offender involved in the shooting of two young girls last week. He also noted that 33 arrests have already been made in connection with recent group attacks downtown.

“The identification and apprehension of the offender was a team effort – our officers worked tirelessly across districts and divisions and intimately with the community, which provided solid information to generate leads¸” added Mayor Emanuel. “This type of community partnership is exactly what we want to see happen in Chicago.”

On May 24th, Mayor Emanuel announced that 500 police officers primarily from the Department’s Mobile Strike Force and Targeted Response Unit would be redeployed to districts 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, and 15.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Roman Catholic Priest Reputed to Assist Mobster in Hiding Violin from Federal Repossession

There are new developments in the case of a ruthless Chicago mobster, a Roman Catholic priest and a priceless violin. That unusual combination is the focus of this Intelligence Report.

Chicago Outfit boss Frank Calabrese Sr. enlisted the help of a prison chaplain to get around jailhouse security rules intended to stop him from communicating with associates on the outside. Now the Roman Catholic priest is facing federal indictment in Chicago and has been suspended by the church.

The purpose of Calabrese's mission from God wasn't to put out a murder contract, according to federal authorities; it was to retrieve an expensive violin.

"It was suppose to have been a Stradivarius violin, and at one time it was supposed to have been owned by Liberace," said ex-Calabrese lawyer Joe "The Shark" Lopez. Probably not the flamboyant Lee Liberace, because he played the piano, more likely his brother George who frequently accompanied on the violin.

It was such a million-dollar instrument that Frank "the Breeze" Calabrese somehow obtained on a trip to Las Vegas-- not that the gruff Outfit enforcer is thought to have been particularly musical, but the violin was an item of value that Calabrese did not want federal authorities to seize and apply to his $4 million forfeiture bill.

So, as Calabrese serves a life sentence in Springfield, Missouri, in solitary confinement for his role in mob murders and racketeering, he was allowed face-to-face meetings only with doctors, social workers and the prison chaplain, Catholic priest Father Eugene Klein.

According to the federal indictment, Father Klein agreed to help Calabrese retrieve the valuable violin from a secret hiding place inside a summer home that Calabrese owned in Williams Bay, Wisconsin.

But there was no unholy alliance between Father Klein and Calabrese as the feds have charged, according to Lopez, the attorney who represented Calabrese during Operation Family Secrets.

"I think Frank wasn't conning the priest, I think Frank was just asking the priest to help him," Lopez said. "I think it's kind of an unholy thing, but I'm not the federal government, and if I were I wouldn't indict the priest... I would give him a pass. He really didn't do anything wrong."

Nevertheless, the priest charged in Chicago has now been suspended by his home diocese. Winona, Minnesota, Bishop John Quinn on Friday afternoon issued a statement ordering Father Klein onto administrative leave, suspending his priestly faculties while asking that Klein be kept in prayer.

Father Klein is accused of traveling to north suburban Barrington, where he met with a friend of Frank Calabrese, a 72-year-old, former Italian restaurant owner, and wanted him to help get the violin back. It is believed that Barrington resident ended up cooperatingwith the FBI.

Attempts by the I-Team to contact the Barrington resident have been unsuccessful.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

Frank Calabrese Assisted in Prison by Catholic Priest, Father Eugene Klein

A prison chaplain has been charged in an alleged scheme to help imprisoned Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese, who is serving a life sentence for 13 murders, recover a valuable violin reportedly hidden in a Wisconsin house to keep the government from selling it, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

Catholic priest Eugene Klein, 62, of Springfield, Mo., was indicted late Wednesday on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and attempting to prevent seizure of Calabrese's personal property, the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago said.

Prosecutors said Klein ministered to Calabrese at a federal prison in Springfield, Mo., where he allegedly agreed to illegally pass messages to people outside of the prison and then participate in a scheme to recover the violin, which Calabrese claimed was a Stradivarius worth millions of dollars, from a home Calabrese once owned in Williams Bay, Wis.

A spokeswoman with the Springfield Diocese says Klein is a priest of the Diocese of Winona in Minnesota and under contract with the federal prison system as a chaplain in Springfield. She said he served as an assistant pastor within the Springfield Diocese from 2004-2005.

It was not clear whether Klein had an attorney. An arraignment date has not yet been set. Each of the two counts carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to the indictment, Calabrese told Klein in March that he had hidden the violin in the house and passed notes to Klein through the food slot in his cell with questions that Klein was to ask an unnamed third person, called Individual A in the indictment, and disclosing the location of the violin.

Klein drove to Barrington, Ill., in April to meet with Individual A, who told Klein the government was selling the house as part of an attempt to recover $4.4 million in restitution that Calabrese owed to his victims' families, according to the indictment. Klein then allegedly met with Individual A and a second person, called Individual B in the indictment, to plot a way to get the violin.

Klein allegedly called the real estate agent posing as a potential buyer, with the plan that one person would distract the agent while Klein and the other person looked for the violin.

Prosecutors say the government has since searched the Wisconsin residence but found no violin. They also say that during a March 2010 search of Calabrese's home in Oak Brook, Ill., a suburb west of Chicago, they found a certificate for a violin made in 1764 by Giuseppe Antonio Artalli, not Antonius Stradivarius.

It was during that same search that federal agents found loaded guns, nearly $730,000 in cash and tape recordings that officials said could contain "criminal conversations" hidden in a basement wall behind a large family portrait. The stash also included jewelry, recording devices and handwritten notes.

Agents also found about $26,000 in bundled cash in a locked desk drawer in the bedroom of his wife, Diane, according to court documents.

Calabrese, 74, was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 after being convicted with several other reputed members of the Chicago Outfit in a racketeering conspiracy that included 18 murders that had gone unsolved for decades; Calabrese himself was found responsible for 13 mob murders.

Calabrese's brother, Nicholas Calabrese, was the government's star witness. He testified that his brother carried out mob hits, sometimes strangling his victims with a rope and then slashing their throats to make sure they were dead. Two victims were killed in a darkened Cicero restaurant while the Frank Sinatra record of "Strangers in the Night" was playing on the jukebox, he said.

Thanks to Forbes

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Closure of OTB Parlors in New York City Boom for the Mob at the Belmont Stakes

Looking for a sure thing at Saturday's 143rd running of the Belmont Stakes?

Bet on organized crime and illegal bookies to win, place and show a bigger profit at the first Belmont since Off Track Betting shuttered its 54 New York City betting parlors in December.

"Where there is money to be made, the mob is most certainly there," one veteran Bonanno family soldier said of the chance to cash in on the Triple Crown race. "They were taking bets when OTB was operating," he continued. "And I'd bet — no pun intended — that they have been taking bets on this race for weeks now."

There's a lot of money to be made: NYC OTB handled nearly $2.4 million in Belmont bets last year — a lucrative one-day windfall. A good portion of those wagers will wind up as illegal action.

Gamblers "are going to go with a bookmaker, sure," said Arnie Wexler, former head of the New Jersey Council on Compulsive Gambling. "Not all these people are going to run to the track."

A city rackets prosecutor agreed: "This has got to increase business for organized crime-controlled horse parlors."

Mob gambling rings offer other short-term benefits — no taxes taken out of your winnings, credit terms available. The latter inevitably leads to a long-term problem: loan-sharking.

"It's the constant circle of the mob," said ex-FBI undercover Jack Garcia, who spent three years inside the Gambino family. "They keep on ticking like Timex."

Last month's bust of a Staten Island sports betting operation showed how much gambling money is out there. Officials said the ring handled $100,000 a week in wagers, including bets on horse racing.

Its reputed boss even bragged that his operation, in contrast with New York's politicians, would have saved OTB from becoming the only local bookie bathing in red ink.

Jerry Stentella "was confident of his ability to run OTB well" after the success of his storefront betting parlor, prosecutors said.

He might be right.

The Bonanno soldier recalls a mob buddy pulling in about $10,000 a week from an offshore gambling operation — "and he wasn't nearly as big as most."

Garcia said the Belmont betting pool offers too great an opportunity for the mob to ignore.

"The mob is all about making money," Garcia said. "If there's an opportunity there, they'll be there like white on rice. So if you want to put some money down on the Belmont, who do you see? It's Joey Pots and Pans! He'll take that bet for you."

Thanks to Larry McShane

Monday, June 06, 2011

Chicago Mob Resurgence to Accompany Casinos in Chicago?


The way Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sees it, thousands of craps players and slot machine pullers would flock to his cash-strapped city if it gets into the gambling business. It's a safe bet a seedier element will be right behind them.

This is Chicago, after all, where the shadow of Al Capone still looms, federal corruption trials appear like television reruns, and the remnants of the mob are sure to try for a piece of the action.

Illinois lawmakers voted this week to allow legal gambling for the first time in Chicago. Backers envision a new casino and video poker machines across the nation's third-largest city, from its two international airports to corner bars. It's part of an ambitious statewide expansion of gambling lawmakers have sent to Gov. Pat Quinn.

None of it sits well with the Chicago Crime Commission, whose public enemies list once included Scarface and other gangsters who based their bootlegging and other criminal enterprises out of Chicago. "If the gaming legislation that passed becomes law, political corruption and crime syndicate infiltration will follow," said J.R. Davis, president and chairman of the 92-year-old nonprofit organization that studies and promotes crime prevention in the city.



At least one former mobster agrees: Millions of dollars would be too enticing for the corrupt and the criminal. "It's a lifeline that whatever outfit guys are left are going to use," said Frank Calabrese Jr., who wore an FBI wiretap to help convict his mobster father and later wrote a book about it. "As an outfit guy ... I am going to get a piece of something somewhere."

Lobbying by Emanuel, Chicago's first new mayor in two decades, is credited for facilitating the plan's approval. But neither he nor lawmakers who sponsored the legislation are talking specifics about how the city would thwart Davis' prediction.

Emanuel said this week that there would be a "blue ribbon group" appointed if Quinn signs the legislation into law. Quinn has opposed an ambitious expansion of gambling in the state but supports the idea of a casino in Chicago, which is facing a budget shortfall of between $500 million and $700 million. Proponents say gambling will mean the state will collect $1.6 billion in upfront fees to those who what to set up shop in Illinois and then another $500 million a year. Emanuel said the casino also would keep gamblers and their money from crossing the state line to casinos in Indiana. "We lose $20 million, around, a month to Hammond, Ind.," he said.

A leading proponent, Chicago Democratic Rep. Lou Lang, said there have been "zero scandals" with the state's existing casinos. Lang argued that if the mob tried to move in, regulators would clamp down, like they did a few years ago when the state nixed a planned casino in suburban Rosemont after getting word investors may have had mob ties. "To automatically link casinos with organized crime when there is no hint of that in Illinois to date ... is a stretch," said Lang, who has worked for years to expand gambling in Illinois. But this is Chicago, where Capone based his bootlegging empire during Prohibition and Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo ran the show after that with, according to one estimate, 10,000 gambling spots. Chicago was Sam Giancana's base of operations until his mob career ended in 1975 when he was gunned down as he fried up sausages at home. So notorious is the city's history of organized crime that tour guides offer specific routes to show off mob bosses' former hangouts.

While the outfit is a shadow of its former self, it's still here, and it has an interest in gambling.

Just last year, reputed mobster Michael "The Large Guy" Sarno was convicted of orchestrating the 2003 bombing of the suburban Chicago office of a rival video gaming company. The bombing, federal prosecutors said, was designed as a message to the company to stop horning in on a lucrative mob business.

Gambling expert William Thompson of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas said the mob would have a tough time gaining a foothold in Chicago casinos because investors wouldn't shell out millions of dollars if there were even a hint of organized crime involvement. "They're wary of having criminal elements involved where they might lose their (gaming) license," he said.

Regulation could be pricey, with some predicting it could cost millions to fund the small army that would be needed to monitor casinos, bars, restaurants, race tracks and other locations where thousands of slot and video poker machines could be set up.

"The way the Illinois Gaming Board operates, where people are able to gamble, we have agents present," board spokesman Gene O'Shea said.

Still, Thompson believes mobsters would be lurking around the edges — many, many edges since the legislation calls for tripling the number of gaming tables, slot and video poker machines in Illinois to more than 39,000, including 4,000 in Chicago. "The mob is going to come in on the side, run the loan shark businesses, have the prostitutes," he said, adding that a loan shark could be someone sitting at a corner table or the bartender, pulling money out of the till. "There's no way to police it."

Even a weakened mob is strong enough to take advantage of a whole new revenue stream, said Gus Russo, author of a book about the Chicago mob called "The Outfit." The mob's history has been one of turning what people want — be it alcohol or gambling, drugs or prostitutes — into money.

"They're like cockroaches. If they see a scam they will be a part of it," Russo said. "And if they're not a part of it, it will be the first time in history."

Thanks to Don Babwin

Sunday, June 05, 2011

Auction for Al Capone's Gun


Hoping to own a little piece of Chicago history?

A gun belonging to Al Capone, Windy City’s most infamous mob boss, is expected to sell for up to $115,000 when it is auctioned online on June 22.

The Colt .38 was made in 1929 after Capone had ordered the murder of seven of his rivals in the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. The revolver comes with a letter signed by the gangster’s sister-in-law confirming its authenticity.

Capone led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate until he was arrested in 1931 for tax evasion. He died in 1947 from cardiac arrest after suffering a stroke.

A gun belonging to outlaw Thomas Coleman “Cole” Younger, a member of the James gang with brothers Frank and Jesse, will also go under the hammer this month.

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Reward Offered in Search for Chicago Gang Fugitive Corey Griffen

Robert D. Grant, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was joined today by Garry F. McCarthy, Acting Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department (CPD), in asking for the public’s help in locating COREY GRIFFIN, age 40, whose last known address was 12 South Mayfield Avenue in Chicago. In making this appeal for assistance, Mr. Grant noted that a reward of up to $10,000 was being offered for information leading to Griffin’s arrest.

Reward Offered in Search for Chicago Gang Fugitive Corey Griffen

GRIFFIN has been the subject of a nationwide manhunt, coordinated by the Chicago FBI’s Joint Task Force on Gangs (JTFG), since November of last year, when he was charged in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago with violation of federal drug laws.

GRIFFIN and 95 others, all known or suspected members of the Traveling Vice Lords street gang, were charged with drug violations in a combined federal and state investigation, code named Operation Blue Knight, which culminated with the arrest of 70 individuals. GRIFFIN, however, was one of nearly two dozen defendants in this case who avoided capture and is still at-large.

GRIFFIN, also known as “Fat Rat,” is described as a black male, 40 years of age, 5’9” tall, weighing approximately 200 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes with a short beard and mustache and a tattoo on his left arm of crossed paths with angels. Due to his criminal record and the nature of the charges filed against him, GRIFFIN should be considered ARMED and DANGEROUS.

Anyone recognizing GRIFFIN or having any information as to his current whereabouts is asked to call the Chicago FBI at (312) 421-6700.

The Chicago FBI’s Joint Task Force on Gangs is comprised of FBI special agents and officers from the Chicago Police Department.

The public is reminded that a complaint is not evidence of guilt and that all defendants in a criminal case are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

"The Family" Mob Musical to Open on Thursday


Is it just a silly trifle about a bunch of wise guys, or is Arlene Violet’s musical about the Rhode Island mob the real deal? Thursday will tell, when “The Family,” which has been four years in the making, opens for a month-long run at the Lederer Theater Center in Providence, the Washington Street home of Trinity Rep.

The show, based on some of the more colorful characters Violet encountered as Rhode Island attorney general in the mid-1980s, has got to be the most anticipated event of the summer. After all, who can resist Mafia lore, especially in Rhode Island, where organized crime has had such deep roots? And who isn’t curious about anything touched by Violet, the former nun and prosecutor, and now a controversial radio talk show host?

Only a musical about Buddy Cianci might top it.

Violet doesn’t want to say too much about the plot of her baby, except that it’s “gritty but also funny, because wise guys are funny.” But South County composer Enrico Garzilli, who wrote the musical’s 20-plus songs and lyrics, said the show packs an unexpected punch. “It’s going to surprise a lot of people,” said Garzilli, who has written the music and books for four other musicals. “It’s extremely powerful.”

The cast moved into the rented upstairs space at the Lederer Theater last week, where it will perform on a set that at times resembles the Italian neighborhood of Federal Hill, with its pine-nut arch and unassuming vending machine company that for years served as headquarters for the late Raymond L.S. Patriarca, longtime head of the New England rackets.

Meanwhile, Violet is busy raising money, doing publicity and making sure New York movers and shakers come to town to see the show. She has hopes of taking “The Family” to New York, but said that will cost $8 million.

“I am extremely busy,” she said, “just not creatively.”

This is not Violet’s first crack at writing. Her 200-page autobiography “Convictions” came out in 1988, the year after she left elective office as state Attorney General. Last year, Simon & Schuster published “The Mob and Me,” her tribute to her friend, the late John Partington, who started the federal witness-protection program. But this is her first theatrical venture, one that had its beginnings in a casual conversation with Garzilli after the premiere at the Providence Performing Arts Center of his coming-of-age musical “Michelangelo.” Garzilli, a former priest who received much of his musical training in Rome, suggested a future collaboration and Violet jumped at the chance, turning to what she knew best, the mobsters she encountered as attorney general.

She once joked that she and Garzilli decided to stay away from lampooning the Catholic Church, given their backgrounds.

Violet met once a week with Garzilli, who gave her pointers on how to write for a musical and helped flesh out an outline she had written. They started work in July of 2007, and by December of that year the project was finished, save for some tweaking.

“The Family” follows the exploits of a certain crime boss named Don Marco, who bears a striking resemblance to Patriarca. Don Marco wants his son, Renaldo, to take over the family business. But the sensitive Renaldo, who is into opera and other guys, wants no part of that life.

Meanwhile, the godfather has more family problems to deal with when two of his lieutenants rat him out. The show’s two snitches, Joe Barros and Vinny the Capo, are based on murderer and government informant Joseph “The Animal” Barboza, and Vincent “Fat Vinny” Teresa, who wrote a book about his years in the Mafia. Both men testified against Patriarca.

The Don’s troubles come to a head in the potent second act.

The characters are essentially composites with real-life roots. The song “What a Saint Is He” tells how the godfather gives money to a desperate woman for an eye operation for her son, something Patriarca once did. The woman sings how Don Marco does more for the neighborhood than politicians, the police and even, God forgive me, the priests.

The song, said Violet, shows that even bad guys have a good side, a recurrent theme in the show. When snitch Joe Barros goes into witness protection at the end of act one, he gives his daughter a string of pearls, albeit stolen pearls, to ease her pain of having to give up the life she knew, echoing a practice of Barboza, who in real life used to give his daughter a doll each time he killed someone.

At the same time, the tough U. S. Marshal in the show has his bad side, said Violet. In other words, no one in the show is all black or white, except perhaps the son, Renaldo, the aspiring opera singer who is gay. Garzilli called him the show’s “moral barometer,” the son every mother would love to have.

In most musicals in which there is a gay character, like “La Cage aux Folles,” audiences have to contend with what Violet called the “swish factor.” She finds that stereotype “counterproductive.”

“Maybe if people see a character like the son,” said Violet, “it will change the Rhode Island debate over same-sex marriage.”

The show also features a Mafia induction ceremony using the transcript from an actual FBI wiretap. Violet said the godfather and the inductee, the “made man,” speak at times in Italian, just like on the FBI tape, but then the rest of the gang chimes in and repeats the lines in English, like a chorus.

The story of “The Family” is not told by crooks alone. Violet wanted to include a tribute to Partington, and show what federal marshals had to deal with when it came to the families of mobsters, people whose lives were often thrown into chaos when they entered the witness-protection program. In the moving song “What’s Going to Become of Us,” Barros’ wife, Claire, laments her fate, finding out that the guy she married isn’t who she thought he was.

“I wanted to show the human element that the marshals had to deal with,” said Violet. She said it’s her “tip of the hat” to Partington, who served for a while as Providence public safety commissioner under Cianci.

The music for the show, for the most part, has a big band flavor, the kind of Vegas-inspired sounds mobsters might have danced to in the 1970s and ’80s. But composer Garzilli, who has an eclectic musical background, said he just as often took his inspiration from Stravinsky, especially the composer’s use of poly-rhythms. There is even a homage to Puccini, in a scene where Renaldo sings at the Providence Performing Arts Center, while his father is on the phone with a Chicago mob boss and another character is being beaten senseless in a corner.

The show opens with the song “Family Values,” with its code of, “see nuttin’, know nuttin’, say nuttin’ at all.” It’s a tune that pops up in various guises every time this code comes into play, and provides something of a unifying thread to the musical.

“My writing leads up to the emotion of the song,” said Violet. “It’s not enough to say these words; we have to sing them to get the emotion of the scene.”

The cast is pretty much made up of local talent, including five Rhode Island College theater students. Tom Gleadow, who has done a lot of work at the Gamm Theatre in Pawtucket, plays Don Marco, the godfather. Mark Colozzi, head of music in the Cranston public schools, who has sung as a tenor soloist throughout the Diocese of Providence, is Barros, the snitch. Colin Earyes, who is from Scranton, Pa, and getting his musical theater degree from West Chester University this month, plays the gay son Renaldo.

“All things being considered, we gave preference to Rhode Islanders,” said Violet. “We wanted to showcase the talent here to out-of-towners.”

Violet said she likes the touches director Peter Sampieri has brought to rehearsals so far. In one scene, he has Joe Barros doing push-ups to stay in shape. That rings true, she said, because in real life, Barboza was a former boxer who liked to work out. One thing she is looking for in the show, she said, is authenticity.

Whether that’s enough to make “The Family” the hit of the summer remains to be seen. But even if the show is not the greatest thing since sliced prosciutto, it won’t be for lack of trying.

“Arlene worked very hard on the show,” said Garzilli, “and I tried to do the same. We were never satisfied.”

“The Family” opens Thursday and runs through July 1 at the Lederer Theater Center, 201 Washington St., Providence. The show is renting the theater; it is not a Trinity Rep production. Tickets are $60. Call (401) 351-4242.

Thanks to Channing Gray

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Peter Bart's "Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob (and Sex)"

He was a tall, silver-haired man, square-jawed with a military bearing, always impeccably attired in a dark blue suit. It was only a few weeks into my Paramount job when I came to understand that His visits were a daily occurrence, but did not linger or chat with anyone other than (Paramount head of production) Bob Evans, nor did anyone on staff ever refer to him or acknowledge his visits. Korshak was the ghost who was always there but never there.

Evans had talked earlier about him once or twice, always in a manner that betrayed not only respect but near-reverence. Sidney Korshak was not so much his personal attorney (he never paid him) or even his mentor as he was his consigliere. And when Korshak arrived for an Evans audience, all other plans would be set aside. Whoever happened to be in the reception room would have to wait until the big man had come and gone from Evans' sanctum sanctorum. And this procedure was replicated by other power players at other offices in town, as I was to learn.

Sidney Korshak, it seemed to me, was the man who knew everything -- the big corporate deals as well as the personal peccadilloes. It was some time before I also realized that Korshak was the man who knew too much.

It was Korshak's role in life to dwell simultaneously in two separate and distinct worlds which, in his grand design, would remain hermetically sealed against each other. There was his celebrity world -- he liked to drop names like Kirk Douglas or Dinah Shore or Debbie Reynolds, or to casually mention that he'd just had dinner with Sinatra in Las Vegas, or with Nancy and Ronnie Reagan in Beverly Hills. But he would never mention his other friends, like Tony Accardo or Sam Giancana from the Chicago mob or Jimmy Hoffa from the Teamsters or Moe Dalitz from Vegas.

Korshak would allude to the corporate deals he made on behalf of Lew Wasserman or Howard Hughes, but he never confided what he knew about Bugsy Siegel's murder or Hoffa's disappearance.

Korshak's life was built around a web of secrecy, and he was convinced that he would always be able to move effortlessly from one world to the next. It was only later in his life that he, too, found himself trapped. As the dangers in his nether life became more ominous, Korshak was unable to extricate himself from his underworld bonds. The celebrities would continue to decorate his life, like glitzy toys, but the bad boys would always be hovering out there with their furtive demands and threats. …

Over the years my relationship with Korshak remained distanced but cordial. He never directly asked anything from me nor subjected me to his power games. When his son, Harry, began to produce movies at Paramount -- I never figured out precisely how this deal came about -- Korshak said to me he would "appreciate it" if I were to "look out" for Harry and provide advice if he began to stray. But when young Harry's career did not go well, Korshak was the first to inform his son that he would do well to pursue other career possibilities.In observing Korshak's superbly surreptitious maneuverings over time, I began to accept a reality none of us wanted to openly address. Sidney Korshak was a gangster, albeit a very civil and well-groomed gangster. The bad boys had achieved major clout in the entertainment industry, and Korshak, despite all his secrecy, represented the embodiment of that clout.

Ironically, while Korshak yearned for the trappings of "respectability," his pals in Hollywood venerated him, not for his cool or his great wardrobe or even for his lawyering skills, but rather for his fabled underworld ties. …Bob Evans, for one, had always romanticized the lore of the gangster -- hence his lifelong ambition to make the movie about the mythic, mobster-owned Cotton Club, which ultimately came to haunt him. Charlie Bluhdorn,founder of Gulf + Western, which owned Par, had a longstanding flirtation with the shadow world out of fringe financiers in Europe and ended up doing deals that resulted in prison sentences for his partners and almost for himself. (Paramount president) Frank Yablans subscribed to mobster mythology to such a degree that he even agreed to play the role of an underworld thug in a movie titled "Mikey and Nicky." He was in rehearsal on the film before an apoplectic Bluhdorn vetoed his participation (even the often reckless Bluhdhorn realized the potential jeopardy to his corporate image).

Thanks to Peter Bart

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Mob Outfit Film "Predators Game" to Start Filming in Chicago Soon


Predators Game is a feature-length crime thriller set (and filmed) in Chicago. The lives of a Chicago outfit Hitman and a serial killer with an obsession for beautiful women he wants to make perfect, become intimately and surprisingly intertwined.

FBI profiler, Dr. Carmichael, joins forces with lead Detective John Burke, who is tasked with putting a stop to the murderous havoc of this dangerous Predator.

The Hitman’s life is changed forever as the serial killer manipulates events in his life which sets him on a rampage of carnage in search for this unlikely opponent.

Time is running out for Detective Burke and Dr. Carmichael as they seek this Predator who is playing a deadly life and death game with all of their lives.

Filming stars soon and extras casting will be handled by Darlene Hunt and Extraordinary Casting.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Philadelphia Mafia Takedown Recap


On Monday, a superseding federal grand jury indictment was announced charging 13 members and associates of the Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra (LCN) family with racketeering, extortion, loan sharking, illegal gambling, and witness tampering.

Eleven of the 13—including the reputed boss and underboss of the criminal enterprise—were arrested earlier that day in Philadelphia and New Jersey. Two of the subjects were already serving time in federal prison for previous convictions but managed to continue their racketeering activities from behind bars.

Alleged mob boss Joseph Ligambi rose through the ranks of the Philadelphia LCN crime family and took over at the helm after the 2001 incarceration of previous boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino on racketeering charges.

The indictment alleges that for more than a decade, Ligambi, underboss Joseph Massimino, and the others conspired to generate money through various crimes. For example, they reportedly operated illegal gambling businesses involving sports bookmaking and electronic gambling devices in places like bars, restaurants, convenience stories, and coffee shops…and pocketed the proceeds. Mafia families like the one in Philadelphia often make millions of dollars and traditionally use gambling proceeds as seed money for other crimes.

The defendants also offered “loans”—at exorbitant interest rates—to victims who knew there would be dire consequences if they failed to repay them within a certain time frame.

To carry out their crimes, the defendants often used actual or implied threats of violence against their victims. According to the indictment, some of the defendants used phrases like, “I’ll put a bullet in your head,” and, “Chop him up,” to threaten victims who weren’t repaying their loans. The defendants used their reputation for violence to intimidate and prevent victims and witnesses from cooperating with law enforcement.

The defendants also actively worked to conceal their illegal operations from law enforcement. For example, they used coded language over the phone, such as calling the electronic gambling devices “coffee machines.” They often took “walk and talks” where they would conduct covert conversations with each other while walking to and from a particular destination because they thought they couldn’t be intercepted. They also established companies that appeared to be legitimate but were actually created to launder money and conceal the illegal nature of their activities.

To collect the evidence needed for these indictments, this long-term investigation included undercover scenarios, court-authorized electronic surveillances, consensual recordings, and many hours of physical surveillance.

This particular case was a good example of law enforcement cooperation at its best—the Philadelphia Police Department, the Pennsylvania and New Jersey State Police, the Criminal Division of the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Labor all worked alongside the Philadelphia FBI, with additional assistance from the New Jersey Department of Corrections and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.  Prosecutors from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section are assisting the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania as well.

This arrest of the reputed leadership of the Philadelphia LCN comes on the heels of the large mafia takedown in New York  earlier this year. And law enforcement efforts against the LCN, as well as other types of organized crime—international and domestic—will continue unabated.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Steve Wynn Shares Casino Owner's Handbook on Organized Crime


Gambling mogul Steve Wynn Steve Wynn Shares Casino Owner's Handbook on Organized Crimehad fun with a question at a press conference Tuesday about allegations of organized crime in Macau, the world’s largest casino market.

“I know one thing–organized crime is illegal…And one should avoid participating in organized crime,” he said. “That’s the first page of the casino owner’s handbook…actually I didn’t go any further in the book. That’s where I left it right there,” he joked.

Turning more serious, he said Wynn Resorts Ltd. has an “extensive internal investigation process” to ensure it remains compliant with regulations in the U.S. and China. “We have former FBI agents and policemen from Hong Kong and China–a whole staff of people to check things up and have access to intelligence and things that us normal people wouldn’t necessarily know about.”

Mr. Wynn, Wynn Resorts’ chief executive, said the company and its Hong Kong-listed Wynn Macau Ltd. unit vet business partners including junket operators, the middlemen who recruit mostly mainland Chinese gamblers, lend them money and collect debts.

“All of this we did out of sheer common sense and understanding the business we’re in,” said Mr. Wynn following the annual general meeting for Wynn Macau. Mr. Wynn said that his compliance committee doesn’t report to him, but to Wynn Resorts board member and former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller.

Investigations into the casino industry have been on investors’ minds recently. A U.S. government probe of rival casino operator Las Vegas Sands for possible lack of compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has some investors and industry watchers concerned there could be a sector-wide probe on the way. (Las Vegas Sands has said it is cooperating with investigators and has denied allegations in a separate lawsuit the company believes sparked the investigation.) Last year, another Macau casino player, MGM Resorts International, sold its stake in a New Jersey casino after regulators there found the operator’s Macau partnership with a daughter of tycoon Stanley Ho troubling because of his alleged ties to organized crime. Mr. Ho and his family denied any such ties.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Saturday, Mr. Wynn said his company didn’t face any regulatory risk despite the increased scrutiny of some in the industry.

“We’ve never been investigated by anyone and have no risk of any kind whatsoever,” he said.

Thanks to Kate O'Keefe

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Crime Beat Radio Show Releases Upcoming Program Schedule

Crime Beat: Issues, Controversies and Personalities from the Darkside has been programming since January 28 of this year and is currently averaging 60,000 listeners plus each week, and the figure is growing.

Crime Beat is now pleased to announce its forthcoming schedule:

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Vinny Gorgeous Begs Jury for Mercy

After a blood-soaked career as a New York mafia boss, Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano found himself begging a jury Tuesday for something he rarely gave himself: mercy.

Jurors in Brooklyn federal court began hearing arguments on whether the convicted murderer and former boss of the Italian-American Bonanno crime family should be executed or spend the rest of his life in a top security prison.

A lawyer for Basciano, a 51-year-old famous for his sharp suits and swept-back, immaculate hair, made an emotional appeal, telling the jury to let his client die "in God's time and not man's."In several years' time, defense attorney Richard Jasper said in a dramatic whisper, jurors would be asked by their children how they acted "and you will be able to tell them: 'I chose life.'"Basciano was convicted last week for ordering the murder of a fellow wiseguy, Randolph Pizzolo. Unlike in usual cases where the judge sets the sentence, the jury in a capital case also has sentencing power.

Prosecutor Jack Dennehy described "the murderous rise to power" that took Basciano to the top of the Bonannos, one of New York's traditional five Cosa Nostra crime syndicates.

He said Basciano was involved in several mafia killings, both as trigger puller and the man who gave the orders -- "a man who wants to decide who lives and who dies."If Basciano were sent to prison, even without parole, he would continue to pull the strings, Dennehy argued. "He will not leave the Bonanno crime family behind in prison."Basciano's life and trial could be taken from the script of a brutal Hollywood mafia movie. A striking-looking man, he spent three decades thriving in the snake-pit of the Big Apple underworld.In court, he has fought equally hard to justify his infamous "Vinny Gorgeous" nickname. He complained several times at the outset about his poor access to clothes and he even borrowed the judge's tie so that he could look smart before jurors came in.

On Tuesday, the cool killer wore an olive green suit with a tie in forest colors and a white shirt. His silver-black hair was combed perfectly backward.With years of experience in the justice system, Basciano takes active part in his defense. He entered court carrying a box of documents and spent his time taking notes -- passing some along to his lawyers -- and shaking his head when Dennehy said he'd gone as far as plotting to murder women.

Dennehy said the fallen mob boss "poses a future danger to others" and had "earned the ultimate punishment, the punishment of death." But Jasper, his voice ranging from a near shout to intimate whispers, sought to tug jurors' consciences. For a death sentence, the jury must be unanimous. If not, Basciano will go to prison.

Jasper urged jurors against thinking that life in prison was a soft option. Basciano, he said, would be sent to the Supermax facility in a remote part of Colorado, a place "feared" by the hardest of the hard.There would be no second chance for Basciano, he said. "Vinny Basciano will come out of prison in a box."The dapper don act will be over too."No suits, no shirts, no ties, no 'Vinny Gorgeous,'" Jasper said. "The rest of his life in prison."

Monday, May 23, 2011

Reputed Philly Mob Boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi Along with Alleged Underboss Joseph "Mousei" Massimino Among 12 Arrested

The reputed boss of the Philadelphia mob, his alleged lieutenant and 11 others were hit with federal racketeering and gambling charges in an indictment unsealed Monday that federal authorities said shows that violent organized crime remains a real-life menace.

Alleged mob leader Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, reputed underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino and the others ran illegal gambling operations and engaged in loan sharking, according to the 70-page indictment that described a "Godfather"-like world in which reputed mobsters used threats to kill or harm people to recoup business debts.

Eleven people, including Ligambi, were arrested Monday. The other two defendants were already in federal custody.

Ligambi, 72, pleaded not guilty during an initial appearance. His attorney, Joseph Santaguida, said the case against his client isn't strong and that he should be granted bail at a hearing later this week.

Massimino, 61, said in court that he didn't yet have an attorney. He has a bail hearing scheduled for Thursday. A judge also scheduled bail hearings for many of the other defendants this week.

The arrests were the largest action taken against Philadelphia's crime family in a decade.
"They used violence and the threat of violence to exert control over others," Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said at a news conference, noting that organized crime in Philadelphia had shown "a remarkable ability to reorganize and reinvent itself."

Ligambi, Massimino and the others provided video poker machines and other illegal gambling devices to bars, restaurants and convenience stores in and around Philadelphia, prosecutors said.

Ligambi, Massimino and another defendant tried to make the business appear legitimate to hide the money from the federal government, prosecutors said. Ligambi, Massimino and other defendants also "approved, supervised, and otherwise participated in extortions" to generate income for the enterprise and its members, the indictment said.

In one instance, between about 2002 and 2006, Massimino and another defendant extorted a bookmaker by demanding that the bookmaker provide "yearly tribute payments" to the Philadelphia La Casa Nostra in order to "avoid personal harm" and the disruption of business, the indictment said.

The indictment is also riddled with allegations of defendants threatening to kill or harm people who haven't paid their debts, including alleged threats to "put a bullet in your head" and to "chop him up." Massimino allegedly told one victim that he wouldn't "be able to hide anywhere in the U.S.," prosecutors allege.

"The defendants also used express and implied threats of physical violence and economic harm to instill fear in their victims and to preserve and sustain the enterprise," the indictment said.
U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger said the arrests should serve as a warning that law enforcement hasn't forgotten about the Mafia.

"Today, we make clear that such activity will not be tolerated by my office and that La Cosa Nostra remains a priority for the Department of Justice," Memeger said.

Ligambi took over the Philadelphia mob after former boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino was convicted of racketeering in 2001, according to investigators. Merlino was later acquitted of a murder charge in 2004.

Ligambi was convicted in the 1985 gangland slaying of Frank "Frankie Flowers" D'Alfonso and spent 10 years in prison before he was acquitted on retrial in 1997.

Merlino is currently serving a six-month term at a Florida halfway house after being released from federal prison in March.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Extradition of Genovese Family Soldier from Italy to Face Racketeering Charges for His Alleged Role in Two Murders and Other Crimes

PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that EMILIO FUSCO was extradited from Italy to face racketeering and other charges in connection with his role as a made member of the Genovese organized crime family. FUSCO arrived in New York , and was arraigned in Manhattan federal court.

FUSCO was charged, along with co-defendants FELIX TRANGHESE, TY GEAS, FOTIOS GEAS, and ARTHUR NIGRO, in a superseding indictment (the “indictment”) unsealed in July 2010. TRANGHESE pled guilty in January 2011, and NIGRO, FOTIOS GEAS, and TY GEAS were convicted by a jury on April 1, 2011, of racketeering charges, multiple murder charges, and multiple extortion charges.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA stated: “Emilio Fusco will finally face the justice he deserves—something that he never afforded his alleged victims.”

According to the indictment and testimony and evidence presented at the trial of FUSCO’s co-defendants:

FUSCO was a made member of the Genovese organized crime family, in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 2003, prior to being sentenced for an earlier racketeering conviction, FUSCO obtained a court document showing that Genovese family capo Adolfo Bruno had spoken with an FBI agent about FUSCO’s status in the Genovese family. Thereafter, Arthur Nigro, who was then an acting boss of the Genovese family, gave the order to murder Bruno. FUSCO and others conspired to carry out the murder, and Bruno was killed on November 23, 2003.

Less than three weeks before Bruno’s murder, FUSCO, along with another Genovese family soldier and two associates, murdered an individual named Gary Westerman to maintain and increase their position in the Genovese organized crime family and to prevent Westerman from providing information to law enforcement about crimes committed by members and associates of the Genovese organized crime family.

FUSCO is charged with one count each of racketeering conspiracy, racketeering, conspiring to commit extortion, extortion, and interstate travel in aid of racketeering. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence on each racketeering count of life in prison, a maximum sentence on each extortion count of 20 years in prison, and a maximum sentence on the interstate travel count of five years in prison.

A conference in the case is scheduled before U.S. District Judge P. KEVIN CASTEL on June 17, 2011, at 12:00 p.m.

Sentencing for NIGRO, FOTIOS GEAS, and TY GEAS is scheduled for July 15, 2011, at 11:15 a.m. TRANGHESE is scheduled to be sentenced on July 15, 2011, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. BHARARA praised the efforts of the FBI’s New York Field Office, the FBI’s Springfield, Massachusetts, Resident Agency, and the Massachusetts State Police for their outstanding work in the ongoing investigation. He also thanked the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs and the United States Marshals Service for their involvement in the extradition process.

This case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Organized Crime Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys MARK LANPHER, ELIE HONIG, and DANIEL GOLDMAN are in charge of the prosecution.

The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Unfinished Business on Mob Wives

During a ladies' night out, "Party Renee" Graziano makes an overdue and completely wild appearance. Meanwhile, Drita D'avanzo comes face to face with the harsh realities of having a husband behind bars as her birthday approaches. Her boozy blowout pushes her to resolve one conflict, though she remains oblivious to another even bigger one that is brewing. Carla Facciolo's blissful relationship with a mystery man sows the seeds of dissent among the women, as Renee prepares herself for a fresh start, at any cost. While continuing to work on her book and dig into her past, Karen Gravano resolves to confront an explosive issue that's been eating at her for a long time. Sparks fly. Lines are crossed.

Friday, May 20, 2011

How Joseph Massino Exposed the Ugly Truth About "Vinny Gorgeous"

A New York City mobster who is serving a life sentence for attempted murder could become the first mafia boss to face the death penalty after being convicted in a case accusing him of ordering a gangland killing to cement his rise to power in the Bonanno organised crime family.

A Brooklyn jury had deliberated for four days in the death penalty case before finding tough-talking Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano guilty of murder, racketeering, conspiracy and other charges on Monday.

The jury, after being swayed by wiretaps and a series of low-level mob witnesses, will reconvene next week to decide whether Basciano, 51, will get another life term or execution by lethal injection.

The federal trial of the one-time owner of the Hello Gorgeous beauty salon featured testimony by former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino, who made another first in this trial, by becoming the first boss to testify against one of their own.

Massino, 68, began talking with investigators after his 2004 conviction for orchestrating a quarter-century's worth of murder, racketeering and other crimes as he rose through the Bonanno ranks.

He is serving two consecutive life terms for eight murders. He testified his cooperation spared his wife from prosecution, allowed her to keep their home and gave him a shot at a reduced sentence.

By cooperating, he told jurors he was violating a sacred oath he took during a 1977 induction ceremony to protect the secret society. It was understood, he said, that "once a bullet leaves that gun, you never talk about it".

The bloodshed revealed by Massino's testimony includes the shotgun slayings of three rival captains and the execution of a mobster who vouched for FBI undercover agent Donnie Brasco in the 1980s.

While imprisoned together in 2005, the former Bonanno boss agreed to wear a wire and betray Basciano, a gangster known for his meticulously groomed hair, sharp suits and hot temper. Before trial, Basciano won approval to have access to five different suits to wear to court – one for each day of the week.

Jurors heard one recording of Basciano boasting, "I'm a hoodlum, I'm a tough guy. Whatever happens, happens. Let's go."

The tape was evidence that the defendant is "a cold-blooded remorseless killer," Assistant US Attorney Stephen Frank said in his closing argument.

Prosecutors alleged that Basciano – while seizing control of the Bonannos as acting boss in 2004 after Massino was jailed – orchestrated the killing of mob associate Randolph Pizzolo. The slaying was payback for a drunken tirade by Pizzolo demanding induction into the family.

Thanks to Richard Hall and Tom Hays

Thursday, May 19, 2011

"CHICAGO OVERCOAT'' HOME VIDEO RELEASE

Following its December 2010 Showtime television premiere, Beverly Ridge Pictures’ feature length gangster film Chicago Overcoat had its much-anticipated North American home video release on April 19, 2011. MTI Home VideoChicago Overcoat, The Glory Days are Back, now in its 27th year distributing films, made Chicago Overcoat availableto rent at Netflix, Redbox, and Blockbuster Express, and to purchase at Amazon, iTunes, and thousands of other online stores. Major retailers will have Chicago Overcoat DVDs on their shelves Summer 2011. Original music from the film can be purchased on iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic.

The film stars Frank Vincent (The Sopranos) as an aging hit man who tries to get back a piece of the glory days. Fellow Sopranos cast member Kathrine Narducci (A Bronx Tale) co-stars as Vincent’s girlfriend, along with Danny Goldring (The Dark Knight) as a tenacious homicide detective, and Mike Starr (Goodfellas) as the street boss. The cast also features Emmy Award winner Armand Assante (American Gangster) as the imprisoned Outfit boss, and Golden Globe winner Stacy Keach (Lights Out) as a retired detective.

Chicago Overcoat had its world premiere at the 45th Chicago International Film Festival, where it was voted into the “Best of the Fest.” It went on to win “Best Dramatic Feature” at the 8th Garden State Film Festival then “Best Cinematography” at the 6th Midwest Independent Film Festival. The film received much critical acclaim during its festival tour. In Variety’s review Alissa Simon wrote: “This energetic calling-card pic boasts the most charismatic mafia murderer since Tony Soprano…” And Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bill Zwecker wrote: “Well produced and directed…a very tense thriller.”

For information on how to rent or purchase Chicago Overcoat go to www.beverlyridgepictures.com or follow the film on Facebook and Twitter.

The Prisoner Wine Company Corkscrew with Leather Pouch

Flash Mafia Book Sales!