Mob Month Panel & Book Signing: From Medellin to the Mob: Meet Ronin of the Underworld Kenny “Kenji” Gallo

Mob Month: From Medellin to the Mob: Meet Ronin of the Underworld Kenny “Kenji” Gallo

1/31/2012 • 7 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Clark County Library
Room: Main Theater

Our final event features a panel discussion with Breakshot author Kenny “Kenji” Gallo about his life growing up as a mixed-race teenage dealer/distributor for South American drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, becoming a leading porn director/producer in California, partnering with West & East Coast mob families, and switching sides to become one of the most successful and notorious undercover operatives for the FBI. Joining the panel are Kenji’s former crime associate-turned-lawyer Ramon and Kenji’s ex-wife and adult film superstar Tabitha Stevens. Moderated by national TV crime commentator/author
Vito Colucci.

Book sales/signing will be available at each event. All seating will be on a first come, first served basis. Entry wristbands will be issued starting at 6 p.m. from the Theater box office on day of event only. For more information about any of our Mob Month events, please call 702-507-3458.

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John Travolta to Play John Gotti?

It's awesome casting ... John Travolta playing John Gotti in a new movie.

Travolta was at Amici restaurant (Italian, of course) in Brentwood last night, where he was coy about taking the role. But Marty Ingels -- the Executive Producer of the movie who dined with John -- was more direct, saying Travolta will play the lead role in the movie, titled "Gotti."

Sources tell us Travolta has not signed on the dotted line yet.

We're also told James Franco has been approached to play John Gotti, Jr. Awesome.

Our sources say Nick Cassavetes -- of "Alpha Dog" and "Notebook" fame -- is currently rewriting the script and will be the director.

Marc Fiore -- who purchased the rights to Gotti's story back in September -- was also at the last night's meeting and is Executive Producer on the film.

Thanks to TMZ

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Convicted Reputed Mob Boss Won $250,000 Worker's Comp Claim

An alleged Illinois mob boss convicted of racketeering once filed a worker's compensation claim and was awarded $250,000, testimony in his trial revealed.

Prosecutors say reputed Cicero mob boss Michael Sarno, 52, while running his criminal operations, presented himself in the claim as a trade show carpenter injured while working at Chicago's McCormick Place convention center, Chicago's SouthtownStar newspaper reported Tuesday.

The injury claim was mentioned in Sarno's December trial where he was convicted of racketeering conspiracy and faces 25 years in prison.

"He was certainly mobile enough to threaten people and conduct his mob-related business with considerable vigor," former federal prosecutor T. Markus Funk, who investigated Sarno, said.

"While having two jobs is, of course, not unheard of, it would not be unfair to raise a skeptic's eyebrow about a claim that Sarno, on the one hand, worked as a brutal mob boss running a multifaceted criminal enterprise, and at the same time punched his union carpenter ticket, banging in nails and whittling wood," Funk said.

"Not to be uncharitable, but that, frankly, is a level of multi-tasking few on the street would -- for a variety of reasons -- credit him with possessing."

Thanks to UPI

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Former Chicago Police Officer Jon Burge Sentenced for Lying about Police Torture

The Justice Department announced last week that former Chicago Police Department Commander Jon Burge, 63, of Apollo Beach, Fla., was sentenced to 54 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for lying in a deposition in a civil case about torture and abuse of suspects by Chicago Police Department officers. Burge’s sentence was an upward departure from the recommended Guidelines’ sentence.

Burge was convicted last June of two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury stemming from false answers he gave in a civil case in 2003. In those answers, Burge denied ever using, or being aware of other officers using, any type of improper coercion, physical abuse or torture with suspects who were in custody at Chicago Police Department’s Area Two. However, evidence at trial showed that Burge abused multiple victims in Area Two, suffocating them with plastic bags; shocking them with electrical devices; and placing a loaded gun to their heads.

In a 23-year career with the Chicago Police Department, Burge rose through the ranks to commander before being fired in 1993 over allegations of abuse. Special prosecutors were appointed in 2002 to investigate claims of abuse by Burge and others. A four-year investigation concluded that the abuse was outside the statute of limitations. It was a pending civil suit that was the basis for the federal charges in this case.

“Burge abused his power and betrayed the public trust by abusing suspects in his custody, and then by lying under oath to cover up what he and other officers had done,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The department will aggressively prosecute any officer who violates the Constitution.”

“Today, we put to rest the decades of denials that torture of suspects in police custody occurred,” said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. “This sentence delivers a measure of justice, which Burge obstructed for so long.”

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Weisman and April Perry from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois and Trial Attorney Betsy Biffl from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Largest Coordinated Mafia Arrest Takedown in FBI History

Early on morning of January 20th, FBI agents and partner law enforcement officers began arresting nearly 130 members of the Mafia in New York City and other East Coast cities charged in the largest nationally coordinated organized crime takedown in the Bureau’s history.

Members of New York’s infamous Five Families—the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Luchese crime organizations—were rounded up along with members of the New Jersery-based DeCavalcante family and New England Mafia to face charges including murder, drug trafficking, arson, loan sharking, illegal gambling, witness tampering, labor racketeering, and extortion. In one case involving the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) at the Ports of New York and New Jersey, the alleged extortion has been going on for years.

More than 30 of the subjects indicted were “made” members of the Mafia, including several high-ranking family members. The arrests, predominantly in New York, are expected to seriously disrupt some of the crime families’ operations.

"The notion that today's mob families are more genteel and less violent than in the past is put to lie by the charges contained in the indictments unsealed today,” said Janice Fedarcyk, assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York Field Office. “Even more of a myth is the notion that the mob is a thing of the past; that La Cosa Nostra is a shadow of its former self.”

The Mafia—also known as La Cosa Nostra (LCN)—may have taken on a diminished criminal role in some areas of the country, but in New York, the Five Families are still “extremely strong and viable,” said Dave Shafer, an assistant special agent in charge who supervises FBI organized crime investigations in New York.

The operation began before dawn. Some 500 FBI personnel—along with about 200 local, state, and other federal law enforcement officers—took part, including key agencies such as the New York Police Department and the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General. By 11 a.m., more than 110 of the 127 subjects charged had been taken into custody.

The idea for a nationally coordinated LCN takedown originated at the Department of Justice last summer, said Shafer, a veteran organized crime investigator. “We have done big LCN takedowns before, but never one this big.”

Among those charged:

• Luigi Manocchio, 83, the former boss of the New England LCN;
• Andrew Russo, 76, street boss of the Colombo family;
• Benjamin Castellazzo, 73, acting underboss of the Colombo family;
• Richard Fusco, 74, consigliere of the Colombo family;
• Joseph Corozzo, 69, consigliere of the Gambino family; and
• Bartolomeo Vernace, 61, a member of the Gambino family administration.

The LCN operates in many U.S. cities and routinely engages in threats and violence to extort victims, eliminate rivals, and obstruct justice. In the union case involving the ILA, court documents allege that the Genovese family has engaged in a multi-decade conspiracy to influence and control the unions and businesses on the New York-area piers.

“If there’s money to be made,” said Diego Rodriguez, special agent in charge of the FBI’s New York criminal division, “LCN will do it.” He noted that today’s Mafia has adapted to the times. “They are still involved in gambling and loan sharking, for example, but in the old days the local shoemaker took the betting slips. Now it’s offshore online gambling and money laundering. If you investigate LCN in New York,” Rodriguez added, “it’s a target-rich environment.”

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