John Burke, Gambino Organized Crime Family Associate, Sentenced to Life Imprisonment for Racketeering and Murder

John Burke, a longtime associate of the Gambino organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra (the “Gambino family”), was sentenced today to life imprisonment without parole plus 10 years for the murder of a rival drug dealer in aid of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, and other charges. On June 8, 2012, following a four-week trial before United States District Judge Sterling Johnson, Jr. in Brooklyn federal court, Burke was convicted of all charges in the superseding indictment. The sentence was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

As established at trial, Burke was a trusted Gambino family enforcer and drug dealer for nearly three decades. As part of the racketeering conspiracy, Burke participated in numerous acts of violence, including fatal shootings and home-invasion robberies, as well as drug trafficking involving cocaine and marijuana. Burke was convicted of two murder predicate acts, including the 1991 murder of Bruce Gotterup, who was shot in the back of the head on the boardwalk in the Rockaways, and the 1996 murder of John Gebert, who was slain under a pool table in a Woodhaven bar. The jury also found Burke guilty of the murder of John Gebert in aid of racketeering, murdering John Gebert as part of a continuing criminal enterprise, and a firearms charge.

Ms. Lynch expressed her appreciation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, the United States Marshals Service, and the other members of the law enforcement community for their efforts in the investigation and prosecution of this case.

The government’s case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, Evan M. Norris, and Whitman G.S. Knapp.

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Is the Russian Mob Dead?

One of the last mafia kingpins from Russia’s wild 1990s has died. Rather than marking the end of an era, the event is reminding Russians just how much their government has occupied the role once played by organized crime.

Grandpa Hassan, as the mafia don was known, spent his last day holding court in the downtown Moscow cafe that served as his headquarters. At 2:30 p.m., he emerged to catch two bullets in the head and back, from a sniper on a roof across the street. Within hours, “GrandpaHassan” was a trending topic on Twitter. In the very act of dying, a figure from a freer, more lawless era thrust the nation into an examination of its criminal past and present.

Grandpa, whose passport identified him as Aslan Usoyan, 75, was a legend in his own time. An ethnic Kurd, he was “crowned” in 1966 as a “vor v zakone” -- a Russian crime boss of the highest rank. He survived at least three assassination attempts, outliving most of the ranking mobsters of his generation and staying on in Russia as others left for warmer shores in Spain or Bulgaria. His livelihood involved mediating mob conflicts and running a network of shadowy interests, primarily in the south of Russia.

“Only one remained in Russia, one who was known to all without exception,” journalist Maxim Kononenko eulogized in the newspaper Izvestia. “A figure from an earlier time, a Loch Ness monster, a yeti, a real fossil -- someone who connected us to our past.”

As if in recognition of Usoyan’s importance, police immediately posted guards at the Botkin Hospital morgue where his body was delivered after doctors failed to revive him. “They should have called in the honorary guard from Lenin’s tomb,” wrote blogger Sergei Averin on Twitter.

Versions of why Usoyan finally met a violent death abounded. He was reported to be skimming off the multibillion- dollar budgets earmarked for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held on his home turf, in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi. Some said his old enemy Tariel Oniani, an opponent in gangland wars since the 1980s, must have been involved in the killing. Others suggested that he had been selling weapons to Kurdish separatists in Turkey, and the hit was punishment from the Turkish special services. Still others blamed younger mobsters fed up with Hassan’s old-school methods and abnormally long reign.

“I’m sick of this Hassan already,” blogger Sergei Nikolaev commented on Twitter. “It’s as if half the country has just got out of jail.”

Since the early 2000s, mobsters had faded from public view in Russia. Stories of the “Russian mafia” were for naive foreigners. In that context, some commentators portrayed Usoyan’s demise as a benefit of Putin’s authoritarian rule.

“The murder of Grandpa Hassan has put a full stop at the end of the ’accursed ’90’s’ story, unless he somehow manages to rise from the dead,” Vladimir Novikov wrote on the state- controlled site RAPSInews.ru.

“Such murders and a well-developed criminal underworld are features of market democracies such as the U.S. or Italy,” Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee, commented in his microblog.

Others, though, see less difference between the current regime and the organized crime of old. Under Putin’s tight clique of former KGB officers, law enforcement agencies have become more powerful than any mafia. Extortion and racketeering are now largely the turf of tax inspectors and economic-crime police.

“Private business is still deprived of effective protection on the part of the law enforcement system and the courts,” wrote journalist Mikhail Kozyrev on the opinion website Slon.ru. “If there is demand for fair solutions to problems, there will also be supply” from bureaucrats, police, special services and even crime bosses. “Quite law-abiding businessmen reach out to them for protection.”

In short, the mobsters are not really gone. They have merely been forced to share the market with other protection peddlers. Albeit less visible, they are just as wealthy and well-connected.

“I have met some mobster-businessmen with close ties” to state-owned companies, bureaucrats and special services, investigative journalist Irina Reznik wrote in a Facebook comment. “Very often these businessmen have run errands too shady for government-appointed managers and officials.”

Grandpa Hassan’s cafe office, after all, was just a mile from the Kremlin.

(Leonid Bershidsky, an editor and novelist, is Moscow and Kiev correspondent for World View. Opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: bershidsky@gmail.com.

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The Mob Museum Offers Opportunity to Take a Blood Oath

HELP SAVE LIVES BY TAKING THE BLOOD OATH AT THE MOB MUSEUM
 
WHAT: As part of the upcoming celebration to mark its first anniversary this February, The Mob Museum, The National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement is teaming up with the United Blood Services to encourage guests to take the blood oath… by donating.

Donors are encouraged to make an appointment for the Museum’s anniversary blood drive online at https://www.bloodhero.com/index.cfm?group=op&step=2&opid=533493 or by calling (877) 827-4376. Sponsor code: MobMuseum.

As part of its commitment to the community, the Museum is pleased to offer two complimentary tickets to everyone who registers at this event.

FACT: The “blood oath” originated with the Mafia. To become a full member of La Cosa Nostra, aspiring members had to pass initiation rituals, which included pricking the finger with a needle by an officiating member with a few drops of blood spilled onto a card bearing the likeness of a saint. The card was then set on fire and while it burned, the oath of loyalty was taken.

Inside The Mob Museum, visitors can witness a “blood oath” ceremony for themselves. The video representation of the ceremony on view in the exhibition was created based upon court testimony and legal evidence.

WHO: Marking its first anniversary this Valentine’s Day, The Mob Museum, The National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, is a world-class destination in downtown Las Vegas dedicated to the thrilling story of organized crime and law enforcement. It presents an exciting and authentic view of the mob’s impact on Las Vegas history and its unique imprint on the world. True stories of mob history are brought to life in a bold and contemporary style via engaging exhibits, high-tech theater presentations and more than 600 artifacts, the largest collection of Mob and related law enforcement memorabilia under one roof.

Founded in 1963, United Blood Services of Las Vegas, a non-profit, 501 (c)(3) organization, provides blood and blood products for hospitals in Southern Nevada, California and Northern Arizona. Its programs exist to make a difference in people’s lives by inspiring individuals to donate blood, producing a safe and ample blood supply, advancing cutting-edge research and embracing continuous quality improvement. The United Blood Services network is one of the nation’s oldest and largest non-profit blood service organizations and is a founding member of America's Blood Centers and the American Association of Blood Banks. Nationally, United Blood Services serves more than 500 hospitals in 18 states, contributing to more than 25 million people.

WHEN: Saturday, Feb. 9 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

WHERE: The Mob Museum’s multi-purpose room
300 East Stewart Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89101

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Preliminary Crime Reports Show Violent Crimes Up 1.9% and Property Crimes Up 1.5%

According to statistics from our Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January-June 2012, the number of violent crimes reported by law enforcement for the first six months of 2012 increased 1.9 percent over figures from the same period in 2011. Property crimes also rose 1.5 percent overall.

Violent Crime.

Two of the four offenses in the violent crime category actually showed overall decreases when compared with data from the first six months of 2011—murders dropped 1.7 percent and forcible rapes fell 1.4 percent. But the number of robberies increased 2.0 percent and aggravated assaults 2.3 percent.

At a regional level, the West saw the largest overall jump in violent crime—up 3.1 percent—followed by a rise of 2.5 percent in the Midwest and 1.1 each percent in the South and the Northeast. Despite these increases, the number of murders fell 4.8 percent in the South and 2.4 percent in the Northeast.

The only violent crime offense category that showed increases in all four regions of the country was aggravated assault, which was up 4.4 percent in the Midwest, 2.4 percent in the West, 1.7 percent in the South, and 0.8 percent in the Northeast.

Property crime.

On the property crime front, all three offense categories showed overall increases—1.9 percent for larceny-theft, 1.7 percent for motor vehicle theft, and 0.1 percent for burglary.

Regionally, the West saw the largest rise in property crime—up 4.7 percent, followed closely by the Northeast at 4.0 percent. The Midwest was up 1.3 percent, but the South actually showed a decrease of 1.4 percent.

For individual property crime offense categories, statistics indicate that the West had the largest increase in the number of burglaries (up 6.7 percent) and motor vehicle thefts (up 8.1 percent). And the Northeast had the largest rise in the number of larceny-thefts, which were up 4.5 percent.

The statistics for arson, collected separately from other property crimes because of varying degrees of reporting among law enforcement agencies, showed an overall jump of 3.2 percent during the first six months of 2012. Three of the four regions of the country reported increases—up 11.0 percent in the Midwest, 6.4 percent in the West, and 5.7 percent in the Northeast. The South saw a 5.6 decrease in arson offenses.

New offense categories.

On the heels of National Slavery and Human Trafficking Awareness Month this January, our UCR program will begin collecting human trafficking data this year in two categories—commercial sex acts and involuntary servitude. The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 requires the data collection, and with input from our law enforcement partners, the UCR program began developing specific definitions and data collection guidelines for these offenses. Stay tuned for more details on implementation.

Preliminary crime stats for the full year—contained in UCR’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report, January-December 2012—should be available in six months, and final figures are scheduled to be released by the end of the year.

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Jimmy Hoffa Buried in Detroit Suburbs According to Reputed Mafia Capo Tony Zerilli

A man convicted of crimes as a reputed Mafia captain is claiming missing Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa was buried in suburban Detroit.

Tony Zerilli was in prison when Hoffa disappeared from a Detroit-area restaurant in 1975, but tells New York TV station WNBC he was informed about Hoffa's whereabouts after his release. The ailing 85-year-old took a reporter to a field near Rochester, north of Detroit, but no exact location was disclosed. The report was also aired on Detroit's WDIV.

"The master plan was ... they were going to put him in a shallow grave here," Zerilli said. "Then, they were going to take him from here to Rogers City upstate. There was a hunting lodge and they were going to bury in a shallow grave, then take him up there for final burial. Then, I understand, that it just fell through."

Zerilli did not say during the aired interview why he chose to make his claims now. WNBC reported he is promoting an upcoming book titled "Hoffa Found," the website for which promises to reveal details about Hoffa's death.

No listed phone number for Zerilli could be found Monday by The Associated Press.

The FBI declined to comment when asked if Zerilli's claims were credible. Former Detroit FBI head Andrew Arena said the remarks deserve serious consideration."Anthony Zerilli was reputed to be the underboss of the Detroit organized crime family, so he would have been in the know," Arena said.

Zerilli's criminal record includes a 2002 conviction for conspiracy and extortion. He was sentenced to six years in prison.

Hoffa, Teamsters president from 1957-71, was an acquaintance of mobsters and adversary to federal officials. The day he disappeared, he was supposed to meet with a New Jersey Teamsters boss and a Detroit Mafia captain.

In September, police took soil from a suburban backyard after a tip Hoffa had been buried there. It was just one of many fruitless searches. Previous tips led police to a horse farm northwest of Detroit in 2006, a Detroit home in 2004 and a backyard pool two hours north of the city in 2003.

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