Two Union County, New Jersey, men, including the owner of an illegal online sports betting website, admitted to conspiring with the Genovese organized crime family, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Joseph Graziano, 77, and Dominick J. Barone, 44, both of Springfield, New Jersey, each pleaded guilty before District Judge Claire C. Cecchi in Newark federal court to separate informations charging them with one count of racketeering conspiracy. Graziano agreed to forfeit $1 million to the United States and Barone agreed to forfeit $100,000.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
Graziano was the principal owner of Beteagle.com, a website located in Costa Rica and used to facilitate illegal online sports betting. Barone worked with Graziano in carrying out the daily activities of the website and both men conspired with the Genovese Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra in the operation of Beteagle. Joseph Lascala, 80, of Monroe, New Jersey, was the alleged “capo” and a made member of the Genovese family operating in northern New Jersey. He directed the criminal activities of a smaller group of associates, referred to as a crew, whose activities included illegal gambling and the collection of unlawful debt.
This organized crime crew and Graziano and Barone joined forces to allow traditional organized crime members and associates to use the Internet and current technology to conduct traditional organized crime by engaging in and profiting from illegal sports betting through the website. Associates of the crew were given access to Beteagle and were considered “agents.” Before the advent of computerized betting, these agents would have been referred to as “bookmakers” or “bookies.” The agents had the ability to track the “sub-agents,” or bookies, under them and the wagers placed by their bettors. The agent or sub-agent maintained a group of bettors (the “package”) and were responsible for those bettors.
To place bets online, the agent or sub-agent issued the bettor a username and password to access Beteagle. This access was not given online and no money or credits were made or transferred through the website. Associates of the crew paid out winnings or collected losses in person. If a bettor failed to pay his gamblin losses, the crew used their LCN status and threats of violence to collect on these debts.
The agent or sub-agent paid a fee to the website for each bettor added to a package. Barone and others made weekly collections of cash in furtherance of the scheme.
The count of racketeering conspiracy carries a maximum potential punishment of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Sentencing is scheduled for Barone is scheduled for Nov. 12, 2014, and for Graziano, Nov. 18, 2014.
To date, John Breheney, a/k/a “Johnny Fugazi, Fu, Johnny Fu,” 49, and Salvatore Turchio, 48, both of Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey; Patsy Pirozzi, a/k/a “Uncle Patsy,” 75, of Suffern, New York; and José Gotay, 76, New Milford, New Jersey, have pleaded guilty to their respective roles in this racketeering conspiracy and await sentencing.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Hegewisch Babe Ruth Baseball Program Allowed Convicted Murderer Cop Killer to Coach Little League Kids #NeverForgetJohnMathews
Joey Mathews can still name all five men convicted of killing his father, Chicago Police Officer John Mathews, in Hegewisch 26 years ago, and he’s furious one of them has been coaching youth baseball in the same neighborhood, years after finishing his prison sentence.
WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser reports Joey Mathews was 4 years old when his father was beaten to death by a group of young men near Wolf Lake on the night of May 21, 1988.
“My dad never had a chance to coach me. I don’t have a single memory of my dad,” he said.
One of the five men convicted of the crime, Dean Chavez, served 11 years in prison for second-degree murder. In recent years, he has been coaching in the Hegewisch Babe Ruth Baseball program. Earlier this season, he was removed by the national president of the Babe Ruth League, at the request of Mathews’ family.
“He may have served his time in prison. I know my family will forever. Until the day I’m dead, I’ll be serving my time. That’s not some sort of a grudge against him. The fact of the matter is he beat my dad to death with baseball bats, and he’s trying to coach kids to play baseball. I think it’s pretty audacious,” Joey Mathews said.
Nearly 30 years after his father’s death, Mathews said he can still rattle off the names of all five men convicted in connection his father’s murder. Chavez and his brother, Anthony, were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 27 years, James Kennedy was sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder, Ralph Gabriel was convicted of second-degree murder, and was sentenced to 10 years. Edward Manzo, who testified against the Chavz brothers, pleaded guilty to concealing a homicide and was sentenced to two years.
“If I develop Alzheimer’s in the later stages of my life, I feel like that may be the only names I remember. I grew obsessed with the case when I was 8 years old, because my family moved to Naperville, and I started wondering why everyone had a dad, and I didn’t,” Mathews said.
Mathews said he learned recently his voice is the same as his dad’s, after seeing a family video. “I was so proud that I had something of his, you know?” he said.
He said the strain this has put on his mother prompted him to act. “I just see her as a 23-year-old widow again, and it breaks my heart,” he said. “I think it’s … I understand life’s unfair, and this is certainly unfair as well, but I have to look beyond my individual scope, and focus on what I can do now to make sure it doesn’t happen to anybody in the future.”
He wants the Hegewisch board removed, and to make sure Chavez can’t coach again.
“The parents of players that are in the league just assume ‘Oh, they know he’s a good guy. No big deal.’ And now they find this out. It’s like, what are you doing? Why are you letting my kid around a murderer when you know he’s a murderer?” Mathews said.
One board member said this was the first year background checks were required for coaches, and to the best of her knowledge, a background check was done, but Mathews wasn’t buying it.
Chavez himself said he’s not interested in coaching again, and will pay for his crime for the rest of his life.
The league has scheduled an open meeting for Wednesday night at Steve’s Lounge in Hegewisch.
Thanks to Mike Krauser.
WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser reports Joey Mathews was 4 years old when his father was beaten to death by a group of young men near Wolf Lake on the night of May 21, 1988.
“My dad never had a chance to coach me. I don’t have a single memory of my dad,” he said.
One of the five men convicted of the crime, Dean Chavez, served 11 years in prison for second-degree murder. In recent years, he has been coaching in the Hegewisch Babe Ruth Baseball program. Earlier this season, he was removed by the national president of the Babe Ruth League, at the request of Mathews’ family.
“He may have served his time in prison. I know my family will forever. Until the day I’m dead, I’ll be serving my time. That’s not some sort of a grudge against him. The fact of the matter is he beat my dad to death with baseball bats, and he’s trying to coach kids to play baseball. I think it’s pretty audacious,” Joey Mathews said.
Nearly 30 years after his father’s death, Mathews said he can still rattle off the names of all five men convicted in connection his father’s murder. Chavez and his brother, Anthony, were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 27 years, James Kennedy was sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder, Ralph Gabriel was convicted of second-degree murder, and was sentenced to 10 years. Edward Manzo, who testified against the Chavz brothers, pleaded guilty to concealing a homicide and was sentenced to two years.
“If I develop Alzheimer’s in the later stages of my life, I feel like that may be the only names I remember. I grew obsessed with the case when I was 8 years old, because my family moved to Naperville, and I started wondering why everyone had a dad, and I didn’t,” Mathews said.
Mathews said he learned recently his voice is the same as his dad’s, after seeing a family video. “I was so proud that I had something of his, you know?” he said.
He said the strain this has put on his mother prompted him to act. “I just see her as a 23-year-old widow again, and it breaks my heart,” he said. “I think it’s … I understand life’s unfair, and this is certainly unfair as well, but I have to look beyond my individual scope, and focus on what I can do now to make sure it doesn’t happen to anybody in the future.”
He wants the Hegewisch board removed, and to make sure Chavez can’t coach again.
“The parents of players that are in the league just assume ‘Oh, they know he’s a good guy. No big deal.’ And now they find this out. It’s like, what are you doing? Why are you letting my kid around a murderer when you know he’s a murderer?” Mathews said.
One board member said this was the first year background checks were required for coaches, and to the best of her knowledge, a background check was done, but Mathews wasn’t buying it.
Chavez himself said he’s not interested in coaching again, and will pay for his crime for the rest of his life.
The league has scheduled an open meeting for Wednesday night at Steve’s Lounge in Hegewisch.
Thanks to Mike Krauser.
Was Jimmy Hoffa Killed by Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran
It all started, and ended, on this day nearly four decades ago.
It was a hot July afternoon, nearly 92 degrees, when Teamsters president and labor icon Jimmy Hoffa is said to have opened the rear door of a 1975 maroon Mercury in the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant, in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and climbed in.
He was never seen again.
The FBI has expended countless resources in the ensuing decades in the hopes of finally solving this enduring American mystery with no success. But I believe, based on my 2004 investigation, that Frank Sheeran did it.
"Suspects Outside of Michigan: Francis Joseph "Frank" Sheeran, age 43, president local 326, Wilmington, Delaware. Resides in Philadelphia and is known associate of Russel Bufalino, La Cosa Nostra Chief, Eastern Pennsylvania," reads the 1976 HOFFEX memo, the compilation of everything investigators knew about Hoffa's disappearance that was prepared for a high level, secret conference at FBI headquarters six months after he vanished.
Sheeran, known as "The Irishman," told me that he drove with Hoffa to a nearby house where he shot him twice in the back of the head. Our investigation subsequently yielded the corroboration, the suspected blood evidence on the hardwood floor and down the hallway of that house, that supports Frank's story.
No one who has ever boasted about knowing what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa has had their claims tested, scrutinized, and then corroborated by independently discovered evidence... except Frank.
He is also the only one of the FBI's dozen suspects who has ever come forward and talked publicly about the killing, let alone admit involvement.
Every other claim that you have ever heard about, from Hoffa being buried in the end zone of Giants Stadium to being entombed under a strip of highway asphalt somewhere, came from people who were never on the bureau's list of people suspected of actual involvement.
For that reason, Frank stands alone.
Six weeks after Hoffa disappeared, Frank, along with the other suspects, was summoned before the Detroit grand jury investigating the case. He took the Fifth.
When I met him in the spring of 2001, Frank freely talked.
My meeting with Frank was arranged so that I could take his measure, and he mine, for a possible in-depth investigation, interview and news story about his claims. He was accompanied by his former lawyer Charlie Brandt, the author of Frank’s then-proposed biography, which tells the Hoffa story. Charlie had been able to spring Frank from a Mafia-related federal racketeering prison sentence, and for that reason was taken into Frank's confidence.
It would be three years before the book, ""I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Last Ride of Jimmy Hoffa" would be published by Steerforth Press, and before the first of my many news stories about Frank, and our investigation, would air on television.
His story is this:
He and others were ordered by the Mafia to kill Hoffa to prevent him from trying to run again for the presidency of the Teamsters union. Hoffa had resigned after serving prison time for jury tampering, attempted bribery and fraud convictions. Frank picked Hoffa up at the restaurant, accompanied by two others, to supposedly drive Hoffa to a mob meeting. When they walked into the empty house together, with Frank a step behind Hoffa, he raised his pistol at point-blank range and fired two fatal shots into his unsuspecting target, turned around and left. He said the body was then dragged down the hall by two awaiting accomplices, and that he was later told Hoffa was cremated at a mob-connected funeral home.
Frank had an imposing, old-school mobster way about him that even his advanced years -- he was 80-- did not betray. His menacing aura was not diminished by a severe case of arthritis that crippled him so badly that he was hunched over when he slowly walked with two canes, struggling to put one foot in front of the other.
I found Frank tough, determined, steely.
As I listened to his matter-of-fact recounting of what he said went down at that house, and giving such detail, I remember thinking what he was saying could actually be true.
Here's why:
There is no doubt that Frank was a close confidant of Hoffa, someone who Hoffa trusted. And Hoffa didn't trust very many.
Frank was both a long-time top Teamsters Union official in Delaware as well as an admitted Bufalino crime family hit-man and top aide to the boss himself.
The FBI admits that Frank was "known to be in Detroit area at the time of JRH disappearance, and considered to be a close friend of JRH," as the HOFFEX memo states.
Hoffa's son, current Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, told me in September 2001 that his father would have gotten into the car with Frank. He said that his father would not have taken that ride with some of the other FBI suspects whom I mentioned.
Frank, in the book, says that he sat in the front passenger seat of the car as a subtle warning to Hoffa, who habitually sat there. He felt a deep friendship and loyalty to Hoffa, yet knew what his own fate would be if he failed to carry out the lethal order from his mob masters. So he sat in the front seat hoping Hoffa would realize something was wrong. He did not.
The FBI did find "a single three-inch brown hair...in the rear seat back rest" of that car that matches Hoffa, and three dogs picked up "a strong indication of JRH scents in the rear right seat."
During my interview, I asked Frank if he remembered how to get to the house. I thought finding where Hoffa was killed, and investigating everything about the house, could be key to the case. Frank rattled off the driving directions from the restaurant and described the house's interior layout.
Killers may not remember an exact address of a murder scene, but they never forget how they got there and what they did when they arrived.
"Sheeran gave us the directions," Charlie wrote in the book. "This was the first time he had ever revealed the directions to me. His deepened voice and hard demeanor was chilling, when, for the first time ever, he stated publicly to someone other than me that he had shot Jimmy Hoffa."
A year after our meeting, Charlie and Frank drove to Detroit to try to find the house, and when they did Frank pointed it out to Charlie. They did not go in.
Three years later, in 2004, I, along with producer Ed Barnes and Charlie, first stepped foot into the foyer where Frank said he shot Hoffa, looked around the first floor and as it turned out, Frank's description fit the interior to a tee.
Ed and I arranged with the homeowners to actually take up the foyer and hallway floorboards and remove the press-on vinyl floor tiles that they had put down over the original hardwood floors when they bought the house in 1989.
We hired a forensic team of retired Michigan state police investigators to try to find any blood evidence. They sprayed the chemical luminol on the floors, which homicide detectives routinely use to discover the presence of blood.
We found it.
The testing revealed a specific pattern of blood evidence, laid out like a map of clues to the nation's most infamous unsolved murder. Little yellow numbered tags were placed throughout the first floor foyer and hallway, to mark each spot where the investigators' testing yielded positive hits.
The pattern certainly told the story of how Hoffa was killed.
The greatest amount of positive hits were found right next to the front door, where Hoffa's bleeding head would have hit the floor.
Seven more tags lined the narrow hallway toward the rear kitchen, marking the drops that perfectly mimic Frank's story of Hoffa’s lifeless body being dragged to the kitchen by the two waiting accomplices, who then stuffed it into a body bag and carried it out the back kitchen door.
We arranged for the Oakland County prosecutor's office to remove the floorboards for DNA testing by the FBI, though Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca cautioned that it would be "a miracle" if Hoffa's DNA was recovered.
I knew those odds. A DNA hit was beyond a long shot.
Experts told me that such tiny samples of genetic material, degraded by the passage of 29 years and exposure to air and the elements under a homeowner's heavily trafficked floor, would likely not provide enough material to result in a DNA match.
The FBI lab report says that chemical tests were conducted on 50 specimens; 28 tested positive for the possible presence of blood, and DNA was only recovered from two samples.
The FBI compared what was recovered to the DNA from a known strand of Hoffa's hair. One sample was found to be "of male origin," but it was not determined from whom. The other result was "largely inconclusive."
Was I disappointed that a DNA match was not possible? Yes. Was I surprised? No. Did I think this disproved Frank's claim? No.
Think about it.
What are the chances of any random house in America testing positive for blood traces from more than two dozen samples, in the exact pattern that corroborates a man's murder confession?
What would luminol reveal under your home's floor?
There are other reasons to believe why Frank's scenario fits.
The house was most likely empty on that fateful summer day. It was built in the 1920's and owned for five decades by a single woman, Martha Sellers, a teacher and department store employee. By the summer of 1975, Sellers was in her 80s, and not even living there full time. Her family told The Detroit News and Free Press that she had bought another home in Plymouth, Mich., where she would move permanently the next year.
In his book, Frank says that a man he called "a real estater" lived in the house. The Sellers family remembered that boarder, who they recalled resided in an upstairs bedroom. He was described as "a shadowy figure...who would disappear. He never said more than a few words and they know nothing about him, not even his name."
It is quite possible that "the real estater," was the link between the house and the Detroit mob, providing an empty house as needed, when Sellers was absent, for whatever purpose...including using it as a Mafia hit house to murder Jimmy Hoffa.
The FBI clearly believed Sheeran had credibility. Agents visited him in his final years, in an unsuccessful attempt to secure his cooperation.
While we were conducting our investigation in Detroit in 2004, the FBI, I was told, tried to find the house even before we aired our story.
And the views of those closest to Jimmy Hoffa, his son and daughter seem especially relevant when assessing Frank's credibility.
Not only did James P. Hoffa confirm that his father would have driven off with Frank, but his sister, Hoffa's daughter, Barbara Crancer, wrote Frank a poignant letter begging him to come clean about their father's fate.
The one-page heartfelt note, handwritten to Frank on March 5, 1995, is detailed in the book.
"It is my personal belief that there are many people who called themselves loyal friends who know what happened to James R. Hoffa, who did it and why. The fact that not one of them has ever told his family -- even under a vow of secrecy, is painful to me..." Hoffa's daughter wrote.
She then underlined: "I believe you are one of those people."
Crancer confirmed to me that she wrote that letter.
Sadly for the Hoffa family, Frank never directly honored her request. When I sat with him, he said that his No. 1 priority was not to go back to "college," meaning prison. He decided that the best way to avoid that possibility, while also revealing his story, was to cooperate with Charlie for the book and to share his secrets with me for my investigation and reporting.
Frank died on Dec. 14, 2003. He was 83.
While authorities no doubt will continue to respond to more tips, as they should, I believe that we already know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.
Frank described the most precise and credible scenario yet to be recounted, and the evidence that we found from the floor backs up his confession.
Thanks to Eric Shawn.
It was a hot July afternoon, nearly 92 degrees, when Teamsters president and labor icon Jimmy Hoffa is said to have opened the rear door of a 1975 maroon Mercury in the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant, in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and climbed in.
He was never seen again.
The FBI has expended countless resources in the ensuing decades in the hopes of finally solving this enduring American mystery with no success. But I believe, based on my 2004 investigation, that Frank Sheeran did it.
"Suspects Outside of Michigan: Francis Joseph "Frank" Sheeran, age 43, president local 326, Wilmington, Delaware. Resides in Philadelphia and is known associate of Russel Bufalino, La Cosa Nostra Chief, Eastern Pennsylvania," reads the 1976 HOFFEX memo, the compilation of everything investigators knew about Hoffa's disappearance that was prepared for a high level, secret conference at FBI headquarters six months after he vanished.
Sheeran, known as "The Irishman," told me that he drove with Hoffa to a nearby house where he shot him twice in the back of the head. Our investigation subsequently yielded the corroboration, the suspected blood evidence on the hardwood floor and down the hallway of that house, that supports Frank's story.
No one who has ever boasted about knowing what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa has had their claims tested, scrutinized, and then corroborated by independently discovered evidence... except Frank.
He is also the only one of the FBI's dozen suspects who has ever come forward and talked publicly about the killing, let alone admit involvement.
Every other claim that you have ever heard about, from Hoffa being buried in the end zone of Giants Stadium to being entombed under a strip of highway asphalt somewhere, came from people who were never on the bureau's list of people suspected of actual involvement.
For that reason, Frank stands alone.
Six weeks after Hoffa disappeared, Frank, along with the other suspects, was summoned before the Detroit grand jury investigating the case. He took the Fifth.
When I met him in the spring of 2001, Frank freely talked.
My meeting with Frank was arranged so that I could take his measure, and he mine, for a possible in-depth investigation, interview and news story about his claims. He was accompanied by his former lawyer Charlie Brandt, the author of Frank’s then-proposed biography, which tells the Hoffa story. Charlie had been able to spring Frank from a Mafia-related federal racketeering prison sentence, and for that reason was taken into Frank's confidence.
It would be three years before the book, ""I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Last Ride of Jimmy Hoffa" would be published by Steerforth Press, and before the first of my many news stories about Frank, and our investigation, would air on television.
His story is this:
He and others were ordered by the Mafia to kill Hoffa to prevent him from trying to run again for the presidency of the Teamsters union. Hoffa had resigned after serving prison time for jury tampering, attempted bribery and fraud convictions. Frank picked Hoffa up at the restaurant, accompanied by two others, to supposedly drive Hoffa to a mob meeting. When they walked into the empty house together, with Frank a step behind Hoffa, he raised his pistol at point-blank range and fired two fatal shots into his unsuspecting target, turned around and left. He said the body was then dragged down the hall by two awaiting accomplices, and that he was later told Hoffa was cremated at a mob-connected funeral home.Frank had an imposing, old-school mobster way about him that even his advanced years -- he was 80-- did not betray. His menacing aura was not diminished by a severe case of arthritis that crippled him so badly that he was hunched over when he slowly walked with two canes, struggling to put one foot in front of the other.
I found Frank tough, determined, steely.
As I listened to his matter-of-fact recounting of what he said went down at that house, and giving such detail, I remember thinking what he was saying could actually be true.
Here's why:
There is no doubt that Frank was a close confidant of Hoffa, someone who Hoffa trusted. And Hoffa didn't trust very many.
Frank was both a long-time top Teamsters Union official in Delaware as well as an admitted Bufalino crime family hit-man and top aide to the boss himself.
The FBI admits that Frank was "known to be in Detroit area at the time of JRH disappearance, and considered to be a close friend of JRH," as the HOFFEX memo states.
Hoffa's son, current Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, told me in September 2001 that his father would have gotten into the car with Frank. He said that his father would not have taken that ride with some of the other FBI suspects whom I mentioned.
Frank, in the book, says that he sat in the front passenger seat of the car as a subtle warning to Hoffa, who habitually sat there. He felt a deep friendship and loyalty to Hoffa, yet knew what his own fate would be if he failed to carry out the lethal order from his mob masters. So he sat in the front seat hoping Hoffa would realize something was wrong. He did not.
The FBI did find "a single three-inch brown hair...in the rear seat back rest" of that car that matches Hoffa, and three dogs picked up "a strong indication of JRH scents in the rear right seat."
During my interview, I asked Frank if he remembered how to get to the house. I thought finding where Hoffa was killed, and investigating everything about the house, could be key to the case. Frank rattled off the driving directions from the restaurant and described the house's interior layout.
Killers may not remember an exact address of a murder scene, but they never forget how they got there and what they did when they arrived.
"Sheeran gave us the directions," Charlie wrote in the book. "This was the first time he had ever revealed the directions to me. His deepened voice and hard demeanor was chilling, when, for the first time ever, he stated publicly to someone other than me that he had shot Jimmy Hoffa."
A year after our meeting, Charlie and Frank drove to Detroit to try to find the house, and when they did Frank pointed it out to Charlie. They did not go in.
Three years later, in 2004, I, along with producer Ed Barnes and Charlie, first stepped foot into the foyer where Frank said he shot Hoffa, looked around the first floor and as it turned out, Frank's description fit the interior to a tee.
Ed and I arranged with the homeowners to actually take up the foyer and hallway floorboards and remove the press-on vinyl floor tiles that they had put down over the original hardwood floors when they bought the house in 1989.
We hired a forensic team of retired Michigan state police investigators to try to find any blood evidence. They sprayed the chemical luminol on the floors, which homicide detectives routinely use to discover the presence of blood.
We found it.
The testing revealed a specific pattern of blood evidence, laid out like a map of clues to the nation's most infamous unsolved murder. Little yellow numbered tags were placed throughout the first floor foyer and hallway, to mark each spot where the investigators' testing yielded positive hits.
The pattern certainly told the story of how Hoffa was killed.
The greatest amount of positive hits were found right next to the front door, where Hoffa's bleeding head would have hit the floor.
Seven more tags lined the narrow hallway toward the rear kitchen, marking the drops that perfectly mimic Frank's story of Hoffa’s lifeless body being dragged to the kitchen by the two waiting accomplices, who then stuffed it into a body bag and carried it out the back kitchen door.
We arranged for the Oakland County prosecutor's office to remove the floorboards for DNA testing by the FBI, though Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca cautioned that it would be "a miracle" if Hoffa's DNA was recovered.
I knew those odds. A DNA hit was beyond a long shot.
Experts told me that such tiny samples of genetic material, degraded by the passage of 29 years and exposure to air and the elements under a homeowner's heavily trafficked floor, would likely not provide enough material to result in a DNA match.
The FBI lab report says that chemical tests were conducted on 50 specimens; 28 tested positive for the possible presence of blood, and DNA was only recovered from two samples.
The FBI compared what was recovered to the DNA from a known strand of Hoffa's hair. One sample was found to be "of male origin," but it was not determined from whom. The other result was "largely inconclusive."
Was I disappointed that a DNA match was not possible? Yes. Was I surprised? No. Did I think this disproved Frank's claim? No.
Think about it.
What are the chances of any random house in America testing positive for blood traces from more than two dozen samples, in the exact pattern that corroborates a man's murder confession?
What would luminol reveal under your home's floor?
There are other reasons to believe why Frank's scenario fits.
The house was most likely empty on that fateful summer day. It was built in the 1920's and owned for five decades by a single woman, Martha Sellers, a teacher and department store employee. By the summer of 1975, Sellers was in her 80s, and not even living there full time. Her family told The Detroit News and Free Press that she had bought another home in Plymouth, Mich., where she would move permanently the next year.
In his book, Frank says that a man he called "a real estater" lived in the house. The Sellers family remembered that boarder, who they recalled resided in an upstairs bedroom. He was described as "a shadowy figure...who would disappear. He never said more than a few words and they know nothing about him, not even his name."
It is quite possible that "the real estater," was the link between the house and the Detroit mob, providing an empty house as needed, when Sellers was absent, for whatever purpose...including using it as a Mafia hit house to murder Jimmy Hoffa.
The FBI clearly believed Sheeran had credibility. Agents visited him in his final years, in an unsuccessful attempt to secure his cooperation.
While we were conducting our investigation in Detroit in 2004, the FBI, I was told, tried to find the house even before we aired our story.
And the views of those closest to Jimmy Hoffa, his son and daughter seem especially relevant when assessing Frank's credibility.
Not only did James P. Hoffa confirm that his father would have driven off with Frank, but his sister, Hoffa's daughter, Barbara Crancer, wrote Frank a poignant letter begging him to come clean about their father's fate.
The one-page heartfelt note, handwritten to Frank on March 5, 1995, is detailed in the book.
"It is my personal belief that there are many people who called themselves loyal friends who know what happened to James R. Hoffa, who did it and why. The fact that not one of them has ever told his family -- even under a vow of secrecy, is painful to me..." Hoffa's daughter wrote.
She then underlined: "I believe you are one of those people."
Crancer confirmed to me that she wrote that letter.
Sadly for the Hoffa family, Frank never directly honored her request. When I sat with him, he said that his No. 1 priority was not to go back to "college," meaning prison. He decided that the best way to avoid that possibility, while also revealing his story, was to cooperate with Charlie for the book and to share his secrets with me for my investigation and reporting.
Frank died on Dec. 14, 2003. He was 83.
While authorities no doubt will continue to respond to more tips, as they should, I believe that we already know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.
Frank described the most precise and credible scenario yet to be recounted, and the evidence that we found from the floor backs up his confession.
Thanks to Eric Shawn.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Leader of Colombian Drug Trafficking Organization Sentenced to 18 Years in Federal Prison #OperationPanamaExpress
U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore sentenced Vinston Boxton-Moises (49, San Andres Island, Colombia, South America) to 18 years in federal prison for conspiring with others to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, knowing and intending that the cocaine would be unlawfully imported into the United States. Boxton was arrested on San Andres Island, Colombia in August 2013. He was subsequently extradited to the United States for prosecution. Boxton pleaded guilty on May 6, 2014.
According to court documents, between 2010 and 2013 Boxton was a knowing and willing participant in an ongoing plan to smuggle cocaine by sea. The cocaine was ultimately destined for unlawful importation into the United States. Boxton’s roles in the conspiracy included recruiting and paying mariners and mechanics, contracting for the use of smuggling and lookout/logistics vessels, and dispatching cocaine-laden go-fast vessels (GFVs).
Boxton is accountable for the GFV TAUPLY, interdicted by the United States in the Caribbean Sea on May 31, 2012, on the high seas and in international waters, approximately 85 nautical miles southeast of Nicaragua. The TAUPLY interdiction resulted in the seizure of approximately 1,000 kilograms of cocaine. Boxton arranged for the recruitment and payment of the mariners who ultimately operated TAUPLY and attempted to smuggle the cocaine. The Government of Colombia consented to the enforcement of United States law by the United States over the TAUPLY, its illicit cargo (cocaine), and crew. The five mariners who smuggled the cocaine on board the TAUPLY were successfully prosecuted in the United States for violations of the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act.
This case was investigated by the Panama Express Strike Force, a standing Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation, comprised of agents and analysts from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Coast Guard Investigative Service, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and U.S. Southern Command’s Joint Interagency Task Force South.
According to court documents, between 2010 and 2013 Boxton was a knowing and willing participant in an ongoing plan to smuggle cocaine by sea. The cocaine was ultimately destined for unlawful importation into the United States. Boxton’s roles in the conspiracy included recruiting and paying mariners and mechanics, contracting for the use of smuggling and lookout/logistics vessels, and dispatching cocaine-laden go-fast vessels (GFVs).
Boxton is accountable for the GFV TAUPLY, interdicted by the United States in the Caribbean Sea on May 31, 2012, on the high seas and in international waters, approximately 85 nautical miles southeast of Nicaragua. The TAUPLY interdiction resulted in the seizure of approximately 1,000 kilograms of cocaine. Boxton arranged for the recruitment and payment of the mariners who ultimately operated TAUPLY and attempted to smuggle the cocaine. The Government of Colombia consented to the enforcement of United States law by the United States over the TAUPLY, its illicit cargo (cocaine), and crew. The five mariners who smuggled the cocaine on board the TAUPLY were successfully prosecuted in the United States for violations of the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act.
This case was investigated by the Panama Express Strike Force, a standing Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation, comprised of agents and analysts from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Coast Guard Investigative Service, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and U.S. Southern Command’s Joint Interagency Task Force South.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Super PAC Raises $1.3 Million Plus for Reelection of Rahm Emanuel
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has stockpiled more than $8 million in campaign money for his re-election.
That hasn't stopped a super PAC backed by the Democrat's allies from gathering six-figure checks from some of Chicago's best-known business leaders before February's election. In four weeks, Chicago Forward raised more than $1.3 million from donors, such as hedge-fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin and Groupon Chairman Eric Lefkofsky.
The big-dollar support for Emanuel's agenda is the latest sign that super PAC-scale spending is hitting local contests. Super PACs, allowed by a pair of federal court rulings in 2010, can accept unlimited amounts of money from corporations, unions and individuals to influence elections, but they cannot coordinate their activity with candidates.
"It's the new, shiny object," said Edwin Bender, executive director of the non-partisan National Institute on Money in State Politics. "A lot of money can flow easily through super PACs."
Super PACs focused on individual contests are a big factor in this year's races for Congress. In all, 61 candidate-specific super PACs have spent more than $21 million to influence races, data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics show. They account for more than 25% of all super PAC activity in federal races.
There's no central database of super PACs that operate at the municipal level, but a review of city-level campaign-finance records shows a new wave of unlimited outside money swamping mayoral races coast-to-coast.
In Illinois, Emanuel awaits a big-name rival. This month, one of his strongest potential challengers, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, announced she would not run for mayor. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis is weighing a challenge.
The city's business elite already is voting with its wallet.
Griffin, the founder of Citadel, Groupon's Lefkofsky and Michael Sacks, the CEO of Grosvenor Capital Management, each gave $150,000 to Chicago Forward on a single day last month, Illinois campaign-finance records show. Sacks serves as Emanuel's vice chairman on the city's privately financed business-development group.
None of the three contributors returned phone calls.
Rebecca Carroll, a former spokeswoman for Chicago schools and for Emanuel's 2002 congressional campaign, runs Chicago Forward. She did not respond to messages. On its website, the group pledges to support candidates in the 2015 municipal elections "who demonstrate a shared commitment to policies and priorities that will continue to move our city forward."
Chicago Forward touts issues that mirror Emanuel's priorities, including an overhaul of the pension benefits for many city workers.
Emanuel cannot coordinate with the group and cannot take checks larger than $5,300 from an individual for his own campaign. But it's clear that his aides do not object to a super PAC telling positive stories about his first term in office.
"The mayor is focused on helping local neighborhoods, local communities, local schools improve — taking their ideas and working with the city to make them work for every neighborhood in Chicago," said campaign spokesman Peter Giangreco. "To the extent that there are other groups out there that talk about those success stories, then it helps everybody in Chicago."
In addition to talking up successes, the super PAC could train its fire on the mayor's eventual challengers and help elect Emanuel allies to the City Council.
The super PAC's leaders "are guaranteeing that the City Council isn't going to block him," said Dick Simpson, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a former city alderman.
Thanks to Fredreka Schouten.
That hasn't stopped a super PAC backed by the Democrat's allies from gathering six-figure checks from some of Chicago's best-known business leaders before February's election. In four weeks, Chicago Forward raised more than $1.3 million from donors, such as hedge-fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin and Groupon Chairman Eric Lefkofsky.
The big-dollar support for Emanuel's agenda is the latest sign that super PAC-scale spending is hitting local contests. Super PACs, allowed by a pair of federal court rulings in 2010, can accept unlimited amounts of money from corporations, unions and individuals to influence elections, but they cannot coordinate their activity with candidates.
"It's the new, shiny object," said Edwin Bender, executive director of the non-partisan National Institute on Money in State Politics. "A lot of money can flow easily through super PACs."
Super PACs focused on individual contests are a big factor in this year's races for Congress. In all, 61 candidate-specific super PACs have spent more than $21 million to influence races, data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics show. They account for more than 25% of all super PAC activity in federal races.
There's no central database of super PACs that operate at the municipal level, but a review of city-level campaign-finance records shows a new wave of unlimited outside money swamping mayoral races coast-to-coast.
In Illinois, Emanuel awaits a big-name rival. This month, one of his strongest potential challengers, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, announced she would not run for mayor. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis is weighing a challenge.
The city's business elite already is voting with its wallet.
Griffin, the founder of Citadel, Groupon's Lefkofsky and Michael Sacks, the CEO of Grosvenor Capital Management, each gave $150,000 to Chicago Forward on a single day last month, Illinois campaign-finance records show. Sacks serves as Emanuel's vice chairman on the city's privately financed business-development group.
None of the three contributors returned phone calls.
Rebecca Carroll, a former spokeswoman for Chicago schools and for Emanuel's 2002 congressional campaign, runs Chicago Forward. She did not respond to messages. On its website, the group pledges to support candidates in the 2015 municipal elections "who demonstrate a shared commitment to policies and priorities that will continue to move our city forward."
Chicago Forward touts issues that mirror Emanuel's priorities, including an overhaul of the pension benefits for many city workers.
Emanuel cannot coordinate with the group and cannot take checks larger than $5,300 from an individual for his own campaign. But it's clear that his aides do not object to a super PAC telling positive stories about his first term in office.
"The mayor is focused on helping local neighborhoods, local communities, local schools improve — taking their ideas and working with the city to make them work for every neighborhood in Chicago," said campaign spokesman Peter Giangreco. "To the extent that there are other groups out there that talk about those success stories, then it helps everybody in Chicago."
In addition to talking up successes, the super PAC could train its fire on the mayor's eventual challengers and help elect Emanuel allies to the City Council.
The super PAC's leaders "are guaranteeing that the City Council isn't going to block him," said Dick Simpson, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a former city alderman.
Thanks to Fredreka Schouten.
More Than 30 Mexican Cops Arrested for Alleged Organized Crime Ties
More than 30 police officers have been arrested in Mexico for alleged organized crime ties and possible involvement in the killing of fellow cops, authorities said Sunday.
Those detained include a former top public safety chief from the town of Tarimbaro, an ex-commander of the same unit and 18 more active duty agents, a public safety source in the troubled state of Michoacan told AFP.
Authorities are investigating whether those taken into custody were involved in the recent murders of three senior officials in Tarimbaro's public safety unit, the source added.
A second operation netted 12 municipal police officers in Charapan, authorities said.
The suspects were transferred to the state capital, Morelia, where they are due to appear before a judge.
Michoacan, on Mexico's Pacific coast, is a key drug trafficking area for United States-bound narcotics.
Some 80,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2006.
Thanks to NGTV.
Those detained include a former top public safety chief from the town of Tarimbaro, an ex-commander of the same unit and 18 more active duty agents, a public safety source in the troubled state of Michoacan told AFP.
Authorities are investigating whether those taken into custody were involved in the recent murders of three senior officials in Tarimbaro's public safety unit, the source added.
A second operation netted 12 municipal police officers in Charapan, authorities said.
The suspects were transferred to the state capital, Morelia, where they are due to appear before a judge.
Michoacan, on Mexico's Pacific coast, is a key drug trafficking area for United States-bound narcotics.
Some 80,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2006.
Thanks to NGTV.
Anti-Gun Talking Point Refuted by Background Check Expansion
Last month, while addressing a group of Colorado sheriffs, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper spoke on the topic of the state's 2013 measure outlawing almost all private transfers of firearms. According to the Denver Post, Hickenlooper told the sheriffs, "I think we screwed that up completely... we were forming legislation without basic facts." A new Associated Press report examining Colorado background check data in the first year of the new law proves the accuracy of Hickenlooper's statement, and should (although likely won't) end the repetition of an already discredited anti-gun background check factoid.
The report states that the Colorado Legislative Council, an offshoot of the state legislature that is tasked with analyzing legislation, estimated that 420,000 additional background checks would be conducted in the two years following the new private sale restrictions. This led the Colorado legislature to allocate $3 million to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to handle the anticipated increase.
However, the AP notes, "officials have performed only about 13,600 reviews considered a result of the new law -- about 7 percent of the estimated first year total." The article goes on to state, "In total, there were about 311,000 background checks done during the first year of the expansion in Colorado, meaning the 13,600 checks between private sellers made up about 4 percent of the state total."
How did the Colorado Legislative Council get their estimate so wildly wrong? They relied on same bogus statistic (that 40 percent of gun transfers occur between private parties) which gun control advocates and the White House have been using to advocate for expanded background checks all over the country.
The 40 percent statistic is from a Police Foundation survey, the results of which were published in a 1997 National Institute of Justice report titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms. The figure has been debunked repeatedly by the NRA and others, and even earned the President "Three Pinocchios" from the Washington Post's fact-checker for his repeated use of the misleading stat.
Unfortunately, these public admonishments haven't deterred gun control supporters from using this absurdly inflated figure. In November, Sen. Dianne Feinstein repeated the factoid in an opinion piece for the San Jose Mercury News. As recently as early July, the Brady campaign asserted in a press release, "Approximately 40 percent of all guns sales go unchecked." A May press release from Michael Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety reiterated estimates "that 40 percent of gun sales occur without a background check in the U.S." Even President Obama's official website, whitehouse.gov, has a page for his "Now is the Time" gun control campaign that continues to claim, "Right now, federally licensed firearms dealers are required to run background checks on those buying guns, but studies estimate that nearly 40 percent of all gun sales are made by private sellers who are exempt from this requirement."
The data from Colorado's first year of restricted private transfers makes continued use the 40 percent figure untenable. Still, some gun control advocates might seek to blame Colorado's low increase in background checks on scofflaws, and those unaware of changes in the law, circumventing the new restrictions. Even if these factors did have a role to play in the underwhelming check numbers, they could hardly be expected to raise the percentage of undocumented private transfers by a factor of 10. Even if they could, it would merely weaken the case of the efficacy of private transfer restrictions. Evidence of background check avoidance would simply underscore NRA's position that background check laws cannot affect the behavior of those who intentionally or unknowingly violate them.
Colorado's expensive foray into background check expansion should serve as a warning to state and federal legislators as to the limited effect these laws can have, and the importance of collecting the "basic facts" before crafting legislation that inhibits the rights of their constituents.
Yet the tactics of gun control supporters are nothing if not shameless, so don't expect them to relinquish the 40 percent myth any time soon. President Obama has openly embraced the confiscatory gun bans of Australia and Great Britain, and he and other gun control radicals realize they can't achieve that goal without registration. "Universal" background checks are the next step in that direction, so for their proponents, the ends justify their dishonest means.
For everyone else, however, Colorado's example is a resounding reminder that the war the proponents of "universal" background checks are waging is one of ideology, not one of facts, and it is certainly not in the service of "gun safety."
Thanks to NRA.
The report states that the Colorado Legislative Council, an offshoot of the state legislature that is tasked with analyzing legislation, estimated that 420,000 additional background checks would be conducted in the two years following the new private sale restrictions. This led the Colorado legislature to allocate $3 million to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to handle the anticipated increase.
However, the AP notes, "officials have performed only about 13,600 reviews considered a result of the new law -- about 7 percent of the estimated first year total." The article goes on to state, "In total, there were about 311,000 background checks done during the first year of the expansion in Colorado, meaning the 13,600 checks between private sellers made up about 4 percent of the state total."
How did the Colorado Legislative Council get their estimate so wildly wrong? They relied on same bogus statistic (that 40 percent of gun transfers occur between private parties) which gun control advocates and the White House have been using to advocate for expanded background checks all over the country.
The 40 percent statistic is from a Police Foundation survey, the results of which were published in a 1997 National Institute of Justice report titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms. The figure has been debunked repeatedly by the NRA and others, and even earned the President "Three Pinocchios" from the Washington Post's fact-checker for his repeated use of the misleading stat.
Unfortunately, these public admonishments haven't deterred gun control supporters from using this absurdly inflated figure. In November, Sen. Dianne Feinstein repeated the factoid in an opinion piece for the San Jose Mercury News. As recently as early July, the Brady campaign asserted in a press release, "Approximately 40 percent of all guns sales go unchecked." A May press release from Michael Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety reiterated estimates "that 40 percent of gun sales occur without a background check in the U.S." Even President Obama's official website, whitehouse.gov, has a page for his "Now is the Time" gun control campaign that continues to claim, "Right now, federally licensed firearms dealers are required to run background checks on those buying guns, but studies estimate that nearly 40 percent of all gun sales are made by private sellers who are exempt from this requirement."
The data from Colorado's first year of restricted private transfers makes continued use the 40 percent figure untenable. Still, some gun control advocates might seek to blame Colorado's low increase in background checks on scofflaws, and those unaware of changes in the law, circumventing the new restrictions. Even if these factors did have a role to play in the underwhelming check numbers, they could hardly be expected to raise the percentage of undocumented private transfers by a factor of 10. Even if they could, it would merely weaken the case of the efficacy of private transfer restrictions. Evidence of background check avoidance would simply underscore NRA's position that background check laws cannot affect the behavior of those who intentionally or unknowingly violate them.
Colorado's expensive foray into background check expansion should serve as a warning to state and federal legislators as to the limited effect these laws can have, and the importance of collecting the "basic facts" before crafting legislation that inhibits the rights of their constituents.
Yet the tactics of gun control supporters are nothing if not shameless, so don't expect them to relinquish the 40 percent myth any time soon. President Obama has openly embraced the confiscatory gun bans of Australia and Great Britain, and he and other gun control radicals realize they can't achieve that goal without registration. "Universal" background checks are the next step in that direction, so for their proponents, the ends justify their dishonest means.
For everyone else, however, Colorado's example is a resounding reminder that the war the proponents of "universal" background checks are waging is one of ideology, not one of facts, and it is certainly not in the service of "gun safety."
Thanks to NRA.
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