The Chicago Syndicate
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Friday, July 15, 2016

Explosion of Chicago's Black Street Gangs

Explosion of Chicago's Black Street Gangs-1900 to Present, is the bible on the social pathology of street gangs in Chicago. It should be read by all professionals working with young adults, especially those involved in law enforcement.

Preface:

"This commentary is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of Chicago's Black street gangs, nor does it purport to be based on scientific data. However, as one who has worked with and observed Black street gangs for over twenty-five years, I believe I do have some insight about them. Furthermore, I believe as a Black social practitioner my insight gives a perspective on Black street gangs that has not been provided by many white academicians and social scientists.

What this commentary attempts to do is to trace the evolution of Chicago's Black street gangs and identify those factors that have made many of them the violent gangs they are today. In doing so, I have tried to separate myth from fact and list critical realities we must face if we are to have a significant impact on Black street gangs. Although I do not provide solutions to the Black street gang problem, I believe some strategies for remedying the problem can be extrapolated from my commentary."

Official Mafia III Accolades Trailer - The Fall's Most Promising Open-World Game




With over 60 E3 accolades, 12 awards and a host of top-ten recognitions, Mafia III is poised to be Fall’s Most Promising Open-World Game.

Mafia III Deluxe Edition - PlayStation 4: - It’s 1968 and the rules have changed. After years in Vietnam, Lincoln Clay knows this truth: Family isn’t who you’re born with, it’s who you die for.

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

9 Vehicles from Drug Kingpin Included in U.S. Marshals Online Auction

The U.S. Marshals Service is holding an online auction, ending Thursday for the sale of 10 high-end vehicles at www.appleauctioneeringco.com. Nine of the vehicles are from the drug kingpin Alvaro Lopez Tardón case in Miami.

The auction, already underway, has drawn hundreds of bids. A 2003 Ferrari Enzo, with 13,088 miles, is currently at more than $1.9 million.

The vehicles will be shown during a preview Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Miami Marlins Park, 501 Marlins Way, Miami, FL 33125.

Vehicles being sold from the Tardón case include an Enzo Ferrari, Bugatti Veyron 16.4, Rolls-Royce Ghost, Ferrari F430, Maybach 57S, and four luxury SUVs (two Mercedes and two Range Rovers). A Bentley Continental GTC, also for sale in this auction, is from a New Jersey case.

Tardón, 41, a Spanish national, was the head of an international narcotics trafficking and money laundering syndicate which distributed over 7,500 kilograms of South American cocaine in Madrid and laundered over $14 million in narcotics proceeds in Miami by buying high-end real estate, luxury and exotic automobiles and other high-end items. After a seven-week trial in 2014, Tardón was convicted on one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and 13 counts of money laundering. He was sentenced to 150 years and is serving his sentence at the Miami Federal Detention Center.

Tuesday, July 05, 2016

Sidney Korshak was The Myth, Mr. Silk Stockings, The Duke and The Fixer

Some mobsters get ridiculous nicknames.

The Clown.

No Nose.

The Weasel.

But others, like Chicago mob lawyer Sidney Roy Korshak, get nicknames more reflective of their importance.

To the rich and powerful, Korshak was "The Myth."

He was "Mr. Silk Stockings" and "The Duke."

And most appropriately, he was "The Fixer."

Korshak was the ultimate fixer, in Chicago and later in sunny California, where he thrived in the shadows.

Need a criminal case fixed? Call Korshak.

Teamsters threatening to cripple your business and they're not in a mood to negotiate? Call Korshak.

Looking for an investment to launder the blood out of your mobbed-up money?

You get the picture.

His life spanned much of last century, and in his heyday he was the ultimate bridge between big business, politicians, Hollywood, Las Vegas and the mob. When the mob needed a smooth operator to work in the worlds where rough-hewn Chicago mobsters wouldn't fit in, Korshak -- the brother of the late Chicago Democratic politician Marshall Korshak -- was the man of choice.

He was the velvet encasing the hammer.

He's now the subject of a new, exhaustive look at his exploits in investigative reporter Gus Russo's magnum opus:Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers.

Russo tackled the Chicago mob in his 2003 book The Outfit. In Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers he expands on that work of melding big business and organized crime.

Russo underscores the Outfit's desire to move a lot of its money into legitimate and quasi-legitimate businesses and investments, and the need of organized crime for legitimate-looking men to help smooth that transition.

No one would typify that more than Korshak, a product of Lawndale and DePaul University Law School who started representing mobsters in Chicago courthouses and ended up charging $50,000 a year as a retainer for "labor relations" for national businesses.

Early in the book, Russo does a masterful job of establishing the ethnic and political foundations for Korshak's beginnings in the Jewish section of the Lawndale neighborhood and in the 24th Ward of consummate machine politician Jacob Arvey.

In a neighborhood filled with young men hot for success, Korshak stood out. Russo shows how Korshak's friends from the same background would weave their way into Korshak's orbit again and again throughout his life, from MCA's Jules Stein to the Pritzker family, from mobster Alex Louis Greenberg to Appellate Court Justice David Bazelon.

Russo's ambition is to mark Korshak's place in the so-called Supermob of mainly Jewish lawyers and businessmen who often got a boost from mobsters early on in their careers and dealt with gangsters with varying degrees of involvement throughout their lives.

The amount of research in the book is staggering. It's a testament to Russo's doggedness to bring the full story to light, but it also turns into one of the book's main weaknesses.

Russo empties his notebooks into the tome. Some of the tales make for a good read but are ancillary. So his story, at times, gets away from him. Still other tales undermine the confidence one has in the reporting in the book. In one instance, Russo suggests Korshak is a man with a taste for teenage girls, with little to back it up. In another, Russo makes a convincing case for how former President Reagan had close ties to members of the Supermob, only to undermine it with innuendo.

Russo shows how Reagan carried out orders of the Supermob when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild and effectively betrayed his own members in the 1950s to the benefit of Lew Wasserman's MCA. But then, Russo provides an account from the actress Selene Walters, who contends Reagan raped her one night. Two weeks later, Reagan married Nancy Davis, the woman who would become the first lady.

There are no interviews in the book with any of Walters' contemporaries at the time to see if she told them a similar story. There's no mention of any police report.

The accusation stands alone unsupported, and it's not worthy of the excellent reporting elsewhere in the book. Because salaciousness aside, Russo pulls plenty of substantive dirty deeds done by Korshak into the light.

Korshak would have cringed.

Thanks to Steve Warmbir

Friday, July 01, 2016

Famed Pizzeria Owner Gunned Down in Reputed Mob Hit

An owner of a popular Brooklyn pizzeria was fatally shot outside his home on Thursday night, the police said.

The victim, Louis Barbati, 61, an owner of L&B Spumoni GardensOwner of L&B Spumoni Gardens Gunned Down in Reputed Mob Hit, was shot twice in the torso outside 7601 12th Avenue in the Dyker Heights neighborhood around 7 p.m., the police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Donna Padmore, 56, of East New York, a home health aide who works across the street from Mr. Barbati’s home, said she heard three or four shots. She said she heard Mr. Barbati’s wife screaming, “He got shot! He got shot!”

Then, she said, she saw neighbors rushing to the home, where at least one bullet hole and two nicks in the white fence were visible late Thursday night.

The police said no arrests had been made.

L&B Spumoni Gardens, which has been run by the Barbati family for four generations, is a well-loved institution in Gravesend, neighboring Bensonhurst, and beyond, known for its Sicilian-style pizza pies and frozen dessert that forms part of its name.

The restaurant, with a sign declaring it was established in 1939, occupies a hodgepodge of one-story buildings on 86th Street.

After the restaurant’s windows and doors creaked open for business Friday morning, a man inside the eatery — his voice booming on a loudspeaker — told a group of reporters to leave. “No leaning on the fence,” he said. “Go take a walk somewhere. Thank you.”

A short time later, two men apologized but said the killing had left everyone’s emotions raw. “The family is really upset right now,” one of the men said.

Customers who approached seemed to do so with care. A news conference organized by Eric L. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and a city councilman from the area was called off.

In an interview Thursday night, Mr. Adams said that shootings were rare in the 68th Precinct, which includes Dyker Heights, Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton. Mr. Adams noted that the shooting happened on the last day of Gun Violence Awareness Month in New York.

“The bullet might have stopped when it hit the owner,” Mr. Adams said, “but it is sending ripples throughout the community.”

A two-block area around Mr. Barbati’s home was cordoned off on Thursday night as the police investigated the shooting.

The street where the killing occurred is in a neighborhood with many Italian-American families. During the warm months, neighbors throw block parties with the kind of communal activities more common in suburban areas. At Christmastime, the area is known for elaborate light displays and decorations that draw thousands of visitors.

Thanks to Christopher Mele and Al Baker.

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