He . . . targeted organized crime after a slew of gang-related murders in Fairfield County, including the assassination of Frank Piccolo, a Gambino crime family captain on Bridgeport's busy Main Street on a Saturday afternoon. FBI plants, court-authorized wiretaps and cooperating witnesses led to indictments of Francis and Gus Curcio, Salvador Basso and Vincent Pollina, all affiliated with the Genovese crime family; Thomas DeBrizzi, who succeeded Piccolo as the Gambino head, and others.
The adjustments resulted from additional income for consulting services and the use of a car service, and reductions in charitable contribution deductions. Senator Daschle filed the amended returns voluntarily after Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate the senator to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Presidential Transition Team identified the charitable contribution issue and Senator Daschle self-identified the income adjustments.
So much for restoring trust and confidence in government. Rep. Eric Cantor said: "A pattern is developing. The pattern is solidified. It's easy for the other side to sit here and advocate higher taxes because -- you know what? -- they don't pay them."
Commissioner Douglas Shulman and other officials yesterday urged New Yorkers to get the most out of their tax returns. Asked about appearing with a pol who's being probed for failing to pay taxes, Shulman said, "He's one of the leaders in this country on tax policy issues. I work closely with him every day, and I'm honored to be on this stage with him." Rangel had no comment.
Nobody's home at the House ethics committee that's supposed to be investigating Rep. Charles Rangel. The panel created on Sept. 24 to probe the Harlem Democrat's alleged ethical lapses has been virtually disbanded, after meeting only twice in four months on the matter, The Post has learned.
The five alleged ethical breaches by Rangel which the House committee purportedly is investigating are his failure "to declare rental income on a beachfront villa he owns in the Dominican Republic"; his "use of four rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem; his use of congressional stationery to solicit donations for an academic center named in his honor at City College; his storage of a vintage Mercedes at a House parking garage; and a $1 million pledge to the Rangel Center from an oil-drilling company that benefited from Rangel-sponsored tax legislation."
Apparently Rangel is getting a complete pass on other alleged ethical breaches raised in the press:
Critics also wonder why the panel has not officially taken up alleged ethical issues recently uncovered by The Post, including the 78-year-old congressman's use of a tax credit on his DC home while he was living in New York, and his attendance at Caribbean junkets sponsored by lobbyists. Also missing are allegations that Rangel solicited donations from insurance giant AIG for his City College center.
Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano has "directed the Customs and Border Protection service 'to find guns going south and interdict them'" in a move to disarm the Mexican drug cartels:
The country's new homeland security chief said Friday that the Obama administration is mapping out a crackdown on the flow of firearms smuggled to Mexico's murderous drug gangs operating along the Texas border. Janet Napolitano said she had directed the Customs and Border Protection service "to find guns going south and interdict them." Additionally, the homeland security secretary said she will give Mexican authorities access to a government database to trace the U.S. origin of seized weapons. U.S. and Mexican officials have been investigating organizations in Houston and elsewhere believed to have smuggled large numbers of weapons into Mexico.
Napolitano said: "A growing wave of criminal violence in Mexico's border communities and in the interior of the country, fueled by the availability of guns and currency smuggled south from the U.S., poses a serious threat to Mexico's security, and portends deepening problems for our nation's border regions."
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Juan Pablo Gutierrez was a "prolific" purchaser among a group of 23 arms traffickers who bought at least 339 firearms for Mexican organized crime syndicates in 2006 and 2007. At least 40 of the guns were later recovered at crime scenes in Mexico and Guatemala as gangsters wage a protracted war against one another and the Mexican government, the bureau said. * * * The ATF contends Houston is the No. 1 origin for weapons later recovered in Mexico. * * * The [drug cartels] are known to get their weapons by employing U.S. citizens with no felony convictions so they can pass federal background checks. The weapons are illegal in Mexico.
