Friends of Ours

Former Cop Turned Biker Outlaw

In Winnipeg, MB Canada a former member of the RCMP, Wayne Shuttleworth, has been sentenced to three years in prison following his conviction on trafficking weapons for the Hells Angels as reported by Mike McIntyre the Winnipeg Free Press:  "Shuttleworth turned to the criminal world after being brought in by a friend, where he quickly rose up the ranks of the Zig Zag Crew, which is the so-called puppet club of the Hells Angels."

Weekly Gang Roundup

***  In Riverside, CA a black teen allegedly murdered two Hispanic teens in order to gain membership into the 1200 Blocc Crips:  "This is a guy who's aimless. He was given instructions that he needed to kill somebody, and if that person happened to be Latino, more the better."

***  A Crips member convicted of running a drug trafficking ring in Portland, OR that generated $300,000 a month gets 13 years in prison.

***  In Wichita, KS a Crips member gets 84 months in prison following his conviction on federal racketeering and drug charges.

***  A 14-year-old suspected Bloods member pleads guilty to her role in prolonged torture and then murder of Crips member and his girlfriend in gang-related dispute in Camden, NJ.

***  In Memphis, TN a college student dies from an intiation beating into the Bloods.

***  Suspected MS-13 member Rodolfo Godinez convicted "for the brutal execution-style murders of three people at a New Jersey elementary school playground":

The killings took place the night of Aug. 4, 2007, when four friends met at Mount Vernon elementary school in Newark to socialize. Prosecutors argued that Godinez, along with five other defendants, set upon the group with machetes and guns, hacking at the victims before lining them up against a wall and shooting each one at point-blank range. One of the victims, then-19-year-old Natasha Aeriel, survived the attack, in which members of the gang sexually molested her, shot her and cut her with with a machete.

***  Police shutter nightclub in Charlotte, NC as an alleged MS-13 haven:  "The club has a long and violent history. FBI agents have linked it to the MS-13 gang, alleging that the gang controlled the club and met there to discuss gang business."

***  In Milwaukee, WI fifteen suspected members and associates of Menace of Destruction are charged with racketeering and other crimes:

The complaint details the history and customs of the gang, including its violent initiation practices, its use of the color red and the symbol of five dots. The gang engaged in drug trafficking, auto theft, burglary, intimidation and a continuing turf war with the Asian Crips gang, which resulted in more than 120 shootings and other acts of violence between 2004 and 2009, according to the complaint.

***  In the 75th precinct of Brooklyn, NY -- the East New York neighborhood -- violent crime is up 8 percent: "the precinct's gang problem -- Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings and Trinitarios -- is persistent and worrisome."

***  The communities of southern West Virginia experiencing a growing gang problem.

***  In San Bernardino, CA  the police arrested twenty-two suspected members of the Delmann Heights Ghetto Boys, a/k/a Delmann Heights Bloods, and "seized 32 pounds of methamphetamine, $20,000 cash, 10 guns, two vehicles and a plethora of gang paraphernalia."

Children Of The Corn

In Brooklyn, NY 18-year-old Kendale Robinson has been arrested for the alleged execution-style murder of a 16-year-old girl as reported by Joe Jackson and Jonathan Lemire for the Daily News:

Kendale Robinson allegedly put a gun to the head of Al-Taya Coners, 16, and pulled the trigger even though the terrified teenager screamed "No! No! No!" and begged for her life, police said. * * * As Conyers tearfully asked to be spared, the do-rag wearing gunman shot her in the head, chest and stomach, witnesses told police. * * * Robinson has a lengthy rap sheet with 16 prior arrests, as well as convictions for assault, drug possession and drunk driving, according to records.

Meanwhile, "research presented at the conference of the Association for Psychological Science found that today's college students are far less empathic than their counterparts 30 years ago" as reported by Christie Nicholson for Scientific American:

[A] study of 14,000 college students found that today’s young people are 40 percent less empathetic than college kids from 30 years ago. * * * Researchers analyzed data from studies conducted between 1979 and 2009, and found the sharpest drop in empathy occurred in the last nine years. For instance, today's students are less likely to agree with statements like, "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."

Perhaps this is why the emotionless sound and nihilistic lyrics of Lady Gaga are so popular today.

Another Suspected Lucchese Gambling Arrest

Earlier this month NJ state authorities rounded up several suspected Lucchese mobsters in connection with an alleged gambling ring, and pursuant to the continuing Operation Heat investigation officials on Thursday announced the arrest of Brian Cohen who is "accused of running the organization's online gaming operation" as reported by Chris Megerian for The Star-Ledger:

Brian Cohen, 61, of Buffalo, N.Y., is charged with money laundering and gambling promotion. Officials said the gaming operation, which processed wagers of $2.2 billion in a 15-month period, routed bets through a "wire room" in Costa Rica, where Cohen also lives. Detectives arrested Cohen at Buffalo Niagara International Airport as he got off a flight from the Central American country on May 16.

Strip Club News

Mom sues Emperors in Tampa, FL for allegedly hiring her 16-year-old daughter

Centerfold Lounge in Jacksonville, FL recruits the graduating class of 2010

Las Vegas, NV jury weighs death for defendant in murder-for-hire of Palamino doorman

Man gets life for killing two outside Catwalk in New Haven, CT

Danbury, CT strip club owner Vincent Mavilia gets 18 months for tax evasion

Two charged in stabbing of Shenanigans manager in Colonie, NY

Gunman fires three shots at Sassy Kats bouncer in Indianapolis, IN

Man dies from gang beating outside Diamonds North in Charleston, SC

Intelius co-founder pleads guilty to lying about sex acts at Rick's in Seattle, WA

Citizens voice opposition to Sinsations in Yakima, WA

Dane County, WI will allow nude dancing at Outer Limits to settle lawsuit

Cleaning House

Slick Willy was intermediary between White House & Rep. Joe Sestak on job offer

White House explanation raises more legal questions than it answers

A cover up is worse than any underlying crime

IL Gov. Rod Blagojevich mug shot released

30th person charged in Luzerne and Lackawanna, PA counties corruption probe

Lawtey, FL cop Kenyatta Sheffield charged with shaking down ticketed drivers

Nueces County, TX jailer Jamyrria Reed indicted on bribery and drug charges

DC jailer Thomas Ford gets a year and a day in prison for taking inmate bribe

Drug Cartel Leader Killed In Military Shootout

Pedro Roberto Velazquez Amador a/k/a La Pina, the reputed head of the Beltran Leyva cartel, was "killed in a shootout Wednesday morning, hours after a military convoy patrolling the San Pedro area in Monterrey was attacked by gunmen" as reported by Nick Valencia for CNN:

Pictures from a local newspaper showed the body of a man believed to be in his 30s and said to be Velazquez, lying in a puddle of water with a firearm in his hand. * * * Mexican-American drug trafficker Edgar Valdez, known by his moniker "La Barbie" for his light complexion and blue eyes, is claiming leadership over the cartel.

Mexican Pirates Raid Texan Boaters

On Falcon Lake in Zapata County, TX armed Mexican pirates are robbing recreational fishermen and boaters as reported by Alex Pena for ABC News:

Texans have reported seeing armed boatmen on the lake, which hosts some of the largest bass fishing tournaments in the U.S. and shares a border with the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Not unlike the infamous Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, pirates on this lake have reportedly wielded high-powered rifles and automatic weapons. After several incidents in the past month, including armed robbery and attempted armed robbery, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Zapata County Sheriff's Department are urging all boaters to stay out of Mexican waters. (The international border is in the middle of the lake.)

Indicted New York City Politician Andrew Stein Was Behind Controversial License For Gay Bar

In New York City the feds have charged Kenneth Starr, a financial advisor to the stars, with fraud and money laundering in connection with an alleged $30 million Ponzi scheme, and Andrew Stein, a former City Council and Manhattan borough president, with lying to the I.R.S. as reported by Alison Gendar and Bill Hutchinson for the Daily News:

Prosecutors charged that Starr pilfered millions from actors, philanthropists and an elderly heiress. Star is accused of touting "sure deals" to his clients, while making investments in risky companies, some co-owned by wife Diane Passage, a former Scores stripper. * * * The complaint charges that Starr teamed up in 2000 with Stein, who was a consultant for various investment companies. Starr is accused of funneling $1.6 million into a company called Wind River that Stein then drained for personal expenses, including a Hamptons summer rental. Stein is charged with lying to the IRS and federal agents about his involvement with Wind River.

Stein is no stranger to controversy.  In 1978, when serving as Manhattan borough president, he inexplicably reversed himself to support a cabaret license which would allow dancing at gay bar Uncle Charlie's South at 38th Street & Third Avenue.  Uncle Charlie's was a popular chain of gay bars in NYC operated by Louis Katz, and the Murray Hill property was part of the real estate empire built by Alexander DiLorenzo Jr. and Sol Goldman. In reporting on the cabaret licensing controversy, Murray Schumach wrote a Feb. 8, 1978 article ("The Strange Case Of a Cabaret Ban That Was Lifted") for the New York Times which stated in part:

A political tempest about a restaurant in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan has swept up Borough President Andrew Stein . . . .  The community board and a solid array of elected officials from the area did not want a restaurant called Uncle Charlie's South, at Third Avenue and 38th Street, to get a limited cabaret license. They felt it would make it a noisy discotheque unsuited to a residential district. The storm broke when Mr. Stein, three days after strongly opposing the cabaret variance as "abhorrent," went into a complete reversal the day before a hearing on Jan. 31 before the Board of Standards and Appeals. He urged that the variance be granted for a one-year trial period. It was. * * * Mr. Stein could not be reached yesterday to explain his total change of attitude in three days. But his depty borough president, Chris McGrath, said that Mr. Stein, after writing his letter of strong opposition, had made a personal inspection of the area and had decided it should have a one-year trial period. * * * The bitterness of the disagreement has touched off ugly insinuations. Mr. Stein's critics say he made his quick reverse at the suggestion of his father, Jerry Finkelstein, one of the most powerful political power brokers in the state. * * * The Board of Standards and Appeals, in granting the variance last Tuesday, said it was doing so "on the grounds of practical difficulty and/or unnecessary hardship." The restaurant, in its request for dancing, had pointed out that last year, after dancing was halted there, business fell of sharply. It said that unless it could have dancing again, it would face bankruptcy. * * * The building, Mr. [Solomon] Sheer wrote, "is part of the Goldman & DiLorenzo real-estate empire, which is also under financial pressure."

DiLorenzo, who died in 1975, allegedly had used a consulting firm of which Carlo Gambino was a principal in order to resolve labor disputes, and many of his and Goldman's properties during the 1960s and 1970s had gay bars and smut shops as tenants.  A Jan. 18, 1973 article ("Rape of 46th & Second") in The Village Voice alleges:

Goldman and DiLorenzo own real estate in New York worth more than $850 million; they own 355 properties in Manhattan alone, including a dozen pornographic bookstores, movie theatres, and massage parlors, plus several luxury buildings populated by pimps, pushers and prostitutes.  * * *  In addition, it is widely rumored that Goldman and DiLorenzo have connections with the Mafia.  They once hired a "labor consulting" company named SGS Associates, owned by Carlo Gambino, to break a strike by employees of the Chrysler Building.

Louis Katz, the man behind the Uncle Charlie's franchise and a friend of Roy Cohn, was charged with murder for the 1986 brutal stabbing death of 37-year-old Michael Moriarty who had developed a relationship with Katz's 20-year-old former lover. The first trial against Katz in 1988 ended with a hung jury, and while awaiting a 1989 re-trial he went on the lam.  In an article ("Suspect in '86 Slaying Nabbed") for the Daily News, Richard Weir wrote:  "Katz, then 58 and a millionaire who had sold his bars, his swanky Park Ave. apartment, his Mercedes-Benz and his palatial Fire Island home, then disappeared." Katz was convicted in absentia of first-degree manslaughter, and in 2002 was apprehended in Panama where he had been living under an assumed identity.  The former gay bar operator, now 85 years old, is housed at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, NY, and is eligible for parole in 2015.

Canada Gives Sicilian The Boot

Moreno Gallo, "a man reputed to have had considerable influence in the Montreal Mafia, has been ordered to be deported to Italy" as reported by Paul Cherry for The Montreal Gazette:

He pleaded guilty, during the 70's to murdering a drug dealer and received a life sentence for the crime. He was paroled in the early 80s but was secretely videotaped, during the Project Colisée investigation, bringing large wads of cash to the Consenza Social Club where he handed it to Nicolo Rizzuto Sr. as well as other leaders in the clan. He was returned to a federal penitentiary for violating his parole by associating with known criminals but was granted day parole earlier this year.

Cleaning House

Is Rep. Joe Sestak lying or protecting a White House felon? . . . Sestak scandal could be Obama's Watergate . . . Senate Judicary Committee members call on AG Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor

Profile in courage: Nina Easton takes on SEIU thugs

Unions have their grubby little paws out for a $165 billion taxpayer-funded bailout

Ex-Temple City, CA Concilwoman Judy Wong pleads no contest in bribery & perjury case

Nine more charged in Cuyahoga County, OH corruption probe

Two lawyers lose licenses for their roles in Cuyahoga County, OH bribery case

NH state trooper and DMV employee charged in bribery scheme with illegal aliens

Broward, FL School Board member Beverly Gallagher seeks leniency 

DeKalb County, GA School Superintendent Crawford Lewis charged with racketeering

Police: Mobsters Extorted Lottery Winners

Italian police have arrested five suspected members from the Cava-Genovese clan of the Camorra or Neapolitan Mafia for allegedly extorting a "sizeable share" of the money won by dozens of laborers and farmers in the lottery as reported by Nick Pisa for the London Evening Standard:  "The criminals involved used threats of violence towards the winners and their families and they were intimidated by the sight of these men carrying guns and handed over sizable sums of money."

A Little Problem With Cancun Mayors

Gregorio Sanchez, the mayor of the Mexican resort city Cancun who is on leave to run for governor of the state of Quintana Roo, has been charged "on suspicion of involvement in organized crime, money laundering and making transactions using illegal proceeds" as reported by Ken Ellingwood for the Los Angeles Times:

Federal authorities on Wednesday said Sanchez provided information and protection to two feared groups — the Zetas and the Beltran Leyva gang — to help them ply their trade in the region. Officials found that Sanchez, a successful former resort builder in his early 40s, was moving funds through his accounts in sums far bigger than his reported income of $1.5 million, said Ricardo Najera, spokesman for the federal attorney general's office.

Earlier this month Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid, a former mayor of Cancun and governor of Quintana Roo, "was extradited to the United States to stand trial for allegedly pocketing millions of dollars in bribes to help a notorious drug cartel [the Juarez Cartel] move more than 200 tons of cocaine across the border" as reported by for the Los Angeles Times.

Philadelphia Beer Baron Dies

Convicted tax cheat William "Billy the Beer King" Pflaumer died of heart failure at 71 last Saturday as reported by Walter F. Naedele for The Philadelphia Inquirer:

The final owner of the brewery that produced Schmidt's - Philadelphia's best-known beer - he was sentenced to federal prison in 1983 for evading more than $125,000 in excise taxes. * * * In 1976, he bought Schmidt's for $15.9 million. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board approved the purchase, ruling that Mr. Pflaumer was "of good repute" in giving him a license, even though he had a long history of legal troubles. "He once illegally accepted $800,000 worth of free beer from a brewer [and] gave bar owners false invoices so that they could skim extra profits and make false tax deductions," an Inquirer series on the LCB reported in 1980. "He had on his payroll people whose backgrounds included ties to organized crime and records as mob enforcers; one such employee had hit another man in the face - with a hatchet." The series also reported on federal charges that he had pasted forged Schlitz, Piels, and Schaefer labels on kegs of Ballantine beer in the course of winning the Ballantine distribution business from a rival company. At the time of the LCB approval, Mr. Pflaumer had two federal misdemeanor convictions for falsely labeling the Ballantine's and for conspiring to evade taxes. All that was before his 1983 federal sentencing to three years for tax evasion.

Suspected Money Laundering Ring Busted

In Montreal, QC Canada police "say they've dismantled a Canadian money-laundering ring that used dummy international companies to recycle illicit cash"as reported by Sidhartha Banerjee for The Globe and Mail:

Four people were arrested as officers swooped down on a number of targets in the Montreal area — including Ronald Chicoine, 57, the owner of Speedo Financial Corporation and the scheme's alleged mastermind. * * * Investigators said money was sent to false overseas companies based in Europe, with the money then being sent back to Montreal in the form of fake loans to Mr. Chicoine's company. Speedo Financial Corp. would then lend the money out to clients as legitimate loans at legal interest rates, police said. "That injection of illicit funds to Europe was money coming from, among other places, organized crime," Insp. Morin said.